At Last! Mercury and Venus Both Direct!

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Happy Friday, everybody! Today we are going to talk about Mercury and Venus both turning direct after back-to-back, very long retrograde period here toward the end of the year. We're going to review these cycles. We're going to talk about what they have brought into our lives and take some big-picture perspectives. I've got a variety of things we're going to look at today. A list of things to watch for. I've also got an I Ching reading that I did that I thought was really meaningful around the meaning of these back to back retrogrades.

A lot of which was centered in Scorpio. But I asked the I Ching overall, what can we take? What have we learned from these cycles? So I'll present that for you today as well. I hope you find all of this a useful way of starting to reflect upon where we've been as these cycles are now reaching their conclusion today and into tomorrow. So that's our agenda. Before we get into it, please like and subscribe. It helps us so much to do what we do and sustain what we do. We appreciate it.

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All right, well here is the Chepstow on the screen. Let's get into it. We are in a period of time where everything is shifting. The reason for that shift is that these powerful cycles we have been caught up in are coming to an end. Mercury rose as the morning star this week. Venus did a couple weeks ago. But what's going to happen as the day goes on? I'm just going to rotate the wheel. Mercury stations this morning, and then by this evening, around 7 o'clock or so, Venus will station.

Now, if we move this forward one day by tomorrow evening, that's November 14th. They will both be direct. So today, the 13th of November into the 14th of November, both planets will be direct. Now, as you are tracking this transit, you're probably thinking to yourself: just on one level, if you track astrology at all, and you know that retrogrades can be real periods of circumstances can change in what sometimes feels like circumstances out of our control. Momentum can slow down, delays can occur. There can be reversals of fate or fortune, and some of those are really good, you know.

But for a lot of people, you might experience these back-to-back retrogrades as a little tumultuous, especially given the intense transformational nature of Scorpio, where both of these retrogrades began and spent significant time, and you know you're probably just thinking, "Oh my God, I'm just excited for this to be over," and that's a very valid astrological response. But what I want to talk about today are some of the themes that you could pick up on, given the entirety of the cycles, what you've been through, and maybe what you're ready to begin integrating or sort of realizing, it takes a little bit after we go through something to sort of sit back and reflect upon it and gather insights.

So this may take a few weeks, but let's talk about this from the perspective of the Purusharthas, which you know are a big part of my practice and how I tend to look at things. Both of the retrogrades started in Scorpio and spent a lot of time in Scorpio. Mercury never left its retrograde in Scorpio, and that is an water sign, and water is associated in the Purusharthas with moksha, Venus turning direct, and an air sign with karma. So I want to talk a little bit about those two things today. You know, there is a strong theme with Scorpio that I noticed during these retrogrades that I thought I'd start off by talking about, because sometimes the best way to lead is for you know astrologers.

The question is always like, what did you learn about the zodiac, or what did you learn about Scorpio or Mercury or Venus in this case that you had never thought of before? I find that those make for some of the most interesting things we can say as astrologers is we're living through it. We don't just we're not just like you know we get knocked off the horse just like everyone else does. You know what I mean? So what did I reflect upon during this time? Oh, I was thinking a lot during Scorpio about our family dog Patrick, who is a black lab. I wrote about this in my book. There's a scene in my book that I mention about this.

He, when he was dying, he went down to the water near my grandfather's house in rural Michigan, and there's an artesian well-fed pond in the backyard, and he went down and he laid his body down by the water, and he passed out of his body right by the water with the splashing fountain there. And one of the things that I have reflected upon a lot is that you know animals sometimes go want to be near water when they die, and that's a pretty universal impulse. And I've been thinking a lot about it because that's the water impulse of moksha. People sometimes have asked me, like, "Well, why water connected with moksha?"

And there's many things that could be said about that. Probably esoteric doctrines I'm not even aware of, but one of the most basic features of water is that it's where we come from, it's home and it's source in the idea, at least with the idea of the amniotic ocean that we come from in our mother's womb, but also in some deep sense, we all are made of water. We come from water. The waters of life. Many creation stories begin with water, and many apocalyptic stories end with water. The water of creation. The water of destruction. And there's something that it feels like I can dissolve myself into water. I have. I remember a therapy session I had some years ago where I.

I we were talking about like what really brings me happiness, and I said sunshine and water. It's like a really deep part of what brings me joy is being in the sun and in water or near water at the same time, and I think a lot of people feel the same way. I'm sure some of you listening do. But the release of moksha in the ultimate sense is, I want to go home. As wonderful as this world is, and I mean no offense to it, I dream of a place that is perfect. I dream of a place beyond the dualities of this world. I dream of a place that where the suffering ends and peace is everlasting, and I merged with the ocean of oneness.

Right. This is the dream of water and of moksha, and whether it's archetypal or literal, I don't know. It's far above my understanding, but I sense that it's real, and I sense that the soul, through multiple lives, is being drawn home to its source. I wouldn't be doing this, and I wouldn't have spent so much time studying what these ancient mystics thought and believed, and if I hadn't had experiences that you know brought me down this path, and it felt real to me. And maybe you're similar, maybe not. But with two cycles back to back in Scorpio, one of the things that I noticed was how deeply in the sign of Scorpio we crave emotional freedom, emotional liberation.

In fact, I'd never thought of Scorpio like this before. Honestly, never. I mean, I think if you had said this to me, if you had mentioned this to me intellectually, I would have gone, "Well, sure." But it had. I had never felt it so deeply, which is this profound desire to get out of what feels like an emotional bondage, a feeling of being trapped emotionally and unable to move or get out of the dark tangle of emotional bondage. Now, for me, that experience has to do with being in the midst of moving, as you all know. I've been mentioning this on the channel, and that feeling of being like in this weird liminal purgatory.

I've spoken about on the channel in a I think a video that I did was really like I think it came right from the depths. You know, was this talk I gave on purgatory, Pluto turning direct, but the Scorpionic elements of these retrogrades has also had me reflecting on how there's this universal human experience, right? And I could just feel it. I feel like I was tapping into it. This is very watery as well. The empathy and saying there are people all over the world right now, including me, in this weird space, that feel like, oh my God, I would give anything to not feel this way, and it feels like I'm stuck.

I'm stuck in a feeling that I'm not where I want to be. That things aren't as they should be, and the anxiety, the restlessness, the desire for freedom and transformation of a condition that feels overwhelming and ensnaring is so strong, and yet I feel so helpless to do anything about it. And this is, I think, at the heart. This is, you know, at the heart of Scorpio, is a process of transformation in which emotional forms of bondage are liberated through cathartic experiences. Scorpio delivers the entrapped, attached, bonded the chains of emotional bondage are Scorpio, and the liberation and renewal and rebirth is also Scorpio.

We have a very powerful signature in that way around Moksha, and both Venus and Mercury have gone through it. It's like the whole time I kind of kept thinking of my dog because I kept thinking like I just want to this is dramatic right but I just want to go and lay down by the water and be taken by it I don't want to be in this feeling state anymore please you know and Scorpio is a sign that is, you know, there's both poison and medicine in it. We were talking about that. There's a poison and a medicine, and those things are very sometimes indistinguishable from one another.

And on the poison side, you know, you feel stuck in something, and on the side of the medicine, you feel released from that same bondage, and this is in a sense a metaphor for the material condition itself. If you believe in what the mystics have said, the a sign or a symptom of an enlightening soul is not one who who you know condemns the material world or says it's a bad trap or whatever, but you can't deny more and more and more strongly, lifetime to lifetime, as the story goes, this feeling that this isn't home. I will be here. I will do my duty, but beneath is this like I just want to be with God, right? I just want to be home.

I just want to be with universe or source or goddess. I just I'm here, but I have to deal with a feeling of being a foreigner, of being displaced, of being, of feeling that the material condition itself is marginalizing. You know what I mean. So that's the these are really deep can be very deep existential psychological dimensions to these retrogrades and Venus. Turning direct in a sign, air signs associated with karma. You know, when we think about karma, we're really thinking about pleasure, desire, enjoyment. What in the common worldly sense, bliss? What we what grants us some sense of like ah I'm so happy. And um and what kind of people we seek connection with?

You see, in the realm of karma, people are necessary for the most part. It's not just material pleasure like good food or money tends to be a little bit more in the arts realm. This pleasure is rooted in the kind of pleasure that people give you. I'm likable. I have friends. I have a lover. I have. I'm attractive in people. I'm charming. People are interested in me. I'm interested. I'm stimulated socially. So on the one hand, we had had back-to-back retrogrades deeply focused on liberation emotionally, the this kind of transformational emotional process about attachments and release. And then on the other hand, Venus, you know, kind of traipsing back into Libra has had us thinking about who and what socially in my life fulfill me, and what kind of social connection am I seeking?

Which might be very very specific, or it could be more general. But Venus's commentary here at the end has been a little bit more about happiness and social conditioning and social outlets for happiness or pleasure. All right, well, I have five things to watch for given these two planets turning direct, and then an I Ching reading. So the first thing is just thinking about the subject of desire and fear. One of the things Scorpio can reveal to us is how much emotional work we do because of desires that we have. You know, we may genuinely want something or desire something, but then we will still like we can become slaves to it, and so these cycles can have us examining what is the cost of my desires, and then fears.

We also think about the fear is being in the in the grip of something that we feel we can't escape, or that we're we have a lot of anxiety about a certain kind of outcome. I'm worried this will happen. I'm worried that will happen. I feel, you know, paralyzed by my fear or my anxiety. And how do I get free, you know, from states of mind or states of emotion that feel like we were saying imprisoning, and they they generate fear or anxiety or restlessness. There's been a lot about a lot of focus on these kinds of themes. So fear and desire. Number two would be intensity and intimacy.

I think that the sign of Scorpio really is bringing us toward felt intimacy with something that changes us deeply, so that we feel more and connect more profoundly and more deeply with the world, with ourselves, with other people, with the work that we're here to do in the world. But sometimes we think, and I think in some ways, I look at this, and I think this is just a process of aging too. We, as we all grow more mature in life, we can easily mistake intensity for intimacy, and sometimes they're the same.

Sometimes they they cross over, but this is a good retrograde that says if your life is just about intensity, it's not sustainable. But if it's about intimacy and closeness and devotion to things emotionally, that's what actually sustains you. You can't ride emotional highs forever. In other words, you have to have intimacy. I think a simple example is, you know, I think I told you guys that over the summer I started going to music school for guitar, and I've been so excited about it. But that excitement hasn't carried me every day of practice. You know, there's that moment where you say it's the intimacy that I'm trying to cultivate with this instrument.

And the moments where I've seen that certain amount of chopping wood and carrying water pays off in terms of developing the intimacy, and the intimacy with the instrument, with music itself, is what serves my soul. But I can't mistake that for the intensity of my excitement, which can come and go, right? So intensity. And intimacy, really important dimensions of these two Scorpio retrogrades. Just something I've noticed, clarifying what we need. So, I think that a Scorpio cycle can put us in touch with desire, as we were saying, but it can also differentiate between I want something and I need something.

You know, it's like the Rolling Stone song. What we need is life giving. What we want that we go chasing all the time is eventually exhausting, and the I Ching reading is going to say something about that as well. Number four on my list is emotional liberation, and I mentioned this when I was talking about Scorpio to start with. I think that there's a very deep sense of like just get me free of something. Get I feel trapped. I feel stuck. I feel stagnant. I feel a lack of momentum, and that has carried with it some deep emotional ramifications, and then you can feel the turning direct as a kind of movement, or the beginning of movement.

Don't think it's all coming right now. Right, give it a week or two as these planets pick up speed again. And then the fifth one is devotion. I was talking about this with intensity and intimacy. I think with Venus, especially, we're talking about happiness. But after the Scorpio part of this, happiness socially also has to do with the people that we can feel a true match with, a true kindredness. There was, I think, it was Anne of Green Gables. I feel like that's where this comes from. This phrase, "kindred spirits." Do you guys remember this? And I'm pretty sure because we watched this with our girls a couple years ago, Anne of Green Gables, and it holds up, man.

It's a that's a good movie. It was I think it was like a Hallmark series or something. Anyway, Kindred Spirits, the idea that that when you meet someone, have you ever had this happen? You meet someone, and you just instantly go. I feel like I've known you forever, you know. And instant connection, instant rapport, instant ease. That's what Venus and Libra is looking for from our lives overall right now. It wants more of it, but in order to do that, we have to have done a lot of clarifying work emotionally. You know what I mean. Like if you don't know yourself, if you don't feel easy in yourself, if you don't know what that easy switch you know looks like, you don't know how to turn that easy switch on.

If you don't know what it feels like to be in the easy body, it's going to be hard to be there so that you can recognize others who are in it and share that rapport. That work is Scorpio. That feeling of connection might be Libra right now. So I think that there's been a lot of a lot of clarification here about who we are, about what the easy, free state emotionally feels like, and of of who and what that connects us with in a positive way. All right. Well, I want to read you the hexagram sequence. This is hexagram 47 with lines two and three changing to 48. Listen to this.

This is great. So I'm just gonna I'm gonna pull up my phone because my book is in storage. But I'm going to pull up my phone and read you something from the Benebell Wen translation because I have it on my Kindle on my phone. Let's see here. So I love the so 47 is called Blockade. I asked the question to the I Ching this morning while prepping my notes. How can we think about these retrogrades? You know, for all of us, hexagram 47 is called blockade in Benebell Wen's translation. Ambitions hit a wall, feeling exhausted and worn down. You're overwhelmed, unable to cope with your feelings of entanglement, barriers barriers of entry to the next level of advancement, forces cause you to become isolated, closed off, and surrounded.

Obstruction of passage and progress, a state of inner oppression in the darkness. You do not yet see how the restraining bonds can be broken. First, do not let external forces restrain you. Restrain yourself. Control what you can control. Cultivate an inner strength that becomes an outer strength, and you can shatter the iron hand that is otherwise holding you back. Exhausted and entangled, feelings of hardship bring on a depression. The sage describes to the conviction. Sage describes to the conviction that destiny is leavened by free will and determination. Yet the sage also knows that destiny is written into the annals, and to know destiny so that one might navigate it is to consult the annals, forecast of triumphs over hardships, auspicious for the eminent one.

So yeah, this and it also says sign of the sacrifice, losses sustained for a greater good or greater subsequent success. Yeah, perseverance brings good. Fortune, right? So this is a picture, by the way, 47 of basically like a feeling of being exhausted of something being completely drained, and then the changing line that was emphasized was line three. Listen to this line: trapped among the high rocks, a rugged rocky terrain surrounded by thorns and thistles, returning man enters his palace but cannot find his wife. It is foreboding. This is the ancient Chinese text, right? You're overwhelmed, unable to cope with feelings of entanglement, indecisiveness in the face of what you see as adversity.

Yet you are being oppressed by that which is not oppressive. The man symbolizes logic, reason, and rationality. The wife symbolizes emotional expression, intuition, and spiritual understanding. Losing the wife means that you are not listening to your emotions and intuitions. So, in other words, if we were to look at a at a feeling of adversity or a situation of adversity, and trust our intuition, and not just see it from a rational perspective, but from an emotional a level a perspective of emotional intelligence, we could find our way through. That's the advice of this line, and then it transforms to hexagram 48. The well, the well is that deep place of inner nourishment, inner knowing, inner truth, inner freedom, inner source.

Right? That's the water. It's the the well that we were talking about to begin this. That we all want to be near. That we all want to dry. That we all want to draw from. That we come from and return to. So we're talking about an exhaustion, something feeling spent up, hemmed in, stuck, experiencing adversity, and then comes the symbol of if you would look at this from the standpoint of your intuition, if you would process this a little bit differently with a different kind of emotional intelligence. Don't just look at this rationally. Don't just you know the rational piece then tells you how you ought to feel.

What can you do to move through this situation? What is your intuition telling you? Listen to that. Draw from that well, and that is the place within you that is always free. All right. Well, that's what I've got for today. I hope that you found this to be a useful exercise to think through these two planets, thinking about a lot of deep emotional liberation coming through, and also a clarifying sense of what brings happiness. Very very basic, but I want you to think about the past month or two. You know, go back to September and think from September until now. What is clarified in your life emotionally?

What is the deepest, heaviest things you've been through emotionally? And what is clarified within you with respect to emotional freedom and happiness, genuine happiness with other people? That is that is what I've got. I hope that it serves you, and I'm glad that we could walk through all of this together. It's been quite an adventure. I will leave it here for today. Don't forget, we start our year one program tomorrow. It is not too late to join. Come study. Studying astrology is amazing. We have awesome programs that have just been recognized as some of the best in the world through the APAI certification. Come study with us. It's awesome. That's all I've got to say. I've said it all. Hopefully, we'll see you there. Take it easy. Bye.