Mercury at the Heart of the Sun in Capricorn and a Crash Course on Mercury’s Cycles

Transcript

 

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Friday, everybody. Today, we are going to take a look at Mercury's retrograde one more time. Mercury is at the heart of the Sun cazimi today.

We started off by looking at this yesterday and kind of unpacking all of the different unique features of this cazimi, which is happening, of course, as the Sun passes through zero Capricorn, which in the northern hemisphere is the winter solstice.

It's a very interesting Mercury cazimi moment, but I realized that a lot of people might like to know more about the entirety of a Mercury cycle from its Eveningstar station. It's retrograde and losing visibility through combustion to cazimi, which is what's happening right now. But also the recovery phase that starts happening as it retrogrades out into the Morningstar position recovers from combustion stations direct appears as the Morning Star, every single facet of Mercury cycle has a different and specific meaning.

It's really interesting to be able to track a Mercury cycle better because you understand the entire cycle. So today's like a little crash course on Mercury retrograde cycle, which will also help us to better understand this and what we're experiencing today, so I hope that you will enjoy this little lesson on Mercury cycles today, and also we're using that lesson again to recontextualize and go even deeper into what makes this such a special cazimi moment. So anyway, that's our agenda.

Don't forget to like and subscribe, share your comments and reflections. As you guys know, it really helps the channel grow when you guys share what's on your mind, and it creates a nice community space around every post as well. You can find a transcript of today's talk, like all of my talks, on the website nightlightastrology.com.

As you guys know, right now, we are trying to reach our goal of 1777 backers by New Year's Eve; as of the time that I am making this, we have 789 backers, which is absolutely fantastic. This means we still need 988 more backers by New Year's Eve. We have made a lot of progress, and I want to say a big thank you to everybody who has pitched in so far. We thank you so much for myself and my staff.

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Today, I want to share something about the content of the channel in terms of where it is placed in the various schools of astrology. Sometimes people ask questions: what kind of astrology Do you feature on your channel and so I'm going to talk today about the difference between archetypal astrology and Hellenistic astrology, which are really a kind of there's a kind of fusion between the two forms that constitute my practice.

My work on YouTube is largely archetypal astrology; of course, it's flavored by the fact that I'm a practitioner of Hellenistic astrology in my natal work and in horary. That's another traditional form of astrology, and I teach these things to students. Those are our programs. They are all rooted in Hellenistic astrology.

But there are some interesting differences, and I thought you guys might like to know more about the type of astrology that you get on this channel and where it comes from, which, again, I think may contribute to people feeling like there's a really good reason to contribute and support the channel. So, what is archetypal astrology?

When people think about archetypal astrology, they often think of the astrology that really came through, say Richard Tarnas In particular, Richard Tarnas is known as one of the great archetypal astrologers and archetypal astrology, in a sense, is all astrology because all astrology involves and has always involved the expression or delineation of archetypes and combinations and patterns and the ancient astrology comes from archetypal philosophy as in Platonism, and Neo-Platonism and hermeticism.

So much of which was rooted in a way of looking at the universe or reality itself that includes there there is an archetypal dimension, meaning that there are divine patterns that can be seen reflected in people places, things events in the stream of life itself. The planets are, of course, sort of embedded in their aspects and movements in the sky in the language of astrology; they're sort of teaching us to see the embedded patterns in reality.

So archetypal astrology, though, as a modern field of astrology, focuses primarily on planetary combinations; for example, you see that a lot of the videos on my channel are like Venus is square to Pluto. What does it mean? Jupiter's conjunction with Uranus? What does it mean? Venus is opposition to Uranus, or maybe it's what does a Mercury opposite Saturn mean right now?

You'll notice that a great deal of my content focuses on, I say, turning the jewel of an archetype or archetypal combination to catch the multifaceted multi dimensional multi, vaillant nature of archetypes, and by doing that constant reflecting on archetypes, we're learning to see them in our lives and with that vision that archetypal vision comes a reflective capacity that usually takes us out of the binary of life and experience being good or bad. It becomes multi-dimensional, and that is deeply healing.

So archetypal astrology is an astrology that focuses primarily on planetary combinations more than what specific aspects, which specific signs, or which specific houses. The reason that I do archetypal astrology on my channel is that I think that it speaks most broadly and even more accurately, I feel, than generic horoscopes that are not tethered in our birth chart placements.

So even though I do some horoscopes, you'll notice that the main way that I focus on horoscopes is in terms of the topics of the houses being activated because I think that that's broader and more appropriate than trying to be too specific when you really have an incredibly diverse range of people in the audience who all have an incredibly unique natal chart dynamics that will dictate how things are experienced in any transit.

So the one thing that we can all see and share in is usually the archetypal combinations; Venus square and Saturn may come up in 50 different ways for 50 different people and 50 different very specific scenarios based on 50 very different birth charts.

But the archetypal combination of Venus and Saturn, if we turn it in a bunch of different ways, you can then see you'll notice it regardless of the specifics of the chart, and so I use archetypal astrology on my channel in a personal manner. Although much of archetypal astrology is known in modern astrological circles as being expressed in mundane or collective ways or format.

So, for example, people like Richard Tarnas and there are lots of other astrologers too, that what they do is they look at the astrology in the exact same way I do like, but they will look at it in terms of what it is signifying on an archetypal level unfolding historically, collectively, culturally, politically, etc. So what you find on my channel is the same kind of use of astrology in an archetypal manner, focusing on planetary combinations and archetypal combinations and how we might notice or see them in our personal experience rather than a mundane historical collective, what you see on the head in the headlines kind of way.

So that's what forms the sort of core of my astrology, the kind of lineage that is reflected in the content that you hear on this channel. However, you will also notice that there are many aspects of Hellenistic astrology that come through. So what's the difference? Well, in a sense, Hellenistic astrology is also archetypal. It's just that Hellenistic is more about, first of all, it refers to the most ancient form of Western horoscopic astrology, meaning astrology that is tethered to a rising sign, 12 house 12 signs and houses, aspects, planets, that the sort of horoscopic astrology that we all know here, right.

Hellenistic astrology refers to the most ancient form of sort of Western ancient Greek astrology, not necessarily ethnically Greek, but broadly speaking, culturally and philosophically Greek, although it's informed by many other different places like Egypt and blah, blah. So, this ancient form of astrology, its methods, and techniques are what I use and teach for natal astrology.

So as soon as I'm reading an actual birth chart, this is the School of astrology that I teach and that I come from, which has been rediscovered and sort of disseminated in, say, the past couple of decades, thanks to a huge amount of ancient texts being available to us in the English language for the first time and literally hundreds of years.

So we're getting in touch with our ancient roots as astrologers, and that completely captured my heart, soul, and imagination, and it became the practice that I shifted to from a modern, let's say, psychological approach. I had I dabbled a little bit in evolutionary astrology, too, but you will notice elements of Hellenistic astrology like I do everything in whole sign, or you'll notice various, like Hellenistic teachings or ideas making their way through my content from time to time.

Primarily on my channel, what I'm doing is archetypal astrology for individuals for it's like personal archetypal astrology where I'm pretty much leaving out, for the most part, I often leave out signs, houses, what exact type of aspect it is, and I just focus on planetary combinations and how they might show up in your personal experience. But then when it comes to working with clients, natal charts, any kind of actual delineation, delineation I'm doing once a chart is in play, which means that there's a person or maybe a company or something like that, then it's the techniques from the ancient, the sort of ancient Hellenistic era that I use, and I'm completely in love with and I absolutely adore teaching to other people.

The last thing I'll say is the other thing to remember is, of course, modern archetypal and psychological astrology is easily converted into Hellenistic astrology. So there are many elements of my practice that have been informed by, you know, spending time reading charts from an evolutionary point of view or a modern psychological point of view. There are easy ways that they carry over, although, on a level of, say, theory or philosophy technique, there are many differences, as well.

But at any rate, so that's a bit that is a little bit about me and what you're getting on this channel, in the background that I come from, I hope and learning more about me and the channel, that you know that there have been literally 1000s and 1000s of hours, clients, classes, books, readings, conferences, that have gone into the development of the craft that I use and present on this channel, and so if you value it, if you value, the background that it's all coming from, then I ask that you consider contributing to support the channel and supporting our team in the year ahead.

Remember, we still need to get to 1777 backers by New Year's Eve; we still need 988 Wonderful souls from the audience to step up and pitch something in, throw a couple of bucks in the hat, so to speak, pick up a reward when you donate, we deeply appreciate it. You can find the link pinned to the top of the comment section or in the description of this video. On that note, I hope you will enjoy today's little crash course on Mercury cycles and a re-contextualizing of Mercury's cazimi today.

All right, so today we're going to be taking a look at Mercury cazimi in the sign of Capricorn again, but before we do so, we're going to take you through a little crash course on Mercury's entire cycle. I get a lot of people saying I don't really understand what cazimi means, and that is probably due to the fact that cazimi has a set of meanings that are really made sensible by the rest of the cycle that Mercury goes through, and if you don't understand the rest of that cycle, it's you might hear some things being said about cazimi, but it's harder to really understand them. So today, we're gonna give you a little crash course on Mercury's entire cycle and the symbolism of all the different parts of the cycle. I'm going to take you through the most recent Mercury cycle that we're in the midst of right now, and then we're going to revisit the Mercury cazimi, which is happening today so that you know you have a more well-rounded understanding of this phenomenon, both today and going forward.

By the way, this is also something that is like a small excerpt out of a 10-hour class that I taught in my 2023 masterclass series on the cycles of Venus and Mercury, which you can pick up on Kickstarter for a big discounted price. That's a great series you might want to pick up. It's 10 hours worth of lectures on the topic that we're going to cover very briefly today, including chart examples and more. More of a detailed breakdown than I could possibly give on one of my daily videos. Still, this is a good crash course and a good starting point, and you'll certainly know more than when you started today if you've never learned about the mercury cycle. So first, I want to take you through the key features of a Mercury cycle, and then we're going to visit Mercury is cazimi in Capricorn. So I hope you guys will enjoy this.

Let's put the real-time clock up and get into it. Here we go. So what I have done is I've taken us back to October 20 of 2023, which was the day that Mercury was cazimi with the SSun in Libra. Now, it was cazimi, meaning it was at the heart of the SSun; it was conjoined exactly to the Sun within a degree, and it did so well in direct motion.

So this is different. Astrologers, throughout the history of astrology, have debated what is really the starting point of the cycle, sort of like arguing what the starting point of a cycle should be, like, where do you start the cycle within a circle? You know? So it's kind of like, well, it's a little subjective. Astrologers have sometimes placed the beginning of the cycle at the superior conjunction, which is the conjunction of Mercury with the Sun while Mercury is in direct motion, and other people have debated that the starting point should be when Mercury conjoins the Sun through its retrograde motion arts inferior conjunction, we're not going to get stuck on that debate.

Today, guys, we're just going to say we're going to use this as a starting point, the direct motion, and unpack the different features of the cycle without there being an without there being any kind of absolute thinking about what the starting point needs to be, I really don't think you need to think about the cycle in terms of a starting point. So all right, well, here are the key features of a Mercury cycle, starting from the superior conjunction and direct motion and going all the way back around until we get to the next superior conjunction. Along the way, we will see that Mercury cazimi, and don't worry, we'll come back to talking about it at the end of this. So first of all, we have a cycle with Mercury in the Sun called its synodic cycle comes from the word Synod, which is like a meeting or, Yeah, like an assembly, and so all planets have synodic cycles with the Sun in traditional astrology, and we also have, you know, we look at outer planet cycles together to like a Jupiter Uranus cycle, for example, which has its new starting point in April of 2024. So you can look at the synodic cycles of other planets, too.

But usually, when we speak about a synodic cycle, we're talking about plenty of the traditional planets in the Sun, including Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which are; there are two distinctions of planets we have inferior planets that are faster than the Sun in motion, that would be Mercury, Venus and the moon so to speak, the moon has its own cycle, and then the superior planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn who moves slower than the Sun have a different pattern that defines their cycle with the Sun. So, with Mercury, it's a very similar cycle to Venus, although it's a different length of time because Venus is a little different in speed than Mercury.

Anyway, that's some background information that might be useful. The superior conjunction is the first part of the cycle, and it is also called a Cazimi; anytime that a planet is exactly conjoined with the Sun, one of the traditional planets, there's a sense of the planet being seated at the heart of the Sun on the throne of the king, and this is a major moment of rebirthing for the planet and the reason for that is that once it crosses this line, it will start to emerge through direct or retrograde motion after the conjunction into its next faisel appearance, which means after Mercury crosses the Sun here in Libra, it'll start to move ahead of the Sun in zodiacal order and start rising, you'll see it as the Evening Star. So as it rises as the Evening Star, eventually it will get as far away from the Sun as it can possibly get before it slows down and appears from our perspective on Earth to stop and then starts moving backward, that is at station two retrograde, it will then retrograde back under the beams of the Sun, and I'll explain what that means.

Then it hits the conjunction to the Sun going backward, which is called an inferior conjunction, and then after that, it will retrograde, and that's another cazimi, and then it will retrograde out on the other side of the Sun and gradually make its appearance as a Morningstar and then it stops, it turns direct, and very gradually picks up speed, and then starts moving and direct motion until it can joins the Sun again and that cycle repeats over and over and over, which is why we also get it moves very quickly, which is also why we typically get three Retrogrades per year.

So three Mercury retrograde cycles per year mean that we should know the entirety of the cycle because when we talk about Mercury retrograde, sometimes people just talk about the meaning of Mercury retrograde unanimously like it means one thing that Mercury is retrograde, but actually, Mercury's retrograde cycle as a whole has many different meanings depending on precisely which part of the cycle it is in, and that is a little bit more nuanced, and it can help you understand why every Mercury Retrograde is a little bit different not only because of which part of the cycle it's in, but because of what else is happening contextually around it in the sky while it's in each part of the cycle. Right. So it takes a little bit more nuance to really break down the symbolic meaning of a Mercury Retrograde for all of these reasons.

So what is a cazimi? What is the conjunction? It's a reset moment when the planet joins the Sun; it is like saying that the cycle is being reset, and it's going to be reset in one of two directions. It's going to be reset toward the Eveningstar position or toward the Morningstar position. Either way, Mercury is dying and being reborn into that next phase. So in the direct motion that we had around October 20, Mercury was being reset and reborn as Mercury was going to start rising and appearing as an evening star, which means you see it in the evening after the Sun has set briefly, and it doesn't last very long. Because Mercury is so close to the Sun that it sets not too long after the Sun has set, we see it a little bit hanging in the Eastern or the western sky right after sunset.

That evening star position for Mercury is associated with a variety of things, which we'll look at as we get there. So the cazimi moment is a rebirthing moment, so it infuses, it's like a seeding point, it's very much like a new moon, and the new moon is going to birth itself and show its fruit in terms of the appearance of the evening or morning star that it moves into next and during that phase, all of the fruits of the seeding point of the cycle sort of show themselves in its faisel dynamic. So the Eveningstar Mercury all the way up until it Retrogrades and disappears is sort of bringing forth the fruit from the previous conjunction just like a moon cycle would.

So Mercury, for that reason, at the heart of the Sun, that cazimi moment is a very empowered sort of seeding point for Mercury in the Sun. You could think about that in a lot of different ways because we have to think about the seating point in terms of the symbolism of Mercury.

So you think about the mind, and you think about ideas, and you also think about Mercury as a mediator; Mercury, at the heart of the Sun, mediates between archetypal images or ideas that are motivating our life, and it makes them intelligible and brings them into our mind and body. So a very simple way of describing this was that Hermes other name for Mercury was called the psychopomp, or the guide of the soul. What guides the soul in this lifetime, according to ancient astrologers, is the day or the archive of the ideas in the mind of God that somehow become compelling to us and end up guiding the Destiny path of our life.

When Mercury hits the Sun, it is as though there is a brief way in which we have to look at those images that compel us the images that we find desirable and attractive that form the ambitions and substantive endeavors of our life and Mercury's cazimi is about looking at those things and maybe revising them or changing them or planting new ideas or images, or maybe in some ways, amplifying those that we're already working on. But there's a way in which those ideas become clearer to us again. They become apparent and sent to us again, and we say, Ah, yes, I see. Right, and because we live our lives by means of the ideas that we find most attractive. Ideas don't just have to be intellectual. They can be images, too, or they can have aesthetic qualities, almost like music.

So you have to think about ideas, almost like a little psychedelic; the right ideas can be thoughts, images, feelings, moods, desires, attractions, or aesthetics, and in this way, there's a kind of reset happening for the ideas that guide our lives.

This is one of a number of ways we could describe it. So I don't want you to think Well, that's the absolute meaning of a conjunction with Mercury in the Sun; it is one way of describing what this conjunction is doing philosophically. Alright, so from this point forward, the seeding has taken place. Now, people will measure the cazimi differently; sometimes, you have people measuring it within the same zodiacal degree within one whole zodiacal degree. Even if they spill over, sometimes it's even closer; it's down to, say, 17 or 15 minutes of one degree.

There's been some debate over that, about that over time; I am of the mindset that says when they're at the same degree, by the way, you also have people so on the same degree of the Zodiac, I consider that to be cazimi and then I might give a little bit of spillover, if they're at the very end, like in this case, the Sun is at 2648 that, you know, Mercury's spilling over into that 27 degrees still really, really close at hand. So I'd probably still considered a cazimi for, you know, a little portion of the next degree.

Anyway, within about a degree is my general rule of thumb. Now, you also have one of the things that's really important to notice is that ancient astrologers also had debates about whether or not there should be by latitude or declination that we should be looking at Mercury literally crossing the face of the Sun or not, which is an extremely, much more rare occurrence. This does not mean that Mercury is literally moving across the face of the Sun because its latitude may not be in that space. But the same zodiacal occupation of the same zodiacal degree is a generally agreed upon concept that most astrologers follow, not the actual Eclipse.

Anyway, that's just a side note. So, the superior conjunction resets the cycle, and you have it as a kind of seeding moment. It's a very powerful moment where mercurial things can be intensified, and that would, again, often translate into ideas, thoughts, communication, and intelligence in relation to ideals and ambitions that we have in our life, and there's a sort of marriage of those two things, that it can kind of strike like lightning, sometimes it has almost a little Uranian signature, if we were to think about it from a traditional standpoint before Uranus was around.

All right, well, the next thing that happens is the appearance of the evening star. So, as we move forward, I want you to watch what happens now. You're going to see that Mercury is moving out in front of the Sun. As long as Mercury is within about 15 degrees of the Sun, even though it's moving out in front of it by degree, as long as it's still within about 15, That is the average space within which you typically will not be able to see it. So it has to move sort of beyond that space. Once it gets to see how now it's very close, about 13 degrees away, like 12,13.

So as soon as it gets to about 15 degrees away, and you can see that happening right about here, then it's going to be, on average, it will have appeared in the sky, and here's how we can see that. So we're going to have the sunset through the seventh house, and then you can see that Mercury will be in the western sky as an evening star. The appearance of a planet within seven days of birth was a big thing for ancient astrologers.

So, for example, if you were born during a period of time, and within seven days of your birth, Mercury would make an evening star appearance that was used to predict a kind of trajectory that your natal Mercury would take in terms of its development symbolically in your life. That it would go from an invisible place to a visible place could actually be used symbolically to describe the emergence of certain topics or themes from relatively obscure to more visible in terms of the society you live in or, the family you're a part of, or whatever. A lot of different ways of reading that. But anyway, the Eveningstar appearance now takes the seating point and starts to make it visible, and the Evening Star position for Mercury was considered more feminine than it is for Venus or all the other planets.

The western sky was associated with the nocturnal and the feminine because it's where the Sun goes to bed, and the nocturnal space starts emerging as opposed to the eastern sky, where the Sun appears, and light rises, and you get the masculine associated with light sort of taking over. So in this portion of the sky, when Mercury's rising as an evening star, you get the symbolism of the eye Dia that was seated, coming out and socializing and working its way into the relational realm that you live in.

This means that you could say that it's a Mercury that is about socialization, which is considered an archetypal feminine process, rather than it being about individuation. It's about socialization. So the Mercury is seeking interrelationship in the web of people that you know, which could be colleagues, it could be allies, it could be people at work or in a community, it could be lovers, friends, and family, but that idea that was seated is going to seek out its expression in the social web of your life.

That's a kind of general meaning of an evening star and the same thing for Venus. Now, that doesn't make it better or worse at all than the Morningstar position; that's just an archetypal definition, you could say. So, during this phase, Mercury is in direct motion; it's sort of like you can think of it, almost like the full moon starting to show itself in the sky.

The next thing that happens is Mercury will reach its maximum elongation, which happens between 18 and 28 degrees. So I'm just going to take this out some days, and let's watch what happens. This is once Mercury is between 18 and 28 degrees out in front of the Sun, and right now, you can see the Sun at zero and Mercury at 18 Sagittarius, which happened in late November, Mercury's reaching its maximum elongation, which will always fall in eastern elongation, which is always going to fall in that space.

So that means that sort of one way of thinking about it is sort of like Mercury's heading the farthest toward the east away from the Sun that it will get, although it's still in the western sky. Now, for us right here, this point is really important because, during this period of time, Mercury is slowing down but also becoming more luminous, and so this is kind of like, you could say that it's socially adjusted or, it's sort of found its position socially, and it's becoming established in that space.

This happens very quickly, and a lot of this has to do; remember, the cycle happens three times a year. So we're talking about a more rapid transformation of mind and the relationship of our intelligence to the ideas that guide our life, and that there's a lot of fluctuation in that space. Philosophically, think of think of how regularly we are adapting our mind and body to fit the constant evolution of the ideas that guide our lives.

I know that that might sound abstract, but if you spend a little time tracking Mercury cycles, you'll see that your ideas are always slightly adjusting, moving, mingling out in the world, getting feedback, and then changing again, and they may all be doing so with some of the same values or ideals and images that are important to you from the time you're little you know, they don't have to those ideas don't necessarily have to change a ton, although I think they do. But, the way in which you relate to those ideas, you think about those ideas, and your intelligence changes in relation to those ideas is constant, and that is because we are all souls; we are living beings that are changing just as surely as ecosystems are always slowly changing based on the environmental changes that disrupt or shift them.

So, in this process, Mercury, as the Evening Star, is reaching a sort of slow-adjusted luminous space. It's found its expression. But now what's going to happen is after it reaches that space, the next thing is it's going to slow down, and it's going to station. So here we see now you can see this is 21 degrees, that of separations right between that 18 and 28-degree mark, and then you'll notice that now it's starting to lose some of that speed and see how the s pop up by Mercury. So now it's 18 degrees away, and it is stationing. So sometime between that range, it also slows down and stations, and then it turns retrograde.

Now, the station point and the retrograde point are important because it goes into a space of deterioration, breakdown, turnaround, reversal, change, of course, delay, setback revision, all of those qualities that you hear most readily talked about as a retrograde quality is really just applicable in some part to this little portion of the entire cycle, which is the station to retrograde right around that time when Mercury slows down, stops moving turns retrograde and very slowly starts to pick up speed retrograde.

That little chunk, which is, you know, maybe four or five days. That little chunk is often associated with the onset of reversals karmically, which can show up as delays, setbacks, breakdowns, changes, of course, course corrections, revisions, etc., and the idea there is that Mercury is now going okay, there was a way in which I took an idea I brought it out into the world I socialized it I got some feedback, and now there are ways in which I'm going to be asked to change my mind, change my pace, revise review, there will be reversals of circumstance, and that transition is what most people think of when they think of mercury retrograde. But that symbolism is not appropriate for all of the rest of the phases of the Mercury retrograde cycle; it's just right around this point that you tend to see those most vividly. Then we have combustion via retrograde, which is where Mercury will now get to within about six or eight degrees of the Sun.

So right here, once Mercury is retrograding, it's also setting as the Evening Star, which means it's disappearing again; once it gets to within 15 degrees through its retrograde of the Sun, you don't see it anymore 15 degrees or approximately, and the visibility is gone. Because the Sun is too close to it, it blots out, so you can't see it.

Mercury is then going through combustion once it's within eight degrees through the retrograde, and oops, I got my foot caught up the cord. So once it's within eight degrees of the retrograde, then it's in the phase of combustion, which means it's getting burnt up. This is essentially a way of saying that an idea, a way of relating a way of perceiving the ambitions and ideals of our lives and the way we've been socializing those ideas and the way we've been trying to bring those ideas to manifestation in the world, through our intelligence is going through a death and that little death is going to be a breakdown that is considered to be stressful.

It's a lot of times people get stressed out during this period and it will accompany that basic feeling of being in a retrograde that everyone knows and talks about, everything's coming and done, nothing's going right. There's all these frustrating things that are happening. What's really hard to notice is how those things are connected to the breakdown of certain images, ideas, and, you know, concepts or beliefs. Because the frustrations that might look totally mundane, like a delay in the airport, and so on and so forth, are really a part of a deeper structural breakdown in the mind, of a way that we habit of seeing relating in making our lives intelligible. So, the combustion and the retrograde on this part of the cycle are typically the parts that people stress out about for that reason.

Then we have the inferior conjunction, and the inferior conjunction happens right here, and this is the cazimi that we're all talking about right now, which was another reset. But now the reset is heading from Eveningstar to Morningstar. So, it's a different kind of reset. It's another seeding moment. But it's a seeding moment that's taking Mercury into the Morningstar position, same exact meaning, though, of the superior conjunction and direct motion, which is that we're receiving new ideas and images, and we're reworking our ideas about life and whatever, especially by virtue of the topics in the whole sign house that the cazimi is taking place that in this case would be Capricorn, we'll come back to that later, we get a reset.

Now, this is a very different part of the retrograde cycle; it does not feel the same, it doesn't look the same, and the next part is recovery from combustion. So now we have the two planets separating, but see how Mercury is advancing behind the Sun now, and as that separation occurs, Mercury is in a space of recovering and emerging with a new idea, and this idea, rather than being socialized, is about it's being individualized, which means we go from an idea that we brought out into the world and socialize and receive feedback, we revise, we review, the idea broke down, and now we are bringing forth a new idea. But the point here is to embody it within ourselves.

First, it's less about the we that we are a part of, and it's more about the me that stands apart, or that is somehow unique from every other being, and this face is quite exciting because it has to do with the development or germination, kind of gestation of a new, a new way of thinking a new way of perceiving a new way of relating that will slowly start to make its way into the world and it's it will help us develop our sense of unique individuality, and that's the Morningstar position, which tends to be more masculine and so next is the Morningstar appearance as we get about 15 degrees away from the Sun, Mercury appears, and as that appearance happens, we get that sense of like, Mercury as the morning star is like a trumpet blast at dawn here I am a new me a new idea, and it's not so much about how to socialize and relate this idea and help me adapt and adjust and find my place in the world.

It's more about how do I stand alone or apart and it could be defiantly or rebelliously. But it's also just about what makes me unique, and so this phase of recovery from combustion from the inferior conjunction cazimi through the Morningstar appearance is all about that; the next thing that happens, of course, is Mercury will stationed direct, and you can see that happening right here, and that also will tend to happen as the two planets are about 18 to 28 degrees apart.

So it can happen. It happens after they've gained some significant distance from one another that Mercury turns direct; then, because Mercury is moving so slowly, and the Sun is still moving quickly because it takes a while for Mercury to pick up speed, you get Mercury as a sort of slow luminous Morningstar, and that's sort of where it starts.

It's, you know, it's like it appears and it's in it sort of slows down, and it presents itself like this blazing new quality of individuality that's presenting itself, it's more young, it's more assertive, and it's been reborn through a process indicated since the cazimi on the inferior side of the retrograde conjunction and then what we have is, once again, through direct motion, Mercury is going to catch up with the Sun and once it gets to within 15 degrees, it disappears, and then it goes through the combustion phase, and then it gets to our next. Here it is, this is right about February 27, where it will get to its next superior conjunction and the cycle starts over.

Now, on the backside of the cycle, when it goes from Morningstar and, indirect motion starts catching up with the Sun and becomes combust again. Now we're going from a phase of an individuated idea that is needing to die and be reborn, so it can seek social integration on the feminine side and so it's always about this.

It's always about Mercury taking us from the intelligence of our ideals in a manner that is socialized, feminine relational seeking integration in the world and relationships to a space where Mercury is about our individuality and what sets us apart, what makes us unique, and then it sort of goes through that cycle of dying and seeking social integration dying and seeking individuation like that over and over, and you can also see the way in which the ideas that it carries and relates to us are changing by virtue of the Sun's placement, which is why you want to look at those seating points at the space of the cazimi in director retrograde motion by whole sign house.

So, now all of that being said, let us take a look at this cazimi that we're having right now in terms of the lake. Let's now take what we've just said and try to make some really nice sense out of it. Okay, so we're going to come back here to the cazimi, and here we can see it. We're going to move it forward some hours. Here it is, right?

There's the cazimi right there. Friday, December 22. Okay, cazimi co bam. So look at the whole sign house of Capricorn, you know, so if I can just do this really briefly, well, I'll just flip us around the wheel and give you a feel for this.

If you are an Aries rising, notice that the reset is moving toward new individuated ideas around the 10th house, the place of career, and remember, if you looked at the Capricorn, the Mercury retrograde horoscopes that I did, we paired the Sagittarius and Capricorn houses together. So you could also look at the ninth house.

But if you're a Taurus, this has to do with the resetting of beliefs and philosophies. If you are a Gemini, this has to do with soul contracts with other people and what they have, what they provide, or what is shared. If you're a Cancer, it has to do with relationships.

If you are a Leo, it has to do with work sacrifice and, the kinds of setbacks or challenges you're facing right now, and in new ideas about how to handle them.

Perhaps with Virgos, it has to do with creativity and romance with children. If you are a Libra, it has to do with home, family, and living environment. If you are a let's go back one day, if you are a Scorpio, it's in the third house. It has to do with the mind and the everyday environment that you're in. If you are a Sagittarius, it's about money, finances, and resources.

If you're a Capricorn, it's about identity. If you're an Aquarius, it's about those blind unconscious spots and the meaningful changes that can happen by getting in touch with them, and if you're a Pisces, it has to do with groups of people, allies, or friends.

Now, that's a super brief treatment of the houses, of course, but the point is that what you're looking at is the rebirth of an idea in that space of your life that needs to be carried forth and help you individuate or further develop your unique independent thoughts and ideas that don't have to integrate with everyone else. They are carving you into the unique shape that is you. So it's an individuation journey through the seating moment of this Capricornian cazimi. Now, that might relate overall to the kinds of duties, obligations, and burdens that you want to carry or that you don't want to carry.

It might have to do with the disciplines and habits that you think are worthwhile to bring you into a more mature and individuated space; it could be about those things that aren't worth carrying or those duties or obligations that you don't feel compelled to take up any longer because they don't match with who you're becoming. This is just like Capricornian symbolism that can go with all of this. The point is, as we break through this entire cycle, you can see that depending on where the Mercury Retrograde is actually at in the cycle, it can mean something very different. Most of what we think about with the mercury retrograde cycle happens when it turns retrograde is the Eveningstar. Right as it's slow and not moving through its combustion via retrograde.

That part feels like things are breaking down, falling apart, reversals, delays, frustration, setbacks, revisions, blah, blah, blah, which is true. But it's part of a process that's also leading to a new idea that can help us further refine our sense of individuality, which then the next part of the cycle is about. So if you only track that one part of the cycle, it's sort of like people are looking at a cycle in terms of only the part that's inconvenient and think if people did that for other cycles, like Oh, my God, pregnancy is coming up again.

Well, a great pregnancy means morning sickness. Well, yeah, but it also means like the birth of a baby. You know what I mean? Like we just forget about the entirety of the cycle and focus on the part that's kind of inconvenient and define the whole cycle by it. That's just not great. That's not fair. That's not astrology, for one thing, but it certainly doesn't help us to have, you know, to communicate with the world intelligently about Mercury Retrogrades, which are now being picked up on in popular culture all over the place.

So anyway, I hope that this was a fruitful and useful little crash course and it also gives you some deeper ways of thinking about that cazimi that's happening right now in Capricorn. By the way, I thought that this would make for a good video; while Mercury's at the heart of the Sun, right, some understanding and illumination, hopefully about the cycle itself.

Well, that is it for today, guys. Don't forget that we're trying to get to 1777 backers by New Year's Eve; we still need a lot of support to get there. I really believe we can get there; you can find the link to donate and support this channel in the comment section pinned to the top or in the description of the video, pick up a 50% discount to any of my programs, or if you bundle them together you save more pickup my new book The Oracle Speaks, or any of our classes are the Masterclass series on the cycles of Mercury and Venus if you like this, you can learn a lot more almost 10 hours of content on the subject are new or moon circle that meets roots and spheres is on sale. That starts up again in January.

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