Why This Mercury Retrograde in Capricorn Is So Amazing

Transcript

 

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Today, we are going to take a look at Mercury's retrograde in the sign of Capricorn. I think this is going to be an amazing retrograde cycle, and we're going to try to share with you guys today the different contextual factors that really make this Mercury retrograde stand out.

Every retrograde cycle is different; whether it's Venus, Mars, Mercury, you can't just say, oh, Mercury's retrograde. So don't buy a plane ticket. I mean, there are certain Mercury retrograde features like revisions, delays, or reversals of circumstance that are sort of common or universal. But every retrograde cycle is really different. What's happening when Mercury stations? What about when it's going retrograde through the combustion? What aspects does it make? Is it protected indignity from the combustion by being in its own chariot? Or what happens at the time of the cazimi? What's happening when it retrogrades through the combustion and into the Morningstar position, recovering on the other side?

All of those little nuances will make each retrograde cycle very different from any other cycle that we've ever had, and so today, what I hope to do is show you why I think this is going to be an amazing cycle by looking at some of those details. So that's our goal for today.

Before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe, share your comments and reflections, and don't forget that you can find a transcript of today's talk on the website nightlightastrology.com. Guys, as you know, we are trying to rally the support of 1777 backers from our audience to support this channel, the work, and my team and staff in the new year.

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So when I launched this is our 10th year doing this; when I launched this ten years ago, there were two basic ideas behind the Kickstarter; why I decided to do a Kickstarter, I was doing content all of the time, and the basic idea behind it before I even get into these. I was doing content a year, around five, six, and sometimes seven days a week back in the day.

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The first idea was that I want this content to be free and accessible, and I need to earn a living from doing it, and at this point, it's that plus supporting a staff and a whole other load of things that we've built and developed over the years.

I need to make the content accessible. I want this astrology content, which I think is of a very good quality, and I mean at least it's the best that I've got, you know, and it's always I'm always improving getting better, but it's like every year I pour myself into it, I don't hold back, I just completely go forward and try to make the best stuff that I've got, and I want that to be free and accessible to people because I think it's a value like that in there are a lot of people out there who maybe can't afford it, so I want in the ancient astrologers said that astrology should be accessible because it's a spiritual value.

So I just like I have to make this accessible. I don't want to use subscriptions or paywalls, and so I'm going to do a Kickstarter, and if even a small percentage of the audience pitches in, I will have gotten paid for the work I've done, and it will still have been accessed possible and free for the majority of people consuming it.

So that was one of the original ideas that, you know, was behind this the starting of the Kickstarter 10 years ago, the second one, which is just as important to me, but it didn't start right away, it would take a couple of years. But it was like, you know what this is, this is amazing because it turns out that, if I do this, it's, it's really rooted in a fundamental trust that I have, that who I am and what I'm doing in this content creation is, is valuable and worthy of, you know, receiving, like compensation for it.

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This is a way of making sure that I don't ever have to use some kind of subscription or paywall service that makes the content. I want the content to be free and accessible to everyone, and it's rooted in this trust that I have and the value of my work and in the generosity of the audience to also value the work and then the idea is that we can use the Kickstarter to build things that give back. So those are the two ideas behind the Kickstarter. I hope that you guys will really enjoy today's video on Mercury retrograde, and if you have a second and you value the content, please consider joining our goal for the year 1777 backers; we could really use your support. You can find the link again at the top of the comment section or in the description of this video. Okay, enjoy today. Bye

All right, today we are looking at Mercury's retrograde in the sign of Capricorn, and I want to spend some time talking about why this is not just another retrograde and what makes this retrograde pretty powerful. You guys know, if you watch my channel, I don't spend time on every single Mercury retrograde cycle; I spend time on things that I think are going to be more significant. There are a lot of transits that come by, and some are much more potent than others. Some moon cycles are much more potent than others, and some retrogrades are more powerful than others; that's true for all astrological events year-round.

There are some things that all Mercury retrograde share in common. Reversals, delays, editing, revision, setbacks, reversals of circumstance, reversals in the way we think about things, troubles buying plane tickets, delays at the airport, you know, maybe some issues with technology purchase during the time.

So you get the idea, like, yeah, there's a generic level at which all Mercury retrogrades are sort of the same. But to really understand every, you know, Mercury retrograde cycle and what it is going to bring, you have to look at the overall context of the entire cycle. It's an entire movement that's happening, where Mercury is transitioning from Eveningstar to Morningstar, turning retrograde going through combustion, cazimi coming out the other side, rising as the Morningstar, appearing as the Morningstar starting to pick up speed and move direct again.

All of that is significant, and not just that whole process. But what's happening during that process surrounding Mercury? What is Mercury doing with other planets during that period of time? So, this cycle is unique because there are a lot of very dramatic things happening as Mercury goes through its retrograde cycle. So that's what we're going to do. Today, we're going to look at these key features. So these are Mercury retrograde and Capricorns key features that make it quite potent, and why we should be taking some extra time with it.

First of all, take a look at the astrological chart that corresponds with the start of this cycle. You can see Mercury at the bottom here, and I'll use my little epic pen to highlight it. Here's Mercury stationing, and it will turn retrograde here on Thursday, the 14th. Now, you're gonna find that you have a different time marker, but here it is, like around 1:59, 2:00 in the morning, Thursday, December 14, there it is, retrograde.

The Moon happens to be going right over it as it turns retrograde, which is another little interesting feature, though not one I'm going to spend time with. That's interesting as well. Really means at the start of this retrograde, it has a little pop to it, which, by the way, when any planet is stationing direct or retrograde, and you have the Moon highlighting it right at that moment, it just means it will be a little brighter, there's a source of light that's hitting it the Moon as a reflector, like a mirror that mirrors whatever it touches will be amplifying the power of the station.

With retrogrades of course, there's always as the planet is falling back into the primary motion and out of the secondary motion. It is sort of like the hand of God or a larger hand of fate is taking over. There's less control. Sometimes, there's frustration, setbacks, and limitations because the Hand of Fate is coming in and taking us through a topsy-turvy set of reversals, setbacks, delays, and revisions, and that's all because Mercury is also dying as the Evening Star and being reborn as the Morning Star. There's a key kind of reformation that happens during the process. The Moon amplifies that at the start of the cycle.

But now, let's look at the other features that make this really powerful. The first is that we have an entire week, as the cycle opens with Mercury trining Jupiter. Watch this as we play it out day at a time, and actually, what I'll do here is I'm going to anchor in Libra so that the chart doesn't move.

Okay, so watch. I'm going to do it one day at a time. Now, five days in, we've just gone through the trine to Jupiter six and seven. That puts us within the three-degree range seven days out. So, for a full week, Mercury is in a very close trine with Jupiter.

Now, as Mercury turns retrograde, things can break down or start to change, but you have a constructive, supportive, benefic trine from Jupiter, the planet that likes to grant coherence to things. What do you think is happening? A change is being made, but for the better. A change is being made, But help is on the way; a change is being made in the way you receive or give support. A change is being made in terms of allies and friends. A revision or shift is being made, but it has the support needed for it to be a smoother transition. For it to be practically useful. That's one.

The great promises of this moment you could say now it depends on what houses it falls in, you know, false, it's in the eighth house as it might be a little more difficult. It's in the 12th house, right the sixth but generally speaking, this is an auspicious moment for the starting of the retrograde cycle. Now, it doesn't; it's not like the whole thing is easy. There are some bumps along the way. But it's also significant because this is Jupiter; as you notice, the Sun about to cross the sign boundary and trine Jupiter, which means Jupiter is about to turn direct at the end of December.

So it's a connection with Jupiter that is going from retrograde to direct, so it's receiving the support of another planet that's just finished a revision process. That's interesting.

Now you really get an amplification of the theme of a kind of practical revision, a practical, beneficial turning point, seeing the results of some kind of change that you're starting to make, and the Jupiter turning direct is part of that. The next thing to watch for, which is super interesting, is the cazimi happening on the solstice.

So, it's winter solstice from the standpoint of the symbolic zodiac, which comes from the northern hemisphere as a relative orientation. It's not to be taken literally. It's the solstice moment on a symbolic level that can be applicable for anyone, whether you're in the northern or southern hemisphere.

Of course, in another Northern Hemisphere, we call it the winter solstice. The point is that that Solstice moment, symbolically speaking, is about the return of light, the slow dawning of light from within darkness, but also the theme of having to carry the cross up the mountain, right? Capricorn takes a long, arduous journey. It carries the mission of the ideal; the ideal image of the light with the pole star that the Sun is now headed towards carries it on its shoulders up the mountain.

Okay, so the Mercury Retrograde hits the cazimi to that Sun on the solstice; that is a very powerful, another very powerful omen of this retrograde being about an empowered turning point, a time when things really start to launch, and the long journey is, there's a sense of like, I can do this. It's hard. It's long, it's slow, but I'm, I'm feeling supported, and I'm feeling empowered to do hard things or to do long slow things, and I can see the path ahead, I have a 20,000-foot view, or I have the long term dream and vision, and I'm moving my way toward it, and I'm getting advice or insight about how to do it. So these are really nice signs.

Of course, you have to be careful maybe for a kind of like, you know, there might be something a little ruthless or like the ambition is sort of cold and steely and when at all costs and that might be a shadow. But still, in terms of just the constructive use of energy and the changes being made for long-term benefits and progress, Jupiter turning direct the Mercury cazimi on the solstice. This is nice stuff. I really like this cycle.

Now, then, what happens this is where the cycle gets a little bit more difficult on the recovering side, which is to say, on the side of the retrograde where Mercury leaves the combustion. After the cazimi starts to recover, it has also entered its exile, and it's invisible under the light of the Sun, and it's going through a gradual process of becoming the Morningstar, and you can see this at the bottom of the chart here. Let me just highlight it. So here's Mercury coming out on that side.

So, as it retrogrades, it goes back into his exile and goes into the sign of Jupiter, which is nice because we've just had some really nice contact with Jupiter. But now it can't see Jupiter. It can't see Jupiter, and naturally, it's in its exile. It has an aversion to Jupiter. So then the next thing that happens is it squares Neptune. Take this forward just a little bit more, and we get a square to Neptune coming through.

When Mercury squares Neptune, you get little signs and omens. That's interesting. So Mercury squares, Neptune. Let me point it out here. All right, here's the square. Now that is happening closely, like right next to the next moment for Mercury, which is the conjunction to Mars, and I'm gonna take this out now so you can see it at the bottom of the screen. Let's go down in size just a bit. So here's the conjunction to Mars, and both are going through squares to Neptune.

So what happens here now is they're both in Jupiter-ruled signs. Jupiter's turning direct, but it's as though Mercury is going through some kind of testing period. Everything looked really smooth and nice, and now all of a sudden, it's like, Well, are we going too far? Are we going too fast? Now, whereas now we're going into territory that could get more fanatical, or almost like losing track of the goal or becoming swept up in something.

Maybe, on the other hand, the Mercury-Mars square, Neptune feels like what emerges in this process is some kind of a conviction, a mission, a purpose, and it's, it's reaching some kind of fever pitch, and Mercury is trying to carry this energy into its appearance as the morning star, and Mercury is coming out kind of like a like, maybe like a biblical sense, like it's like prophetic and a little angry and driven. But it's also contagious and enthusiastic and, you know, kind of kind of has a sense of zeal and charisma that's very, very compelling.

So, it is a very interesting space that Mercury enters into around the backside of the retrograde as it's coming into Morningstar position, and right now it's about 10 degrees away from the Sun as it makes these squares, and then the next thing that happens after this kind of zealous, intense, but maybe also very motivating squares to Neptune, it's possible to not see things clearly during this point in time.

There's so much charisma and energy and excitement about the initial phase of the retrograde that this comes through, and it's like, whoa, okay. You know, do I need to slow my roll a little bit, or am I going too far somehow, or maybe there's an added sense of again, like, like inspiration or vision that's coming through. It's a very interesting retrograde cycle.

After that, we get this Mercury, which will then go through its station, and the station comes here; you can see it right around January 2. The station comes as it's in Jupiter sign, and Jupiter has just turned direct, then Mercury turns direct; you see how the cycle is all about Mercury and Jupiter, and Mercury and Jupiter, when they come together, can broaden our mind, broaden our perspective, they can come up with intelligent plans that also build a unified order out of something.

It's about intelligence in wisdom, and it's about practicality and renewal, and some kind of deeper emerging wisdom, expertise, understanding, and a lot of excitement, too. Now I feel like almost like I'm captured by the excitement of all of this in, like, my discussion of it today, which is also maybe, you know, I don't know, it's the Neptune square. Like, maybe that's something to be careful of. I feel like this one has just this like, we're getting on a train, you know, it's like the Polar Express. We're going to; we're going to the North Pole, guys.

Anyway, so it stations direct just after Jupiter stations direct. So they're working together. Then we see the square to Neptune again, the square to Neptune comes back, and we're going through the same kind of visionary gauntlet around January 9 that Mercury already went through.

The next piece of this is it enters Capricorn. It enters Capricorn just after exalted Mars in Capricorn has passed through the trine to Jupiter. It's like just as Mercury's peeking and moving back into Capricorn, where it will configure once again to the trine with Jupiter, an exalted Mars, which Jupiter remember conjoined with, has entered Capricorn and started also working constructively with Jupiter.

You get the feeling again that Jupiter is moving a mountain, and it's a very big and dramatic turning point, and there is some real muscle behind all of this. Mercury enters Capricorn and starts trining Jupiter just after Mars trines Jupiter, and then the final thing to notice is this, and this is where it gets like, whoa, this is what really took it over the top for me as an astrologer going like this is not a normal Mercury retrograde cycle.

So Mercury hits that trine to Jupiter again; look at this January 19 hits the trine to Jupiter once more, now having completed its full cycle, a bright luminous Morningstar hanging out with Mars as the Morningstar who is also exalted in Capricorn, both trining Jupiter who's just turned direct and voila, the Sun conjoins Pluto the next day and then both enter Aquarius like, Okay, that's a hell of an ending. You know what I mean? Jeez, that is quite a cycle there.

This is a profound level of transformation that occurs as Mercury wraps up the entire thing and hits Jupiter. Again, look at Mercury's reached the very end it station point around a Capricorn; it's just passed through the sextile the trine to Jupiter once more, and Pluto in the Sun cooperatively enters Aquarius.

It is as though this Mercury retrograde is shifting things that are somehow connected overall to this powerful ingress of Pluto into Aquarius. To me, that means that new ideas are starting to form, and we're going through a revision process that will usher them forth, and there are some temptations along the way, like fanatical fuzzy extreme thinking, not seeing things totally clearly going too little too far, too hard, too fast.

We talked a little bit about undigested or not carefully considered ideas that we run after too quickly. Maybe some of that's in the air with all of this, but also just the like rocket booster, the kind of jet fuel of this retrograde process overall, concluding as it does with the Sun-Pluto conjoining and going into Aquarius is, I mean, what else is there to say? That it's a very powerful cycle, probably the most powerful, the most powerful Mercury retrograde cycle that I've seen in a couple of years. I mean, I could look back, and maybe there's been another one that would be like, Well, that was a really, really strong one. But if you notice the signatures from the start of the cycle all the way through the end, it's bonkers.

So, what I can say about it's really important to do is you're like, Okay, that's a really interesting story. What do I do with that personally track the cycle? We have all the dates listed on this video; write them down and journal them.

One of the main ways that people miss astrology is that they like hearing this because it's like, wow, that's a cool story. I like connecting to the feeling that there's a big, interesting story playing out. But you miss it if you don't take the time to track it.

I'd say to, like, half of my students, they're like, you know, how do you end up capturing all the stories that you capture? Do you know about the astrology transits? Because you're always full of stories? And the answer is I journal, you know, I have a kind of photographic memory; I think maybe Mercury in Cancer is a little bit like, I've just noticed, like, Mercury in the sign of the Moon tends to have a very good memory and that's because the Moon was actually the ruler of memory in ancient astrology, perhaps, I don't know. So I've always had a pretty good memory, is what I'm trying to say.

But nonetheless, if you don't, and even if you do, you should track and just and don't track for the sake of trying to fit your experiences to the astrology track without any sense of what it means other than to parallel the tracking with the dates I mentioned. When you do so, then you look back and read the whole thing. Most of the time, you're going to see the planetary waves moving through it, and it's really cool if you take the time to do that.

So that's what I would advise in terms of you could look at the whole sign house placements of, you know, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Taurus, for example, in this one, it's a little bit of Pisces thrown in, and you know, see how things are coming together, build a big narrative if you want to.

Also, just tracking out the patterns can be super amazing, and you know, don't forget that Hermes was called the guide of souls, and so, you know, this process will often be about a shifting in perspective that comes because of learning and growth that we're doing personally. So, all of this can be applied psychologically. In our internal world, it doesn't have to be connected to all this stuff happening in the external world. Sometimes, it sounds like throughout the discussion of the patterns. Anyway, okay, that is it for today. That was a, that was a romp. I feel like I need to go. Need to go. Go to the gym and run on the treadmill.

Anyway, I hope you guys have a great Mercury retrograde cycle. Be sure to drop in and tell us your stories. Use the hashtag #grabbed or email us your story grabbed@nightlightastrology.com, and don't forget, we need your help. We're trying to get to 1777 backers by New Year's; we have a long way to go right now. But we could really use your help getting there.

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