If we can’t feel the cool ripples
of air tickling our thoughts, then it may be time to open the windows of our
minds and allow the playful currents to riffle and ruffle our mental feathers. With
Mercury turning retrograde in airy Aquarius, the breeziness of this sign combined
with the intellectual bent of Mercury both add up to a year of examining how we
think, react or communicate in relation to our community, groups, teams and
clubs that we belong to. What fixed concepts can be altered, adapted or aroused
by what takes places now? And, by the same token, what loose concepts can be
staked and developed as the year progresses?
All Mercury retrograde phases
this year (Jan/Feb; May/June; Sept/Oct) occur in each of the three Air signs. 2015
is a time to expose our minds to bigger and better territories, to allow ideas
to flow, to carve out new channels of expression. It’s time to move the compartments
of our minds around to make room for what will come at us in the coming months.
Studying other people, cultures and communities to see what makes them hum or unique
is a very useful and quick way to examine and express our own originality –
what makes them/us stand out, what ideas are we introduced to or can introduce
to others, how do they make us feel when we are bouncing ideas around versus how
do we make them feel? These are all questions to ask in or of social
situations. Observing other groups of people that are distinct from our own, or
studying standout individuals can help us to observe our own conditioned way of
absorbing, processing, interpreting and manifesting ideas from, and into, the
world around us. We can explore how ideas took root in the first place and
whether these roots still have relevance today.
In January, because Mercury turns
retrograde in Saturn-ruled Aquarius, Saturn holds the guidebook. If Mercury is
the journey, then Saturn is the nuts and bolts of that journey. He knows the
details of each intellectual place we will visit during this first retrograde
in Air signs (the following retrograde phases will occur in Mercury’s own sign,
Gemini (very potent) and Libra, Venus’s sign). Saturn’s opinion and advice will
come from the sign he is in - and having recently moved into Sagittarius, the
sign of the big thinker - his opinion will lean towards covering as much
territory as we can so that we can bring a suitcase of ideas or details back that
can be translated and integrated into the ideas we have stored at home. The
trick is not too spread oneself too far and wide, or to collect so many trivial
items that we can’t see the wood from the trees; we may need to develop the
wisdom to know what baggage to pack, as well as to know what to unpack to make
room for the new.
We may need to whittle this down
even further by year end, and if we don’t know what to do with the excess, we
can always discard or give these ideas to others. Generosity of spirit is also vital
to maintaining a humble attitude. With Fire sign transits (Jupiter in
Leo/Saturn in Sagittarius/Uranus in Aries), we can often get swept up in the
moment and forget to think of others. If we see something on our travels that
would help someone else, then that is just as much a treasure. We can discover this year that there is plenty to go around
and that instead of fearing competition we can learn to put our own special
touch on something, make it our own. The twist is to understand that the flow
of events this year is mercurial and that people, places and projects will need
to move quickly and adapt.
This will also be Mercury’s first
retrograde phase of 2015. Mercury likes being in Air signs and the upside to
this is that humanity may have a chance to catch up with itself as we adapt to
and process the huge technological changes that have occurred in the last ten
years. Of course, advancements may also accelerate as people’s mental processes
increasingly pick up on the electrical currents that are all around us now. 2015
will definitely be of an intellectual, switched on, social nature but we will simultaneously
learn to be more discriminating and to switch off from the useless chatter. As
a result, it becomes easier to look to the future and actually muster up some
sense of motivation for ourselves. By tapping into our own processes and what
we have gained from others through prolonged interaction or exposure, whether
on social media or physically, we can develop a mental focus and stamina that
had been difficult to achieve during the sloshiness of the past two years. It
doesn’t matter that there is no end goal, the journey is what is important to
us now. The feeling that boundaries are slowly falling away will stimulate and
invigorate and we’ll wonder how the barriers prevented us from moving on in the
first place.
The more we can get out into the
world or bring the world to us via books, documentaries, or by inviting into
our lives people who come from worlds that are vastly different to our own
culture, creed or community, the faster the process will be. That which is
completely different to our own life experience or environment is preferable to
staying solely within the community we feel safe in if we are in danger of
stagnating or of wading even deeper into philosophies and ideas that are too
deeply entrenched to change even when we feel we have outgrown them. Brick by
brick, person by person, we can replace walls and barriers with windows or
doors where new vistas can expand our souls or enrich our thoughts. In turn,
Jupiter, Saturn’s ruler, is in fire-sign Leo, a fixed sign, which means that
any changes will become a permanent part of our intellectual realities. We can
use the Fiery energy to create new concepts or we can use the fixed energy to
further fuel longstanding ideals that are a natural occurrence arising out of
the company we keep, the beliefs we have always held or because of the ideology
of groups of like-minded people who allow us to express and expand upon limited
rules and guidelines. We may need to ask ourselves whether we stay with these
groups out of fear of the unknown or whether we truly gain something from them.
Mercury turns retrograde on Jan
22nd at 17 degrees of Aquarius. Very close to Venus, also in cool,
logical Aquarius, we have recently had plenty of opportunity to balance our
thoughts as we relate to others. During the retrograde phase, we have a chance
to see where we can compromise, strike a deal or simply listen to the other
side of the story before deciding which path to follow – on your own or with
someone. By the time Mercury turns direct – Feb 12 on the first degree of
Aquarius – we will be at the start of a new intellectual journey and it will be
time to assimilate or act on what has taken place between Jan 22 and Feb 12.
Mercury is very close but not quite up to an opposition to Jupiter as it turns
retrograde signalling a need to avoid allowing one’s thoughts to get swept up
by the fantastic or unattainable. Take small steps toward the new future
without too much commitment. Otherwise, by March, we will find ourselves with
more than we bargained for.
The interactive feel and the
mental fizzy-ness of all three Mercury retrogrades means that 2015 is the year
to communicate and socialise with people and toy with unique concepts will help
us to get a sense of the broader concept of our lives.
