This week’s blog is made up of a couple of different items – all of which are happening over the next couple of weeks.

First of all, I would like to wish everyone on the Eastern seaboard of the US, Canada and the Caribbean – particularly my clients in Manhattan and Long Island – all good wishes for a speedy clean up operation and a quick return to normal life. It looked horrific on the BBC News and our hearts went out to you all.

Mercury Retrograde 

Mercury turns Retrograde on 6th November, at around 23h GMT, at 4 degrees of Sagittarius, the degree area most associated with flight. We will see if any planes are turned around on that day or air travel becomes tricky with planes being cancelled, long queues at check-in, etc.

ME (Mercury) does this around 4 monthly intervals for 20 or 21 days each time and traditionally it is said that the ruler of the market place and communications has fun with us, by tripping us up, getting our timetables wrong, missing messages, goods not turning up or not being to our liking. In and of themselves not serious but majorly irritating, slowing us down in our everyday activities.

However, it has to be said that 6th November is polling day in the US.

When President Obama took over office on 20 January 2008, ME was retrograde and Obama had to redo his swearing in as he blew it first time.This meant that the US had to wait until the evening to get a legal president. A similar thing happened in UK on 6th May 2010, when under a retrograde Mercury, the last General Election was held. There was no clear outcome when the votes were counted and so for 5 days the UK didn’t have a proper government. Our third party had to decide which party they would give their votes to in order to have a majority. And this is how we have a coalition running the country at present.

What the outcome of this retrograde ME for the US voters is hard to tell, to be honest, as the disaster caused by Hurricane Sandy is still being undergone and people will turn their eyes to their comforts rather than to polling for a new President. Maybe they’ll keep the one they already have as Obama seems to respond to ME going retrograde, so we’ll see.

For the rest of us ME changing direction it gives us 20 days to go over our notes, paperwork, ideas, etc. It is an opportunity to ask ourselves if we really want to buy the latest gadget right now or wait until after the 26th November when ME goes direct. We can also catch up with people from the past and exchange our news with them. I believe thanksgiving in the US will be happening around that time, so that fits the bill perfectly. Be aware of making promises that you may find difficult to keep after ME goes forward again on 26th November.

ME is the trickster – sharp and witty, clever and sneaky – and also our communications ally, who occasionally likes to wind us up and see how we react to his games every 4 months or so. So, enjoy the ride and don’t take things too seriously.

As the only major planetary aspect the ME makes during his retrograde period is a square – 90 degrees – to Neptune, ruler of the high seas. This is interesting as the first square was over the few days that Hurricane Sandy was building up and the Full Moon on Tuesday evening produced very high tides. What the next couple of meetings between ME and Neptune (NE) will bring is anyone’s guess – probably more problems for banking and financial issues and stories about secret communications among political figures and the like.

Neptune goes direct on 11th November.

Neptune has a cycle of around 150 years and last year -2011 – entered Pisces, the sign he is increasingly becoming associated with in astrological thought. However, it’s not the only ruler of Pisces as Jupiter (JU) was there first and will not be usurped so easily. So, they are a pair – maybe NE and JU rule a fish each in the symbol for Pisces. The Greek Poseidon (our Neptune) was also associated with horses, hence the waves of an incoming tide being depicted in art as white horses.

The movement or transit of NE through Pisces is slow as it takes 14-15 years to traverse each sign; so it’s truly like the sea, going forward a few degrees then going back almost to the starting point again, gently and slowly encroaching back and forth until 5 degrees have been crossed. On a chart NE can make 5 hits over 5 years on a chart, thus ensuring that we really get the message that there is more to life than just watching TV.

NE is linked to art, music, appreciation and attunement to the unseen, such as spirituality, mysticism, and the desire for something that is hard to define. I also see it as the prime ruler of “Divine Homesickness” and the yearning to merge with God (replace with the name of your choice). It is also associated with high seas, floods, confusion, alcohol, drugs and all kinds of addiction. It also rules the downtrodden and the forgotten – such as the many poor people who perished unacknowledged at the hands of Hurricane Sandy as it swept over the Caribbean before it hit the US shores and the Canadian mainland.

I know that many people have been feeling this station of NE as a feeling of being spaced out and wondering what reality they are living in right now. Sometimes this kind of emotion can come in waves, a bit like the sea, bringing a sense of oneness with the Universe. If that’s all a bit too much for some of my readers, a bit airy-fairy, well that’s how NE functions for those who are attuned to the Higher Realms of existence. Hard to pin down, difficult to describe in words, yet powerful nonetheless. All under the name of dissolution of the Ego and Union with the divine.

So, good luck with it all and please remember that Comment is Free – I love to hear from you.

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