What the July and August 2005 Mercury Retrograde Means For Your Sign

by Robert Wilkinson

UPDATE: If you find this article while looking for info on Mercury Retrograde in Leo in 2006, please go to this article (as well as part one) on my new site at Aquarius Papers - Global Astrology. While you're there, take a look around, since there are many great articles that can help you understand these very weird times we live in.

In this part two of the article we'll explore more about this phenomenon that occurs three weeks at a time three times a year. At the end of this part of the article I have included a table so you can find out how this July-August 2005 Mercury retrograde period affects your individual sign based on your birthday Sun sign. Like all Mercury retrograde periods, these three weeks offer a chance to reorganize in the areas of our life ruled by Mercury. These are the houses of your chart ruled by Gemini or Virgo, any planets in these signs in your chart, and the house occupied by your natal, progressed, or solar return Mercury.

All retrogrades show us that sometimes it is more important to be inwardly oriented than outer-directed. Mercury, the "Guide of Souls," challenges us to cultivate our "fellowship with the Eternal," explore our deeper issues and useful but overlooked details in what's being discussed or asserted, take an unusual view, and allow ourselves to be led by the future implications of what's happening.

In Part 1 of this article, we explored some specific qualities of the present Mercury retrograde period. Hopefully, you will have your important paperwork in order by Wednesday, July 20th, and are ready during the three week retrograde period to deal with things you've put off, or see the return of things from the past. This July-August Mercury retrograde is going to give us new understanding about the events of the past four months. It will show as information and insights into the revolutionary processes in motion since the Spring 2000 lineup in Taurus.

We can again re-value, re-think, and re-confirm some things, seeing their significance in our lives. We'll get more insights about correct forms of self-expression, pleasure, and higher realizations, and by the end of this retrograde period, we will stand on the threshold of four months of adjusting to open to a more genuine form of experiencing life and ourselves and disconnecting from forcing things so that a more natural way of being can come forth. We will see aspects of our Soul come forth in moments of deepest emotional intensity, and find a new way of expressing our higher Self through a form of self-control. Watch your breathing, and note the changes. You may be capable of a greater connectedness to life if you get beyond fear, and play with the process as it reveals itself.

You can come out of forcing things, or reacting in an unfocused way. Note those who are doing this, since what is happening is unsustainable, and "drunken" behavior will not get done what needs to get done. Get your enthusiasm focused these next four months and you can manipulate base forms into works of art. Be a good craftsperson, and by mid-August you will reveal your cultural excellence. Many things will be released these next three weeks so that genuine forms of self-expression can come forth.

The threshold we all stand on at a platform of re-evaluation is that of seeing how we or others are trying to sustain a form of spiritual expression that is too dependent on worldly things, or using limitations as a justification for inadequacy rather than seeing them as necessary to wise action. We enter three weeks of an "unsteady first realization of spiritual being," so go slow while you get your bearings in a new realm. Follow any distress, since it's revealing your Soul's pursuit of something alien to its nature. Learn in whatever way presents itself to use your inadequacies as "a reason for achievement, not a cancellation of potentials." Creatively self-mobilize to answer a need, and throw off being bound by externals.

The opposition-sextile-trines occurring during this Mercury retrograde should help energize many different areas of our lives, and the T-squares will offer opportunities to integrate, purify, and enlargen the view. Since the retrograde period occurs just after the Full Moon, the first two weeks of the retrograde will have a distinctively different quality than the last week, which will be more under the influence of the New Moon. I discussed the New Moon influence in part one of this series of articles.

The first two weeks of the retrograde will have the Full Moon quality of the 29 degree Cancer-Capricorn Sun-Moon combo, with a Sun conjunct Saturn thrown in for good measure. This will give the front end of the retrograde a quality of being able to see things from the past differently as we stand on the threshold of a whole new way of life resulting from the decisions of the last Full Moon on the Summer Solstice. This was an extremely important lunation, and bears more study. Some things will be bound, some unbound. There will be a fusion in the Leo-Capricorn-Aquarius sectors in our maps, with the areas ruled by Cancer as the focus for the release of the energy. We will begin to desire to transcend our old routines, and begin a quest for inner understanding beyond old life conditioning. As your frames of reference, use universal and eternal coordinates, and combine intuition with conscious experience to directly realize pure potentiality.

All in all, this should be a very dynamic and integrative, if challenging, Mercury retrograde period due to the number of disharmonious configurations in play these next three weeks. The front end of the retrograde period features the Sun conjunct Saturn I just spoke of, and the end of the month and beginning of August brings the powerful and difficult Mars square Saturn at the same time as Venus opposed Uranus, followed by Mercury opposed Neptune. The effects of these aspects was discussed in part one of this series. Probably the best aspects are in the stationary trine to Pluto and the tredecile to Mars toward the end of July, indicating some interesting interactive specialized situations that are one of a kind. Be ready to demonstrate your alertness to completely unique situations, and you could find yourself in the perfect place at the perfect time.

Even though the first part of Mercury retrograde periods usually are chaotic, this one should be okay. It's the late July squares that will move mountains, one way or another, depending on how we respond to the fixed and mutable sign challenges at the end of the month. People with planets in very early Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius will be most impacted, as will those with planets between 9-13 Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. More on this larger influence at this link.

Mercury is heavily influenced by the Sun, since it occupies the sign that the Sun rules. With its inferior conjunction with the Sun, everyone's Soul will be free to speak its truth at some point in the heart of the retrograde, and will continue to express aspects of itself for the next several months. This will be a great time to release some things on the social, emotional, or cultural level, whether to let go or to demonstrate something. Let your mind be led to your heart, so that you may contemplate some things from a place of peace before you begin a new adventure in consciousness.

The entire three week period is one of seeing how you can release certain forces. As I just noted, the beginning is on the emotional, social, cultural level, followed by the actional level between July 26-August 2. Then Mercury retrogrades back into the scene of Combustion, first on the individual-mental-spiritual level between August 2-11, then on the emotional-social-cultural level from then, through its stationary direct period on August 15-16 through August 20 when it again re-enters the individual-mental-spiritual level of function.

Find new ways to identify with the source of life on Earth July 26-28, then free yourself from an old social rigidity July 28-30. See the alchemy at work July 30-August 1, and let yourself be reborn in some way August 1-2. Embrace the joy and power of new beginnings August 2-4, and put on the show August 4-5. Let your Soul speak August 5-6, then retire from old dramas and contemplate what you've accomplished in peace August 6-7. Polish your delivery August 7-9, and from August 9-11 play with ideas and see how they're connected at the root. You will be offered a shot at transfiguration and knowledge that you've "made it through the night" somehow between August 11-20, so let go and let God, as the saying goes.

As with all Mercury retrograde periods, review, reflect, research, gather information, and take a new look at your power to change your point of view and interpretations. This gives a chance to shift how you do what you do, how you coordinate your affairs, and indicates future shifts in values, resources, and how you use what you have, as well as shifts in goals, ambitions, friendships, group work, and any area where Leo falls in your birth charts. The last Mercury retrograde period in April was a time to glimpse our higher perfection of function, and find a sense of humor in going for the new in our lives.

To find more about Mercury retrograde, you should find a copy of my definitive book on the subject, "A New Look At Mercury Retrograde." Written a few years ago, it has timely and useful information. Though it has been out of stock from time to time, I am planning to offer it as an ebook at a very reduced rate from the paperback, so contact me at laughingcat51@hotmail.com and you'll be sent one as soon as I get the files set up!

By learning about these recurring Mercury retrograde periods, we can understand how to deal with them productively, as well as the months afterwards, which they also indirectly influence. Since this July-August 2005 Mercury will go stationary at 21 Leo you can learn a lot about this coming period by reading all you can about Mercury retrograde in Leo.

If you want more information from this site about how this important time of Mercury retrograde (which happens three times a year every year!) will affect you personally, read the section in the book on Mercury retrograde in the houses. However, in the meantime you can also get some useful ideas of how it will work by consulting the article on this site titled "A Brief Look at How Mercury Retrograde works in the Houses." The houses in astrology show us the specific areas of our worldly affairs where we are experiencing a given planetary influence. You can find out Mercury's approximate position in your solar houses (created by your sun sign position) by consulting the chart that follows:

For birthdays between:
July 11 to 31, read Mercury retrograde in the 1st house.
August 1 to 11, 12th and 1st houses.
August 12 to 31, 12th house.
September 1 to 11, 11th and 12th houses.
September 12 to 29, 11th house.
September 30 to October 11, 10th and 11th houses.
October 12 to 30, 10th house.
October 31 to November 11, 9th and 10th houses.
November 12 to 28, 9th house.
November 29 to December 10, 8th and 9th houses.
December 11 to 28, 8th house.
December 29 to January 9, 7th and 8th houses.
January 10 to 26, 7th house.
January 27 to February 7, 6th and 7th houses.
February 8 to 26, 6th house.
February 27 to March 9, 5th and 6th houses.
March 10 to 27, 5th house.
March 28 to April 8, 4th and 5th houses.
April 9 to 27, 4th house.
April 28 to May 9, 3rd and 4th houses.
May 10 to 28, 3rd house.
May 29 to June 9, 2nd and 3rd houses.
June 10 to June 28, 2nd house.
June 29 to July 10, 1st and 2nd houses.

Of course, this table is approximate. One should always have the chart calculated professionally in order to know where the planets are situated, as this helps clarify your exact cyclic pattern. Part 3 of this article will explain the larger view of what recent Mercury retrograde periods have meant for you.

© Copyright 2006 Robert Wilkinson. Last update: 8/27/2006; 10:54:05 AM.