Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius

Mercury retrograded on Saturday, January 30, 2021 at 10:52 am ET in the sign of Aquarius. What does that mean? Let's break it down. Mercury is ruler of the signs Virgo and Gemini. In Virgo, Mercury expresses his energy through the earth element. This expresses via analysis, education, parenting, as well as art, aesthetics, health and the military or service. Gemini expresses Mercury through the air element, which may be similar to Virgo, but is focused in the mind, versus the material world, or body. Gemini is elementary education, words, thoughts, ideas, communications, short distance travel, transportation, and small animals or reptiles. Aquarius is a stronger version of the Mercury energy. Aquarius, interestingly, is an air element. The combination of airy Mercury and airy Aquarius means ideas, and thoughts are running rampant. It is a highly focused time of distraction. Our thoughts follow many paths, many strings. Think the world wide web. The web, when I first got on it in the mid-90s, was a place you could get lost in links. That is the energy we are experiencing. Aquarius, and its ruler Uranus, are, in and of themselves, very airy and distractible. Add Mercury to the mix, and we may experience anxiety, intellectual exhaustion, and other mental integration issues.

Aquarius rules mental health. The integration of quick thinking, ideas and the genius-level of information which comes through at this time is enhanced. If the flood of thoughts and ideas is too much, we can have mental health issues. Mercury in Aquarius enhanced the radio tower of our minds, in effect turning our heads into a receiver of information. This information is just "known", and may not be validated by a process, i.e. "I read that info in the paper", or "I got it online". We just know.

Mercury retrograde means we pull back the flow, we may not be focused enough on the material world. We can have a feeling of being out of our bodies. Feeling floaty. We can be impatient, "why can't you move, think, go faster??" During the retrograde, contracts or commitments to a "meeting of the minds" can go awry.

Mercury is retrograde from 26°27' Aquarius, and goes back to 11°05'. The shadow period begins when Mercury hits 11°05' Aquarius. This means we see which issues will be in the forefront of our minds, and lives at the beginning range of degrees, Shadow Period. When Mercury goes retrograde, from 26°27' - 11°05', we review or redo what we initiated. When Mercury goes direct, on Saturday, February 20th at 7:52 pm ET/4:52 pm PT, we culminate or integrate what we have learned. We move forward, our ideas are more fleshed out, and we are able to give them air. The end shadow period goes through March 13th. So the intro shadow period begins January 16th through January 30th.

What advice can be given for this particular Mercury retrograde? Take time for yourself, plan your actions to begin after March 13th, respect your "hits" of information received. Ground and meditate, write and paint. It is a time of expansion like I have never seen in over 50 years of my life, and I want to encourage you to ride this wave the best you can. We are coming straight into Aquarian times, and there are currently 5 planets in Aquarius. Saturn will be there for 2.5 years still, so we are not escaping the times.

All my best. Don't forget the AstroEnergy Astrology Show podcast. You can listen here, and see the videos here.