17.06.2020

In an already surreal landscape, another twist in the astrological tale of this year arrives today as Mercury begins his mid year retrograde in Cancer. Eye rollers to the back please. Setting aside the tired pop astro hysteria of this transit is crucial if you are to dive for its treasure.

Retrogrades are revision modules, weaved to deliberately trip up the galloping modern pace that leaves little time for rumination. Mercury joins more than half our key planetary players in this backwards dance as the cosmic memo of this year shouts even louder: evolve or die. In combination with solstice and eclipse, this is another stark tipping point asking us to look backwards in order to leap forwards.

In Cancer, Mercury's retrograde is an emotional tuning fork that marries our marvellous minds to our feelings, matching your energy to the song of the universe as it was sung into your bones. Its handmaidens are nostalgia, memory and depth of feeling as we set sail into once known currents and navigate them with more experienced eyes and hardier hearts.

This time last year Merc's rx plunged us into old family patterns and childhood conditioning so that we could review where we have come from and its impact upon us. In true 2020 style, this year is next levelling that process by asking us to move beyond regular programming to the kind of integration and understanding that operates as sustainable foundation for the brave new world we are building.

Merc's stationing point adds to the stilling of solstice. For a brief moment we are being held fixed to all that is swirling within and around us, all the better to feel into its deep ocean. We are being asked to see the dissonant machinations, all the better to move beyond them. And we are being asked to revise what we think we know, all the better to rework our prior learning and alchemise it into the kind of wisdom that sings our soul self out of hiding.

Be guided by your feelings and know that they are your mother tongue. Do not trade your first language and its inconvenient truths for performative smoke and mirrors, as the crowd bays for you to do the work they refuse. Go gently and deeply for best results.

Art: Satin Tuning Fork by Yves Tanguy, 1930

Words c. Kerrie Basha 2020