During this Mercury Retrograde the opportunity arises to reflect on the ways the mind wavers and falters and how words can fail and inflect various forms of violence. Mercury is romping backwards to understand what romping means.
But the same stellar configuration that reflects this harmful potential also provides its remedy. Mercury is moving in bright, cheery and spiritual Sagittarius and eventually stationing in close aspect to Neptune.
This suggests an availability of the potential for the inner mind and outer speech to elevate themselves. The sky is indicating that that there is a call to adopt, through reflection and refinement, an inner attitude of non-harm and reducing violence.
This starts with reducing the harmful activity that originates in our own minds. These inner unfoldings are the roots and progenitors of all action that is expressed outwardly.
By taking on the robe of Saturn funneling the messages of the center of Galaxy, this retrograde passage depicts the notion of restraining the unbound qualities of Sagittarius. The meaning of free roaming can extend to include a lack of careful consideration that can lead to harm.
Refinement of the critical functions this ephemeral planet represents is a story being brought forth by this retrograde. Refining and purifying the inner attitudes, the nature of the inner thoughts, the potential uselessness of old memories, and the way these are reflected in the logics presented in outer speech can lead to less harm to ourselves and outward to others.
What is arising is material that can be sanctified in the inferno of the fiery, Saturn ruled late degrees of Sagittarius. The consequences of this process extend far beyond the immediate moment (as Saturn occupies the highest and slowest celestial sphere).
The Greek conception and ideation of Centaurs can provide hints about Mercury’s condition of detriment in Sagittarius
The zodiacal sign of Sagittarius was developed from the mythological centaur. The ancient Greeks characterized the centaurs as violent creatures who routinely violated the norms that made culture pleasant and secure. [1]
The Greeks upheld the notion of xenia – treating the guest with the honors of friendship – gifting, feeding and housing them, even if they were an enemy. Unable to control their lower natures, centaurs brought violence to guests who were by the rules of society expected to be treated with this honor. The centaur natures were wild, raw, and hyper-masculine. Centaurs were most often depicted as males while further sitting atop a bestial animal form.
Here we might be able to reasonably stretch to see Mercury’s function of delimiting, parsing, articulating, and defining being influenced by the rough, brute, raw, and wild nature of the centaur.
Saturn is most often considered a negative planet, for good reasons. Yet in this instance Saturn can bless Mercury’s travels because it compels the romping Mercury to stark awareness, and allows Mercury the opportunity see clearly what is and provide corrective.
With love,
Ichrak
References:
[1] Centaurs and Amazons by Page duBois
Centaur images: Centaurs in Ancient Art by P. Baur
Image 1.
“Chiron bearded, with long tresses, human ears, long himation, reaching to his ankles, arranged diagonally across his chest leaving his r. shoulder bare; over his shoulder a pine-branch without prey, r. hand extended, stands to r. awaiting the arrival of Peleus, who on the r. advances to bearded, with long himation, holding the infant Achilles before him in both arms. The child is comfortably sitting on the outstretched hands of his father. They are being greeted by the dog of Chiron. Between Chiron and the dog is a tree.” P. Baur. 1912.
Celestial Spheres: Source
