By Len Wallick
When Mercury enters Scorpio for the first time this year on Saturday, just after 6:39 pm EDT (22:39 UT), focus on being clear with yourself. Give it a try. Give external dramas a rest. Get in touch with where your heart is at.
Know and be transparent about your intent. Let clarity within guide you through confusion without.
It’s not always easy to be clear with yourself, so watch for clues. For example, if you are being defensive, ask yourself what you are defending. Insist on a straight answer.
Additionally, consider your relationship with boundaries. Are you pushing your own boundaries? Or are you pushing the boundaries of others? The answers to those two questions alone could clear up a lot of things.
These first days of Mercury in Scorpio are an opportune time to get clear with yourself because Mercury is slowing down on its way to reverse apparent motion. It will begin its third and final retrograde of the year on Oct. 4.
Because versatile Mercury corresponds with (among other things) your mind and its means of expression, a slower Mercury correlates with closer examinations and more deliberate intonation.
Mercury’s first foray into Scorpio (before retrograding back into Libra on Oct. 10) is a suitable placement for deliberate self-examination because of how Scorpio is individuated as the only fixed water sign.
Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) imply depth in general. Specifically, it’s your own depth that Mercury’s traversal through a watery field of expression would suitably explore. Additionally, a greater intellectual appreciation for the depth of others is possible when Mercury is both slow and wet.
Similarly, when fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius) host Mercury, it’s a good time to mentally sort the wheat of perseverance from the chaff of obstinacy. Furthermore, a decelerating Mercury implies greater discernment.
Discernment, in turn, yields greater clarity. That’s how making good use of the quality of the time for the rest of this month and the beginning of October would include going deep within to get clear with yourself.
There is no need to make the process complicated. It’s not necessary to be confused. Simply look deep within yourself as the first order of business and persist until you have found something about what you own that requires both second thoughts and some thoughtful work.
If you can do that — just that, for the next few weeks — Mercury’s retrograde retrace of late Libra will find you better able to relate to how others think (and what they think of you) for having better related to yourself.
If Mercury’s regrade return to Libra does correspond with better relational practices, just think, Mercury’s second ingress to Scorpio come Nov. 10 might even lend itself to the sort of clarity usually associated with crystals. That’s a pretty good payoff if you think about it. The work starts now by getting clear with yourself.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
Now this is the real “grist for the mill” Len. Thank you for your deep and eloquent articulation of the coming Mercury ingress + retrogradation. Since my Geminian nature makes me particularly sensitive to Mercury’s trickster journeys I will attend to your words and their path of action with deliberate attention and energy.
Cheif Niwot’s Son: Thank you for your kind appraisal. My sincere hope is that my anticipation of Mercury’s “Scorpio turn” will turn out to be useful for you and others. Also, in response to your comment on my previous (Tuesday) blog, you are indeed correct about how the cross-quarters are worthy of equal weight and consideration along with the first degree of cardinal signs (even if cartographers make no mark for their corresponding latitudes). We have a big one coming up at the end of October. Thank you for bringing up the middle degrees of the fixed signs.