Affecting April, May, June, and July 2024 – Invigorated Dancing With Nature.

Mercury goes direct in motion at 5:54 am PDT on April 25 and speeds up for the next 10 weeks. This shows a quickening of the ability to coordinate, put things together, understand the whole and the parts, the process and the larger cycles. It is now stationary direct at 16 Aries, affecting that area in our lives for 3 months to come.

Mercury, or Hermes, "the Guide of Souls," is also known as the Divine Trickster, as well as all lesser models. What does Mercury going stationary direct at 16 Aries mean? Perhaps it would be useful to take a look back on what the last Mercury direct station brought us since January 2024.

You will recall that the last time Mercury went stationary direct in January it was at 23 Sagittarius, the first of two retrogrades which begin in Earth and end in Fire. Themes associated with 23 Sag have predominated since then involving our “entry into a new land,” and rewards which come for giving up the lesser for the greater. Those themes have predominated our Mercurial lessons and opened up a new life wherever we have 23 Sagittarius.

This retrograde period began at 28 Aries, and gave us a review of four things; 1) we’ve now done a review of the recent past and what’s emerged in this time when Aries is active; 2) we’ve done a review of things related to the house where we have 16-28 Aries; 3) we’ve gotten a new look at how Chiron operates in our lives and where we’re at relative to the past Mars and Jupiter conjunct Chiron cycles set into motion during their conjunctions, and 4) gotten echoes of when Uranus was in this span of Aries between May 2014 and April 2018.

So we’ve taken a journey through parts of our Aries past, remembered many things about previous new beginnings in our lives, perhaps re-evaluating previous promises and roles, and seeing what needed changing. We’ve all “faced facts” in some way, with a sense of a new identity that has been emerging since January. We’ve taken a new look at natural unedited individual and spiritual self-expression and how to focus our power on social levels. As this station is at 16 Aries, from here we move forward into a new expression of the themes of the last half of Aries which will echo for many months to come.

We’ve now re-traced ground that we first saw via Mercury’s first pass from March 18 through April 1 and re-examined via the RX from then to now. An important point in time will be when Mercury goes back over 28 Aries on May 13/14, because then it leaves its shadow zone and moves into new sections of the zodiac, carrying all its RX lessons forward until its coming August retrograde when it goes SRX at 5 Virgo and reviews the span back to 22 Leo, shifting the current elemental pattern back to beginning in Earth and ending in Fire.

Now we face 4 months of being guided to our Soul using the qualities of 16 Aries. How we use those realizations to coordinate the qualities of that degree into our lives over the next 4 months will show us a different way of focusing our potency which will be more “in tune” with Nature. This will help us focus on an inspired self-initiative leading to an active partnership with Nature.

We should all start seeing, hearing, and understanding things that point the way to some Mercurial fulfillment related to how we have been and continue to be guided to our Soul. The area in our chart where we have 16 Aries will be where the past gives way to the future. Of note is that this is the degree where Chiron went SD in December 2023 and also where the North Node is right now. The next dozen weeks will be a huge magnetic pull into healing/mentoring via Mercury!

The Sabian Symbol for Mercury’s Direct Station

The Sabian symbol for the 16th degree of Aries is “Brownies dancing in the setting Sun.” In the Astrology of Personality, where Rudhyar uses the original Dr. Jones' class notes on the symbols, 16 Aries is said to be a symbol of “the “relationship between conscious and unconscious sides of life,” and “invisible assistance often entailing obligation to outer forces.”

In the Astrological Mandala, he states this degree is about "attunement to the potency of invisible forces of nature,” where “in the light of personal fulfillment….(we) may be able to establish a life-giving contact with natural forces” which constitute a part of the larger life of the biosphere, or Gaia. He offers that these nature spirits are part of the one life of the planet, and are “nonindividualized and unfree energies” within the planet as an organism that act as a “guiding and balancing-harmonizing factor” similar to a human endocrine system.

He goes on to say “when this Sabian Symbol reaches into the consciousness of (those who seek) meaning, it should be seen as an invitation to open (our minds) to the possibility of approaching life in a holistic and nonrational, intuitive manner…. It implies a call to repotentialization.” He states this degree falls in the Span of Examination, Act of Differentiation, Scene of Potency on the Actional level.

Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, says this is a degree of “the essentially friendly relationships which exist between man as a persona and the totally impersonal forces of nature,” where the “cosmic integrity demands a continual reversion to pure source in the case of each segment of reality, and the universal activity provides a continual sorting and sifting of all things into convenience and order. He continues that “the dance of life” is “an unending rehearsal and exhibition of every special capacity of selfhood.”

He offers us the keyword INVIGORATION. He goes on to say that when operating positively, the degree is “simple good fortune together with unlimited opportunity as the direct fruitage of effort.”

So the Mercurial theme for the coming months involves us healing into our Higher Self by opening our minds to seeing things with fresh eyes and a willingness to embrace a new potential and the “friendliness” of life that allows us to contact the source. Be open to being mentored by an invigorating “communion with nature” and those “energy distributing forces” that allow us to “rehearse and exhibit” our special capacities.

From Here We Move Forward

16 Aries is now a launch point for entering into a new (and somewhat familiar) realm in the Gemini and Virgo areas of our chart via Mercury’s placement in the Leo decan of Aries, where it is dramatic and courageous with an added dose of the Sun. We now move forward, having done our time of going inward to reflect on what’s emerged for us since January and how we’re now playing a new role. All of us have had to “face facts” in some area the past 3 weeks, and now are ready to move forward in a “partnership with Nature.”

Mercury now begins to chase the Sun toward their next Superior Conjunction, bringing all its reflections and reviews into the NOW. We’re now moving between Earth to Fire and Fire to Fire retrogrades, and have new ways of understanding our Gemini and Virgo areas, as well as the area in our charts where we have the last half of Aries.

We’ll close today with a reminder that although Mercury is now direct and won’t be retrograde again until early August, the retrograde we’ve just experienced will affect the coming months until the Mercury retrograde station in August at 5 Virgo which will RX back to 21 Leo. So the themes of 16 Aries are front and center until early August!

You can find out more about past, present, or future retrogrades by getting your copy of my book A New Look At Mercury Retrograde. Here's the Amazon link to where you can order A New Look at Mercury Retrograde to check out possible ways this Mercury retrograde effect could play out over the next 4 months. That link will also allow you to order an ebook copy on Kindle. Just make sure you get the 2016 2nd edition with the book award on the cover and not the 1997 Weiser first edition.

In part 2, we'll continue to examine what we can expect over the next 3 months now that Mercury is direct.

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson