Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius: Know What You Believe, and Believe in What You Know

Look at that face! 

Photos: Willow

Mercury retrograde December 2 - 22, 2017, from 29 degrees to 13 degrees Sagittarius

Communication planet Mercury has just stationed retrograde (December 2) on the potent anaretic (29th) degree of truth-telling Sagittarius in close conjunction to Saturn and Black Moon Lilith.

This indicates that we're receiving some mental processing time, some final integration of truth and understanding we've been gathering throughout the entire Saturn in Sagittarius transit (December 2014 - December 2017). 

With the strong influence of Black Moon Lilith on the Mercury retrograde process, this truth and understanding may have some dark elements or difficult angles.

Certain truths - about ourselves, about our world, and about our places in that world - are sinking in here, and we'll ultimately be shored up, supported, and validated (Saturn) in that truth.

With the strong influence of Black Moon Lilith in Sagittarius, some of the truth requiring full integration now is a little difficult to swallow. Some of the truth and understanding we carry - and that we are being called on to share in the world - may be difficult for others (or ourselves) to accept. Sharing what we know may bring us into frictional contact with others and with the society around us. It may put us at odds with accepted consensus reality. So there is an element of drawing on our deepest faith and also on our sense of duty and responsibility. These are things that can fortify us in challenging messenger roles. 

The information and perspective we are being called on to share may involve truth that the mainstream society refuses or even violently rejects. This may be truth - deep, dark, and concentrated - that society will do almost anything to deny, silence, or stuff down.

Under these placements, our voices, our words, may unintentionally trigger others, especially those of a more establishment-friendly perspective (even alternative-establishment). 

 

This Mercury retrograde brings some final perspective on the last three years of our lives.

We're in the final stages of fully accepting ourselves and our places in the world - including the marginalized, ostracized, or opposed aspects of our experiences (Black Moon Lilith). We're in the final stages of structuring our lives according to our own truth and guiding philosophies, even when that brings us into frictional contact with the rest of society. We're making a firm and resolute commitment to making decisions based in the ultimate authority (Saturn) of our own wisdom and knowledge (Sagittarius), even when that makes us a contentious or controversial character (Black Moon Lilith).

It's our responsibility (Saturn) to share what we know (Sagittarius) if that knowledge is needed in this world. It's our responsibility to live by our beliefs and by our truth, even when that is not an easy thing to do, even when it inconveniences us or sets us apart. 

The world needs truth-laid-bare now. It's desperate for it, starving for it.

The world needs people who are willing to live by natural ways, by natural rhythms. 

It needs people willing to supercede "the way things are" with their own methods when things have gone off the rails, as they have in so many cases. 

The world needs people who are willing to apply the sage truth, knowledge, and wisdom that have sustained us through the ages, through all manner of corruption and violence, through brutally harsh and hard times.

The world is crying out for the blazing arrows of Sagittarian truth, penetrating the intentionally-manufactured artifice and falsity that threaten to choke us out.

This may be quiet wisdom, unassuming, low key. But it's willing to say its piece when necessary. And it's necessary now. 

With this Mercury retrograde in the sign of its detriment, Sagittarius, we're being given some time to put words to our truth, to verbally express aspects of who we are and what we believe that might be difficult to sum up in everyday conversation. We're wrapping our minds around just what it is we believe, and we're finding ways to make it understood by others.

As Mercury moves back and forth over conjunctions to Saturn (exact November 27 and December 6 in late Sagittarius with a third and final conjunction at 2 degrees Capricorn on January 12, 2018), we are being placed in solidified positions from which to share our truth, from which to express the knowledge and understanding we've come to, in particular, over the past three years. 

Allow yourself to be positioned in this place of truth. We need people speaking and living from that place. We need your voice, clear and true, speaking your own quiet wisdom in the craziness of these times.

You can expect concrete opportunities (Saturn) to share what you know as Mercury does its retrograde thing in Sagittarius. But we also need to recognize the instances when it is not in our best interests to share our truth. We are all quite energetically stretched at this point in the proceedings on Planet Earth. There is only so much truth-telling energy to go around, especially considering the exhausting opposition, misinformation, and collective mind control that must so often be battled. 

With the cautionary and restrictive influence of Saturn on our sometimes-loose-lipped messenger planet, there are times when it's best to just keep it zipped. There are times when staying silent is a protective thing, when it keeps precious knowledge and information out of the wrong minds. There are times when we're just too tired (Saturn) to struggle with it, and that's OK.

Creating and maintaining public platforms from which to share the knowledge we carry require a lot of time, effort, and energy. Not all avenues are worth our while, especially if they're thick with opposition, rhetoric, and social friction. Fighting to have our voices heard may not be the best use of our (limited) energy and resources.

So we are also determining, during this Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius, when to withhold our knowledge and wisdom, when to protect it from the fray, which might trample, pillage, or devalue it.

The Mercury-Saturn conjunctions indicate a time of particular mental (Mercury) fatigue (Saturn) between November 27, 2017 and January 12, 2018. Keep this in mind when interacting with others, and keep your demands on them as streamlined and reasonable as possible. This especially goes for people in Mercurial jobs like postal workers, mail carriers, couriers, retail employees, call centre workers, and others who have an intensely busy time each year in December. Avoid mental overload in yourself, and do what you can not to burden others.

We're reading the air and the emotional climate. Under an extended Black Moon Lilith-Mercury Rx conjunction in Sagittarius, words/perspectives can be quite triggering. We can catch an edge quite easily which may then escalate into a full-on, raging philosophical battle. Religious, beliefs-based, and cultural differences could be particularly incendiary. 

At the same time, many of the aspects ahead indicate cosmic and social support for us, positioned in our own truth, sharing precious wisdom with a world so desperately in need of it.

The world needs this truth. It's just a bit dicey to get it out there. So we are perhaps looking for the smaller and more low-key openings, for the avenues that provide an "open shot." We're looking to launch those necessary blazing arrows and then retreat to the safety of the shadows, to the safety of our own sanctioned positions.

For those who still have a working connection to their own soul, truth has a certain undeniable energy. This energy will reach the people it's meant to reach. It will worm its way in somehow. It will penetrate complex layers of artifice, even if this takes some time (Saturn).

During this Mercury retrograde, we may be coming into contact with the results of previous truth-telling efforts. We may see certain truths finally sinking in in the collective. We may see people applying wiser and more mature methods.  

Mercury Rx in Sagittarius will back into a second exact conjunction to Saturn on December 6, and on the same day, action planet Mars at 28 degrees Libra will form supportive sextile aspects to both Mercury and Saturn at 28 degrees Sagittarius. This indicates a social push or impetus to be who you are and to speak what you know. Again, there is a bit of an edge to this, to sharing your truth in a world so unaccustomed to dealing in the genuine, but this edge is also what propels you forward. Working with this edge brings new energy and new avenues for advancement. Mars in Libra sextile Mercury Rx in Sagittarius indicates the courage required within the social/relational realms to be true to yourself and to what you know. 

Mercury Rx in Sagittarius will then form a flowing trine to Uranus Rx in Aries on December 10, indicating new position within a community of people that accepts who you are and what you have to say. And if that community hasn't fully materialized? This also indicates the ability to stand on your own two feet in your own truth whenever necessary. It indicates a long-range vision and perspective that can sustain us even when we have to stand apart from the crowd. (Likely a near-constant condition for many WWA readers!)

The Sun and Mercury Rx form their interior conjunction on December 12 at 20 degrees Sagittarius, and this is followed by a Mercury Rx-Venus conjunction at 17 degrees Sagittarius on December 15. Black Moon Lilith will also be forming tight conjunctions to the Sun, Mercury Rx, and Venus in Sagittarius at this time. This indicates a stretch of time between December 12 and 15 when powerful and perhaps unsettling truths/perspectives are circulating.

Mercury will go direct at 13 degrees Sagittarius on December 22, allowing us to interact from a newly shored-up and solidified position, which may include new public platforms from which to share what we know and what we understand.

Saturn enters Capricorn on December 19, and we enter a period of three years when we are required to put what we know and what we understand into concrete practise. We're required to be large-and-in-charge of what we know, and we're required to build our truth right into the structures and rules of our lives. 

Mercury direct will catch up to Saturn, newly in Capricorn, on January 12, 2018, forming a conjunction at 2 degrees of the sign. We're officially looking forward, looking for concrete opportunities to live by our own beliefs, by our own truth, and by our own philosophies. 

Whatever we commit ourselves to from this point forward must be rooted in this - in the ultimate truth we have come to during the three-year Saturn in Sagittarius transit. 

As Mercury and Saturn come together in early Capricorn, people need to know what they believe because choices and decisions made from here will have long-reaching and long-term effects.

Know what you believe, and believe in what you know.

A commitment of time, effort, and energy is on its way, and this commitment must be made with full knowledge and awareness. 

Your knowledge and wisdom - shared at the right times, in the right ways - can help others to avoid missteps and wrong turns that could swallow up years of their lives. Understand your power now. Understand the power of your authentic voice. Gather your courage. You are a beacon of what is right and true. Stand strong in that.