On January 14, 06:41 AM ET, Mercury stations retrograde at 10°20’ of Aquarius, offering us an invitation to reflect and an opportunity to decondition. Mercury will come back to Capricorn on January 25 and station direct on February 3 at 24°22’ of the sign of the Sea-Goat.
While Mercury is in retrograde motion, we have a chance to rethink, review, reevaluate, and reconsider our communication habits, our way to share our ideas and thoughts, our thinking patterns, and our perception of reality itself. In Aquarius, this is likely to play out in our relationship with social movements, groups, and communities, both online and offline. It could affect our ideologies, our dreams for the future, and our concept of social progress as a whole.
Mercury Retrograde: Invitation to Reflect
Mercury is the planet of logic, thought, communication, and language. It is connected with our perception of reality and with how we classify and mentally relate with our surroundings. The ruler of Gemini and Virgo is associated with problem-solving, discernment, and how we gather and filter data and information.
Mercury retrograde is a common event, happening three to four times a year and lasting for approximately three weeks. Retrogrades happen when a planet slows down and appears to be moving backward from our perspective on Earth. Astrologically, these are times of decreased momentum, an invitation to introspect and reevaluate the direction we want to take before moving forward again with more clarity when the planet turns direct.
In popular Astrology, Mercury retrograde is infamous and feared for its correlation with misunderstandings, forgetfulness, miscommunications, travel delays, and technological issues. Nonetheless, this transit has an often overlooked evolutionary potential. All retrogrades accelerate our individuation process in specific areas of our lives by encouraging us to turn within and question our existing reality, narratives, and ways of being.
Mercury retrograde in Aquarius: Questioning our Perception of Reality
Aquarius correlates with the Higher Mind, the Hive Mind, group consciousness, scientific discoveries, innovation, social progress, deconditioning, and individuation. The sign of the Water Bearer teaches us objectivity and detachment, but it also encourages us to dare to be different from the norm, rebel from existing standards, and explore alternative ones.
In Aquarius, Mercury expresses itself eccentrically and creatively. This transit connects our lower minds with the Higher Mind, facilitating innovation and out-of-the-box thinking, inspiring us to explore different ways to see and interpret reality. During this retrograde cycle, we may reexamine our ideals and ideologies, reevaluate our relationships with the groups we are part of, reconceptualize our current idea of progress, as well as our dreams and visions for the future.
Mercury stations retrograde while conjunct Saturn and square Uranus in Taurus, and activates the ongoing square between the modern and traditional rulers of Aquarius. For this reason, during the upcoming weeks, changes and revisions of the current norms, rules, restrictions, and regulations established by authorities are quite likely to happen. Simultaneously, more and more people will feel the urge to reclaim and defend our right to think and express ourselves freely.
Mercury back to Capricorn: Reviewing the Past to Step into the Future
On January 25, 10:05 PM ET, retrograde Mercury comes back to Capricorn, inspiring a deep reassessment of the social, familial, cultural, and religious conditioning we have absorbed and internalized and that still affects our thoughts and perceptions. Mercury retrograde in Capricorn gives us an opportunity to review our past experiences and the narratives they generated: this is a time to reconsider and rethink our relationship with authorities, institutions, governments, and society as a whole.
Just a couple of days after entering Capricorn, on January 28, Mercury joins Pluto for the second time of a cycle of three, offering us an invitation to dig deeper into our psychological material. Mercury retrograde conjunct Pluto is a wonderful moment for deep therapeutic and psychological work aimed at working through old experiences that generated disempowering thinking habits and limiting perceptions of the world around us.
The last Mercury-Pluto conjunction will take place on February 11, when Mercury will be in direct motion. This aspect has the potential to give us fresh insights into our psychology, our behavior, and the way our mind works while reminding us of the power of our thoughts and intentions, underlying the importance of being aware of the stories playing out in our head.
Mercury retrograde in Aquarius: Opportunity to Decondition
Mercury will come back to Aquarius on February 14 and its post-shadow phase will end on February 24. As the Messenger comes back to the degree where the retrograde started, it completes the integration of what happened during the previous phases.
We are entering a time to carefully explore how social conditioning has distorted our perspective of reality: Mercury retrograde in Aquarius urges us to question our perceptions and gain awareness of how the information we take in affects us. This transit promotes a process of intellectual deconditioning and encourages us to think for ourselves.
We have a chance to reconsider our role in our community, our way to assert our opinions or express our thoughts in group contexts. During the upcoming weeks, we may become aware of limiting thinking patterns and narratives that hold us back from aligning with our essence, of ways of communicating and perceiving life that aren’t constructive. Mercury retrograde in Aquarius gives us a chance to reflect on our vision for the future of society. This transit may inspire us to join groups of like minds we feel aligned with and separate from those that are not.
Comment below with what resonated with you the most and tap on the heart if you enjoyed this article!
We invite you to explore your 2022 horoscope packed with wisdom and guidance (available in both e-book and audio book formats) – Simply tap here to access your 2022 horoscope.
P.S. we have awesome free e-book all about Mercury Retrograde and what it means for you, we invite you to get yours. Simply tap here to download. Enjoy!
