How about a Mercury Retrograde with a nice solar eclipse finish for after Thanksgiving dinner?

Or we can make this really simple.  Today, November 25, 2011, Mercury goes retrograde AND there’s a solar eclipse.  My astrology colleague, Gary Caton, does a thorough job of breaking down what this solar eclipse (and a bit about the coming lunar eclipse on Dec. 10th) portends. He says:

“In the short term, this partial solar eclipse is followed in two weeks by a total lunar eclipse. Both eclipses occur during Mercury retrograde. As I suggested earlier this year the Mercury retrogrades in the fire element, along with a total lunar eclipse in air, are going to once again further invigorate the current global conflagrations.”

In explaining the way eclipses function in cycles, he says:

“The Taurus theme tells us it is appropriate to focus on economic issues.”

This is pretty much on track what I’ve been tweeting about with what’s happening in the global financial markets and how it’s inciting people to protest and challenge economic disparities. Essentially, the honeymoons for the new technocrat governments for Italy and Greece are over and that the global economy is bound for some serious shakeups to start manifesting over the next two weeks. Solar eclipses, in my book, usually have a three month window for taking even clearer shape. That’s right in alignment with Gary’s forecast for bigger developments in March.

On a more everyday level, Mercury Retrogrades are nothing to fear.  Here are some insights I’ve shared about it before.

Lessons learned at great cost…Saturn/Jupiter returns

A dying 60 year-old woman decided to come clean about lying under oath on two men she helped to send prison for 20 years. I was touched by the story as I saw how she was having her Saturn and Jupiter returns as does happen between 59-60 years old.  Saturn is in Libra now, the sign associated with justice, so it’s only fitting that she would help to mete out justice for these wrongly convicted men. Unfortunately, over the last 20 years, her body transmogrified her guilt into a cancer that will most likely kill her. Considering that she was a nurse, I suspect the woman has the caring sign Cancer prominent in her chart.  I believe she’s learning a lesson about how to properly care for others.

It’s clear that she cares for her family, particularly her son. Her son was 14 years-old at the time that she helped a zealous detective send two men to prison for a crime that they didn’t or couldn’t have committed.  Her son’s age is interesting because he was having his Saturn opposition, meaning that Saturn was half way from the point when the son was born.  This Saturn opposition is a time a great upheaval in the lives of young people as they struggle to figure out their social responsibilities and allegiances.  He chose to be silent, aligning himself with his neighborhood (rather than the truth) and his mom chose to lie to protect him.  And now, the mom has come full circle and helped give these two men their lives back.

Of course, “At what cost?” is a natural reaction, considering that lying cost her her health and the two men 20 years of their freedom and life. (Although one guy got a settlement for $7.5 million from NYC, it may not be enough to sweeten the bitterness of 20 years lost. But that’s his lesson.)  However, the cost was not the soul of Penny Cameron. And ultimately that’s the pearl of great price and it’s never too late to cherish that.

Thoughts about supposedly nasty mofos known as malefic planets…

In traditional astrology, there are two planets that are considered malefics: Mars and Saturn. Modern astrologers tend to abhor the word malefics and I can’t blame them. But I still think the intention to *not* have malefics is wrong-headed. I think it’s all about where your head is actually. If your mind is only on terrestrial desires, then I think it’s okay to think of malefics as malefics. If your mind is oriented toward the spiritual, then the malefics can be Godsends.

Saturn signifies loss, restriction, discipline, structure, societal expectations, societal roles, solitude, deprivation, and maturity. Mars signifies action, desire, anger, wars, fights, destruction, initiative, distinction, and injury. Most of that sounds pretty bad to me. But not all of it.

If we only want to have worldly success and worldly treasures, then rest assured when malefics signify something in your natal chart or perhaps by transit, then they rock your world…and usually not in a good way. That’s what we usually call bad. However, Saturn and Mars can be seen as great liberators because they can be the demolition crew that literally opens your house to see the heavens…perhaps prompting us to reach higher.

If we choose not to reach higher, then stuff just seems messed up. If we reach higher, then they’re really not so bad.