Mental rock and a hard place

My recent obsession with planetary speed taught me that when Mercury slows to go retrograde, its speed tanks precipitously. When something's slow, it's not functioning normally. So, Mercury's moving slowly and about to retrograde (actual retrograde 1/15 - 2/4), and, because the sky is not letting us get away with anything these days, it's stationing (stopping) to retrograde conjunct (next to) Saturn in Aquarius and stationing (stopping) to go direct conjunct Pluto in Capricorn.

So now-January 19 is the with-Saturn-in-Aquarius part, which is limited thinking, dispassionate thinking, realistically staring at something depression-inducing, and/or planning out how you want to tackle something. January 26 - February 17 is the with-Pluto-in-Capricorn part, which is when saying or not saying something is tied up with issues of power and emotional depth. It's "secrets, secrets are no fun" energy.

Honestly neither of these situations are ideal for our collective mental health, unless the thing you're planning for or thinking in depth about is how to improve your mental health, which you can totally do. This is happening in a section of the sky that has been completely hammered in the last couple of years, so whatever's coming up right now is not new and different, it's more of the special and tedious variety.

But there's good news. After 2/4, nothing's retrograde until May (basically). I think we'll start to leave some of the same old bullshit behind and move forward, finally.

The rules of how to navigate Mercury retrograde are here.

XO,

J