Mercury (in Gemini) moves into his/her exact square with Neptune (in Pisces) on Saturday, May 22nd. This is in play now and because Mercury is going to station retrograde and walk these degrees two more times, this square (tension/frustration) is going to be in play for two to three weeks.
This is kind of like our left brain challenged by our right brain.
With Mercury squaring Neptune it will be hard to be certain. Hard facts won't be quite so hard. Our thinking can be fuzzy/information confusing. Conversations can drift off track. Sleep might be tricky.
Sometimes this can play out in very literal 3D ways, but there is also a whole other layer with Neptune that is obscured/back in the past. It's not so easy to decipher why we are triggered/responding/reacting the way we are.
The good news - both planets are strong in their home signs and this will alleviate some of the challenges, but not all the challenges and this is a long transit, so let's take a look at the potential pitfalls first and then we'll look at some ways through this and some of the potential opportunities here.
For the last two years Mercury has retrograded in Pisces creating major confusion. This year I was happy to see we were lucky enough to get him/her retrograding in Gemini (her own sign), but then realized he is at the degrees he/she will be squaring Neptune (Pisces ruler) anyway!
When I see Mercury square Neptune, I think THERE IS A LIE HERE SOMEWHERE. As my grandmother would say "something is fishy in Denmark" or maybe she would say rotten, but I can't bring myself to write that about Denmark.
Something, at best un-grounded or misguided and at worst deceptive is in play.
Usually this is about self-deception. Maybe there is something we gloss over and don't want to look at too
closely because we know something we badly want to add up, just
doesn't. We can retreat into fantasy if the 'facts' of the situation don't line up with our dreams. If we don't actually try to make our dream into reality, we can rest knowing it is at least possible, right? Alot of energy/potential can be drained through this. We might find criticism particularly challenging right now.
Or maybe the lie is a misunderstanding. We say one thing and someone hears something else, or we are the ones with the faulty hearing. This is a good time to be speaking clearly and making certain the other person is understanding us. Say it twice. Write it down. Spell it out. We don't want to be making assumptions.
With our everyday perceptions colored by the yearnings of Neptune, it might be hard to separate mundane overtures/casual contact (Mercury/Gemini) from something more intimate. People/situations can be tricky to read. It's like one eye is wearing our magnifying-readers and the other our rose-colored glasses. Choices/decisions could get confusing. Because all the choices are not
'real' anyway, there could be something here about making our decisions by
the process of elimination.
It will be important to break things down into manageable pieces and focus on the moving parts, because focusing on the whole will lead us down the fantastical path (imagining things both better or worse than they actually are or we get overwhelmed and things never get off the ground at all). There will be a need to integrate the connection/idealism of Neptune into our daily lives (art, theater, music, meditation, prayer, being in water can help with this), but we will have to take practical steps, too, or opportunities/the days will just drift away.
Keep in mind though, some of this drift is intended.
If we needed to be sharp as a tack right now, we would be.
When we have hard aspects from Mercury to Neptune we might find ourselves curled up in our left brain, not wanting to make a move until we have the 'right' answer. And I know I said in the weekly to slow down and not jump the gun (because this is a repeating aspect - a process, not so much because of the aspect itself). Once we start moving through this transit and understand what is happening here, we are going to be most successful by merging a certain unreasonableness/irrationality/the mystical (Neptune!) into our lives. When we do the 'dreamy stuff' rather than just imagining we are doing it or just talking about it - we start to activate miracles.
So, as we move through the decisions of the next couple weeks, instead of asking ourselves, "what is the right thing to do?" and getting hung up on that, because this 'right thing to do' will not be obvious and we can sit here growing cobwebs and wide asses
- we are going to have to work both sides of this thing and merge our dreams and our current circumstances. We can't ignore either one. We are going to have to ask ourselves which decision gets us closer to our long term dreams coming true. We don't have to think too big with this because remember we are breaking things down into the moving parts. There will be a decision - and some of this will be a process of elimination - that is better. And we will start to move toward that.
With Mercury/Neptune there will be opportunities to learn by osmosis. To pull the right word/idea right out of the air just when we need it. To talk to ghosts. To connect with our intuition/our pasts/our ancestors in very practical ways. We'll talk about this more as we move through it, for now Mercury (out of bounds, so doing whatever he wants) and Neptune (who kind of always does whatever he wants) are applying to this square, so it's in play.
Keep the idea of balancing these two energies in mind and treat life as if Mercury retrograde has already started - double check emails before hitting send, read the fine print, be as certain as you can that you are being understood, don't make assumptions, don't gossip, yada yada. We might be more tired. Need more rest. Neptune squares can bring water problems/infestations/lack of boundaries.
This will probably be strongest felt by Gemini and Virgo risings (since Mercury rules your charts), Pisces risings (can be more challenged by facts), people with natal Mercury/Neptune squares and people with planets and points near 20 degrees of the mutable signs.
We will ALL be feeling this though and we'll talk about it more as we move through it, but I wanted to write a heads up because this is a big part of the upcoming Eclipse season and Mercury retrograde season. Picture yourself merging the two halves of your brain.
Hope something here is helpful!
xo all
artwork by the amazing Silvio Porzionato
