A Facebook friend posted earlier today about how people are being jerks all around and you would think that Mercury is still retrograde. Excuse me for harping on this issue, but there is a lot going on astrologically, all the time, that has nothing to do with Mercury. Or retrogrades. Now, I don't blame this person at all for attributing it to Mercury retro, since that is the only thing that modern astrologers seem to teach these days about what might be going "wrong" in a chart or in transits. Until better quality info gets out there, or at least the understanding that things are more complex than one planet's being retrograde, folks won't have even the basic language to begin to understand any of this.
However, the really interesting thing here was a comment that was made in response to that post. A self-identified astrologer attributed this people-lashing-out business to the fact that Pluto is retrograde until September. As stated in one of my earlier posts, Pluto (along with Uranus and Neptune) is retrograde for about six months every year. Yup, easy math: 50% of the time, these planets are retrograde. So blaming current behavior on something as generalized as that (citing Pluto's "intensity") really seems a lazy response, not to mention a particularly modern one.
My own response to the issue is that Jupiter and Uranus are standing at 0 degrees Aries, on the world axis. Haughty Jupiter and unbound, unpredictable Uranus in the cardinal fire sign may be spewing forth this energy that people have a right to do whatever they want, consequences be damned. Saturn is only 3 degrees off the opposition, in late Virgo; so beneath this outward haughtiness and disdain for consequences, there may be a nagging feeling that it's not OK to be a jerk, but that just makes people feel guiltier (Saturn) and even jerkier about it. Mercury is about to hit 0 Gemini, so don't be surprised to see an onslaught of words that usher that smug, holier-than-thou attitude into the public arena. The Moon will be crossing this point (0 Gemini) for a few hours too, so Thursday of this week might be particularly unbearable. But this will pass.
My real wish is for those who call themselves astrologers to investigate and study things more deeply before making public pronouncements. In this day of Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and other social media, anyone who calls herself or himself an astrologer, and who pronounces publicly on astrology, has a responsibility to educate themselves enough so that when they do speak or write, they don't embarrass those of us who take this Art seriously enough to do so.Labels: Astrologer, Jupiter, Mercury, Mercury Retrograde, Retrograde, Saturn, Uranus