"My God, Don't You Ever Shut Up?"

One of my Gemini friends taught this phrase to me on the second day I knew him. He made me repeat it until I got the words and intonation just right, since he knew I'd be using it quite a bit.

I'm a quick study. The phrase has come in handy, and not just with him; in the past week alone I've used it at least ten times on various people, and thought it really hard a dozen more. I've even asked myself the question, and the answer is a decidedly smart-ass "Don't think so."

Jeez. When you're even bickering with yourself, you know something's up.

What's up is a stellium of planets in gabby Gemini, which includes a retrograde Mercury and some really annoying squares. This acute attack of verbal diarrhea isn't curing itself any time soon, not if the planets have anything to say about it.

Gemini isn't particularly argumentative on its own. Gemini isn't interested in competitive debate; it wants to talk, and arguments just get in the way of a good run-at-the-mouth gabfest. So why is everybody suddenly declaiming?

Blame Uranus in Pisces. Over the next three days, Uranus will be squared first by Venus and then by the Sun as they pass together through Gemini. Squares are irritating, and Uranus lacks diplomacy at the best of times; as I've been warning many of you for two months, people are apt to say anything.

That includes you. While I won't advise anyone to hide in the basement, I will advise a bit of caution. If you have friends, acquaintances, colleagues or lovers that you actually want to keep, it might be best to avoid any touchy subjects.

Bicker about the weather, dish some far-off celebrity, find some completely neutral subject you can argue about-- I don't know, just stay away from personal issues if you can. What starts out as a harmless poke could turn into an insult-fest of truly epic proportions. We all have it in us, and this kind of astrological weather takes the governor off the verbal inhibitions.

Here's an idea: make a secret list of people who have grievously annoyed you. Spend hours penning the most brilliantly entertaining letters of insult you can manage, one for each offender-- extra points for scope, style, wit, and subtlety. Revise, revise, revise! Once you've managed to create the perfect literary portrait of your subject in all his or her assanine glory, burn it.

No, really. Don't save it for posterity, because you'll end up putting a stamp on it later in July when Mercury finishes his square to Uranus, right about the time of the Mars/Uranus opposition. Yikes.

And meantime, remember the old adage: "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me."

Not Your Everyday Mercury Retrograde, Part Two

In the first half of this article, I explained my take on this summer’s Mercury retrograde period, and promised to take a closer look at the connections between Mercury and Uranus.

Sorry it’s taken a while to get around to part two, but I’ve been in the hospital having a few spare parts removed (thank god for gall bladder surgery, for pain meds, and for friends who are willing to smuggle in illicit substances like soda, cigs, and homemade Vietnamese food.)

We’re already well within orb of the Mercury/Uranus square, and although Mercury won’t slow down in the sky for another few days, certain effects are already in play. People are just saying stuff, stuff they wouldn’t ordinarily say. They’re asking bizarre questions and getting equally bizarre answers; informal polling (in other words, I asked around) hints at plenty of uncontrollable mental hamster-wheeling.

Of course, the approaching Full Moon in Scorpio has something to do with this, but for now we’re concentrating on Mercury and Uranus.

What does it mean to say that Uranus is a higher octave of Mercury?

As a planet and a symbol, Mercury represents raw energy expressed as motion between one point and another. Simple enough? This can be mental or cognitive motion (moving from one thought or idea to another inside your own head) or communicative motion (moving a thought or idea from inside your head to a point somewhere else, like a friend’s listening ear, a quick email, or a master’s thesis.) It can also be literal physical motion (moving a thing or a person from one point to another) so long as we’re focusing solely on the motion, the act of linear movement from point A to point B.

Hence, Mercury rules communications of all kinds, certain intellectual pathways in the mind, the bus ride to work, and UPS.

Uranus, on the other hand, represents raw energy expressed as unpredictable, nonlinear, inexplicable motion—as from point A directly to point E. While Mercury needs to traverse B, C, and D to get to E (almost instantly in some cases, city buses aside) Uranus ignores the traditional laws of cause and effect and just...appears. It acts without regard to the normal chain of causation.

Hence, Uranus rules unpredictable events, sudden changes, the bizarre reappearance of your high school sweetheart, and certain kinds of mad genius.

For the science and sci-fi buffs out there, it’s like the difference between Newtonian physics (Mercury) and quantum physics (Uranus.) The Heisenburg uncertainty principle and the resulting “quantum weirdness” perfectly describes the properties of Uranian energy flow. It’s mappable or measurable, but never both at the same time. A point can be both here and there, or neither here nor there, and can transmit information faster than the speed of light without mucking around with all those billions of light years in between. It makes no sense in terms of traditional logic.

Huh?

As a more practical example, if an idea for building a better mousetrap takes a Mercurial path, it will quickly explore all the logical pathways available, follow a few byways and dead-end alleys just to be sure, then emerge as a nicely rationalized set of blueprints. The mousetrap is very likely to be of sound design and function, though perhaps not terribly innovative.

If the mousetrap idea takes the Uranian path, a vision of the ultimate mice-catching device will just be there, inexplicably, with no real justification or proof or logical paper trail behind it. It’ll probably be a sketch, scratched on a coffee-stained napkin. It may not be practically possible to build the thing, and even if it were, it may not actually catch any mice. But we could discover later that, while useless as a mousetrap, it functions as a miraculous invention that keeps cheese from ever going moldy. Surprise!

The same thing happens with events, too. Happenings ruled by Mercury are ultimately predictable, if you can manage to follow their trails through the insubstantial, airy whirlpools of Mercurial logic. Happenings ruled by Uranus are never predictable, except possibly as statistics or estimates of likelihood. Even then, they’ll surprise you, especially with their ultimate outcomes.

I almost hate the term “higher octave,” to tell you the truth. It makes it sound as if Mercury is the lower function and Uranus the higher, which is blatantly silly. It’s almost like trying to qualitatively compare one shade of red to another shade of red. They’re both describing the same kind of process (movement of energy from one place/state to another) and are simply two sides of the same coin.

Mercury functions are one necessary element of our lives, and Uranian functions are another. Without Mercury, we’d never get anything done. Without Uranus, we’d never do anything new.

So, what happens now? These two halves of the coin are linked during this transit, and are linked in a slightly irritating way. Gemini Mercury’s logical, linear action will be suppressed through much of June due to its retrograde motion, and Uranus is sitting in Pisces, a sign which has little use for logic in the first place.

As far as sun signs go, Gemini, Virgo, Aries, and Pisces will likely be the most affected (read your individual May predictions for specifics.) I still hate to predict what these effects will be, because Uranus and Mercury work in very personalized ways, but they’ll be surprising, and they’ll be illogical.

Pisces should do okay with this, but it could drive Virgo up a tree, and Gemini too. Just relax, guys...it may not make sense, but it could be quite enlightening...inspiring, even.

Sagittarius and Aquarius will face surprises in terms of playmates and significant others. Aquarius is in a beautiful position to receive incredible flashes of insight; pay close attention to those inexplicable ideas that pop into your head. I doubt I need to tell you this, Waterbearer, but there’s no need to justify them to anyone else, not even yourself. Just write ‘em down (or sketch them on a napkin) and go with it.

Depending on where your natal Mercury is placed, you could have some interesting experiences regardless of your Sun sign. Gemini Mercuries are first in line, and will probably feel the most out-of-sorts. Aquarius Mercuries are in a similar position to Aquarius Sun signs; get ready for significant bolts out of the blue. Leo Mercury may find itself irritated, and Cancer Mercury may feel blindsided.

(Note: some astrologers say that if Mercury was retrograde in your natal chart, these transiting Mercury retrograde periods don’t affect you as much. I’m still on the fence.)

Otherwise, there are still some very supportive transits out there, and everything will eventually work itself out. All this strange motion will be past us by mid-July, which will be a real relief to many, and a bit disappointing to others.

I, for one, will hate to see it go. Then again, I’ve got medication, pho soup, and a doctor’s excuse.

Bring it on!

(For those of you who are post-surgical or just plain bored, and would like to read more about Newtonian vs. quantum physics, Tim Ferris’ The Whole Shebang is highly recommended.)

pictured at top: a gorgeous photograph of a vortex dipole by Dr. Yakov Afanassiev

Not Your Everyday Mercury Retrograde

Yes, it’s that time again, boys and grrls. Mercury is about to do its retrograde thing, just like it does two or three times every year. May 26 is the official start date, and the little bugger won’t go direct again until June 20.

(Insert usual warnings here: back up your hard drives now, don’t sign any contracts during the retrograde period, double-check your change at the video store, and all that jazz.)

Yeah, we’ve heard it all before, and sometimes we even make the effort to pay attention. Sometimes we get hit with a few communication snafus, and sometimes we get off scot-free. Sometimes we get smug about it and then Mercury hits us with a catastrophic blue-screen motherboard crash in the follow-up shadow period.

Along with representing everyday communications and information exchange, Mercury represents the Trickster archetype. If your mental picture of the Great Cosmic Joker in the Sky (or in the collective unconscious, if you will) includes nothing but bells, bad knock-knock jokes, and a few pies in the face, allow me to gently disillusion you.

He can be real bastard.

Mercury as Trickster has a job to do. He is not put here to make our lives easier, more pleasant, more thigh-slapping humorous—that would be Jerry Lewis. Mercury the Trickster’s job is to shatter our existing mental paradigms.

You know all those comfortable preconceived ideas you carry around, the ones that help you get through the day? Like “Stoplights turn green after being red for a given amount of time,” or “This contract I’m signing with the dog groomer can’t possibly do me any harm.” When Mercury the Trickster is involved, the stoplight might decide to skip green altogether, causing a nice four-car pileup. The Canine Unit could turn up and indict you on charges of contributing to an international smuggling operation involving a doggy deodorant banned in forty-nine countries as cruel and unusual.

Think of it this way: how funny is a Zen koan (“What’s the sound of one hand clapping?”) when it involves your real actual life? Contemplation is all very well, but in real life we tend to like our existing frameworks to stay put.

Mercury has many faces, and when he’s in retrograde, the Trickster is one of the most prominent. This time around, we could be in for more interesting twists than usual.

Foremost, the retrograde happens in Mercury’s home sign of Gemini. Nowhere is Mercury more mercurial than here. Furthermore, there’s a lingering square to Uranus that will, without a doubt, cause a twist or two.

Mercury squared to Uranus usually coincides with mental agitation-- not “good” agitation or “bad” agitation, just agitation in general. Look for a flurry of activity around the blogosphere and elsewhere beginning this week (the square actually moves into solid orb near the 14th.) Sometimes this agitation leads to spots of brilliance, while sometimes it just leads to sleepless nights and ridiculous arguments.

Avoid caffeine if you can bear it (I can’t, but good luck to you.) A few bouts of insomnia are damn-near inevitable.

Due to the retrograde, this square will last a lot longer than usual—all the way through July 5, which is the date of the exact aspect, with a brief grace period between June 12 and June 27.

You can get some sleep then. Meantime, try to make peace with the bags under your eyes.

Did you know that Uranus is considered to be the higher octave of Mercury? If Mercury the retrograde Trickster will be showing us his backside anyway, what in the world will happen when Shock-Of-Your-Life Uranus gets in on the action?

What’s going to jump out of the cosmic cake and yell “Surprise!” this time around?

In part two, I’ll offer up a surmise or three, plus gibber on a bit about how Mercury and Uranus are related. I’d do it now, but I’ll need something to keep me occupied while I’m busy not sleeping.

(Pictured above: "Invocation (Trickster Throws the Dice)" by Anna Conti, acrylic, http://www.bigcrow.com/ )