We are officially in the Mercury Front End Shadow period that began on March 18th. Mercury aligned with the True North Node on the same day and the Mean North Node the next day (March 19th) with the first of 3 Mercury/Chiron conjunctions happening on March 20th. PAY ATTENTION to March 18th-20th as some very big insights and hints just came in about what your personal Mercury Retrograde journey is going to be about (also pay attention to collective themes!).
Mercury in Aries is a time to rethink, review and revise our relationships with the Masculine. This includes our relationship to anger and rage, to will and drive, to ego and assertion, and to agency and our power to act and initiate. Some of us are great at these but we overdo them in ways that are selfish, aggressive, combative and even violent. Others of us suppress and deny these qualities and we need to bring them out of the Unconscious and learn to work with them consciously.
Did you know that it is important to have a healthy ego? Ego is not all bad- it is the container for Spirit and a healthy ego helps us move about the world in clear and intentional ways. The key is that Ego needs to be in service to Spirit- the masculine in us has to allow the feminine (our hearts) to lead. It is the role of the masculine to protect the feminine- to guard her with clear boundaries so that she can live with an open heart and be receptive to receiving inspiration from Spirit.
So we each need to check in right now on how our masculine energy is being run? Are we overdoing it and our inner masculine dominates and controls? Are we under-doing it by stuffing anger, not taking action and not speaking up for ourselves? Honest self check-ins about where your work lies will serve you well in the couple of months ahead.
Mercury will station Retrograde at 27’13 Aries on April 1st and he stations Direct again at 15’58 Aries on April 25th. His Front End Shadow began March 18th and he exits his backend shadow on May 13th. During this time he makes triple conjunctions to both Chiron the Wounded Healer and Eris the Goddess of Activism and Chaos!!!
From March 18th through 20th Mercury triggered the Chiron/North Node conjunction (the Chiron/North Node conjunction was exact February 19th for True Nodes and March 5th for Mean Nodes). This is arguably some of the biggest Astrology in 2024 and Mercury Retrograde triggers it and the coming Total Solar Eclipse in Aries on April 8th also triggers it. You can consider the Chiron/North Node portal to last from February through May with the last of the 3 Mercury/Chiron conjunctions happening the end of the first week of May.
Where are you being shown what you need to heal? Where are old wounds and pain arising to be seen and worked with? Chiron governs awareness so the first step on any healing path is becoming aware of where things need healing! What is out of balance? What is toxic? What is needing tending to? You probably got some big reveals in this last month- and now we head into deeper territory that demands we TAKE ACTION and deal with the things that are arising.
As we move more deeply into Front End Shadow and Mercury aligns with Eris for the first of three times on March 26th- I suggest paying attention to what comes in and where the Goddess of Discord & Chaos as well as the Goddess of Revealing the Shadow is shaking things up in your life. Shake ups can lead to wake ups! Breakdowns can lead to breakthroughs! There is magic afoot!
Also keep in mind the day before the first Eris conjunction we have the Lunar Eclipse in Libra. If you have not read my Lunar Insight on this Full Moon Eclipse you can do so here- https://divineharmony.com/lunar-insight/lunar-eclipse-in-libra-balancing-the-scales-of-karma-3-25-24/
So we are heading into the Eclipse Portal, Mercury Retrograde, Chiron on the North Node activations and more! This is a VERY POWERFUL TIME for healing and Inner Work. Use it wisely <3
You can read the Star Sparks and Sabian Symbols for the Mercury Station Degrees below. You can also see the dates for exact conjunctions during this Retrograde journey below.
Blessings…
~Harmony
ANNOUNCEMENT– I am having a Flash Sale on all Courses & Masterclasses from Monday April 8th’s through end of day April 20th (From Solar Eclipse to Jupiter/Uranus conjunction!). Learn more about my Flash Sale here- https://divineharmony.com/astrology-blog/flash-sale-on-all-courses-masterclasses-4-8-4-20/
DATES
Front End Shadow begins – 3/18
Retrograde Station at 27’13 Aries – 4/1
Station Direct at 15’58 Aries – 4/25
Exit Back End Shadow – 5/13
MAJOR THEMES
conjunct Mean North Node- 3/19 – ONLY ONCE
conjunct True North Node- 3/18 – ONLY ONCE
conjunct Chiron – 3/20, 4/15, 5/6
conjunct Eris- 3/26, 4/8, 5/11
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE & PAY ATTENTION TO
Mercury Stations Retrograde close to Eris- 3/26 (1st conjunction), 4/1 (station RX), 4/8 (2nd conjunction- also the date of Total Solar Eclipse!). PAY ATTENTION to 3/26-4/8!
Mercury Stations Direct close to Chiron- 4/15 (2nd conjunction while RX), 4/25 (station Direct), 5/6 (3rd and final conjunction). PAY ATTENTION to 4/15-5/6!
SABIAN SYMBOLS
by Dane Rudhyar
16 ARIES
PHASE 16 (ARIES 16°): NATURE SPIRITS ARE SEEN AT WORK IN THE LIGHT OF SUNSET.
KEYNOTE: Attunement to the potency of invisible forces, of nature.
In the light of personal fulfillment (symbol of sunset and wisdom) man may be able to establish a life-giving contact with natural forces. These are active any time growth processes take place, but man’s individualized mind is usually too focused on working for consciously set goals to be able to realize concretely the presence of invisible (or “occult”) forces in operation. These forces constitute a specific realm of any planetary life. They are inherent in all “biospheres,” on whatever planet. They are non-individualized and un-free energies forming in the substratum of all life processes – thus of the process of integration at the level of the planet-as-a-whole, i.e. the planet as an organism with its automatic systems of growth, maintenance and organic multiplication. In this planetary organism those nature forces act as guiding and balancing-harmonizing factors – somewhat as the endocrine system does in a human body, and behind this system the more occult web of chakra energies related to prana – the solar energy. It is when this energy becomes less dominant – thus symbolically at sunset – or when the body energy is weakened by illness, fasting or sensory deprivation, that it becomes easier to perceive these “nature spirits” and to give them forms that symbolize the character of their activities. These forms differ with the cultural imagery of each human collectivity, retaining nevertheless some basically similar characteristics.
When this Sabian symbol reaches into the consciousness of a man seeking meaning, it should be seen as an invitation to open his mind to the possibility of approaching life in a holistic and nonrational, intuitive manner.
This is the first stage of the fourth five-fold sequence of cyclic phases. It implies a call to REPOTENTIALIZATION. What this means also is the process of “becoming like a little child.”
28 ARIES
PHASE 28 (ARIES 28°): A LARGE AUDIENCE CONFRONTS THE PERFORMER WHO DISAPPOINTED ITS EXPECTATIONS.
KEYNOTE: The necessity for mature preparation and self-criticism.
We see here the tangible results of the situation evoked by the two preceding symbols. Great hopes, excited expectations cannot be sustained. The last symbol reveals the performer’s state of consciousness; in this one he is actually made fully aware of having promised – to the many elements of his own personality as well as perhaps to other human beings – more than he was able to deliver. The issue is how to handle this situation. In one form or another, it is an often recurring situation in the life of an individual person. The manner in which it is met determines the individual’s future possibilities of development and achievement.
This is the third stage of this five-fold sequence. What is implied here is the need to be more than “obsessed by potentiality” and subjectively involved in the use of the new powers. The objective results have to be considered, i.e. what this use will do. The individual is not alone concerned, for in a sense mankind as a whole will be affected. What is required, therefore, is an objective inclusiveness of the whole environment; thus a sense of RESPONSIBILITY for what one’s actions will produce in people who have been made to expect significant results.
STAR SPARKS
by Ellias Lonsdale
Aries 16
Three sculptured birds: one black marble, one white marble, one solid gold.
Our soul is depth of feeling, brightness of thinking, and potential for a new kind of will to enact itself through us. First, though, we are meant to journey far under into the emotional depths and to invest heavily in the mind’s lucidities, and to see where these take us.
The darker feeling spaces are compelling, liberating, and corrosive. We are placed firmly down inside our multiple responses and reactions to outer life and its dramas. Many of these fragments are habitual, frenzied, automatic. We rake ourselves through the coals, for we are unconsciously intent upon losing ourselves fully in the spaces of self-negation, and having very little direction or sense of purpose. When we are most deeply under these layers, we do a great imitation of being far gone with no way back.
The mind looks very good when we have labored under chaotic emotion for a while. We rise into the clear open spaces of our objective intelligence. Now we have a handle on our lives. We know how to operate, how to keep everything in front of us, how to impress others. Best of all, we are released for a time from the grip of the depths and left to float free upon the outer surface. We can be brilliant at taking fullest advantage of this cycle of coming into the powers and the marvels of the outer mind.
The core-will that seeks to come through us awaits the exhaustion of both avenues of escape. What then arises is a superlative, tremendously wide-open gift for grounding and focusing through us the aspirations and longings, the activities and exploratory range of humanity emerging into our own true destiny path. We center upon free deeds, acts of will in a dedicated, surrendered sense. For our will is at one with the collective destiny so profoundly that we can, if we will, help to lead everybody forward with humility and passionate intent.
Aries 28
A wreath of laurel placed on the head of an old man.
He has always been entirely intent upon finishing what he has begun. He could go back eons to find where it really started. But what he’s concerned with is where it ends. He has agreed before birth to fulfill his potential this time around, to enact the total dimension of his true being. He cannot get out of it. No matter what he tries to do, no matter how far the tangents and rebellions, he is committed to his course of action.
While he waits, while he moves into and through all the preparatory stages, he is burning to be recognized, to be certified, to be granted his ultimate place in the sun. It is when somebody sees him that the false impressions of the multitude are countered by a guiding action, a monitoring, a sense of being on the right course, regardless of how it sometimes seems when you are still raw and unformed.
As he matures, he becomes a different character altogether. He is getting close to that final mark. He carries such weight of passionate conviction that he does draw all the recognitions he needs. He is sensing so close at hand the point of mastery, the place of power, the fruition of inner truth.
When he looks back, he will see a tortuous course, eluding so many barriers and obstacles. Yet when he looks forward, the horizon is unclouded, the direction firm and clear.
Along his endless pathway, he has learned so much. Each day he keeps on discovering, exploring, coming to new places. Life is such an adventure.
This end will turn out to be a new beginning. Destiny fulfills itself and awakens on the next spiral. When momentum is going your way, there is no place to stop.