Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius 2022 — Rethinking Our Ideals for the Future

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The battle can be grueling. The human soul, tired of fighting for ideals of which it does not know the foundations. The cosmic mind looks to the past, to what happened in the last year.
What have we learned? What have we based our ideals on? What is the practical direction of our battle? The heavens ask us to reconsider it, according to what can and cannot be done.

In this article we are going to talk about the first of the three Mercury retrograde transits of the year. A moment when the mind is asked to look within, in order to process inner issues. This time the focus is on our ideals and direction for the future. Let’s see this transit into more detail.

Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius 2022

First of, let’s take a look at what Mercury is doing. In the picture below you can see both its aspects and ephemeris. Although it would seem that Mercury is going to make aspects with Saturn and Uranus around Jan 14, this is not exactly true.

Mercury is going to approach Saturn in Aquarius, but it’s not going to perfect the conjunction, turning retrograde just before it. The same applies to the square with Uranus. Of course this has to do with the Saturn-Uranus Square, the main astrological event of 2021. You can read more about clicking the link.

The Saturn-Uranus Square has perfected on Christmas Eve, and it’s now getting weaker and weaker. A Mercury retrograde transit that barely touches it, and then backs off, has a clear meaning.

Mercury is not going to activate the Saturn-Uranus Square. On the contrary, it’s going to second-guess both Saturn and Uranus behavior, asking them: what are you doing? Is this fight really in your best interest?

This is a list of Mercury perfect aspects for January, and as you can see the planet gets retrograde before perfecting the conjunction with Saturn and the square with Uranus (that’s why they are missing in the list).

• Jan 2, 2022 : Mercury enters Aquarius
• Jan 14, 2022 : Mercury turns retrograde at 10° 20′ Aquarius
• Jan 23, 2022 : Sun ( 3Aqu22) Conjunct [ 3Aqu22] Mercury
• Jan 26, 2022 : Mercury enters Capricorn
• Jan 29, 2022 : Mercury [26Cap51] Conjunct (26Cap51) Pluto

What catches our attention though, is Mercury’s conjunction with Pluto. This conjunction is going to happen twice, giving the transit a specific color. As you can see below, this conjunction is very long, and it’s going to fade away only in the middle of February with Mercury getting back to Aquarius.

Here’s the aspect list for February:

• Feb  4, 2022 : Mercury turns direct at 24° 22′ Capricorn
• Feb 11, 2022 : Mercury (27Cap16) Conjunct (27Cap16) Pluto
• Feb 14, 2022 : Mercury enters Aquarius
• Feb 25, 2022 : Mercury (11Aqu25) Square (11Tau25) Uranus

In summary, Mercury:

1. is going to station in Aquarius, barely touching the Saturn-Uranus Square;
2. is going to go back to Capricorn, performing a long conjunction with Pluto.

Now, how can we interpret all of this?

Mercury Retrograde Meaning
from Aquarius to Capricorn

Aquarius is the zodiac sign of humanitarian ideals. Whereas Capricorn is a realist and pessimistic sign, that focuses on survival. Hence, we can interpret Mercury passage from Aquarius to Capricorn as a moment that makes our mind to second-guess our ideals, in favor of a more practical approach.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, if we consider that Jupiter in Pisces is bringing new inspirations in this regard. Governments (Saturn in Aquarius) brought a form of change that goes against the population (Uranus in Taurus). This struggle needs to end, in order to create space for new spiritual impulses to emerge (Jupiter).

But before doing that we need to process all the media manipulation and the lies that we have suffered so far. The mind (Mercury) goes back (retrograde) to lies of the past (Pluto) in order to process them and to unveil the truth.

In general, this transit involves not only lies, omissions, but also power dynamics and manipulation—which are all Plutonic significations. This being said, in order to consciously process the transit we can ask ourselves:

• Are our ideals attainable?
• Do we have enough power to make them happen?
• Are we using them not to face reality or hide behind them?
• Where has fighting for our ideals led us so far?
• What are the lies they have told us / we’ve been telling ourselves?

As always if you want to see how the transit is affecting you specifically, you can contextualize it in your Natal Chart by checkin 10° 20′ Aquarius and 24° 22′ Capricorn. Which astrological houses or planets are involved? Mercury retrograde brings communication issues in the areas of life represented by them.

Venus Retrograde and
the Second Stellium in Capricorn

This transit is taking place during Venus Retrograde which is going to end only on January 29, with Venus turning direct at 11° 04′ Capricorn. This means that these communication issues might also involve (or occur together with) relationship issues.

We’ve already seen how Venus is going to challenge us in this regard. In particular we want to bring our attention to the second stellium in Capricorn, taking place from January 26 to February 14.

This is the interpretation we gave:

But how do we interpret this second stellium? In a nutshell, it is going to be the time of the trial. If we have not elaborated what Venus retrograde and Mercury retrograde have asked of us, the severity of the Capricorn will strike. That is, we will have to embrace the sword of Mars and fight the clash that we have not been able to prevent.

The combination of Venus Retrograde and Mercury Retrograde can be challenging. However, we also want to remember that the Capricorn region of the sky has been recently cleansed by the passage of the beautiful Leonard Comet (click on the link to read more).

Mercury Retrograde dates

• Direct [Pre-Shadow] : Dec 29, 2021 reaching 24° 22′ Aquarius
• Retrograde : Jan 14, 2022 first station at 10° 20′ Aquarius
• Direct [Post-Shadow] : Feb 4, 2022 second station at 24° 22′ Capricorn
• Direct: Feb 25, 2022 leaving behind 10° 20′ Aquarius

Thanks for reading, as always if you enjoyed this article please subscribe to the Astronomicon Newsletter with the bar at the top of the website to receive weekly updates and not to miss future posts about Mercury or Venus Retrograde. Thanks again and have a good week.