Mercury Retrograde Election Day

It was 2000, when Al Gore won the election and George Bush took office. Remember the chaos that surrounded that election? It really was classic Mercury station material. And it's not a good precedent.
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Something happens this year that's never happened before in American history: Mercury stations retrograde on the day of a presidential election.

Just about everyone who follows astrology has heard the term "Mercury retrograde." This is an approximately three-week spell, happening three times a year, wherein Mercury appears to move backwards through the zodiac. It's a visual illusion -- Mercury is actually passing between the Earth and the Sun, creating an apparent rather than real effect. (Mercury's year is a third the length of ours, hence, this happens three times a year).

I know it seems like a lot more frequently than that. Lots of people say that "Mercury is always retrograde," which is not true -- but Mercury is always Mercury, which means it's tricky, and requires a combination of cleverness, skill and respect to handle, whether moving retrograde or direct.

The first and last days of any Mercury retrograde are usually the most challenging. Those days are called stations, which is short for stationary; one is that station retrograde (when the retrograde begins), and one is the station direct (when it ends). The word station in this context means "changes directions."

There can be considerable confusion on the day of Mercury station, and in fact for about four days on either side there's something astrologers refer to as the Mercury storm. Think of this as the change of direction rippling out in time. It's turbulent, just like a ferry pulling into the dock, with the captain putting the engines in reverse to slow the ship down. When that happens, the water is churning in all directions.

On the day of a Mercury station, that's how the mental and psychic energy feels. We get the worst, and the most interesting, manifestations of the retrograde on the days that it begins and ends -- and that happens next on Nov. 6, the day of the 2012 presidential election, when Mercury stations retrograde in early Sagittarius.

Someone on the Planet Waves research team compared all the dates of retrogrades to the dates of presidential elections, and discovered that Mercury has never before stationed retrograde on a the day of a presidential election. And it's only stationed direct once. Take a guess what year that was.

It was 2000, when Al Gore won the election and George Bush took office. Remember the chaos that surrounded that election? It really was classic Mercury station material. And it's not a good precedent. Clearly, it was a terrible outcome; we ended up with a president who owed nothing to the people, because the people did not elect him. The Supreme Court elected him, in part by halting a recount. (The station direct happened in Libra, the scales -- an appropriate sign for describing judicial intervention.)

A Long Process Begins Nov. 6

Mercury stationing retrograde on Election Day begins a long process of the retrograde, just in the last hours of the voting process. All of the tallying, the news reporting, the certifications and the legal challenges, will happen not just under a retrograde; most of it will happen under the influence of the station and the subsequent retrograde. This is unlikely to be pretty.

We are looking at the possibility of irregularities that could take weeks or months to sort out, and where the truth may never be known. The results may seem to change suddenly. With the retrograde happening in Sagittarius (another sign associated with the courts) there are likely to be legal challenges. My colleagues and I at Planet Waves have been analyzing this chart for a year; it seems to illustrate the meltdown of the electoral process.

I know most people think the polls are running in Obama's direction, though we still have the endgame to consider -- and from the looks of the astrology it's going to be quite a game indeed.

We've been talking about this for many months now. There are efforts afoot in many states to block voter participation. All these efforts conclude on a presidential Election Day -- the first in history -- where Mercury stations retrograde. It makes perfect sense, really, at least as an illustration and even pointing to a result.

If there is a silver lining to this whole business, it's this. I've noticed observing many, many Mercury retrogrades that they have a common property: The truth comes out. Whatever we witness, we will have access to seeing a bit more of reality than we're accustomed to. The question is, will we recognize it when we do? Will anyone care? Or will it stoke cynicism? If anything happens to the Internet, we will have a clue why that might be.

There's an especially interesting factor in the chart for the retrograde, which suggests the potential for even more complications than normal. Mercury will be in Sagittarius, and Jupiter will be in Gemini. If you know a little astrology you might recognize that Mercury will be in Jupiter's sign and Jupiter will be in Mercury's sign. That's a rare condition called mutual reception.

It can have several effects. One is that the planets can seem to trade places in their influence. We have to look carefully what's coming from what direction, who is projecting and who might be blaming someone with doing with what they just did.

Another interpretation is that of a hostage situation. The two planets are in a sense held captive in a sign they have little in common with. This suggests that seemingly different political theories and approaches actually support one another. In an election, we're supposed to be differentiating between the candidates, but we don't usually notice the ways in which their approaches and conduct are similar or identical.

We tend to overlook the ways that boundaries that are breached during Republican administrations become business as usual during Democratic administrations. Behind the facade of ideology is the fact that "the business of America is business," and I don't mean the local ice cream shop. I mean the companies that can afford to buy elections -- and I mean the business of war. All the political shenanigans we witness have one end, really -- the perpetuation of constant war.

The Last Weeks of the Race

Let's look at the few weeks prior to the election, which are just as interesting as Mercury stationing retrograde. On Saturday. Oct. 6, one month before the election, Mars arrives in Sagittarius. Mars is the planet of war -- and Mars will be in aspect to Neptune, which can imply "drunk with... " and also "deceived about... "

Sagittarius is also the sign of international affairs; Mars trekking across this sign in the last weeks of the election and for the week after looks like some kind of contentious international event, and if it happens, you can be pretty sure it's false flag (meaning concocted). In the first week of November -- right before the election -- Mars is right in the thick of the Sagittarius mix, making contact with a group of small planets that carry themes of cruelty, warfare, grief and mourning. Are we looking at some outsized terrorism event? An assassination? A 'new' war? We know that Israel and Iran are factors that could definitely influence the election, particularly if there is some huge false-flag event that precedes Nov. 6.

We are also in the midst of the 2012 aspect -- Uranus square Pluto, which spans from mid-2012 through early 2015. This is an aspect of revolution, but the question is, whose revolution?

On one level, all of this chaos that is happening in the world -- and that may emerge as the election approaches -- is a ruse. It's being used by people who have other agendas, those that thrive in conditions where order has been broken up into a kind of cultivated anarchy. The chart for the 2012 election is a warning to be aware of the agendas that are at play.

As author Chris Hedges wrote after the Citizens' United decision that allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections: "Liberals, socialists, trade unionists, independent journalists and intellectuals, many of whom were once important voices in our society, have been silenced or targeted for elimination within corporate-controlled academia, the media and government." So what are we to do? Pay attention. Yes, vote. Help bring out the vote; encourage others (especially young people) to vote and try to take at least one other person to the polls, who might not normally go.

But voting is not enough. It is absolutely not enough. Not now -- and not ever. Question what you see and hear in the media. Question your own opinions. Educate others about what you learn. Use every tool at your disposal to get the word out. Take a personal stand and refuse to believe lies, and refuse to be manipulated. Research the truth yourself, and try to figure out what's really going on. Yes, Mercury will be retrograde, and it may be hard to get to the bottom of things. But astrology is no excuse.

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