Mercury enters Libra today, August 27th until November 1st 2015, making an extra long transit through this sign due to Mercury’s Retrograde motion from September 17th to October 9th. During this time we have the challenges of relating, listening and responding, rather than debating, reacting, and sabotaging in various ways. Since most people who are aware of Mercury Retrograde tend to look for or predominantly notice its negative occurrences I suggest considering an alternate view. Sometimes what is lost is found, who is sick becomes healed, what is malfunctioning becomes fixed or more likely replaced. If there’s an area you’ve been stuck in, it could be that you suddenly break free.

With Mercury in Libra, it becomes important for more of us to get our priorities straight. If vacillation or uncertainty has already been an issue somewhere in your life, you may discover the ability to finally decide and act. In some cases, injustices will be reviewed, and justices will be served.  Since Mercury will be going Retrograde it may be that ideas must gathered and plans thoroughly laid before they are acted upon. Some of them might have changed altogether by mid-October.

Meanwhile Libra’s ruling planet Venus is in the last phase of her Retrograde motion through Leo and the consciousness of the divine feminine is rising to the occasion. She goes Direct on September 6th, having been moving backward since July 25th. Venus entered Leo on June 5th and will complete her transit in this sign by October 8th. Currently joined with Mars and forming a grand trine with Uranus and Vesta in Aries and Pallas Athene in Sagittarius, she is highlighting the fiery feminine qualities associated with the Sun, which has not always been a masculine symbol.

With the Full Moon in Pisces on the 29th and Saturn in its last degrees of Scorpio, there are many endings of an emotional nature that are taking place. Whether experienced perhaps as cathartic, traumatic, or ecstatic, closure is being brought to issues that have long been present – a major chapter is over and we now pause and prepare to turn the page for another. The Sun’s conjunction to Jupiter in Virgo expands the capacity for understanding and healing, particularly in relation to the physical body and medicines of the earth.

On September 17th Mercury goes Retrograde at 16 degrees of Libra between two eclipses, while Saturn reenters Sagittarius for the next two years. This happens right before the Autumn Equinox when the Sun enters Libra on the 23rd, which should be quite a dandy this year on so many levels. Pluto, lord of the underworld goes Direct on the 24th, after being Retrograde since April 16th. Retrograde Mercury forms a square to Pluto and Mars enters Virgo, squaring Saturn that same day. I’ve heard that basically all hell will break loose around this time, but if we know what we’re dealing with here it can be a lot more fun for us to navigate.

With Pluto Retrograde for the past six months we’ve been releasing something or someone significant in our life; the way that we relate to it or them has either been destroyed or has radically changed, whether we have been conscious participants of this change or fighting it tooth and nail. On a massive level, the world has been receiving a serious reality check in regards to broken infrastructures and business ethics (Pluto in Capricorn). For some people this literally means an identity crisis will finally be coming to a head, blown up so big it must be faced once and for all. The hardest person to love and forgive is often oneself. Afterward a new sense of self will emerge. By the time we made our way out of the thick of so much Retrogradation in early October, what we have left behind and how we have grown from releasing the past will become much more apparent. We will be able to integrate what we have learned and received from our experiences and to move forward with deeper wisdom than before.

If we can hang tight throughout the rest of this year’s push-and-pull planetary alignments and highly volatile transits we might just have some things to celebrate by winter.