Personal Education of a Stationing Mercury Retrograde

Stationing Mercury retrograde utilizing technology to review speech disorders

I love reflecting on how the planetary transits show up in our everyday life, it is educational and magical. Even the most mundane task, a doctor’s appointment, can hold a spark of star power. 

I write this with full permission from my daughter to share for educational purposes, despite not wanting a reminder what awaits for her.

August 23rd, the Sun moved into the sign of Virgo, commencing the start of Virgo season. Virgo is a sign that is ruled by Mercury and Mercury also finds secondary powers through the status of exaltation. Another way to put this, Mercury has a lot of power and voice concerning matters in the house of Virgo. Currently in the skies, Mercury is not only moving through Virgo, but was stationing retrograde on this exact day as the Sun entered. My daughter and I are both Virgo risings, which means, Mercury is our Ascendant ruler, my Ascendant degree at 0 degrees (Sun’s ingress) and hers at 8 degrees (same point Mercury will retrograde and station at to turn direct).

Points of consideration why this Mercury retrograde will be strong for both of us:

1). It hits an angular house, the first, in both of our charts. Angular houses are most active.

2). Mercury rules our first house. Mercury is also my 10th house profection year ruler, and will be her profection year ruler in a few months.

3). It hits personal planets and degrees in both of our charts when stationing. The stationing of a planet is the strongest energy occuring in the retrograde cycle, according to ancient astrologers.

Needless to say this Mercury retrograde is activating both of our charts with a potent signature that will make us both stand at attention. 

Ruling the first house in both of our charts, main topics of this house that will be activated during this retrograde will be our identity, our physical looks and health, our psychology, and how we present ourself to the world.

Mercury is the planet of communication, technology, how we speak and write. It can be attributed to youth, education, learning and the mind overall.

So how is this already playing out in our lives, on the first day of retrograde? On the 23rd, she had her first ever orthodontist appointment. This appointment stems from the fact that she has speech challenges around the letter “R” and blends of that consonant. Despite four years of speech therapy and seeing very minimal improvement, I needed a new plan of attack (Virgo rising with natal Mars in action). With the suggestion of my chiropractor, she had brought up the fact that perhaps her mouth is too small or tongue is tied that results in ineffective movement of the tongue to pronounce certain letter blends. Now I had heard of tongue tie, yet none of her speech therapists ever spoke of this as a concern. I had never considered that her mouth or jaw structure may be impacting her actual speech. 

Yesterday was a fascinating education regarding the mouth, breathing and airways, facial structure, and overall anatomy of the mouth and nose. We learned through some cool technology, she had a very narrow palate which constricted the movement of her tongue and kept it pressed low, impacting speech by not fully being able to articulate specific sounds. We also learned that her tonsil tissues were heavily built up as a result of this faulty structure, also impacting her airways, and had a deviated septum. Well who knew?

We developed a great plan of attack with the orthodontist from here on out, including the first phase which is a palate expander, and future phases of braces and tongue therapy for retraining it. Mercury in Virgo likes to break details into bite-sized pieces (excuse the pun) and make it more manageable. Looking at all the phases seems overwhelming in many ways, but when you address them individually it is less scary. Virgo’s need to compartmentalize these types of things, especially when it comes to health.

As you can see, Mercury retrograde, revising our path when it comes to her speech (Mercury) and giving us new information on how to move forward to help correct this. Mercury retrograde is all about revision, restructuring, delaying results. Although it is frustrating that I am finding this out at almost 12 years of age, I am so grateful to have been put on this path and help move her in the right direction. This has been a frustrating limitation to a bright mind who has grown tired in her own right of having to repeat herself constantly for others to understand her. This is all taking place in her first house, which lends to a revision of her health, her identity, and how others perceive her. I am excited, she is not (she can’t eat sticky candy or popcorn for nearly a year), but I know once she starts hearing results, she will fully understand the gift of this Mercury retrograde. 

One other interesting astrological side note, this transit of the Sun moving into Virgo at 0 degrees, is just separating from her Mercury/Venus natal points at 29 degrees of Scorpio by square. She has both Mercury and Venus conjunct at the anaretic degree of Scorpio in her 3rd house of communication and childhood education. This conjunction shows up in so many ways in her life, her love for writing, singing, music, especially along Scorpionic themes. She has always had a touch of goth built into her spirit, no matter what she embodies, it is there. She is just leaving elementary and moving into middle school, and learning to express herself more and more through these outlets. I love that the Sun was just separating by square to her natal Mercury and Venus while this was occurring at the 29th degree, the degree where the center cannot hold and things fall apart. Her 1st and 3rd house in her chart are both undergoing new movements and the center is no longer holding. I had reached my own point of resistance with her speech, I knew there was another solution out there we hadn’t discovered yet. I certainly hope this is the path forward for her sake, so she can fully embody her voice that is dying to be truly heard.

Not all Mercury retrogrades are brick walls, and hope this gives an alternate insight on how such transits can move through your own life. It is my belief that the challenging transits, although hardly no fun, bring us the greatest resources we need to immerse ourself deeper into the human experience we all came to embody.