| INSIGHT | COLUMNS & GUIDANCE October 2001: The Revealing of Secrets Astrology by John Sandbach From October 2 to 23, Mercury will be retrograde. This is a time when repressed feelings, thoughts and memories are making a concerted effort to work themselves to the surface so they can be acknowledged and dealt with. The more you can allow your being to relax and give up the need for control, the more you will facilitate this process. October will most certainly be an interesting time for communicating if you can hang loose with all the potential confusion. Even if people are trying to keep secrets, they are apt to reveal them by mistake. If you can read between the lines you're apt to find out all sorts of interesting things that have been kept hidden. There are many people who believe that vast amounts of information are being withheld from the public at large. I would say that if this is true, then this Mercury retrograde period could be a time of revelations. The surface becomes very thin during this period, so that anything wishing to break through has every chance of doing so. For most of the month (October 1 to 28) Mars is moving through Capricorn, meaning that the signs Aries, Cancer, Capricorn and especially Libra are tending to feel more motivated and more into getting things done. Libras may have to find ways to deal with nervous energy and need to watch what they say. They have more of a tendency now to communicate impulsively and passionately, and this could cause conflicts. Especially from the 12th to 14th, the air will be vibrating with a lot of energy. This can be a period of stimulating communication, but also a time of mental agitation and arguments. Through October, Saturn and Pluto are in opposition to each other. This signifies a time of digging deep into the sources of problems, getting to the bottom of karmas -- when did it all first start, and what is the real cause of it? Now is the time of getting to the truth, and not being allowed to progress until whatever it is we're needing to resolve gets resolved. Saturn/Pluto combinations can also signify rip-offs, like the pharmacist who was caught diluting drugs. These kinds of rip-offs are likely to become more prevalent in the news, and even though it is terrible to hear of them and know they are going on, how wonderful it is that they are exposed and stopped. There is lots of negative Mercury karma to be overcome, and October is a major month for working on this. The negativity of Mercury often has to do with twisting ideas and twisting the truth and becoming so good at inventing rationales that virtually anything can be justified. (I have often contemplated writing a book called "Excuses for Dummies," for I've seen and heard so many bogus rationales in my time that I think I could put together a pretty formidable collection of them, together with the general tools and techniques of excuse making). When Saturn and Pluto get together, they just don't allow excuses, no matter how creative. And anyway, even if you have reasons for you actions, it doesn't mean that you're not responsible for them. For those of you with relatively clean slates, there won't be much to worry about, but for the manipulators, deceivers and rationalizers of the world, this is likely to be a time of reckoning. This Mercury retrograde time can also help us to see our world in new ways. A shift in our viewpoint can cause us to see things that we've previous overlooked and which could change our lives profoundly. Mercury is all about putting things together and the way things are connected, so in a sense we're all getting rewired now. But before this rewiring is complete, we may feel that our wires have been pulled apart and that things just aren't making sense. If this is the case, it's because a new and more clear "sense" is trying to emerge. And the only thing could keep it from emerging is our tendency to want to hold on to old ideas and familiar ways of thinking. There is going to be a lot of revisiting of old places of dysfunction during October, a reliving of past traumas and stuck places. It's very important, though, to not resist this: We are being drawn back to those difficult places to further work them out and to heal them more deeply, so that when we do move on, we can do so without the drag of the past pulling at us. We are learning now to use our connectedness with each other to foster our own personal evolution, so that we can all grow together, rather than reinforcing each other's delusions and limitations. John Sandbach has been a full-time astrologer for 33 years. He's written six books on astrology and related fields. He also teaches energy therapy and shiatsu at a massage school in Kansas City. If you are interested in making an appointment with him, please call (816) 561-6199, or you can e-mail him at planetjohn@planetkc.com. Copyright 2001 John Sandbach |
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