The Fixed & The Volatile

Opening to the Profound Alchemy of Mercury Retrograde

Humans are creatures of habit, or rather, our egos are. The function of the ego is to serve as a kind of manager and mediator, both internally between our instincts and morality, and externally between ourselves and the outside world. To manage this managerial role, the ego relies on many tricks, often taking the form of structure, routine and habit. This can be very helpful and productive when building confidence and dexterity with new skills, but eventually it can also become a prison which actually inhibits growth.

This is one of the foundational ideas of Jungian psychology. Jung divided the personality into four types (which correspond to the 4 elements). He saw that each person has a natural proclivity for one of these four modes of being, and because of this we tend to lean on it very heavily. Even so, there are two elements which share qualities with our favorite, and because of this we develop a secondary and tertiary function, which mainly serve to support our dominant function.

However, there is one element which shares NOTHING with our favorite. They are polar opposites, and because of this we label it inferior and shove it into the closet, under the rug and generally try to avoid it and keep it out of awareness as much as possible. As an example, Intuitive (Fire) people can easily rely on either thinking (Air) or feeling (Water) to support their blazing insights to life. But, trying to PROVE these to someone requires slowly methodically building a case with facts (Earth) which can be frustrating and even demoralizing to Fire types (earth puts out fire).

Jung’s foundational insight is startlingly simple. Because we lean on our dominant function so heavily, the better we get at it the less total room for growth there is. Conversely, precisely because we avoid our inferior function (the shadow), it contains the most significant growth potential. This is easy to see. However in practice it is very, very hard -mainly because the ego is so stubborn and clings to control. Jung saw this stubbornness as so profound that the psyche had to build significant internal pressure between these opposites before we will do anything about it. He called this enantiodromia, meaning running to or becoming the opposite. Our ego’s stubborn clinging to its favorite essentially summons the shadow from the depths.

Here we see an alchemical diagram containing a Latin phrase from the Bible: "Abyssus invocat Abyssum,” meaning “deep calleth out to deep.” One of the reasons Jung was so fascinated with Alchemy is that he shared an appreciation for the power of opposites. The alchemical maxim which best mirrors Jung’s fundamental idea is: “Make the fixed volatile, and the volatile fixed.” In lab alchemy, this means stabilizing volatile compounds and opening up fixed ones. But in psychology it means disrupting our comfortable habit patterns AND bringing order to chaos. However, because the ego is so stubborn Jung believed that disruption was often the necessary precursor. In fact, he believed that even seeming disasters could be seen as the potentially positive manifestation of the transcendent Self shaking the ego out of its slumber and forcing it to relinquish comfort and control.

Given all of the above, I have to believe that the good Dr. Jung would agree with me that astrologers telling us what NOT to do to AVOID any potential chaos from Mercury retrograde is decidedly NOT the answer. Rather, he explicitly said that hidden within all chaos is a secret order, and so I have to assume he would think it is our job then (both as astrologers and as people living life) to open up to and find the secret order hidden within the chaos of Mercury retrograde.

I’m here to do my part. I’m gonna break down what exactly it is that makes Mercury retrogrades SO chaotic, AND I’m gonna show you the tremendous creative potentials and hidden maps within this chaos. It is then up to you, dear reader, to make use of these in living through these next few weeks.

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Its father is the Sun (Fire); its mother the Moon (Water). The Wind (Air) carries it in its belly; its nurse is the Earth (Earth). It is the origin of All, the consecration of the Universe; its inherent Strength is perfected, if it is turned into Earth.

Now, let’s look deeper into the Spiritual purpose of Mercury Retrogrades. The slow moving emphasis of Mercury through the 4 Elements lasts a total of about 6-7 years and activates the four Elements in reverse order. As I discovered and elucidated in my first book, this order in fact reflects the way the Elements are activated in Alchemy, as represented in the foundational text, the Emerald Tablet. This is widely interpreted as a formula for creating the “philosophers stone” –a microcosm of the universal principle, encapsulating the primordial creative power of the monad or original substance. When understood in these contexts, essentially then Mercury’s cycle of retrogrades through the four elements is recapitulating both a cosmic world-ordering principle, and a magic formula for the re-creation, materialization and containment of this primordial creative power!

Crucially, once we understand the phenomenon of Mercury retrograde visually, during a very short span of time Mercury makes an appearance above the Western horizon, then dips below the threshold of visibility and finally re-emerges above the Eastern horizon. In fact, during this process Mercury forms a Triptych of alignments. First we have greatest elongation as evening star, then the invisible inferior conjunction, then greatest elongation as morning star.

Remarkably, these three alignments, though very different visually, all occur near the same Zodiacal degrees! That which is above, corresponds to that which is below, and that which is below corresponds to that which is above. Thus the visual journey of the planet Mercury through the retrograde process literally embodies the cryptic text of the mystical Emerald Tablet!

Additionally, from a heliocentric point of view, during retrograde motion Mercury is coming from the superior space behind or exterior to the Sun and penetrating the inferior realm, the very heart of our solar system –the space between the Sun and Earth, a space so central, basic and fundamental to our system it is commonly referred to as the astronomical unit. I think of it more as the inner room of the Cosmic temple, the holy of holies -the only place in the Universe we know of where Life exists. I like to envision Mercury’s penetration of this space during the retrograde as similar to a farmer digging a furrow into the earth to plant a seed.

Finally, to fully grasp this primordial power, it is important to remember that it is not simply from the mixing of back and forth, or direct-retrograde currents through which the alchemy and magic of Mercury retrograde derives. As I have often demonstrated for years now, in magazines and journals as well as my social media pages, retrograde motion is much more wonderfully complex than is often portrayed, and consists not only of East/West variation in direct/retrograde motion of celestial longitude but also dramatic changes in the North/South dimension of celestial latitude which produce a kind of looping motion. Here is the loop for the Fall 2025 retrograde.

As we can see in the above diagram, most of the north-south volatility is compressed within the retrograde itself. So unlike other retrogrades, we might not have as much pre and post retro volatility. Furthermore, because Mercury is ascending in latitude during the retrograde -its also possible that we could experience positive changes during the retrograde (ie, reversals of undesirable situations). Finally, it is important to note that unlike other retrogrades, where Mercury crosses the ecliptic before and after retrograde motion proper -during this retro Mercury crosses in the middle of it.

This northward crossing happens on November 18, just before the inferior conjunction, with Mercury still in the first degree of Sagittarius. According to classic grimoires like Picatrix, it represents a potent magical opportunity.

Now some may be a little leery of doing magic for a retrograde planet, but you should still be aware of the possibility of distinct shifts in your awareness and experience during the days around the geuzahar and the inferior conjunction on November 18-20.

So, to summarize, what we have occurring during Mercury retrograde are at least four different kinds of alchemical mixing. The mixing of East/West direct-retrograde currents can be seen as an exchange between the currently accepted socio-cultural norms (direct motion) and the newer counter-cultural challenges to those norms (retrograde motion). The mixing of above/below with respect to the horizon and Mercury’s cycle of visibility can be seen as an exchange between the conscious and unconscious dimensions. The mixing between the interior and exterior spaces of our solar system can be seen as an exchange between the microcosm and macrocosm. And finally, the mixing of North/South latitudinal currents can be seen as an exchange between the mental/rational and emotional/embodied aspects of life.

In the Ocean, most of the life is concentrated where the currents mix together. So you see, it is all this primordial mixing during Mercury retrograde which produces an alchemy that is quite literally capable of changing, or re-birthing, the World. By accepting a little of the volatile energy into our lives and then finding the secret order within that chaos, we can come out the other side of the retrograde renewed, with the seed potential for new growth activated in our psyches and in our lives.

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