Travelling with the Psychonaut

Mercury is retrograde right now, having stationed on my birthday / solar return just before the position of my natal Mercury. This is classically a time to re-do, to revise, reevaluate, rethink. Mercury has access to all the realms, travelling between the realm of the gods, the material world and the underworld. His retrograde period can be seen as the underworld phase, a time to shed light on wisdom we might have missed. For me, past hurts have been resurfacing, demanding to be processed. With transiting Neptune still sitting close to my natal Mercury, it has felt like a confusing time, and a frustrating one - why is this stuff still bothering me? The period from Mercury's station on February 6 to the midpoint of the retrograde phase on February 15 was especially intense. During this time Mercury was moving closer to the Sun, a phase known as Combust, in which the planet's power is traditionally seen as burning up in the heat of the Sun. In the case of Mercury, this means that 'old thought patterns and mental scripts that no longer serve us...are consumed and destroyed' (according to Demetra George). This is exactly what has been happening for me. It's an intense time, but I can feel the next round of the spiral opening up before me. So far this Mercury retrograde has brought me Neptunian mystical experiences, and several profound conversations which have looked back at old patterns and found a concrete way to move forward, out of those energy draining patterns for good. Mercury retrograde allows us to reset and reevaluate. The trick, of course, is to know that you are in the underworld, and remember that transformation has to happen in its own time. Mercury is the trickster, and with watery Neptune nearby there is no chance of controlling this process. We follow the underground river out into the light as best we can. Mercury finally emerges from the cave of the shadow zone in March, returning to the point of the retrograde station on March 21, close to the Spring Equinox. We exit the cave blinking in the spring sunlight, and if we have used the time in the underworld well, our minds are firmly set on the path of new growth.