This article was first published on 10 December 2010 at the old C*I*A – Zone X blog.

Two-faced Janus, god of crossroads.

Today, 10 December 2010, Mercury appears to stop its forward motion along the ecliptic, and appears to loop backwards in front of the Sun, not appearing to move forward again until 30 December 2010.  The 2010 Capricorn Solstice, and the lunar eclipse at 29 Gemini which immediately precedes it, occur right in the middle of Mercury’s retrograde period.  Mercury has three such retrograde periods each year:  its orbit lying closer to the Sun than Earth, its revolution around the Sun appears to us as a relatively quick series of loops along the ecliptic as the year progresses.  Traditionally, Mercury’s retrograde period, and especially its stations (the days when it appears to stand motionless before reversing direction) are periods of time when all manner of things symbolised by Mercury tend to go awry:  messages, letters, emails, communications get lost or are sent to the wrong recipient, confusion arises in contracts or business deals, data or information is missing or is not disclosed, and technological contrivances which support our daily business routines, like cars, planes, computers, fax machines, telephones etc., stop working properly or are subject to delays.  While this correspondence has been known by astrologers for millennia, at a deeper level it compels us to think again about how we communicate and encourages us to review how clear or conscious we are of what it is that we are revealing about ourselves any time that we enter into a conversation, business arrangement or contract.  Mercury has always been associated with the archetype of the Trickster, the two-faced Janus who says two completely different things to different people.  But we all contain this archetype within us; we all lie when it suits us, and engage in deception when passing messages around; we even lie to ourselves and convince ourselves that we are doing the very opposite.

Mercury’s domain of the conscious, rational intellect is inherently dualistic.  Messages are conveyed, but language is more than words – often the message lies between the words, in what is not said, or in what is implied but never spelled out.  The tone of voice, the style of prose, even the font all convey layers of additional meaning that fall beneath the threshold of conscious awareness but which subtly carry the intended sense.  This is the trickiness of Mercury, its very artistry, its core business.

On the day that this particular Mercury retrograde starts, Mercury is sitting at 5 Capricorn, conjunct Pluto, at 4 Capricorn.  Mercury with Pluto represents the information that is hidden from view, stolen, abducted, controlled; or, information and communication that contains great power to transform, to empower or disempower, even to destroy.  More than anything else it suggests secrets, betrayal of confidence, hidden transactions.  This gives a taste of the theme of this Mercury retrograde period, and of the solstice and lunar eclipse occurring during its span.  Obviously, the international furore over the Wikileaks release of approximately 250,000 US Embassy cables seems to fit pretty well with the astrology at present.  As governments around the world react in embarrassment to the sudden release into the public domain of sensitive information affecting geopolitical relationships, there seem to be two processes occurring simultaneously (as befits Mercury).

Firstly, the actual content of the released information is underlining the contempt that the US Government holds for the democratic wishes of people, not just domestically, but also with respect to populations in other sovereign nations:  diplomats authorized to spy on UN officials, to collect credit-card numbers and even DNA samples of foreign politicians, and conveying back to Washington assessments of Middle Eastern leaders’ views of Iran as a threat to the region despite clear proof in repeated surveys that the vast majority of Arab populations in the Middle East regard Israel and the US to be the biggest threat to peace in the region.  And this is just part of what was in the first few hundred cables released.

Secondly,  the response of the US Government (and other Western governments) to the release of these cables has been revealing of their true values:  shoot the messenger, make possession of the truth illegal, censor the Internet, tell people what they can and cannot discuss or publish, even though the information is about those very same people!

Mercury’s retrograde loop starts in Capricorn but moves back into Sagittarius:  it is government secrecy that is being examined, but the impact is also on the freedom to disseminate and publish information and the laws and moral judgments surrounding freedom of the press and the Internet.  The sheer hypocrisy of the US Government announcing that it is hosting the 2011 World Press Freedom Day celebrations in Washington on 3 May 2011 when it is simultaneously pressurizing individuals and entire corporations to stop assisting Wikileaks to release information about the role of the government in regulating and restricting our lives and democratic choices, sadly represents the less edifying side of Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius.

BiWheel. Centre Chart> US Declaration of Independence. 4 July 1776, 5pm LMT, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. From Book of World Horoscopes (Campion, 2004). Timed Chart – Whole Sign Houses. Outer Points> Julian Assange. 3 July 1971, 12pm, Townsville, Australia. From Wikipedia. Untimed Chart.

The birthdate of Mr Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been released on the Interpol arrest warrant, accessible on the Internet.  As no time is available, a noon chart for Townsville, Queensland must be used.  It is notable that Assange has a close Sun-Uranus square, always indicative of a will to break the mould of what is deemed to be acceptable, together with a close Jupiter-Pluto sextile, suggestive of keen skills at exposing the hypocrisy and moral turpitude of people in powerful positions, as well as a supreme confidence in fighting large-scale moral battles.  What I find particularly interesting is that his Mercury, which is what this essay is really all about, is exactly conjunct the retrograde Mercury in the chart for the 1776 US Declaration of Independence;  in that chart, the retrograde Mercury is opposite Pluto, symbolizing the American history of intense suspiciousness of power, yet despite this, or perhaps indeed because of it, the gradual growth of what has now become a veritable industry of secret-keeping, secret-making, surveillance, intelligence, spying and covert business activities across the globe.  In releasing the US Embassy cables, Assange is communicating the very secrets that the US Government arrogates to itself, against even its own population which it supposedly represents.

BiWheel. Centre Chart> Australia: Federation. 1 January 1901, 1:35pm AEST, Sydney, Australia. From Ed Tamplin www.edtamplin.com. Timed Chart – Whole Sign Houses. Outer Points> Julian Assange. 3 July 1971, 12pm, Townsville, Australia. From Wikipedia. Untimed Chart.

Assange’s chart also closely aspects that of Australian Federation (1 January 1901, 13:35, Sydney).  His Sun in Cancer is exactly opposite the Australian Sun in Capricorn (and his Uranus in Libra exactly squares the Australian Sun) which at once symbolizes his own Australian citizenship and significance to the Australian state, as well as his role of challenging the Australian government to come clean about its own secrets as well as to represent the interests of its citizens irrespective of their colour, creed, or political affiliation.  His Venus in Gemini is exactly opposite Australia’s Jupiter in Sagittarius:  his values of openness and freedom of information, the philosophy of a free, uncensored Internet, where information is shared, not embargoed, stand as a direct challenge to the prevailing state of the media in Australia (most of which is owned by one man, Rupert Murdoch), and whether it rests on any underlying principles of justice and freedom of expression, and these same values openly challenge the state apparatus to define it’s stance when it comes to the laws surrounding reporting of information that is genuinely in the public interest.  Assange’s Pluto exactly squares the Mercury-Neptune opposition across the Sagittarius-Gemini axis in the Australian chart:  he has pulled aside the curtain which has obscured the machinations of Australian foreign policy, the deceptions of its ministers, the unreliable shonkiness of the public utterances of government figures, and exposed the duplicity of politicians serving interests other than that of the people that they supposedly represent.

The whole Wikileaks episode (which has of course yet to play out in its entirety) is more fuel to the pyre that is the modern Western managed democracy, as Pluto moves unstoppably deeper into Capricorn and shines light into the dark corners of illegitimate power structures.  Like most symbols in astrology, Capricorn is a paradox:  power, governance, authority and respect can only be earned by submission and dedication to the collective will.  To lead is to embody that will, to represent it, to be accountable to it.  Although Pluto can often be experienced as harsh, and is always unavoidable, it is and always will be the great renewer, bringing life back to truth, and restoring the truth to life.