PiscesMoon Astrology
On PiscesMoon Astrology, I explore the most important cosmic happenings of the week ahead to help you make the most of the planetary energies.
PiscesMoon Astrology
Mercury Direct: Emerging from Retrograde Chaos
The stars are finally shifting in our favor as Mercury stations direct on August 11th—but don't celebrate too quickly. While this signals the end of a particularly chaotic retrograde period filled with mishaps, miscommunications, and mayhem, Mercury immediately faces off with transformative Pluto in a powerful opposition.
This cosmic showdown invites us to look deeper at the lessons Mercury retrograde has been teaching us since its shadow period began on June 30th. What patterns emerged? Where have you felt silenced, overlooked, or powerless? Mercury in Leo yearns to speak truth and shine brightly, but Pluto in Aquarius reveals the power dynamics that may be dampening your light—whether from external authorities or internalized limitations.
The truly transformative opportunity here isn't just surviving Mercury retrograde but using this opposition to unearth buried aspects of yourself that have kept you from fully owning your power. We explore how pre-verbal agreements, family dynamics, and fear of rocking the boat might be keeping you stuck in patterns of giving away your voice. This isn't about blame—it's about reclaiming what's yours.
Against this backdrop, we're blessed with a Venus-Jupiter conjunction in nurturing Cancer and supported by the continuing kite formation involving Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. These energies create a perfect alchemical container for authentic transformation if you're willing to dig deep and stand in your truth. The stars are aligned—are you ready to seize this energy and reclaim your power?
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Hello and welcome to Pisces Moon Astrology. I'm your astrologer, kate Leonard, and I'm excited to explore the stars with you. Hi everyone, welcome to the week of August 10th through August 16th. And, I'm very happy to say, mercury is turning direct this week and, even though there's a lot of other stuff going on, that's what we're going to be talking about, because I don't know about you, but this Mercury retrograde has wiped me out, and I'm hearing that from a lot of clients as well.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, people falling off treadmills at the gym, cars breaking down, emails sent to wrong people, I mean, you name it. This has been a big one, and of course, it hasn't helped that a gazillion other planets have also been retrograde, right, but anyway, we'll get into it. So here's the deal. Yes, mercury is turning direct on the 11th, so yay, we can all like yay, except he is going to be opposing Pluto, and that is no kind of small thing. Still, losing Pluto, and that is no kind of small thing. Still, I'm going to take the end of the retrograde cycle. Let's get into what this all means, but just a quickie before we do.
Speaker 1:On the 11th, we have another gigantic thing happening and I know a lot of y'all are going to be a little upset that I'm talking about the end of a Mercury retrograde, when we have Venus, the lesser benefic, and Jupiter, the greater benefic, joining each other, meeting up exactly in nurturing, loving Cancer. Okay, that's also happening this week. And because I can already see your eyeballs bulging that that's not what I'm going to be talking about today, I promise you, give me a couple of days, maybe three, and I will get you an episode, a bonus episode. Yeah, you know I love the bonus episodes these days. I'll get you a bonus episode. Yay, you know I love the bonus episodes these days. I'll get you a bonus episode on the two benefic planets conjoining. It is a big deal. Let me tell you the reason. I didn't decide to do this episode on that because it's huge. But I didn't do it because we've actually been in that energy, not to the exact degree like we'll be this week, but we've been in that energy since around July 31st when Venus first went into Cancer. I mean, these two amazing positive planets have been playing together this whole time. So, yes, this week they're going exact, but it's not like the energy is going to be new. That's why I didn're still in that Mars-Saturn opposition.
Speaker 1:Remember the kite from last week. We're still in that energy and even though I really believe that the kite is a super positive thing, I do hear a lot of other astrologers talk about how dreadful the Saturn-Mars opposition is. Right, and I get it. An opposition is tense energy. These are the two malefic planets. Right, saturn is the greater malefic, mars is the lesser malefic and they're in this tense opposition. But, as I discussed with you before, it's part of a kite and I really really think that helps.
Speaker 1:Saturn is in a Mars ruled sign. Saturn's in Aries, so that helps a little bit. Mars can't be too mean to him because Mars is his host and Mars is in a Venus ruled sign. Mars is in Libra, so he's working on diplomacy. So I really disagree with a lot of other astrologers. I respect them a whole, whole lot. Anyone who thinks that I get it. I really do. But I disagree that it's such a bad thing.
Speaker 1:I think I said to you guys already that we're going to feel some push-pull Mars wants to go fast, saturn wants to slow down All of that. But ultimately I think that we're going to be putting sort of controlled energy Mars in Libra into rebuilding structures of our lives. That's Saturn, so that they suit us. That's Aries, right, so I like it. I still do like it. I'm going to stand by that. I don't think it's the easiest energy in the whole world, but I don't think it's bad energy.
Speaker 1:Anyway, just to set the stage for this Mercury-Pluto opposition, we also still have the Mars-Saturn opposition going on. So I think, in spite of the fact that Venus and Jupiter are going to be bringing a whole lot of good stuff, I do think it's a more tense week than not. However, as I said, if you went to my sub stack and saw what I wrote, I always put quotations in there and I forget who said it. It's been attributed, I think, to a lot of people, and this is not the exact wording, but it's something like kites fly with the wind as opposition or something like that. And so, while you know, the opposition is there, there's no getting around it, we have two. Is there? There's no getting around it. We have two, but I think that on the other side of them, we're going to have grown a whole lot.
Speaker 1:So, just setting the stage, we got a lot of stuff going on, but let's get in to the main event. So Mercury's stationing direct. This is seriously good. This means that a lot of the mercurial complications are going to ease up and the things that we've been grappling with during this retrograde period they're going to start moving forward. So, as a reminder, mercury went into his pre-retrograde shadow. So that was his first time moving direct across degrees that he was going to retrograde back over and then go direct over again. That all started on June 30th. So basically, just kind of think about what's been going on all of July and this first part of August. Okay, because that's the stuff that Mercury's been going forward through and then backwards through, and now he's going to get ready to go forward again through those degrees. So consider what's been going on to finally get to reap some kind of a benefit. And hey, we've paid the price. Right, we might as well reap the benefits.
Speaker 1:Look at what's been complicated, look at the stuff that's been going all wonky in your life through this period you know July and so far in August and look for themes, you know. Has it been communications with family? Has it been trouble at work? Have you been late to everything? Are you, you know? Has it been no meeting of the minds between you and your lover.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever it's been that's been going wackadoo through this period, what do you think that's teaching you? We need to all ask this what have these complications highlighted for me? What are the possible life lessons in all of these mercurial shenanigans? Because if we can kind of look at it that way, if we can kind of look at it that way now that we're going to get to go forward, we may be able to really fix some stuff. But if we just look at it as Mercury retrograde sucked and hey boy, howdy did it. But if we just look at that and now we're going to be beyond it, then that's all it was for. It was for passing time, it was a sucky period of time and now we're through it.
Speaker 1:That's not the goal. The goal is, you know, I end every show saying seize the energies, because these celestial energies are how we can align ourselves with the universe and walk our paths of destiny. So don't just or my advice. You do you. You know what I'm saying. But my advice is kind of look at the nature of what's been coming up during this retrograde period and figure out what you can change or shift or address that might help you to grow from those lessons. Does that make sense? I hope it does.
Speaker 1:Oh, and because, mercury, when he's going through a retrograde cycle, there's always periods of time when he's combust cycle. There's always periods of time when he's combust, meaning he can't be seen in the sky because he's too close to the sun. So also look at that kind of theme. Have you gone through periods where you feel like you're not being seen, not being heard, not being understood, not being valued? Any of those kinds of things? Those are going to be really important to remember and think about this week, because Mercury and Leo is really about speaking our truth, letting our voices be heard and honoring our creative spirit, our creative energy. Mercury and Leo is also about really shining in social interactions, whether that's presentations at work, family dinner parties, you know, dates with lovers or friends, whatever it is, or even us honoring and shining in our own eyes if this is impacting your first house or your first house ruler. So these are the kinds of issues that may have been off kilter for a while. I think that we are going to be stepping into the sunshine coming up shortly.
Speaker 1:One of the things going on that's going to help that after it challenges us is this Mercury opposition to Pluto? Pluto is all about power, all kinds of power dynamics, but he's also about deep personal transformation. So look at it this way We've got Mercury, who's finally going direct and saying like, okay, you've learned the lessons. I've shown you some stuff that's all weird. You've learned the lessons. Now let's speak our truth, let's shine, let's be our bright, authentic, joyful selves. Except we've got Pluto.
Speaker 1:Pluto is in opposition position. Someone, something in power is standing opposed to us doing our bright, shiny, happy selves. What is that? It might be something that we've struggled with before. Remember this is not Mercury's first pass over this Pluto. So what is this thing? It could be something like I am not able to stand in my joy and my creativity because my job blows. It could be something like that. It could be my job is great, but my boss takes away my power, takes credit for my work, silences me, won't even let me present my ideas, silences me, won't even let me present my ideas. It could be family lovers, you know, like I've already said, any of these areas.
Speaker 1:But there's some power person position situation that is really dampening our light and in order to go through the deep transformation that's available to us right now and that if we can get through it it is going to bring us to creativity, joy, vibrancy, truth, all of these things. We've got to face it, and part of doing that may require that we dig very, very deep and ask the hard questions how did I get into this situation? If it's a pattern and during Mercury retrograde cycles we will often have patterns come up, things that we've been through many times in our lives, and this sort of quick repetition during the retrograde cycle really highlights that for us what patterns of being kind of like out of power in some way have you internalized? What parts of us that are buried deep are allowing our power to be taken away or silenced or whatever? Nobody can do it without some participation from us.
Speaker 1:Now, I am not victim blaming here, okay, not at all. I don't mean that if you're not in your power, if you're in an abusive relationship, whether that's with a job, a co-worker, a lover, a parent I am not saying it's your fault, absolutely not. But if we don't own some of you know what's keeping us stuck is in our power, then how do we get out of it? So this is not about blame. This is about what part of this situation can you shift if you have the courage to dig deeply inside yourself and say this bit by wanting to keep my mom happy, by wanting to keep our marriage stable, by needing to keep my job, by needing to keep my job, in these ways I very subtly sabotage myself and let my power go. I give it away a little bit because there's a bigger picture in my mind and that is stability and all of that stuff. I just said you got it right. How do we shift that? I just said you got it right. How do we shift that?
Speaker 1:When Pluto's involved, we can go deep. We have to unearth our yuck, our stuff, our secrets. Sometimes it's secrets we're keeping for other people, sometimes it's a family issue that we agree, probably in an unspoken way, maybe before we even knew we were agreeing. This could be like pre-verbal even that's been coming up a lot recently the kinds of weird old tapes or wonky power dynamics that got put in place pre-verbal. Look that up if you don't know about pre-verbal trauma. It is a big deal.
Speaker 1:So again, this is not about blame. This is about can you go deep enough to find that thing inside you, that secret you've been carrying, that agreement you made, even if you didn't know you made it. Or just that place where we're scared. It's like, yeah, but if I rock the boat, what's going to happen? Can I do it? Pluto's power yes, you can do it if you own that power, right, your creative ideas, your independent thought, your speaking your truth and just refusing to dim your light.
Speaker 1:This is a time to go deep, own whatever is yours to own. Sometimes it's not that you have to own it, it's that maybe you stuff something so hard at some point self-preservation, right, we stuff a lot of stuff and maybe it's just time that you have to say I am brave enough right now to bring it into the light. If you do that, I promise you, I promise. Well, I can't promise you, we all have to take responsibility for that, but the energy is lined up for us to be able to make true growth, to truly transform in this very stand in the light. Authenticity, you know, kind of way, and if you think about it, we're still in that kite energy. That's very Uranus, pluto involved, uranus the rebel, the authentic self, all of that and Pluto power. So I honestly believe that if we can get to it, if we can unearth that thing that holds us back. Uranus is helping right now because he's making that part of that kite. Go back to last week if you need to hear that episode. But Uranus is still making an aspect to Pluto and will reward authenticity. This is just so big. This is just so big.
Speaker 1:This is not just the end of Mercury retrograde, because Pluto is involved in this, and I think that's why Pluto has been involved through the whole storyline, right. I think that's why this Mercury retrograde has been so, so intense for so many people. But I think we got this. I think we can do this. I think there's enough other planetary energy that is going to support us in standing up, owning our voices. We got this. I'm sure we do.
Speaker 1:Anyway, the good news is Mercury's moving direct, even if you don't choose to do any deep digging and all the stuff. Happy Mercury direct to everybody, right, because that alone is just kind of a good thing. As I said, we've also got the Jupiter-Venus thing going on, so there's a whole lot of blessings. If you can, if you can do that deep dive, do it, go for it. I honestly think most people will be super glad if they do Now.
Speaker 1:The other thing I'm not looking at your natal chart. So there may be things in your natal chart that shift this a little bit. That's why I have to say you know you, of course do you. Without your natal chart in front of me, I can't give everybody perfect advice, but that's why you should get a natal reading. I'd be happy to do that with you. Anyway, I think that's what I've got until the bonus episode, and I just want to thank you all so much. The ratings that you've been leaving me are amazing and I can tell you've been sharing and sort of spreading the word because the numbers are going up. We're getting there slowly but surely, and I certainly could not do it without each and every one of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and yeah, I think we got this. So until next week or until the bonus episode, go out and seize the energies of the stars. This is my wish for you always, and until I'm back on here. Bye.