The Shadow Knows
Mercury x Venus station in Pisces
I woke up to a mysterious note from myself this morning.
I was in deep flow revising my website with the lovingly obtuse support of retrograde Mercury in Pisces, and I remember pausing to send myself a message on WhatsApp. I do this all the time, although on most occasions I feel more aware of what I’m writing. And usually it’s not quite so ominous as:
The shadow is helping me learn how to hold power.
I (think I) know what I meant.
Because if you want to learn how to work with the light, you also need to know how to work with the shadow. The shadow exists to show the light where it shines, and without it we would almost certainly be lost. This is just as true in our physical world. The Sun is our source of light, and it is also our source of shadow. The shadows of the Sun are a tremendous gift to all creatures great and small, as they offer us a way to measure our place in time and direction in space.
So like any good sundial, we must learn both to welcome the light and to constantly reorient ourselves with the shadow. Power doesn’t come from chasing the light any more than it comes from fleeing the shadow, and you cannot know where you are if you are running. So we must learn to be centered, present and still. We must relax and remember that the sky will inevitably turn, that the cycles of darkness and light will naturally reveal themselves through us.
And yet there are so many narratives about how painful and difficult it is to face your shadow. While I appreciate that this can be true, I wonder if there is also a much simpler truth available. Because if you accept that your shadow is only there to show you that you are here, then it doesn’t feel scary at all. In fact, it becomes a blessing. How lucky are we to know where are, to know that we exist at all!
As I reread this, it sounds like more than just a solid opening paragraph of Courage for Dummies. It feels like the cosmic wisdom of Mercury and Venus, both of whom sit stopped in the most poetically philosophical of signs. In Pisces, Mercury looks for logic in the universal principles of order and Venus looks for love in the infinite sky that spoke us into being. Together, they find beauty in the ways that our minds generate metaphors (ahem, sundial) to understand how we think and feel.
These two planetary “stations” - astrology lingo for changes in direction - are especially palpable as they fall right next to Saturn and the North Node of the Moon. It strikes me in particular that Saturn is the ruler of time (ahem, sundial), and the insightful
made a brilliant link between our favorite ringed friend and duality. Saturn - the furthest planet visible with the naked eye - has long been associated with boundaries, and it makes perfect sense to me that Saturn would be the one to show us the value of splitting shadow from light as we navigate our own dualistic world.For its part, the North Node is a destiny point that amplifies the attractive power of all that it touches. Since its entry into Pisces, we have been called to stop trying to control the world through endless data collection. The North Node in Pisces is here to draw us beyond the limitations of physical measurement and back into the incalculable immensity of Our Universe. There is no need to figure things out. Things just are, and the only measurement that matters is whether they exist.
Taking this all together - and based on my own experience of rejection this morning - I wonder if one thing we’ll be asked to explore is the apparent duality between Yes and No. Because as much as the North Node might want to pull us blindly into the next chapter, Saturn is tasked with holding us back from what we think we want in order to give us what we truly deserve. So what if we let No just be a shadow of Yes? What if it’s not a negative statement about our innate worthiness, but rather a skillful reorientation as to where we shine the light of Yes?
Funnily enough, the word “shadow” is also an astrological term. It refers to the periods before and after a retrograde when a planet sits between its two stations. These are the degrees of the Zodiac that a planet will pass over three times - first when it moving forwards as it slows down to turn retrograde, second when it is moving backwards during the retrograde itself, and third when it is regaining forward momentum.
So in the way that Mercury retrogrades love to deliver dazzling double entendres, it seems that my message to myself also holds astrological acumen. For if we were to divide a retrograde experience into a play, it would be in the shadowy third act when we (re)consolidate our power. By this point in the story, we have already accepted the dawning discomfort of change. We have embraced the uncertainty of moving in an unfamiliar direction. And now we are revisiting once established situations with our recently expanded awareness in order to make a more informed choice about how we handle them.
In other words: You’ve seen this before, now you know more, and you’ll deal with it better. This is like a balm to my tired body. The eclipsonox™ alone would have made for an explosive March, but these retrograding planets and their relentless Aries point activations have sent my nervous system skyrocketing. So as grateful I have been for this period of PROFOUND CHANGE1 in my personal and professional lives, I am VERY READY for a moment of sweet relief.
Mercury formally ended its retrograde on Monday, and Venus will make an about face this Sunday. Mercury will cross over the Aries point - the beginning degree of the Zodiac - on Wednesday as it prepares to exit its shadow on April 26. Venus will wait until April 30 to ring the Aries point bell and finally exit its shadow on May 16.
As these planets begin to inch forward, take the opportunity to center yourself in the version of you that has lived through the past few months. Remember as you look around that you have now seen this stuff before, that you now know more about what it is. Perhaps more importantly, you also know more about yourself and you have every reason to be confident that you will deal with it better.
In particular, I encourage you to play with those Aries point passings - they provide the perfect platform to present the newer, wiser you. And in true Aries style, there’s no need to plan in advance. Just charge yourself up with courage and notice what you do when you do it. You got this.
The end to Mercury’s retrograde also spells curtains for my Obvious Wisdom publishing pop-up. Check out our latest and last two titles below, it’s been a hoot.🦉
Love,
Patrick
PS: If you found value in this post, I invite you to drop a coin in my magical Author’s Tip Jar. It’s an enchanted jar so any contribution you make will come back to you five-fold. Believe it and it’s real.✨
An angel gets its wings every time an astrologer writes “profound change,” and when we do it in ALL CAPS it’s an archangel.
Loved this plot-twisting box of ideas, Patrick!