July 18, 2025
Mercury turned retrograde last night in the middle of Leo, 15 degrees, 34 minutes, to be exact. When he turns direct on August 11th, he will be at 4+ Leo. As always, a Mercury retrograde is a time for reflection, remembering, reframing, integrating and re-evaluating the past four months. If you know your chart, and have any planets between 4 and 16 degrees of fixed signs, they will demand your attention.
Since Mercury last went direct on April 7th, Saturn and Neptune moved into Aries, Uranus into Gemini, and Jupiter into Cancer. That means all the outer planets initiated new cycles, operating within the context of new energies and themes. That’s a lot of change for us to integrate. Our bodies have been resonating primarily with Earth and Water signs for years, which helped us ground in our physical bodies and feel into our energy bodies where thoughts stir up feelings.
Only Jupiter is in a water sign at the moment, but he’s there to bring up our feelings about home, family, nurturing and safety. It’s a great time to re-evaluate family relationships, heal old wounds and slip the chains of old conditioning. With Uranus in Gemini now, we can expect some new insights if we slow down, and listen for them.
The new energies are lively. Fire and Air bring quicker change, new ideas and new passions. We can feel the activation, the awakening of spirit, and we must find a way to adjust our frequencies and learn to surf the currents rather than flail in chaos, or drain ourselves in struggle.
We are exhausted by the chaos and uncertainty. Just in time, Mercury is offering us a mini-vacation to allow the mind/body to recalibrate, to listen not just to our heads, but our hearts, to find our footing and tap into the traits that make up a spiritual warrior.
In one of my pieces about Neptune and Saturn in Aries, I mentioned that a beautiful expression of these conflicting archetypes is the spiritual warrior. It’s time to transmute patriarchal conditioning about courage, strength and power. Time to balance and reclaim the powers of the Feminine; time to redefine our masculine energy. It’s not about domination, abuse of power, wealth or fame. It’s about service.
It’s easy to see the negative qualities of Aries demonstrated by abusive men, but it’s harder for women to acknowledge and take responsibility for the negative masculine within us. We are just as indoctrinated by our paradigm as men are. Just watch your thoughts and feelings through the day. Do you expect more from yourself than you can deliver? Do you criticize yourself, get impatient beat yourself up emotionally? Do you drive yourself to achieve? Then you are a conditioned patriarch.
It is impossible to build a new world as long as we are chained to a false and outdated paradigm. When we women feel second-best, we try to prove our worth. When we are abused by men, we think it’s our fault. This is how the paradigm works against women – disempowering us so we run faster and faster on our hamster wheels to please them. It works against men by tormenting them with a lust for power, wealth and fame, keeping them chasing the trappings of “success.” But patriarchy is only as real as we believe it is. It’s no more than a lie of male superiority, fabricated a few thousand years ago and established as religious cannon by tribal leaders who manipulated their people into believing that God decreed their dominion.
Neil Gaiman published his novel, American Gods, back in 2001. In this intriguing fantasy, the old gods are fading away because they are no longer sustained by beliefs. Think about it – our paradigm is only as strong as our belief in it. If we withdraw that belief, we take away its power to survive.
Summoning the Spiritual Warrior
If you are self-reflective, attempting to understand yourself and take responsibility for your impact on others, you are a spiritual warrior. If you are healing old wounds and releasing old grievances, you are a spiritual warrior. If you are seeking a deeper connection with the Divine, or dedicate your life to serve others, you are a spiritual warrior.
As we leave the Age of Pisces behind, we shift our focus from “follow the leader,” to BE the leader. The Age of Aquarius is about individuating, becoming our authentic selves, stepping into our power, exercising our genius and freedom in service of humanity. We will learn to see each other through a different lens – watch each other flower, be in awe of the great diversity of humankind, each unique, each with a soul, each a spark of the Divine.
This is the essence of the Awakening we are entering now. Some of us got a head start on this process, but it’s not a competition, nor a race. It’s the beautiful transformation of our perception, happening in increments, moment to moment. As our inner landscape shifts, we see new horizons, new possibilities. We think new thoughts and feel new feelings. Gradually we open up and let the truth flow in.
Evolving isn’t about struggling to evolve. It’s about surrendering to the wondrous process of metamorphosis, a distinctly Feminine Energy. Our new selves have been gestating and the climate is increasingly conducive to our awakening and rebirth.
So let’s take a look at the qualities that make up a spiritual warrior, because this shift in self-image, from lonely, self-absorbed human to spiritual warrior, is fueled by a passion to contribute our gifts to the world. The Aquarian Age is a nurturing context for Awakening.
First of all, a Spiritual Warrior refrains from violence, but uses the power of Light to win battles. Gandhi and Martin Luther King are stellar examples of peaceful leaders who generated great change.
A Spiritual Warrior is a protector who stands for equality and justice, who champions the poor, the excluded, the victimized.
A Spiritual Warrior is constantly learning and growing, always open to new information, new experience and new meaning that leads to wisdom.
A Spiritual Warrior is dedicated to know herself completely, in order to take responsibility for her impact on others.
A Spiritual Warrior shares his knowledge and wisdom with others. They speak up and shine their light into the world. They conquer their fear by filling their hearts with love.
A Spiritual Warrior practices the future.
So what does that mean? It means that they step into the vision they hold of a better world. They embrace and live as if it is the future and the world has already changed. This is a key to manifestation. As long as we are hoping and praying, beseeching and groveling for help, we cannot accomplish our task. We’re operating from weakness. If, however, we are spiritual adults with a mission and an army of angels at our backs, we are strong.
Reality manifests out of energy frequencies. Right now collectively, we’re running out of gas, but we can step out of that low frequency by living as our future self, operating from the values of that self and holding the frequencies of peace and respect. As more and more of us practice this, the collective consciousness shifts to a new frequency, one in which the dream can manifest.
As we open to new possibilities and step more into the person we are becoming, we begin to reclaim the power of the Divine Feminine – the power of compassion, of creativity and resilience, the ability to create enough space to include everyone, the profound capacity to conceive and birth something new. As we support the emergence of our feminine side, we become more sensitive to energy frequencies. Our right brain gets activated and what we call psychic powers, begin to emerge. That can’t happen in a context of constant Doing. It’s the product of heightened awareness of our Being.
With Mercury retrograde in Leo, it’s the perfect frequency to consult with our hearts, not just the pumps that circulate our blood, but the wisdom that lies within those 40,000 brain cells that inhabit the physical heart and guide us in the right direction.
Leo is the sign of the inner child, the spontaneous, wondrous, unspoiled child, brimming with a sense of exploration, fun and discovery. Sadly, he or she may have had a rough time and could use some nurturing and support from the adult self.
I offer my thoughts as possible themes to consider during this retrograde. Who is your Future Self? What is your dream of the future? Neptune in Aries is dreaming futures as well. The deeper we go, the more power we gather.
The Oceans of the Earth
One of Neptune’s dreams is to restore the oceans to their healthy state. A couple of months ago I watched David Attenborough’s film on the oceans. It’s on PBS, and if I could, I’d show that film to every student in the world. I believe it’s also available on Disney’s National Geographic section and on Hulu. If you don’t subscribe to those platforms, try YouTube.
We all know that our oceans are the life blood of our planet and that they thrive because of diversity. What a metaphor for humanity! Mark Jones spoke about the lessons the ocean can teach us in his class at Astrology University on the Saturn/Neptune conjunction. I encourage all you astrologers to watch this class. It was brilliant and gave me lasting food for thought. You can purchase it at Astrology University.com.
Mark reminds us that the ocean teaches us about our source, our primal substance, our flexibility and diversity, our depths and the extraordinary vastness of those depths.
David Attenborough revealed what is happening to our oceans and the need for us to respond. It’s not all tragedy. The photography alone is breathtaking, and certain areas are being reclaimed through restriction of fishing. But he reveals the dark side as well. For instance, the death of coral reefs around the world as the oceans warm and sea urchins destroy whole ecosystems. The destructive behavior of humans as they cull seafood with trawlers dragging enormous nets across the ocean floor, all to harvest sea scallops. All the rest is thrown out as waste. The ocean floor is destroyed, stripped of all life and the very diversity that makes it thrive. The new industrial fishing industry, just like industrial farming, is devastating to the health of our planet and its ability to sustain human life.
Attenborough concludes with this statement, “If we save the sea, we save our world.”
Less than 3% of the ocean is protected. In 2020, countries around the world committed to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. While some small progress has been made, we’re far short of that goal, especially since our new administration has withdrawn from the Paris Accord and gutted all clean energy programs. We need to speak up and remind our leaders that if we hope to preserve life on Earth, we must make our oceans a top priority. Now that’s a worthy cause for spiritual warriors.
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