Listening to Water: Mercury Retrograde conjunct Venus in Scorpio + Mars squaring the Nodes

The Fate of Persephone – Walter Crane (1877) (cropped)

Four days after the Scorpio New Moon and Mercury cazimi November 20, Mercury retrograde joins Venus at 22 Scorpio November 24.

Mercury retrograde conjunct Venus in Scorpio has us revisiting destructive  patterns, deep attachments, soul contracts, entangled money, hidden affairs, intimate conversations, secret bargains, inheritance, poetry for the dead.

Mercury & Venus are under the beams of the Sun, so what comes to light remains mostly unseen and unspoken for now. However,  Mercury stations direct November 29--the Sun  moving forward, releasing it from its light--and becomes visible in the morning sky before sunrise as herald and morning star.

Venus is opposing Uranus in Taurus at this time, from the last degree of Scorpio, so we can expect relationships and/or finances to be impacted and changed by whatever is learned now. Mercury has a message to give Venus when they cross over each other, and it’s likely around this time we hear it loud and clear.

The temperature probably started to heat up toward this shift when Venus entered Scorpio on November 6 and then squared Pluto. Mars was opposing Uranus and the Moon at the time from 1 Sagittarius, and Mercury was very still in the sky about to turn retrograde November 9.

Now, Venus is deep in Scorpio, and Mercury has made its way back rendezvous with her behind closed doors. And Mars, crossing the midpoint of the nodes toward the North Node, is ready to wind down something that’s been dissolving for quite a while.

At the same time Mercury and Venus conjoin, Mars, ruler of their conjunction and the Scorpio New Moon, squares the Lunar Nodes from 14 Sagittarius at the “south bending”.

Mars turning the corner at the midpoint of the nodes can make this time even more ripe for change. A long arc of hunger & release that started around May 2024 is closer to resolution, and then renewal.

Events mid-July 2025, when Mars crossed over the South Node in Virgo, could come back into awareness now, ready for closure. By the time Mars begins a new cycle with the North Node, when they conjoin on March 13 2026, what’s been ending is likely completely over and drifted out of your life.

The most striking thing about this configuration is that the Mercury/Venus conjunction is also activating the Grand Water Trine with Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune—all retrograde, expect Venus.

This is a time that dredges up the past—and our deepest emotional connections to the past—so we can set free what’s been accumulating in the dark for a long time.

This is a big turning point for many, but for others, it’s also a time of great catharsis, flooding, and washing away outworn patterns, dissolved connections, decayed relationships, grief, or coming to terms with regret, shame, or loss.

These rising waters can cleanse and rinse away what needs to be shed and moved beyond, if we listen deeply and rise with them.

Now that Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus are back in Pisces and Taurus for final reflections  and wrap-ups, we might have to push through the mud one more time  before the past truly feels behind us.

But, instead of merely pushing through the mud, we can take it and throw it on our potter’s wheel. We can then shape it into a new form we set out in the open air to dry and cure. In early 2026, it will be ready to fire in the kiln.

What are you ready to shape into the future?

What’s weighed you down for  too long and felt as if it might pull you under like an anchor?

What needs release so you can rise to the surface and breathe in the sun again?

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