Edargorter

 ?Edargorter seog tenalp a nehw sneppah tahw

Well, we need a mirror to be able to read what’s going on.  A journal would also be handy.  By the time a planet does go Edargorter, it’s already taken us on a journey.  In case you haven’t noticed, Edargorter is Retrograde spelled, of course, backwards.  By the time a planet turns Retrograde, we’ve already missed the point.

When a planet turns Retro, it crosses a section of the Zodiac, stops, backs up over it again, stops again, then finally runs over this same section of the Zodiac for a third time, before moving on.  If we happen to be Ego-identified with that section of the Zodiac (let’s say we have a natal planet there), and the Gnidargorter planet happens to be as Heavy as a Mack Truck, we want to know when it’s coming through the first time, so we can step out of the way then.  By the time it’s backing up, our Ego is already just a grease spot.

We use a simple rule, the Experience Rule.  It says that the more times we’ve Experienced a particular astroevent, the easier it is, simply because we have more practice dealing with it.  

That’s one reason why we say that if you have a Square and especially a T-Square in your natal chart, you’re the Expert on that subject, because you have more Experience with it than anyone else around.  Squares never Feel good, especially if we have a perfectionistic streak, or if we compare our Life to that of Others.  So you probably discount your Skill.  But you are the Expert, and once you begin to understand that, your Life Changes forever, because you’re no longer the Victim of your own Life.  You become the Master instead.

This rule is also why we pretty much ignore the inner planets, because they zip around the Zodiac so often that we all have plenty of Experience with them.  Yes, Mercury’s turning Edargorter, but that happens three times a year, so we’re all Experts already on Mercury Edargorter.  Of course, Mercury doesn’t thrice cross the second half of Capricorn three times a year, it only does that once every six years.  But Mercury crosses your natal Capricorn planets every year, and Squares them twice a year.  

Compare that to Pluto, which only crosses anyone’s natal planets every 250 years – most of us go a Lifetime without Experiencing that, so it’s a Big Deal.  When one of those outer planets takes a mind to triple-cross one of your natal planets, this is a whole new Experience for you.  One of the guidelines of Time Management says that you can’t estimate how long something will take to do if you’ve never done it before.  Similarly, you can’t know how to deal with Pluto crossing your natal Mercury if you’ve never Experienced it before.

Mercury crossing Pluto isn’t nearly so intense as Pluto crossing Mercury, but it’s a good example of how to deal with Sedargorter.  Mercury will be Retrograding over the last half of Capricorn this month, and in the process Retrograding over – that is, thrice crossing – Pluto and Pallas.  It’s already run over them once, so while Mercury’s more like a Smart Car than a Mack Truck, it’s already knocked down Pluto and Pallas for the first time.

We consider that first crossing the Can-Opener crossing, because it introduces whatever Difficulty we have with the two planets.  Mercury crossing Pluto might Challenge us to find a new, Transformed way of thinking, for instance, or it might force us to think about something we don’t like to think about, or make us talk about something that makes us very uncomfortable, because we don’t have much practice at it.  That happened on 19th December, so it’s Water under the bridge.

Except that whatever unfinished business we have around that – maybe someone feels insulted by what you said on 19 December, or maybe your Mother’s Ghost stands at your shoulder, eyes like ice, a little bit colder, saying to you, “You cannot do that, it breaks all the rules you learned in school” – will be revisited during the second and third crossings.  Mercury will cross Pluto again on 21st January.  We call that second crossing the Exposition phase.  We get to Experience the Can-Opener again, but this time having seen it once already, we’re a bit wiser, and it happens in slow motion.  The process is Exposed, and we get to practice with it – maybe make amends, or tell our Mother’s Ghost where to go.

Mercury crosses Pluto for the third time on 28 January.  By then we’ll be old hands at this.  We’ll just thank Mom’s Ghost for contributing, we’ll have learned how to Speak our Truth without insulting anyone, and the Transformation of our thinking will be complete.  So we call this third crossing the Confidence-Builder stage.

Mercury over Pallas works the same way.  Can-Opener 22 December, when we were probably forced to make new Discernments, or more likely, got in trouble for not making a Discernment we didn’t know we were supposed to make.  The Exposition is 12 January, when you’re likely to figure out why they’re mad at you.  And the Confidence-Builder is 21 February.  We can make a big deal out of the Roman Caristia holiday on the 22nd, and make amends for whatever faux pas we committed at the Solstice – or maybe let that person who took our omission so seriously then know that they were out of line to Blame us for their Expectations.

Pluto’s just entering the second half of Capricorn.  Pluto in Capricorn means “Just fix it!”  We all know it’s a problem, and we know how to fix it, so let’s just get to work and get it done.  The first half of Capricorn is all business, completely pragmatic.  But the second half is the Cancer half of Capricorn.  In the second half we remember that there’s more to Life than business or engineering; we have to make sure the results are nurturing for the People and the Planet.  So this is our first introduction to softening the hard edges of our “Just fix it” efforts, where we start to think about what needs to be done and how we might do it.

Mercury also Squared Uranus on 20 December, the Can-Opener Square, probably when we realized that we’ve still got a few Masks to take off before we can be True to ourSelf.  Those’ll be Exposed more on 20 January, and we’re likely to find the Confidence to remove them on 30 January.

Bottom Line: if we want to be able to step out of the path of those Mack Trucks, we need to know about these Sedargorter before they happen, not while they’re happening.