That's Heart-Mind backwards. Venus and Mercury retrograding simultaneously. It happens pretty often! -- sometimes. Then again, sometimes, it doesn't happen at all. Here are all of those non/times over the past 33 years:
Mercury flies backwards through the sky about three times per year, and Venus does so about every year and a half. Mercury retrogrades for about three weeks, and Venus for about 40 days. Sometimes those periods of time overlap. In this graphic above, the little brown dots are all the times when Mercury retrograded at the same time as Venus also retrograding, represented by the diamonds. The average time is about 10 days, though sometimes it's just for a few hours. This year we get a real long period of about 15 days.
One of the most notable things about this graphic is that it shows that there were no simultaneous inner-planet retrogrades spanning the years 2000 and 2016! That's a long gap. Another thing to note is that sometimes Mercury and Venus occupied the same sign, but usually they didn't.
So what's it all mean? Good question. I haven't done a research project to correlate these periods to mundane events (that is, events of the world rather than focusing on an individual). I made it because I love to make such things. It makes me happy to crate a pretty chart. But it's also there for reference. Maybe you've lived a rich life full of diaries? If so, then you can go back through your diary and search for those times where the inner planets travelled in reverse together. Or you can maybe just remember, maybe even vaguely, what was going on during those times? I'll post the exact dates here so that you can be more specific. For the insanely curious, there's more info included as well:
Now I certainly don't expect anyone to correlate these dates with their state of mind or life events at those times. That's for extra credit only! (And if you DO, please email me a detailed report!). So instead, we can just give a quick feeling of what it might look like. While astrological effects can always look very different for different people at different times, I can describe what's happening for me during this particular double-retrograde, so that you might have a hint of how to work with it yourself this January 2022.
I was angry at some people. Really angry. I figured, hey, why not just stay angry for the rest of my life? It's not so bad, right? But then, on December 19th 2021, Venus turned around, and I thought "I don't want to be angry anymore at these people." So I made an intention: by the time Venus turns prograde again 41 days later, I don't want to be mad at these people anymore.
So I journaled and processed with good friends and meditated every day. I filled my heart with love for my enemies. It was working pretty well! But then Mercury decided to turn around too, near the middle of January. Mercury pointed out some things to me. He showed me that there were rogue shadows that got away. I wasn't full of forgiveness yet. I was doing pretty great! - but something was missing. So I worked some more on it. It helped. Then today, an intuitive astrologer gave me a reading. It was excellent! I learned something very important. I learned that it was myself that I need to forgive, not these other people. I learned that it's okay for me to be angry. Of course, I've realized this before. In fact, during Scorpio season, I was so okay with being angry that I relished it! But this wasn't about glee. This was about having compassion for myself for having anger at all. I guess it seems pretty obvious, and really it is. But things don't always seem obvious when we're grappling with them deeply. We go through stages, stages of transformation. From scorpion, to snake, to eagle to phoenix. We spiral through, and the familiar feels new.
Can we fill the gaps between our heart and mind? Can we fill the logical gaps between the letters of dniM-traeH? I'll take one "e" for 100 hearts please, and I'll take a "v" and an "l" and an "a" and a "t" please for a quarter of my brain. Thanks very much. Now we have
Denim Travel Hat
Why not get playful? The hat will protect our balding scalp from the dry heat of the Aquarius Sun. Put some wings on that hat and we can fly like Hermes himself! We can fly to Aphrodite's land, and bask in the firm glow of Heart-Mind once the inner planets move in forward motion again, which will be quite, quite soon.
If you're interested in knowing who the intuitive astrologer was that I had a session with (yes astrologers get readings too) then send me a message and I'll tell you who it was and put you into contact. If you would like to explore how this double-retrograde effects your particular birth chart with me, or perhaps you wonder when the next double-retrograde will be, then please let me know and we can play scrabble together.