There Are a Few Days When a Planet Appears to Stop
Before and after a planet changes the direction it advances through the sky, there is a period when its movement appears to stop. In astrology, this state is called a station. The planet is not actually stopping. Because the apparent movement as seen from Earth switches from an advancing direction to a returning direction, before and after that switch, its position within the signs appears to hardly change.
A station occurs immediately before retrograde begins and immediately before it returns to direct motion, respectively. The period differs by planet, but it is read as one that continues for a few days. Whereas a retrograde period as a whole extends from a few weeks to a few months, a station is a short division at both its ends.
Retrograde and Station Are Read Differently
Retrograde is a period when a planet appears, apparently, to advance in the opposite direction to usual. On this site, a retrograde period is read not so much as a time to advance things, as a time to check content that has been decided.
A station is read in a slightly different way from that. Because it is the boundary where direction switches, it fits reading it as a time when you do not hurry to decide on the spot either a judgment to advance or a judgment to turn back. Checking work itself may be advanced in this time, but deciding a large change of direction based on the results of checking is easier to read conditions for after the station has passed and movement has stabilized. The few days of a station are a form of thinking of them not as a time to decide, but as a time to gather the material for deciding.
Why the Few Days at a Boundary Are Looked at Separately
The reason for looking at a station separately is that, at a boundary, information tends to become mixed. In a station before retrograde begins, you tend to judge with the way of proceeding that has gone smoothly so far as it is, but it is also a time when points that need checking begin to come to the surface. In a station before returning to direct motion, you want to advance ahead with a feeling that checking has finished, but it is still a time when movement has not stabilized.
What both stations have in common is that the material for judgment is not all in place, yet the feeling of wanting to decide becomes stronger. For that reason, what is important in a station period is not deciding something new, but organizing the order in which to decide. What to check first, and what to decide later. If you decide just that order, after the station has passed, you can move to judgment without hesitation.
How to Use a Station in Work Arrangements
A station reading becomes easier to understand if placed in concrete arrangements. Place judgments that decide direction, such as contracts and changes of person in charge, avoiding the few days of a station, before or after. Work that gathers material, such as checking and taking stock, may be placed in a station period without problem. Rather, a time when movement appears to stop is suited to checking what is at your feet.
For example, if, in a period falling before or after a Mercury station, a misunderstanding in communication comes to the surface, rather than deciding a new way of proceeding on the spot, a form where you record the content of the misunderstanding and decide the way of proceeding anew after it has returned to direct motion is suited. Do the work of leaving a record in the station period, and place the judgment to decide later. This division is how to use a station. The line that work is advanced, but decisions are not hurried works especially in a boundary period.
This checking is suited to a form of finishing it in a short time in the morning. Before beginning work, you check whether that day falls before or after a station and the movements of the stars that are the basis, and divide in advance what is to be decided today from what is to be kept just to gathering material. It is a form of using it not as deciding by believing a fortune-telling reading as it is, but as a procedure for reviewing once your own judgment from outside. The more a person is in a position where immediate decisions are often sought, the more this one extra step of checking the basis and the order before a decision helps to hold down bias in judgment.
A Station Occurs for All Planets
A station is not a phenomenon of Mercury alone. All planets that go retrograde have a station before and after retrograde begins and ends. The slower a planet moves, the longer its station period also tends to be, and to that extent, the influence of the boundary is also read longer.
If you read the station of a fast planet as a division of a few days, and the station of a slow planet as a longer division for checking, you can use them differently. In this site's monthly horoscope, the days retrograde begins and ends are listed as the basis. Please use the few days before and after them as a guide, as a period falling on a station, when placing arrangements. Knowing a station is not taking special measures. It is using it as one more marker for dividing the time to decide from the time to gather material.
The Reason for Leaving Just a Record in a Station Period
A station period is not a time to decide, but it is suited as a time to leave a record. Misunderstandings that came to the surface in a boundary period and vagueness in conditions may look like small things on the spot, but they become important material when judging later. If you rely only on memory, by the time it has returned to direct motion, where things were vague will have faded.
The way of recording does not need to be long. A form of leaving, in a few lines, the date, the content that came to the surface, and who is involved, is sufficient. If that record exists, after the station has passed and movement has stabilized, the order for deciding can be executed as it is. If there is no record, you will redo things from the checking work, and the information gained at the boundary will not come alive.
Also, if, in a station period, you are asked by the other person to decide in a hurry, rather than bringing out a conclusion on the spot, a form of answering with the day to decide is suited. For example, it is a form of conveying a day after the day it returns to direct motion as the day of decision. If you make it an answer that you are not not deciding, but deciding the day to decide, the arrangements are conveyed to the other person as well, and you do not need to make a strained judgment in a boundary period yourself. How to read a station is not an excuse for stopping; it is for making the order for deciding into a form the other person can also understand.
A station day, if the starting day and ending day are known by calculation of the stars, can be specified as the few days before and after them. When checking the beginning and end of retrograde in the monthly horoscope, please take a form of placing arrangements including not only that day, but the few days before and after as well. In particular, it is accurate to read the day it returns to direct motion not as everything stabilizing immediately after returning, but as movement returning to normal over a few days. If you use those few days as a period of preparation for moving a decision into execution, how to read a station comes alive in arrangements.