A great new astrology blog called Apotelesmatics from Chris Brennan delves even more deeply into Paris’s jail problems and connects the dots to the shadow of Mercury Retrograde.

This is a textbook case of Mercury retrograde. Paris was born with Mercury retrograde natally, in Aquarius actually, exactly conjunct her Sun. The whole incident that happened earlier this year which led to the jail sentence happened during a Mercury retrograde period, and she actually has Mercury retrograde exactly conjunct her solar return Mars this year at 8 Pisces. And now this.

Chris goes on to detail the “shadow period” of retrograde cycles which has some application – personally I feel that the degree to which our individual charts are affected by the shadow determine how strongly we will experience those periods of time.

As Chris notes, Mercury stationing in the shadow before turning retrograde was exactly square Saturn and Jupiter which are exceptionally tightly conjunct in her chart within one minute. Both planets are retrograde in her chart, in the eighth house of sex, death and general intensity, and certainly the jail experience is challenging her privileged life in a way that is bringing up her unconscious fears. All of the water houses (4, 8 and 12) deal with the unconscious, and in the eighth house we often find that which we fear.

When we experience planetary cycles during retrograde periods those cycles become extended as the planets travel back and forth over sensitive points in our chart. That is also true for Mercury, and because Mercury stimulates activity and generates learning experiences as well as short trips we will tend to find these sorts of experiences during Mercury periods. These back and forth trips to jail are certainly falling under this category!