A note on Mercury

These days I watched the MISPA event celebrating the 10 years that the astrology school has been open and they had many astrology talks with great astrologers on. But the main one that I wanted to talk about here is the one that Darby Costello did on Mercury and Hermes.

I absolutely loved how she talked about this archetype and I feel that we (at least myself) tend to take for granted planets like Mercury, only paying attention to it when is retrograde and saying that it relates to your intellect, full stop. There are many dimensions to each archetypal pattern represented by the symbols in astrology.

And Mercury isn’t an exception!

Darby said that Mercury relates to travelling and movement, as is already largely spoken in the astrological community, but she connected that with the idea of information as well. Thats why Mercury in the Jupiter ruled signs are in fall or detriment, because Jupiter relates to belief and truth. And when we are communicating something that we believe is the truth we automatically shut down the process of exchanging information, which is the function of Mercury.

She also said that Mercury is about the collection and exchange of information that can be useful to people, that is the relationship to Gemini and Virgo, the two signs ruled by Mercury.

It was so insightful to me as I have such a powerful mercurial nature, with Sun, Mercury, Venus, Chiron and the North node all ruled by Mercury in my chart.

Darby also talked about Mercury being a guide, for Hermes is the one that can take people into the underworld, and in order for us to tap into that guidance we have to keep in motion. When you are stagnated Mercury does not help you, but once you go on a journey, it is there to help or trick you.

Astrology is such a magical subject with many facets for us to realise and empower ourselves with!!

Piscean Mercury Retrograde 2020

For a while I’ve been meaning to come here and write a little about this cycle of retrogradation of Mercury in Pisces which begins today.

We usually attribute imagination to the symbolism of Mercury in Pisces but as I look into the chart for the moment that it will start moving backwards later on today, I have the sense that much of the themes emerging back will have something to do with rebalancing the emphasis we put on relationships and other people’s needs versus our own.

How did I get to that idea?

Both the Moon and Mercury will be forming an almost exact square, from Sagittarius to Pisces, and I see here a conflict between merging (Pisces) and freeing yourself in order to pursue what is meaningful to you (Sagittarius). Both are ruled by Jupiter in Capricorn somehow reflecting the need to be grounded and take responsibility for working with this duality.

Venus is in Aries, quite close to Chiron also in Aries (speaking of dealing with the different layers of our wounded sense of self?), emphasising individuality, and Mars just recently moved into Capricorn. Here our awareness is brought back to the Stellium in Capricorn which has being under the spotlight for a few months now (comprised of Saturn, Pluto, South Node and Jupiter).

What is it that we better take responsibility for?

Mercury in Pisces has a resonance with intuitive thinking, dreams, imagination, but the final dispositor for this cycle of retrogradation is Saturn in Capricorn, a symbol reflecting separation, inner authority, hard work and maturation. I feel that this could be a wonderful 3 weeks to regain focus on what truly matters to us as individuals, even if in a creative and intuitive manner, as opposed to what other people expect from us, including our partner.

As usual, during the Mercury retrograde period we do well in revisiting, rethinking, reassessing, etc… and also, not to forget to always bring the symbolism of transits into your natal chart in order to figure out how “exactly” and in which area of your life this process is bound to take place, and in this way, achieve further insight.