One of the things that is the most interesting to me about Mercury is its ephemeral (dare I say, “Mercurial”?) nature. It indicates matters related to travel, to messages, and to communication. Where people are concerned, it refers to a certain “magician” quality which makes someone a problem solver, a person who understands complex situations, and even a trickster (someone who understands a situation so deeply that they can prank it).
The core signification to me of Mercury is a sense of going from “here” to “there”. That could be physical (as with travel), it could be philosophical (in the way that communication helps us to arrive at different conclusions by gaining outside input), or it could be mental (in the way that messages notify us that something has occurred – like a bill being due!).
Mercury is the fastest planet in our solar system (we are not counting the Moon as a planet in this case, since it is a satellite of Earth rather than a planet fully in its own right). But Mercury zips around the Sun every 88 days. That is a lot faster than our Earth year of ~365 days!
The thing Mercury hates more than anything is standing still. Stagnation. Not moving from “here” to “there” and instead moving “nowhere”!
Mercury moves most slowly around the time of its retrograde motion (there is a good reason why, but that is a topic for a different blog post and is focused on astronomy, not astrology!). Because Mercury was recently retrograde in December and early January, it has been moving more slowly than usual. As a result, rather than catching up with Mars in Capricorn and quickly overtaking it, they have been moving together for the past week or so and will continue to move together for the following week until Mercury starts picking up speed. This means Mercury and Mars are spending more time close to each other than usual. Against the backdrop of Pluto moving from Capricorn to Aquarius (see last month’s blog post), what does this extended Mercury/Mars co-mingling of energy look like?
Mars wants to “go”! A great catch-phrase for Mars would be the Nike slogan “Just do it!” (Interestingly, Nike was founded as Blue Ribbon Sports when Mars was conjunct the Sun in early Aquarius, and Mars was again in early Aquarius, this time Trine the Sun, when its name changed to Nike. Clearly Nike’s history is very intertwined with Mars in Aquarius!)
Mercury and Mars both agree on their desire to move! However, the manner of the movement is very different. Mars says “GO, GO, GO!”. Mercury says “Create a plan, and then execute it!” It can be difficult for Mars to be patient while Mercury comes up with a plan, and likewise, it can be difficult for Mercury to come up with a plan while Mars is breathing down its proverbial neck.
This results in a kind of frenzied energy to move but a struggle to figure out which direction to move in. Without Mercury there, we would feel passionate about moving and not worry too much about which direction we were headed in. But Mercury will feel stressed if there is too much happening without a plan. The best travel, communication, and notifications typically happen when there is some form of planning in place. Most of us don’t quickly type gibberish into an email, click “Send”, and expect something good to happen.
This is the energy of January – feeling torn between a desire to move instantly, but at the same time wishing we had time to get a clear plan in place first! One thing worth calling out is that Mars is exalted in Capricorn, meaning that it does good work there. Earthy Capricorn inherently lends some structure and discipline to Mars’ rash energy. So it’s possible that Mercury and Capricorn will help slow Mars down until we have a solid plan in place. However, it seems more likely that we will have just enough of a heads up of oncoming craziness to brace ourselves for the impact, but not enough of a heads up to actually make a proactive plan. If you have thoughts on how this energy has been playing out in your life, please feel free to add a comment! It’s definitely a dynamic energy to start the year!
Photo by Oscar Sutton on Unsplash