November 14, 2023 • 31 mins
Ever wonder how the realm of astrology influences us on an everyday basis? This is the episode for you! Join us, Sunny and Bootes, as we embark on a celestial journey, uncovering the astrological nuances of Mercury, the messenger of the gods. We shed light on the astronomic and mythological significations of Mercury, exploring its unique position as the closest planet to the Sun. From its role in our communication to its impact on our self-expression, there's plenty to learn about this fascinating celestial body. We'll also delve into the behavior of Mercury in its two domicile signs, Gemini and Virgo, unveiling its unique role and power in astrology.
Fasten your seatbelts as we continue on our astral exploration, delving deeper into the lesser-known realms of Mercury's influence. We dig into how the placement of Mercury in a person's chart can hint at their level of mental and physical dexterity. Even the challenging Mercury placements can be harnessed for success and fulfillment in life, and we'll tell you how. Mercury's retrograde can have a profound impact on our daily routines and activities – interested in understanding how? Tune in as we unravel this and so much more! Engage with the enlightening and sometimes obscure aspects of astrology with us, and discover how to navigate your life under Mercury’s influence.
To talk with Sunny and Bootes send an email to: contact@astrologyafpodcast.com
To talk with sunny or get a reading, goto: https://sunnysastrology.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Music.
Hey Astro Friends, this isAstrology AF, the show that
talks everything astrology aboveand below the totally real, not
at all illusory sky.
I'm Sunny, your host, with over30 years of chart reading
experience.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And I'm Boots, your hostling.
With almost 30 years experiencequestioning innocent people to
tears, we're here to walk withyou through the twinkling
starlight into the basic, theadvanced and the obscure.
Hi, you're listening toAstrology AF.
My name is Boots and I'm Sunny,and we are here today to
provide you with a Mercury castin the order of our series that
(00:51):
we are doing on the planets now.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, brilliant.
So we're going through theplanets in Ptolemaic order, and
the first was the moon.
We did the moon last time andnow we're talking about Mercury.
Mercury is second in order.
So, mercury, what do you wantto talk about with Mercury?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, you know, I hear it's a planet.
I'm not convinced.
I've never been to any of theseplaces, but there's a lot of
literature stating otherwise,and so I'm just trusting the
people who have studied thismore than me, and the dots on
the astrology programs seem toconvey things, and so there's
(01:40):
something to it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Fair enough, yeah, so Mercury is Okay.
First, let's talkastronomically.
Mercury is the closest planetto the sun and, as we've
mentioned before on this podcast, astrology is done from an
Earth-centered perspective.
(02:03):
In other words, I stand outsideand look up and what do I see?
So what we see is that, withthe sun, wherever the sun is,
mercury is not far behind,because Mercury is out there,
revolving around the sun, andthe sun moves and Mercury goes
(02:25):
with it.
So Mercury can only ever be, atmost, one sign away from the
sun.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Right and maximum of 28 degrees correct.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I believe that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, okay, I don't know the numbers but that's what
I found in the notes that Imade for you, there you go.
So, with it being the closest tothe sun, that kind of plays
into its symbology as being themessenger of the gods.
Mercury in Greek mythology isthe one who parlays messages
(03:06):
between the gods and from thegods to man, and so, as a result
of that, a lot of itssignifications are related to
communication, from everythingfrom speech to letters.
Some say that the internet issignified by Mercury as well as
(03:29):
short-term travel, because it ismaking that little trip all the
time and it's running thoseerrands of relaying messages
back and forth, and so all ofthat stuff kind of gets thrown
into Mercury's game.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It's always moving quickly and if you think about
it, when you want to send amessage, you don't want to send
it with a turtle, right, youwant to send it with something
that's going to get that messagethere quickly.
So Mercury is about all things.
I like to think of it as allthings mental.
(04:07):
It's thinking, it'scommunicating, it's speech, it's
listening, it's learning, it'sreading Even things when you go
back and read the ancientauthors.
Even things like thievery is amercury trade which you know,
(04:28):
you kind of like.
Well, but think about it.
In order to get away with theperfect crime, in order to get
away with a million dollars, yougot to be pretty good, you got
to be pretty smart, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Smart, quick, small.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Or quick and small.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
How mercury does in different signs.
This is something that Ithought about that we didn't get
to address in the last episodeon the moon, but we'll be doing
it from now on.
According to Ptolemy, mercury'sessential dignities are it has,
so its domiciles are Virgo andGemini and if you think about
(05:12):
the symbology of Virgo andGemini, it tells you a lot about
mercury.
And if you understand mercury,it can tell you a lot about
Virgo and Gemini.
In Gemini, that's our mutableair sign.
I kind of the picture, I liketo have a sort of a mental image
of these signs for modalitieslike cardinal, fixed, mutable,
(05:36):
and I think of Gemini mutableair being like breezes going on,
like up higher in the sky,because it's an air sign just
quickly changing winds, adaptivewinds.
Gemini is known for being anadaptive sign as far as like
(05:58):
anthropomorphizing it andassigning it human attributes,
because that's what this is allabout.
It is chameleonic, some peoplemight say it is always just
going with the flow of what'sgoing on.
If you tie in mercury to that,it's because mercury moves fast.
Mercury is always changing.
(06:21):
It changes almost probablysecond, as fast as the moon.
That's why it's second and tallmake order.
Something interesting that Ifound out is that some
astrologers say that if mercuryis in a different sign than the
sun, that it can affect the waythat somebody expresses
(06:42):
themselves, mercury being themouthpiece of the sun, of the
ego.
If it's in the same sign as thesun, then they're both in the
same energy, they're sitting inthe same pool, they have.
It has no problem communicatingwhat the sun is experiencing,
whereas if mercury is, you know,a sign over, then it is
(07:04):
remanating at a different energy, and so it might convey what
the sun is feeling in adifferent way than the sun
itself would if the sun had itsown mouth.
So if you've got mercury inGemini or the sun in Gemini, but
like, say, mercury is one overin cancer, then mercury is going
(07:25):
to be communicating things in amore canceran way, in a more
water element way.
So it's going to be moreemotionally kind of centered,
more inner world centered, thanif it was also just mercury and
domicile there in Gemini.
So mercury in Virgo.
Since I've gone on for a minute, I'll let you kind of describe
(07:49):
mercury in Virgo a little bitmore.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Sure, sure.
So Virgo is also a mutable sign, just like, just like Gemini is
, but it is a mutable earth sign.
And so when we think of, youknow, mutable earth, I mean
earth is just here and itdoesn't move.
Why would it be mutable?
But we think of things like amud flow.
(08:14):
You know where the ground hasbecome saturated and it just has
to move, it just has to spreadout, you know, and change shape.
Virgo is the second sign thatmercury rules.
Okay, this that actually makesthis whole thing super easy,
(08:35):
because if we look at Gemini andVirgo as the signs that mercury
rules, those are the signs ofits domicile, where mercury is
king, in Gemini, and in Virgo,where mercury is like the prime
minister.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Hmm, okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Both in really good shape.
And so a lot of times when I'mtalking to people about mercury
in Virgo, I am talking aboutorganization and details and
lists, and you know all of thosebecause, being an earth sign,
it's very much into the, thepracticality of things.
(09:21):
Earth signs are very concernedwith the material.
This is Mercury being concernedwith the material.
So this is Mercury going well.
What am I supposed to do withall this stuff here?
I need to, you know, organizeit, put it in some kind of
recognizable patterns and youknow it'll be all.
(09:46):
It'll all be so much better assoon as it's all organized.
And then when and I'm going toskip ahead because the signs of
its Mercury's fall and detrimentare opposite, the two signs
(10:07):
where it is ruling or exaltedOkay.
So Gemini, sagittarius.
Gemini is ruling, sagittarius,it is in detriment.
Okay.
Now does this mean that you, ifyou have Gemini and Sagittarius
(10:27):
, does this mean that you don'thave a brain and you can't think
?
Absolutely?
not Someone that I know fairlywell who has attained a lot of
you know a lot of letters aftertheir name, and they have
(10:47):
Mercury in Sagittarius.
You know it is.
It means that it's, it's, it'sit's struggling a little bit.
Mercury in Sagittarius is alittle more I describe it as a
little more flaky.
You know like it getsinterested in something and then
pretty soon it's over hereinterested in something else.
(11:09):
Because again, we're talkingabout another mutable sign.
You know it can struggle tolike knuckle down Okay.
However, as evidenced by myfriend with lots of letters
after their name, it does not.
It's not impossible.
You don't get degrees by byblowing everything off.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Kind of an image, for that helps me with that is
Mercury.
If he's this little like sortof fairy type character, you
know small wings and all thatsort of thing, I think of
Sagittarius, mutable fire, asbeing forest fire, like it may
(11:50):
be small and burning low, butit's hot and it's big and it can
also get, like you know, hugeand that's not good for little
wings.
You know that burns them up,that it flying is not so easy
around there.
And then the sign of Mercury'sfall and I was just looking
(12:11):
Mercury is also in detriment inthis sign is Pisces.
Pisces, I most often hearrelated to being the ocean of
the water signs and wings don'twork well when they're wet.
Just because you have Mercury inone of those signs does not
mean that you know you're goingto be a mute necessarily.
(12:35):
If you are and you do, pleaseleave that in the comments,
because that is superinteresting and I would love to
hear that.
That's just where it tends tohave.
The classic terminology for itis that it has less power to act
.
So it might not be as prominentin your life.
I know one person who has Sunand Mercury in Sagittarius.
(12:57):
They also have Jupiter inSagittarius, and so that you
know if you have that powerful,great placement right if you've
got that as a conjunction or youknow just close by.
Jupiter can carry a lot ofweight.
He's a big guy, and so you canstill accomplish a lot in that
(13:19):
area.
Just because one planet mightnot be doing as well doesn't
mean that you're not going tohave any of the skills that are
signified by that, and and yeah,here's and this brings up a
slightly tangential point that Ithought I would talk about- I
(13:40):
love those is?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
is astrology deterministic?
In other words, if you have inthis case, you know Mercury in
Sagittarius, does that mean youare doomed?
Does that mean you are, youknow you are, you're never going
to accomplish anything on theMercury level.
(14:03):
You should just get a shoveland start digging things,
because that's all you're goodfor.
And I really disagree with theidea that astrology is
deterministic.
I think that we, we all walk inhere with certain strengths and
(14:26):
certain maybe not so strengths.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Is that such a nice way of saying that?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Not so strong, not so not so powerful placements,
okay, but what we do with ourlives and what we do with our,
with our, what we're, what we'regiven, is up to us, you know?
I mean, there's a certain level.
(14:53):
I am never going to be in abeauty pageant.
Okay, I don't have long legs, Idon't have a swimsuit bod, but
you know.
But that's not the only thingthat there is for me to ever be,
right, I could be.
(15:13):
I could be a newscaster, Icould be, you know, an
astrologer, I could be, you knowa ton of different things,
right, right, if we come in andwe say, well, the only power,
the only the only good chart isthe one where you're going to be
in the beauty pageant, thatleaves out an awful lot.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
There's an awful lot of powerful, potent, beautiful
life paths that don't involvebeauty pageants ever once.
So you know.
So if you're, you know, ifyou're like I have this, I have
this mercury placed in Pisces,oh I'm doomed.
(16:00):
No, you're not.
You may struggle with a fewthings.
You may have to work a littleharder than you than than
somebody who's got a beautifullyplaced mercury, but the
potential is up to you.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
There's what you do with it, and how you color in
your natal chart is totally upto you.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Right, and since you mentioned, you know you can be
an astrologer.
Actually, mercury signifiesastrologers.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So very commonly you do find some prominent mercury
in people who practice or justhave an interest in astrology.
But there are also people whodon't have super prominent
mercuries, who are also verygifted astrologers.
You know there's any number of,there's any number of equations
(16:54):
you can write up to come upwith two as the sum.
You know, ultimately you don'tonly have to do one plus one or
four minus two, and I'm going tostop there because I don't want
to say wrong math on a podcastbut you know there's just so
(17:15):
many different things that youcan do with that.
I personally have mercuryretrograde and so and combust,
like just minutes off of beingKazemi, which is where it gets
like super cyan and ultrapowerful.
But having mercury, you know,combust and retrograde right
(17:40):
there.
I feel like I still get by justfine.
I've done learned all right,and you can too.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yep, Yep, Exactly.
Yeah, we should talk about acouple of different.
We should talk about a coupleof those words that you used.
One is retrograde.
You hear a ton out there in thepopular world about mercury
retrograde.
A friend has a t-shirt that Ijust I covet.
(18:10):
It says may your mercury bemore freddy and less retrograde.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But retrograde, mercury retrograde happens,
seems like it happens an awfullot, and it's true it does.
It's three to four times a yearmercury goes retrograde, and
the reason that this becomessuch a big issue?
All the planets go retrograde,all except the sun and the moon,
(18:44):
but Mercury retrograde is.
Mercury is all the things thatwe do on a regular basis.
It's communicating, it'slearning, it's the internet,
Okay, and when Mercury goesretrograde, those things tend to
(19:04):
wonk out.
We tend to have, you know,missed communications and you
know, airline tickets that arelike taking you to the wrong
place or for a flight that wasyesterday, or you know yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I remember a couple months ago, during the Mercury
retrograde that we had, we werehaving a hell of a time just
getting the recording system togo properly and getting mics set
up and not being able to heareach other and like now, I can
hear you, but I can't see you,type of stuff Like every week
(19:43):
when we were recording.
It was so annoying.
But outside of that, for me asa Mercury retrograde native,
most of the time things aregreat.
I love Mercury retrograde.
It feels normal to me.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, for those of us who don't have it, who don't
have a natal Mercury retrograde,it's a little more troublesome
than you know.
We're going.
I need Freddie.
I need Freddie.
I want Freddie not retrograde,and not, yeah, not Mercury
retrograde, but so the reasonMercury retrograde tends to be
(20:25):
such a thing is because itaffects all the stuff that we do
on a regular basis.
When's the last time you wentthrough 24 hours and didn't go
on the internet?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
It's been a minute.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It's been a minute.
You know when's the last timeyou went through 24 hours and
didn't talk to somebody?
Or did you learn?
You know, sit down and read andlearn things.
I mean, all the stuff that wedo on a regular basis is Mercury
.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Especially in like today's age, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Absolutely yeah, and so when it goes retrograde, it's
like you know, it affects allthe things that we do.
So that's why it that's why ithas such an outsize reputation
happens, happens so frequentlyand hits us where we live.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
The other two terms that I used in that tangent were
combust and Kazimi.
So combust is when Mercury iswithin 15 degrees of the sun
thereabouts.
It is considered combust.
This terminology is also or Iguess the other phrase for it is
under the beams, and that in a,in a literal sense, it means
(21:39):
that Mercury is so close to thesun that you can't see it, and
so the its job kind of in someways is taken over by the sun.
Like it's, their lights arecombined and you can't really
tell the difference from one tothe other, and one might say you
can't tell the differencebetween my ego and my mouth, and
(22:01):
so it's.
That's just sort of how itworks.
And then Kazimi is when it isso far close to the sun that
it's right in the middle.
What is the?
What is the distance there?
I know you know this number 17minutes.
17 minutes, Right.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So if the sun is at one degree zero minutes and
Mercury is at one degree 16minutes, it is Kazimi.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
And so that is when, I, like I said earlier, mercury
becomes super Saiyan and itgains so much power from the Sun
because it's in the heart ofthe Sun, is I actually?
I think that's what Kazimimeans, isn't that?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That is my understanding.
I don't speak, you know.
I don't speak any otherlanguages, so I can't translate
directly.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Okay, that's a way to remember it is that it's in the
heart of the Sun and so you canhave that where it's so combust
that it actually gets powerfrom it.
And then people with thatposition I have yet to meet
anybody who has Mercury Kazimi,but I would imagine that they
have just the most eloquent oftongues and always are able to
(23:26):
express themselves perfectly,unless outside of that they have
a whole bunch of squares goingon between Saturn and Mars to
the Sun, or oppositions, youknow stuff like that, but yeah,
those are the most commonly usedterms that you hear around.
Mercury are retrograde when itappears to be going backwards,
(23:49):
combust under the beams, whichis when it's so close that it's
in detriment.
That happens to every planet,by the way, that is not just
Mercury, and then Kazimi, whichis where it's in the center of
the Sun and it gains power fromit, and that is also applicable
to all other planets.
So if Venus can be combust orKazimi, as can Saturn or any
(24:15):
other planet.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
It happens a little more frequently with Mercury
because of the frequency of theretrograde cycle.
Right, because he just itcrosses the sun on a regular
basis.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
So as far as in horary astrology because we
covered a little bit of thatwith the moon, mercury is
considered to be cold, dry, andthen this is kind of one of the
interesting things with Mercuryis it is both androgynous and it
is not particularly a day ornight planet.
(24:55):
You have it rules Gemini in theday and Virgo at night, or it's
it's it's day sign is Gemini,it's night sign is Virgo.
That also goes with.
Day sign is it's masculine sign, night sign is it's feminine
sign, but it doesn't have aparticular polarity, it doesn't
(25:18):
have a particular gender.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
No, it's, it's day or day or night, right.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Right, and something that I have read is that if you
are doing horary and you'reasking about who stole my you
know who stole the cat this timeand the person is signified by
(25:46):
Mercury Say you have Gemini inthe seventh house the person's
significator is going to beMercury.
You look at what planetsMercury is closest to in order
to determine the gender of theperson Mercury is signifying, or
whether they're masculine orfeminine leaning, and then, if
you don't have anything aroundthere, you might just not be
(26:08):
able to tell.
It might lean a little bittowards being masculine person,
but really there's.
It's just it's not telling you.
And so if it's right up next toMars, which is a very masculine
planet, then it's going to beconsidered a more masculine
Mercury is going to be moremasculine.
If it's right up next to Venus,then the opposite, it's going
(26:30):
to be more feminine.
And so Mercury is one of myfavorite planets in that sense,
in that, along with being thetrickster and being mercurial,
you can't really tell what it is.
It's just androgynous.
It also signifies things ofthings that come in multiples,
(26:57):
so like sheaves of wheat orblackberries, things that like
when you have some, you usuallydon't just have one, or like
grains of rice.
You don't usually just have onegrain of rice, you have a ton
of grains of rice, and so itwill represent things that come
(27:19):
in multiples in horary charts aswell.
Something that I thought isfunny is it can represent pizza
and cocktails and sweet and soursauce.
Because of its duplicitousnature, it represents mixtures
of things where there is notjust one solitary essence to a
(27:41):
thing.
It has multiple qualities to it.
And then, like we had said, themental processes.
It can represent things thatmimic humans, like parrots in
speech or monkeys, and many ofthe ways that they can learn to
behave like humans.
And then things like it canrepresent a key, because if it's
(28:05):
the mind, the mind will unlocka problem, right.
So with Horiary, there's a lotof this interpretive game that
you play and you kind of there'sno definitive list of all of
what one thing can signify.
(28:25):
You end up having to use alittle bit of intuition and just
your sense to figure out what aplanet can signify altogether
and why it's there.
And then, as you go throughpossibilities, one will stick
out that's like oh, I bet it'swe're talking about.
You know, I asked what am Igoing to have for dinner tonight
(28:46):
and one of my top choices wasChinese food, and so I bet it's
going to be rice, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
For sweet and sour, yeah For sweet and sour, right.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
And then we had already said that it represents
astrologers, and just for anexample of that, the ninth house
also is indicative ofastrologers because it
represents learned people, andso where Mercury.
If you have Mercury or Virgo inthe ninth house, then you can
(29:21):
look and see if Mercury is wellplaced or strongly placed in
your chart.
It might be an indication thatastrology is something you could
have a neck for, and if it'snot, that doesn't mean it's not
there's plenty of astrologerswho don't have that but just for
the sake of familiarity andexample with communication, it
(29:42):
also represents writers, clerks,accountants.
It also represents doctors andmedicine, because of all the
reading you have to do in orderto learn all of that thing,
those things, lawyers who speakfor you.
Or it can also represent yourright-hand man, your advisors,
(30:03):
and then documents, books,papers, publications.
And for the body, it representsthe tongue, the brain, arms,
hands and fingers.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So it especially makes a lot of sense to me,
because you know dexterity andthe ability to accomplish things
, which is very, very Mercury.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And that's something else that I had read is that the
placement of Mercury in yourchart can be indicative of your
level of physical dexterity aswell as, like, specifically,
phalange dexterity.
Well, thanks so much everybodyfor tuning in today to our
Mercury cast.
We hope that you enjoyed.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Brilliant, thank you, thank you for joining us.
Music.
Hey Astro Friends, this isAstrology AF, the show that
talks everything astrology aboveand below the totally real, not
at all illusory sky.
I'm Sunny, your host, with over30 years of chart reading
experience.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And I'm Boots, your hostling.
With almost 30 years experiencequestioning innocent people to
tears, we're here to walk withyou through the twinkling
starlight into the basic, theadvanced and the obscure.
Hi, you're listening toAstrology AF.
My name is Boots and I'm Sunny,and we are here today to
provide you with a Mercury castin the order of our series that
(00:51):
we are doing on the planets now.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, brilliant.
So we're going through theplanets in Ptolemaic order, and
the first was the moon.
We did the moon last time andnow we're talking about Mercury.
Mercury is second in order.
So, mercury, what do you wantto talk about with Mercury?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, you know, I hear it's a planet.
I'm not convinced.
I've never been to any of theseplaces, but there's a lot of
literature stating otherwise,and so I'm just trusting the
people who have studied thismore than me, and the dots on
the astrology programs seem toconvey things, and so there's
(01:40):
something to it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Fair enough, yeah, so Mercury is Okay.
First, let's talkastronomically.
Mercury is the closest planetto the sun and, as we've
mentioned before on this podcast, astrology is done from an
Earth-centered perspective.
(02:03):
In other words, I stand outsideand look up and what do I see?
So what we see is that, withthe sun, wherever the sun is,
mercury is not far behind,because Mercury is out there,
revolving around the sun, andthe sun moves and Mercury goes
(02:25):
with it.
So Mercury can only ever be, atmost, one sign away from the
sun.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Right and maximum of 28 degrees correct.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I believe that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, okay, I don't know the numbers but that's what
I found in the notes that Imade for you, there you go.
So, with it being the closest tothe sun, that kind of plays
into its symbology as being themessenger of the gods.
Mercury in Greek mythology isthe one who parlays messages
(03:06):
between the gods and from thegods to man, and so, as a result
of that, a lot of itssignifications are related to
communication, from everythingfrom speech to letters.
Some say that the internet issignified by Mercury as well as
(03:29):
short-term travel, because it ismaking that little trip all the
time and it's running thoseerrands of relaying messages
back and forth, and so all ofthat stuff kind of gets thrown
into Mercury's game.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It's always moving quickly and if you think about
it, when you want to send amessage, you don't want to send
it with a turtle, right, youwant to send it with something
that's going to get that messagethere quickly.
So Mercury is about all things.
I like to think of it as allthings mental.
(04:07):
It's thinking, it'scommunicating, it's speech, it's
listening, it's learning, it'sreading Even things when you go
back and read the ancientauthors.
Even things like thievery is amercury trade which you know,
(04:28):
you kind of like.
Well, but think about it.
In order to get away with theperfect crime, in order to get
away with a million dollars, yougot to be pretty good, you got
to be pretty smart, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Smart, quick, small.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Or quick and small.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
How mercury does in different signs.
This is something that Ithought about that we didn't get
to address in the last episodeon the moon, but we'll be doing
it from now on.
According to Ptolemy, mercury'sessential dignities are it has,
so its domiciles are Virgo andGemini and if you think about
(05:12):
the symbology of Virgo andGemini, it tells you a lot about
mercury.
And if you understand mercury,it can tell you a lot about
Virgo and Gemini.
In Gemini, that's our mutableair sign.
I kind of the picture, I liketo have a sort of a mental image
of these signs for modalitieslike cardinal, fixed, mutable,
(05:36):
and I think of Gemini mutableair being like breezes going on,
like up higher in the sky,because it's an air sign just
quickly changing winds, adaptivewinds.
Gemini is known for being anadaptive sign as far as like
(05:58):
anthropomorphizing it andassigning it human attributes,
because that's what this is allabout.
It is chameleonic, some peoplemight say it is always just
going with the flow of what'sgoing on.
If you tie in mercury to that,it's because mercury moves fast.
Mercury is always changing.
(06:21):
It changes almost probablysecond, as fast as the moon.
That's why it's second and tallmake order.
Something interesting that Ifound out is that some
astrologers say that if mercuryis in a different sign than the
sun, that it can affect the waythat somebody expresses
(06:42):
themselves, mercury being themouthpiece of the sun, of the
ego.
If it's in the same sign as thesun, then they're both in the
same energy, they're sitting inthe same pool, they have.
It has no problem communicatingwhat the sun is experiencing,
whereas if mercury is, you know,a sign over, then it is
(07:04):
remanating at a different energy, and so it might convey what
the sun is feeling in adifferent way than the sun
itself would if the sun had itsown mouth.
So if you've got mercury inGemini or the sun in Gemini, but
like, say, mercury is one overin cancer, then mercury is going
(07:25):
to be communicating things in amore canceran way, in a more
water element way.
So it's going to be moreemotionally kind of centered,
more inner world centered, thanif it was also just mercury and
domicile there in Gemini.
So mercury in Virgo.
Since I've gone on for a minute, I'll let you kind of describe
(07:49):
mercury in Virgo a little bitmore.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Sure, sure.
So Virgo is also a mutable sign, just like, just like Gemini is
, but it is a mutable earth sign.
And so when we think of, youknow, mutable earth, I mean
earth is just here and itdoesn't move.
Why would it be mutable?
But we think of things like amud flow.
(08:14):
You know where the ground hasbecome saturated and it just has
to move, it just has to spreadout, you know, and change shape.
Virgo is the second sign thatmercury rules.
Okay, this that actually makesthis whole thing super easy,
(08:35):
because if we look at Gemini andVirgo as the signs that mercury
rules, those are the signs ofits domicile, where mercury is
king, in Gemini, and in Virgo,where mercury is like the prime
minister.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Hmm, okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Both in really good shape.
And so a lot of times when I'mtalking to people about mercury
in Virgo, I am talking aboutorganization and details and
lists, and you know all of thosebecause, being an earth sign,
it's very much into the, thepracticality of things.
(09:21):
Earth signs are very concernedwith the material.
This is Mercury being concernedwith the material.
So this is Mercury going well.
What am I supposed to do withall this stuff here?
I need to, you know, organizeit, put it in some kind of
recognizable patterns and youknow it'll be all.
(09:46):
It'll all be so much better assoon as it's all organized.
And then when and I'm going toskip ahead because the signs of
its Mercury's fall and detrimentare opposite, the two signs
(10:07):
where it is ruling or exaltedOkay.
So Gemini, sagittarius.
Gemini is ruling, sagittarius,it is in detriment.
Okay.
Now does this mean that you, ifyou have Gemini and Sagittarius
(10:27):
, does this mean that you don'thave a brain and you can't think
?
Absolutely?
not Someone that I know fairlywell who has attained a lot of
you know a lot of letters aftertheir name, and they have
(10:47):
Mercury in Sagittarius.
You know it is.
It means that it's, it's, it'sit's struggling a little bit.
Mercury in Sagittarius is alittle more I describe it as a
little more flaky.
You know like it getsinterested in something and then
pretty soon it's over hereinterested in something else.
(11:09):
Because again, we're talkingabout another mutable sign.
You know it can struggle tolike knuckle down Okay.
However, as evidenced by myfriend with lots of letters
after their name, it does not.
It's not impossible.
You don't get degrees by byblowing everything off.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Kind of an image, for that helps me with that is
Mercury.
If he's this little like sortof fairy type character, you
know small wings and all thatsort of thing, I think of
Sagittarius, mutable fire, asbeing forest fire, like it may
(11:50):
be small and burning low, butit's hot and it's big and it can
also get, like you know, hugeand that's not good for little
wings.
You know that burns them up,that it flying is not so easy
around there.
And then the sign of Mercury'sfall and I was just looking
(12:11):
Mercury is also in detriment inthis sign is Pisces.
Pisces, I most often hearrelated to being the ocean of
the water signs and wings don'twork well when they're wet.
Just because you have Mercury inone of those signs does not
mean that you know you're goingto be a mute necessarily.
(12:35):
If you are and you do, pleaseleave that in the comments,
because that is superinteresting and I would love to
hear that.
That's just where it tends tohave.
The classic terminology for itis that it has less power to act
.
So it might not be as prominentin your life.
I know one person who has Sunand Mercury in Sagittarius.
(12:57):
They also have Jupiter inSagittarius, and so that you
know if you have that powerful,great placement right if you've
got that as a conjunction or youknow just close by.
Jupiter can carry a lot ofweight.
He's a big guy, and so you canstill accomplish a lot in that
(13:19):
area.
Just because one planet mightnot be doing as well doesn't
mean that you're not going tohave any of the skills that are
signified by that, and and yeah,here's and this brings up a
slightly tangential point that Ithought I would talk about- I
(13:40):
love those is?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
is astrology deterministic?
In other words, if you have inthis case, you know Mercury in
Sagittarius, does that mean youare doomed?
Does that mean you are, youknow you are, you're never going
to accomplish anything on theMercury level.
(14:03):
You should just get a shoveland start digging things,
because that's all you're goodfor.
And I really disagree with theidea that astrology is
deterministic.
I think that we, we all walk inhere with certain strengths and
(14:26):
certain maybe not so strengths.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Is that such a nice way of saying that?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Not so strong, not so not so powerful placements,
okay, but what we do with ourlives and what we do with our,
with our, what we're, what we'regiven, is up to us, you know?
I mean, there's a certain level.
(14:53):
I am never going to be in abeauty pageant.
Okay, I don't have long legs, Idon't have a swimsuit bod, but
you know.
But that's not the only thingthat there is for me to ever be,
right, I could be.
(15:13):
I could be a newscaster, Icould be, you know, an
astrologer, I could be, you knowa ton of different things,
right, right, if we come in andwe say, well, the only power,
the only the only good chart isthe one where you're going to be
in the beauty pageant, thatleaves out an awful lot.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
There's an awful lot of powerful, potent, beautiful
life paths that don't involvebeauty pageants ever once.
So you know.
So if you're, you know, ifyou're like I have this, I have
this mercury placed in Pisces,oh I'm doomed.
(16:00):
No, you're not.
You may struggle with a fewthings.
You may have to work a littleharder than you than than
somebody who's got a beautifullyplaced mercury, but the
potential is up to you.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
There's what you do with it, and how you color in
your natal chart is totally upto you.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Right, and since you mentioned, you know you can be
an astrologer.
Actually, mercury signifiesastrologers.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So very commonly you do find some prominent mercury
in people who practice or justhave an interest in astrology.
But there are also people whodon't have super prominent
mercuries, who are also verygifted astrologers.
You know there's any number of,there's any number of equations
(16:54):
you can write up to come upwith two as the sum.
You know, ultimately you don'tonly have to do one plus one or
four minus two, and I'm going tostop there because I don't want
to say wrong math on a podcastbut you know there's just so
(17:15):
many different things that youcan do with that.
I personally have mercuryretrograde and so and combust,
like just minutes off of beingKazemi, which is where it gets
like super cyan and ultrapowerful.
But having mercury, you know,combust and retrograde right
(17:40):
there.
I feel like I still get by justfine.
I've done learned all right,and you can too.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yep, Yep, Exactly.
Yeah, we should talk about acouple of different.
We should talk about a coupleof those words that you used.
One is retrograde.
You hear a ton out there in thepopular world about mercury
retrograde.
A friend has a t-shirt that Ijust I covet.
(18:10):
It says may your mercury bemore freddy and less retrograde.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But retrograde, mercury retrograde happens,
seems like it happens an awfullot, and it's true it does.
It's three to four times a yearmercury goes retrograde, and
the reason that this becomessuch a big issue?
All the planets go retrograde,all except the sun and the moon,
(18:44):
but Mercury retrograde is.
Mercury is all the things thatwe do on a regular basis.
It's communicating, it'slearning, it's the internet,
Okay, and when Mercury goesretrograde, those things tend to
(19:04):
wonk out.
We tend to have, you know,missed communications and you
know, airline tickets that arelike taking you to the wrong
place or for a flight that wasyesterday, or you know yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I remember a couple months ago, during the Mercury
retrograde that we had, we werehaving a hell of a time just
getting the recording system togo properly and getting mics set
up and not being able to heareach other and like now, I can
hear you, but I can't see you,type of stuff Like every week
(19:43):
when we were recording.
It was so annoying.
But outside of that, for me asa Mercury retrograde native,
most of the time things aregreat.
I love Mercury retrograde.
It feels normal to me.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, for those of us who don't have it, who don't
have a natal Mercury retrograde,it's a little more troublesome
than you know.
We're going.
I need Freddie.
I need Freddie.
I want Freddie not retrograde,and not, yeah, not Mercury
retrograde, but so the reasonMercury retrograde tends to be
(20:25):
such a thing is because itaffects all the stuff that we do
on a regular basis.
When's the last time you wentthrough 24 hours and didn't go
on the internet?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
It's been a minute.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It's been a minute.
You know when's the last timeyou went through 24 hours and
didn't talk to somebody?
Or did you learn?
You know, sit down and read andlearn things.
I mean, all the stuff that wedo on a regular basis is Mercury
.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Especially in like today's age, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Absolutely yeah, and so when it goes retrograde, it's
like you know, it affects allthe things that we do.
So that's why it that's why ithas such an outsize reputation
happens, happens so frequentlyand hits us where we live.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
The other two terms that I used in that tangent were
combust and Kazimi.
So combust is when Mercury iswithin 15 degrees of the sun
thereabouts.
It is considered combust.
This terminology is also or Iguess the other phrase for it is
under the beams, and that in a,in a literal sense, it means
(21:39):
that Mercury is so close to thesun that you can't see it, and
so the its job kind of in someways is taken over by the sun.
Like it's, their lights arecombined and you can't really
tell the difference from one tothe other, and one might say you
can't tell the differencebetween my ego and my mouth, and
(22:01):
so it's.
That's just sort of how itworks.
And then Kazimi is when it isso far close to the sun that
it's right in the middle.
What is the?
What is the distance there?
I know you know this number 17minutes.
17 minutes, Right.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So if the sun is at one degree zero minutes and
Mercury is at one degree 16minutes, it is Kazimi.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
And so that is when, I, like I said earlier, mercury
becomes super Saiyan and itgains so much power from the Sun
because it's in the heart ofthe Sun, is I actually?
I think that's what Kazimimeans, isn't that?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That is my understanding.
I don't speak, you know.
I don't speak any otherlanguages, so I can't translate
directly.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Okay, that's a way to remember it is that it's in the
heart of the Sun and so you canhave that where it's so combust
that it actually gets powerfrom it.
And then people with thatposition I have yet to meet
anybody who has Mercury Kazimi,but I would imagine that they
have just the most eloquent oftongues and always are able to
(23:26):
express themselves perfectly,unless outside of that they have
a whole bunch of squares goingon between Saturn and Mars to
the Sun, or oppositions, youknow stuff like that, but yeah,
those are the most commonly usedterms that you hear around.
Mercury are retrograde when itappears to be going backwards,
(23:49):
combust under the beams, whichis when it's so close that it's
in detriment.
That happens to every planet,by the way, that is not just
Mercury, and then Kazimi, whichis where it's in the center of
the Sun and it gains power fromit, and that is also applicable
to all other planets.
So if Venus can be combust orKazimi, as can Saturn or any
(24:15):
other planet.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
It happens a little more frequently with Mercury
because of the frequency of theretrograde cycle.
Right, because he just itcrosses the sun on a regular
basis.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
So as far as in horary astrology because we
covered a little bit of thatwith the moon, mercury is
considered to be cold, dry, andthen this is kind of one of the
interesting things with Mercuryis it is both androgynous and it
is not particularly a day ornight planet.
(24:55):
You have it rules Gemini in theday and Virgo at night, or it's
it's it's day sign is Gemini,it's night sign is Virgo.
That also goes with.
Day sign is it's masculine sign, night sign is it's feminine
sign, but it doesn't have aparticular polarity, it doesn't
(25:18):
have a particular gender.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
No, it's, it's day or day or night, right.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Right, and something that I have read is that if you
are doing horary and you'reasking about who stole my you
know who stole the cat this timeand the person is signified by
(25:46):
Mercury Say you have Gemini inthe seventh house the person's
significator is going to beMercury.
You look at what planetsMercury is closest to in order
to determine the gender of theperson Mercury is signifying, or
whether they're masculine orfeminine leaning, and then, if
you don't have anything aroundthere, you might just not be
(26:08):
able to tell.
It might lean a little bittowards being masculine person,
but really there's.
It's just it's not telling you.
And so if it's right up next toMars, which is a very masculine
planet, then it's going to beconsidered a more masculine
Mercury is going to be moremasculine.
If it's right up next to Venus,then the opposite, it's going
(26:30):
to be more feminine.
And so Mercury is one of myfavorite planets in that sense,
in that, along with being thetrickster and being mercurial,
you can't really tell what it is.
It's just androgynous.
It also signifies things ofthings that come in multiples,
(26:57):
so like sheaves of wheat orblackberries, things that like
when you have some, you usuallydon't just have one, or like
grains of rice.
You don't usually just have onegrain of rice, you have a ton
of grains of rice, and so itwill represent things that come
(27:19):
in multiples in horary charts aswell.
Something that I thought isfunny is it can represent pizza
and cocktails and sweet and soursauce.
Because of its duplicitousnature, it represents mixtures
of things where there is notjust one solitary essence to a
(27:41):
thing.
It has multiple qualities to it.
And then, like we had said, themental processes.
It can represent things thatmimic humans, like parrots in
speech or monkeys, and many ofthe ways that they can learn to
behave like humans.
And then things like it canrepresent a key, because if it's
(28:05):
the mind, the mind will unlocka problem, right.
So with Horiary, there's a lotof this interpretive game that
you play and you kind of there'sno definitive list of all of
what one thing can signify.
(28:25):
You end up having to use alittle bit of intuition and just
your sense to figure out what aplanet can signify altogether
and why it's there.
And then, as you go throughpossibilities, one will stick
out that's like oh, I bet it'swe're talking about.
You know, I asked what am Igoing to have for dinner tonight
(28:46):
and one of my top choices wasChinese food, and so I bet it's
going to be rice, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
For sweet and sour, yeah For sweet and sour, right.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
And then we had already said that it represents
astrologers, and just for anexample of that, the ninth house
also is indicative ofastrologers because it
represents learned people, andso where Mercury.
If you have Mercury or Virgo inthe ninth house, then you can
(29:21):
look and see if Mercury is wellplaced or strongly placed in
your chart.
It might be an indication thatastrology is something you could
have a neck for, and if it'snot, that doesn't mean it's not
there's plenty of astrologerswho don't have that but just for
the sake of familiarity andexample with communication, it
(29:42):
also represents writers, clerks,accountants.
It also represents doctors andmedicine, because of all the
reading you have to do in orderto learn all of that thing,
those things, lawyers who speakfor you.
Or it can also represent yourright-hand man, your advisors,
(30:03):
and then documents, books,papers, publications.
And for the body, it representsthe tongue, the brain, arms,
hands and fingers.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So it especially makes a lot of sense to me,
because you know dexterity andthe ability to accomplish things
, which is very, very Mercury.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And that's something else that I had read is that the
placement of Mercury in yourchart can be indicative of your
level of physical dexterity aswell as, like, specifically,
phalange dexterity.
Well, thanks so much everybodyfor tuning in today to our
Mercury cast.
We hope that you enjoyed.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Brilliant, thank you, thank you for joining us.
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