Mercury in Libra

The Hubble Space Telescope's view of the jet being emitted from Black Hole M87

(photo credit: NASA-JPL)

After Mercury in Virgo comes Mercury in Libra, which by any metaphysical name is the opportunity and need to make connections and to recognize how what we do and how we do it generates how others react.

And who we attract to react with.

And what we’re all about in this moment.

The famous Shakespearian quote about ‘all the world is a stage’ is very Mercury in Libra. Life is our stage and to some extent, life may feel ‘staged.’ Given how much energy is still being expressed through water signs, it would not be mysterious in the least to feel a bit disconnected as Mercury enters Libra (on September 9th at 7:08 in the morning UT/+0 time) or for the just-shy-of-three weeks that Mercury will be passing through this sign. After all, Libra is an interactive sign which is all about the idea of the thing and water is always the symbol of how we feel about things.

So given that Mercury is the emblem of our thoughts and choices and how well we do things…or how healthy our choice of what to do is…the ‘how we feel’ about all such issues – which are now being experienced through interactions of all kinds with others and life in general – is likely to have and reflect whatever quandaries we have as individuals with the difference between the ‘idea of the thing’ and real feelings being experienced in real time.

You know, as we go about doing whatever it is we do in life.

This may be no simple matter…at least not in the sense of what we’re doing versus what’s going on in our (Mercurial) minds, that is. With this shift into Libra happening just after we’ve entered the ‘breaking down’ period in advance of the November Solar Eclipse, anything which is outmoded in our life is beginning to shift.

Mind you, we may not think those things are outmoded. We may be just ‘fine’ with them. But whatever they are, they are not serving us well in the sense that they are not allowing us or enabling our ability to be the truth of who we are way deep down inside. We may think what we’re doing or how we’re doing it is just nifty. In fact, that’s pretty much a given. But whatever you feel shifting now – particularly as that pertains to who you associate and how you go about associating with people and your world in general?

That’s the ‘underlying’ nuance likely to continue throughout these weeks of Mercury in Libra. On the surface, we can expect the pace of life to pick up. There will be more which needs doing, more focus required on and in what we do, and the smart money is thinking through not just what our position or concept on any given subject is, but recognizing how that does – or doesn’t “fit” with those around us. 

Or how the world works.

The fact that we do have this very dichotomous inner-versus-outer energetic going on means you may feel like you’re wearing a ‘social mask.’ Or conversely, you may want to be all about living on one level while trying to ignore something else.

That wouldn’t be the best move, by the by. If you’re (Mercury) thinking you can operate as you want to and not just do what you (Libra) do to get results in the short run, that’s skating on pretty thin ice.
And since Scorpio – the sign of the solar eclipse – is “fixed water” and therefore metaphysical ice, that would be a pretty iffy bet. Yes, we are sure to see some unenlightened bulldozer brains thinking they can avoid evolutionary force, but that would be sort of like skating on thin ice.

Do you really like cold water all that much?

Libra being the sign behind Scorpio puts this Mercury in Libra passage in the 12th house position to the eclipse – so it would be natural to be either thinking through where you might do better if you changed things up (self criticism) or, if you’re one of those people who doesn’t like being self reflective, to be getting a lot of notes, critiques and out-and-out complaints from others.

Then again, Scorpio is also the 2nd house harmonic to Libra. It’s the sign after Libra, in other words, which on the zodiacal harmonic level says we may now be doing our growing through learning from others. Or through having others challenge us or evoke our deeper emotional issues.

Scary? Maybe yes. But useful? Also yes! And that we are meant to consider things differently…? That works here too, as any planet which moves into Libra immediately encounters the position of supermassive Black Hole M87. Black holes – by any account – are areas of space (the general time/space continuum) where what we think of as ‘reality’ goes through some serious alterations. One of my favorite descriptions of entering a black hole (which is referred to as ‘crossing the event horizon’ – an esoteric term if there ever was one!) …is how that which the Black Hole is on the inside is SO very different than what’s on the outside that to cross that event horizon would be experienced as being turned into ‘cosmic spaghetti.’

(For the record, I think this description came from Paul Halpern’s book ‘Cosmic Wormholes,’ but I’m not positive.)

Mercury's Libra ingress chart

September 9, 2013 - 7:08 a.m. (UT/+0) - Aries Wheel (location not specific)

 

The astrological point (and to some degree the astrophysical point) is that Black Holes basically do two things: they suspend our sense of ‘time in the space of our existence’ and they alter our sense of what is…and therefore what is true and on the more mundane level, what works and what doesn’t work in the glorious thing we know as our life.

So as Mercury – representing our thoughts, our communications, our choices and all which goes with them and which provokes them – crosses into Libra, this will reflect in…

a.) Our moving from a more personal and private mode of thinking into several months to come of focusing our our world in a less personal and more global and interactive way.

b.) Our encountering some new and different ways of seeing or experiencing things…or the need to see them in/through a different perspective…or people and/or situations which force upon us something which in turn gets us to see something in or about life in a new or different way.

And all of this will at some level refer both to a major shift in how we interact with others and our ability or willingness to balance the ‘them’ and their needs against our Self and our preferences…whatever we’ve been doing which does or doesn’t serve that need to interact fully and at least intimately within our Self (if not with others)…and the repercussions of who we are being, who we are willing to be, what we are willing to risk in terms of our own experience of being who we are – the ‘yes it’s right/no it’s not functional’ of all this as the metaphysical operand which dictates/contributes to why we’re moving ahead in life or how we’re being stymied by others.

Are we being respected for who we are is now coming ‘above the horizon’ in our own mind…and we’re beginning to grapple with why we may not be garnering the respect we truly deserve.

Generally that is going to be because we’re not willing to risk, but it could also be because our basis for risk or the values that we hold are simply too ‘me’ oriented that others (read: life) isn’t/aren’t willing to humor our self-concerned notions.

(Is that putting it nicely enough?)

Another interesting factoid here: Mercury is entering Libra in conjunction with asteroid Circe. Circe is always a reference to our being reduced to our most instinctual level until we are willing to resist the allure to give up the more challenging aspects of our human nature or life – personal or professional.

That sort of echoes the whole M87 thing. And the incoming Solar Eclipse thing.

Gosh, it’s a quorum!

Seriously…this is not quite a quorum per se, but any time we begin seeing ‘themes’ being built by various astrological factors, we know that ‘issue’ is not only likely to be on the table, but be in bas relief.

Or to put it another way, it’s one thing to ignore the 600 pound gorilla in the room, it’s another thing to ignore the multi-ton T-Rex breathing down your neck.

That this Mercury ingress occurs with a grand square being presented in fixed signs says we’re not exactly jumping to make any changes.

With this particular grand square being formed by South Node in Taurus, North Node-Saturn-Moon in Scorpio, Juno in Aquarius and Mars in Leo is a pretty good image of plain old human stubbornness. We like what we like and most of us are going to be going for the old ‘it’s working well enough’ line.

And that would be fine except for that pesky incoming Solar Eclipse. Considering that Solar Eclipses are all about taking away the ‘well enough’ compromises in our life in order to confound us by pushing us through our emotional barriers (read: emotional event horizons) so that through our experience of being emotional metaphysical  spaghetti we will at least contemplate changing the shape of our noodle…(I happen to favor those lovely little corkscrew pastas, personally) …?

Let’s just say we can resist all we like and we’re still not likely to win. Why? Because the universe is bigger than we are. That’s just how it is.

That this grand square is in fixed signs suggests that some of us would be willing to change IF we felt that what we are thinking of moving on to wouldn’t come as too big of a shock – maybe to us, and maybe to others.

May I refer you back to that ‘thin ice’ Scorpio thing? You may skate and get by for a little while, but there’s slow acclimation and then there’s the shocking, chilling plunge method. Life doesn’t really care which way you get where you need to go – life just wants us to get there. So we do have a little bit of latitude, it’s just that not getting in the water is probably not this part of the equation.

At least not if your chart is in any way seriously aspected by this incoming 11 Scorpio eclipse. So get your charts out: do you have a chart point OR axis point OR node (north or south) between 6 and 16 of Taurus, Scorpio, Leo or Aquarius? Do you have some point or node or vertical or horizontal axis which falls between 9 and 13 of Sagittarius, Libra, Gemini or Aries?

These are the signs and degrees which are going to get more or less spaghetti-ized during the coming eclipse. So look at your chart. If your chart is aspected, you’re probably already feeling a twitch, twinge or other itch. There’s been a shift in life’s vibe, a change in the atmosphere – something.

And if you have more than one point which falls into this list? The more points…the greater the spectrum of the effect. The closer to 11 degrees in any of the signs cited, the stronger the effects – which is to say the greater the totality of your change(s) is/are going to be.

The changes we end up going through in these next few months (and on into next year and the year after that) don’t have to be terrible. They can be pretty wonderful. Even downright happy-making! And what’s the difference between these poles?

Our willingness to change. Our willingness to own up to what is no longer viable or workable or sensible or productive and from that, the willingness to – and the making it a priority to make whatever changes are needed, no matter how unlikely or far fetched or “impossible” they seem.

There’s also this other ‘little thing’ which is set up for us to contemplate as Mercury moves into Libra. It’s called a grand sextile.

If you read the recent piece on dwarf planet Sedna’s station (which posted back on August 23rd) you already understand that this symbol is not “about” Judaism or any other religion – at least not on the metaphysical level. The grand sextile – which is six points joined in a chart so that they form two grand trines which are at sextiles to each other – is a symbol of those opportunities which come from accepting inevitabilities (those processes some think of as “fate”) and conversely, those “fates” which befall us because we refuse to move on in our life or continue growing.

In our last “grand sextile chapter” (the one we talked about in that Sedna post) the points involved were as follows:

1. South Node in Taurus

2. Jupiter in Cancer

3. Mercury in Virgo

4. Saturn in Scorpio

5. Pluto/Facies in Capricorn

6. Chiron in Pisces

I’ve list them that way because it makes it easier to simply note that positions 1, 5 and 6 basically haven’t changed. But instead of just Jupiter sitting at position #2, we have Jupiter plus Black Moon Lilith, which suggests this period is all about where we are either avoiding (denying) the need to grow as a person…or that our growth is being denied or stymied or otherwise hindered by others because we are not seeing our part in that process.

(Welcome to the wonderful world of being forced to look in life’s mirror, everyone!)

At position #3, instead of Mercury doing a swift do-si-do-and-scoot number we also have Ceres, the image of ‘the plan’ which in combination with the essence of protection for ‘our environment’ asks us whether our plans are perhaps too focused on Self or whether they focus solely on others to the exclusion of that Self, whether we even have a plan or whether – given the Libra/Scorpio divide implied in this general Mercurial contemplation – whether our plan and protective aims with regard to Self and our plans and protective aims for others are incongruous.

It could be. We might be really good on one side and really destructive on the other side. It happens.

At position #4, instead of just Saturn we have Saturn, the North Node and the Moon. As someone who owns a Scorpio Moon I can just break out here in a minor key chorus of ‘Oh joy, oh rapture…’ (which sometimes makes me think ‘rapture’ should be replaced by ‘raptor’) (yes, I’m feeling very prehistoric today – thanks for noticing).

More to the point, since I happen to own not just a Scorpio Moon but a Scorpio Saturn/Moon (and one which is natally very close to these numbers) I can tell you that this combination tends – even without the North Node being involved) to focus very adeptly on who we are to others and our ability to structure our life with regards to others…and with others as part of our lives without loss of Self. (Or self esteem, which is also important.)

Saturn/Moon in Scorpio can manifest as fear. Then again, it can manifest as the ability to walk through fear despite all (even yes, that shaking in your bones thing.) In conjunction with the North Node, if nothing else were involved we would be thinking in terms of what we should do in this regard.

But with this Saturn-North Node-Moon thing involved not just in a grand trine but in a grand sextile? With a solar eclipse headed this way which is going to conjunct this very set of positions?

Mercury in Libra is all about thinking through the ‘idea’ of what it means to be part of this world, a member of the human race and what or how you can be who you are in a manner which works not just for you because it’s what you like or prefer, but which works for you because it works for the ‘all’ of your life and everybody in that life, seeing that we all need and depend on one another.

We are learning to choose who to be on a new level. We are learning that who we choose to be with, to be who we are with and how we go about doing all of that – it matters.

Maybe more than we thought it did.
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