Mercury in Cancer / Mars in Gemini

This double-helix stairway stands in Munich, Germany. It's structure reminded me of the back-and-forth

sort of self-feeding connections this Mars-Mercury shift is likely to produce.

(photo credit: Oliver Raupach, April 2006)

That Mars and Mercury are changing signs on the same day speaks to a ‘changing gears’ or a shift in life’s ‘tone.’ 

Or maybe it’s our tone…?

Or – considering that we’re hardly past the last of three eclipses – the ‘tone of outlook’ or perspective we have on life, or some project, aim or relationship?

Mars being a symbol of assertion, Mars moving into Gemini either means we want to think something through or learn more about it…we want to make a choice (I’d say ‘good choice’ but that seems obvious)…or we’re wanting to convince someone of something.

OR….considering how Mars is entering Gemini in conjunction with asteroid Lilith (at 0 Gemini) with Pallas at 1 Gemini and Lachesis at 2 Gemini just ahead…maybe we are working to (Pallas) understand something we come to this moment not (Lilith)  believing.

Although…this is the asteroid Lilith, not the calculated form. Lilith the asteroid has mass. It takes up space. To draw on my last post (“A Watery Time”), it makes ripples. Asteroids in the main belt being postulated as things we learn about ourselves on the way to knowledge (Jupiter) and mastery (Saturn) of our Self or whatever we’re involved in trying to be or do, this asteroid form of Lilith points to something about our Self. Or more precisely, something we don’t want to know (Gemini) about our Self.

So Mars and Lilith jumping into Gemini may be our ‘jumping’ to defend ourselves against something we don’t want to think about. Or something we don’t want to think about some (Gemini) choice we’ve made. It could even be our jumping in to deal with some gap in our (Pallas) knowledge – something which changes the (Lachesis) status quo.

Or - considering Mercury – maybe this is about something we don’t even want to think is true.

Because Mercury rules Gemini, there is a natural quality to this double ingress which ‘pulls’ or ‘directs’ the “subject” being discussed or thought through here to the Cancerian realm. So that may be your home or home life. Your family or culture. Your upbringing and how that has ‘formulated’ who you are. Or maybe your nationality or homeland.

Whatever the subject du jour, it has an emotional bent. Or perhaps, as Mercury enters Cancer at 7:08 in the morning of May 31st, UT/+0 time (to be followed by Mars entering Gemini at 10:40 that same morning), your feelings will get provoked. Or evoked. Or maybe just poked.

Keeping zodiacal company with Mercury we have Scheherazade (“the story told”) at 0 Aries (which would be exactly conjunct) with Betelgeuse and Atlantis (“it’s easy, once you get used to it…”) just behind and Atropos (endings or cut offs) just ahead.

This does sort of look like a recipe for changes. So maybe you’re moving out of a period of doing less into one of doing more? Or maybe, despite some ‘I don’t get why I have to do this’ Lilith-ian protesting, you’re going to make some changes you have been dawdling about making since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Okay…so maybe not quite that long – but for a while, at least! Maybe the issue is some ‘story’ you’ve been told or that you have been holding onto which you didn’t believe before and now realize is true. Or maybe you knew the truth of something but were handling it in a less-than-productive manner which given recent revelations, ponderings and emotional crunches (you know, that eclipse stuff?)

There’s a whole other level to this concept – one which is about having (Lachesis) waited to get started with or on something. And now, by gum, you have what you need to get a move on and git-a-going.

(Yes, I’m having an old time cowboy movie moment.)

There are a couple of resident images in my brain when it comes to westerns. One is Rawhide, an early 60's television show with Clint Eastwood which ran for something like eight seasons. The other (of course!) is John Wayne in any of a number of films he made, including the 1953 movie 'Hondo' which sticks out with me because it's based on a story called "Gift of the Cochise" by the one and only Louis L'Amour, a warm and wonderful man I was fortunate enough to grow up knowing.

('Hondo' poster courtesy of Warner Brothers, c. 1953)

 
Since these two celestial emblems are changing signs nearly in unison the relationship between these two signs is dearly underscored. With the Sun, Pallas Jupiter and Venus (oh yes – and the calculated form of Lilith) already in Gemini, there’s a lot of Gemini energy a-foot. This much Gemini energy will tend to produce a lot of discussion and tend to not get to any decisions all that fast, though that is the ultimate Gemini aim. Scattering one’s efforts or ideas or interests about is a common Gemini activity. But since the polarity is Gemini-Sagittarius, the real point of Gemini is to put together those things – disparate though they might be – which create something which works in the real world…that being the Sagittarius part.

If you think about it, that makes perfect sense with all which we think of as Gemini. Doing our errands is a Gemini activity because those separate little annoying stops when put together help us continue having our chosen life (or lifestyle). Communication and cars and driving and emails (or regular mail) or whatever else is simply part of this process – as is the maintenance which does the upkeep on our machines and the exercise and planning our diet, daily schedule and deciding to ‘do this, but not that’ which provides and protects the integrity of the mind with which we live that life.

Gemini is an air sign. It’s always mental. It’s always about the idea of the thing – or that which ‘processes’ and sorts through the idea, which at the most basic level is our brain.

So maybe a few brains will get into gear now? We can only hope!

Jokes aside, ALL that Gemini energy is ‘canted’ by Mercury. Think of it as a funnel…however many planets or objects are in Gemini, they’re pouring their ‘whatever qualities’ into the Gemini funnel. Where will that be directed?

The answer to that comes from where Mercury is. And on May 31st, Mercury moves from it’s home sign of ‘me and what-or-how I think’ Gemini into the first of the water signs: Cancer.

 
Gemini and Cancer live next door to each other on the zodiacal wheel. That always tells us that we’re dealing with modalities (methods of acting) which are very different in nature. Cancer is a cardinal sign – it’s all for taking a stand and doing what needs doing right now…even if as the first of the emotional signs (and Moon-ruled, to boot!) it tends to act in ‘phases,’ alternating between straight-out driving for the goal against retreats to rest, reconnoiter or deal with the need to protect one’s ‘home base’ of operation, emotional or otherwise. Meanwhile, Gemini – as stated – is an airy air sign. In Gemini we learn that we need to think as much as we learn how to think. As a mutable sign, Gemini tends to push the matter a little then think through what happens. Then it pushes a little more and sees what happens then.

That’s the mutable way of learning. It’s sort of like tacking a boat across a bay with shifting currents and fickle winds. Cardinal signs take aim and go for the bulls-eye. Mutable signs adjust the course trajectory and the ‘how you get there’ as things go along.

Obviously this can set up a little friction – in this case, in our thinking. All that Gemini energy means we’re seeing a lot of things in theoretical terms now. But once Mercury is in Cancer, we feel why it all matters. Thus Scheherazade being conjunct Mercury’s Cancer ingress may well be our seeing why ‘it’s said’ to do something a given way. Or why this or that method or standard or tradition really counts.

Thinking is a wonderful thing, to be sure! But sometimes people need to feel the reality of the human repercussion in order to know why they really do need to mind this, or do that, or delay this, or deal with that problem which they really don’t want to talk to.

That brings up one other quality worth considering here: quadrants. The first quadrant of the horoscope is akin to the infant (Aires), the baby (Taurus) and the toddler (Gemini) in human growth terms. Aries is all about discovering we exist. And hey – we have fingers and toes! (How cool, right?) Taurus is about that stage where we realize there are good and bad things in life – and we like the good and we don’t like the bad (and can I have some more baby food bananas, mom?). We want to feel secure, we don’t want to feel scared or threatened – so we coo and scream by turns.

Gemini is the toddler stage, where we learn to navigate in our environment. We learn that latches exist…then we figure out how to start unlatching those latches (much to our parent’s consternation!). Our sense of being ‘on our own feet’ is occurring to us, and thus we start running around causing havoc – often just to see what happens.

Those three signs are all about our experience of being in a very basic sort of way. And please notice: there is no water sign in this mix.

Metaphysical water – equaling emotions and the ‘feeling state – don’t come into zodiacal reference until we’re in the second quadrant: the land of being one among others. There are many ways to figure the ages denoted by the zodiac, but in human developmental terms (our life as part of the world we live in) Cancer corresponds to age seven-and-a-half to ten.

(For those of you who are astro-techie, this is part of the Greek Profection theory as applied to Saturn, planet of human maturation.)

Around age seven, “magical thinking” tends to disappear. Children realize reality is reality (often to the disappointment of parents busy enjoying their second childhood). This is also when kids start developing their first real relationships with friends in school. Or maybe in the neighborhood.

So as Mercury moves out of the ‘magical realm of thinking and thoughts’ (Gemini) into Cancer, there’s a quality of realism or reality which dawns. And with Mars ‘powering up’ all the Gemini energy, that may be a bit of a jolt. Then again, Mars entering Gemini as Mercury enters Cancer may be our seeing that it is time to make a move and get things into gear.

And because of that, in line with Mercury entering Cancer, we may reach out to people we feel comfortable with or close to with an eye to making our world work for us…which is ultimately the Cancerian goal. In childhood, Cancer may be our family. And in the Big World, Cancer is our adult family and our home and real estate in general.

But being that Cancer is also the sign at the ‘base’ of the horoscope wheel, Cancer also represents the ‘foundations’ of anything we do in life. From  that ‘base’ or ‘basis’…atop that ‘bedrock’ or ‘foundation,’ we build.

The Sun – our emblem of life and consciousness – will not reach Cancer until June 21st. Between now and then, we’ll have a major planetary station (Neptune’s) and the onset of a run-up to Mercury retrograde and Jupiter’s change of signs. So, like as not, some of us will interpret the weeks ahead as uncertain. Some of us will experience some heady breakthroughs and insights on past, present and future. Some will take these weeks as a space of time in which to move ahead, step by step, learning as you go while requiring of yourself that you press ahead, in spite of anything and everyone.

Mars will be in Gemini until July 13th. Because of the retrograde which will begin in late June and lapse over into July, Mercury will be in Cancer now until August 8th.

Yes, I said August.

So this is a time for building. Or maybe for rebuilding or founding, laying foundations or building various kinds of internal structures (or infrastructures) which will support where you’re going and who you want to be – and ultimately be known as – in this world.

So…where will your mind take you now? Many are the choices. Will you choose to make a choice to act?
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