Vesta in Scorpio - Mercury in Leo: the Price, the Cost

Planet Mercury

(photo credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory,

Carnegie Institution of Washington, 2013)

As of July 31st at 22:47 in the evening (UT/+0), Mercury enters Leo, unleashing the power, the egocentricity, the creativity and ability to inhibit, undermine and succeed in equal measure.

And that’s just the Mercury part. With Jupiter already stirring the Leo energetic quadrant as only a massive celestial object can, we would (and should) expect that this year’s Mercurial transit of Leo would be more of the best and excessively awful.

Yes, all at once...whether or not we like it.

Going along at it’s more or less ‘standard’ sort of zodiacal pace, Mercury will only be spending just shy of three weeks in the second of our zodiac fire signs. Yet during those days between July 31 and August 15 we have the ability to accomplish much.

Or perhaps we’ll just recognize the cost of what we’ve accomplished or done. Or where it has become all we (Leo) envisioned and where we need to now be less about what’s in our head and more about how we’re affecting our environment.

Even the environment.

Normally we would think Mercury in Leo would be a great time for something daring... fun... challenging... even self indulgent. But with the Sun already in Leo (the Sun’s sign of rulership) with Jupiter also in Leo, while we may well do great things now and in the days ahead, we may also be functioning to some extent inside some vision which is nothing more than a personally desired mirage.

Part of the reason for that is simply the nature of Leo, a sign which can ‘see’ all the good which could (or to us, should) result from our efforts (and if that fails, would you settle for some gloriously Leo intentions?)... which Mercury’s joining the Sun and Jupiter ‘lifts’ from the idea of the moment (or the idea in the moment) to a more encompassing level of thought. The ideas, the vistas, the possibilities are bigger.

And so are the risks.

As with all things Leo, so long as we are willing to give things a good go and best effort with a willingness to learn coupled to a lack of need to be perfect, in the long run we can’t lose. In the short run we can hit plenty of dead ends, potholes and yes, we may meet with refusals, rejections and corrections.

But we still can win. In the world of Leo personal power politics, our not being self conscious, driven by ego or so dazzled by our brilliance that we miss something important (and probably terribly human) which lands us in a mess (most of all with our sense of humiliation)... that’s the test. Given the Leo affinity for performance, we may be able to fool others pretty close to one hundred percent of the time... but we never fool our Self.

Moreover, in the case of a negative Leo situation, especially with Mercury now (be)stirring the Leo pot, we may just be fooling ourselves... or end up thinking we’re the fool.

There is reason to question things in the short run (which is to say, for the next few days) - or rather, to question ourselves particularly when it comes to questions of motivation and methodology.

Why is that? That is because July 30th, the date of Mercury’s Leo ingress, is also the date that asteroid Vesta is moving into Scorpio.

Under any condition, Vesta represents the ‘cost’ (or price) of making a commitment or keeping a commitment. Or, in those other cases... the cost of having not keep our promises - to us, in real or karmic terms. There is a definite quality of safekeeping when it comes to Vesta, and that may well interfere with the active quality of working with others... which is to say with our own ability to trust - that which so needs to be in order for there to be any consistency to positive outcomes in all and any matter Scorpionic. Furthermore, considering how Scorpio works by testing our inner stability with regards to others or situations in order to see if we are capable of creating lasting positives through dynamic improvements to that which benefits all - a quality which is likely to be going to be more important and more contentious as we move into and through the next few hundred years of the Aquarian Age.

Those who aim to fulfill their own desires may well win in the short-term Vesta run, but to be purely ‘desirous’ under any Vesta-indicated situation is to run a risk of ‘breaking’ something we value in our eagerness to satisfy some focus of the moment.

And that word - ‘risk’ - does ring a bell as a linkage between Mercury and Vesta. If nothing else (or if given no proper outlet) Mercury in Leo energetics may very well surface in our own ability to trip ourselves up simply because we need to understand our own challenges.

We’re educating ourselves, as it were. And that would be fine except Vesta entering Scorpio under those types of challenges could be very problematic indeed.

Even nasty. Vile. Or - yes - unforgivable.

With Vesta, we will risk hurting our Self...or we may learn that (or how) we have cost our Self something. The matters at hand may be either complex or simple things, but whether exotic or minor, given the Scorpio coloration here we are more likely to encounter our promptings through others or because of things which are external to our Self.

To give a better idea of how large Vesta is (and thus its 'standing' among other astrological asteroid 'challenges), a composite image of Vesta in comparison with a handful of other asteroids (photo credit NASA-JPL)

The feeling of challenge to that Self is personal, yes. But the need to cope with it is external, and woe be to those who prioritize the Self (“what I want”) over consideration of the entire situation replete with needs and feelings which not only may be as valid as ours but which actually deserve priority (or priority consideration) whether we like it or not.

That’s the Scorpio test: to not be sucked in by our own position to the extent that we cannot consider the values, feelings, needs of others. Where we do so, we run the risk of hurting our own opportunities or interests - issues which the next several months of Vesta in Scorpio will either tend to prompt or expose (whether privately otherwise). Risk being a Leo thing, thinking through all this as Mercury goes into Leo. Some of us will now be 'getting the bill' for whatever we promised and did which violated our karma through what we did. Others will be faced with the cost of making a promise - or promising to pay a certain price.

Scorpio often tempts us to maneuver and manipulate. In most cases, such efforts are all about avoidance - not of the 'other' but of a Self which doesn't have sufficient conviction in their own security, and which instinctively seeks to avoid fear. This feeling of 'threat' or insufficiency is the premier Scorpio dynamic however Scorpio manifests for good, ill, life, power, sex, control and surrender in inevitable death.

When we fear, we feel the power of all we can't change, and when we feel that, we try to control it. Or hedge our bets. Or limit our exposure. All such instincts are Scorpio - and classically Scorpio in that the (water sign) feeling isn't really about 'that' or 'them' but about our Self.

To the extent that we are truly secure, Scorpio resonates as a calm, placid power. To the extent that we don't feel secure with what we think we most value (in the moment, at least) Scorpio manifests as forms of fear - up to and including that violence which is ultimately a defense against having to endure our incredibly powerful human feelings, hence Scorpio's tendency towards control. If I control myself, I won't care. If I control them, they won't be able to do to me anything I would fear...

With Vesta entering Scorpio, thinking through and being willing to accept this broke our 'promise' on...or fs about promised and broke t with or to others beyond the Scorpio tenet.

However...there are indicators that no matter what we do not everything is going to be smooth sailing. With its 3.6 year-long orbit, asteroid Vesta will exit Scorpio and move on into Sagittarius as of October 6 (2014), which for one thing means the whole of Mercury’s transit of Leo will be under Vesta in Scorpio’s earliest degrees - an indicator of ‘costs’ having to do with what we do or “who we are being” in this moment.

Inequalities of regard in other words... our personal self/will/want versus the aims/wants/needs of others... will cost us something. Whether that cost is physical as opposed to financial or otherwise is not specified purely by Vesta’s transiting Scorpio as a sign; what is assured is that whatever happens, we will react to it - for good or bad, be it positive or negative - in an emotional-based manner.

And when we do that without regard for the other side of things, that’s when we go all Vesta-awry, especially when or where our values (or that we hold as valuable) are being challenged as a ‘sign of the times’ to change... to update... to modernize... to act in sync with others or as part of a greater systemic... all of which comes from the overarching fact that Vesta’s transit of Scorpio - that transit which ends on October 6th - will happen as one of a group of astrological signals connected to the October 23rd solar eclipse (which includes Uranus, hence the heightened need for change and - in particular - innovation, modernization and a 'breaking' with old habits or personal identitifications).

You know...the eclipse at 0 Scorpio - the very degree being set off this week by Vesta. It’s that quality - that ‘foreshadowing’ (as they say in literary circles...) which as Vesta enters Scorpio and Mercury enters Leo suggesting challenges which speak rather specifically to our  entirely human habit of seeing everything from our own point of view.

At this time, some part of that which stands to be ‘eclipsed’ in the months ahead will begin to become obvious. Some of us will see what could happen and in keeping with Scorpio’s highest harmonic make deft and perhaps painful corrections in order to preserve the good, the viable, the healthy while excising that which is damaged, corrupted or corrosive. Others will choose a less active Scorpio road by focusing mainly on defense (generally our own) and safety, in essence taking a tact that to not be involved simplifies things for others which under the Scorpio banner is more accurately read as ‘I don’t want to go through that.’

Planet Mars as photographed by the Hubble space telescope

(photo credit: NASA, JPL - recolored for posting purposes)

.
Those who act from instinct ... which is to say from their Scorpio desires and Leo perspective without regard for others - over the first week or so of Mercury in Leo they are likely to act with or through a ‘blindness’ to self and others, creating deficits, particularly where there is a failure to balance and integrate our own creative and emotional perspectives with those of others.

With Vesta entering Scorpio in conjunction Eurydike with Mars just ahead, there is a strong (Mars at 3 Scorpio) suggestion that reliance on traditions and “ceremonial” gestures is useful as a means of (Mercury) communication - an option which may not be easy to comply with as Mars passages through Scorpio tend to promote a lot of willfulness of the specific type which tends to create conflicts either where balance and integration fail to have valid and equal (or equally valid) emphasis - which may well be where situations fracture, go awry or plainly don’t/won't work. 3 Scorpio being all about an ongoing interaction between the individual and the community honors the ‘bright light’ of inspiration and a means of tying us as individuals to the eternal need of a greater and greatest whole. When this works well (in other words, when/where/as all is brought into integrated balance), the quieting of ego is accomplished through an assurance of safety against having it make sense why a certain choice is more productive.

Whatever symbolizes that which is important to us now we hold high. Most of us will never think past that symbol to why some idea, some notion, some belief, some thing means so much to us, that being our Vesta realm, that realm in which we do or don’t hold to whatever it is we are or have committed to... or don’t. What this depends on is our own inner regard for the value of our own word, standing, choices and determinations... not of others, but of our Self.

Some will now feel they know where they need to go and what they need to do, whether that involves happiness or trial. Some of us will now react to what we have done (or not done), that being the trigger for emotionally transformational experiences.

Whatever comes to light (or come to be ‘illuminated’ for us now) is a sign that we are at a crossroads of sorts. We come to this crossroads aiming for something we believe in. What we will now decide before moving on is less about what others think about us than how we come to think of ourselves, though those others may be the catalyst we need to understand how out of step we are not with the moment, but with the whole of our eventual aims.

And therein lies the rub.
.
.
.