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The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars is a dynamic planet with ice caps, canyons and volcanoes and ancient lake beds. Mars is half the size of Earth, but has nearly the same area as Earth’s dry land. There is water on Mars today, located just under the surface in the polar ice cap regions. If melted, the volume of water would be sufficient to cover the entire planetary surface to a depth of 36 feet.

The ancient Romans named Mars for their god of war because his reddish color, caused by the oxidation of iron minerals, was reminiscent of blood. Other civilizations also named the planet for this attribute. Even today, he is frequently called the “Red Planet”, although he is actually many colors at the surface, such as brown, gold and tan.

Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 100 mph. These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun.

Mars completes one rotation on his own axis every 24.6 hours, which is very similar to one day on Earth (23.9 hours). Martian days are called sols—short for “solar day.” A year on Mars lasts 669.6 sols, or 687 Earth days. In other words, it takes Mars about 1 3/4 earth years to travel around the zodiac once.

Another similarity with Earth is Mars’ axial tilt, which is 25 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun; Earth’s axial tilt is 23.4 degrees. The axial tilt creates the seasons.  Mars has distinct seasons that last longer than Earth’s,  because Mars takes longer to orbit the Sun (it’s farther away). And while Earth seasons are evenly spread over the year, lasting 3 months (or one quarter of a year), because of its elliptical orbit, Martian seasons vary in length. For example, Northern winter on Mars is 154 sols, and Southern winter is 178 sols.

Mars has no rings, but it has 2 small moons that are among the smallest in the solar system. They are named Phobos (fear/panic) and Deimos (dread/terror) for the mythological sons of Ares, the Greek god of war. They’re potato-shaped because they have too little mass for gravity to make them spherical. Phobos is a bit larger than Deimos, and is the only moon in the solar system that orbits so closely to its planet. He whips around Mars three times a day, while the more distant Deimos takes 30 hours for each orbit. 

Mars travels about ¾ degree a day, more slowly than the Sun, and spends approximately 6 weeks in a sign when he is moving at his fastest pace. Mars stations retrograde approximately once every 22 to 24 months, moving backwards for about 70 days. That said, his retrograde cycle is the least concise of all our planets. Mars can go retrograde for five weeks or a few months.  

As one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, Mars is the only planet where we’ve sent rovers to roam his landscape. NASA currently has three spacecraft in orbit, one rover (Curiosity) and one lander (InSight), on the surface, and another rover (Perseverance)  that launched in July 2020. 

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was called the god of war, but he was also known as an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was the son of Jupiter and he was considered the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a ‘father’ (pater) of the Roman people.  Rome was a patriarchal society, and it would have been impossible to consider Mars anything but a man’s man. His earthy roots became less focal as he grew more identified with the “great warrior,” when in fact mythology tells us he had another origin, which  turns out to be most significant. 

Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter and Juno. However, in a version of his birth given by Ovid, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the mother’s function when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead (or mind) without help from a woman. In an effort to restore the balance, Juno sought the advice of the goddess Flora on how to give birth without a man. Flora obtained a magic flower, touched Juno’s belly, and impregnated her. Mars, therefore, was born of Juno and a flower. He is and always has been of the Earth. As an agricultural guardian, he directs his energies toward creating conditions that allow crops to grow and make for a more comfortable physical experience. 

According to Wikipedia, in the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus, who laid out the founding city wall of Rome. Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus and Remus.  Mars’ love affair with Venus was created to symbolically reconcile the two different traditions of Rome’s founding. This relationship between Venus and Mars was at best contrived to make sense out of a patriarchal reality, but the connection between the two is not about a love affair. Venus and Mars, dispositors of heart and body, co-dispose the feminine domain. The Divine Feminine cannot be everything it’s meant to be if the two do not work in cooperation with each other. 

Virility as a kind of life force or virtue is an essential characteristic of Mars. He is the dynamic expression of the Divine Feminine. For Mars to be effective in his purpose, he must work in tandem, in alignment with the Feminine (heart) principle. Action born of the heart is Right Action, and that has always been the Truth of the Mars archetype. 

3D is the physical realm. Mars is so similar to the Earth, it makes sense that he is so powerfully connected to our physicality.  The physical realm is made of duality. It has to be, because physicality is based on separation. There can be no physicality without each of us and everything else here being separate and individual. Physicality brings birth and death (more appropriately, transition) into being. It creates the illusion of me and you.  Mars’ themes can be anything from an upsurge of anger or passion, to a physical issue that you can’t ignore, to the very conscious alignment of the actions you take.

Mars rules the physical body, and that means YOUR body, and also your physical realm: Your home, your office, the land you live on, the city, the town, the country, the planet. The universe. All of this is your physical world. 

In 3D we can get ‘sick’ and require healing. In 5D we know that we are always whole, and any physical issue is a clearing, which is necessary to help us remember our natural state. Pain needs attention, and so does anything in the world that displays a lack of wholeness. The only kind of attention that works on anything in this new world is Love. We call that ‘wholing’ in 5D.

Mars’ retrograde is typically a major exercise in learning to tend to the body and the physical world in all new ways. It gives us the chance to review the actions we’ve taken toward this end, and to revise or renew our focus regarding the care of our bodies. As we live in a physical world first and foremost, and there is no way to get to the higher realm without beginning here, we must learn to get ‘right’ with our bodies and our physical environment. The retrograde cycle can offer the best opportunity to do so.

Mars is a personal planet, and he has domain over the physical in the lower four body system. By extension, he expresses his archetype through all your energy and action. The physical experience is EARTHY, and the earth element is always unequivocally feminine. Mars is the white dot in the black side of the yin yang symbol. He is that little bit of male (drive) that is part of the female Self. 

Mars has long been known as the Great Activator. What IS new about Mars is his new status as a male counterpart/co-dispositor of the divine feminine Self. This process that has begun is, very simply put, the beginning of a massive collective act of surrender that delivers us to a new kind of unconditional Love. It will inform our actions from here on in.

An archetype is a collective consciousness. It doesn’t matter what you understand or know about it intellectually. If the collective holds Mars to be THE male archetype, even if it isn’t the truth, the world will do all it can to mold that misguided energy to fit the mistake. It is important to note that Aries is the affinity sign, the mirrored image, of Virgo, representing THE Divine Feminine essence.

Mars has been misinterpreted for thousands of years. He is reclaiming his righteous power, the power to act from the heart. This new expression of Mars’ energy will make for the possibility of a truer, more empowered balance within the feminine Self. When the male energy returns home to the feminine, unity is restored. The duality that has permeated this world for thousands of years will be no more once this is achieved. Mars is learning to switch from the warrior identity to the much more peaceful heart-felt mode of Right Action. 

Faith is a huge component of Right Action. Trust in your own heart, and in the perfection of the Universe, is essential. Now that Mars has taken up his full archetypal position as co-dispositor of the divine Feminine, we can never again take action with full integrity without coming from the heart and allowing the heart to move us. 

Like Mars, Mercury has been misrepresented. From the beginning, Mercury has been collectively believed to be androgynous. While this may be a little closer to the Truth, (because EVERYTHING is ultimately androgynous), Mercury has ALWAYS had domain over the mind, and the mind HAS ALWAYS been the realm of the masculine. Mercury is the Masculine archetype in the new consciousness.

Mercury and Mars have switched places, Mercury becoming the true male archetype, clearing up eons of confusion about what male energy actually is. Mercury and Mars represent the new mind/body alignment. It’s a new world and it’s in our best interest to become accustomed to it.

Mars disposes Aries, the sign of the divine spark of creation. Mars is foreign in Libra, thriving in Capricorn, and on the Master Path in Cancer. Mars is also known as the Great Energizer, the great activator, the divine spark, the trigger and most recently, Right Action.

Once related to the great warrior within you, Mars has more recently become the honorable keeper of the physical experience. He was connected to war and fighting for so long because the separation that happens when you take a physical form generates the fear that produces the survival instinct. With Love and peace becoming the more significant focus, Mars now grounds you in your physical being, allowing for the full expression of your individuality. With the arrival of our super technology, in the form of the rover Curiosity, on Mars a few years ago, you now have access to a much more super-sensory experience of your physicality. There is no telling what these multidimensional eyes, ears and fingers will reveal in the years ahead, but you are living at the most amazing time to be in a physical body.

C2020 Stephanie Azaria and Shelly Leal  www.TheCosmicPath.com

 THE 13TH SIGN: OPHIUCHUS

Yes, there is a 13th sign and it is called Ophiuchus. In Truth it has been here all along, and like everything else in our solar system that is constantly expanding, it is our newly emerging consciousness that makes it possible to embrace the existence of this sign. Three thousand years ago the Babylonians were well aware of Ophiuchus, but they consciously decided to leave it out for the purpose of making the remaining twelve signs nice and equal. Yet the constellations are anything but equal. In 2016 NASA announced the absolute existence of Ophiuchus, saying it has always been there, “we just did the Math.”

As we move through the Self realization process, it becomes important to take a much closer, more intimate look at what the cosmos actually reveals. It is the best reflection of the higher Self that we have available to us, and it is in our best interest to see what it truly has to show us after all this time.  Like every sign, Ophiuchus is a constellation.  The 12 signs we are aware of appear to form a circle. But these constellations don’t exist; the stars that make them up are actually nowhere near each other.  Each sign appears to form a picture that we have named. The reason we all perceive the same zodiac is because it reflects our collective consciousness. We can only ever perceive what we project.

Three thousand years ago humanity was planting the fields and hunting. When we looked out into the heavens to see our reflection, we saw animals and things related to the harvest. But we have evolved radically during this last Age, and our consciousness now reflects a much more spiritual and highly evolved set of symbols. It is these new 5D symbols that will become important to us as we begin to journey into the Truth of the sacred geometry of our personal nature.

Unlike every other constellation, Ophiuchus exists mostly outside the zodiac circle. When you look at it in 2D (on paper) or 3D (from the perspective of separation), it appears to sit just outside the perimeter of the zodiac circle, overlapping Scorpio and Sagittarius.

Our solar system is moving through the cosmos, and because of this, the zodiac appears to have shifted about  23 degrees since the time when we began to be conscious of the heavens. This precession of the equinoxes moves backwards, or counterclockwise, through the cosmos. The constellation Ophiuchus was originally found around  the winter solstice point, 0 Capricorn, but has moved, with everything else in the heavens, and it is currently located somewhere between Scorpio and Sagittarius. The area from the end of Scorpio through about ⅔ of Sagittarius contains the imprint of the Ophiuchan sign  (from November 29 to December 17).

Ophiuchus does not span 30 degrees (in actuality many of the constellations  do not cover the equal 30 degree span). It seems important to mention that this sign has qualities that are unlike any of the others, in that it exists only in 5D and beyond, giving it properties that relate to unity and Love, taking us outside time and space all together. Ophiuchus has no gender and no opposite. It exists outside duality. The only element it appears to belong to is Ether.

When you observe Ophiuchus from a 5D perspective, you can see that it is not “outside” the zodiac; it is extradimensional, overlaying  it. Ophiuchus does in fact cross the ecliptic and so is part of the zodiac. A broader perspective is required to access the consciousness that Ophiuchus represents. The sign exists in everyone’s chart, but only an awakened soul will be able to access it and make good use of it. The constellation Ophiuchus is known as The Serpent Bearer.  We are all familiar with the meaning of the serpent. At the lower levels of our awareness the snake represents the ego, the part of us that causes self-sabotage. A more awakened focus reveals the connection between the snake and the kundalini energies that run through our chakra system and eventually awakens us to our higher Being.

Ophiuchus provides a portal between the most conscious qualities of both Scorpio the Alchemist and Sagittarius The Truth Seeker.  The Serpent Bearer has awakened to the higher Truths and triumphed over the lower self once and for all. The adventurous Sagittarius Archer, shooting arrows at various targets, looking for something True, becomes the dedicated Truth-seeker, who has realized  the limitations of habitual behavior and consciously moves beyond it into the new world.

In the Capricorn quality of our consciousness we experience our connection with Source. Source is actually the Galactic Center, which falls at 27 Sagittarius. That is the Portal of Truth, and it is just beyond Ophiuchan territory; it is not Sagittarius, not Capricorn, but the void in between the two. This void is the place where we are reborn and resurrected. This gives some clue about the essence of Ophiuchus. When we are ready for it, this experience requires acceptance, surrender and the ability to allow our Self the full-blown belief that there is something beyond what we think we know.

Most of us are still in the Scorpio/Sagittarius/Capricorn realm of paying dues, going through hell and painfully paying the price. This is what we have been doing for all these millennia. Now we have arrived at the breakthrough moment, which is the portal to Ophiuchus. In February of 2020, scientists announced the occurrence of a major explosion in the constellation of Ophiuchus. According to Philip Sedgwick, a groundbreaking astrologer of our times, “[Such an  explosion] symbolically represents the collapse of the little ego, the attenuation of one’s faulty psychology.  But first and foremost, the failure of the ego to support the person in the physical realm must precede the evolutionary step. Once ego has been fully utilized and fails, the individual listens to urges of spirit…..  The pre-explosion mass loss symbolically represents the shedding of unnecessary defenses, attachments or “baggage.” This shedding propagates an acceleration and a passionate heating up for the pursuit of one’s purpose. Suddenly, virtually instantly, everything about the core of one’s being burst forth, as soon as life’s unnecessary matter gets shed.”

With the announcement from NASA in 2016 and the news of this amazing explosion earlier this year, Ophiuchus becomes a part of our energy field that we are finally becoming capable of accessing. It has a meaning that we have not experienced before. Unless we move through this portal by transcending duality and the fear-based reality we have been manifesting for so long, we cannot experience the Truth of Ophiuchus.

There is a magical, magnetic quality to an Ophiuchan soul. If you were born between November 29 and December 17, you are Ophiuchan, or you will realize that you are, once you awaken to the higher Truth. That Truth begins with the awareness that you do not belong to the animal kingdom, you are a spiritual being having a human experience. Your higher Self is capable of triumphing over the ego, and the full blown move into 5D consciousness is at hand.

Sacred geometry is the fabric of our universe. When we look at the cosmos we must be able to see that sacred geometry, and recognize it as our Selves. If nearly every one of us turns out to be inhabiting the consciousness of the sign before the one we think we are, we must honor that Truth, and begin to surrender to the shift that this requires. Twenty-three degrees approaches a semisextile. A semisextile is an aspect of sacred geometry that in Cosmic Consciousness is called the aspect of intimacy. The time has come for each of us to be willing to look with open honesty at the Truth of who we are.

When we can look in the mirror and see our own Truth, it becomes essential to allow that Truth to sink in. Surrender is such an important path toward awakening, because it delivers us to the Divine Feminine within each of us. When we look at the actual zodiac, it becomes apparent that Virgo, the sign of the Virgin Mother, is the progenitor, the Portal of Truth, the beginning of the whole human story. She is the Divine Mother. Surrender has become one of the most important disciplines any awakening soul can undertake. Applying the will to perceive the Truth of one’s Self can deliver us to that Feminine Source, and from there the new world is born.  It may take a while to wrap our hearts and minds around this, but we are living in a new world and that begins with the cosmos; as above so below.

Our solar system has changed radically in the  last 15-20 years and it was only a matter of “time” before the neighborhood began to look different too. Each of the signs is now a different size and takes up a different ‘moment’ in the zodiacal year. Once Ophiucus is embraced, the rest of the zodiac must be accommodated.

Here are the dates for each of the new signs. Look up your birthday, and see if you don’t identify with the 5D essence of your new sign:

• Capricorn (The Executive Director):   January 20th to February 16th
• Aquarius  (The Great Awakener):  February 16th to March 11th
• Pisces (The Ocean):  March 11th to April 18th
• Aries  (Divine Spark):  April 18th to May 13th
• Taurus  (The Tree of Life):  May 13th to June 21st
• Gemini (The Diamond):  June 21st to July 20th
• Cancer  (Earth Mother):  July 20th to August 10th
• Leo  (Life Force):  August 10th to September 16th
• Virgo  (Divine Mother): September 16th to October 30th
• Libra  (The Mirrored Self): October 30th to November 23rd
• Scorpio  (The Alchemist): November 23rd to November 29th
• Ophiuchus  (The Serpent Bearer):  November 29th to December 17th
• Sagittarius  (The Truth Seeker):  December 17th to January 20th

Second planet from the Sun and our closest planetary neighbor, Venus is similar in structure and size to Earth, but it is a very different world. Venus spins backwards on her axis, with the Sun rising in the west and setting in the east. Uranus is the only other planet that does this.  Venus’ thick atmosphere makes her the hottest planet in our solar system, with surface temperatures reaching a scalding 880 degrees Fahrenheit–even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. It takes Venus longer to rotate about her axis than any other planet in the Solar System, taking about 243 Earth days to spin around just once. Even though Venushas a similarly-sized iron core as our planet, her magnetic field is much weaker than the Earth’s due to her slow rotation.

Although the surface rotates slowly, the winds blow at hurricane force, sending clouds completely around the planet every five days. Atmospheric lightning bursts light up these quick-moving clouds. From space, Venus is bright white because the clouds reflect and scatter sunlight.  On the surface, the rocks are different shades of grey, like rocks on Earth, but the thick atmosphere filters the sunlight so that everything looks orange when you’re standing on Venus. The atmosphere is so heavy it feels like you are 1 mile deep underwater. Venus’ high surface temperatures overheat electronics in spacecraft in a short time, so it seems unlikely that a person could survive for long on the Venusian surface. 

Venus has no rings and no moons. The planet is bright enough to be seen in a clear midday sky and is more easily visible when the Sun is low on the horizon or setting. As an inferior planet, (lying between the Sun and Earth), she always lies within about 47° of the Sun. Although Mercury, the other inferior planet, reaches a maximum elongation of only 28° and is often difficult to discern in twilight, Venus is hard to miss when at her brightest. Her greater maximum elongation means she is visible in dark skies long after sunset. 

We experience a retrograde cycle when Venus “overtakes” Earth every 584 days as she orbits the Sun. During this cycle, Venus changes from the “Evening Star”, visible after sunset, to the “Morning Star,” visible before sunrise. Because the movements of Venus appear to be discontinuous (disappearing due to its proximity to the Sun for many days at a time, then reappearing on the other horizon), some cultures did not recognize Venus as a single entity; instead, they assumed her to be two separate stars on each horizon. Nonetheless, there is evidence that the ancient Sumerians already knew that the morning and evening stars were the same celestial object. 

The ancient Greeks also initially believed Venus to be two separate stars: Phosphorus, the morning star, and Hesperus, the evening star. Though they recognized Venus as a single object, the ancient Romans continued to designate the morning aspect of Venus as Lucifer, literally “Light-Bringer,” and the evening aspect as Vesper, both of which are literal translations of their traditional Greek names.

Venus makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a Venusian year) in 225 Earth days. Her orbit around the Sun is the most circular of any planet — nearly a perfect circle. With an axial tilt of just 3 degrees, Venus spins nearly upright, and so does not experience noticeable seasons. She spends 30-40 days traveling through one sign when she is moving at her fastest speed. When she is retrograde, it can take up to 80 days to move through a sign. It takes Venus about 14 months to travel through all the signs. She retrogrades every18 months or so, and each retrograde lasts about 40 days.

Venus has a very particular retrograde pattern, going retrograde in only 5 signs ever: Gemini, Capricorn/early Aquarius, Leo/early Virgo, Aries, and  Libra/Scorpio. She produces that visual we see by going retrograde in those 5 different signs over the course of every 8 years. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It is during Venus’ retrograde that she shifts back and forth from morning to evening star. She begins her journey as an evening star, and after the inferior conjunction between Venus and the Sun in the middle of her retrograde cycle, she disappears for a while and reemerges as the morning star just before she goes direct. This inferior conjunction begins a new cycle of heart-centered awareness that comes out of the Truth that is revealed by the Light AND the Dark interacting with one another. 

During the Sun Venus inferior conjunction, Venus makes the closest approach to Earth of any planet. However, because she spends much of her orbital period away from Earth, she is the closest planet to Earth for only a small amount of the time. Mercury is actually the planet that is closest to Earth most of the time.       

Venus has been a prime target for early interplanetary exploration. It was the first planet beyond Earth visited by a spacecraft (Mariner 2 in 1962), and the first to be successfully landed on (by Venera 7 in 1970). Her thick clouds render observation of her surface impossible in visible light. Plans have been proposed for rovers or more complex missions, but they are hindered by the planet’s hostile surface conditions. More than 40 spacecraft have explored Venus. In 1991 the Magellan mission mapped the planet’s surface, and Akatsuki is currently orbiting Venus. In January 2020, astronomers reported evidence that suggests that the planet is currently volcanically active.

Astrologically and in the classical sense, Venus describes what and who you love, what attracts you, and your romantic nature. She is very much about your level of self-worth and self-esteem, which in turn describes what you value as well as your relationship with money and other material comforts. As the Goddess of Love, Venus is one of the two main dispositors of your divine feminine Self. With the advent of awakening consciousness, she has only recently begun to activate the heart center and the high heart center (where you commune with Source). The Divine Feminine is such a key piece of your existence here on Earth, and you are living in a time when this Truth is being restored to your awareness. Venus is one of the vital forces that births the experience of your higher Self. In cosmic consciousness, Venus represents your emotional body, not to be confused with your feelings. Your emotional body is housed in the heart center, and Venus is the archetype that oversees your capacity to Love. 

According to myth, Venus-Aphrodite was born of sea foam. Wikipedia says that “Roman theology presents Venus as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and balance of life. In classical 3D consciousness, Mars is considered Venus’ male counterpart and he is active and fiery. Venus absorbs and tempers the male essence, uniting the opposites of male and female in mutual affection. Under the microscope of the repressed feminine consciousness, she has been known to be essentially assimilative and benign, embracing several otherwise quite disparate functions, such as sexual success, good fortune and prosperity.”

But with an awakened consciousness, Venus and Mars can be seen as the co-dispositors of the now fully-empowered Divine Feminine. That ‘great romance’ astrologers have focused on for so long is actually the newly acquired capacity for Self Love, the gift that results from true and total surrender. Surrender is something we do when we are ready to achieve a real connection with Source. And what is Source, if not the highest part of you? This ‘great romance’ turns out to be the one you’re having with your Self.

In the new consciousness, there is no separation between you and anyone or anything ‘out there’, so that any time you feel particularly drawn to or averted to another person (or anything), you have an opportunity to perceive the Truth about your Self… that is, to Self-Realize. 

This is the new meaning of the Venus Mars connection, as it calibrates and rewires your divine feminine energies. It relates to the part of you that just is, that allows you to BE your Self without any judgment or limiting beliefs. This lifts your focus to your higher Self, letting your Truth emerge.

When you allow your heart to move you, right action becomes possible. Being moved by your heart can lead to action taken, or it can lead to inner realization. Either of these can uplift your consciousness, and it can open you to the true perception of your oneness with everything ‘out there’ in the world.

When the heart is open you are peaceful. The people, places and things that once bothered you don’t affect you at all when your heart is open, because  it is always attuned to you and your highest good. It knows the way home, and it automatically moves you toward it, without any need for linear mental processing.

That said, the heart cannot deliver us to an ascended state of consciousness without Mercury. Mercury has been through a major upgrade of his own, and he is now deeply attuned to the higher Mind. When an awakened Mercury combines with an awakened Venus, the two archetypes become the new Divine Male/Female balance that is expressed through our higher Selves. This Masculine/Feminine mind/heart connection is no longer a ‘romance’ of the 3D kind. Gender is far more fluid in the higher dimensions. The evolved Mercury/Venus connection is an essential relationship that must be achieved, honored, embraced and balanced within each of us, if we are going to attain a 5D consciousness. 

Venus remains the dispositor of Taurus, which is a sign far more focused on presence, material beauty and Earth-related goods. She has domain over the inner guidance mechanism, also known as our intuition, guiding us into right action when an open heart and a loving mind are combined. 

In the Cosmic Consciousness system, Sedna replaces Venus as the dispositor of Libra. Venus and Sedna are the lower and higher octaves of the heart. Venus reflects the emotional body of the lower four-body system, and her energies are very much alive in the third dimension. Sedna takes the heart level to the 5th dimension and beyond, representing as she does the newly reemerging Divine Feminine. That is a part of our Being that exists well within (and beyond) the spiritual body, and it reflects the high heart within each of us, as well as the Mother Source, the Divine Feminine aspect of God, that has been suppressed and forgotten for so many thousands of years.

Classically, Mercury is the archetype that relates to our capacity to think, to use our intelligence, to communicate and to connect with the outer world. He has long been the dispositor of the lower mind, which has been the main source of our thinking process since the beginning of time. According to Nick Fiorenza, “Mercury provides the ability for mental focus and concentration, even telepathy and telekinesis.” In 3D it is associated with agility, changeability and dexterity, as well as the tendency toward mercurial or changing thought and expression.  Mercury is the innermost planet in our solar system. As such, it is closest to the Sun, which represents our consciousness. Immediately we can comprehend why it is so difficult to separate the mind and its thoughts from our consciousness.  

The smallest planet in the solar system, Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth’s Moon. 

Mercury is the second densest planet after Earth, with a huge core that comprises about 75 percent of its own diameter. In comparison, Mercury’s outer shell is only 300 to 400 miles thick. The combination of its massive core and abundance of volatile elements has left scientists puzzled for years. Mercury is completely gray in color, like the grey matter of the mind, and it has no moons. 

The first recorded observation of Mercury was made by Timocharis in 265 BC. Other early astronomers that studied Mercury include Zupus (1639), who studied the planet’s orbit. The Sumerians also knew of Mercury since at least 5,000 years ago. It was often associated with Nabu, the god of writing. But in the 4th century BCE, ancient astronomers decided to call the tiny planet Hermes; it became Mercury with the Romans. 

Like Venus, Mercury has a morning and evening identity, because it is so close to the Sun. Sometimes it can be seen for a short time just after sunset. Sometimes it is visible for a few moments before sunrise. The Sumerians had different names for these two different identities of Mercury: Hermes for the evening star and Apollo for the morning. But around 500 BC, the Romans gave it only one name, Mercury. It has also been known as the Great Messenger, the Winged One, the Trickster and the Magician. 

Mercury typically moves faster than the Sun– in fact, it is the only planet that does. (Obviously, the Sun doesn’t really move from our perspective, but it appears to move about a degree a day, because the Earth moves at that rate.) Mercury makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Mercury time) in just 88 Earth days.

The concept of time is very different on Mercury. It defies what we know about planetary orbits. It takes Mercury 59 Earth days to rotate once on its own axis, and it takes 3 of those rotations to produce one day/night cycle on the planet– the equivalent of 176 Earth days. It takes Mercury 88 days to circle the Sun once, and it takes 2 of these orbits to complete one day/night cycle.  For every 2 orbits around the Sun, Mercury completes 3 rotations of its axis. This rotation is unique to the solar system and it is gravitationally locked. All of this very strange rotation and orbital resonance produces various sunrises and sunsets on the planet in one Mercurial day/night. Let that be a revelation as to why it is so difficult to grasp the way the mind works and how it is related to our consciousness. 

This strange orbital procedure also produces Mercury’s multiple retrograde cycles during the course of one Earth year. Mercury can change signs as often as twice a month, or it can remain in one sign during a retrograde cycle for nearly two months. When Mercury retrogrades, he often moves back and forth between two signs. 

Mercury goes retrograde every four months for three weeks, and each time he does, he comes into an inferior conjunction with the Sun, right in the middle of his retrograde journey. It is called inferior, because he is in between the Earth and the Sun. When Mercury moves direct, he produces a superior conjunction with the Sun, when he passes the Earth from the other side of the Sun. Mercury is the only planet in our solar system that conjoins with the Sun 6 times a year. As a result, he does not produce new cycles the way the other planets do. A new Mercury cycle occurs after he retrogrades and then recovers those degrees, which are known as his shadow; each time beginning  another chapter of communication and connection. 

Two spacecraft have visited the planet Mercury so far. The first, Mariner 10, flew by Mercury three times and mapped about half of the planet’s surface between 1974-75. Mariner 10 also discovered Mercury’s thin atmosphere and detected its magnetic field. More recently, Messenger went into orbit around Mercury in 2011, and completed mapping of 100% of Mercury’s surface in 2013. In addition, BepiColombo, a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency  launched in October 2018. It consists of 2 satellites launched together (the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mio), and it is scheduled to arrive at  Mercury in 2025.

The mythology that is associated with any planet represents the stories that have been handed down since the beginning of time. In many ways, the symbols depicted are closer to the Truth than any reality we think we comprehend today. Myths should be honored as such… as opportunities to glimpse the Truth. But they only work when we recognize that they represent symbols:  that each “god” is indicative of some power or force, and that all relationships described are also expressing the essence of the subject. For example, the 3D story of Mercury as the son of Jupiter and Maia represents the special combination of knowledge and wisdom that comes from Jupiter and the propensity toward illusion and the illusive that Maia represents. The 5D story says that all planets in our solar system–all the way out to Saturn– are the offspring of Uranus, Father of the Heavens, and Gaia, the Earth. In fact, Uranus is the partner of Gaia and her son as well. 

Mercury is known for escorting the dead to the underworld, and as such he has a very special relationship with Pluto, Gatekeeper to that invisible realm. He also has significant connections with Ceres, Goddess of the Harvest (and mother of Pluto’s Lover, Persephone), as well as with the newly named Plutino planets, all guardians of the realm beyond. 

According to the Cosmic Consciousness system, Mercury represents our mental operating system, and gives the Mental Body its disposition. In classical (3D) astrology Mercury has been known as the Great Messenger, presiding over all forms of communication and connection… and as long as we are in physical form, those applications remain meaningful. Mercury has domain over both the lower mind, with its intellectual nature — and the higher mind, which is stimulated by the Light of the spiritual Self.  As the Messenger archetype, Mercury is associated with thoughts, ideas, writing, talking, messages, information, logic and reasoning, and all forms of connection. He also disposes the Great Observer mode in each of us: the part of the mind that connects with the inner guidance mechanism and helps to produce an integrated mind/heart balance that ultimately raises consciousness and produces ascension. 

As mentioned before, Mercury’s proximity to the Sun means that the lower mind has a tendency to get in the way of our consciousness. Mercury has a special relationship with both Uranus and Quaoar, in that each of those archetypes assists the mental process in its upgrade. Uranus, the Great Awakener, helps us to make use of Mercury in a far more objective observer mode, and encourages us to let go of the judgments and personal biases that have kept us stuck in limiting beliefs for so long. As the higher octave of Mercury, Uranus keeps us occupied with mental expansion until we’re ready to perceive the Truth, which is that all we see is our own projection. 

During the course of the last 20 or 30 years, the mind and our conscious awareness have been expanding steadily. The lower mind has given rise to the higher Mind, and as we awaken, we learn to rely on a newer, Love-infused way of connecting with the outer world, rather than the more habitual fact-based, linear way of interacting that we have been working with for millennia.  

Once Self-realized, Quaoar becomes a very significant archetype in helping us to think outside the box, coming up with realizations that don’t originate in the mind, but from the vastness of the universal Mind. Eventually we realize that the box itself does not exist. We learn from this connection that a new solution to any problem can never come from the place where the original issue was born. A Mercury/Quaoar presence delivers us from the constraints of the lower fear-based mind once and for all. 

When Mercury connects with a 5D archetype, his higher expressions are more prevalent; when he connects with a planet in our ‘inner’ solar system he functions at the more familiar level. In Truth, Mercury functions on all dimensions all the time, and it remains for us to become fully conscious of this archetype’s presence whenever we interact with the outer world.

Mercury and Mars are two very personal archetypes that have been through a great deal of transmutation during the past few years. The energies of  Mercury and Mars have effectively switched places, Mercury becoming the true male archetype, clearing up eons of confusion about what male energy actually is. Mars is now free of all the limitations that the need to be a powerful masculine god of war once placed on it. Now it represents the right action that results when the Mind and Heart are properly aligned within the physical body.  

Mercury’s energies function at a much higher frequency than ever before. At this more conscious level, he is no longer about ‘understanding’ anything– he is all about putting your heart into it and being willing to feel the event you are moving through. It is this essential Mind/Heart connection that produces ascension in each of us.

Mercury disposes Gemini, the sign of Mental Wisdom, where we learn to think with the heart. Gemini, once known as mutable, is a wisdom sign. It is where we learn to become aware of what motivates our thoughts and actions, and let Love become the sole motivating factor. By consciously aligning Mind with Heart we learn to consciously speak our Truth. 

Mercury can no longer be used the way we used to use it. He represents the higher Mind now, the Christed Self, the Realized Self. The Mind and Heart must work together, in as balanced a way as possible, if the Truth is to be accessed.

We don’t yet Know what the Truth is, not here in the physical realm. Yet we all carry that Truth in our hearts, and whenever we catch a glimpse of it, we know it, we remember it, and there is not one shred of doubt.