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.
