A Busy Week For Mercury: Weekly Overview for September 23rd – 29th

Hey, everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Monday, everybody. Today, we're going to take a look at some of the biggest astrological transits for the week ahead, between now and Sunday at the end of the week. This is something new that I'm trying. A long time ago, I did weekly overviews and went away from them because I often prefer to focus on whatever transit is peaking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. But in some situations, it just makes sense, when there's a week of a lot of transits unfolding, to start the week by looking at them in review, kind of just looking at the big picture of the week ahead.

So I'm going to do that. And then on certain Mondays, when there's a big transit happening on Monday. We'll probably just focus on that, but I am going to try to throw in these weekly overviews from time to time because it's a nice way to start your week off, just getting a feel for where everything's heading. And in many cases, if there is something happening on Monday and it's not the world's biggest transit, like an eclipse or something that really requires its own episode, we'll cover it as we are here on Monday, but then we'll look at everything else coming for the week ahead, and then we'll cover those transits as we go forth through the week. So that's the idea behind this. I hope that you will enjoy it as always.

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Okay, now let us shift our attention to the astrology of the week ahead. So I'm going to be looking at today, which is September 23, and we're going to take it all the way through the 29th, which takes us Monday through Sunday. So I'm going to put the chart up on the screen. We're going to walk through the transits of our week ahead, and we'll note some of the big things that are happening. Just yesterday, we came off from a Venus square to Pluto.

I hope you're all doing okay today; Venus ingresses into the sign of Scorpio. So, one of the big pieces of news to start our week is the ingress of Venus into Scorpio, which is coming right off from Venus's square from Libra to Pluto in Capricorn. That happened yesterday, Sunday, September 22 so Venus entering Scorpio begins a period of a little less than a month where Venus will be in the sign of her exile. All that really means is that this is a. Place where Venus is now working through the archetypal tension that is present between Venus and Mars. That doesn't mean it's a bad Venus.

It doesn't mean you should think super negatively about it. It just means that we have a Venus who now has to hold that deep, watery tension of Mars's sign of the Scorpion. Venus is a goddess of sensuality and pleasure. And so when you put her in the sign, you get things like eroticism and passion and emotional depth, and you get a Venus that's willing to cook with fire, which is the great part about Venus in Scorpio; it's a spicy Venus placement, but for some people, that spice will also mean greater levels of conflict or discord or the waters may be troubled emotionally for the next several weeks.

To start this week, we just noticed that Venus in Scorpio is bringing the heat. The next thing that we want to point out is the aspects happening this week. And we're going to start by looking at it is a big week from Mercury. All of the aspects of the week, except for one, are aspects from Mercury. What does that mean? Well, first of all, it means that this is a week where things like communication, the mind, and the mental and rational side of things are going to be more active and expressive. Ideas are important this week, speech and communication technology and the intellect. These are the kinds of topics that you'll see very active.

Of course, Mercury is very well-dignified in the sign of Virgo right now. And so that means that we have a Mercury that's able to navigate these different transits that are coming. I think pretty effectively. We are going to be visiting each of these dynamics as the week unfolds in different and creative ways. But for now, let's just look at how they unfold in order. So first, we have Mercury on the 24th.

Let me advance this by just one day. We have Mercury on the 24th, which is tomorrow, Tuesday, moving through a trine to Uranus. Now, one thing that I love about trines is that they are generally supportive. They are expansive. They tend to bring beneficial people or connections into our lives, or they create flow and a general sense of harmony. What I love about this for Mercury is that when you have these mental, intellectual, communicative, and technological qualities coming in contact with a planet like Uranus, who is progressive and also very inventive. You think of Uranus; you think of a lightning strike that's hitting the mind when it contacts Mercury.

Therefore, you have a lot of inventiveness and a lot of original thinking as a combination. You also have things like thinking outside of the box or defiant or rebellious thinking, but in a smooth trine, this means that it will probably not be the kind that burns bridges. So effective, practical, well-resourced, original thinking, problem-solving, thinking outside of the box, original and daring kinds of thought structures or thought forms that will be coming through this is also that unexpected good news, or that unexpected feeling of just having the wind at your back and maybe feeling well resourced in terms of the kinds of communication that's happening, the kinds of conversations that are coming up, the kinds of news or information that's suddenly popping and surprising you. So I love that this is kind of leading off our week.

On Tuesday tomorrow, you'll be feeling this building today, by the way, and you'll notice that it's sort of in the air for the rest of the week. However, one thing that makes this a little tricky is that as soon as Mercury is done with Uranus, it goes right into another aspect. And so it's like, you know, from one archetype right into another. It might make it difficult to sort of feel the afterglow of the first transit.

So watch for this one today and tomorrow, especially, all right. So if we move on now to September 25 and just go one day further, that's Wednesday for Wednesday this week, I have a very special episode prepared on the question of whether or not astrology is a science or a form of divination. In my perspective, astrology is ultimately a form of divination.

Now, when we're looking at things like reading birth charts and horary charts, something fundamental is happening when we read a chart that is of the nature of divination. And my one of my real the real inspirations of my career. His name is Jeffrey Cornelius, a very wonderful astrologer who recently passed away. He came and taught for my students in my school for a whole week in 2014 and had a very lasting impact on me; that series of talks that he gave for my students, and his book The Moment of Astrology, is all about asking us to consider that there is a highly intuitive and divinatory component to actually doing astrology, that it's not just an objective science in that sense.

This Wednesday, I'll be reading you an essay that he wrote to give you a flavor of what he was like, and that essay can be asking us to consider that there is a kind of an astrological form of mediumship that happens when good readings take place, which is a provocative idea, but it's a very Mercury Neptune idea.

We're going to be working with that essay just for your consideration, and to honor the fact that he recently passed away, I'll be reading you that essay on Wednesday. It's a longer episode, and because we're unpacking an essay and, I'm commenting on it as we go.

So that is also a very Mercury Neptune-like piece of content this week, in terms of just swimming in the ocean of really beautiful, deep, otherworldly ideas about what's going on with astrology itself. So I chose to do that to honor one of my mentors that'll be on Wednesday.

But this Wednesday, aside from that topic, Mercury's opposition to Neptune is also, generally speaking, pitting the rational and the mystical against one another and asking us if we can hold the tension between the two Mercury and Virgo loves to be organized, thoughtful, conscientious, meticulous, in control, but usually, you know, not, hopefully not in, like, an obsessive way. But you know, managing things through intelligence and clear boundaries, useful items, actions, and things like that.

Neptune is asking us to loosen our grip on reality and go into an altered state, to swim in the ocean of the numinous and the divine and that which is nonordinary, magical, subtle, timeless, and imaginative. So the pitting of Mercury against Neptune in the middle of this week really highlights, probably, the most dramatic feature of this week's Mercury transits. There are three of them. The Mercury trine to Uranus is interesting because here you have this very constructive, inventive kind of energy, very earthy and practical but electric and original. Then, Mercury immediately goes into opposition with Neptune in the middle of the week.

So just a fantastic dynamic there. I would also wonder about things like illusion, fantasy, and deception within communication dynamics; what are we saying? Is it true? Is it grounded? Is it real?

On the other hand, are we being asked to open our minds to things that we haven't considered before and just allow ourselves to be influenced by ideas or perceptions or thoughts or different directions that can take us off of our most set or fixed ideas or beliefs.

So, openness to influence is also a big question for Mercury and Neptune. Do we need more of that openness, or do we need to be careful about that openness that's also at the heart, in my opinion, of divination itself. When we read for people, it is very important that we take care of ourselves as practitioners so that what we say and how we say it is coming through something of a clean channel.

By that, I don't mean perfection. I don't mean that we have to be some kind on some kind of moral high ground above all the other human beings. It is just the same thing for therapy or any caring art or profession. It's like the ability that I have to be a medium for things that are useful to come through in any kind of healing context is dependent on, to some extent, how well I take care of myself and how easily I also surrender and put myself in the hands of people who are there to help and guide me.

So the questions also about how we allow ourselves to be healed and directed by other people's voices and healing influences while also making sure that we have appropriate boundaries and we're letting the right people guide us and influence us. That's a big part of Mercury opposite Neptune.

These are just some of the thoughts that are coming to my mind right now. But again, we'll be unpacking more of this as the week goes on. Then, when we go forward just a little bit on the same day, we have Mercury coming off from the opposition. And as Mercury comes off the opposition to Neptune by just at the very end of the day on Wednesday the 25th kind of peaking into, depending on your time zone where you live in the world, peaking into Thursday, September 26, Mercury will then trine Pluto again, both in earth signs. Here, we have Virgo and Capricorn. It is so interesting to see the trines to Uranus and Pluto within two days of one another, and in the middle is the opposition to Neptune.

So again, busy week for Mercury. When I think of Mercury trining Pluto, I think of the same kind of constructive, useful combination of planets that a Trine represents. So this flowing harmonious contact with Pluto-Mercury in Virgo and Pluto and Capricorn can really help us excavate or dig up useful things.

So whether that's unconscious material that we can now articulate or understand, that contact with Neptune that takes us into the imaginative or the imaginal can then simultaneously give us a shift or a kind of movement through the mind that allows us to turn the soil over and maybe think of new thoughts or ideas or cleanse the palate intellectually or mentally.

Somehow, I like Mercury trining Pluto in these signs as purifying for the mind, as excavating or digging up unconscious material that we can immediately do something useful with or that we can feel healed from by virtue of the contact that we have with unconscious material, especially on the level of the mind, or it's our ability to say or look at or explore or talk about difficult things, whether that's in therapy or with a friend, Mercury trine Pluto can also be about effectively using things and finding ways of like Mercury is such a problem solver in Virgo, contact with Pluto and Capricorn says, I found a way to do something, or I've solved a problem or an issue, and that contact with Pluto empowers the mind of Mercury to then take that discovery and put it into action.

So Mercury trine Pluto is also about our willingness to explore deep, subterranean taboo material mentally and in communication, coming off the opposition to Neptune and the trine to Uranus. This makes for a really interesting week with respect, again, to the mind. What is on our mind? How are we thinking? How are we organizing our thoughts and experiences? The shift or change that we might have in perceptions, ideas, patterns of thought, or communication is really profound this week. Now, toward the very end of the week, we're going to go forward here, and we're going to look at Sunday, the 29th. Sunday the 29th is our last aspect of this week, and that is a Trine from Mars in Cancer to Saturn in Pisces.

Here's what I love about this one. What I love about this transit is that Mars in Cancer connecting with the other malefic in an effective Trine means that you have two planets that we usually associate with, things that are a little bit more challenging or difficult.

For example, Saturn gives us those experiences and lessons in life that help us to mature and grow. And it's often, it's often a little serious, and it comes to Saturn with a kind of gravitas, like a heaviness, some kind of cross that we're bearing with Saturn, always at the same time Mars in Cancer, gives us the, let's say, the emotional and it gives us the emotional motivation to do difficult things with a sense of greater emotional responsibility and being emotionally motivated to address difficult things.

This feels to me like, hey, we could address some difficult things in relationships or in family, and maybe there's a greater willingness to talk about or address some of those heavier topics. Notice that Venus is also climbing into a grand water trine from Scorpio, also suggesting that there is a great emotional depth available to us.

You're going to start feeling that on Sunday when Mars and Saturn connect through these water signs, but it's going to grow in intensity over the following week as we come into the Solar Eclipse in Libra, which is also ruled by that Venus in the sign of Scorpio, which will then be forming something of a grand water trine with Mars and Saturn.

So this is just the beginning of a moment where some kind of emotional activity, advocacy depth, maybe a little bit of a charged or vulnerable kind of state or space that comes up with respect to things like family and the deeper, more vulnerable emotional dynamics of relationships, as well as things that we feel just very passionate about and that we feel emotionally charged up to, like address, but weightier things, deeper things, for sure, this grand water trine coming off in the Eclipse with Libra too, is all about addressing a new way of doing relationships that will come about as we look at and deal with a very complex, deep and maybe even ancestral level of karma in our lives.

And I say that because Mars and cancer can also activate the emotional depths of our lives through things like family and family history. Anyway, these are just some impressions. We will revisit Mars trine Saturn at the end of the week; we will be visiting Mercury trine Pluto. We'll be looking at Mercury trine Uranus, and in the middle of the week, like I said, just kind of a fun, special way of looking at Mercury Neptune, I will be doing a reading of an essay by Jeffrey Cornelius on the question of you know, whether or not astrologers are sort of talking to spirit in the act of doing a reading like let me just give you an example before we get there.

So you're kind of primed for this talk on Wednesday because I really want people to try to listen to the entirety of this essay. I think it's about a 45-minute episode, so it's a little longer. But I think that astrology is, while there's a whole like astrology, there's a whole logos to what we do. It's reasonable. There's craft.

It's not just completely subjective; that there is this highly subjective, almost like mediumistic, part of astrology, where the way we tap into symbols and read them in the context of a live reading with people who bring a certain charge and a certain reason for being there into the context of a reading, that the ability that we have to adequately and beautifully express symbols in the context of a reading is a kind of divinatory act.

And I would say that one of the great secrets of astrologers, like across the board, is that we hide behind things like the apparent objectivity of all these transits, like I'm just giving you this objective weather report for the week, but the truth is that they are all signs and omens.

The reason that we generally like one channel or another, one astrology content creator over another, or one reader over another, is because of the way that each reader is able to be a medium for a kind of artful expression of the symbols that speak to us, that actually resonate. And that it's not that that astrologer is, is like getting the symbols right. You know, it's that something about their intuitive relationship, their artful relationship with the Oracle Speaks to Us.

That is why there are so many different astrologers who have different gifts and skills that people resonate with differently. It's it's not because astrology is completely subjective that there's nothing we aren't all talking about, like this week's Mercury transits, but the way each astrologer addresses them and the kind of symbolism they evoke and the way they articulate the patterns my angle that I see the jewel from right, that is a kind of artful thing that is reflective of an astrologers relationship with symbol, with symbolism, and with the Oracle itself.

So that is a huge part of why we do astrology, of how astrology is cultivated, and of what we end up loving about the astrologers that we love. So that whole dimension is going to be like that whole idea about something that's going on in astrology that is much more intuitive and divinatory than we think will be the subject of our Wednesday talk. When we look at Mercury opposite Neptune, it just felt like the perfect transit to talk about the subject under.

So I really do hope you will enjoy that, and it will be my way of honoring a mentor in my life and his work. So stay tuned for that. I hope you're having a great day today and that this has been fun. Let me know if you like these overviews. By the way, I'm resistant. I'm reluctant and resistant to do things like weekly overviews, but I don't know. I'm experimenting.

So you tell me what you think. Do you like a weekly overview like this? Like I said, there'll be some Mondays where it just makes more sense to just go right for a big transit that's happening, like Monday or Tuesday, and just devote a lot of time to it.

But I do feel like when there's space to do so and it makes sense, like today really felt like it was a good one, I might do a weekly overview. So you tell me if you like it. On that note, I'm going to sign off, and after I do, you can hear a 10-minute video talking about what our upcoming course includes. It starts November 16, so stick around to hear more about that, and I hope to see some of you in classes soon. Bye.