Mercury Conjunct Pluto: A Dark Winged Messenger

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Today we are going to talk about one of the big transits of the week, which is the upcoming conjunction of Mercury to Pluto in the late degrees of Capricorn. So this transit is forming over the next couple of days and will be coming through by about Friday. You should be feeling it through the rest of this week. And so we're going to take a look at that.

We're going to look at five archetypal themes that often manifest around Mercury Pluto dynamics that can be a square or conjunction, in this case, or opposition or whatever. We're going to talk about that combination, five themes to watch for, and then three insights or life lessons that I feel like I hear people talk about quite frequently, especially when Pluto is transiting their natal Mercury. So we'll get into that today. Before we do, as always, don't forget to like and, subscribe, share your comments, especially if you have this placement natively or you have a story to share this week; you can always use the hashtag grabbed if you have a story about this transit that you want to share for a future storytelling episode. We'd love those and welcome and encourage that.

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All right, let's go ahead, and we'll put the real-time clock up as always, and let's take a look. So here we are on Tuesday, February 7, and we have Mercury coming into the three-degree range of Pluto. That's the engagement range when it's within three degrees. So let's advance the chart a little bit; we're going to see on Wednesday that coming to within about two degrees, Thursday coming to within one degree, and Friday coming through the exact conjunction into Saturday when Mercury will pass into Aquarius and then they are officially sort of separated especially once one of the planets crosses the sign boundary like that you'll see that often the conjunctions symbolism is going to fade away noticeably once Mercury changes signs.

Now, it's interesting because this conjunction is happening not far off from Pluto, also changing signs into Aquarius, which is something that we'll be talking about in the weeks to come. There's a lot more to say about that. We've already done some videos on that. And yesterday, we opened up the week by talking about Saturn's upcoming entrance into Pisces. So some of those big outer planetary shifts or slow-moving planetary shifts are definitely going to take up more of our time and attention in the weeks to come.

Today, I think it's well worth it to take a look at Pluto and Mercury this week since that forms probably easily the biggest transit of the week, in my opinion. There are five themes that I want to talk about with this combination. Now you could take this video, and you could apply this to Pluto transiting your natal Mercury and just about any type of aspect. The aspects will change the dynamic a little bit, but mostly what today is a sort of a universal look at Mercury Pluto combinations and what they tend to bring.

So five themes and then three insights. These insights are just life lessons that I've noticed around Mercury and Pluto, especially in the lives of my clients as they deal with massive Pluto Mercury transits in their life. I went through one as well. And these ideas are reflective of some of the things I learned and, again, things that I've seen clients and students learn with Mercury Pluto dynamics. So anyway, let's get into it.

Five things to watch for; the first one is Revelation. So the word revelation, ah, I think we're gonna get through a day without an etymology. We have to bring up the etymology once in a while; etymological roots are one of my favorite things. So anyway, Revelation is coming from a disclosure. So the root of the word means a disclosure of information or knowledge by a divine or supernatural agency. But it can also just mean from Latin revel Ra, which is to unveil, to uncover, or to lay bare, as in the word reveal. So there's like both a religious meaning of the word, and we think of the word revelation; people often, by the way, get the book of Revelation wrong.

They'll say the Book of Revelations, plural. It's not. It's singular. So, by the way, the biblical book is called Revelation. It's one Revelation. It's a series of visions. But it's John's Revelation from the island of Patmos, which I actually visited one time when I was on a trip that my dad led when he was in the ministry; we went and followed the Apostle Paul's footsteps around the Mediterranean, and got to visit the island of Patmos where John was a prisoner for the Roman Empire if I remember correctly, and anyway, he wrote, he had his vision there and scribe translated it or transcribed it in a cave that we visited was interesting. Anyway, it's Revelation singular.

So the word revelation for most people when they hear it will be like the blasting of trumpets and the revealing of, you know, cosmic apocalyptic truth or something like that. And you know, the funny thing is that mercury Pluto can be like that. It might be a mini Apocalypse In the soap opera of our lives, but like the truth bombs that Mercury Pluto drops, it will sometimes feel like an apocalypse, they will feel like a revealing an unsealing of something that has remained hidden. And sometimes it has heavy, like nuclear transformative effect, that what is said or seen or understood or realized or communicated, an email, a letter or an announcement, something that comes up and it feels like the, you know, the blasting of the angel's trumpet, and it feels like a foundation-shaking kind of, of truth or piece of insider information. It doesn't have to be that dramatic, though. Oh, I find that oftentimes there's a really funny story. And I don't remember where I heard this one. But it basically was like, someone just, Oh, yeah, no, I think this was in my own yard.

Anyway, we were fixing, like, when we moved into this house, they have like, they have like an irrigation system for, like these little lines that go out and go into the little flower boxes on the window sills, right? So it's, like, kind of like a hose. And they have these little drip lines. And anyway, we were trying to replace something because it was broken. And it was a Pluto Mercury dynamic. And we ended up discovering an old buried; Now I'm forgetting if this was our story or if this was someone else's story. I think it was ours. I think that, and I think we found an old control, like a buried control system for like a really old irrigation system that had been in the yard. And it was a Mercury Pluto thing. And it was like this old buried piece of technology. And I mean, symbolically, it was interesting. I feel like at that time; I remember that image coming up or the story that I heard that someone shared. You know, I remember having an impact on me, though. And you guys will have to tell me if that was a grabbed episode. Or if I remember that from our own place, swear to god that was in our own yard.

Anyway, so such things could have an impact on you symbolically, and it doesn't, like oftentimes, you'll just see, like, very powerful dream images coming up or some synchronistic thing that sort of pops up from the subterranean or the Plutonian Underworld and it speaks somehow, and you don't always know exactly what it's saying or why it's there. But upon further reflection, sometimes it's as though there's a kind of Plutonian messenger that's arriving and heralding something. So watch for the Plutonian messengers this week. Sometimes it shows up just in terms of like a movie watch.

A long time ago, when I was living in New York City, I got to know the actor. His name is Penn Badgley, And I got to know him because he came in and did the Ayahuasca monologues, which I've directed; it was like a theater show where people came and did storytelling about healing experiences they had with ayahuasca, and we always tried to pull in, you know, some celebrities here, there, we had Josh Radner come from how he met your mother. And got to know him and worked with him on a story because I directed the show and got to know Penn and his story. And, so anyway, Penn is in this show now, and I want to say it's called You. And it's like, it's a creepy show, is he? I think he's like a serial; he is a serial killer. That's what it is. But it's a little bit more complicated than that. Anyway. So, you know, I noticed that there's a new, like, popped up on my Netflix that there's like the new, I think it's like the last season of you coming out. And I just thought, Oh, that's interesting. It's going to be coming out right around the time that Mercury conjoins Pluto. Yeah, that's fascinating.

It's that kind of thing, though, where you watch some dark comedy work, you watch a show that's dark, but somehow the, you know, the themes archetypally or a dark film or something like you could well, you could be random like you could watch Jaws. And it could remind you about the fact that nature is sometimes cruel, which could then, you know, translate into, you know, it might burst some kind of overly naive idea that you have in some totally different sphere of life. Well, thank you, Jaws on a Friday night, or Thank you, you know, you know, when Penn Badgley serial killer series or whatever, whatever it is, you see something, it's dark, it's heavy, it doesn't seem related to anything else in your life, you're taking it almost as a form of entertainment, but then it has some ripple effect in some other area of your life. Mercury Pluto often works like that.

So just notice the kind of dark-winged messenger coming in this week, which I think is best really best to think of Mercury Pluto as a helper and a guide. Mercury is the guide of souls I don't think of Pluto as like; someone the other day, I had a client. And it was really funny. They said that Pluto was going to bring a baseball bat to their life. And I was like, Yeah, and you know, and I get it, I totally get why that image would be used. But it's like, we got to work on our metaphors here. You know, Pluto is not out to get us, and Pluto is truly, you know, when Mercury and Pluto get together, you just think Pluto is Mercury's reaching down into the depths of a subterranean and mysterious landscape and will reveal something it will disclose something. So think of that first, Revelation as a theme this week.

Number two, the bottom line is put slash Machiavellian thinking. So how does Machiavellian thinking work? You guys have heard me use this phrase for years on my channel now, but it's? It tends to be it can be very Pluto and Capricorn. First of all, you know, when someone sits down with you, and you get that feeling right away, that they have something in mind that they want from you, it's a bottom line, and they're trying to the everything in the conversation, you can feel it right away, they're trying to shift and steer this toward getting something out of me, or something that they want, or something that they hope I can give them or connect them with or whatever.

When I get emails from people trying to sell me something, but they present themselves like, hey, you know, I was just checking out your channel. And I thought you could use some SEO etc.; there's this feeling right away that you get where it's like, this is someone that's trying to, will do whatever they have to do or say to just get to some end, you know, so the end justifies the means. So, that kind of like bottom line, ruthless, cunning, plotting, calculated, strategic, maybe a little tricky to notice, or it could slide under the radar, but it's sort of Machiavellian.

It has an I'm just gonna get what I want. So be careful of that the ends justifying the means. I'll do anything; I'll stop at nothing. A little obsessive. So that one I would be careful of, be careful of it within yourself, too. Don't just think, well, clearly I just have to watch out from that and other people because I think it's these things that the shadows are almost always easiest, that we're most susceptible to them in ourselves, you know, and usually, not to the degree that you're hearing them talked about, like say on my channel, or you know, somewhere else, someone gives you a shadow quality of a planetary combination. You go well, I'm a good person, I'm not gonna, but, you know, Sheila, you know, watch for her, or whatever, you know.

Instead, it's like, just note that usually, like in this case, bottom line, Machiavellian thinking, that sort of obsessive ruthless, I'll do whatever it takes. And I'm sort of driven, and I'm not letting on, or people can't exactly see how intensely I'm driving at something; I'm sort of obsessed with it. That may sound really extreme in the way that I'm, like, sort of characterizing it. I'm, like, making it into like a goofy looking character here using all of these adjectives and blowing it up into like, a, like a portrait.

Usually, though, the way that these things appear in us is like at half that volume. And it's subtle, and it's invoices that are familiar to us. It's not describing itself in the way I'm describing it, it's a voice that you know, and that can present you know, so it'll be very compelling. And so, you know, just remember that, that most of these things that you hear the shadowy dark things, and you might think, Well, I'm a good person. And yes, you are a good person, you know, and hopefully, so am I, you know, and we're susceptible to these things. And usually, they're going to be about half as loud as it sounds, you know, compared to the way I'm putting it.

Number three would be a rich, fertile idea. Never underestimate the power of Mercury Pluto to come up with ideas that are fertile strategies, ideas, forms of business, technologies, and inventions. Mercury was the ruler of inventors and inventions in ancient astrology. So it's a very, and when it hits Pluto, it's like deep rich, fertile. So fertile ideas. Rich, lucrative, or it doesn't have to be in business or financial either. It could just be an idea that if you plant it, it will grow. What's that phrase? Oh, Field of Dreams. If you build it, if you build it, they will come. Right. Do you guys know that phrase? It's a little bit like that, especially in Capricorn, an earth sign that loves, like, things that will, you know, you could you can build a skyscraper, you can climb up the mountain. So a rich, fertile idea planted now, developmentally, slowly over a period of time, this thing has legs. So watch for that.

All right, number four would be subterranean thoughts, topics, and conversations. I sort of mentioned this a little bit earlier when I was talking about Revelation, but basically, just watch for the need that your soul has sometimes to get real, to get deep, to get controversial, to get into the taboo stuff, to get into the edges to go nuclear, you know, like, and, you know, I think we, especially, especially here in Minnesota, as I'm reflecting on like the Minnesota Nice culture, I was reflecting on this in the world of sports, because I'm a Vikings fan. And I've noticed that many sports fans in Minnesota, once the team doesn't do well. There's a very like, Oh, shucks, well, golly, Good job, guys, maybe better luck next year, you know, we'll just bring the band back together. And there's a real deep discomfort in the Minnesota sports media that I've noticed with being kind of ruthless and being like, well, maybe that quarterback is not good, or maybe his contract is too high for how old he is, or maybe that veteran is aging, you should cut them or trade them.

And, you know, you know, it's like, so I think sometimes we're all wired that way. Let's be very polite. Let's not rock the boat here. But that's not what Pluto and Mercury, Pluto people, you know if you have Mercury and Pluto, that's not going to cut it. You know, everything that's life, giving is very close to death. Everything that feels like it is deeply and intensely empowering is not far from effort and struggle. I think this is, you know, it's not always true. There are a lot of life-giving things that aren't about effort and struggle; I should qualify that.

But there is a sense in, like, if you've ever if you're a runner, I'm not a runner, but if you were a runner, then you'll know because I've had some periods of my life when I've ran regularly, you hit there's a place where you the effort, you break through it, and suddenly it's like you're high, you get hit like a runner's high. I'm sure there are some people listening who know what I'm talking about.

So there's effort, effort, effort, and then a breakthrough into bliss. That is, that's in that sort of nuclear moment where the effort turns into ecstasy, where the struggle turns into catharsis and ecstasy; that is a very Mercury Pluto kind of space. So just keep that in mind and the need that your soul may have this week to kind of go deep and hard and intense into things that are dark and difficult, but somehow by doing so, there are breakthroughs possible that are very empowering and life giving.

Finally, we have the topic of purgation. And I'm gonna say purgation in general, but probably around the mind, communications speech. And by purgation, you could say it's like, you know, like popping a zit, metaphorically. Or you could say that it's, you know, eliminating a bacteria, you know, or it's bringing something up and out to be cleansed, healed, and so forth. I think that there's something about this that can be; it's like getting something off your mind getting something spoken, releasing something that, if you hold it in, it will make you sick. So I think the idea of purgation and cleansing around mind-speech communication, those are also things that come to mind this week. So those are my five.

Now we have three insights. Now, these are like; maybe you could connect them to the themes of the day, these five themes, but more broadly speaking, what do I see people learning as life lessons when they have major Pluto Mercury transits?

Number one, what you think of me is none of my business. Now, I think this is a phrase that comes from 12 Step programs. I'm not sure, but I feel like I have, you know, we have in my broader family, I have people who are in 12-step programs, and so on. And so I've heard a lot of different, you know, phrases and teachings that come from those environments. One of them, I believe, is what you think of me is none of my business couldn't be more Mercury Pluto.

Sometimes people offer, you know, like, as a public figure, I shouldn't complain about it too much. It's just part of the job. But, like, you wouldn't believe I'd say, a dozen or so times a week, I get people that, you know, will offer unsolicited advice to me, whether it's about health, or parenting, or blogging, or YouTubing, or astrology, and it's just like, Yeah, you know, this is what I think of you, this is how I think you ought to be better, blah, blah, blah. What I found over the years is that, you know, sometimes people have a way of offering their thoughts that are really constructive and super helpful, and I love that.

But then there are people who are just trolling, you know, and not just that, but in your personal life. I mean, like, you know, what to speak of whatever people are running their mouth about, that you don't know on social media somewhere about what you post or whatever. But sometimes you're you have friends or people in your life that are like, you know, I think you ought to do this, or I think you ought to be more like this, or just offering you unsolicited opinions about how you ought to be living or whatever. Or there might be family members who are gossiping about you or people at your workplace who talk about you behind your back.

Oftentimes, those painful dynamics will come up around Mercury Pluto transits. And what I've found that people are often saying when Pluto and Mercury reveal to you what other people have been thinking or saying about you is the mantra, well, you know what you can, whatever you think about me is really none of my business. And it's a mantra worth repeating. If you find yourself as like, if you are feeling sort of targeted or being poked or prodded by someone, especially with unsolicited opinions or advice about you, your character, your psychology, your business, your family, like whatever. So that's a good one to remember with Mercury, Pluto, because sometimes the things that come up will be painful and hurtful. And you have to realize that, you know, sometimes the feedback is helpful and transformative. Sometimes it's best to, like, just stay out of the, you know, it's like, it's none of my business what you think about me, and you can find how liberating that is to, to release yourself from attachments to what other people say or think about you or want from you, or whatever, can be very healing and in that in that way, there's a kind of mental independence that you gain from Pluto Mercury sometimes.

Number two, just because it's a powerful idea doesn't mean I need to share it. I think that there's something to be said about sharing things. I love to share thoughts and ideas. I'm a podcaster. Right? So this is what I do all the time. But there are, I would say, for every, you know, every, podcast that I make. There are usually numerous ideas that I thought about trying to communicate in my talk of the day; instead, I decided to just let them keep cooking for a while. Like, just put them on the back burner, let them simmer, let them or let them just kind of, you know, soak in some more flavors or whatever. Some need for further cooking and development. Or sometimes, there are ideas that come up that are so brilliant and beautiful. But the biggest and most important gift they have to give you is the gift they give when you don't share them and keep them just for yourself as a treasure just for you.

Because when you do that, you go around, you have a secret storehouse of beautiful things that are in your mind. That gives you a kind of confidence that people look at you. And they can tell, well, that person has a lot of beautiful things in their mind. And they're not showing me all of them. For most people, that adds a kind of brilliance, attractiveness, appeal, interest, and magnetism to the things that you do choose to share or say. So just remember, with mercury Pluto, the temptation is always there when Mercury Pluto comes up with powerful thoughts. And you know, they're erupting volcanically, and it's like, well, I have to go share it, I need to say it, I need to confess, you know, or something like that. Keep some of them, keep some of them as special treasures, diversify your interior life, decorate the walls of your psyche with those beautiful insights, and don't share all of them.

It doesn't mean you have to become stoic and not say a word or share anything, but keep a few for yourself. And I found that the development of greater interior privacy and depth is one of the greatest things that people tend to take away from Pluto, Mercury transits.

Number three, what we constantly complain about as a secret passageway that we should explore. I have found, and this was one of my big takeaways from the Pluto transit that I had. So I have Pluto in early Capricorn, opposing my natal Mercury in Cancer. But I've seen this same exact kind of theme in the lives of many of my clients and students over the years. When Pluto hits Mercury, you'll notice that there are things that you become the obsessive complaints, you know, they become like salt licks, you know, like the dog that can't stop licking the salt on your hand or your arm or something. So, you know, your tongue is like, bloodied, you know, because you just, you're dissatisfied, disgruntled, upset about the same thing. And it could be about yourself, or it could be about someone or something.

Like my complaints about the astrology industry, or, you know, my complaints about how people are not doing the houses, right, or something like as an astrologer, there's like a laundry list of things that really get under my skin, you know, or, and back in the day when I was when I had my Pluto to Mercury transit. Some of it was the publishing world because I was going through the process of editing and publishing my book. And it was also, well, there was a lot of things, but it was like the New Age culture, for example, really got under my skin, I would get so frustrated and irritated by what felt to me like a, you know, like a swamp of like a what is it called, like a bog of New Age, swampy ideas that were just like, I just can't stand this. And I'm inundated by it because of the field that I'm in, the psychedelic culture that I was writing about at the time, and, you know, yoga studios, and so on and so forth.

So, I would get so angry, you know, and so like, No, I'm just, you know, Pluto, Mercury, one of the things that happened was, you know, of course, I was working with ayahuasca quite regularly, and ayahuasca would really just, you know, sometimes just push my face right into my own stuff, you know, and in this case, I remember during the Pluto Mercury transit, it just was like, why are you getting so irritated about this, you know, and there are things, I'm not the kind of person who's like, well, if you get irritated about anything, it's, there's, it's, there's no one to blame but yourself like, I don't like that kind of like, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. There's nobody to blame but yourself. But, you know, at times when we get, like, obsessively disturbed and irritated by something might be worth it to take a deeper look at all of that.

I found within myself that when I looked very deeply at my irritation with various elements of New Age culture during my Pluto, opposite Mercury transit, that deep within, there were insecurities, jealousies, resentments, just all sorts of stuff. And you know, just like so, one of the takeaways that I've had and that I've seen again, like I said, in the lives of many of my clients is that the things that, like your constant gripes, the constant sore spots, the things that you just can't like, the salt like that, you just can't stop looking at until your tongues freakin you know, chapped you know, explore those ideas, explore those images. I don't know what they'll say. I'm not saying that you know, if you do that, you'll figure out, you know, you. I don't know what you'll figure out.

I just know that they're the thing, the images, the thoughts and ideas, and the people that we constantly find ourselves irritated or annoyed by; there's something there for us. There are jewels and treasures in those dislikes; if we can spend unattached time contemplating observing, and just allowing those images, to just spend time with them, that's it. So and that is not at all to try to, like, you may be irritated because someone is abusive, right? Well, that's a pretty good thing to be irritated about. So this is not meant to be one of those like, what do they call it? Blame the victim things, you know, it's like, well, sometimes you're irritated because someone is taking advantage of you or someone is just being a jerk or whatever. And I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about.

For me for example, I would say that it's like, I've learned to be very careful about the elements of the astrological industry that I allowed to get under my skin. You know, because if I find that I'm, like, constantly complaining about certain people or things or what someone else says or does about Mercury retrograde and how it's so wrong, and you know, like, if I spend time with those things that are getting under my skin that are becoming like rashes in, you know, like, rashes in my jock. There's, like, getting my panties in a bundle; is that the phrase? That I'll learn a lot, I learned a lot.

So anyway, just a piece of advice with Mercury Pluto, look at the obsessive dislikes that you have or criticisms that you have. Explore them, open them up, spend time with them, and there's usually treasure inside. I'll just leave it at that and let you guys take that where you will. So okay, that's what I've got for today. I hope that these themes and insights were useful for you. I hope that you will have a great rest of your day today. We will be back again for Tao Te Ching for astrologers and more content as the week goes on. Alright, take it easy, everyone. Bye