Mercury Entering Aries and Mutual Reception with Mars

Transcript:

0:00
Hi everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Friday everybody. Today we're going to talk about the ingress of Mercury into the sign of Aries which is happening late Saturday night over the weekend, and which will immediately start creating a mutual reception with Mars in the sign of Gemini. So let's take a look at this. I'm going to point out some of the highlights of this transit that will be coming up. I've got just the traditional seven in for now, I'll be breaking down some of the outer planetary transits later in the month. But for now, here's what you can see. We are looking at Saturday night into Sunday morning, Mercury moving into the sign of Aries and then immediately forming a mutual reception with Mars in Gemini. What is mutual reception? It means that two planets are in each other's signs. Mars is in Gemini Mercury's sign, while Mercury is in Aries which is Mars's sign. So the two forming mutual reception are in cahoots. They are telepathically communicating with each other. They're also in a sextile. What is the sextile? It's an aspect that is of the nature of Venus. So you've got very smooth harmonisation between Mercury and Mars, that means that the air is going to be you could say the celestial air is being toned by the energies of Mercury and Mars across the month.

1:23
So you can see this, picking up. First of all, you're going to see Mercury crossing through a sextile with Saturn by April 10. We go forward a little bit more than that. This is where it gets really exciting because now you're going to see this forming around April 15, you've got the sextile starting to form with the engagement from Mercury to both Mars and Jupiter who are also in a trine with one another and then Mercury is going to go it's combust, but Mercury is going to go into the heart of the Sun as the sun is also in sextiles with Jupiter and Mars. So this is going to pop right around here. The 14th through the 18th is a very powerful window. This month of April, you really have Mercury and Mars working together very well. You've got an exalted Sun, a Mars, Jupiter trine, this is, to me one of the most powerful transits of the year, even though it's very brief, because of all the configurations so closely with planets that are so strong. So I'm looking at Marshall energy, Jupiterian energy and Mercurial energy, which is kind of that strong, expansive, noble, action oriented and mental energy.

2:44
So at any rate, this is what we will be breaking down piece by piece in the weeks ahead. But what's happening this weekend again, is you're going to see Mercury move into the sign of Aries Mars' sign and start creating that mutual reception. And it's beginning By the way, it's just beginning to lose visibility as the morning star and it's going to start its change of phase again, it'll start moving towards the conjunction with the Sun and then eventually emerging as the evening star. So just going through Mercury's going through a transition as all of this is happening, but boy does it have some really nice reception with Mars and then a really nice aspect with Jupiter. So anyway, what can we watch for with this transit.

3:37
So when you take Mercury who is a God of highways, travellers, markets and merchants words, games, Mercury is a planet that is very adaptable changeable, like money or goods changing place in the markets or like people coming and going on highways and pathways of travel. Mercury is like the messenger, the mailman. Mercury is also in a sense related to the rational mind, but not in an overly structured way, more in the sense of problem solving, wit, communication, speech, linguistics, learning, and also anything that would have to do with technology or maybe particular detail oriented skills or abilities. And then you're putting that Mercurial energy and you are combining it with Mars energy. So Mars energy is going to be action oriented, it's going to be strong, muscular, it is going to be competitive or may be prone to conflict and and war or battle: cutting, or severing belong to Mars. So when you put that together, you can have a combination that is both communicative, adaptable and aggressive.

4:53
You can have mental verbal intensity and you can have a kind of executive style of communication, quick, fast, hard, decisive, maybe severe, maybe a little aggressive, or confrontational. If people can find that their sharp tongue during this transit and that battles of words happen more easily than normal, or that you find that you're more easily agitated mentally or verbally. This is a great period for sports, I would anticipate some really dynamic things happening in the world of sports during this time, important conversations. Questions about communication or like athletes saying controversial things. In fact, just yesterday, this is already Mars in Gemini, remember, just yesterday, there was something to do with Kevin Durant. I saw this I scroll my headlines once or twice a day, and I saw something about Kevin Durant posting controversial tweets or something like this, and I haven't even really read the story, not that I really care that much personally. It's like people, people have rude crude, sharp tongues and minds a lot. And then I think we tend to be so shocked when someone says something that's like, harsh or rude or aggressive, but if we're honest, a lot of people in private think or speak that way. Even though it's not necessarily right. So things could become more public and there could be more of almost like a public referendum on speech, hate speech could come up. Policing people on their speech, defensiveness or moodiness and speech could come up. Not that we're not saturated by that kind of stuff anyway, but debate and argumentation, mental buisiness and stress or sharp tongued competition and money markets and language. The other idea here being that there could be mobilisation of of many different resources for many different things, kind of lots of irons in the fire, lots of chefs in the kitchen potentially, could get heated.

7:25
Also, this idea of technological progress, for example, I have been planning since I saw this transit to redo all of my digital stuff. By that I mean, like, Okay, I've got to reorganise all of my data, my folders, you know, just almost like you have to clean your bedroom once in a while, you got to clean your, your online presence. For me anyway, I do like spring cleaning for your digital presence, like just, you know, files sitting in different folders, I have to get organised, it's a good time to do that. Or if you have to go to the DMV and get a licence or, I don't know, just busy paperwork, administrative stuff that you have to do. We're in the middle of moving. And so you know, one of the things that I know I'm going to be doing is you know, when you move you have like me, you're setting up this new account for your electricity bill and you're dealing with this and you got you got so many different things happening at once. So that kind of energy is definitely going to be in the air for the month of April. Direct and decisive or enthusiastic speech like if you think about Mercury, Mars, you think about people to people who are jacked up on espresso, offering Saturday morning opinions to one another that don't really matter, maybe, but they're just they're just having fun. Or, you know, a group of friends that are taking the piss out of each other, you know, this kind of thing, rude or blunt statements.

8:53
Now, one thing that you will notice with Mars in Gemini is the tendency to interrupt or to go in many different directions or divergent opinions or the ability to hold space for multiple different ideas or perspectives. And sometimes, there's just this kind of mental clatter that goes with it. You also have different kinds of games, court games back and forth games, and anything like that's on a court that goes back and forth. I've said this many times like a hockey puck going back and forth, or basketball going back and forth. You also have people people that will try to make just or righteous points with anger, bullying or aggression. And that can happen in your home at work or you know, online social media so be careful not to get baited into lots of debate and argumentation with people. That'll be pretty intense for the month of April potentially.

10:08
One thing that I think I wanted to show all of you today is one of my favourite books, the archetypal Universe by Renn Butler, you guys have heard me talk about it before, it's a great desk reference, especially when there's pairings like this, you know, I'll take and write down a list of things. And then if I feel a little stuck, I'll crack open Renn's book and try to pick up some more ideas to put into my talks. It's a really good cookbook for people who are into archetypal astrology. Anyway, the reason that I wanted to mention this is because if you are an astrologer, and you are trying to brush up on your vocabulary or develop a repertoire of words and language, like half of good reading and astrology, you're going to do readings for people, half of a good reading is being able to speak and communicate to be articulate, to organise your thoughts that to be able to draw on multiple associations, images, ideas, to offer your opinions within the matrix of images in the chart. This is a really good time in the month of April, to be developing vocabulary or more precise, verbal or intellectual skills. And for me, one of the easiest things that I recommend for my students to do, there's a couple of books like this, Robert Hand has a good one too. But the Archetypal Universe is a good book because it has basically just word combinations for on all the different combinations of placements. For about the first five or six years of my online practice in terms of content creation, what I would do is I would list the transit for the day and then just list bullet points of combinations of images and words. And people really loved it. And then I eventually I switched out of, you know that style and into other styles. But that's a big part of what astrology is. So if you want to get better at it, this is a great month to develop. Like if you were going to get a Rosetta Stone programme to learn Spanish that would be good this month, or you know anything where you might sharpen up your skills or abilities with something. It's not a bad time, for example, to enjoy playing cards every night, even mundane, like just games you could have a lot more fun with in my house. The game that my wife and I really liked to play is called the Settlers of Catan. I think it's called it's called we just call it Catan. But it's a really fun game and it's all about trading. It's hard to explain. I know if you've never played it, it's really hard to explain it. I'll just sound like a like a weird Dungeons and Dragons playing person or something. I played that before too. So no offence to my DND friends. But at any rate, it's a good, it's a good time for lightness. So I want to make sure we contrast that quality of Mercury Mars with the kind of heavier hate speech and debate and rhetoric and sword fighting with people and harsh words, yeah, that's there. But also, it's pretty fun and adaptable. It's it's game like, you know, it's the kind of thing where as springtime is coming here and my daughter every day, she's been saying, I'm so excited to wear short sleeves again, because I just don't like the long sleeves. I just don't feel like anyone should have to wear long sleeves. She's like, you know, such a Sagittarius Sun, she likes her she likes her freedom. Don't put anything on my arms, I want them free.

13:33
And you'll find that even I often find it in the in whatever transit it is that I'm describing. I'll end up sort of unintentionally embodying you know, some of the transit sometimes and so even like just the kind of fun all over the place style of me delivering this talk today, you can see for now, Mars and Mercury sign which I was actually born with. So okay, now I'm on the spiritual side of things. Maybe a slightly deeper take philosophically on this transit. Mercury and Mars is connected to potentially like the idle gossiping mind. In the Republic, Plato said that this sublunary world is essentially a world of opinion. And let's take a let's take a look at the etymology of opinion which I'm going to pull up. So the etymology of opinion here it comes. A judgement formed or a conclusion reach, especially based on evidence that does not produce knowledge or certainty, conjecture, fancy belief, whatever one thinks, appreciation. When we say this is just my opinion, the word has always tended toward a judgement or view regarded as influenced more by sentiment or feeling than reason, the meaning formal statement by a judge or other professional, in contrast to opinion or even public opinion, the prevailing view in a given community on any matter of general interest or concern. So, now, I'm not someone who wants to cancel the word opinion. But I would say that one of the things that, you know, it's very clear that it's a part of the Zeitgeist at the moment with the advent of social media, social media becoming more popular is that you know, we're we're in the coffee shop or the the terrorist cafe of life right now, where the more the a lot of opinions are being shared all the time. And you have to be really careful exposing yourself to opinions, your own, or other people's, one of the teachings, whether it's in Buddhism or in yoga, even you can pull on verses from the New Testament is that we have to be really and going back to Plato again, we have to be careful of essentially mistaking opinions for truth, we can get the two confused. And this world is in constant flux, and constant movement and change. And when we try to locate truth, in something that's constantly moving, there's a weird way in which our own relative position within that movement makes it very difficult to arrive at anything firm to stand on anything firm ontologically or epistemologically, it's difficult. And so for most people, truth is something that you learn to locate as the as the very source of your being as this underlying source of all things or sometimes truth is a via negativa it's not a something an ontological essence. It's simply a practice of negating appearances and opinions that like to come in and take us away from some unspeakable presence. Like the Tao or something like that. The Tao that can be named is not the Tao. Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao. Like neti neti, not this, not that. Sometimes there's, there's different practices around the world. But one of the things that most mystical or religious traditions have told us is to be careful of, you know, immersing ourselves in the world of opinions, starting with our own. Opinions are rapidly moving judgments in the river of change. One way I've heard it described before, it's like a it's like chewing the chewed, you know, like, like cud, you know, yeah, but that's something we have to be aware of. And Mercury, Mars, when they come together can be a sign of the temptation to spin around in words and opinions and ideas and temporary judgments and stuff like that. And the Mahabharat, there is a verse that I was really taken by yesterday as I was actually preparing this talk. I'm going to read it to you in the Mahabharat Dharmaraj asked Yudhisthira Maharaj what is the news in this world? And Yudhishthira Maharaj replied, "The news of this world is that the conditioned jiva-souls are being cooked by Mahakal [Universal Time] in the pot of worldly illusion, which is heated by the fire of the sun and burns on the firewood of the days and nights. The pot is stirred by the ladles of the months and seasons, and within the pot the jiva-souls are suffering so much, covered with the masala [flavouring] of kama [lust], krodha [anger], lobha [greed], mada [pride], moha [illusion], matsarya [envy], and the desires for kanak [wealth], kamini [women], and pratistha [fame]. This is the only news in this world." Okay, let's switch the idea of women, since this is obviously intended for a male audience, and let's talk about just broadly speaking, sex desire.

19:34
So this verse is sort of saying, again, broadly speaking, that the only news in the world and you might hear this go well, it's a bleak view. And yeah, it is. The news of this world is that the condition souls are being cooked by Universal Time and a pot of illusion, heated by constant fluctuations of months and seasons and that there's the Jeeva souls are suffering that they're covered with the flate flavourings of lust, anger, greed. illusion envy, the desire for wealth, sex and fame. And that's really the only thing going on here. Now, again, that that I don't, this verse is in a sense, rhetorical, because when someone says, Hey, what's new what's going on in the world? The reply, you could say in this verses, there's really nothing new under the sun, the same kind of stuff is happening. It's just different, you know, permutations and combinations, the same kinds of things, the same kinds of problems, the same kinds of opinions, the same kinds of desires, the same kinds of faults, and so forth.

20:35
Now, personally because of the way that I've been trained philosophically, in yoga, I don't take that to mean that there is nothing of value or beauty in the world, that versus a rhetorical way of helping us come back to truth. And reminding us not to get caught up in the, you know, the turnstile of opinions and gossip about, you know, ourselves or the world. And that's something that I think underlying the I my sense is that over the next few weeks, we will be looking very deeply at that as a kind of a sub subtext of this entire transit, because on the one level, like, Yes, all of these different combinations are going on that the other thing is that, you know, all of these transits all of them are in a sense, we're studying them specifically so that we can stay in touch with truth, while the world is being churned and cooked by Mahakal Universal Time and the pot of worldly illusion, we study these transits specifically so that we don't get overly swept up in them, so that we move through them and with them, like currents in a river, at which point then we start to recognise the world is divine. Otherwise, it's an alchemical crock pot filled with illusion. And that's, again, broadly speaking, that's something that you see across the board, in different philosophical schools that practice astrology in the ancient world, this view might sound bleak, it's not meant to say there is no beauty that there's only bleakness, it's meant to say, again, don't get lost in the turnstile of opinions they're a dime a dozen. There, you know, if you want them, you don't even have to pay for them, you can just scroll through your Facebook feed for 10 minutes, and you'll be filled to the brim with opinions.

22:28
In the next few weeks, the other thing I would mention is watch the subtext of your mind and of the how righteous opinions can get, even though they have a lifespan, or a shelf life sometimes of about 10 minutes. So is it worth it? That's an underlying question that I know, I'll be asking throughout the month, is it worth it? Is it worth my mental time and energy? Is it worth it to get into this confrontation? Is it worth it to waste my time in something that might be fun, but is utterly pointless? If you have that discernment on board with you, it's a lot less likely that this transit brings out the worst which would be almost like you're not just in the fire of Mahakal Universal Time being boiled in illusion, but you're, you're actually stirring it up and throwing some cayenne in it, you know, with, with Mars and Mercury mutual reception. So watch for that. When these things step up, there's always especially on the level of the mind when Mars Mercury stuff get together, the need for quiet, for contemplative space, for prayer for meditation, for reflection, for the tending to our inner life. The same transit can bring out the need for that because we can easily go like, Whoa. I remember, in New York City when I lived there, in the springtime, there was always this phenomenon where as soon as it was like, April, May, there'd be about a month where there was just sirens going all the time. And it's because when when that, like yang energy comes out, in the seasonal year, in the in the four seasons in the Northern Hemisphere, you know, that tendency toward speed and aggression and it's very youthful and it's potent, and sort of virile, and that, that energy also comes with a lot of accidents, and with a lot of banging into things. And it's an emergent energy but it can be an energy of emergency. So you have to be careful of that because we are in that time of year symbolically speaking, where there's just a lot of like youthful springs Zodiac energy with us right now Mars and Mercury in each other signs and you can feel that wherever you're at in the world, even if it's not literally spring where you're at. So just watch for that.

25:00
And yeah if you ever like which media outlet should I tune into you know this month that's a good one to refine your language set as an astrologer like this is a great month for that if you want to and I again just a plug to my my buddy Renn Butler's book the archetypal universe, my favourite word smithing book for a desk reference for astrologers. Also, if you need a media news channel to tune into as an alternative for at least this month, you know then remember this one the news of the world is that the condition jiva souls are being cooked by Mahakal Universal Time and the pot of worldly illusion heated by the fire of the Sun which burns on the firewood of the days and nights stirred by the months and seasons. Within the pot the Jiva souls are suffering so much covered with the flavouring of lust, anger, greed, pride, illusion, envy, the desire for wealth, sex and fame. This is the only news in the world. So Happy Friday. I'm just playing. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you again next week. Bye.