Mercury Meets the South Node — The Insights of Past Lives

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Happy Monday, everybody! Today we're going to take a look at Mercury moving over the south node of the Moon in the sign of Leo. This is taking place as Mercury is combust and about to go through its synodic reset in direct motion. When it enters Virgo, it will conjoin the Sun in early Virgo, and then its cycle resets as it starts to emerge as an evening star.

So we're going to look at all of this today and talk about what this kind of anaretic Mercury South Node conjunction might be about. I've got a list of five things to watch for and an I Ching reading that I'm going to share with you today. Before we get into it, as always, please like and subscribe. Take a second to do that. It helps us grow and sustain what we do.

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Here you can see that Mercury is coming onto the South Node of the Moon. This is the true node. If I take this forward just a little bit between today, Monday, August 24th, and tomorrow, the 25th, Mercury will cross through the anaretic last degree of Leo while conjoining the South Node of the Moon, enter its domicile and exaltation in Virgo, where it will be in its chariot, protected from the combustion of the sun, and then the Cazimi happens Thursday this week.

We'll be taking a separate look at that, and that happens to be taking place. If we let me just show you this really quick, if we speed the clock up just a little bit, we're going to see that our eclipse comes really close to the exact Mercury Cazimi. The eclipse is taking place late tonight into tomorrow, or tonight on Thursday night into tomorrow into Friday. Sorry, I'm getting my days confused.

And so Thursday into Friday morning, we have a lunar eclipse taking place just after the Cazimi of Mercury. So Mercury's motion right now is figuring very strongly into the eclipse signature. I think that that's fascinating, and certainly will play out this week as things go on. So what we want to talk about today is the South Node and Mercury getting together at the anaretic last degree of Leo.

I've got a list of five things to watch for given this combination. Let's say a little bit about both the South Node and Mercury first, and then we'll go through the list so that it makes a little bit more sense. I also my fifth on this list dovetails right into an I Ching reading that I did today that will help us process this, I think.

So first of all, we have Mercury, the messenger god of communication, speech, writing, intellect, perception, cognition, language exchange. Mercury is associated with merchants and commerce and business and highways and travel, but also Mercury is about articulating things and learning things. Craftsmanship and skill is Mercury's domain. So we have a lot of different significations that can come up with Mercury.

Now Mercury is in the sign of Leo, making it a very solar Mercury. It's about the thoughts of the heart. It's about articulations that have to do with our sense of purpose and meaning in life—it's about what feels authentic to us in our individuality, and then we put it with the South Node—that otherworldly pull or that inward and more psychological direction of going in versus out.

The North Node tends to take us into the world, into new topics, new conversations, new desires, new intentions. The South Node has a way of pulling us out into the cosmos or into the soul, and also the South Node is a place of old recycled karma, old lessons, old things integrating and being released, detachment and letting go are more a feature of the South Node. So when these two planets come together, all of the following on my list of five today I think makes sense.

These are in no particular order. Excuse me. The first one on my list would be learning something at last. Now this could be taken in a number of different directions. For example, if there has long been something you've wanted to learn or study or take the time to understand, a book you've wanted to read, or even a conversation that you've wanted to have or needed to have, the sense of reaching an understanding, learning something after a long time, reaching a place of understanding something that has remained difficult to understand for a long time.

All of these are potential significations of Mercury in the South Node. At long last, I'm learning something, understanding something. I'm having a mental or intellectual breakthrough. I'm finally able to articulate something, which is number two on my list. Articulating something could be that it at long last is being articulated as though something from the past is coming together.

Like if you've ever had a breakthrough in playing a musical instrument, or in your skill as an astrologer or anything, I think even to the moments when I like to play, there was a phase I went through where I played a lot of chess, and there'd be moments where my rating would rapidly go up by points. They go by points on Chess.com, and so my rating would like go up, you know, and you'd be like, "Oh, I've just had a breakthrough.

I've gotten a lot better at this. This can be very Mercury South Node, as though you're reaping what's been sown and collecting the benefits of something you put a lot of mental energy into. But the same can be said for being able to say something that has taken a long time to fully realize and be able to articulate. Now I'm able to articulate something, or I am having an inner realization, and I'm articulating something, but not externally or even verbally.

But something in my heart is being articulated. I'm understanding or realizing something that has some history behind it, but I'm able to put concepts or words or ideas around it, or even put a plan or a course of action together because something is becoming clear to me. The other thing that can happen is that you're able to write something at last.

I have no doubt that as I'm writing a new book right now, which I'm really excited about, but as I'm writing that, and I'm making this in advance, right? So you always know I always make my videos about a week in advance. I am assuming that my writing process will hit moments of "oh this is what I've been trying to say." It's like if you've ever had—I remember when I was a kid, my mom had this bag of sewing supplies, and I learned a little bit of sewing when I was a kid, but I remember taking them out and having to untangle things.

And when you're working on a difficult tangle, and you finally get a big chunk of it loose, and you're like, "Oh, okay, now everything starts coming out," and you can disentangle the whole knot or whatever. Something like that may be occurring for us right now. So articulating something could also be like teasing something out, or solving a riddle, or a puzzle, or fixing a problem, or literally putting something into words or speech, or someone else maybe sending you a message or saying something or making something understood that previously couldn't be understood.

So, number three on my list would be a heartfelt resolution. Sometimes you finally say the apology that needs to be made, or you take accountability for something with nobody else looking but yourself, that you need to take accountability for, and you really mean it in your heart. "I'm going to change this. I'm going to work on this. I'm going to make that right." A heartfelt resolution could also be a conversation between ourselves and someone else.

"Hey, let's get our hearts and heads together and solve this problem," or "Let's make a plan that everyone can feel good about." The heartfelt resolution can also be those moments where you truly let something go, and it makes you feel good in your heart to truly forgive. And sometimes that forgiveness happens because you actually speak to someone. And sometimes a relationship is not possible. You just have to let something go in your heart.

In fact, I think that there's something about the South Node and Leo together that suggests that big, dramatic proclamations are potentially less effective right now than inward crystallized insights that turn our direction, but without needing to draw any attention to it, just be about it. And people around us in time can clearly see our values if we just live in alignment with them. That's a little bit more like the South Node in Leo than the North Node in Leo, where you know it might make more sense to be a little bit more theatrical or performative.

There's a season for everything. In other words, I think probably the South Node Mercury is a little bit more inward and quieter. But sometimes that heartfelt resolution can be a really good gesture, an actual externalization too, so I don't want to be too narrow about this. The next one on my list would be the need for a reset or rest. Sometimes we just have to press reset and just say I'm starting over.

I know that for some people that will come with actual plans or intentions to make that change more manifest. If you need a reset, you might need to move. You might need to change jobs. You might need to leave a relationship. You might need to rearrange the furniture in your house. You know, when we reset, it helps to have totems by which we mark the change happening in our heart.

So it could be appropriate right now to reset, and for the heart to know I have to make X, Y, or Z change around me to really substantiate that internal need for reset or redirection or repurposing. On the other hand, sometimes the heart aches with the South Node Leo. We talked about diseases of the heart, healing remedies for the heart on this channel a bunch in the past month.

A reset can mean a rest, a period of reprieve, or a period of going inward, or settling down, or taking yourself out of some place, situation, relationship, so that you can receive the nourishment that you need. I wonder about the heart's need for rest, reprieve, and healing, and the clarity that might come, and what direction that might require that we take, so that the heart can heal or rest or restore, and the plan or implementation may or may not include again making it known to other people.

Or we don't. It's like how you might say, "I need a few days off," but you don't necessarily need to say what you need them for. You know, personal days. Some balance of inward protection of the heart, sanctity, security, and privacy, as well as the natural tendency that Leo has to externalize, like the sun can't help but shine on everything. You know, so it's an interesting balance.

Well, finally, on my list today, and a little bit lengthier conversation to follow because of the hexagrams involved in the I Ching reading. This one has to do with going inward first as a general response to difficulty. When there are problems in life, I think there's a general spiritual teaching that says go inward, rather than trying to blame, project, externalize, or deal with it all in an external manner. Go inward first, but people misunderstand this to mean that the only real problems are inside you or inside your head, and that's not true, right?

That would be pretty ridiculous. That'd be some kind of deranged form of denial. It also can mean that we're thinking that harmful behavior should be tolerated. That's also not the case for this spiritual teaching. That is, I think, a powerful part of many traditions. It really is about understanding that before we can wisely, compassionately, sensitively respond to what is outside of us, we have to understand what we've encountered and how it's what it has activated, or how it is showing up inside of us, because knowing that helps us differentiate what's ours and what's others, and what my response is versus what I'm being hooked into, what projections, and so forth.

So, ideally, the practice of going inward when drama arises in life is not about the denial of things that are external. It's really an attempt to remove the potential shadows of projection, pride, fear, reactivity, self-righteousness, judgment, etc. from how we are perceiving what has happened, even when something has happened that differs from our values or that has hurt us. This inward examination is the wise first response taught in many spiritual traditions on planet Earth, and when something disturbs us, there are several different things that can be present at the same time.

And the Mercury in Leo, conjoined with the South Node, can bring this up in very dramatic ways. Something genuinely difficult, or unfair, or unjust is happening to us, or to someone around us, or in an environment around us. But that also means our own history, our own attachments, our own fears, our own pride, our own wounds, our own ego can be activated at the exact same time. And then the mind is constructing on the fly an interpretation of what is happening and why it is happening, and introspection is not about avoiding this.

It's about giving these layers an opportunity to distinguish themselves, and to speak, and to be heard, and to be listened to, and to be thought about, and to be turned like a jewel. Without that pause, wisdom traditions have generally taught that, and this is at least my experience from Taoism to Buddhism to yoga philosophy to contemplative Christianity, etc. But if we don't take that pause, we can perceive something accurately, but respond in an exaggerated or distorted way.

So often, it's not the question of who's right or wrong, or how right am I and how wrong is someone else. It's also why does this have power over me? Not that it should or shouldn't. Just why? Just thinking about it. What identity or attachment feels threatened within me? What am I assuming about the other person and their motives? What part of myself am I refusing to recognize or bring into the equation? What response would be there if I were not trying to protect my pride or my dignity or my reputation?

I'm just making these up, right? But the point is not about self blame versus blaming someone else. It's about knowledge, and it's about compassion and wisdom and patience and process. The Buddhists have a way of talking about this, and I think it's pronounced the Solara Suta, and I don't know how you pronounce the word exactly, so I apologize. But the Buddha compares suffering to being struck by two arrows. The first arrow is the painful event itself. Okay.

The second arrow is the fear, the resentment, the interpretive layer, the resistance, the mental proliferation that we add to it. Turning inward in Buddhism in this specific sutta and the teachings that I have heard on it recently in my ongoing studies of Buddhism, which have been a part of my life for the past year or so, turning inward is just helping us to identify the second arrow. It's not about denying the first arrow, the painful event itself.

It's about carefully thinking through the fear, resentment, the interpretation, etc. It's not saying the first arrow is imaginary. If you just go inward, you'll find it's all an illusion. That is not what is being said. But our reactive mind, the Buddha teaches, can multiply the original injury through obsession, retaliation, indignation, all sorts of things that we can convince ourselves are justified if we are not very careful to explore our hurt with care and compassion, with sensitivity and patience, with humility and curiosity.

And I don't know how this is possible if we don't take time regularly in our everyday life to pause and go inward, which is what the pull of Mercury and the South Node generally is about. When you go inward again, it's not like the first arrow doesn't exist. It prevents us from shooting ourselves all over again, and maybe other people. The other thing is in Buddhism, there's a teaching called dependent origination, and what that means is that suffering, in particular, although dependent origination can speak to a lot of different things, but dependent origination, when it comes to suffering, means that suffering arises through many conditions simultaneously.

So, an encounter is not a simple transmission. An encounter of anything is not a simple transmission. It is a contingent, co-arising ecological phenomenon. You could say, and a phenomenological ecology of contingent conditions. It's not just, you know, when I think about my daughters and the way that they fight. What's really important is that when I see that my younger daughter lashes out at her older daughter after two hours of my younger daughter taking orders from her older sister who's being bossy and dictating their play, that I understand context, right?

And I understand that it's not just that my younger daughter smacked my older daughter with a slinky or something. It's that something got built up over time, and that's what's so difficult about parenting. And I'm lazy. In a moment, I'll just be like, "You guys, just shut up and stop fighting." You know what I mean? But it's important that we help them understand contingent conditions that co-arise that make phenomenon beautifully complex, and keep should keep us humble and curious.

And that doesn't mean that we have to let complexity do away with simple things like you should not hit your sister. That's wrong, right? But it does mean that we can educate in the situation wisely by being aware of contingencies. That's Buddhism. That is such a deep part of what Buddhism teaches us to recognize and stay aware of by mindfulness. If I'm being mindful as a parent when my daughters have this interaction, then I can teach and educate on different levels simultaneously.

There are well, there's more to say, but let's just leave it at that with the Buddhist teaching. The I Ching. So the two hexagrams that I got when I asked the I Ching, and they kind of dovetail off from this hexagram 38, line six. Now, hexagram 38 means estrangement, divergence, misunderstanding, and the experience of seeing things from fundamentally different perspectives.

This hexagram, interestingly, talks more about misunderstanding and misperception than it does about good guys and bad guys, even though the hexagram speaks to people perceiving themselves or others in this way, perceiving people this way. Line six says that in particular, this line. Hold on, let me pull it up. So when the sixth line is changing, hold on. Here we go. That means that a specific line of the 38th hexagram has a particular teaching to offer to the situation, so I asked about Mercury South Node.

"Isolated through opposition, one sees one's companion as a pig covered with dirt, as a wagon full of devils. First, one draws a bow against them, then one lays the bow aside. They are not robbers. They will woo at the right time. As one goes, rain falls, then good fortune comes." This line specifically talks about misperceiving other people because of an attitude of defensiveness, fear, a tendency toward hostility, opposition, judgment, self-righteousness, etc.

And when we set our weapons down, we will begin to perceive the other from the heart, and then the tension relieves, and a gentle rain falls that can heal. Now I will be the first to admit that when someone, when I perceive someone as my enemy, as against me, I do not generally have an easy time doing this, so I do not sit here on any kind of high horse suggesting that I have this figured out.

I do not, but I know enough to know that this is the work. I think my personal life with friends, parenting, you know, being married is the primary place where I learn this lesson over and over again. Set down your weapons. Try to see this person. Try to feel what they might be feeling. Try to imagine what their perception of the situation is, and that does not invalidate your own, but it allows for something healing to occur.

Now the transformed hexagram is hexagram 40, and that hexagram says, "I have experienced opposition, it psychologically isolates and polarizes me. That magnifies suspicion and defensiveness. Then I create a monstrous image of someone or something else. But then I put down my bow. I look again, and the tension breaks and rain comes." Now hexagram 40 is called release or deliverance, and it is about the untangling of tension.

Once mistaken perception is recognized, which does not mean to say that let's say someone insults me, you know, someone insults me, and then I have made them into a monster. This is not saying that by setting my weapon down and examining things and exploring things that they didn't still hurt me or do something that was shitty, you know. But what it does say is that the tension, because it has relaxed, then release occurs, and this doesn't necessarily mean that two parties or people or differing perspectives will agree.

Real differences may remain, but they will not be organized through demonization, and this is why he says he perceives them as demons, but then a gentle rain comes when he puts down his bow. So, these are some pretty, I think, deep teachings for the moment, especially where pride feels like it's being injured, or another thing that this can go—we're talking about potentially being wronged, but this can also go in the direction of being the one who's wronged someone.

If you or I have done something harmful to someone, but we don't think like, "Well, I didn't mean anything by it, or you're taking it too seriously, or you're being too sensitive," or something like that. Then we can the other person's legitimate hurt. We can start to avoid, or not hear, or not see, or not feel, or not allow in because we are demonizing the other person. "What a complainer! What a crybaby! Overly sensitive," you know.

But if that's me with my daughters or my wife, and I just set the bow down, you know, it's not easy to do. And because sometimes I think my Capricorn is just like, come on, not that big of a deal. Not the case for my daughter. It might have been a very big deal, you know, or my wife, or something like that. And so I have to go like, okay, rather than being like "you're the sensitive one, I'm the misunderstood one," you know, I have to set that down and I have to say, let me just step into what it might have felt like from your perspective, and let me really acknowledge that, and say I'm sorry.

Then you know what often happens: the other person puts their weapon down, and then they go, "Well, like, what were you thinking?" You know, and then you go, "Well, here's where I was coming from, and I promise it wasn't intentionally meant to be malicious," and then they go, "Oh, okay, yeah, I see where you." You know what I'm saying? All of this is such hard work, and it has been hard work, I think, since we've been kids.

I really do, because some of this stuff I remember dealing with in junior high, and here we are. We're still dealing with it. We call ourselves adults, but it's not easy. It's not easy to imagine that our heart could be made stronger and larger and wiser and more beautiful, not through being in a defensive position, but in an open position to the other. And the painful part is, you may do your part to be open hearted, and someone else may not do theirs.

Someone else may not be ready to own or acknowledge something. Someone else may not be ready to apologize. Someone may not be ready to admit to being overly sensitive. Someone may not be ready to see how you feel or process things and really consider that your perspective and experience is as important as their own. But the South Node Mercury conjunction, if we can't resolve it with people or places and situations external, the great news is we can resolve this internally.

In 12-step programs, there's often this statement that you try to make amends, except where when making amends isn't possible, it would hurt someone. And sometimes there's people when you have alcoholics in your family, you know people who really troubled. You can't make peace with them because they're not going to be able to do the work that you're going to try to do. And it takes two people, it takes two sides to come together.

But you can still soften your perspective of the other always, and if someone is really, really letting you down, you know what you can do, which is really incredible. You can say, "Okay, I've got to process the hurt, process the pain, the disappointment, betrayal, whatever it might be. I have to do that tough work of forgiving, even if literal amends may not be possible, but then here's the other thing we can do: we can say, 'How can I improve my life? How can I improve who I am?'

And with the South Node, not where everyone's watching, but inside where I'm watching and I'm with me. You know, my judgmental thoughts, my tendency toward gossip, my tendency toward defensiveness or pride or arrogance, my tendency to think I know best—all of these things. How serious can we be about expecting the world to become a better place if we're content to ignore these little spaces, these rough edges inside our own hearts.

I say this again, just to be very clear, not from the perspective of someone who realizes it, but from the perspective of someone who knows this is the work. I've seen enough to know this is the work, not enough to do it very well. So maybe you feel the same. I hope today was a heartfelt conversation. Anyway, that's what I've got. I hope you're all doing well, having a beautiful day today, and we'll see you again next time. Bye.