Mercury Squaring Pluto: How Open-Minded Should We Be?

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Today, we're going to take a look at Mercury squaring Pluto over the weekend, and then Mercury will be moving into Scorpio. This contact between Mercury and Pluto, as well as the entrance of Mercury into Scorpio, are connected. We are seeing Mercury move into deeper, darker, and, in some ways, more intense and charged spaces. Mercury is entering a water sign. We have a lot of water in the sky right now, and something like a Grand Water Trine is also present. So, this shift from Mercury into the metaphorical underworld is also really significant.

So, we're going to take a look at five Mercury Pluto themes to watch for. I'm going to talk a little bit extra at the beginning about the question of open-mindedness, which is something that Mercury and Pluto could very easily bring to the table as it perfects over the weekend. It is one of the hallmarks of mercury Pluto dynamics has to do with open-mindedness. So little discussion on that today. I think that will be fun and give us some good things to think about going into the weekend. That is our agenda for the day.

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Let's get the real-time clock up. Okay, here we go. Lost my footing there. Okay, here we are. So we are here Friday, October 11. Today is my 10th wedding anniversary. I'm recording this in advance, but I will be Ashley, and I will be getting to celebrate our ten years of marriage. We've been together for 13 years, but ten years of marriage today, that's pretty cool.

Anyway, so let's see here. So we can see Mercury moving from late Libra into the square with Pluto over the weekend, and Pluto, of course, in that final degree of Capricorn, which we have taken a look at this week as well. So here it is Sunday, early morning. Sunday, Mercury moves into the square with Pluto. That's the dynamic right there, and it will pass over and by later into Sunday, Mercury will have moved into Scorpio, and as soon as it's in Scorpio now, it joins Venus, Mars, the Moon, by the way, who will be going into Pisces by that time, Saturn and Neptune all in water. Signs, such a watery lineup. It's very, very powerful.

On Monday, Venus will be opposing Uranus, so we will be looking at that on Monday and giving you some thoughts about that transit. That's the big one for next week, and there are other big transits next week as well. So, the action is pretty busy here in the middle of the month. If you listen to our monthly overview horoscopes, we talked about the middle of the month as an especially dynamic period; you might even go back and listen to that portion of the month ahead horoscopes for kind of an overview of the whole middle of October. That was a pretty good portion of that talk, I think.

But. Anyway. So here we have Mercury moving into the square with Pluto and then going straight into Scorpio, and I want to talk about that today. So, there are five Mercury Pluto themes that I decided we would look at today. These are, I would say, very common. Not everyone will experience every one of the themes on this list.

For some of you, one of these themes may become incredibly poignant, while some of the others may not. That's totally normal. For some people, a transit will appear in someone, someone's life around you, or in the environment around you, but it won't necessarily engage you so personally. And a lot of this has to do with how things are falling in our birth chart and so forth. Not all transits are equal in terms of their impact or effect on us. So remember all of that as we get into this discussion today; the first thing I want to talk about is open versus closed-mindedness.

I was listening to a podcast recently, and it was really fascinating. It was, God, I'm not gonna remember the name of it. I think it was just called the Emerald or something like that, but I thought I found it very interesting. It was a podcast about animism, which was something it's a topic, of course, I love listening to, and some of the reading that I was doing in prep for the talk on Pluto about pan, which you guys listen to. That talk actually overlapped with this podcast. I can't remember its name. I apologize. I think it's something like the Emerald.

But anyway, I really appreciated this one particular portion of the podcast where the host was talking about the inanimate world; I think most of us would probably consider ourselves animists because we talk about planets. And you know, probably you, you have a lot of people who are into astrology and who are open to animism or looking at the world through that lens.

So I'll just assume, but one of the things he was saying is that a hallmark of, like a modern New Age spiritual, a hallmark of New Age spiritual thinking, excuse me, is open-mindedness. I'm open-hearted, open-minded, and completely open like that. I'm going to tell you a story. This is a story that reveals my own pettiness, as well as revealing, I think, something of the point that the host was making. I relayed this story to my wife, and I thought it was kind of funny.

Okay, so when I was in New York City, there was a period of time where I was single and, you know, had a lot of very interesting and memorable dating experiences in New York City, just because, here's the thing is, it's like the Wild West. It's like New York City is like the bar from Star Wars, you know, where all the crazy alien creatures are, and I'm one of them, you know.

But, it's just that I'd never had a more interesting time, like in dating, and I had some crazy story, like, just crazy stories. Um, I'll tell you one story really quick here, so there's a point I'm going to make. So I had a date one time with a woman who rode a motorcycle, and it was the first date. So it was, you know, nothing spectacular, just basically getting to know someone. But anyway, I was saying, I was saying goodbye, and she got on her motorcycle, which she had parked, and drove down the street. And I kid you not.

This was a gigantic sewer rat that came bursting across the street in front of her motorcycle, and she tried to avoid it, and this was just, like, right in front of my eyes, like, a block down the street after she left, she tried to swerve to avoid it, and like, totally crashed, and, like, broke her ankle. So, on this first date, I ended up, you know, going to the emergency room with this person and being there all night and talking. And we didn't end up dating. We were just friends, but I thought that it was just like, that's the kind of shit that happens in New York City. It was just wild.

All the dating stories from New York City were very interesting, interesting people like, you know, so that portion of my life is sort of like this funny, like these funny memories, until I met my wife, and then I was like, gone her. But anyhow, what's funny is that I went out one time with a woman from there who was connected through a yoga community, and we sat down. This was my first time meeting this person, and she put her hands on the table. And she was like, put your hands on the table. Like, what the fuck are you doing?

So I put my hands on the table. She was like. She was like, let's just look at each other. I was like, Oh, no. Oh no, it's one of these people. And I've, like, I've, you know, of course, I told my wife this story a million times, so we're listening to this podcast. I relay the story because I had this very uncomfortable experience where she wanted to, like, mind meld, or whatever, whatever. The hell who's like, just, let's just look at each other and breathe. Oh, get out. Get out of here.

So anyway, I mean, like, I'm not opposed, like, if I'm in some kind of workshop setting, you know, it's a little bit like, there's a container, and I know what's coming. And I can, like, I can, I can eye gaze, you know, I can do that. But anyway, I just had to stop, and I had to go, you know what, I'm a little uncomfortable, a little uncomfortable with this. Then, I proceeded to get this sermon about openness. And, dude, I was like, Okay, well, there's no second date for you, first of all. And second, you're, you're a little crazy.

And three, I gotta, like, I gotta find, like, a tidy, nice, polite way of getting the fuck out of here. That's enough you can, so I got a yogic sermon, spanking about not being open enough. And I was like, You know what? Did I tell her? I was like, I work with psychedelics regularly in ceremonial settings. And there's a value in being open, and there's also a value in being boundaries. And like, I don't know you, I'm just meeting you, and, you know, it's just, it's uncomfortable for me in the first three minutes to sit here and do this, and it like, you know, so I had to, like, set a boundary and explain myself, and then I got preached at, and then we awkwardly parted ways. It's still just one of the best stories ever.

So anyway, only because I just remember my horror that this was happening and that I was like, Oh God, you know, like, this was not like, and I'm an open person, but geez, let's take our time here. Take me to dinner first. So, anyway, and what I so appreciate, so appreciated about my wife, is that when I, you know, when I met her for as open-hearted and minded as she was as a yoga teacher, she's very well boundaries, you know, and, and I think that's something that is at work here in this transit so it's a long story, but let me get back to the point in this podcast, the gentleman was talking about the Animate world.

And he was like, you know, the thing about the Animate world is that it doesn't work so well alongside like the overly naive, optimistic gospel of open-minded, open-heartedness. It's not that you shouldn't be open-minded or open-hearted. It's that your heart has like a gate, and you open the gate, and you close the gate, and you open the mind, and you close the mind, depending on the circumstance and surroundings in the same way that there are certain places in New York City where I wouldn't walk alone at night, you know. And I'm not saying that to judge anyone or anything. It's just the truth. There are certain places where I wouldn't be by myself, and I wouldn't recommend anyone be by themselves in certain spaces in New York City; from my experience of living there for three years, a lot of the time, though, New York, I would say, by the way, in New York City, I just felt like it was a super safe, beautiful place.

But anyway, um, you wouldn't, you know there's a reason. There's a reason that we take shelter in our homes and that certain places we don't feel safe in, and certain places we take shelter in, and that's because we all work with a very basic and instinctual understanding that there is safety and there's danger, there are places to be open and uninhibited, and there are places to be guarded, animate reality. The forces of nature require that we be discerning about what forces and energies we work with, then what we boundary ourselves and keep out. One of the beautiful things about Mercury-Pluto is that, especially in Libra, which is a very diplomatic and, I think, pretty open-minded sign, this transit can remind us that there is a time to be open-minded and fair and considerate, and there are times to maybe create a boundary and say no or to not put ourselves in a vulnerable position. Sometimes, people will try to take advantage of open-mindedness and open-heartedness that doesn't. This means that you should become cynical. It doesn't mean that you should suddenly become an untrusting, closed-minded, or closed-hearted person, but it does mean that not all situations are safe, and not all situations are on equal ground or footing. You have to be careful about who you open yourself up to, as friends or colleagues or coworkers, or who you work with as a therapist, who you let in, who you let and allow to influence you.

These are all considerations that Mercury and Pluto will bring up because Mercury in Libra is about that kind of open-minded, balanced perspective, but Pluto in Capricorn is about reminding us of the instinctual reality of darkness. And so when the two get together, there's this question about how open we should be to something, how, how much we should allow ourselves to consider or entertain someone or something, an energy or a spirit or a person or something within ourselves.

But I think what's really important for Mercury and Pluto is that we do not just embrace some kind of naive gospel of open-minded, open-heartedness, even if you're someone who likes to, you know, Jedi eye gaze with other people, you would probably be careful with who you did it with. There are probably ways in which that kind of experience is appropriate in one setting and not so appropriate in another setting. For example, Starbucks is where we were, so, ah, okay, I'm done. I'm done. I told you I'd be a little petty. Okay, so open versus closed-mindedness.

Theme number one: think about it. Two, the appearance of diplomacy with hidden motivation. So Mercury in Libra, squaring Pluto, can present us with opportunities to coerce or manipulate. There may be hidden motivations that we have or that someone else has that are cloaked in what looks like a fair, reasonable agreement, a fair and reasonable proposition, or a fair and reasonable exchange. So we do have to be careful about things. There's a little bit of the wolf, and was that wolf and sheep's clothing? So be careful of that, because even within ourselves, it's possible that we would twist or bend or try to manipulate through very reasonable, sensible, you know, even diplomatic or fair-minded looking things, that we would manipulate and coerce to get something we want.

So, you have to be careful of what hidden motivations are. Use your instincts. Don't just listen to the reasonable, sensible intellectual level of things. Feel into it with mercury Pluto in these positions. That's the message there. Not to say, not again, not to say, just be cynical or be closed minded as just as some kind of, you know, mindless principle. It's just listen to your instincts, and you don't have to be open or fair or balanced in every single thing you do on some kind of abstract intellectual level if it doesn't feel right. Revelations.

So the revelation. By the way, people always get the last book of the Bible wrong. They say revelations plural. It's revelation singular. It is a revelation that John on the island of Patmos had, not revelations plural, just for the record, because you'll be surprised to see how many people make that mistake.

So what I like about Mercury-Pluto is that things that are hidden will be revealed. That's the meaning of revelation. That which is covered up becomes uncovered. And so there's this way in which Mercury, Pluto, and then Mercury, subsequent entrance into Scorpio, also lends itself to a deeper level of questioning, a deeper and more penetrating level of insight, or the awareness of things that are hidden or subliminal coming to the surface. I love that.

Number four is eruptive communication or information. Pluto, whatever it touches, often brings a cathartic and eruptive quality. As this pressure builds and then bursts from a relatively unseen or unconscious place, you can often feel it coming in eruptive communication. But this means a conversation that kind of has this eruptive, intense burst may represent things that have been built unconsciously within yourself or within relationships for a while. Look, the good news is that usually, when things like that come to the surface, creative energy is released, and things don't have the chance to stagnate and make things worse or more toxic. So it's good, in a way, to get things out.

Of course, there is an element of destruction that sometimes comes up when that occurs, and Mercury and Libra may be good at trying to keep things balanced, even in a kind of eruptive space. Sometimes, our worst enemy is trying to keep everything so peaceful and balanced because there's something about appearances that may be more than inner substance. So be careful of that. Allow things to come up. Be real about them. Don't just try to give it a nice polish. And, you know, make it look, you know, it's like, well, this is presentable.

You know, Mercury and Pluto, in general, regardless of the signs, are very comfortable. Mercury is a God that can go in and out of the underworld, the domain of Hades. Pluto is very comfortable looking at heavy, dark, deep, and intense things. Libra, as the gateway into the underworld, has a way of evaluating things that is often split between a superficial form of evaluation or judgment and a deeper form of evaluation or judgment, and so also, we can take it to heart that this is a moment where we might be asked to evaluate something or judge something.

Can we do it in a way that is real and deep and profound and not just superficial because we're uncomfortable or we want to move past something as quickly as possible, so we judge something in the most superficial way that we believe will please the most people or be the easiest to move forward with. The difficult, deep, inner discerning thing might be the better thing right now.

The other thing that can happen is that this eruptive force of Pluto with Mercury can just bring any kind of hidden information to the surface. Just get an email that's surprising or news or information about a diagnosis that someone receives. So here it is, scandalous news or things that come to the surface, you know, the current events.

Number five is the ability to think beyond the surface. The one thing that I think we're going to get from this combination of Pluto squaring, or Mercury squaring Pluto followed by Mercury entering Scorpio, is that in the next few weeks ahead, we're being called, excuse me, to think and perceive and feel into things at a deeper level. Mercury in Scorpio likes us to be like investigative journalists and also turn that inward to ask questions of ourselves.

Like for example, is there something wrong with me that I can't eye gaze at Starbucks with the person I know? Is it me? I'm sorry I did my best, so, oh, yeah. So it was really funny. Is that, um, when I met my wife, and we went, you know, that early period when you're first dating someone, and I'm thinking, obviously, as I'm recording this, knowing that when you guys hear this, it'll be my ten year anniversary. You know, when I met my wife, we kind of shared, like, all of our, what do you call it?

Uh, our war stories, like all of our prior, like the kind of summer summation of our prior dating experiences. And we were like, you know, we know we've Gosh been we've been together so long. We know all of our stories from the past and everything like that. But what's funny is that around the same time, Ashley had gone out with someone who was like a dating coach, as they specialized in, like, teaching people how to date or something. I don't know someone that she also met through a yoga community. Surprise, surprise.

Okay, sorry, so anyway, and he did the same thing. He tried to get really intense in, like, eye gazing and all this stuff. And so she had a story that was similar. And we just always get a crack. We always just crack up talking about those stories. And God bless those people, wherever they are, eye gazing into infinity with someone delightful I am. I have no doubt.

You know, I want to say, like, just because, you know, I know that a lot of friends, family members, and Ashley watch my video sometimes. And like, to me, the best thing about, you know, because I've seen so 1000s and 1000s of clients, and one of the things that I've seen repeatedly, that I know a lot of people struggle without there is feeling alone in their interest in spiritual subjects.

Within a marriage, you may have a best friend; you may have a partner who is wonderful, but one of the things I hear about my clients often is obviously women because I think probably about 85% of this channel that listens are women. And then a lot of my clientele over the years that consume astrology and get readings are women.

So, I've heard a lot of women talk about not having the ability to share that spiritual walk with a partner. And then there's, there's, of course, many people who do. But if there's anything that I'm really, really thankful for, it is that when I met my wife, I knew and the reason that we got serious, and eventually, I asked her to marry me was because I could share my life with someone who I knew was serious about their own personal growth and development, spiritually and to this day, I believe that more than anything else, is what has made our marriage. You know, no marriage is perfect, but I consider myself very fortunate to have a happy marriage.

And I think the only thing I can name aside from the fact that you know, we like each other, we're attracted to each other, we get along, and we're good friends, and all of those things are important. But it's also that I am always inspired by the fact that she's constantly trying to grow as a person, and I know that the fact that I'm doing that as well is inspiring her, and because of that, we have something deeper that we share.

And so, like today, I just wanted to say that because I'm kind of just feeling so thankful that I have a spiritual best friend and partner in life. And if there's any advice I have for people out there who are, you know, because I've gotten this question so many times, you know, for people who are dating, and you know, you're, you're out there trying to figure out, you know, who, who might I end up with, or who would be the best fit for me or something like that.

The thing that I would prioritize, that I see people struggle with a lot, is, you know, make sure that the person that you connect with is having an inner life, whatever that looks like, you know, just an inner life where growth and personal growth is important, because it probably is important to you, if you take in stuff like astrology, and for all those people out there who are struggling because, you know, maybe that's not part of your relationship, the advice that I found most effective is to just make sure that you have friendships in places where that you have an outlet for that because otherwise, it will end up placing so much pressure on a spouse who you may be perfectly compatible with, but you just don't share this one thing. So it's important to make sure you have outlets for that because I think a lot of people can end up coexisting.

You know, if you don't share spirituality or astrology or whatever with a partner, you can still coexist, in my experience, as long as you make sure you take care of yourself and have healthy outlets and, friendships and community for those purposes. And then, you know, it takes some of the pressure off from the marriage to have to fulfill that if, you know, a spouse just isn't naturally interested in those things, which doesn't make a spouse a bad or a partner a bad person, right?

So okay, I'm getting sentimental and going off the deep end. So anyway, hope you guys have a great day today and a great weekend, and we will see you again next week. Stick around after I sign off for a little information about the upcoming year one program. I would love to see you in classes studying astrology in depth at Nightlight is a healing and really profound experience, and so I hope to see some of you in class soon. All right, bye.