Rewind: A Deeper Look at Mercury in Libra

Transcript:

Hey everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope you guys are gearing up for a fun weekend. Today we're going to take a look at Mercury's ingress into the sign of Libra. This is particularly important because Mercury is also going to turn retrograde in the sign of Libra in not too long. So given the upcoming retrograde of Mercury and Libra and the fact that every time a planet ingresses, people email me and say, Hey, would you talk about the meaning of Mercury moving into this new sign or whatever the case might be? So also, this is a rewind episode. Several years ago, I did a series with Venus, Mercury, and Mars, taking them through all 12 signs. And after I finish my Tao Te Ching series for astrologers, my Wednesday series will probably return to Planets in Profiles, starting with the moon. I think that's my plan as of right now. At any rate, I hope you guys will enjoy this rewind episode, which is a deep dive on Mercury in the sign of Libra.

Before we get into it, though, don't forget to like and subscribe, share your comments, and click on the notification bell for updates. We also have pre-registration sales for two new classes. We have a masterclass series and the Roots and Spheres class. So I'm going to take you over there right now and give you a look at those. The routes and spheres program is something Ashley and I are leading, starting in January. And it is a lunar cycle, a lunar circle that meets right before the new and full moons throughout the entirety of 2023 in order to discuss the astrology for the month of a month ahead from New Moon to full moon and full moon back to New Moon along with dieting plant teachers and giving people different exercises they can do to develop a spiritual practice or to ritualize their connection with astrology in different ways and really take advantage of the living dynamics of astrology. We take in astrology often as news, which is fine, and we take it in as information, and then you know, we see it play out in our lives or whatever. And we do use forecasting. There's another level at which I've always worked with astrology, which is much more experiential and feeds into my daily spiritual practice.

With my wife Ashley, of course, it has a lot to do with the kinds of herbs I might be working with. So this is something we've been working on for a while; we're really excited to get started in the new year; you can sign up until September 12 and receive several $100 off the payment for the year, which is a good deal. There's also a payment plan if you need it and need-based tuition. And people would really like to participate. But your budget is you know your budgetary constraints or if you know you are hurting financially, whatever the case might be. So please take a look at that. I hope to see some of you guys in the Roots and Spheres circle. Orientation will be going out in November. So the course will continue to be on sale after September 12. Just you won't have that early bird rate.

So The MasterClass series is the other one that begins in February. And this is a four-part MasterClass. There's a different class with four workshops or four lectures for each series. So in the winter, we're doing one on the mysteries of the moon cycle. In the spring, we're talking about the Morningstar and Eveningstar cycles of Venus and Mercury and how to read them in the birth chart. In the summer, we're talking about zodiacal releasing an ancient forecasting technique. And in the fall, we're going to be talking about temperament and personality in the birth chart from a traditional or ancient perspective, which is really fascinating. By the way, this is actually kind of like the groundwork for, you know, personality profiling, you know, that we do now and like a personality test you might take or the Myers-Briggs or something like that. So I hope you guys will check those out. If you have any questions about anything as you're looking over, email us at info@nightlightastrology.com. And without saying anything further, I hope you will enjoy this deep dive into Mercury in the sign of Libra. Take it easy.

Hi everyone. This is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology. And this is another episode of Planets in Profile. Today we're going to take a look at Mercury in the sign of Libra. So as you've been watching the series, you know that I've taken Mars and Venus to the signs. I've been taking Mercury through the signs. And I'm usually playing catch-up on a certain level. But hopefully, this is evergreen content that you can always get something good out of. So in these videos, you can learn basically two things how to interpret Mercury in any given sign or whatever planet we're doing in this series. And also, even more importantly, how planets interact and behave in relationship to one another. For example, today, we're looking at Mercury in the sign of Libra, which is Venus's sign. How does Mercury interact with or relate to Venus, and specifically the Libra inside of Venus? That's what we're looking at today.

All right, so let's begin by a little description of Mercury in Libra. Mercury is sort of neutral in Libra. It doesn't have any form of rulership or exultation or any form of stability such as detriment or fall. In this sign, Mercury is dependent upon Venus, and Venus's location where Venus is at and what Venus is doing. So you always want to look at whenever Mercury is in Libra; you also need to look at Venus in the chart or by transit if you're studying, if you're doing some forecasting, or something like that, as Venus goes, so will Mercury when Mercury is in Venus's home.

Alright, so Libra is the warm and moist masculine air sign of Venus. Air can be broken down to warm and moist qualities. Ancient astrologers did that at a certain point, related the element of air to warmth and moisture; also, it's considered a masculine or yang sign. And you can also associate it with the element of air, and then it is the Temple of Venus, so it's the home of Venus. Now, Mercury is thus going to express itself, not only in Venusian ways but in those particular ways, in those particular Venusian ways because Venus and Taurus is a lot different than Venus in Libra. So you're getting the expression of a Mercury through the Libra side of Venus.

Now, what does that mean? You kind of have to have a sense of what Libra is all about. Remember, we'll actually let's back up and start with Mercury just as a refresher. So Mercury is the god of communication and is related to the mind and to speech and to the intellect and to writing. It is also Mercurys associated with the messenger with busy marketplaces, information, and technology. It's a very inventive planet. It's also associated sometimes with thievery and trickery with markets and money exchange; I think I already mentioned that with highways and travel, but also thieves on the highway can be associated with that as well. So those are just a few things that Mercury is associated with. When you're delineating Mercury in a chart, there's sort of a wide range of things that Mercury could end up representing. Mercury was also a key ingredient to the study of temperament. You would look at your ascendant ruler planets in the first house, the moon, and typically Mercury, in order to get a sense of how a person might act and behave, what their personality might be like.

So we have to remember that now again, all of those qualities are going to now have to be filtered through the lens of Venus, who is the goddess related to peace, friendship, pleasant or enjoyable things, harmony, love, sensuality, femininity, and grace and ease. So as well as romance and, of course, kind of the erotic or romantic dimensions of relationships, marriage, but also, you know, affairs and affairs of the heart and things like that. So you can also relate Venus to art. So when Mercury is in Venus's sign of Libra, unlike when Venus is in Mercury's sign of Virgo, Mercury can do pretty well with Venus in the sign, provided that Venus isn't in a debilitated condition itself in the chart somewhere. And typically, what you're going to see is in remember that; I should add this in. Remember that Libra is also the exultation of Saturn. So Libra is the sign in which Saturn is exalted in the sign in which the sun is in its fall, which means that there is this very interesting way in which the sign of Libra brings out a slightly darker element of Venus, for example, and I'll give lots of chart examples that people, famous people who have this placement in their chart but think, for example of the fact that the sun is essentially going into the basement of the solar year during this during the Libran season.

As that's happening, darkness is taking over. And so your Libra fall the Fall Equinox has, as its symbol Saturn, the god of winter, decay, death, judgment, as the sun is entering the underworld. And so this is a Venus that is interested in beauty and harmonization, which means that there will be a way in which darkness is harmonized with light. But usually, the tone of darkness or finality or death or consequence, or a degree of heaviness will be there kind of as an accent for Venus. And so, for example, one of the classic Libran, you know, beauty or style qualities will be black and white. And that the contrast between light and dark oftentimes with also a way of celebrating the darker, like black and white photography, a black and white photo of two people in you know in like very classy looking clothes and kissing out in the rain as they're drenched in New York City or something like that. It's very Libran. So think also have this as a not just a sign of Venus but as a sign that pays close attention to darkness and to Saturn, and to fairness judgment. And, so it's not just any beauty. There's a kind of tragic autumnal beauty to this particular Venusian expression.

Okay, and that also means that when Mercury is in Libra, you have to be careful of things that are peddled off to look light but are dark, or things that are dark that are made to look light, or the alternation or play between light and dark, which can be very classy, and can also represent someone who's very poised and sophisticated and sort of serious and mature and that kind of saturnine way, exultation of Saturn, but also very articulate, graceful, stylish, et cetera. So let me try to give you some examples of how this works. So, for example, there are people that are going to fit this, really this for the alternation between light and dark. Sorry, I'm trying to talk really nicely. Where's my list here?

So, for example, Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie is, of course, the famous novelist who writes about darker subjects like murder and mystery. And yet she is very classy in many of the settings of her novels are very sort of classy and sort of socialite in nature. So she has this very refined style and taste, and many of the characters and plots and settings are with, you know, people who are wealthy or well-to-do, but then there will be the unveiling of some darkness behind the surface. And that's a classic theme in her literature. Anyway, Sylvia Brown here's someone who is sort of a psychic medium and by all accounts is into occult matters, things that are more hidden, mysterious, etc. But she has this very polished, and she's one of the first, you know, kind of groundbreaking, famous, like, media personalities that she goes on to, she's very, she's very welcomed by mainstream media at a certain time in her career, right. And so that, that, that darkness, that occult quality, but she's also like a media personality, very Mercury in Libra.

You can also think of two children's writers that come to my mind. One's kind of a children's writer, Jim Henson, where Jim Henson, if you think about the, I don't know, the Dark Crystal and lots of other things that Jim Henson does, there's a quality of light, but also this willingness to explore darkness, but still doing it in a way that's almost childlike, friendly, very classy and poised and like artistically sophisticated. So that's oftentimes you'll see Mercury and Libra as people who have this kind of artistic skill or a gift or some kind of ability to make something a little bit darker strange, look appealing and beautiful, and that's oftentimes a Mercury and Libra trait. Another example is Roald Dahl. I'm sure you all know Roald Dahl, right? Strange kid's books that are really dark, but also he's so artistic and brilliant. Another one that could fit in there that it's not he's not a Mercury in Libra, but a similar personality that has similar contrasts in his chart that are very much in line with this combination is Tim Burton, right but different chart.

So you also have people who have this kind of classy, smooth, but smoky deep, dark, beautiful quality to their skill as a musician like Harry Connick Jr or John Coltrane. Similarly, you have photographers famous, famous artists like photographers, like Linda McCartney. Also, Mercury and Libra, George Martin, and Ursula K. Le Guin are two fantasy authors, sci-fi slash fantasy authors who both have this amazing artistic sensibility, right? I mean just wordsmiths and just brilliant intellectually, but they have a way of also speaking to human darkness that's quite profound. And that's, you're often going to see that in the quality of the writers who have Mercury in Libra, that there is a sensibility and a darkness at once. And oftentimes, you can describe Mercury, you know, like a bit like Pluto and Libra too. The Pluto and Libra generation but Mercury in Libra. It's sort of like the velvet glove for the iron fist, or there's a way of almost adorning or decorating something heavier, darker leaden. And that's the again, that's the Saturn exultation there. There are other people who embody the seriousness as well as the kind of diplomacy, grace, beauty, and articulateness like Barbara Walters, who is, you know, one of the kind of groundbreaking female news anchors, I think it was ABC News. She was the first on their network or something like that. But she also people like Sophia Loren, another great example of the class, the elegance, the grace, but there's kind of a smoky dark quality that's there as well.

Vladamir Putin right; he has a very suave presentation. And, of course, it glosses over a lot of very dark stuff that he does. But you can also one could make a case, for example, like, you know, Bill Gates. I'm not into the whole conspiracy thing. But just in terms of being someone who's like a tech billionaire or whatever, who has this interest in philanthropy and has also been associated, even just associated throughout his lifetime, with a lot of controversies, especially very recently. But I think it's very fascinating that oftentimes, a Warren Buffett is another one with Mercury in Libra. Beyonce Knowles is another one. It's almost as though they're Mercury in Libra. Well, Margaret Thatcher was another one as well, all of them are almost like Emperor or Empresses, and they have this command. They have such grace and composure. But at the same time, there is this, this kind of dark, heavy, serious quality to their art or to their presidents or, you know, Margaret Thatcher, of course, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, was quite conservative, right. Another one that I love. Another really good example of Mercury and Libra.

In case I'm not getting it across enough, it would be Leonard Cohen. Right, again, dark, heavy, beautiful, you know, you know what I mean? So, familiarity with darkness is really, really important. Simon Cowell is another one where there can be this very judgmental and critical quality, like a hyperacute, judgmental awareness of what's valuable or what's not valuable, what's beautiful or not. So he's a kind of judge, critic type of character. These are all great examples, I think. You can see, let's see, Caitlyn Jenner is another one. Bruce Springsteen. Both, I think you could say, have like a good contrast between light and dark. Bruce Springsteen, in particular, comes to my mind because, you know, when he's young, he's like this. He's like this young kid muscle cars, cigarettes, knife fights on the Jersey boardwalk, tough guy, you know, cocky, sexy, suave, all of it. And as he ages he becomes, he becomes something his music becomes more politically active. And throughout his life, he talks openly about battling depression. So he's a complex character that, you know, that Mercury in Libra also reflects. Let's see, is that Avici? I'm not how he said he was the DJ; I think he passed. But you know, brilliant sort of technicians of art that can blend the dark and the light. And you know, don't pass over Libra when it comes to science fiction either, because science fiction is often very saturnine and Libra can do.

Libra oftentimes, we think about science, science fiction landscapes. If you ever saw the movie Solaris or Gattaca with Ethan Hawke, some of these landscapes in the future, they're very, like, pristine and clean and very, like well organized and hyper-controlled and rigid and often involves some kind of authoritarian presence. And there's, there's oftentimes, exploration of beauty and structure and control. And, like, almost like, like dystopian, or yeah, like post-apocalyptic landscapes and that contrast between like destruction and humankind's ability to control and make the most beautiful things, but maybe with some kind of rigidity involved. Often those themes are present in science fiction at any rate and such a Libran theme. Those are such Libran themes. Christopher Reeve, if you want to talk about another really interesting Mercury and Libra character, of course, Christopher Christopher Reeve becomes a philanthropist after becoming a quadriplegic through a horseback ride riding accident. He played, if you guys don't know he was the original Superman or not the original, but he was the original feature-length film, Superman, I think, back in like the 80s maybe. So Christopher Reeve and his wife, Dana, become these incredible philanthropists. And they do a lot of good, especially for stem cell research and things like that. But he was also someone who became really interested in this kind of, like, very futuristic technology, right? That could be that could restore or bring people there, bring back the facilities of people who had potentially lost them like himself.

There's, I'm telling you, right now, there's a, there's just a really interesting element of Libra that has to do with the, also the desire to repair or fix things that are broken, or to make something broken, beautiful. Or, like, for example, the people who take those, I think they take like broken pieces of a pot, and then they make a new pot with gold, like, sealing all the broken pieces together. Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't know what that's called, and someone tell me what that's called. But this idea, or even like, if you think about the artwork I was mentioning earlier, where there's like these broken, maybe like broken fragments of glass, and you know, you'll, you'll see the broken fragments of glass, but inside of them, they're reflecting flowers or something like that. So there's a real kind of sense of finding or restoring beauty in relation to something that's been lost or something that's dying or dead. And oftentimes, that's very, that plays into sci-fi themes, really in technology and in a very interesting way.

I'm only just starting to articulate that idea, by the way. So I'll probably when we get to some transits in Libra, I'll probably bring that backup and keep going with it. Because it's I've been noticing it for so long. And this is one of my first attempts to ever articulate that part. But David Copperfield is another example, though. He has Mercury in Libra. And of course, he's a master magician sleight of hand, but he combines like sexy, dark, and mysterious with all sorts of interesting, weird technology. That's such a mercury and Libra placement. Remember, Mercury is one of the gods of technology as well. So, just why I'm talking about this with regard to Mercury in Libra, but James Gandolfini, if you guys know him from what the sopranos, you know, that mafioso where there's the appearance of luxury or wealth, but there's this dark underbelly, and there's like crime. And so oftentimes, Mercury and Libra can be the appearance of something noble or humanitarian, with underlying selfish interests and things like that. Which is, of course, exactly I think, why even whether it's true or not why people often suspect Bill Gates, it's because he has that weird kind of Iron Man. He's, you know, who's similar, a little bit similar vibe, a different chart, again, is what's the Tesla guy, Elon Musk, where there's this? Almost, yeah, it's almost like an otherworldly kind of dark, mysterious quality. But it's also like very beautiful and polished and progressive and inventive. That's very Mercury in Libra. Different chart doesn't have that placement. But I'm just giving you more examples where you can think of, and there's things in his chart that feed into that as well. So lots of placements in Astrology can speak to some of the same themes because they're essentially combining similar elements.

Stephen King is very similar. He can, he can expose he's a very beautiful writer, and he can expose the dark underbelly of like the nice pristine little East Coast town. It's always Castle Rock or whatever, you know, whatever it is. Okay, Bernie Sanders. Here's another example where you have people who are truly advocates for justice, peace, equality, or something that's truly humanitarian or whatever. Like, you know, people who are interested in equality, you know, in this could be on the right or the left, like, for example, I think it's who's the Fox guy, Bill O'Reilly or used to be the Fox guy? He has Mercury in Libra, too. All right. That's an Amma. Amma is a great example of, you know, the hugging saint has Mercury in Libra. Of course, she's a major global philanthropist as well.

All right, well, hopefully, that gives you some feeling for Mercury in Libra. And how to delineate it. Of course, it's always going to matter to look at Venus's position relative to Mercury because that will add a whole secondary and very important layer to the interpretation. I find that Mercury In Libras, best side is usually in the ability to tolerate certain kinds of moral ambiguities and to find beauty in contrast between light and dark to be able to harmonize elements of light and dark or have complicated themes that would seem antagonistic towards one another. And oftentimes, there is a very, very, what I want to say, a way of articulating oneself that really speaks to people that's very easy and fluid. And oftentimes for children, which is why I think it's so interesting that Jim Henson and Roald Dahl have Mercury in Libra, where there's just this ability to speak to the contrasts that are so bright and vivid for children between light and dark. All right, alright, so do you have Mercury in Libra? I would love to hear from you. If you do, Please add your thoughts to this video or any other interpretations or famous people that you think should have been in this presentation that I might have missed? I'd love to hear from you guys. And then stay tuned because I'll be doing Mercury in Scorpio pretty quickly as well. All right. Take care, everyone. Bye