What to Make of Mercury and Mars Opposite Jupiter During the Lunar Eclipse in Taurus

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. We are going to be taking one more look at some of the planetary combinations that are in the sky at the time of this weekend's eclipse; in particular, Mercury and Mars in the sign of Scorpio are coming together in conjunction and opposing Jupiter in Taurus, almost at the exact same time that the lunar eclipse is forming in Taurus this weekend.

So, we are going to look at the combination of Mercury-Mars in Scorpio opposite Jupiter, what to watch for with that archetypal combination, and some thoughts on how these themes may contribute to your eclipse experience. That's coming up on the 28th. So that's our agenda for today.

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All right, well, let's take a look at the eclipse and remind ourselves of what the heck is going on, and we'll go from there. So here is the here is the eclipse on the screen. You're going to see a lunar eclipse in Taurus. It's a full moon that creates the lunar eclipse always. So you see, it's opposite the sun in Scorpio. This is Saturday, October 28, coming up, and the effects of eclipses last for a while. So it's not just one day that you'll be experiencing this, but the events associated with this weekend's eclipse will play out over the next several months to come.

Though, in a way, this is also because it's the final eclipse across the Taurus-Scorpio axis, something we spent time talking about earlier this week. You may also notice that it has a kind of cumulative effect. It feels like a longer cycle is coming to some kind of conclusion, and you'll notice that at the time of the eclipse, what we're going to spend time with today is the fact that Mercury and Mars are coming together in the sign of Scorpio right here and they are also moving into an opposition with Jupiter in Taurus who's also at 11 degrees.

So this little confluence of an opposition between three planets is happening at the same time that the lunar eclipse is happening; they're so close together that we can consider the two events as having significance for one another.

So, the easiest way that I thought to address this would be to start with some reminders about the archetypal nature of Mercury-Mars, opposite Jupiter. Let's start with just a few reminders about Mercury and Mars.

Mercury and Mars traditionally were associated with people who are very talented athletes or warriors, for example, wrestlers or people who might be good at jujitsu, Mercury-Mars combination. Mercury was a god associated with sports, and Mars was associated with war, so like extreme athletic sports, it could be surfing, it could be I don't know anything. Kiteboarding. What should people do? I saw people doing this on Lake Michigan when I was visiting my mom, who lives near Lake Michigan. It was really impressive, but people who have, you know, sort of dazzling athletic ability sometimes Mercury-Mars.

Mercury-Mars, also traditionally associated with the skill or knowledge necessary to do technically precise things that involve cutting or like, like the knowledge of cooking, chemistry, surgery could be Mercury, Mars, anything that would be like a very precise and almost incisive or cutting analytical skill set would be Mercury-Mars.

Mercury-Mars in Scorpio are associated with things like investigative journalism or probing deep investigation into things that lie beneath the surface of things very ScorpIonic. So, Mercury-Mars is a wonderful combination. In Scorpio, I think that it can be sharp-tongued; it can be a little bit verbally or mentally combative. You know, in competition, it can also be about exploring underlying patterns of thought and speech and what hurts versus what heals. It can be a lot of things that combine positively the mental dexterity and adaptability of Mercury with the sort of incisive, cutting, strong, warrior-like qualities of Mars.

But also the potential for like, I think of like a, you know, like someone who strikes like a serpent, you know, like a quick strike from a cobra or something with words or thoughts or ideas that can harm people like verbal abuse, emotional, verbal, mental forms of abuse could be Mercury-Mars in Scorpio.

So this combination is now opposite Jupiter, which is nice because Jupiter will as a benefic it bonafide, which means that it generally makes things better or more comfortable. So when you put these together, you get an interesting set of archetypal combinations, and I just have five for us to look at, and then we'll take these, and we'll say, this is what we'll try to address how we place these within the context of the lunar eclipse.

So, number one is victory. Mercury and Mars opposite Jupiter can literally just be a sign of victory. It could be victory, mentally, athletically, in asserting your will, your voice in communicating something effectively in negotiating a deal, and getting something done and coming to a place of understanding that makes you feel like you really learned something or you passed a test or you know, you've got a good score on your SAT or something.

Mercury-Mars opposite Jupiter can represent all different kinds of physical, mental, and emotional moments of victory, celebration, and accomplishment. That's one of the most exciting pieces about this is that we have just a signature in the era of success and of accomplishment, especially for things that we've had to take a long time to learn or that have required deeper emotional and intellectual capacity, that we feel like we're starting to understand something or we feel like we're having, we're experiencing a rapid period of, of breakthrough in progress relative to something we're trying to learn or cultivate and all of a sudden, we just feel like we're supported and it's growing and there's a sense of progress or victory. So that's number one.

Number two would be bravado, and this can be just like being overly cocksure or confident. Mentally, verbally, emotionally, just take Jupiter, take Mercury-Mars, and just sort of amplify and blow it up and exaggerate it with Jupiter's opposition, and you get something like people who overestimate the importance of their thoughts or words or feelings, or their needs or desires or demands or their will in their way and it just gets to be a little, like arrogant.

Or there's a kind of machismo and a sense of being like, Oh, I'm Zeus, right? Especially again when it comes to words, thoughts, communication, and the will, and the sense that they're all getting blown up, but maybe to a level that is not good for us and may be obnoxious to others. So watch for the element of bravado.

Now the next one, incisive analytical and broad-minded, and the incisive analytical qualities are really Mars and Mercury's, but when you add them to Jupiter, you sometimes get the incisive and analytical qualities have a deconstructive component, so that you're taking something apart, or you're analyzing it or breaking it down or like a scalpel, you're cutting very, very carefully.

But Jupiter gives you that sense of broad-mindedness; or other words, it could have been incisive, analytical, and cohesive. Broad-minded, cohesive, seeking for larger unity; those are things that Jupiter loves to do, and so when you pair that with the incisive and analytical things, it's sort of like someone who's studying anatomy and physiology, breaking things down while simultaneously developing their understanding of a larger system of organs or a system of the body.

This is a great transit, for example, for having some breakthroughs in your understanding of a subject through an analytical investigation process, pulling things apart in order to develop a broader understanding of a system on the whole.

Another one would be, like, let's say that you're, you're studying the history of the Catholic Church or something; let's say you're a Catholic, and you're studying all of the political maneuverings of the church. This can lead you to a broader understanding of the history of the church, and of your own faith within that history, how it is what it has received, that is a benefit, and where you depart or feel like you don't identify with something.

So, the ability to make meaningful distinctions like this, not that. Let me give you a different example. So let's say in astrology, you were to study, and you were to break apart four or five different schools of astrology and really get into the details of what makes them each unique and different from one another.

By doing so, you may, out of four or five schools that you study, decide that three or four of them are not for you. Well, you have also developed a broad appreciation for the history of astrology and all of these diverse schools that exist. So you can simultaneously say, well, these aren't for me, but I appreciate how they participate in the broader field of astrology itself. So Mercury-Mars, opposite Jupiter, gives us this ability to break things apart while also meaningfully placing them in a broader feeling of a broader sense of a broader unity. That's what I'm looking for.

So it's funny how Mercury-Mars and Jupiter are sort of at play in my struggle to articulate myself, and yet, hopefully, it'll make sense in my in the context of my little list.

Now, number four would be getting clear about a path of study or inquiry. Mercury-Mars opposite Jupiter can also be about understanding what you are motivated or excited by intellectually or spiritually. It's like a time where your compass for religious or spiritual groups, communities, topics, and subjects is being reoriented, and suddenly you go, Oh, I'd like to dive a lot deeper into this subject, in this way, with this kind of learning style.

So, clarifying for yourself what you need as a learner, as a thinker, as a believer, you know, it's like a time where you can question, clarify, doubt, contend with different ideas as a means of clarifying your own orientation with something.

Also, I have to be honest; this will be a time where you will see people going at it in a debate with a lot of self-righteousness, and I'm right, you're wrong, my way or the highway. This is potentially going to create an aura of self-righteousness. With this combativeness around values, beliefs, doctrines, dogmas, political orientations, and so forth, it would not be surprising to see people really getting jacked up about what they believe, and obviously, there's a bit of that in the collective air right now as well.

So you may notice that that energy is playing out in your personal life, that you feel a need to go to war over ideas, beliefs, values, or some kind of orientation. All I can say is that this, too, will pass, and you want to be careful that you don't let a self-righteous bravado into discussions or relationship dynamics that you know could really hurt in the long run.

It's like finding a way of being broad-minded and yet incisive, clear, direct, smart, and intelligent about what you think or believe. Can we be both, you know, incisive and broad-minded at the same time? Can we be, you know, have a piercing direct thought or need or idea at while at the same time holding a space of serenity, a larger cosmic sense of things, that everything is somehow in its right place.

Even if we are having to articulate our relative orientation or a stand that we're taking within that larger framework? Those are big questions right now and ones to keep in mind if we find ourselves getting drawn into a conflict where there's a lot of amped-up machismo or self-righteousness. Okay?

Anyway, number five is motivational figures or domineering figures; a motivational figure with this kind of configuration would be like, I had a swimming coach, and he was like, tough. He was the girl's high school swimming coach. But I would go and swim in the mornings before school when there was an open lap swim, and a lot of the swimmers on the team would go and swim and get a morning workout in, and he was the Girls High School swim coach. But he was a member of my dad's church, or I guess the church, and I don't know why I think about it that way.

But anyway, so he was a member of the church, and he knew me from church, and so he would give me coaching in my morning practice, even though I had a separate coach for the boy's team, and, man, he was so tough but so kind. He was tough and motivating but also had this very just big-hearted, easygoing quality that never made me feel like he was angry or like he was trying to get the best out of me by whipping me or something. You know what I mean?

Like, the drumming instructor in the movie, Whiplash, you guys ever see that? I forget what that guy's name is. But he was like an impressive and domineering figure, and he certainly got the most out of the boy who was the drummer, but in a way that makes you wonder, you know, like, is this is like, almost like, he was like a sadomasochists or something.

So, you know, this is a really interesting time when it comes to figures that can motivate us and draw the best out of us and make us go deep, whether it's a therapist, a coach, a mentor, a teacher, a professor, you know, something like that. But you also, you want to make sure that it's, you know, you're being pushed, motivated, encouraged, that it's that you're being pushed to find your edge, but that you're not like harmed, and so that's tricky. We have to figure that out.

But this is an amazing transit for getting in touch with people who push us in a good way. On the other hand, you have to watch out for the exact same configuration being associated with domineering people. People who are here to elevate themselves by cutting you down and they might mask that in the feeling that like I'm doing this because it's good for you or something like that.

Okay, so these qualities are just a short list of things that you can watch for with Mercury-Mars, opposite Jupiter over the weekend.
As far as how they play into a lunar eclipse and Taurus, I think it's really interesting.

The lunar eclipse in Taurus is bringing about the cumulative effects of the entire series of eclipses in Taurus. We talked about the mythology of Taurus and some of the Taureanan dualities, stability versus stagnation desire versus law. Just security versus possessiveness, the bull versus the Minotaur?

I wonder right now when it comes to, let's just call it, our desire body, the desire body being the part of us that seeks out sensual fulfillment and peace, stability, serenity, simplicity, joy, ease, comfort, that we seek those experiences like we look for cow-eyed Aphrodite, as Liz Greene was saying in the texts we read earlier this week. So we seek those things out. The extent to which there is a minotaur lurking is, in many ways.

The extent to which we have not questioned or looked carefully and deeply at our desires. Something about these energies may force us to do that. At the same time, the Jupiter in Taurus piece is, you know, it's like you have to temper the part of us that wants to rid ourselves of impurities or darkness or greed or lust or possessiveness can actually be just as possessive and destructive as the part of us that you know, wants to eat too much pie, too many slices of pie, the part of us that wants to be pure and rid ourselves of darkness, right that can be the kind of shadow of Mercury-Mars in Scorpio, sort of accosting Jupiter in Taurus.

So I wonder if right now we aren't being asked to look carefully at our desires in the shadows of our desires while also learning to hold space for the healthiest version of them and if that isn't something of the process that the Mercury-Mars opposite Jupiter isn't reflecting an opportunity for deeper investigation into the shadows of our desires, our longings for Taurean abundance, peace, love, joy, simplicity, ease sensual fulfillment, like let's look at the shadows of those things, but not so intensely, that we are troubling the waters you know, that were disturbing the peace?

How can we hold the peace while also looking at the shadows carefully? That's the broad-minded and analytical that's the supportive, affirming, unifying peaceful Jupiter in Taurus with the investigative depth and intensity of Mercury-Mars in Scorpio. How do we hold those archetypal qualities simultaneously? I think that's the question that will accompany us as we do some final reflecting on all of the wisdom that the sign of Taurus has been providing for us over the past couple of years. Hope that's clear enough and that you you get something useful out of this to take into the weekend.

Interestingly, we are going to be looking at the Moon in Taurus to close the week through our Planets in Profile series. So stay tuned for that and some great poetry from our friend Kaylee Haines, who is contributing spoken word poetry for the goddess of the moon through each of the signs, something that she's doing kind of inspired poetry for. So I hope you guys will enjoy that. That's coming up.

That's it for now. I hope you guys have a great eclipse weekend, and be sure to tell us your stories. If you've got a good one, use the hashtag #grabbed always or in the comment section or email it to us at grabbed@nightlightastrology.com. After the eclipse season, we'll be doing another storytelling episode soon. All right, that's it. Hope you guys have a good one. Bye