“Wherever Mercury shows up in the chart is where we are prone to restlessness, where we need variety, change and room to move. It is an area of life where you are meant to keep an open mind, where you ought to be flexible and young at heart.”
- Howard Sasportas in The Inner Planets
You may be familiar with the Mercurial archetype of Hermes, who embodied the ever-youthful trickster energy right out of the womb. Driven by a hunger for new stimulation right after he was born, Hermes decides to steal a bunch of cattle from his brother - the sun god Apollo - at just a few days old. Despite how angered his brother was upon finding out about the theft, Hermes later uses his penchant for wheeling and dealing to become part cattle owner in Apollo’s business ventures in exchange for something Apollo held dear.
In the moment that Hermes decided to steal the cattle, he intended to satisfy his hunger and make a meal of one the cows. Before feasting, he made a symbolic sacrifice of the choicest meat to all 12 Olympian gods.
Sasportas explains how this part of the myth is symbolic of Mercury’s incredible talent for leveraging the power of mimicry:
“Mercury is Mercury and not Venus, Jupiter or Saturn, but he can take on the attributes of these or the other planets if it suits him to do so, and sometimes even when it isn't that appropriate. He is not any of them but he can temporarily be any of them.
Besides displaying his allegiance to all twelve gods of Olympus, Hermes eventually managed to steal something from each of the other gods: Apollo's cattle is not his only theft. He absconded one day with Zeus's thunderbolts, he robbed Athene of her helmet for awhile, and he even borrowed Aphrodite's girdle without asking her. Stealing from each of the gods is another way of saying he possesses certain attributes of them all. But you can also see how this can be a curse, how strongly mercurial people can be all over the place, one way one day, another way the next.
Similarly, in Mercury's house we may need to learn to discipline the mind or contain some of our thoughts and actions rather than acting these out indiscriminately. Mercury ultimately functions most positively if he has a set of guidelines to go by, or if he has moral or ethical standards to which he tries to adhere.”
-Howard Sasportas in The Inner Planets
- Howard Sasportas in The Inner Planets
You may be familiar with the Mercurial archetype of Hermes, who embodied the ever-youthful trickster energy right out of the womb. Driven by a hunger for new stimulation right after he was born, Hermes decides to steal a bunch of cattle from his brother - the sun god Apollo - at just a few days old. Despite how angered his brother was upon finding out about the theft, Hermes later uses his penchant for wheeling and dealing to become part cattle owner in Apollo’s business ventures in exchange for something Apollo held dear.
In the moment that Hermes decided to steal the cattle, he intended to satisfy his hunger and make a meal of one the cows. Before feasting, he made a symbolic sacrifice of the choicest meat to all 12 Olympian gods.
Sasportas explains how this part of the myth is symbolic of Mercury’s incredible talent for leveraging the power of mimicry:
“Mercury is Mercury and not Venus, Jupiter or Saturn, but he can take on the attributes of these or the other planets if it suits him to do so, and sometimes even when it isn't that appropriate. He is not any of them but he can temporarily be any of them.
Besides displaying his allegiance to all twelve gods of Olympus, Hermes eventually managed to steal something from each of the other gods: Apollo's cattle is not his only theft. He absconded one day with Zeus's thunderbolts, he robbed Athene of her helmet for awhile, and he even borrowed Aphrodite's girdle without asking her. Stealing from each of the gods is another way of saying he possesses certain attributes of them all. But you can also see how this can be a curse, how strongly mercurial people can be all over the place, one way one day, another way the next.
Similarly, in Mercury's house we may need to learn to discipline the mind or contain some of our thoughts and actions rather than acting these out indiscriminately. Mercury ultimately functions most positively if he has a set of guidelines to go by, or if he has moral or ethical standards to which he tries to adhere.”
-Howard Sasportas in The Inner Planets
We won't give away the ending to Hermes' story just yet - you can study the mythology of Hermes with four other Mercury archetypes while you interpret your natal Mercury placements in our level-one course: Foundations of Planetary Myths. We'll discuss the full course shortly, but first let's examine how to apply the Mercury mythology in real life!
Do you know someone who is so good at wheeling and dealing and spinning wild stories that you don’t know if you can trust them? Maybe you go out of your way to avoid them so you don’t have to face the unpredictable consequences of being roped into their trickery. While it’s true that this energy could be used to trick or deceive just for the fun of it, if we prematurely judge this Mercurial capacity as wholly ‘bad’ then we actually miss the higher potential and purpose of it.
For example, instead of avoiding them, let’s say you instead decide to leverage their intellectual creativity and recruit them to get you out of a sticky situation with your oppressive boss. Now that you’ve suggested a productive purpose for the Mercurial trickery, this individual can devise an ingenious plan which not only gets you out from under oppression, but surprisingly lands you an even better job in the process.
At this point, can we still judge this penchant for trickery as a negative trait? Not if we want to be precise. Only if they choose not to use it for the higher good does it have any unscrupulous effects. The Mercurial traits themselves in their pure state - that is, before any intentions are channeled through them - are neutral.
Now let’s take this one step further and imagine this Mercurial figure is part of your own psyche - and it is, because everyone has Mercury somewhere in the chart - and let’s repeat the process. Here's a couple questions to consider as you're becoming familiar with your own natal Mercury:
For example, instead of avoiding them, let’s say you instead decide to leverage their intellectual creativity and recruit them to get you out of a sticky situation with your oppressive boss. Now that you’ve suggested a productive purpose for the Mercurial trickery, this individual can devise an ingenious plan which not only gets you out from under oppression, but surprisingly lands you an even better job in the process.
At this point, can we still judge this penchant for trickery as a negative trait? Not if we want to be precise. Only if they choose not to use it for the higher good does it have any unscrupulous effects. The Mercurial traits themselves in their pure state - that is, before any intentions are channeled through them - are neutral.
Now let’s take this one step further and imagine this Mercurial figure is part of your own psyche - and it is, because everyone has Mercury somewhere in the chart - and let’s repeat the process. Here's a couple questions to consider as you're becoming familiar with your own natal Mercury:
Working with the intellectual dexterity represented by your Mercury placement, what skill sets do you wish you were born with? Can you imagine yourself leveraging the power of mimicry to imitate the people you see around you who seem naturally good at it?
It would be helpful to Google the interpretation of your natal Mercury's sign & house placement because this will help illuminate Mercury's full & healthy expression in that particular area of life. When you interpret the house and sign of your natal Mercury, what you’re doing is uncovering clues to the area of life where you’re being asked to leverage this intellectual prowess.
The trickster energy can be beneficial to bypass old ways of thinking or to get oneself out of sticky situations when you need to make an escape out of corruption or oppression. It can also be used to elevate your social standing in life by using the gift of words and speech to make an impact on people.
Not only that, but your natal Mercury is ‘speaking’ with other planets via your natal aspects. These planetary conversations will further illuminate how to make use of the gifts that each planetary body symbolizes within you. If you’d like to learn more about mastering hard aspects or playing with soft aspects, be sure to check out their respective blog posts. Simply becoming aware that you have a unique combination of gifts which no one else on Earth possesses is enough to inspire you to put them to use and let them shine.
The trickster energy can be beneficial to bypass old ways of thinking or to get oneself out of sticky situations when you need to make an escape out of corruption or oppression. It can also be used to elevate your social standing in life by using the gift of words and speech to make an impact on people.
Not only that, but your natal Mercury is ‘speaking’ with other planets via your natal aspects. These planetary conversations will further illuminate how to make use of the gifts that each planetary body symbolizes within you. If you’d like to learn more about mastering hard aspects or playing with soft aspects, be sure to check out their respective blog posts. Simply becoming aware that you have a unique combination of gifts which no one else on Earth possesses is enough to inspire you to put them to use and let them shine.
If interpreting your Mercury aspects can be this beneficial in illuminating natural intellectual gifts and showing you new ways to use them, just think of what interpreting your other planets can do. This is exactly what you’ll do in our level-one course Foundations of Planetary Myths. After immersing yourself in the ancient mythology of each planetary body, the course worksheets walk you through all the major aspects of the natal chart so that you can build more advanced astrological skills. This illuminating process allows you to observe the principle of inner and outer alignment at work in your everyday life - you can more easily see where you hold inner resistance to the things you've requested from the universe in order to make desired changes in any area of life by surrendering the resistance that comes up. How amazing is that?!
That isn’t all the course contains - there is also a bonus module at the end to teach you to interpret your Saturn return ($99 value included with course purchase). By the time you arrive at this module, you will have already built aspect interpretation skills plus have a general idea of how transits work. In order to see planetary transits in action, we hit the ground running & cut our teeth on the full Saturn return!
That isn’t all the course contains - there is also a bonus module at the end to teach you to interpret your Saturn return ($99 value included with course purchase). By the time you arrive at this module, you will have already built aspect interpretation skills plus have a general idea of how transits work. In order to see planetary transits in action, we hit the ground running & cut our teeth on the full Saturn return!
You can take the course as an astrological beginner and it’s also beneficial for intermediate students seeking to understand planetary symbolism in more depth so that you can progress in your studies. No matter how far along you are in your astrological journey, you must have a strong mythological understanding of these planetary archetypes if you want to build more advanced skills.
Enjoy the process!
Love,
Phoenix
