Mercury

Meaning

Mercury is the smallest planet and the nearest to the Sun, never more than about 28° from it, so it always stands in the Sun’s sign or in one of the two beside it. Seen from the Earth it is the quickest of the planets proper, and the one most often retrograde.

It stands for the mind in motion: perceiving, naming, learning, speaking, writing, calculating and trading, with the hands and nerves that do these things. In a chart it describes how someone takes in information, links ideas and passes them on.

Tradition gives it two homes, Gemini and Virgo, and exalts it in Virgo as well, the only planet exalted in a sign it rules; its detriment is Sagittarius and Pisces, its fall Pisces. Neither benefic nor malefic, it takes on the nature of the planets it meets, and it joins the day sect as a morning star, rising before the Sun, and the night sect as an evening star.

Its gifts are curiosity, wit, adaptability and skill with words and hands. Its difficulties are restlessness, scattered attention, and a cleverness that talks round a matter rather than through it.

In practice

• Retrograde periods come three or four times a year, about three weeks each. As transits they are popularly linked to delays and second thoughts, and are often used for revising rather than launching. About one person in five is born with Mercury retrograde, read as a mind that turns things over before it speaks.
• With the Sun Mercury can make no major aspect but the conjunction, and it is often combust; with Venus, never more than about 74° away, it never reaches a square.
• By house it shows where the mind is busiest: in the 3rd, messages, study and neighbours; in the 10th, a career built on words or trade.

Across traditions

• Chinese astronomy calls it 水星 Shuǐxīng, the Water star, after the five phases.
• Indian astrology names it Budha, son of the Moon in myth, and also exalts it in Virgo.
• Human Design makes Mercury communication: its gate shows what someone is here to say.

Origin and history

Babylon linked the planet to Nabu, god of scribes and wisdom. The Greeks called it Stilbon, “the gleaming one”, and gave it to Hermes, messenger of the gods and patron of travellers, merchants and thieves. Ptolemy tied it to the reasoning part of the soul, Vettius Valens to education, letters and commerce, and William Lilly drew the mercurial type as quick, curious and talkative. The Roman Mercurius gave his name to the day dies Mercurii, the French mercredi, and to the metal mercury.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune takes Mercury from the Swiss Ephemeris (DE441): its apparent position seen from the centre of the Earth, in the tropical zodiac. It is marked retrograde whenever its daily motion runs backwards, stationary within about a day of a station, with the station’s exact moment, and swift or slow against its mean motion of about 1°23′ a day.

For its sect, Ulune looks at which side of the Sun it stands: behind the Sun in the zodiac, it rises first and is a morning star, of the day; ahead of it, it is an evening star, of the night. The calendar dates Mercury’s stations, sign changes and exact aspects to the minute.

Correspondences