Mercury, God of Commerce
The modern rulership of Mercury
Published September 6, 2023.
Viewer question: “This makes sense, but how can Mercury rule cars when cars weren’t a thing when Astrology was invented?”
It's a great question. I'm happy to answer with a little more detail. So Roman Mercury or Greek Hermes is known most commonly as the messenger of the gods. He's responsible for relaying messages between the heavens, earth, and the underworld. The wings pictured on his helmet and his feet allow him to deliver these messages quickly.
And actually, mercury is nicknamed Quicksilver because the element mercury, like in the thermometers, looks like silver, but it moves quickly because it's in liquid format, room temperature. So this is where Mercury's rulership of information and communication come into play. The information that is delivered within a message is under Mercury's rulership.
In ancient times, this information was either word of mouth, the element air, or Gemini expression of Mercury; or written documents, physical paper records, that is the Virgo or Earth expression of Mercury. In modern times, Mercury's rulership of data and information has also evolved to include the data that makes our phones and computers work.
Gemini is the sign that rules binary, so it's either black or white, yes or no, 1 or 0–so the binary code falls under Gemini's rulership. But Mercury doesn't just rule over exchange of information, he rules exchange in general, and that includes exchange of goods and services. He's known as the God of Commerce.
When you think about trade and exchange of goods and commerce, one of the most important things to facilitate trade is access to the trade, which is done through roads. I always think of the Silk Road, which completely revolutionized trade in Asia. So in ancient times, these roads were traveled by people with carts and buggies and carriages, but in modern days, those roads are occupied by cars.
Not only does Mercury rule our daily routine and our day jobs, but also getting to that job. The commute is very Mercurial, especially considering how liminal that is. You're not at home. You're not at work. You're in the process of changing location. So Mercury rules over all local travel within your community as opposed to Jupiter who rules long distance travel, traveling across the world.
Another really great example of this is the Michelin star restaurant program, which was created by the Michelin tire company, not only to increase commerce and get people to go out to restaurants and spend their money, but also to wear down people's tires faster because they're constantly driving to these restaurants–so they'd have to replace their tires sooner.
So that's kind of the method or thought process behind Mercury's rulership over cars. Let me know if you want me to explain some of the modern rulerships of Neptune and Saturn. Let me know in the comments and I'll make some more videos explaining.
