Using Mercurial energy: Practical Astrology 101

Virgo is the second sign that's ruled by Mercury and it talks about revisiting that information, revising and organizing your information. Virgo also talks about extracting the valuable information and disposing of the rest. If Gemini is a book that is full of information, Virgo is going through and highlighting the most important information that's going to be on the test.

Virgo is also the sign that rules employment, labor, and acts of service. So Mercury also rules over service and employment. So, Mercury transits–both the sign placement and the aspects or the angles that are formed with other planets–are going to come into play when you are writing and communicating your ideas, revising those ideas.

Anytime a conversation involves employment, labor, or acts of service, the mercury placement is going to play a role. In addition to labor and employment, Mercury also rules maintenance of your home, your chores and laundry and cooking and cleaning. A lot of people who have money outsource these tasks to employees, service workers, people who are literally servers, people who work in hospitality. People who do cooking or cleaning or any work that helps other people maintain their own home–that is the energy of Mercury and Virgo.

So let's say you want to get a new job. You want a new daily routine that encompasses a larger scope of responsibility. Now, Jupiter is the planet that rules increasing the size and scope of something. Expanding it. So if you want to expand the roles of your day job, then Mercury transiting your natal Jupiter might be a good time to apply for a new position that has an expanded set of responsibilities (and an expanded paycheck to match).

Let's say you're a writer and you write professionally for a living. You may find it beneficial to focus your attention solely on writing whenever the moon conjoins mercury. That is when our emotions are going to be aligned with our thoughts, and we are going to be able to communicate our ideas more effectively as the moon helps to draw those ideas out of our consciousness.

Or when the moon is in a sextile, or a trine to Mercury, the energy flow of your ideas and your ability to communicate those ideas is going to be enhanced.

When the moon is in a square or opposition to Mercury, these are hard aspects and you are more likely to have emotions that conflict with someone's communication styles or the thoughts that they're expressing. There may be more emotional tension in these conversations that either leads to miscommunications or prevents the message from being communicated as clearly as it could be.

If you are a writer and you're looking to use Mercury transits, going to improve your writing Using Mercury in Gemini, which is coming up pretty soon. These are the dates. June 3-17, 2024. That's the perfect transit period to get your thoughts down onto paper for the first time. To write out that first draft, get those outlines kind of formulating.

Whereas Mercury's transit through Virgo, which will happen a little bit later, here are the dates for that (Sep 9-26, 2024). That is a good time to revise that content. You know, trim the fat away and really edit and perfect the writing and the messaging as much as you can. Trimming all of the excess, being as concise and precise with your diction as you can, is Mercury's expression in Virgo.

Let's say, for example, you signed a contract that you didn't really properly read and you misunderstood it and now you want to get out of this contract. It was a bad contract and you're looking to annul the contract in some way. Your best bet is if you're trying to file with a court in order to annul a marriage or, you know, file a petition to have a contract voided. A quit claim notice, or whatever it is… Filing that claim when the transiting mercury is in a square with where Mercury was when you originally signed the contract can help break you out of that contract, using that hard energy of the square aspect to help you break out of the contract.

Whereas if you sign the contract when the transiting Mercury is in a square with your natal point, Mercury placement, then this contract is likely to cause difficulties and hardships and tension and stress for you in the future. But if you feel that your life is really stagnant and you're looking for something to spice things up and get things moving, a square aspect can actually be a good thing. It might be viewed by some people as tension or stress. Other people might view that same energy as excitement, as this fire being lit underneath your ass motivating you to actually do something.

The people who feel like diamonds are made under pressure and they work best under pressure might enjoy that tension as a source of motivation. So it really does depend on what you're looking for and what astrology energy aligns with what you're looking for.

Remember, astrology is a matrix with a bunch of different layers, so you can apply practical astrology with mercury in different ways.

You can use these transits like this, but we can also look at the planetary day. Wednesday or miércoles in Spanish is associated with Mercury. It is Mercury day. So you can tap into the practical energy of Mercury by choosing to do house cleaning and chores and laundry on Wednesdays. Setting time aside on Wednesdays to do a little bit of reading and studying and revising through all of your ideas and your notes.

And realistically, Wednesday is a really good day to just put your head down and get into the work. All of the busy work, the paperwork, the boring bullshit, checking your mail, making sure your bills are paid. Wednesday is a great day to take care of all of your administrative duties. Getting over that hump day through all of those boring, monotonous tasks really clears Thursday, or Jupiter Day, to be much more enjoyable and set the stage for a relaxing and enjoyable weekend.

We can add another layer to this matrix and look at the planetary hour. Every single day is broken down into 24 planetary hours that are each ruled by one of the seven traditional planets. So you can set aside Mercury hour in your day to write down your ideas, to go through your to do lists and make sure that your tasks are all being completed, using Mercury hour as an hour to read and focus on absorbing new information, or finally answering emails and answering texts and responding to messages that have gone overlooked.

So these are just some of the ways that you can use Mercury energy in a practical manner.