Stitch in Trine — Mercury’s Story Arc

Beginning today, and straight on till Monday, Mercury will stitch the zodiac’s earthy bits with a measure of water as if to weave a story. The tale will be told from the fixed earth of Taurus, where Mercury is making good time. The story’s arc will begin today with Mercury sextile to Pisces’ own Neptune and conclude on Monday with the same aspect to Neptune’s piscine neighbor, Chiron. In between, Mercury will thread a sequential grand earth trine to a Mars long of Virgo and a Pluto even longer of Capricorn. For the next several days, you may even find some of the same elements woven into your own story.

Astrology by Len Wallick

Fire, earth, air and water — the elements of ancient natural science, are integral to the story of western astrology. Indeed, those elements, arranged in a wheel, provided the scaffold upon which the sky’s patterns and cycles were made intelligible and relevant to life on Earth.

As the planet that most closely corresponds to your mind and its matters, Mercury’s annual trip through Taurus is always an occasion to be mindful of earthly life. That is especially so this year. Mercury’s occupation of Taurus, only a day old, is its first visit to an earth sign since January. That’s a long time for an object that usually moves from one elemental energy field to another every few weeks. Now that the innermost planet has finally come to ground, it’s a favorable opportunity to possess its potential.

Possession is fundamental to what Taurus is. When you are aware of your body as yours, or get a sense of what your body needs, and have the occasion to both comprehend and apprehend the world physically, that’s Taurus talking. With Mercury having attained Taurus, it’s a good time to both attain and express a coherent story that begins and ends with what happens when elemental water supports elemental earth.

As part of the ancient wisdom of astrology, the signs associated with elemental water and elemental earth are arranged so as to be in support of each other. That arrangement is a sextile and it honors the relationship of earth and water in the real world. Our planet and its location provide water with a place to exist and cycle through all of its forms. In return, water provides the final ingredient that converts dry, arid land to bloom and bounty. It is a system of mutual exchange and support, part of what a sextile means. Your body is part of that system, being made of a little earth and a lot of water. Ironically, it is also the physical activities of our kind that have threatened the system’s sustainability. That’s how Neptune begins Mercury’s story.

Beginning tentatively in 2011, and commencing for the long run this year, Neptune’s nascent stay in Pisces recalls its discovery in the 19th century, shortly after which was Neptune’s last tour of Pisces. As of 150 years ago, humanity was industriously working towards a planetary dominion that had been part of its story since the patriarchal paradigm became dominant. The term “manifest destiny” justified the atrocities and exploitation of that era. Mercury’s sextile to Neptune today initiates a new story that brings home a realization that the destiny we manifested has put our lives in peril. In the days to follow, Mercury’s earth trine aspects will serve as a symbolic elaboration.

Another inherent wisdom of astrology is the distribution of elemental modalities. Each of the four symbolic elements is shared by three signs, and those three signs are equidistant on the zodiac circle, as are the points of an equilateral triangle, hence the word trine. As is the case in tangible reality, energy is conducted most efficiently when it can flow continuously through the same element. The concept of unimpeded flow is thus a big part of what a trine aspect means. From the fixed earth of Taurus, Mercury will find flow with the mutable earth of Virgo through a trine with Mars.

Mars normally proceeds from one modality to another every two months or so, but a relatively rare retrograde cycle has kept the red planet confined to Virgo since November of last year with seven weeks to go. That confinement has served to focus the Martian energy in a purposeful manner. While not always comfortable, the focus has served its discriminating purpose. Mercury’s earth trine to Mars will lend its flow to a mindful examination of how that purpose has included a growing awareness of how vulnerable all systems, both natural and contrived, have truly become in our time. The consequences of that vulnerability will flow in turn from Mercury’s subsequent trine to Pluto.

Pluto’s nature is that of the inevitable, which is change. Pluto moves slowly and during the years and years it takes to transit the realm of a single elemental modality, the certainty of transformation is revealed regardless of any attempt to forestall the process. Now entering its fourth year of a Capricorn continuity that has more than a decade to go, Pluto’s message is becoming clear. Capricorn’s cardinal earth is the realm of material manifestation and Pluto has put us on notice to the effect that even the most enduring systems are on the brink of a cyclical metamorphosis. That does not mean wanton destruction or absolute chaos so long as we look at the whole, which is the gist of Chiron’s conclusive chapter.

Mercury’s story through aspect will conclude on Monday. Just an hour after Mercury’s trine to Pluto, the story’s arc will descend back to Pisces and a sextile with Chiron. That conclusion will take place while all of Mercury’s preceding aspects to Neptune, Mars and Pluto are still within functional orb, effectively revealing the entire composition holistically, supporting the potential for a revelation of your own. You can, through the auspices of astrology, look ahead to that now and prepare yourself for what has in fact been long in coming on the whole and, on the energetic level, thoroughly examined with emerging and inevitable, but not necessarily dreadful, consequences.

Most of all, the next several days, observed and comprehended from astrology’s characteristic perception of a fixed earth, will provide an opportunity to both mentally perceive and physically grasp where your own experience fits in with a very broad perspective. That perspective is expressed by and through a continuous thread which leaves none of us without connection to its story.

Offered In Service               

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

6 thoughts on “Stitch in Trine — Mercury’s Story Arc”

  1. Len, thank you for sharing your talents and wisdom. This, and all of your readings i have recently now had the privilege and pleasure of reading here, as said by the others truly are a work in/of art! Mentally, emotionally and visually stimulating, yet so simply bridging a divide. I will be studying this one for a while! Thank you-

  2. At the time I wrote you, I note a trio between mercury, and two asteroids Phaethon son of Sun Helios and Vesta considered as sacred to the Neptune sextile torch a spiritual meaning is this global meeting 🙂

  3. so appropriate. finishing a book about storytellers (the Hakawati) that’s taken me awhile to get through and today was pondering how to release a story very deep in my heart that’s related. then did a card reading this afternoon about earth and water and the outcome was the Bard, reminding me how he appears “to help you stay in tune with All-That-Is. You are music, your story is sung in the heavens”! thank you kind sir, for being the bard that you are. ♥☮♫

  4. Len, I am glad to be part of system, and part of our Story. In part because of Be’s note yesterday (that the Universe has compassion for us though-we-would-undo-her) I find myself today able to sink into your weaving like a child into a warm blanket at nightfall.

    Add to this Tarot lesson about remembering to look to the dark side for tell-tale hearts (well, it’s about 8 of cups, but you know – a little flexibility) and I am brought into full-story wherein my personal (natal chart) part is surely connected to the bigger picture are we are indeed All One.

    Garbled, but brain is elsewhere. Heart is totally here however!

  5. Wow, what a story Len! Astrology is a perfect language for storytellers if they have the vision to pull the threads together. This story is simple and straightforward, yet woven ever so cleverly with just one thread so as to be almost invisible. Yet you have picked out that thread and followed it to reveal the continuity of pattern; embellished it with a world-wide and historical perspective; made it one-size-fits-all, yet tailored to each of us. You show-off! The combination of water and earth, not in the sense of chaos but as complimentary elements that provide “mutual support”, and starting with a punch of Neptune creativity allows us to make it our own unique story.

    I had seen these aspects when focusing on Venus and Saturn’s almost-perfect trine and wove a picture story that included the earth trinity in a somewhat supportive role for Venus. You have provided us, through the power of your intuition, a picture story that stands on its own. You prove that astrology is an art and you are an artist. Ever grateful.
    be

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