Mercury in Scorpio… for Two Months?

10.2.06


Ready to dive deeper, to uncover the meat-and-potatoes of what isn't being said?

All set to cut through the niceties and drill into the messier, meaner and not-so-pretty parts of reality?

Well, even if you aren't fully prepared, your mind is rarin' to go there… to those riskier places, where uncomfortable sensations could arise from what's unearthed. But the promise of what's on the other side—a powerful release and renewal, a transformational ecstasy, fearless living—makes it all worthwhile. This painfully pleasurable (or is pleasurably painful?) core is what makes life interesting.

No need to rush straight into the abyss, though… and thank goodness for that. You've got some time to align your words and ideas with the courage and drive to express them. Mercury has moved into Scorpio, where it'll stay for over two months.

Typically, Mercury (the planet of conceptualization, communication, and transmission) spends only about three weeks or so in a sign, before zipping onto the next. Thus, a stay in Scorpio more than double than usual length is certainly noteworthy. This expanded span results from Mercury's upcoming retrograde (Oct 28-Nov 17), during which time it appears to move backwards.

Mercury in Scorpio is rarely satisfied with superficial understandings. This is the sign of psychological wisdom, after all. Scorpio likes to know what makes people tick—and isn't afraid to push against the limits of politeness on its quest to figure it out. In Scorpio, Mercury acts as our personal private investigator, exploring the rifts and chasms in our incomplete stories. Sometimes, PIs must pose unpleasant questions or raise controversial issues… and do so without attracting much notice, or their cover is blown.

Scorpios love a good mystery—both probing into others' and protecting their own. While Mercury in Scorpio may push us to slyly poke into our colleagues' and cohorts' business, it also inspires us to maintain an impenetrable poker-face coating over ours.

We've all got our secrets. And during this two-month Mercury in Scorpio period, plenty of them will be floating around under the surface. Just as you may be holding your cards close to your chest, many other people probably are too. Don't assume anything. If you want to know, you'll have to ask… then, scan their response with your internal bullshit detector. Mercury in Scorpio, alas, is a skillful liar.

This Scorpionic Mercury also doesn't shy away from comments that sting… though it's up to us how we want to wield this power. Because Scorpio is a master of human nature, it knows just where to hit us so we really feel it. Used maliciously, this is a brutal energy that can root out our most sensitive spots, then play 'em against us. It's just this type of nastiness that gives Scorpios their bad reputation as manipulators.

The positive expression of Mercury in Scorpio hits just as deep, but with the intention to heal rather than harm. Benevolent Scorpios realize that they can enhance their personal power by helping empower others ('everyone wins!'), instead of battling them for dominance. When they brandish their stinging remarks, it's to wake us up… to encourage us to deal with our least flattering crap, so we transform ourselves into fuller individuals. Mercury in Scorpio bestows the intellectual toughness needed to tackle our most difficult shadow sides—and to call others on theirs—in order to duke it out toward an ultimate catharsis.

Of course, the brazen disrespect for verbal appropriateness that characterizes this Mercury placement has another titillating side effect: an intensification of passion. Mercury in Scorpio, with all its innate psychological intuitiveness, is great at sniffing out what'll get us hot and bothered. This is the astro-energy of a dirty talker… dirty, that is, in all the best ways. What better time to broach the envelope-pushing topic of 'forbidden' yearnings and 'sinful' desires? Forbidden and sinful says who?

As I said, it might take a little while to get fully into Mercury in Scorpio's unabashedly penetrating mental groove… in part because of the still-quite-strong influence of the Sun, Venus and Mars in cordial, considerate Libra. Though our minds and mouths may be primed to dispense with friendly formalities, the overall mood is still Libran—courteous, conciliatory, and better safely surface-level than sorry. In gradually attuning to the more probing tone of Mercury in Scorpio, we may have to spend some time tiptoeing, gently and congenially, toward our targets.

But in about three weeks from now, the shift to Scorpio intensity will come on, fast and furious. Over the course of only a few days, the Sun, Venus and Mars will all move together into Scorpio, conjoining each other in a super-concentrated burst of Scorpiosity. On Oct 23-24, when the Moon joins in, there will be six planets and luminaries in Scorpio, all at once. I'm sure I'll mention this again later, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Plus, during this same period, Mercury will conjoin Jupiter—an aspect that bloats our words and ideas to grandiose proportions, for better and worse—for the first of three peaks. For now, let's just say this will cast a culminating effect over all the possibilities for interpersonal heating-up that've been quietly simmering under the surface all year. In the end, though, the complicating truths will come out, likely with baldfaced bombast, as the final Mercury-Jupiter conjunction falls in Sagittarius.