The Mercury
In astrology Mercury is the prince. Catapulted by Venus' gravitational field, our spacecraft bends its flight path by some 40 degrees and races on toward Mercury, the innermost and smallest planet in the solar system. A year or so later we reach this small planet which has only about a third the diameter of earth. We approach it so fast and it looms so swiftly that we almost feel vertigo. Our earth lies 93 million miles behind yet it is still a very bright point of light. The sun is now only 43 million miles away and it appears twice as large as when viewed from earth. The surface of Mercury filling our view is a rare sight, never clearly seen from earth. Now we see it with perfect clarity, no atmospheric effects block the vista. We are only about 600 miles from the surface, and our eyes can distinguish objects as small as 1,700 feet across. Everywhere we see evidence that this rocky cinder has been cratered by comets and asteroids, and it is not hard to imagine that it was once scorched by tremendous heat. Would there be life on Mercury? Conditions do not seem at all favorable and no one seriously suggests it.
Mercury is the planet of mind, reason, and intellect. Its symbol is made up of the crow of matter, the circle of the sun, and the crescent of the moon. Mind gets its first start through receiving an impact from the physical world. This impact sets up an emotion in the consciousness (moon). The emotion is then transmitted through the fire of the life of the sun into action: the total result is called mind.
When Mercury, or the mind, begins to play upon the instincts of man, progress starts. For example, when it plays upon the nutritive instinct, it begins to find new ways and means of cooking food. When Mercury plays on the instinct of pugnacity, man begins to make clubs, swords, and armor and from there has "progressed" to the terrifying weapons of today. Mercury of itself is neither moral nor unmoral. It is amoral.
Mercury implies intellectual movement and progress. The mind sets the human species apart from the animal, which acts from instinct. Mercury distinguished the progressive man from the unprogressive, who can do only what he has been trained to do in his youth. Instinct is an inborn gift and it comes from the moon.
Mercury rules two signs and two houses. It rules Gemini and the third house and Virgo and the sixth house. It is sometimes referred to as sexless but nonetheless some astrologers say it is masculine when ruling Gemini, and feminine when ruling Virgo.
Family – Cousins, maternal uncles.
Notable – In Uttar-Kalamrita, Kalidas attributes to Mercury some other special significations: maternal grand-father, and younger coborns and or brothers and sisters.
Notable – In a woman’s life Mercury represents, if afflicted by Saturn a husband with less or no sexual virility.
Society – Mercury represents knowledge and in modern life, business. So this planet has many great significations of very wide variety. Mathematicians, sculptors, astrologers, astronomers, scholars, speakers, writers, men who know the secrets of mantras and yantras. In modern age, Mercury is the financial expert, accountant, auditor, journalist, newspaper man, paper merchant etc.
Notable – The association of Mercury with certain planets in some rashis from the lagna is the clue to finding it out. Lot of new researches will have to be done in this area.
