Tiny Mercury, scarcely bigger than our Moon, zips around Sun every 88 days. This fast moving speck, almost lost in Sun's glare, seems a lightweight compared to other planets. Next to beautiful Venus, red adventure beckoning Mars, and the enormous gas giants in their stately orbs, this midget appears insignificant. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Mercury's orbit marks the outer circumference of Sun itself. Mercury can be seen as the spatially final, and only permanent, sunspot. Sunspots are cooling regions on the solar surface where magnetic forces organize themselves into giant whirlpools descending into the fiery interior. Mercury is where light flooding out into the exterior void circles in on itself and materializes as the solar system's first world.

Sun channels an ecstatic outpouring of a spiritual Reality behind all manifestation. Mercury's path around it defines a standing wave where Sun's urge to be encounters nonbeing, the void. The shock of contrast between infinite potency and utter emptiness generates an electric current of consciousness. Mercury's orbital movement spins that current into a vibration or amplitude of light. Its physical body grounds that pulse into a specific point of illumination. Mercury serves as an energy carrier or photon: a wavelength of potential focused into a spark of actual realization. It englobes Sun's energy surge into a particle of knowledge.

Perception emerges from clarity of difference. Mercury itself embodies that: a dense solid ball circling a flaring eruption of fire. Mercury narrows Sun's incandescence to a laser spotlight: our star's door of perception into the void through which it moves and the galaxy of which it is a part. As it circles Sun Mercury expresses that inconceivable Will's multitude of truth viewing perspectives. These are charted by its position in an astrological chart.

Mercury functions as the central organizing principle of consciousness. By position and aspect it illuminates what type of awareness drives one's psyche. The quality, intensity, sophistication of a mind cannot be charted by astrology. Its orientation can be. Look to Mercury.

Mercury describes the distinct type of intelligence by which one recognizes and responds to reality. Mercury portrays how it works, what it emphasizes. What one thinks about and why.

Mercury describes an internal mental map. It articulates attitudes and aptitudes. How one organizes the 'blooming buzzing confusion' of raw life. It classifies various aspects of reality and provides a criteria, program, protocol by which to manage them. Mercury's overall intelligence coordinates all other planetary faculties. It describes a basic skill set: the type of perception, reasoning and communication one employs. Mercury acts like a conductor in an orchestra: it did not write the music (Sun: purpose), nor does it play an instrument (planets). It integrates these factors, networks them into a coherent ensemble.

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