We often mention the big three as the main indicators: the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant, with its ruler, aka “Chart Ruler”.

The Sun and the Moon are the King and the Queen, the Chart Ruler is their Prime Minister.

I have never heard anyone make a big fuss of Mercury, unless Mercury happens to hold a special position as Chart Ruler for instance, or as a dominant planet.

It’s absolutely normal actually. Mercury is a servant. When you go to the restaurant, the waiter is supposed to be there when you need them and to disappear into the background when you don’t. At home, as long as everything is working, you don’t think of the electrician or the plumber; your life doesn’t revolve around the cables and the pipes.

Same with Mercury in the chart. Its best role is to remain invisible.

(Please keep in mind that what I am describing in terms of outer life is also a metaphorical description of how the energies combine within ourselves. As within so without and vice versa.)

The Gemini side of Mercury’s role is to connect, interpret, translate, pass messages etc. It’s a plumber or an electrician “in the air” so to speak. Words are pipes in which meaning flows.

If you read Dostoevsky you know the author: it’s Dostoevsky. The ideal translator gives you Dostoevsky in your own language. He himself is transparent. You can forget you don’t understand Russian.

The author himself disappears behind the world he describes. You don’t read Dostoevsky to learn about his health, but to be told a good story about life and people.

Mercury wants to be invisible. But this of course is an ideal. A translation may be better than another. Various translations may have various qualities: one may stick closely to the original, but the style suffers. Another one is really delightful to read - but at times betrays the intention of the author. One may evoke the feelings of the characters wonderfully, and be rather approximative when it comes to facts… You see where I am coming.

In the chart, the co-authors are the Sun, the Moon and the other planets. Mercury gives them a voice. Its Virgo side gives them hands.

You’re going to tell me: “Wait! Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are Gemini! They are not of the discreet kind, if you ask me!”

We should never confuse energies and people.

Nobody, not even Boris Johnson, is a pure Gemini. Gemini is an energy that facilitates. If you mix ninety nine per cent of Gemini powder and one percent of sand, this one per cent is going to benefit from such a power of communication that it will make you believe that this grain of sand is a Great Oasis in the middle of the Sahara, with caravans of camels coming and going, and storytellers to entertain one thousand and one nights. You will be talked into the Oriental Magic. When it works well, you don’t see that it’s mostly Gemini powder.

Ideally, Mercury should be odourless and colourless. In reality, intermediaries and servants twist the messages and carry out orders in their own style. If you know how to speak to the receptionist, you increase your chances to meet the boss.

The Ascendant is also an intermediary: it is the interface between the inner and outer worlds. In traditional astrology, the First House is where Mercury rejoices.

To explore Mercury’s role further, an example is the clearest way to go. I’m thinking of someone who has Gemini Rising and Mercury in Pisces.

As Ascendant ruler, Mercury becomes a Very Important Planet. The translator or the interpreter are supposed to be as invisible as possible… except when the time comes that we need them!

Gemini Risings play a role of connector and facilitator in their environment, and within their own mind. You may go to them for information and news. If you’re not too quick, they will come to you.

So here is Mercury coming forward and greeting you in Pisces style. She says Hello and you feel an atmosphere. With some people, you need to break the ice. With Mercury in Pisces, the ice melts effortlessly. You get a feeling similar to a cat rubbing its head on your leg. It’s sweet. You try to grab the animal and it escapes. But then it comes back. The boundaries are not too clear, and may change from a moment to the next. You need to feel to know what’s going on. It’s mutable energy all the way down.

André Barbault says there are two types of Gemini, one moving around with his thinking, the other with his sensitivity. Mercury in Pisces will incline the Gemini Rising to express as the latter type. It has what it takes to flirt around if in the mood.

A Gemini Rising with a solid Mercury in Capricorn would be much more formal, in whatever codes apply. You would be clearly shown how things work.

Mercury in Pisces feels you. You may not know you’ve been communicating your own psychic atmosphere. The cat may sit on your lap, stay in the room or disappear. It looks like the guardian of an Egyptian temple. You’ve got a message from the Gods. Don’t be stupid, understand without being told.

Mercury in Pisces can talk though. It may love to picture what it’s telling you with sensitivity. It may sing songs and write poetry. Mercury is said to be in exile in Pisces. Poetry is the art of using words to evoke what can’t be said with words, which is precisely the world of Pisces. A planet in exile is confronted with a challenge to its own nature. But it’s not doomed. It might succeed!

I know a Gemini Mercury who spent most of her professional life translating scientific texts. It’s not an easy job, but it’s much more like home for Mercury.

Mercury’s analytical tendencies are challenged in a fluid world. It’s easy to know the difference between a blue pill and a red pill, but what if you get an infinite variety of shades of violet and so many pills scattered on the floor?

Listen to the intonations of a voice, observe the non verbal cues when someone is speaking… What do they convey exactly? Mercury in Pisces knows, and it may be able to interpret your dreams. At least they may understand them.

Exploring the beautiful potential of a placement shouldn’t make us forget that if the placement suffers from difficult squares or oppositions, is ruled by a planet who is itself challenged, rules over planets with issues… we may get the flaws instead of the qualities, until the lessons are learned. Instead of poetry we may get nonsense, sentimentality, suggestibility, confusion. The double nature of Gemini combined with the double nature of Pisces may become somehow incoherent. Feelings may pretend to be logic, and two plus two may be five after all.

But no worries, lessons are there to be learned.

If we were reading a whole chart, the next question would be: what is this Pisces Mercury, in charge of interpreting?

The urge to take action and get things moving forward of an Aries Sun in the tenth house? Such a Sun is likely to give orders, how will a Pisces Mercury tell you that you’ve got to do as you are told? And what if it’s an Aquarius Sun, with great ideas to share with you in the seventh house, how will Mercury in Pisces interpret them? What is there is a Libra Moon in the mix, with a diplomatic but non negotiable need for fairness?

But these are other stories…

Jean-Marc

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The Sun is said to be the ego. The first house, defined by the Ascendant, is called the “House of Self.”

What is ego? For some people on a spiritual path, the “ego” is the obstacle. I don’t agree with this negative definition. In a psychological sense, the ego is simply our sense of identity, our sense of self. The symbol for the Sun is the dot at the centre of a circle and is one of the most powerful symbols. With this image, we can see the self at the centre.

Since both the Sun and Ascendant are connected to our sense of self, is there some sort of competition between the two?

Liz Greene says that it’s not possible to practice astrology without a philosophy. My philosophy is captured in a basic metaphysical statement: “We are spirits in the material world. The body is our vehicle.”

Since we are spirits, our natural environment is the spiritual world. When we are in the spiritual world, we have no birth chart, no Sun sign, and no Ascendant. The material world is life as we know it on Earth, where we live wearing bodies of flesh, surrounded with the natural world and human society. I believe we regularly reincarnate, and with my underlying philosophy and belief, I have imagined a metaphor. I visualize visiting the bottom of the sea — representative of life on earth and the material world. And the Ascendant, our body, is a submarine, and the Sun, who we really are at the core, our spirit, is the driver.

Imagine you’re planning to visit the bottom of the sea to see the beautiful fish. The sea is very deep, and you can’t go just as you are. There is lots of pressure deep down and you won’t be able to breathe. You need a vessel of some kind — so, you embark in a small one, a submarine.

When you reach the bottom of the sea, there are already many other submarines traveling about. Some, like you, are there to chase and enjoy the fish while others are there to study the ocean floor and the underwater rocks. Others are there to test the new submarine technology, while others are there to control the traffic.

You know that you are you and not a submarine. But to others, you appear as just another submarine. They see the colour and the shape of your submarine. They see your driving style. They see that your submarine gets very excited when there are fish, but that you don’t care much for rocks. You are not a submarine, but that is what the others see. You may even identify with your submarine personality so strongly that you forget life exists outside a submarine — that you are a spirit and there is a whole world beyond what is around you.

Now this may sound very like the Cartesian notion of the ghost in the machine, so please don’t forget that this is just a metaphor. Our bodies are not machines. Body, mind, and spirit are much more deeply intertwined than that. I would rather think of our bodies as extensions of ourselves rather than mere containers. But, hopefully the metaphor is good enough for my point. One day the body dies, and yet we survive. Once the submarine dies, our driving style — our incarnated personality — disappears as well.

This is how I understand the Ascendant and the first house. It is our “incarnated personality.” My view is consistent with what we know about houses: they are about the most material expression of energies. The Ascendant, Descendant, MC, and IC form what astrological tradition calls the Cross of Matter.

The way the submarine behaves at the bottom of the sea is an expression of the intentions of the driver. The submarine is not just a “mask” that hides the authentic being within. There are various types of submarines. In my own chart, Cancer is rising, a very sensitive sign. My submarine carries cameras, probes, and antennae. I’m able to sense the environment with great accuracy. This also makes me somewhat fragile. Please don’t shout in my sonar! I’m here to detect subtle vibrations.

I am driving this Cancerian type of submarine on a Scorpio expedition: my Sun placement. The purpose of this incarnation has something to do with confronting intense emotions, exploring the unconscious side of the mind, and other such matters. If my Sun were Scorpio and my Ascendant were Sagittarius, I would have a thicker skin; and I would confront intense emotions as an adventurer, stepping out of my comfort zone. With Cancer rising, the intensity comes to my home. I’m more like a scorpion hiding under a rock.

We usually say that the Ascendant is how we appear. Words are tricky. To appear means “to look like” — but it doesn’t only mean this. To appear means “to become visible.” The Sun becomes visible in the morning on the eastern horizon. Everything that rises appears in the east. We are spiritual beings. Spirits are invisible. We become visible thanks to our physical body. That’s our Ascendant.

We appeared for the first time when we were born. Planets conjunct to the Ascendant give indications about how we were born. People with Pluto on the Ascendant often had a difficult birth. It felt like a life or death moment. People with Saturn on the Ascendant may well have felt stuck from the start. If it were Jupiter or Venus, the birth experience was most probably far more easy going.

Psychological studies have shown that there is a correlation between how birth happened and how well people do later in life. First impressions and first moments always have a great impact. We appear not only as our body, but also through our behaviour, which is on the surface. If I’m being polite towards you, it’s behaviour. You can see that I’m being polite, but you don’t know why. Maybe I am a complete hypocrite. Maybe I am polite because I have something to sell and it would be foolish to be rude. Maybe I just wish to avoid trouble. But maybe I am genuinely treating you politely because I do respect and love you. What comes up to the surface may come from the depth of my heart. But, if I am a hypocrite or if I am playing poker, then I am using the Ascendant as a mask. We have this choice.

I’ve seen videos where psychologists analyse video recordings of people who are lying like, for instance, politicians. I am not saying that all politicians are lying, but surely some do at times. Looking closely, psychologists can see that the body language of liars betrays them. There are subtle clues. Everything comes up to the surface actually, in more or less obvious ways. However, even if everything comes to the surface, we are not able to show ourselves as we are deep within. We can’t expect people to plug themselves directly into us and perceive our soul with absolute clarity. Maybe a very gifted psychic can do that, but surely not every lover can.

The alternative to being psychically perceived is to express ourselves. Self-expression: this is what the Sun’s mission is. To ex-press literally means to push out. We need to be creative to express our inner spirit. The Ascendant is the way out. For instance, I just imagined a picture book with little submarines of various colours and shapes interacting at the bottom of the ocean. Even a child could understand what I mean, that’s my Cancer Ascendant.

Metaphors are always approximations for the sake of clarity. The Sun is also the central power, so you may imagine the driver of the submarine as being the power generator. Body, mind, and spirit are intimately connected.

I hope I have given you a few keys to imaginatively interpret your Sun–Ascendant combination.

Jean-Marc

This post has been published on the Mountain Astrologer: You can find it here

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Should we forget Mercury? Mercury in Pisces

Self or ego? What is the Ascendant?