Mercury enters Capricorn Friday, February 3, 2017 on the same day as the First Quarter Moon in Aries and the collective conversation changes tempo. Mercury will leave the domain of Jupiter, the sign of its detriment, and enter Capricorn, the domain of Saturn.
All sign changes and transits listed in sidereal.
Mercury in Capricorn: February 3 – February 22
Mercury Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter in Virgo, had the news cycle moving rapidly. In true mercurial fashion, the onslaught of stories and the scattered pace of events made it difficult to know what was important.
Mercury gathers and organizes information, calculates, and works with the hands. In Sagittarius Mercury answers to Jupiter and is forced to fit the information into a larger narrative and understand the deeper implications. Sagittarius often runs hot and cold with passion, zeal than apathy. Mystery attracts Sagittarius and sets them on a path of discovery, seeking. But with so much information passing through it’s difficult to discern the importance of every message and story and to know just what one has found.
Mercury becomes more calculated and grounded in Capricorn. Rather than being overwhelmed with information and trying to piece it together, Mercury is systematic and methodical here. The messenger leaves behind the task of synthesizing info and begins to organize it in a hierarchy.
Mercury in Capricorn is about method and praxis. Structures of thought, organized communication, and calculative interpretation of information provide a means to process and translate our perceptions. Here, Hermes answers to Saturn which is newly in Sagittarius.
Mercury Answers to Saturn
Saturn in Sagittarius, so far, has meant a collective means to establishing order and structure with immigration and religion in the US. Ruled by a debilitated Jupiter in Virgo, power structures and government actors have been shortsighted. Claiming that only 109 people were directly affected, it shows the weakness of Jupiter in Virgo.
In that sign, Jupiter uses numbers, data, facts, and calculations to synthesize info and see the bigger picture. But it lacks good judgement, empathy, and truth. The implications for a singular circumstance inevitably has a much larger impact that 109 inconvenienced people could ever show.
Jupiter’s debilitation in Virgo makes it difficult for us to see how current events and our present circumstances affect us in the long term, the big picture. In times like these, the fragments don’t always reflect the whole. Or maybe we can’t perceive the whole as accurately as we think we can.
Mercury and Jupiter will be in a trine relationship with one way reception (Mercury receives Jupiter being in the sign of its domicile). The trine shows a willingness and opportunity to work together. And the reception means Mercury will accept whatever Jupiter offers. Jupiter is offering a fragmentation of the truth and Mercury will take those numbers, those facts and figures and put them in hierarchical order. Perhaps the most pressings themes will emerge as what we need to focus on what’s.