Planetary Personalities: Mercury

In October of 2024, I began working with an incredible illustrator and visual artist, Alex Raguso (@crumb_eater on insta), to transmute my written descriptions of the 7 primary planets into a series of Tarot Card style illustrations. We spent months talking through mythology, etymology, and astrology to find the cultural common threads. We did draft after draft of both the text and the illustrations until these cards were born. I am grateful and proud and hope this collaboration helps contextualize why celestial bodies and their rich cultural histories have always, and will always be celebrated as important to human's understanding of themselves and their power. Below, you will find the fruits of that labor in all their HQ glory. We posted version on social media meant to poison AI, so please refrain from reposting the unpoisoned version in this post anywhere else. I've also included the collage I made after writing each planetary profile at the very end. Next up, Mercury ∞

Mercury: Rules Gemini and Virgo

When I think of Mercury, I think of back and forth as a motion. I think about the relationship between here and there, two words almost identical except for the sides they sit on being opposite. Mercury in Greek Mythology is the God Hermes, the messenger God tasked with delivering godly mail. This idea of carrying a message back and forth is integral to the planet’s identity. Mercury loves to go back and forth over distance and over details. It believes the message is important and so is the messenger. There is a joy in connecting the dots, whether that be processing information, or literally connecting two people through a messaging. Mercury understands the world through response and review. Every “re” is ruled by Mercury. When you go back and forth again and again, you perfect the art of the pivot, retracing thoughts, steps, and patterns. It is a planet of adaptable energy, every new bit of information is integrated and executed in a changed direction.

If you’ve ever heard someone described as “mercurial”, it usually is meant to say they are prone to sudden change. Sometimes we mistake this as being unpredictable, but true Mercurial qualities only change when there is new information to review and integrate. This can be sudden, but is about as predictable as the fact that new information can arise at any time and make us change how we move. Mercury is a planet of adaptation. And when we learn to adapt, we must store that information somewhere so that the process of changing quickly gets easier and easier. Mercury is the planet of reflexes and muscle memory, the physical way to hold this adaptation energy and recall it quickly and unconsciously. It perfects the pivot by practicing it so much, it becomes a part of their very being. There are other ways to hold Mercury’s knowledge of adaptation besides in the muscles. It is also housed in the way we work, our processes, procedures, and principles.

The astrological archetypes of Mercury are the virgin and the twins. Both of which represent the many ways we use adaptability to function. The Mercurial archetypes are not animals, but humans who have practices beyond instinct. People often find the presence of the virgin to be a difficult archetype to decipher, but if we understand Mercury as a planet invested in the back and forth of a process/the way we work, the virgin refers to “work ethic”. We don’t call it ethic for nothing. There is something devout and dedicated about Mercury’s representation of work. It does not work for money or reputation, but because it believes in the inherent value of committing oneself entirely to something. Virgo believes how you work says something about you. It believes in purpose, a calling, and vocation. It cares about how the body takes on work. This is how Mercury processes its energy through the element of earth, this is what the virgin archetype represents.

The twins represent the connection created from a back and forth. The relationship that occurs when we revisit a connection. Eternal built in play date/tennis match/ thought partner. The twins represent a good volley that requires two people that are matched enough to keep it going. Virgo is the message and the vessel it is held inside, Gemini is the messenger: the person who knows how to carry the conversation to a specific end and the power in being able to translate a message depending on the recipient. The twins' relationship to information is collaborative, they share together, spill together, and fill in each other's narrative gaps. Their power is in providing feedback from a source so similar to your own, you can trust the information. Anything sent back with notes, is probably good advice.

Mercury is resourceful and uses every tool at its disposal to get to the point. It understands the value of a devout relationship to work and builds an ethic out of it. When there’s stagnancy, it adapts by returning to the source, and reviewing the information with slightly different eyes.