Mercury: The Writer's Friend by Arlan Wise

We can think of Mercury as the planets’ little brother. He is often seen as less important when talking about the planets since he doesn’t have the power and reputation of the big boys. He is known by many names: Hermes, Thoth, the Lord of holy words, in Norse he is Loki, the Native Americans call him Coyote, He is Raven to the Inuit, and Lugas, (god of trade who gives things back and forth) to the Celts. The Hellenistic astrologers called him “the twinkling one”. Vedic mythology sees him as “the prince”. He is Jung’s puer aeternus, the perpetual youth. He has a quality of agelessness. Mercury wears many hats and has many jobs. He’s the guide between the worlds, the messenger between the gods and men, the lord of commerce, the patron of travelers, and the conductor of dreams. He was instrumental in alchemy and was thought to be able to transform base metals into gold, or transform human experience into a realization of pure consciousness. In this article, we’ll focus on Mercury as the writer’s friend and examine his role in and his effect upon communication.

Mercury is my final dispositor, as is so with many writers and authors and people who work with words. He rules five planets and two angles in my chart and I’ve gotten to know him well over the years. He sits with me when I write and he loves it when I teach writing workshops for astrologers, as I do at the OPA (Organization for Professional Astrology) retreats and in various places around the country. He always puts his two cents in and helps the aspiring participants with their writing.

In November 2008, I went on a wonderful trip to Tamil Nadu in southern India that was offered through Dennis Harness and Demetra George’s Ancient Oracles tours. Komilla Sutton, the Vedic astrologer, led the group of astrologers, along with Baskar, our cute Mercurial guide who comes from Madurai and speaks Tamil. He acted in Mercury’s role as translator and communicator for us. Baskar is a travel agent, a Mercury job. The trip was centered around visiting the Hindu temples that are dedicated to the planets. When we got to Mercury’s temple, the priests were living archetypes of Mercury – slim, asexual, youthful, beautiful, and willing to instruct us in Mercury’s rituals in their light and airy temple. They wore green lungis since green is Mercury’s color. I felt I was looking at Mercury in manifestation.

The Sanskrit word for Mercury is Budhi – Wisdom. Here is a description of him -

Dressed in green, with a green body, who has four arms, the incarnation of Vishnu, who is a yogi, whose vehicle is a lion with an elephant’s trunk, who carries a sword, shield, and book in his hands, the son of the Moon, with an emerald crest jewel on his head, making the gesture that gives boons, may divine Mercy ever grant us his grace.

Another way to look at Mercury is to think about quicksilver, one of Mercury’s names. Those of us of a certain age can remember the fun of playing with mercury. It used to be inside thermometers, and was often found in science class. It forms a shiny silver puddle which separates, comes together, slithers and coheres. Mercury is a liquid metal. It fits the image of Mercury as shape shifter. It’s also a poison – which adds to Mercury’s complexity.

We can also think of Mercury as the dresser who puts clothes on your thoughts. I got this image from my spiritual teacher Ram Dass. He used it when he started teaching again after his stroke. He said that thoughts are always there in the ether (and it’s true, when you have one of those, “why am I here?” moments, if you go back to where you thought the thought you often remember why you entered the next room and what you want to do there. The thought stays at the location where you thought it and you can rethink it in that place). The thoughts are out there and there’s a room in the brain where the thoughts come in to get dressed into words. Ram Dass said that when one has a stroke that dressing room is damaged and it takes a while to rebuild it. Using that image, we can see Mercury as the dresser for the thoughts. There is an English movie called The Dresser with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay that is about an aging Shakespearian actor who has a dresser named Norman. He is a lithe agile man who tells stories and feeds the words to Albert Finney’s character. When he says, “I can’t remember the lines”, Norman gives them to him. The author of the play, Ronald Harwood, was channeling Mercury and obviously had help from him in creating this character. Harwood had Mercury in Scorpio disposed by Mars in Virgo which goes back to Mercury. If Mercury is the dresser who helps you clothe your thoughts in words, then the sign he is in gives the description of the kind of outfit he will choose for you to wear.