How does Mercury affect people ruled by Mercury?

Kind of a complex question, but things have been going frantic around the house and when I checked my email a friend mentioned--so how are you handling the Mercury Rx ?...."Oh!," I thought, this is starting to make sense...The resident dervish in the household is a Cancer with Leo rising, Gemini moon and with Mercury playing its tricks through Leo and Cancer it's been a BEAR of a retrograde!

So I'm wondering, is it just me, or could all of these things be magnified by Gemini being ruled by Mercury? I know that, on another subject, void-of-course moons tend not to affect Cancers so much as other signs--does the same thing apply to Geminis and Virgos? Are they less affected by Mercury retrogrades?

We family members of the dervish are getting the full-blast of the worst of all 3 signs right now, so it's like some kind of harsh conjunction we're trying to survive.

BTW--Does anybody know of a keyboard overlay for typing planetary symbols in regular emails or message boards?

Thanks so much!

Funny you should ask that...

A couple of seemingly different things actually weave together in your question.

First: about the Void of Course Moon: classically, which is to say before roughly 1820, the Moon was not considered truly V/C in the signs of Cancer, Taurus, Sagittarius, or Pisces – she “performeth somewhat” in the words of William Lilly. Having run across this rule quite some years ago, I’ve had ample opportunity to work with it: and to take it to the bank.

Where this theme weaves into the Mercury retrograde story is by noticing that two of these V/C signs that are, at least, different are the signs of the Moon’s rulership and exaltation. Mercury’s two signs are Gemini and Virgo, so what to do with these?

The first point is that as Sun signs, or Moon signs, the person with Sun in Gemini, or Moon in Virgo may be somewhat more sensitive than average to Mercury retrograde periods in general. But where you are really likely to see the effect is the people with Mercury in those signs – or when transiting Mercury itself is in those signs. The trick, however, is that those scenarios actually represent a conflict of sorts. Retrogradation is one form of what is called accidental debility, or what be called negative accidental dignity. Being in its own sign is essential dignity. So when you have something like Mercury in Gemini retrograde, what you have is this simultaneous condition of dignity and debility – because generally in astrology, one condition doesn’t cancel another. So it’s sort of a both/and result.

How does that work in practice? Well, it’s kind of like peaks and valleys. The problem for the possessor – or those around him or her – is that you cannot predict which way this particular moment is going to be!

seaweed said:

BTW--Does anybody know of a keyboard overlay for typing planetary symbols in regular emails or message boards?

Thanks so much!

Click to expand...

i have aol and i just click on the font type drop down menu and chose wingdings - you will have to try all the letters on the keyboard to see which ones correspond to which zodiac symbol