Mercury – The Bridge Between You and Everything Else

Mercury bridges the island of your consciousness to the mainland of “things” – allowing exchange and interaction between the two.

Mercury is all about the ability to exchange stuff, the ability to give and take. Before you can share something you must clearly understand it. This requires intelligence – Mercury’s primary role. Intelligence gives you the ability to make sense of stuff. Once you understand something you are ready to share it. But that requires communication – Mercury’s primary effect.

Commerce, the exchanges of goods, is another type of exchange governed by Mercury – which has earned the name mercantilism as a result.

To truly succeed in any sort of exchange one has to be flexible and diplomatic – a trait mastered by Mercury.

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN YOU AND THE WORLD

Mercury gives you the ability to exchange and interact with things.

“Things” are physical. You are not. You are “spiritual” – you are awareness itself.

Imagine a wide, deep, rushing river. On the western shore are all the things in the world. You yourself are on an island in this river. You gaze across the river at all those fascinating things, but are unable to get there and really interact with them. The river is too cold, deep and swift to cross.

You need a bridge.

Mercury is the bridge between you and the world, build so that the two can freely interact and exchange. Mercury is the link between consciousness and matter.

When doctors look at the spot on the western shore where Mercury’s bridge lands, they call it the “brain” and the “central nervous system.” These are Mercury’s organs – the parts of the body that allow non-physical consciousness to interface seamlessly with the physical body.

INTELLECT

You have crossed the Mercury-bridge and come upon your first object on the other shore. What is it? It is unknown! It is strange! You must try to understand it. You must name it, classify it, group it, investigate it.

When you try to interact with this world, you immediately give birth to the precious faculty of intelligence.

Intelligence – our ability to organize the world into sensible, rational patterns – is the power of Mercury.

COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE & SYMBOLS

When you try to understand the things you encounter in the world, you use names, categories and the like. By so doing you invent language!

By facilitating your ability to interact with stuff, Mercury creates your intellect, which then creates language.

As you stroll among the objects on the western shore, you meet other people who have crossed their own bridges from their own islands. Mercury allows you to interact with them too, by creating common languages and symbols so that you can communicate with other people.

Some languages are spoken and verbal, but others use pictures and symbols, even numbers and maths. All these are forms of communication, by which Mercury allows one person to interact with another.

Mercury is the force in humanity which created all the symbols and systems that we uses to communicate with one another.

MERCANTILE EXCHANGE

You crossed the bridge into the land of objects. You found interesting stuff, some of which you picked up and kept with you. Then you met other people who came across their own bridges into the same land. You invented language and symbols so you could communicate with those people.

You like some of the stuff they picked up on their travels.

They like some of the stuff you picked up on yours.

Now it is time to invent another symbol: money and another type of exchange: mercantilism. It’s time to trade your objects for theirs.

Just as Mercury created the world of communication with all its languages, so too he now creates the world of business and finance, with its own currencies and symbols.

DIPLOMACY

Mercury allowed you to enter the world, understand it, and share it with other people. He allows you to exchange not just ideas but also goods – so now you can talk as well as do business.

Its really not all that easy to talk. Communication is difficult. We misunderstand one another far more often then we understand one another. Mercury needs to evolve. We need to learn the art of communication – which, basically is diplomacy.

New Oxford American Dictionary says diplomacy is, “the art of dealing with people in a sensitive and effective way.” Mercury is the master of this art, which is the key to success in both communication and commerce.

SUMMARY

Mercury’s condition in a horoscope reveals your ability to interact with people and things in the world. A great Mercury creates a person who can make sense out of the world and the people in it, and can therefore interact with things and people in an effective and diplomatic way – through expert communication and barter.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

© 2010 Vic DiCara, All Rights Reserved

Courage and Communication – The Third House

Parashara’s Encyclopedic Scripture of Astrology

The Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra

Chapter 13, Verse 4

“The Third House”

ORIGINAL SANSKRIT

vikramaM bhRitya-bhraatraadi

chopadesha prayaaNakam

pitror-vai maraNaM vijño

dushcikyac-cha niriikShayet

WORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLITERATION

vikrama – courage, bravery, power, strength, gait & stride; bhRitya – dependents, employees, servants; bhraatra-adi – siblings; cha – and; upadesha - transference of important information; communication, teaching, advising, instructions, discipleship; prayaaNakam - start of motion, start of journeys, movement towards the ultimate destination (death); pitror – the forefathers; vai – even; maraNaM – death; vijño – the wise; dushcikyaccha – can make difficult pronouncements; niriikShayet – by examining;

TRANSLATION

By examining the Third House, the wise can speak about one’s courage, dependents and siblings, and one’s capacity to transfer and receive important instructions. It shows one’s ability to start tasks and journeys, and can even pertain to the deaths of one’s fore-bearers.

COMMENTARY

At this point in our study, We have examined the 1^st and 7^th Houses – which indicate the self and others respectively. We then examined the two houses physically below these two, the 2^nd and 6^th Houses, which uphold and support the self and others, respectively. Then we turned our attention to the two houses physically above the 1^st and 7^th – what are the 12^th and 8^th houses, the houses which erode the self and others.

Having thus completed our study of the “1/7 axis” we turned our gaze to the other crucial axis in the sky, that which stretches from the sky below us in the 4^th house to the sky above us in the 10^th. We saw that the 4^th pertained to everything private while the 10^th pertained to everything public in our lives. Now we are going to examine the houses physically to the East of the 4^th and 10^th. We will start by examining this house, the Third House.

Remember that the East is the domain of the  1^st House and therefore pertains to the self. If the 4^th pertains to our inner private emotions and comforts, the house immediately East of the 4^th House will pertain to those same issues moving towards becoming a physical, tangible and self-oriented reality, since this house is on the tangible self side of the 4^th House.

With that in mind, let us carefully study how the ancient sage Parashara choses to define the Third House.

Courage

To take what we have inside us (4^th House) and make it a tangible reality (1^st House) we need one major ingredient: courage. The Sanskrit word used here is vikrama which literally means “stride.” It’s direct connotation and use in Sanskrit for thousands of years indicates bravery, courage and strength. The connection is along the lines of the way you can look at the way a person walks and understand if they are confident or not. Ask any runway model.

The third house shows ones self-confidence. It show ones personal strength, and power and valor. Without these things we can not fulfill our inner desires!

Dependents

A courageous, heroic and strong person can take care of a lot of people. Thus as an immediate result of being the house of courage, the Third House becomes the house of dependents. This House describes our capacity to shelter people, employ them and engage them in carrying out our own larger plans.

Siblings

The 4^th House is the Mother. The 3^rd House is on the Eastern side of the 4^th, it is how the mother generates things which are like ourselves: our siblings. Many astrologers consider that the proximity of the words for dependents and siblings in the Sanskrit definition we are studying implies that the 3^rd House specifically refers to younger siblings.

Communication

The sage Parashara says that the Third House contains upadesha. This word indicates the transference of important instructions and information. This this house is fairly well known as the domain of communication. It makes sense, again because it is the house that is to the east of the 4^th. The 4^th House is the reservoir of our inner emotions. When the energy of the 4^th House moves eastward and becomes the Third, it indicates that these emotions are seeking to be “given birth” and tangibly realized. This is what inspires authors to write!

Upadesha is also a word reserved for the reception of sacred knowledge from a Guru. The third house therefore concerns ones ability to give and receive advice, and the ability to be situated in genuine discipleship. Being that the 3^rd is opposite to the 9^th House, the house of the guru, it is understandable that this facet of sacred communication of instructions should also be highlighted by the ancient Sage.

Starting Out

The Third House indicates the initiation of the self moving towards the east and becoming manifest. The sage therefore describes the House with the word prayaaNakam – the starting of movement towards a goal.

Combining this with the fact that the Third House contains your courage – you can understand that any issue pertaining to willpower should be scrutinized with reference to the Third House. This is because willpower is the ability to generate courage, and start out towards bravery.

The word also indicates literally that the 3^rd House pertains to the beginning of journeys. Some have said, “short journeys.” I seem to favor “starting journeys.”

Parashara also used this identical word when describing the 7^th House. But in the context of the 7^th House it there took more of a flavor of the end of the journey.

Deaths in the Family

As usual Parashara gives one or two extended or secondary indications of a house. Here he says that the Third House can even describe the deaths in ones family. My own 3^rd lord is quite dramatically placed in my 7^th House. It is this sort of thing, in my opinion, that the Sage is referring to here.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

©2010 Vic DiCara – All Rights Reserved.