Mercury the Messenger and Trickster meets the Shamanic Chiron

Mercurial types are considered just a little more clever then the rest of us or at least their mental process seem to work a bit faster. Gemini (ruled by Mercury) usually seems clever or more fascile with words or Virgo, able to concentrate their thoughts into massive analysis or reasearch projects. Now that Mercury has entered Aquarius, where the Messenger of the Gods is at its highest function, we all seem to be thinking at warp speed. Yet this evening at 8:50PM PST or 11:50PM EST at 3º 55' Aquarius we have the first encounter. This meeting will be repeated a few times as Chiron transits thru Aquarius till 2010. Yes in Aquarius, the tendency to transcend mundane thought patterns dominates and this position of Mercury strengthens the intellect and can provide inventive ideas for the collective. One thing to not though is that with any Chironic contact there are problems. Contacts of Mercury to Chiron create an atmosphere for the archtypical Trickster ala Hermes - the son of Zeus and Maia of Greek legend. This connection is about reveling in either mischief making or demonstrate phenomenal abiliities to communicate. Even a compulsive need to communicate in multiple forms takes shape. Not just traditional oratory, writing but with music or mime.

Musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Pablo Casals with Chrion SQ Mercury or Maria Callas who had Chiron trine Mercury and also the ability ot learn several languages all epitomized totally original techniques to help their listners move beyond ordinary reality. Here is where the shamanic tendency of Chiron to open up the intuitive areas of the brain more easily. Since this flair for communication does not always lie within the realms of left brain and verbal accuity, sometimes these folks have problems coping with school or other traditional Saturnian structure. In Aquarius this mercurial combo can lead to critical scientific thinking and Eureka like discoveries.
The Trickster
Legends of the Trickster figure abound in every culture: the Monkey King stealing the Peaches of Immortality, Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle and making them walk backwards, or B’rer Rabbit with the tar baby.
With Mercury in proximity to Chiron, there is a counter productive trait that is ready to trip us up like the Trickster which Carl Jung described "as a collective shadow figure with all the inferior traits of character." This energy which prefers to wound or disparage when we reach our highest potential. In many ways we can relate this to to Chiron in the 3rd house or in Gemini, where issues involving siblings predominate our live and conciousnes or cause us to feel like our mind is wounded. Lewis Hyde said Trickster is the mythic embodiment of ambiguity and ambivalence, doubleness and duplicity, contradiction and paradox.
History has given us the visionaries like William Blake with Chiron conjunct Venus sextile Mercury who was able to break thur the logical modalities of normal thought to offer colorful and penetrating prophetic writings.
Unfortunately, 20th century history gave us villans like Joseph Goebbels with Mercury cojoined Chiron in Scorpio, who was Hitler's Minister of Propaganda. Goebbels eventually commited suicide when the Nazi empire finally fell apart. My guess is that Mercury conjunct Chiron can indicate a certain prediliction for media manipulation if not supported by other aspects. We are beginning to see how journalists at Fox News or MSNBC, CNN, ABC or NBC (GE owned) have helped damage our thinking by failing to question the horrendous war in Iraq.

Mercury/Chiron in Aquarius and Effects in Recent News

• "Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. " This announcement came after 145 years of service.
  
• Our collective ability to communicate via electronic media - computers and the internet (Aquarius ruled) has been wounded. Take note of the words of this article regarding the Web as it supports the Surveillance Society.
  IT is strangely fitting that President Bush's no-warrant wiretapping came to light during the season of holiday gift buying, much of which took place online. From RFID tags to iTunes software which automatically monitors every song you listen to on your computer, digital surveillance is another form of wounding.
  
• The Trickster is evident in today's story of the super hacker who was a "Bot" master. He pled quilty to federal crimes yesterday and could face 25 years in prison for selling botnets to spammers and adware distributors. This is significant because this is the first time in the U.S. that a hacker has been convicted not only creating and spreading malicious code (Hermes the unconventional) but profiting from it.
  
• Actor Chris Penn (born June 10, 1962), was found dead today and he had a Chiron/Piscies SQ his Mercury in Gemini. With a brother as famous as Sean Penn, there were undoubtedly sibling issues. As for his skills as a dramatist: critics often called him underrated. "Just as talented as Sean — just a lot less cocky," Slate magazine critic Cintra Wilson wrote of him last year. He could play humiliation and vulnerability especially well, she wrote, and "makes you seamlessly believe in characters so much you barely even notice them."
  
  
• The continuing story of the government wiretapping our conversatons and now trying to get private internet data from Google. Surely we are feeling wounded when our most private of thoughts are no longer safe from the Justice Department which has issued subpoena's to Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo! and Google. Of course most Internet users believe that Google Inc. should refuse the federal government's demands that it turn over search-engine data.
  

Chiron is continually bringing the gift of Shamanic energy to the human community and was not only associated with the discovery of the medicinal use of plants, teaching healing arts but the ability to shape shift. So with Mercury in lightening fast Aquarius, we may be able to change the shape of our thoughts and mentation from man to animal, to bird, to angel or whatever was is needed to further transformation in today's challenging enviroment. January 24th was only the first iteration of this Magical transit which in Aquarius will despise convention and traditional control pouring forth the electric energy of innovative solutions.

Next Chironic conjunction will involve Venus on March 14, 2006 where relationships will be transformed by the wounded healer.