Mercury–Stronger than We Thought
As I write this blog, Mercury is about to go retrograde. This is a big event in the astrological field. Many people will not travel, sign contracts or start new projects during this time. Some of this may be rethought when you think that Mercury is retrograde for two months and a week every years. In my own practice I find the last week of the retrograde is the strongest and where one has to be most careful.
Critics of astrology will argue that this fact of two months a year of retrograde activity alone renders Mercury retrograde as a myth. Mercury is such a small planet, so close to the sun, that who can say it even has any effect? In this respect, science proves the critics wrong.
There are facts to point out that Mercury is actually a powerhouse with a magnetic field stronger than that the Earth’s, which is hard to believe, but that is what we have learned from flyby satellites. Here is part of a NASA report about this surprising fact.
The magnetosphere is a region of space around Mercury enveloped by the planet’s magnetic field. Gusty solar wind buffeting the global bubble of magnetism can potentially trigger magnetic storms and other space weather-related phenomena.
“During the first flyby, MESSENGER measured relatively calm dipole-like magnetic fields close to the planet. Scientists didn’t detect any dynamic features other than some Kelvin-Helmholtz waves,” said James Slavin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Slavin is a mission co-investigator and lead author of one of the papers.
“But the second flyby was a totally different situation,” he says. MESSENGER observed a highly dynamic magnetosphere with “magnetic reconnection” events taking place at a rate 10 times greater than what is observed at Earth during its most active intervals. “The high rate of solar wind energy input was evident in the great amplitude of the plasma waves and the large magnetic structures measured by the spacecraft’s magnetometer throughout the encounter.”
What can one say, but “Wow.”
This magnetosphere is important when considering the mental attributes generally given to interpreting the Mercury in the astrological chart. Thus in a clear sense, the definition so often given to Mercury, that of mental skills and the nervous system, is reflected in this new information from NASA.
With this in mind, it might not be just a superstition that Mercury retrograde foretells communication problems. Why is it that it is when Mercury is retrograde that my computer or cell phone decides to give me problems. Watch the accident reports, the power outages, the negative news (which is usually negative enough!) and it will amaze one that it is possible that there is an increase in problems. Is this the full moon superstition which critics are always yapping about: the fact that when compared to data collected over a long period of time that the full moon periods do not seem to produce the wild emotional swings that many astrologers and members of Wicca, etc.point out. But lets not go there.
What I want to do here is not to get into a general argument of the meaning of retrograde. What I want to do here is to share with readers of this blog the fact that Mercury, when studied by scientists, has proven to be a powerful planet. And with its power that close to the sun, could one not also argue that Mercury may in fact have something to do in some slight way with the streaming of the solar wind. Remember, it takes only a little motion to create a big effect. If we consider that, according to fractals, a moth’s wing could cause a whirlwind in Iowa, the amazing title of an article from a professor at MIT! then why not Mercury creating changes in the electromagnetic sphere here on earth.
Think about it.