Mercury In Libra - Postcards From A Refined Mind

Artist Anthony Gormley - Mercury in Libra 'Angel Of The North

Mercury has moved country on the 17th September 2012 and has now blown into the stirring, restless updraft of airy Libra terrain where it will take up residence until the 6th October 2012, leaving behind the dry and stable fields of earthy Virgo country (Mercury in Virgo - Postcards From A Discerning Mind) and moving into Libra with some savoir-faire.

Actor Alain Delon - Mercury in Libra 'The Ice Angel'/'The male Bardo' 
Actress Brigitte Bardo - Mercury in Libra 'The Sex Kitten' 
Libra is highly strategic as well as being very charming and diplomatic. Mercury in Libra, under the natural sweetness and eye-fluttering is a tough and canny negotiator. 
Libra knows exactly how to work both sides to achieve its goals and Libra has sky high standards.

Composer Gustav Holst - Mercury in Libra

Whenever Mercury changes sign, we need to learn a whole new language and adapt to completely different customs to the ones we have become used and familiar. Mercury affects the way we process and deal with information. Which of course includes how we talk and what we talk about, our style of thinking, how we write, why we Twitter, what we txt, what we like to read, or listen to and how we learn.

Writer F Scott Fitzgerald - Mercury in Libra
'I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.' The Great Gatsby

Whilst Mercury was in pragmatic Virgo during the last month,we had to switch our tuning over to ‘useful’ mode. We had to adapt to speaking and thinking more critically and more accurately and precisely. We had to learn things in more detail and often by adopting a more practical hands on approach. Journeys and communications would have probably been work orientated or connected with helping out or including doing someone else a favour. We were all more inclined to help and make ourselves available in practical ways to ground our plans and dreams. 

Actor Jeremy Irons - Mercury in Libra
played F Scott Fitzgerald in Last Call, recounting his life's memories.
'We all have our time machines. Some take us back they are called memories. Some take us forward they are called dreams.'

However, just as we have got some way used to this style of thinking and expressing ourselves we suddenly find ourselves over the border of another foreign landscape, where everyone here begins to ask us to learn to speak a little differently again. The tone here is more harmonious, we may try to say nicer things before diving in with harsher, cutting language and above all we find ourselves being fair minded above all else. Obviously we will still have to say the hard things but maybe the will be more acceptable in a kinder format. Mercury’s 'fleet of foot ways' will have found great delight in being able to examine, question and disseminate information in its stay with Virgo recently but now Mercury is looking to encourage and help us perfect our more diplomatic voices. We will all benefit from speaking a little more calmly, moderating and modulating our voice in order to make what we trying to say and the message we convey, more acceptable to the ears of the receivers. Being adaptable is Mercury's forte and it will adjust quite quickly - we will all adjust and find the new angle or is it angel at our table helping us to be effective but more considerate and kinder. 

Actress Sigourney Weaver - Mercury in Libra, got her name from F Scott Fitzgerald 'The Great Gatsby'

However, it may well be with Mercury in Libra, some of our efforts to avoid conflict and undue upset may work against us as we can end up being the very cause of trouble and frustration we are trying so hard to avoid. In our attempts to get to a point of balance we may lean a little too heavily to one side or the other. Too sweet and too weak or too sour and way too much power.  

 Welcome to Mercury in Libra the sign of the scales. It shrewdly weighs up the pros and cons of everything in it's path continually striving for unity and balance. As the dissecting and hyper-analysing of the past month in Virgo falls behind us we want things to go much more smoothly, thank you. While Mercury is in Libra we really need to understand ‘honey catches more flies than vinegar’. Yes, sweeten the pill and your message may be easier to swallow but sweeten it too much and it will become sickly. Highly refined sugar is not good for us and it can often take the bitterness of dark chocolate to provide the much needed balance we are all looking for.

Writer Roald Dahl - Mercury in Libra
'So when you meet a musician or a writer, you shouldn’t be surprised that they look exactly like ordinary people, because in that part of their lives they are. They are ordinary people who have a secret compartment somewhere in their brain which they can switch on when they become quite alone and go to work.'

We are all noticing the change from Mercury in Virgo to Mercury in Libra and the difference is as clear as the difference between earth and air. The mutable, 'consider all the myriad options and then check them out again' of Virgo is being replaced by the 'there is a committee in my head but the minutes suggest that we need to do something', stylised thinking of Libra.

We are all feeling this  Mercury shift and you and those around you will want to be more sociable and more inclined to be amenable or perhaps even more charming than usual perhaps even swept away with some stylish romanticism. 

                                
Actress Catherine Deneuve - Mercury in Libra & Actress Susan Sarandon - Mercury in Libra
Politically, on many levels, the energy surrounding decisions and interactions will be more inclined to working towards mediation, reconciliation or at the very least, a lot more effort being put in to appear unified. For the next couple of weeks then lets hope that people on this precious planet of ours will be mentally processing in smarter more tactical way. Much needed are calm and clear heads in order to, take down a notch and dissipate, the volatile charge that has been building and establishing a more peaceful climate. Unfortunately we will also be easy prey to a teeny weeny bit more passive-aggressive behaviour. We have all seen the iron fist in the velvet glove with our own eyes before now. 

UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - Mercury in Libra

Thankfully, Mercury in Libra is ultimately intent on creating balance and fairness and we all may have to learn that peace is the only sane outcome of conflict.
Your partner, your children, your friends, your Twitter followers, your teachers, your pupils, even bosses, next door neighbours, the person sitting next to you on the bus and heads of state begin to show subtle changes. We will all feel a little more ambitious but trying to avoid conflict and confrontation, at the same time and being so much more pleasant..aah. We may also have the urge to soak up as much ‘culture’ as we can absorb, no harm in that or for that matter lovers, urged to whisper sweet nothings a lot more. We will want to write or speak about art and creativity because we will be draw to the more aesthetic parts of our psyches and attracted to beauty in all its shapes and forms.With Mercury in Libra our communictions are about to get a lot more sophisticated for good or bad.

Singer/Writer Leonard Cohen - Mercury in Libra
'ring the bells that still can ring forget your perfect offering
there is a crack in everything, thats how the light gets in'

This mental shift changes the general tone for us but how does it play out specifically? The sign of Libra sits somewhere in your birth chart, even if you do not have any planets in this sign you always have Libra county somewhere in your psyche and its symbolism plays out in daily life. It is this Libra zone which is having Mercury as a house guest. This is where we will have to become more accommodating and welcoming until your mercurial visitor begins to feel at home.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz - Mercury in Libra

If you know where your ‘Libra country' is then try to slow down and really put your full attention onto it for a moment. It is here that you may be trying to find the right  balance and restore beauty in your life in order to make peace somehow. Take time regarding the issues affected in that part of your chart. For instance, Libra may be in 11^th house of ‘Associations and Helpers’ in which case Mercury here will probably prompt you to think about and plan those changes to your friendships or groups that you may be attached to. Or is Libra on your 4^th house or zone of ‘Home and Family’, here your plans could be on a major home interior decoration make-over or planning a family social gathering. Making the arrangements will now probably go more smoothly if we are aware of our thinking around these ideas and issues. Or is Libra pulling at your Jupiter, if so maybe these few weeks will get you researching your next ‘Big Idea’. Is Mercury conjunct a planet like Mars who will want you to action everything. (Mars In Libra Land)

Saturn the planet of 'hard work learning all the hard lessons' is also in the sign of Libra and will be until 6th October 2012. Saturn will want us to work out what we really want, not what we are told to want and not what we can't say 'yes' or 'no' to. Saturn will drag us right down to the basics and in Libra a lot of it is going to be about relationships, about the other or others.

Mercury's presence in Libra will help those of us facing up to any injustices, unfairness, selfishness by thinking through commitments fairly and with perspective and balance. Ideally, that may work out but not at any cost. Saturn will not need 'you speak and I hear violins', wishy-washy approach to relationships because to commit can be two sided, to rely on and trust or restrict and imprison. Mercury in Libra will want to 'play among the stars' but Saturn's shadow may try to keep both feet well on the ground.

Writer/Actress Carrie Fisher - Mercury in Libra

So are we all going to make the most of our charm and flash those lovely smiles as we glide effortlessly forward, we can hope. We can also act on those creative, artistic urges now clamoring to have outward expression. The way we can communicate will also have the potential to really arbitrate conflicts and upsets. We all want a more beautiful, fair and just world and making it a little more cultured in the process is just fine. We are going to want to connect with the part of ourselves that deeply wants justice and feels strongly about issues close to our higher ideals and values. As we become clear what matters to us and also to others perhaps we will develop the strength of mind to get to the heart of what truly matters.

Singer Nina Persson has Mercury in Libra

credits: wikepedia & theatlanticwire & theplace2 & kesseljunkie & jp5746a & magforum 
posted by pippa ponton & jphibbs