Mercury in Sagittarius

I first published this post a few years ago – the ages and dates have been updated. These days our walks are on the beach and her school days have been replaced by university…the rest remains the same.

There’s a line in the great Aussie movie The Castle where Dale Kerrigan is introducing us to his family.

‘Steve is also an ideas man- that’s why Dad calls him the ideas man.’

Ms T and I love the movie and love that line. We say it to each other all the time.

‘You’re an ideas girl, Mum.’

‘You’re an ideas girl, Sares.’

A lot of our ideas come when we’re walking- something we do together at 6am most weekdays. It’s a little like an active meditation. It’s something about the sun coming up, the birds waking up, the smell of the gums and banksias and whatever else is in bloom that pushes the narrow chatter of detail from our brains and opens our thoughts up to something more expansive.

We’ll talk about everything from the things we’d invent if we could (mine is the inbuilt drum kit in car steering wheels), to what events each group of birds would be in if there was an Olympics (the ducks were doing synchronized flying the other morning), to where the snails live when its dry, to seriously where does that much mucous come from when you have a cold. The big stuff: ‘if you could be any road sign, what would it be?’ For the record, mine would be ‘dangerous curves.’

We also solve more relevant problems, like the issues she could be having with her business studies assignment, or the character problems in her short story for English, or the major work she’s undertaking for Visual Art for her HSC.

When we’re walking it’s as if our minds are cleared from the every day and the horizons to our thinking are pushed past where we can see them. Anything is possible. The sky isn’t the limit but, rather, a starting point.

For Mercury in Sagittarius the mind is expansive and every idea a journey – albeit one with many distractions, rambles and stop-overs along the way. This post will be much the same, I suspect.

According to a podcast I listened to in the car the other day, the human brain is hard-wired to be able to deal with distractions. The theory being that the simple act of focusing too hard for too long on something could have dire or even fatal consequences.

Whilst cavemen didn’t have the ding of an email arrival or the tweet of a new twitter entry to distract them from what they were supposed to be doing, they did have other concerns. Imagine concentrating all your energy on, I don’t know, making a slingshot only to have a lion eat you because you weren’t alert to the distractions.

The question the host asked was: Were Ugg and Thug Multi-taskers?  Mercury in Sagittarius certainly is!

The premise is that “expansive environments… inspire expansive thoughts.” And there is no more expansive a thinker than Mercury in Sagittarius. Not only are his ideas big, in fact, bigger than big, but it doesn’t occur to him that they can possibly fail. Mercury in Sagittarius isn’t just a big thinker, he’s an optimistic big thinker. But this isn’t just normal glass half full optimism, Sagittarius optimism is an absolute faith in the future, the Sun will come back out tomorrow type of optimism.

In Sagittarius, Mercury is really not big on details or organization – that’s what Gemini and Virgo are good for. The Sagittarian concept is too big for that…besides, details just put limitations and boundaries around what is possible.

In order to think this big, Mercury in Sagittarius needs room and freedom to move. The more space the better. His thirst for knowledge is immense – but not in any dry, abstract sense. He needs to have a passion for the subject in order to have his interest maintained.

And if he has a passion for a subject? It’s communicated with immense enthusiasm – perhaps even that of a zealot. At his worst, he will preach rather than discuss – not because he wants to push his ideas down your throat, but because it simply doesn’t occur to him that his beliefs will not also be good for you too.

Mercury in Sagittarius is open-minded but also has his own blind spots. He’s moralistic and intolerant of prejudice – unless it’s his own. He’s a straight talker but a crappy listener. He can be tactless and politically incorrect. He does, however, mean well.

He doesn’t do spin and, unless he has the Moon in a water sign or his Sun in Scorpio, won’t pick up on underlying tensions – he simply doesn’t have the inclination to do anything other than telling it as it is.

If you aren’t fine, don’t tell him that you are…fine, that is. He’ll have moved on already – you are, after all, fine. Want to piss off a Sagittarian?  Too easy – talk in riddles, subtleties and hints. Whilst he loves fun, and laughs easily (and can often make those around him laugh easily), he doesn’t play mind games.

For the next few weeks, allow your thoughts to fly, think big, dream big, plan big…Let them soar, as a balloon…you’ve got plenty of time to put reality into practice when Mercury shifts into Capricorn.

I’m here at home sitting in my armchair, listening to my mind at play.

I’m building buildings, I’m ploughing hilltops, I’m crossing oceans… only thinking.

… I could go anywhere, do anything…only thinking.

Only Thinking, by Mi-Sex

Think this reads like you? If you are a Sagittarian, have Mercury in Sagittarius or Mercury in close aspect to Jupiter (especially the conjunction) or Mercury in the 9th house, this may be just how you tick… 

Mercury will be in Sagittarius from December 13 through to January 5 2019.