by Robert Wilkinson
Today we explore the Superior Conjunction of March 17, 2023, at 27 Pisces and what it promises for the next 4 months until the next one on June 30 at 10 Cancer. This “fusion of life and mind” will be the dominant Mercury conjunction through the rest of the Mercury direct period, as well as the first part of its next retrograde up to the next Inferior Conjunction on May 1 at 12 Taurus.
All previous superior and inferior conjunction points, as well as Mercury’s retrograde and direct stations, are triggered by subsequent transits long after Mercury was there. As Venus has already occupied this point on February 16/17, this brings Life and Mind into the picture. Much of what develops over the next few months will yield related activities when Mars transits 27 Pisces in late April 2024, leading to Saturn lessons between April 2025 and January 2026 when it transits this degree three times.
Superior Conjunctions – A Brief Recap
As we covered in part 1, the superior conjunction occurs when Mercury (mind) conjuncts the Sun (life) when in direct motion, while the inferior conjunction is when Mercury (mind) conjuncts the Sun (life) when Mercury is retrograde. Each operates as a fusion of Life and Mind, but in each “Mind moves in a different direction.”
When either conjunction happens, it indicates that signals, messages, and ideas from either outer sources (Mercury direct) or subconscious sources (Mercury retrograde) will fuse with the life principle. This sets the tone for the lessons involving how our minds are relating to our lives during the weeks which follow the conjunctions.
Since its last retrograde, Mercury in direct motion has been moving faster than the Sun. It has now caught up to the Sun and making a “superior conjunction,” beginning a several week period when mind will race ahead of life, heralding things to come when the Sun transits the span Mercury will show us over the next few weeks. The degree of any superior conjunction shows how our perceptions have caught up with our lives, which can bring forth a new expression of our light.
The Sabian Symbol for the Superior Conjunction
The Solar-Mercurial degree symbol for the Superior Conjunction falls at 27 Pisces, and it is said that the third third (decan) of any sign deals with the intellectual and spiritual levels of life. Being the third decan of Pisces, it has a sub-influence of Scorpio with an additional dose of Mars. While I've given you a sense of this degree up to now, this is where we go into depth.
The Solar Sabian symbol for the 27th degree of Pisces is “A harvest Moon.” In the original Jones class notes, Rudhyar says this is a degree of “the power of creative visualization by which great dreamers transcend outer reality,” and “complete dominance of circumstances.”
In The Astrological Mandala, he states this degree symbolizes “the light of fulfillment that blesses work well done.” He adds that this symbol “brings us the message that the time has come to reap what we have not only sown, but also cultivated – or failed to cultivate.”
He offers that this symbol represents a consummation, a karmic moment, where “the seed of the new cyclic manifestation is already latent.” He says this degree falls in the Span of Protection, Act of Capitalization, and Scene of Perpetuation on the Individual-Mental level.
Dr. Jones states this is a degree of “life’s moments of culmination as the threshold of new achievement,” emphasizing “the fact that nature in her immeasurable prodigality is forever showing (us) with the products of her untiring creativeness.” He says this shows us our productivity is as rich as Nature’s, “and that the highly concentrated resources of the world are at the immediate service of anyone who will put them to use and so facilitate their replacement.”
He offers us the keyword BENEDICTION. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree “is self-consummation which is successful beyond any possibility of measure.”
Given the themes of this degree, we'll use the “fusion of life and mind” through the next Inferior Conjunction to see the Light of using imagination to “dominate circumstances,” showing us the work we’ve done well. This fusion of Life/Light and Mind requires that we become focused in some individual or spiritually creative way, and see how to use the resources we have to fulfill some element of our purpose.
This promises to be a transformational conjunction, as we have Moon conjunct Pluto and the conjunction exactly square Mars! This generates a lot of tension between what’s ending and what’s emerging, so express your unique self, using imagination as you refine whatever you need to refine. The chain of dispositors ruling this conjunction involve Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury, with Mars quintile Jupiter and Mercury square Mars. Mars brings gifts which are demonstrated through the square, so use your imagination and reach toward a not-so-distant future already on the horizon!
Who Leads the Great Light Now That Mercury is Ahead of It?
At this conjunction, Mind is no longer following Life, trying to catch up to it. Now Mind races forward as herald, catching glimpses of knowledge, perception, and understanding that shows us where Life is headed in the near future.
When Mercury outraces the Sun and moves ahead of it, it no longer "leads the light." Now Mind blazes the trail the Light will follow these next few weeks. This is the time when we stretch out into the future, with a period of looking back beginning mid-April at the next Mercury retrograde. That will be important, since Mercury goes SRX on the same degree that Uranus went SD in January, setting the theme of “old answers being inadequate to confirm the new conditions of existence” into motion. The coming Mercury retrograde will give us a look back at how well we’re learning and applying those themes, which will take on added importance when Jupiter goes SRX on that same degree in early September. The themes of 16 Taurus dominate this entire year.
In this chart, since Mercury no longer leads the Sun, we now have Neptune as the “gateway to the Light.” That indicates an awareness of collective factors and honoring the unique responses of each to a collective impulse are the paths leading to the Light. Neptune will continue to lead the Sun (except when the Moon is between Neptune and the Sun) until the Sun conjuncts Jupiter, when it will be the gateway to the Light. The study of which planet leads the Sun is a crucial but often overlooked part of understanding how the planets work in sequence.
Because it’s a Third Quarter Moon phase, the next few weeks should help us see the future clearly, and set some things into motion on a collective level, whether group work or some body of work which will serve as a group vehicle in the future. This is a culmination and a turning point. Be practical, find the right order to execute plans, have a sense of humor, and allow your creative imagination and/or genius to come to the fore. It’s a very productive conjunction as the Moon/Pluto is sextile the Sun/Mercury/Neptune. Show courage, take heart, and eliminate all you no longer need.
Be wholehearted in pursuing the goals which are an expression of your heart. When tempted to find a reason for procrastinating, instead just do whatever is your genius to do! Read the signs and signals, express your creative potential, and be practical as you focus your vitality toward future things. By releasing whatever needs to be released, we will create voids which will attract more fulfilling ideas, relationships, values, and lives.
What’s Ahead?
This Superior Conjunction can fuse foresight and life experience to see how new forms of light, life, and perspectives can come forth these next few weeks. Because this “fusion of life and mind” takes place at 27 Pisces, we enter a time of moving forward into a decisive future and fulfillment on the individual and spiritual levels leading us to new beginnings coming soon in Aries. Because Pisces is associated with the archetype of the Priest(ess)/Shaman/Healer, if there’s any question about which way a given experience is leading us, see it as an opportunity to apply your previous spiritual training to bless the passage, knowing it will lead to a new life in a new land.
This will give us a chance to articulate our Light fused with “the Guide of Souls” to find how we can use our creative imagination to “dominate circumstances” and see the fulfillment of a job well done and a life well lived. The house this conjunction falls in shows where Mind now leads Life, and will open doors of perception wherever it falls, with many things “coming together in the Light of Mind.
We can now accept our inner truths and ability to use spiritual power effectively as part of our life tool kit, and see a new level of spiritual integration in our purpose. Our Higher Self is both a guide and a protection when we reference it rather than externals or inner fears and assumptions. We now begin a period of experiencing the unity of Life in both our inner and outer expressions of Being, saying goodbye to the old as we anticipate the new. This conjunction introduces us to a deeper, broader feeling-awareness as part of the larger transfiguration process in play the past two years and this one as we dance at the intersection of Fate Street and Freewill Street on Eternity Boulevard.
Summing Up
Because this is Life and Mind fusing in Pisces, see it all as the Guide of Souls having experienced the Great Light illuminating the need to accept that we ARE Divine Wisdom here to take the lead in our own Self-realization by accepting the Truth that “all forms pass away,” and we grow by being compassionate and forgiving as many things slip down the timestream. From here, even though Mercury will outrace the Sun for the next few weeks, it’s going to begin to slow down in speed, and will go retrograde on April 21 at 16 Taurus, beginning our review of a primary Uranian theme for the year of 2023. We’re also in the middle of a run of years, each with its own Mercury retrograde theme. You can find out more about that in other Mercury retrograde articles explaining that for quite a few years in a row, we’ve had specific themes related to Mercury retrogrades all year.
I’ll write more about this in mid-April when we’ll begin a review of how what we think has brought us what we need to confirm the new life in motion, or isn’t adequate to the task. From now through mid-April, Mercury will begin to slow down, so get whatever you need to get in motion now, preparing for a slowdown by the second week of April.
With the intense multiple mutable squares in play, there will be cross-currents these next few weeks, especially for planets we have near 25-29 Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. Still, these changes are inevitable for a new growth pattern to show up over the next few weeks. Still, with the mutable squares creating a swirl, follow the longing for a new life in different circumstances, be well-considered before making a move, and remember when you’re at a fork in the road, take it!
All significant Mercury events give us a chance to check in with our inner Mercury to make sure we’re listening to its knowledge so we may be guided to our Souls. By how our Mercury works, we are led to the “Active Intelligence” of Divine Mind, or scattered confusion because of the inability of the lower mind to know anything.
As I explained in my book Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend, Mercury’s duality is “Life/Death,” so we can get a new look at how our consciousness and responses are either creative, destructive, or both, to cite the venerable Kabalistic Arhat Paul Foster Case. Mercury is where we learn if our mental processes are creating chaos and disorganized scattered conditions through ambivalence, and thus come to see how to use discernment to coordinate various functions to bring forth perfect knowing how to do whatever needs to be done. Understanding its influence as a factor for weeks to come is crucial to the smooth operation of what moves forward from here.
Because we’ll be dealing with Mercury retrograde energies beginning April 6 when it enters its shadow zone beginning at 6 Taurus, you should also take a look at the appropriate chapters in my book A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. You can find out all you need about the coming Mercury Retrograde in Taurus or any other sign, as well as the houses it occupies in your chart. Of course I'll give you a lot more about the coming retrograde in mid-April.
Here's the Amazon link to where you can order your paperback edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. You can also find it on Kindle or Nook. It’s a great reference source where you can check out possible ways the coming Mercury retrograde effect could play out in all the retrograde periods in 2023.
Copyright © 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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