by Robert Wilkinson
Today we explore the Superior Conjunction of June 30/July 1 at 10 Cancer and what it promises for the next 4 months until the next one in October at 27 Libra. 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 September 6 at 14 Virgo.
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 May 15/16, this brings Life and Mind into the picture. Much of what develops over the next few months will yield related activities when Mars transits 10 Cancer in late September 2024, leading to Jupiter truths and openings in July 2025 when it transits this degree.
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 10 Cancer, and it is said that the first third (decan) of any sign deals with the actional and physical levels of life. Being the first decan of Cancer it has a sub-influence of Cancer with an additional dose of Venus. 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 10th degree of Cancer is “A large diamond not completely cut." According to Rudhyar’s notes from the Jones class, this degree is one of "Spiritual fulfillment or the acme of civilized being," and "Actualization of potentialities and outpressing of real selfhood."
In The Astrological Mandala, he states this degree is about "the arduous training for perfection in order to fully manifest an ideal," where we are "dealing with evolution of consciousness and of personality at a preliminary stage." Here is understanding with a lot of work still to be done in crafting the conscious mind. We are told this operation will result in something of "social value," and he suggests "Craftsmanship" as a keyword.
This is a culminating degree where we complete some social or emotional "crafting," and brought a decision to completion involving giving up the lesser so the greater could have life and substance. This culminates the dance between the visible and invisible, patterns we’ve imitated, and our search for "elementary understanding.” Rudhyar says it falls in the span of Expansion, the Process of Individualization, Act of Stabilization, and the Scene of Decision on the Emotional-cultural level.
According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, this degree relates to self-justification in a cultural setup, and how our reality depends on our "arts and skills" to build and/or sustain values and their promise. Here we "expand dimensions of significance" to make progress.
He states that here our "pilgrimage through the lower places of being is revealed as a continual service to higher meanings" though which we know ourselves. He offers us the keyword LATENCY, and says that when positive, this degree "is an effective gift for dramatizing the potentialities of everything at hand."
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 how to craft what is latent into forms that have social value, and refine the base into the sublime. Here we can show our skill and artistry to create something of value that can help us see the promise of something. We can then express our "true selfhood" in a valued form, showing us one of our "paths to perfection" related to our "acme of civilized living."
This promises to be a transformational conjunction, as we have Venus square Uranus and Moon square Saturn with the Moon also being the nozzle of the “Finger of God,” or Yod, made by the conjunction sextile Jupiter with all of the quincunx the Moon! Add the number of 7th harmonic aspects (the conjunction biseptile Neptune, Moon biseptile Mars and septile Pluto with Mars triseptile Pluto and Venus biseptile Jupiter) and the coming weeks will offer many forks in the road to all of us, since these planets rule a lot of houses in our charts.
Overall, a lot of expansion through sacrifice as we hit forks in the road of destiny. Take careful aim as things melt down a bit, and be willing to train for a dance yet to be done. The chain of dispositors ruling this conjunction involve the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and the Sun. Mars shows the need for self-sufficiency as we begin to launch a vision, even if sacrifices are involved. It’s all part of a great consecration and will prove excellent to any planets we have around 7-13 Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces.
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-August at the next Mercury retrograde. That will be important, since Mercury goes SRX on the same degree that Saturn went SRX on New Year’s Eve 2008, allowing us to review the “venerable values” we’ve been attempting to live since then. The coming Mercury retrograde will give us a look back at how well we’re learning and applying those themes.
In this chart, since Mercury no longer leads the Sun, we now have Uranus in Taurus as the “gateway to the Light.” That indicates the “entry to the Light” involves an awareness of uniqueness, individuality, and the willingness to allow our genius to lead us into new ways of experiencing life. Uranus will continue to lead the Sun (except when the Moon is between Uranus and the Sun) until the next Inferior Conjunction, when Mercury will again 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.
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 10 Cancer, we enter a time of moving forward into a reoriented future on social and emotional levels leading to new reflections in relationships in Leo. Because Cancer is associated with the archetype of the Innocent/Primal, if there’s any question about which way a given experience is leading us, reference your inner instinctive knowing of right and wrong, as well as whether it’s satisfying a true need.
This will give us a chance to articulate our Light fused with “the Guide of Souls” to find how we can express “the acme of spiritual living” while seeing the value in who and what we’ve become. This is a fulfillment degree leading to a new individual spirituality and a greater sense of humor once we get over our ego assumptions. 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 more focused feeling-awareness and harmonic productive activity 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 Cancer, see it all as the Guide of Souls having experienced the Great Light illuminating the need to accept that we ARE forms of Divine expression here to steer our course in our own Self-realization by accepting a call to renewal and a greater life consecration based in how we’ve trained to express some social function perfectly. 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 August 23 at 22 Virgo. 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-August when we’ll begin a review of what type of service we want to do, what values we venerate and are willing to live as examples, and how we can adjust to the new awareness we’ll find in August. From now through mid-August, 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 August.
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 August 4 when it enters its shadow zone beginning at 9 Virgo, 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 Virgo 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-August.
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. It’s a great reference source where you can check out possible ways the Mercury retrograde effect is playing out in all the retrograde periods in 2023.
Copyright © 2023 Robert Wilkinson
Comments