by Robert Wilkinson
Today we explore the Superior conjunction of June 14 at 25 Gemini and what it promises for the upcoming months. This “fusion of life and mind” will have an extra layer of complexity, as it will be in very close conjunction with Venus and is forming a septile to Mars. So this Fusion of Life and Mind will also have both Venus and Mars as huge factors in “fated” events to come related to reaching out to the future even as we bury or rebury a part of our past. This will be in play 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 August 18 at 27 Leo.
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 Mars will transit this point August 26-27, it will activate these themes and/or the results of our “mental fusion” between now and then.
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 25 Gemini, and it is said that the third third (decan) of any sign deals with the individual and spiritual levels of life. Being the third decan of Gemini it has a sub-influence of Aquarius (Saturn) with an extra dose of the Sun. 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 25th degree of Gemini is “A man trimming palms." In the original Dr. Jones' class notes on the symbols published in The Astrology of Personality, Rudhyar says this is a degree of “capacity in man to control his environment and the impulses of his most intense nature” and “active care for possessions.”
In The Astrological Mandala he states this is a degree of "bringing under control nature's power of expansion," where we shape outreaching forces by "pruning." In this culminating phase we take what we have discovered and shape it so that others can see something of our inner vision and symbols.
So this “Fusion of Mind with Life” involves trimming some ideas and shaping them to a more natural outward expression of our view and understanding. He says this degree falls in the Span of Restlessness, Act of Differentiation, and is the culminating degree on the social and cultural level of the Scene of Exteriorization.
Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, says this is a degree of "pride in effort" where we seek to leave our "immortal stamp on the world" and bend natural resources to our will. Here we enlist "every beauty and capacity of nature" to reveal our aesthetic sense.
He goes on to say that "the harmony between the workman and his materials becomes gratifying evidence of the soul's powers" justifying the effort. He offers the keyword ENHANCEMENT, and states that when operating positively, the degree is "an exceptional gift for bringing all things to an effective service in some special aspect of over-all achievement."
Given the themes of this degree, we'll use the “fusion of life and mind” to see the Light of our power to shape our expression and show care for what we value socially and/or emotionally. This should give us a “beautiful perspective” which helps us get and stay clear about our current ideals and dreams of a better future. Some will see a unique blessing “come back” as a result of taking care of business in the past, while others who avoided the Plutonic lessons will be forced to deal with them now.
This will be another transformational conjunction because it makes a tight forming septile with Mars at 5 Taurus, a degree of burying the past. The stellium in Gemini is about pruning and shaping, as well as reaching out to a larger existence; this implies we all will have to let some element of the past behind to get to our vision. Areas most impacted are 3-7 Taurus, 24-28 Gemini, 16-20 Leo, 7-11 Libra, 29 Scorpio-3 Sagittarius, 20-24 Capricorn, and 12-16 Pisces. If you have something in one of these zones, Destiny is about to make a house call!
Interestingly the Moon is at the last degree of Virgo, said to offer an “escape from a narrow destiny” through “joy of enlisting in a task which broadens the life horizon.” Ordinarily it would be Void of Course, but at this time it makes a forming opposition to Neptune! That makes the Moon in Virgo a perfect nozzle to know or express something of the future dream.
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 August 5 at the next Mercury retrograde. August’s RX will give us a look back at the new identity we’ve become since January, and some will have to revise what they think is important and/or necessary.
In this chart, since Mercury no longer leads the Sun, we now have Jupiter in Gemini as the “gateway to the Light.” Jupiter will continue to lead the Light until the Mars/Jupiter conjunction in mid-August, after which Mars will lead the Light for about 5 days before the Inferior conjunction at 27 Leo.
With Jupiter now acting as the “entry to the Light,” we should adopt an attitude that everything is an adventure in learning and perceiving all there is to learn or perceive. Be expansive! See life as a grand adventure in exploring the world of the mind and communication, both inner and outer. Take an abundant view and you might find illumination in what you discover!
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 25 Gemini, we enter a time of culminating the process of “exteriorization” on the emotional and social levels of life. This should lead us to interesting perspectives related to how willingness to self-purify opens perspectives which we can shape to express ourselves.
As Mars occupies 5 Taurus, the exact degree of the Sun in the 2024 Wesak Festival where a new compassionate “Buddha Wisdom” came forth, it implies this period to come will activate elements of the Ageless Wisdom in our lives related to the global Teaching for 2024. And because Gemini is associated with the Archetype of the Magician-Engineer, to whom all of life is a vast series of “experiments in Truth,” if there’s any question which way a given experience is leading us, see it as a thought experiment to find the right approach or understanding.
This will give us a chance to articulate our Light fused with “the Guide of Souls” to find how we can prune some excess growth and shape our expression, or maybe we’ll awaken to the need to be more active in our care of what we value emotionally or socially. This is the culmination of the new vision we’ve just begun to glimpse, and will lead us to “the bare trees” showing us the essential “shapes of things” and seeing past the appearance to the essence of things. This will be followed by seeing the beauty of a distant vision, or perhaps some will make a connection with someone who can lead them to that distant vision. 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.
As Mercury, the ruler of the conjunction, is also conjunct Venus, this should be an exceptionally pleasant few weeks, even if some things are at a fork in the road of destiny and there’s a sense of standing on the edge of a precipice.. Be clear about your vision, your ideal, your position in the collective consciousness, and what old trajectory you’re leaving behind. This conjunction promises opportunity, a more abundant view, and prepares us for a new chapter to come 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 Gemini, see it all as the Guide of Souls having caught up to the Great Light illuminating a) our need for a more focused expression without the clutter of distractions, and/or b) our understanding of trimming back to expand better in the future, and/or c) seeing how we’ve already done these and now can simply bury the past. This activates the revolution delivered by Uranus in 2019-2020 which was essential to “the Light of Compassionate Buddha Wisdom” now in play in 2024. You can find more about 5 Taurus in the link to the 2024 Wesak offered above.
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 5 at 5 Virgo. Because it’ll be dropping in speed by mid-July when it enters its Shadow Zone, get whatever you need to get in motion now, preparing for Mercury to “crash into retrograde” by the third week of July.
As I’ve mentioned in other articles, we’re still in the middle of a run of many years where each has its own specific Mercury retrograde theme. You can find out more about that in other Mercury retrograde articles explaining the various specific themes for each year (This year it’s 23 Sagittarius).
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 in Leo beginning July 16-17 when it enters its shadow zone beginning at 22 Leo, 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 and Leo, or the previous one in Aries, or any other sign retrograde, as well as the houses it occupies in your chart. Of course I'll give you a lot more about the coming retrograde in early August.
Here's the Amazon link to where you can order your paperback edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde at the new lower price. 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 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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