Take a look at the accompanying Notion page for the links and writing prompt here.
PROFILE: Mercury
Fastest Moving Planet (other than the moon)
Ruler of Virgo and Gemini
Messenger of the Gods
Platonic Love, Language, Learning
We tend to “meet” each other’s Mercury first — through email, text, speaking.
DEEPER SIGNIFICATIONS:
this planet is that of neutrality, fluidity, psychopomp, the being that brings people and information up from the underworld or down from the heavens
They give us information on how we use language; process language; learn language. The writing process is that of translation, always: from the body to the tongue. From the learned to the student. From the parent to the child, from the child to the parent.
Mercury assists with all transmissions of information.
PROFILE: Capricorn
The Mystical Sea-goat
10th Zodiac Sign
Ruled by the planet Saturn
KEY TERMS:
Standard, tradition, isolation, outsider, dark, mystical, prophetic, the questioner, truth-revealing questions, diviner, resourceful, future-oriented, concerned with good harvest, “living presence of the tension between the time bound and the timeless” (Elenbaas), the holder of opposites, negative capability, the exiled, the outsider, serious and irreverent simultaneously
Capricorn symbolizes the shift between the primal state into the sophisticated space — how digging language out of the body feels for me, and crafting the language into something another person may benefit from. Or, at the very least, understand.
H O W 🌊 T H E S E 🌊 A R C H E T Y P E S 🌊 B L E N D
Key figures born with Mercury in Capricorn:
David Lynch, Maggie Smith, James Dean, Michele Obama, Nostradamus, Stephen Hawking, David Bowie
Where Mercury moves fluidly through boundaries, Saturn (Capricorn’s ruler) holds together the reality of opposites in time and space. They’re a complementary couple in wrinkling or bending time.
It’s these two planets we look to when discussing history as a moving frame. How events are talked about and from which perspectives. In which languages.
They are friends — when together, the delineations are often very positive. They both bend reality and they both concept time differently than most people do.
Fun fact:
Hermes and Saturn (Capricorn’s ruler) are the planets of the astrologer (those who study patterns through time).
Observations of writers born when Mercury was in Capricorn:
In reading poets with Mercury in Capricorn, I see both a structural or design approach with also a punk or outsider tone. I’m curious if you sense it too.
There’s a cleverness, too, but that of a wider POV and less of a fancy footwork in wordplay. I also sense a sleight of hand element — not to trick us, but to have us feel that gasp of surprise when something makes new and clear sense.
O K A Y ✒️ B U T ✒️ C A N ✒️ I ✒️ G E T ✒️ A N ✒️ E X A M P L E?
Scaffolding Prompt — we will read and discuss what we notice about the following three poems. Then, we will select one of these poems to act as “scaffolding” for a poem of our own.
Don Mee Choi, “The End of a Nation”
Diane Seuss, “Folk Song”
Dara Barrois/Dixon, “Don’t Say My Name”
Scaffolding Prompt:
For 30 minutes, we will turn our cameras and mics off. In this time, allow the essence of the scaffold poem to wash over you.
How would you replace these words or phrases with language that comes from your own Mercury, your own body?
What is present for you right now that rhymes with the poem you choose as your scaffolding?
Consider how much of the language must be altered in order for it to feel originally yours — is there a “right” answer for this?
✂️ R E S O U R C E S ✂️
From one of my astrology teachers:
From a Mercury in Capricorn musician:
A poem that inspired the scaffolding prompt:
https://poets.org/poem/scaffolding
Questions? Comments?
Email me at kpkaszu@gmail.com or head over to KP Kaszubowski 🌩️ Astrology Offerings for more details about my astrological practice.
Also here’s a video poem TriQuarterly published recently that I’m very proud of:
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