Sun Quincunx Mercury
(Transit Sun → Natal Mercury)
Avesalom Podvodny. Aspects
Sun quincunx: The hardest thing is to fight an enemy while remaining a peaceful person. This aspect produces in the spheres of the Planet an effect of certain inadequacy in the person’s volitional impulses, noticeable to attentive surroundings and, at a certain level of self-awareness, to the individual himself, though they will find it difficult to articulate exactly what it is, and he will struggle to understand it. Similarly, external imperative situations in the Planet’s spheres will present the person with certain difficulties—each of which, if desired, he is capable of overcoming in some way, but when the quincunx is afflicted, this may seem exhausting (while with harmonious aspects, it may appear appealing). This aspect indicates external intervention of cosmic will in the Planet’s spheres, as well as attempts to integrate it through the individual’s personal will. Until the person begins to recognize (in the Planet’s spheres) the cosmic signature within external imperative circumstances and within his own volitional impulses, and until he learns to adequately respond to both through those impulses, both will considerably perplex and partially disturb him. Generally, in the areas of a quincunx, the individual (except at a very high level of integration) experiences difficulties related to the emergence of cosmic, i.e., non-human influences and ethics, but in this case it manifests particularly acutely, because it is difficult even to admit that one’s will is under the influence of the cosmic, as it would be with a semi-sextile of the Sun, yet here it is further complicated by combining it with personal initiative and creative effort. At a low level, when the Sun is afflicted, the person will tend to evade the small pebbles occasionally flying toward him in the Planet’s spheres, while with a well-aspected Sun, he will likely experience passive enjoyment, akin to the sensation of vibrations from a fast train on the upper bunk of a soft railway carriage; upon sudden braking, one might fall down, but the bones will remain intact. Mercury quincunx: Every word has its true meaning. This aspect imparts a cosmic direction to thoughts within the Planet’s spheres, but this implies not only an interest in science fiction, but also certain difficulties with earthly modes of comprehension, which may cause the individual considerable minor discomfort, since the usual, socially accepted way of thinking will seem to him dull, insufficient, and unsatisfactory. His own thoughts and reflections may seem to the person objective and witty, sometimes even an unquestionable universal truth, but in reality they will most often turn out to be an eclectic mixture of weak earthly reasoning with an unassimilated cosmic mind, from which extracting rational or sound mystical seeds will be quite difficult. During periods of strong activation of the quincunx, the individual will experience an inhuman torrent of thoughts and may either fear them or, conversely, welcome them, depending on the major aspects of the quincunx and the chart as a whole, but learning to adapt to the cosmic nature of his thoughts and to constructively align them with earthly circumstances will be essential. When Mercury is afflicted (and the chart generally), for this reason, there may even be a risk of personality dissociation, delusions of cosmic grandeur, or persecution mania. Integration requires, first, relinquishing anthropocentric and geocentric views regarding the Planet’s spheres and developing within them a cosmic ethics, and second, carefully harmonizing cosmic-oriented thinking with earthly concerns—a task that will not be simple, but which ultimately can yield extraordinary creative abilities and a cosmic orientation.
