Quintile Mercury – Neptune

(Transit. Mercury → Natal Neptune)

Avesalom Podvodny. Aspects

Mercury quintile: Mental flourishing hinders the blossoming of thought. This aspect grants in the areas of the Planet liveliness of mind and speech, which, if Mercury is afflicted in quintile, can cost the person dearly, as their words may provoke sharply negative reactions from backward forms. At a high level, this is the aspect of the satirist; with major harmonious aspects to Mercury — of the humorist, who may be not particularly humane in expression (“for a sharp word, won’t spare even one’s father”) — this quintile thus differing from the decile. Affliction of Mercury brings difficulties in adequately verbalizing the natural mental agility, which will manifest in the person in the areas of the Planet; expressed thoughts will initially appear inappropriate or outright foolish, though sometimes unconventional and amusing, which the person will find hard to bear, even if not necessarily showing it. If the Planet is also afflicted, creating difficulties in its assimilation, the quintile will carry heavy stress, and either the person adapts their lively mind to difficult Planetary issues and learns to resolve them, or their intellect loses inventiveness, freshness, and natural talent fades. In the harmonious variant, this quintile bestows great mental abilities in the areas of the Planet — when the person chooses to apply them, ingenuity and constructive thinking emerge, but also a general passivity that will gradually drown them out. Neptune quintile: The River of Life, flowing into the Ocean of Universal Love, originates in the swamp of Compassion. This aspect grants in the areas of the Planet vitality of meditation; at a high level — true understanding of the life of the Planetary principle and any of its manifestations. At a low level, especially if the quintile is afflicted, the person will be interested and active mainly in parasitic forms of life connected with deception, false positions, and secret use of others’ life force in the areas of the Planet. If Neptune is afflicted, the person may be inclined toward the lowest forms of life among all those manifesting in such backward forms, and then will defend them to the detriment of others; here, assimilation occurs primarily in the inner world, and sometimes the person must sink to the very bottom of the corresponding puddle in order to renounce the pleasures of dirty life (which they oppose to pure lifelessness), although sometimes half its depth suffices: the key is only not to close one’s eyes to what is actually happening, is actually happening. Characteristic here is a subconscious feeling of guilt before life in the areas of the Planet, which the person attempts to suppress or clumsily compensate. Affliction of the Planet with harmonious Neptune produces the rose-colored glasses effect: the person is happy with any manifestations of life in the areas of the Planet, and finds it difficult to distinguish low from high, or to understand their combinations at all, so they may end up in unpleasant situations, trying to protect what should not be protected from whom it should not be. The harmonious quintile grants mystical fascination with the life of the Planetary principle, combined with a certain passivity and a tendency to parasitize within it; at a high level — the ability to detect life under incredible conditions and help its development.