Mercury-Saturn Quintile

(Transit Mercury → Natal Saturn)

Avesalom Podvodnyi. Aspects

Mercury quintile: Mental fertility hinders the blossoming of thought. This aspect grants in the areas of the Planet liveliness of mind and speech, which, if Mercury is afflicted, can cost the person very 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 quickness of thought, which will manifest in the person in the areas of the Planet; expressed ideas 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 itself is also afflicted, creating difficulties in its assimilation, the quintile will carry great strain, and either the person adapts their lively mind to heavy Planetary issues and learns to resolve them, or their intellect loses inventiveness, freshness, and natural talent fades. In the harmonious variant, this quintile grants great mental abilities in the areas of the Planet — when the person chooses to apply them, ingenuity and constructiveness of ideas, but also a general passivity which will gradually drown them out. Saturn quintile: Asceticism is the desire to focus on one way of life. This aspect often brings in the areas of the Planet an interested-skeptical attitude toward life manifestations. Deep inside, the person very much wants to grow and flourish, yet at the same time sees numerous obstacles to this, doubts success, and yet awaits it, becoming deeply saddened by life’s failures and victories of backwardness, though never missing a chance to say: “I told you nothing good would come of these undertakings.” However, the person becomes a strangler of life manifestations in the areas of the Planet only at the lowest level of quintile and Saturn integration, and under strong affliction, resulting from deep traumas inflicted upon their vulnerable life-affirming feeling. Usually, this aspect softens Saturn’s rigidity, and beneath an outward strictness and discipline lies the desire to preserve life within expressions of the Planetary principle and to allow it room for development. When Saturn is afflicted, the person will hold overly certain and dogmatic views on precisely how this life should be, and exactly how it must animate the forms in which it arises; with harmony, the person will know how and when to assist this life, but will often be too lazy to do so. Here, integration brings deep understanding of what occurs in backward forms (especially the most rigid and difficult ones, such as mathematical and metal structures) when life emerges within them, and of the developmental prospects of their specific manifestations, as well as knowledge of what kind of help is needed by each, and what kind is undesirable (an afflicted Saturn without integration may suffocate).