Pages

Monday 24 September 2012

Defining Mercury II

Mountains,  Emil Nolde
Read Part I here

In which we discover that Dickens was  Aquarian - how's that for synchronicity? I honestly didn't know.

Anyway, Mercury. Is still being squared by Saturn. And I was going to say I'll have to wing it, because I can't think of anything to say, but the fact is that actually I'm just not able to pour forth my thoughts in the usual way. What seems to be required is that I slow down, order my thoughts, consider the ideas and form them into a cohesive pattern. And this process is alien to my thinking nature.

 So. Here goes. I'm still going to wing it, after a fashion.

What is the purpose of language?

 Perhaps we should start by examining what language actually is. A form of communication. A method of expression. Communicating what, expressing what? Feelings, thoughts, notions? And where do these things arise? From inside of us, or from somewhere outside? Do these thoughts and feelings belong to us, or do they appear elsewhere and  just pass through us, the human, on their way?

And what is the method of expression? Words, music, painting, sculpture, dance, theatre. If all art is expression, then is all art language? Is nature then a language? If so, what is it expressing? What is it telling us?

I came across an idea once that language is a 'land-gauge'. A gauge of the land from which it arises, the frequency of that land. Which explains the multitude of languages, accents within a particular language, and indigenous music and art. That before people put shoes on their feet, shoes with rubber soles, they were conductors of the energies of their land, singing the music of their soul's arising. And as modern life has taken us further away from our natural sources, our song has become ever more simple, dull and uninspired. Mechanical and functional. IMO. YMMV.

And I think about languages with a form my brain doesn't recognise. Chinese, say. I listen and it sounds like music, because my mind is not able to decode it in any other way. When I lived in Wales, I used to listen to the Welsh language radio station and just experience the rhythms, cadences and tones. And what they said to me about the nature of the welsh essence. There is something underlying the words themselves that itself speaks volumes.  A right brain decoding, perhaps, rather than a left brain understanding.

But what seems to tie these notions back to the complexity and beauty of the words used by Dickens,  is speed. The faster life moves, the faster humans run through their lives, the less time and space there is for listening to and creating beautiful speech. There is a stillness required in the mind and soul to be able to receive and form.

And that, that stillness is a quality of Saturn. And now I see why so many of the people I know who write beautiful words, whose expression is poetic whether they are writing a poem or an email, have Mercury in aspect to Saturn. Mercury is quicksilver, and Saturn the container that holds and stills its reflective beauty.

A wing, and a prayer :)







9 comments:

  1. That was inspiring and insightful, and a reminder to aim high.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting, I published my first astrology blog last week (re saturn return) with transit saturn squared my mercury. I thought oh does that just describe the hard grind and inevitable self criticism that inevitably arose, but I agree the rush and adrenaline from doing it feels more uranian, but must just be Saturn feeling all is well, good job, you've done your best exactly as requested!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh well done Pippa!

    Quite funny though, as soon as Saturn went retrograde I stopped writing:) Been spending the time plotting a revamp instead.

    ReplyDelete
  4. odd. (but not.) last night/this morning, as i lay half-asleep, i became acutely aware of a conversation i was involved in, with myself. but with another. hard to describe. hard to define. there was wisdom to the words i was both speaking (to myself?) but it was clear they were not from me. i thought, "i need to wake up and write this down" but it felt that to do so would break the "spell." there was the strong sense of channeling something, of simply being a conduit. the advice i was getting - and i do recall that some of what i was hearing was advice - was extremely clear and there was a particular kind of intelligence to it that i could not, would not claim as my own. yet it came in the form of my half-dream, half-awake state.

    i recall many years ago of receiving poems - epic poems - and wanting so badly to somehow wake and write them down, but they were too much, like large fish - a whale - one has on the line, but that's where it would stay, on the line, not to be reeled in as much to wrestle with, to perhaps only know the experience of such deep-sea fishing.

    - saturn cap square mercury libra.

    a bit away from the kernel of your post, christine, but, i think, related.

    it is easier to comprehend the utility of language than it is to truly appreciate the beauty, the potential for soul-shifting poetry...in the conjoining and dance of "mere" words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder about the role of Neptune too, Bob. It's as if in your sleep you connect to the whole of poetry, or its archetypal realm, and in the waking world you are confined by other laws and have to then limit the expression, define it somehow, which is Saturn.

      It's a bit like the word has to become flesh, and in doing so is bound. But that binding can bring great beauty because it concentrates the pure essence.

      Delete
  5. Ugh...I have Mercury square Saturn natally and despite my Saggie blabbermouthedness I am restricted on a regular basis.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I never would have known that! You express yourself so well and so consistently:)

      Delete
  6. Writing is easier than talking...not sure why!

    -kashmiri

    ReplyDelete