Transiting Saturn conjunct Natal Mercury

This transit is a time of serious, heavy, even pessimistic thinking. Communication with others becomes more significant, and also more difficult. This transit often means saying goodbye. Communication devices and machinery break down during this transit.

Your mental and intellectual viewpoint is narrowed by this transit. You may feel an almost burdensome responsibility to communicate now, and you weigh your words more carefully than ever. Your mind works slowly now, but with more depth, logic, objectivity and profundity than usual. You are likely to concern yourself with a smaller range of ideas, but you are more likely to think about them thoroughly. You are beginning a major new cycle of ideas and opinions, of communicating in new ways. This consumes your mental energy and limits your ability to range over a large number of topics. Also you root out old ideas and notions that have outlived their usefulness in your life.

Your mind is very disciplined, but with this discipline and narrowing of focus there is the danger of thinking too narrowly. You may overlook important alternatives because of your tendency to concentrate single-mindedly at this time. Also, with your tendency toward depressed thoughts you may overlook possibilities that seem too idealistic or risky; probably they are not at all- it is just that you are thinking "small." Beware of a negative attitude and rigid thinking.

When dealing with yourself and others, be careful that you do not become too concerned with an unattainable perfection. One effect of the Saturn-Mercury combination can be to make you too exacting and critical, with one result that you alienate others.

Commerce is not favored now, and be careful when signing contracts. You may make binding agreements which are too restrictive and unfavorable in the long run. This is a not a good time to give lectures or engage in debates.

Mercury also rules the nervous system, speech and hearing. Occasionally this transit signifies problems in one of these areas- nervous ailments, speech or hearing problems and the like, although these are not the most common results of this transit. More commonly this is a period of depression because of a natural tendency to be excessively concerned with serious and difficult subjects. It is easier to see shortcomings and deficiencies now than their opposites.

Nevertheless this can be an excellent time for working a single idea through completely and for planning very carefully. Although this transit is not about success and recognition, you can be very effective in your endeavors due to extra patience, perseverance, diligent workmanship and ability to concentrate. Decisions made during this period are likely to have major impact for years to come. Try not to act until Saturn has made its final conjunction.

Transiting Saturn sextile Natal Mercury

At this time your thinking has settled into stable patterns, and not very much is changing in your mind. But you have discipline and concentration, which enable you to get a great deal of work done. You have a clear idea of what you want to achieve intellectually, and you are willing to work for it. This is an excellent time for any long-range planning that requires you to see the larger scope all at once and handle it as a single system. This transit favors any kind of work involving organization and restructuring. It is excellent for most business transactions, especially those requiring carefully thought-out plans for development. It is not so good for risky or speculative investments, because your level of intuition is lower than normal. It is also a good time for serious study and difficult mental work.

You have a very serious cast of mind now; that is, you approach everything seriously. You want to get your work done, and you aren't interested in playing games with people.

Your views about the world have reached a point of stability, so you act from a consistent position. You believe that you understand what the world is about and you operate on that basis. Obviously this can create some problems. If your mental patterns become too fixed, you close out viewpoints and opinions that will help you grow. Narrow-mindedness is a danger with all the transits of Saturn to Mercury. Saturn can either organize your knowledge into its most useful form, or it can cut you off from knowledge through intellectual rigidity.

This transit sharpens your critical faculties. your standards are very exacting, and you are likely to judge everything by them. Consequently you are very quick to see exactly what is wrong in any situation. But here again there is the danger that critical thinking may become an excuse for nit-picking and narrow-mindedness. You can too easily learn to see the flaws in everything before you see the strengths, which makes your world seem a great deal more imperfect than it is.

Another point you should keep in mind is that there is a very small difference between stable patterns of thinking and being in a rut. In a few years Saturn will either square your natal mercury or conjoin it, depending upon whether this is a waxing or a waning sextile. If you allow yourself to become rigid now, your problems will be greater when either of those transits occurs. On the other hand, if you use this time to stabilize your thinking without becoming rigid, you will be better able to withstand future challenges.

Transiting Saturn square Natal Mercury

This can be a time of difficulties in communicating with others and of problems arising from a serious conflict of viewpoints. During this transit your ideas and opinions, as well as your ways of communicating with people, will be seriously challenged by others. Disagreements may lead you to sever relationships or at least to consider doing so. You may feel gloomy, depressed and worried because people do not seem to share your ideas. This makes you feel alone, and at the same time you may withdraw from communicating with others. Therefore this is usually a poor time to make any decisions unless you have to. In your present frame of mind you are incapable of seeing the whole picture upon which any decision must be based. Also your tendency toward pessimism makes you underestimate the real possibilities.

Instead of withdrawing from intellectual conflict with others, you should try to recognize the sources of conflict and help everyone clarify the problems. The differences between you and others are real. Your ideas are fixed and clear enough that others may feel called upon to challenge them. You are in the position of having to defend and justify to others what you believe and think.

It may be that your thinking has become too rigid over the last several years. Challenges by other people can force you to examine your ideas and opinions to see whether they are broad enough to encompass your experience. If you discover that they are not, this should be a time of radical mental reconstruction. If you do not succeed in incorporating other people's challenges into your idea-structure and instead just ignore them, you will undergo a much more serious period of mental confusion and readjustment in about seven years, when Saturn opposes or conjoins your Mercury.

Transiting Saturn trine Natal Mercury

At this point in the Saturn-Mercury cycle, your mind, point of view and style of thinking and communicating have reached a point of stability. You are quite secure in them, for you know how and what you think about most things. This is not a time of change, but of preparing to use your mind. Consequently it is an excellent time for any task requiring mental discipline and hard work, such as study, schooling or learning any new mental discipline. It is not a very good time for work requiring great inspiration, intuitive insight and creativity. You will get results through hard work and scholarly methods, not through divinely inspired insight.

This transit favors planning and organization of various aspects of your life. You have a definite sense of order in mind, which you can make manifest in your life. This is a good time to put your ideas into practice on the material level and to carry out long-standing plans. If you have planned a project, such as building up a new business or starting a new organization, this is a good time to do it. Saturn represents material reality, while Mercury represents the thought behind it.

Of all the Saturn-Mercury transits, whether by hard or soft angles, this one puts you in the most danger of letting your opinions become too rigid. It is important that your ideas acquire definite form and stability at this time, because in the future they will be challenged very strongly. You must be reasonably definite and sure of yourself in order to withstand the challenges. But rigidity will only make those times worse, because your thinking will have to be flexible, no matter how certain you are now that you are right.

At this time you have an unusual ability to see every intricate piece of a whole, and your position on most matters is very clear. Consequently your critical ability is greater than usual, and you can see instantly what is wrong in any situation. Just don't let this degenerate into nit-picking.

Transiting Saturn quincunx Natal Mercury

Transiting Saturn opposite Natal Mercury

At this time your ideas and plans may be defeated, or they may have their greatest concrete realization. In either case, you will run into considerable resistance from others to what you say. This may result from severing relationships with those who disagree with you because there is no longer any communication between you. Or it may result simply in the breakdown of communication that was once quite good.

Other people's resistance to your thinking is not intended solely to defeat you, although you may think so. You may be tempted to give up if you are not secure in your thinking and plans. But the resistance of others also forces you to give your plans clearer form and to take definite steps to implement them. This takes hard work and much heavy thinking, but the results can be quite good.

If your ideas cannot withstand the challenge or you do not have enough confidence to defend them, this is likely to be a time of self-doubt and questioning. You will seek to find out what is wrong with your ideas, and if you can be sufficiently detached, you may indeed find out what is wrong. But if you just wallow in guilt, doubt and "being wrong," you will accomplish little except to become depressed.

Although this is not an especially easy time, you shouldn't take a negative or pessimistic view of matters. There are concrete challenges to be met, and you should use your energy to recognize and meet them. Negative thinking is a form of self-indulgence that you cannot afford at this time.

One factor in this transit may be causing you problems. If you have already allowed your thinking to become too rigid and fixed, you will find it difficult to make occasional necessary compromises when you are challenged. Even with the best ideas, a certain amount of mental flexibility is necessary. Rigidity is almost certain to spell defeat, because the forces that oppose you will become equally unbending and rigid.

Sometimes this transit can signify illnesses involving the speech organs and lungs, laryngitis for example, but obviously this need not be the case.