Mercury Cazimi in Taurus Brings Insights For The Turbulent Path Ahead

Here’s a question I’ve been marinating lately:

Once you’re on the road to wherever you’re going, does it matter so much where you’ve been?

What’s Actually Relevant?

For any map to be effective, we need to know where we are and where we want to go.

With these two points as landmarks, we can plot our path.

Once we’re actually en route, the original starting point seems to become less relevant.

There’s a point in the journey where knowing where you are is more important than the story of how you got there.

In addition, once en route, maybe the roads leading to your destination are closed. Perhaps you learn that the destination itself has shut down. Or, maybe you realize that you no longer wish to go to the originally-planned destination.

Life throws you things. Values and priorities change. Or, maybe they don’t change.

Perhaps you realize that the original plan was based on where other people told you to go but is not aligned with what you really value.

Why Are You Headed to Where You’re Going?

It’s like when everyone is talking about the new steakhouse and telling you that you must go there. It’s not easy to get to. It takes effort to move things in your schedule to make it work. But you do it. You put in all the work, and make the effort to go.

On the way, you suddenly have a burst of insight.

You realize “I don’t even like steak.”

And then you wonder: “Why am I making such a big effort to go there?”

No need to go into your whole life history of how you used to like steak, but you had a bad experience once, and then you saw some documentary about the beef industry swore off steak for life.

It’s not relevant. And, frankly, nobody cares.

What’s relevant is where you are right now: “I don’t like steak.”

What’s relevant is that you realize “I don’t want to go to that steakhouse because that won’t be enjoyable for me.”

What’s relevant is that you let it go.

And once you do, you open to a myriad of options for where to go. Something that will be more enjoyable for you than a steakhouse.

It’s a simple example. Perhaps too simple.

It feels easier to change course on a restaurant than it is on a life path, career path, or a relationships. At least it does for me; your mileage may vary.

And yet, sometimes, the simplicity of the metaphor is helpful. Because, if you think about it, all of life should be this simple:

The Simple Life Formula

Let go of the backstory. Stop focusing on where you were. Stop basing your decisions about where to go in life on what everyone else tells you you should want, or what other people think is so great.

Notice where you are. Understand who you are.

Choose where you want to go based on your values.

When it’s time to make a change, let go of the past — other than whatever you learned that will be helpful for you in moving forward.

Attune to the Messages

What’s most important in this whole process is that we attune to the messages that are speaking to us. When we fail to listen to the messages, or — worse — listen but override them because we are caught up in our ego desires or because we want to do what others think is best — we end up suffering through a steak dinner.

That’s the vibe of this week, astrologically speaking.

Mercury Cazimi in Taurus

Mercury, the messenger planet, is currently retrograde in Taurus, asking us to review how we’re working with our resources and whether we are working in a way that is sustainable.

This week starts off with a Mercury cazimi, a conjunction with the sun. A Mercury cazimi offers a moment of insight or clarity — if you’re attuned and listening for the messages.

Full Moon Eclipse in Scorpio

The Mercury cazimi happens as the sun in Taurus is on its way to an opposition with the moon in Scorpio — a full moon that will occur at the end of the week.

This is not just any full moon, though.

It’s a full moon lunar eclipse. At the south node. In Scorpio.

It’s the last of 3 south node eclipses in Scorpio — a series that started in May 2022 — and the last south node eclipse we’ll have in Scorpio for a couple of decades.

Eclipses, in general, mark beginnings and endings of chapters in our lives, and this theme is punctuated by the fact that this is a finale in this series.

The south node is a point of release, and Scorpio is a sign that deals with what we release. In the body, it corresponds to the excretory system.

Scorpio goes deep. In the emotions, it’s the sign where we deal with grief, loss, mental health, as well as death, taxes, and the other things that nobody likes to talk about in a culture that prefers to focus on “happiness.”

(More on this full moon later in the week.)

Whatever insight we get from the Mercury cazimi will travel with the sun into its opposition with the moon, revealing to us what we must release at this full moon lunar eclipse.

Taurus and Scorpio are both fixed signs; they stubbornly hold ground (or hold their water, in the case of Scorpio). Neither lets go with much ease or grace. But this time, there isn’t much choice.

Sun Conjunct Uranus in Taurus

On the heels of the eclipse, the Sun will go on to conjunct Uranus, the planet of disruption and revolution. Uranus brings unexpected change. Currently just over halfway through it’s long Taurus transit, it’s shaking up the ground on which Taurus’ infamous stability and groundedness is based.

Uranus in Taurus brings us earthquakes — both literal and metaphoric. When earthquakes happen, roads get blocked. We’re forced into detours and perhaps even to new destinations.

To change the metaphor slightly: maybe you do like steak. Maybe you were even committed, firmly, to your steak dinner.

Then, en route to the restaurant, an earthquake hits. The steakhouse is destroyed. You’re forced to change direction and find a new destination.

Does it matter where you’ve been or how far you’ve traveled? No.

Does it matter that you fought tooth and nail to get this reservation, that you waited months? No.

Does it matter how good everyone else said it is? Not at all.

You’ve got to let go of the past and forge ahead in a new direction, traveling on unstable ground.

The best way to anchor yourself in an unstable situation is to root into your values: when you know who you are and where you are, you can attune to the new paths that may lie ahead once the dust settles.