Mercury in Pisces: The Limits of Data and Logic

Recently, I completed a particularly grueling 5:30 am CrossFit workout.

When I finished, I looked at my Apple Watch to check my heart rate. That’s when I discovered that the workout timer wasn’t running. I had inadvertently not set it, despite doing so before every workout for the past several years.

Even worse, the watch registered no exercise minutes or move points from my CrossFit class.

I had just done 75 burpee box jump overs and 150 dumbbell snatches — hinging down and lifting a dumbbell overhead — and my watch didn’t even give me even one minute of credit.

It was as if it never happened.

When I told my coach what happened, he tried to put it in perspective, reminding me: you know what you did.

To which I replied: It’s not the same. I want my watch to know.

If you get it, you get it.

If you don’t, the whole thing sounds absurd.

Admittedly it is. It sounded silly to hear myself say it out loud.

If anything, this proved my points about the absurdity of both the metrics we get from wearable devices and the cultural paradigm in which we invest so much energy in metrics and data in the first place.

It was proof that metrics can be meaningless.

Did I need my watch to tell me I did the workout? Did I need it to give me a tabulation of expended calories that most likely isn’t accurate? No. I know how felt during and after the workout. I know I did it.

And yet I was still upset. Not just upset. Angry. Annoyed. Pissed off.

This proved the point that human nature isn’t rational or logical. For better or worse, we are emotional beings.

There was a clear lesson for me here to release at least some of my attachment to the data and metrics, especially when it comes to my health activities.

It was also a preview of the types of lessons that are guaranteed to arise as Mercury transits through Pisces, from February 23 through March 9, 2024.

Mercury Transits: Change Your Thinking

Mercury is the archetype of the Messenger, the Thinker, the Salesperson, and the Statistician. It’s the planet of communication, thinking, planning, and how we process information. It is the planet of problem-solving, decision-making, mental models, logic, and reason.

It is also the planet of commerce, short distance travel, learning, and navigating daily tasks.

It is also the statistician: it loves data.

Mercury’s transits through the signs invite us to explore what happens when we change the way we think, plan, and perceive the world.

Here are 3 themes to explore while Mercury is in Pisces:

3 Themes of Mercury in Pisces

(1) Intuition Over Reason

Pisces is the opposite sign to Virgo, where Mercury is both in its home and in exalted status. Mercury in Virgo brings out the part of us that is particular and precise. It’s a detailed planner, examining the numbers and making data-driven decisions.

Mercury is said to be both in it’s “fall” and its “detriment” in Pisces, a feminine water sign where everything merges into the ocean of oneness.

Pisces is a sign of dreaminess and flow, emotions and intuition. In Pisces, there are no bright lines, numbers, or hard data. In this ocean of emotion, there is no logic, no defined path, no routes, no clear landmarks — there’s nothing linear here at all.

This is a transit that encourages expression through poetry, art and music.

Mercury in Pisces invites us to listen beneath the surface of words to what is not being explicitly articulated. It encourages expression through poetry over prose, art over factual arguments, and music over mental models.

(2) Ditch the Data

Pisces is a place where we are invited to attune to the undercurrents of a situation and the felt experience over the data. While Mercury is here, we are asked to ditch the logical frameworks for deeper wisdom.

You know what you did. You don’t need the watch to tell you.

This applies in the realm of sales too, where we are invited to remember that even the vast amounts of data available can only tell us so much.

During this transit, it might help to remember that experience influences more purchasing decisions than price, and that decisions are driven by emotions, not logic.

(3) Transcend the Limits of Logic

Mercury in Pisces offers us an opportunity to transcend the ordinary channels of creativity and commerce and access a deeper well of inspiration and imagination.

Even if, like me, you’re not ready to completely ditch your Apple Watch, this transit invites us to at least diminish the role of metrics in dictating our daily decisions.

The watch shouldn’t dictate my decisions about my workout.

Pisces is a sign of spirituality, and this transit offers an opportunity to transcend the limits of logic and reason and discover new ways of navigating a reality that doesn’t always “make sense” by foster a deeper connection to spirituality and deep wisdom.