This is the fourth part of my essay series “Inner Work with the Planets”. If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start with part 1 to get the most out of this essay.
After a bright and shiny day with no clouds anywhere in sight, the Sun set just half an hour ago, and it’s promising to be a quiet and dark night with an equally clear sky.
The Moon is only a thin sliver tonight, and her subdued light gives you a wondeful view of all the less bright stars. In the West, Venus is outdoing herself in her gala performance as evening star, by far the brightest object in the sky.
Much higher up in the South, and a lot further away from the Sun than Venus, Jupiter is doing his level best to outshine her in his slightly different shade of white. These two are so bright, they are easy to spot.
But now it gets a bit trickier. Mars is still fairly easy, with his distinguished red shine.
Saturn is somewhat harder. He’s fairly distant, thus rather small to our eyes, and also by far not as shiny-bright as Venus or Jupiter. But still, you’ve been smart and looked up his current location beforehand, and… ah, there he is! A small, rather dullish brown point in the sky.
But Mercury… Have you ever seen Mercury? For real, I mean, not on some photograph?
Chances are good you haven’t – and the reason why leads us straight into the territory of the Hermetic planet Mercury, its vices and virtues…
