Mercury’s Journey of the Radiant Mind
A Trickster's Journey emphasises wit over strength, transformation over conquest, and the trickster's paradoxical role as both chaos agent and ultimate truth-revealer.
I have a 12-stage structure that I use, similar to the Hero’s Journey, but more about finding authenticity than developing willpower.
The Leo Mercury Journey
A Trickster's Path from Glory to Wisdom
July 31 - November 20, 2024
Seeded in the fire of Leo, this journey asks: Can you transform your need for recognition into something truly magnificent? Can the performer become authentic? Can the mind's radiance find its purpose?
· Stage 1: The Achieved World / Pressure Point
July 31 - August 5 | Mercury in Leo
You stand at the summit. Perhaps you've built something impressive—a reputation, a persona, a way of being that gets attention and applause. Your mind is sharp, your wit is on display, and you know how to command a room. But on July 31st, as Mercury and Earth align in Leo's fire, a crack appears. Something whispers: This is a performance. You feel the pressure building—the recognition you've achieved suddenly feels hollow, the crown feels heavy, the spotlight reveals the makeup.
You'll fight to hold it together. Of course you will. Leo doesn't surrender easily.
Think of Tony Stark in his cave in Afghanistan, surrounded by his own weapons. He built an empire on charisma and genius, but the pressure point comes when he sees what his brilliance has actually created. He's not ready to change yet—he'll build one more suit, one more performance of power—but the seed has cracked.
· Stage 2: The Unmasking / Forced Revelation
August 6-12 | Mercury in Leo
The call comes, and you can't unhear it. Something—a person, an event, a realization—exposes the gap between who you appear to be and who you actually are. The distance between Mercury and Earth grows, and with it, your ability to maintain the illusion weakens. You might double down first, perform even harder, turn up the charm and the cleverness. But underneath, rebellion is brewing. The part of you that's tired of the show is getting louder.
This is when you start to understand: the thing you've been running from is yourself.
Loki, learning he's not Asgardian, trying desperately to prove he deserves the throne anyway. Or Fleabag, breaking the fourth wall for the first time—acknowledging the audience she's been performing for all along.
· Stage 3: The Mirror / Trickster Mentor
August 13-23 | Mercury in Leo
Someone sees through you. Maybe it's another clever person who recognizes your games because they play them too. Maybe it's a version of yourself you don't want to acknowledge. Maybe it's someone who loves you enough to call you out. Whoever it is, they hold up a mirror, and you can't look away. This isn't comfortable supernatural aid—this is disturbing. They show you your own tricks, your own masks, your own fears.
Leo's fire makes this especially harsh. You built your identity on being special, on standing out—and now you're being shown that you're just another performer in a long line of performers, running the same tired script.
Think of Tyrion Lannister meeting Varys—two manipulators recognizing each other's games. Or Neil Perry in Dead Poets Society, confronted by Mr. Keating who sees both his passion and his cage.
· Stage 4: The Trap Springs / Loss of Control
August 24-28 | Mercury in Leo
Your own schemes backfire. The very cleverness you relied on becomes the trap. By late August, something you set in motion comes back to bite you, or you discover you've been playing in someone else's game all along. The rules change. Your usual tricks don't work. Humiliation arrives, and Leo—who lives for glory—finds this especially bitter.
This is rock bottom for your ego. The performance has failed, and everyone saw it fail.
Promising Young Woman's Cassie, discovering her carefully laid plans have led somewhere she didn't expect. Or Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens, realizing they've been pawns in a much larger game between Heaven and Hell.
· Stage 5: The Game Within Games / Shifting Alliances
August 29 - September 2 | Mercury moves Leo → Virgo
As you enter Virgo on September 2nd, everything shifts. Leo's grand gestures give way to Virgo's precise analysis. Now the trials begin—but they're not about winning, they're about understanding. Every challenge requires you to think differently, to outsmart rather than outshine. Alliances shift. People you thought were enemies might be allies. People you trusted might be playing their own games.
The real trial? Learning to trust while knowing everyone has an agenda. Including you.
Virgo strips away Leo's bravado and asks: What's actually useful here? What serves a purpose beyond your ego?
Ocean's Eleven—the intricate dance of competing agendas all working toward something larger. Or Arya Stark training in Braavos, learning that every game has rules she hasn't mastered yet.
· Stage 6: Recognition / Seeing the Self in the Other
September 3-7 | Mercury in Virgo
In early September, you meet someone—or something—that makes you feel truly seen. Not the performance, not the mask, but the vulnerable truth underneath. This might be love, deep friendship, or simply recognition. It's terrifying because Virgo has already shown you all your flaws, and now someone is seeing them too... and staying anyway.
This is the moment you realize you're worth something beyond the applause.
Éowyn and Faramir in the Houses of Healing—two people broken open, seeing each other's wounds without flinching. Or Hiccup and Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon, recognizing the same fear and loneliness in each other.
· Stage 7: Confronting the Author / The Architect Revealed
September 8-14 | Mercury in Virgo
Mid-September brings the confrontation you've been building toward. You discover who's been pulling the strings, who wrote the rules of this game you've been playing. Maybe it's a system, an institution, a parent, a belief structure—but you realize the whole framework was constructed. The rules were always arbitrary. Someone benefited from you playing by them.
And you've been complicit. Virgo's discernment becomes ruthless here: you see your own participation in your own cage.
The Truman Show's climactic moment. Neo meeting the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded. Westworld's Dolores discovering Ford. The moment of recognizing the cosmic joke.
· Stage 8: The Cosmic Joke / Understanding
September 15 - October 3 | Mercury moves Virgo → Libra
You get it. Finally, devastatingly, beautifully—you understand. The whole performance, the entire game, the pointlessness and the profound meaning all at once. Virgo's analysis has done its work, and as Mercury moves into Libra on September 18th, you see the balance, the paradox. Your chaos served order. Your lies revealed truth. Your performance taught you what authenticity means.
This is wisdom, and it aches.
Arrival's Louise Banks, understanding the gift and burden of seeing all of time at once. Or Ted Lasso's final season revelation about the cost of always being the optimistic coach.
· Stage 9: The Glorious Burden / Duty Over Desire
October 4-13 | Mercury moves Libra → Scorpio
On October 6th, Mercury enters Scorpio, and everything deepens. This is the ultimate boon, the moment Leo has been building toward—but it's not what Leo wanted. Glory arrives, yes, but as duty. Power comes, but through sacrifice. You finally understand your purpose, and it's not about recognition or applause. It's about what you're willing to carry.
You stop running from responsibility. The trickster becomes the guardian.
Scorpio asks: Are you willing to die to who you were?
Loki taking the throne at the center of time. Frodo accepting the Ring must be carried to Mordor. Moana returning the heart of Te Fiti. The moment of accepting the glorious burden.
· Stage 10: The Grand Illusion / Reality Restructured
October 14 - November 2 | Mercury in Scorpio
Through late October, you perform one final trick—but this time, it's in service of truth. You use every skill you've developed, every manipulation you've mastered, every clever insight you've gained—but genuinely. You reshape reality not for your benefit, but because you understand how the game works and you're changing the rules.
This is Scorpio's transformative power combined with Mercury's cunning. You become the magician who reveals how the magic is done and does it anyway.
Inception's final kick. Doctor Strange bargaining with Dormammu, using time as a weapon of persistence. Ender realizing the simulation was real and choosing different rules.
· Stage 11: The Story Echoes / Witnessing the Ripples
November 3-8 | Mercury in Scorpio
Early November brings the witnessing. From your position of sacrifice, you see the paths you've created—not for yourself, but for others. Free will. Choice. Infinite possibility. This is your rescue from without: the outcome proving your sacrifice wasn't futile. You remain the guardian, but you're sustained by observing and subtly influencing all the movement you've enabled.
Scorpio's depth allows you to see into the underworld and the overworld simultaneously. You're the bridge.
Loki watching the timelines unfold. Gandalf observing the hobbits save the Shire. The Ancient One in Doctor Strange, seeing all the possible futures her sacrifice enabled.
· Stage 12: The Eternal Paradox / The Transformer Transformed
November 9-14 | Mercury in Scorpio
The final stage in Scorpio before the cycle turns. You exist between worlds now—truth and lie, chaos and order, freedom and duty. You've been transformed by your own tricks. The world is changed because you found authenticity beneath the performance.
This is the quarter-turn of maturity: from Leo's radiant desire for recognition to Scorpio's embodied wisdom through transformation. You don't perform power anymore. You ARE power, because you're willing to hold the weight of paradox, to be both prisoner and guardian, sacrifice and salvation.
The trickster has become the wise fool, the one who knows the cosmic joke and plays it anyway.
Think of the end of Breaking Bad—Walter White finally admitting "I did it for me." Or The Good Place's final door. The moment of accepting you are both the question and the answer.
· The Return to Stage 1
November 15-19 | Mercury Rx in Scorpio
On November 15th, Mercury and Earth return to the same sign, but the new journey won't seed until November 20th. These days are liminal—reviewing, integrating, holding. Mercury retrograde back into Scorpio suggests one final plunge into the underworld wisdom before the new cycle begins.
What world will you build this time? What will you achieve now that you know the difference between performance and purpose?
The next journey awaits.
This Mercury cycle transformed Leo's radiant ego into Scorpio's embodied wisdom. You learned that glory without substance is just noise, but mind wielded with purpose can hold worlds together. The trickster's path always leads here: to the moment you stop performing power and become it through sacrifice, depth, and truth.
Mercury Journey by Sign
Leo Seeds, Scorpio Transforms (July 31 - November 20, 2024)
This Mercury-Earth cycle asks each sign to mature the radiance of their Leo house through the transformative wisdom of their Scorpio house. Where Leo performed, Scorpio embodies. Where Leo sought glory, Scorpio finds purpose.
Each rising sign's journey moves from Leo's need for recognition to Scorpio's embodied wisdom. The quarter-turn teaches that true power comes not from performance but from being willing to be transformed by what you do, love, serve, and become.
Aries
Leo in 5th House → Scorpio in 8th House
Your creative self-expression, romantic life, and joy have been asking: "Am I performing pleasure or actually experiencing it?" The Leo seed cracked in your 5th house—perhaps revealing that your creativity has become a show, your romance a role, your play a pressure to be impressive.
By November, Scorpio's 8th house wisdom transforms this. Your creativity deepens into something that transforms both you and others. Romance becomes intimate truth rather than dramatic display. You discover that true joy comes not from being the most entertaining person in the room, but from creating and loving with such depth that you're willing to be vulnerable, even destroyed and remade. Your art stops seeking applause and starts seeking truth. Your heart stops performing passion and starts embodying it.
The maturation: From creative performance to transformative creation. From dramatic love to intimate truth.
Your character arc: Bo Burnham in Inside—the performer questioning whether his creativity is healing or just another performance, ultimately creating something so raw it transforms both him and the audience. Or Satine in Moulin Rouge, learning that love is not the grand performance but the willingness to be destroyed by it.
Taurus
Leo in 4th House → Scorpio in 7th House
Your foundation, family, and private self have been under Leo's spotlight—perhaps showing you where home has become a performance, where your roots feel more like a stage set than genuine ground. The seed cracked around questions of: "Whose life am I actually living? Whose approval am I seeking even in my most private moments?"
Scorpio's 7th house brings the transformation through relationship. By November, partnerships demand absolute honesty. The person you've performed for others meets the person you actually are, and the gap must close. You discover that real partnership can only exist when you stop performing "good family member" or "successful person" and bring your actual self—shadows, wounds, and all—into relationship. Others' penetrating gaze helps you find authentic foundation.
The maturation: From performing respectability at home to embodying authenticity in partnership. From inherited roles to chosen intimacy.
Your character arc: Shiv Roy in Succession—performing the role of perfect daughter/wife/executive while her foundation crumbles, ultimately facing the truth of who she is in relationship. Or Katniss Everdeen, who performs the role District 12 gave her until partnership with Peeta forces her to become genuinely vulnerable.
Gemini
Leo in 3rd House → Scorpio in 6th House
Your communication, learning, and daily movement through the world have been asking: "Am I saying brilliant things or true things?" Leo seeded in your 3rd house, revealing where your wit has become performance, where your cleverness serves ego rather than understanding, where you've been talking to be admired rather than to connect.
Scorpio's 6th house transforms this through the crucible of service and daily practice. By November, your communication deepens—you learn that words have power to heal or harm, that your mind is a tool that must be wielded with purpose. Your wit becomes precision. Your learning becomes devotion. You discover that true mastery comes from showing up daily to craft your skills in service of something beyond performance. Your voice stops entertaining and starts penetrating truth.
The maturation: From clever performance to purposeful communication. From impressive knowledge to devoted mastery.
Your character arc: Sherlock in Sherlock (BBC)—brilliant mind as performance until his skills must serve actual human connection and protection. Or Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, transforming from performing intelligence to wielding her voice with genuine precision and purpose in service of justice.
Cancer
Leo in 2nd House → Scorpio in 5th House
Your values, resources, and self-worth have been under examination. Leo seeded questions around: "Do I value myself for what I can display or for what I truly am?" Perhaps you've performed wealth, performed talent, performed worthiness—building a sense of self on what can be seen and applauded.
Scorpio in the 5th transforms this through creativity and authentic joy. By November, you discover that real value comes from what you're willing to create even when no one's watching, what brings you joy even when it's not impressive, what you love even when it transforms you. Your self-worth stops being about what you can show and becomes about what you can authentically generate. You learn that true resource is the capacity to create, destroy, and recreate yourself through what you love.
The maturation: From displayed value to creative authenticity. From performed worth to transformative self-generation.
Your character arc: Remy in Ratatouille—proving his worth through impressive cooking until he learns that true value comes from creating art that transforms both creator and audience, even when it's risky. Or Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting, moving from displaying genius as defense to using his gifts authentically in service of what he truly loves.
Leo
Leo in 1st House → Scorpio in 4th House
This is YOUR journey, Leo. The seed cracked in your very identity—"Who am I without the performance? Who am I when no one's watching?" Your whole self has been asking whether the magnificent person you present to the world is real or just another costume you've learned to wear so well you forgot it wasn't your skin.
Scorpio in the 4th brings you home to yourself through deep foundation. By November, you descend into your own underworld—family wounds, private fears, the self you've hidden even from yourself. You discover that true power comes not from radiating confidence but from being rooted in authentic ground, no matter how dark that soil. Your identity transforms from performer to presence. You stop needing to be seen as powerful and become powerful by being willing to face everything you've buried.
The maturation: From radiant performance to rooted authenticity. From needing recognition to being undeniably real.
Your character arc: This is literally Loki's arc in the Disney+ series—from needing to be seen as glorious to finding his purpose in holding the timelines. Or Nacho Varga in Better Call Saul, descended from performing family loyalty into the dark truth of who he became, finding authenticity in his final sacrifice.
Virgo
Leo in 12th House → Scorpio in 3rd House
Your hidden world, spirituality, and unconscious patterns have been illuminated. Leo in the 12th is strange—performing even in solitude, seeking glory in your own mind, spiritual ego, the secret belief that you're special in ways others can't see. The seed cracked around: "Am I genuinely transcendent or just performing transcendence to myself?"
Scorpio in the 3rd transforms this by bringing your private revelation into communication. By November, what you've learned in solitude must be spoken with precision and power. Your hidden wisdom becomes penetrating words. Your spiritual understanding becomes practical magic. You discover that transcendence isn't about being special—it's about having the courage to name what you see in the shadows and speak it clearly. Your mind becomes a bridge between worlds.
The maturation: From private spiritual performance to truthful communication of depth. From hidden ego to revealed wisdom.
Your character arc: Paul Atreides in Dune—his private visions and sense of being special must become precise, dangerous communication that shapes reality. Or Offred in The Handmaid's Tale, whose private thoughts and hidden identity must become the dangerous testimony she speaks into the recorder, bridging her hidden truth into communication that might change the world.
Libra
Leo in 11th House → Scorpio in 2nd House
Your community, aspirations, and collective role have been asking: "Am I contributing something real or just maintaining a reputation?" Leo seeded questions about whether your friendships are genuine or performances, whether your dreams serve your ego or something larger, whether you belong to your community or just perform belonging.
Scorpio in the 2nd grounds this through resource and value. By November, you discover what you're actually willing to pay for your aspirations. Your friendships deepen or die based on what you truly value, not what looks good. You learn that real contribution to the collective requires sacrifice—your time, your resources, your comfortable identity. Your worth becomes tied not to social capital but to what you're willing to transform yourself to give.
The maturation: From social performance to valued contribution. From admired friend to resource transformed in service.
Your character arc: Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings—the loyal friend who seems simple, learning what he's actually willing to sacrifice (his time, his body, his comfort) to serve the collective good. Or Leslie Knope in Parks and Recreation, transforming from needing to be liked to giving everything she has—resources, energy, passion—to genuine public service.
Scorpio
Leo in 10th House → Scorpio in 1st House
Your public role, career, and legacy have been under the microscope. Leo in the 10th is the ultimate performance—building a reputation, being seen as accomplished, the pressure to be impressive in the world's eyes. The seed cracked around: "Is my success authentic or am I just playing the part of successful person?"
Scorpio in the 1st brings this home to your very identity. By November, your public mask must align with your private truth or shatter completely. You discover that real legacy comes from being undeniably yourself—even when that self is dark, complex, difficult. Your career transforms from achievement-seeking to purpose-embodying. You stop performing mastery and become it by being willing to die and be reborn publicly. What you present to the world becomes inseparable from what you are.
The maturation: From performed achievement to embodied authority. From impressive reputation to undeniable presence.
Your character arc: Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada—already at the top, but we see glimpses of the cost, the person beneath the performance of power. Or Better Call Saul's entire arc—Jimmy McGill performing success as Saul Goodman until he must face what he's actually become, embodying it fully as Gene.
Sagittarius
Leo in 9th House → Scorpio in 12th House
Your beliefs, philosophy, and search for meaning have been asking: "Am I genuinely wise or just performing wisdom?" Leo in the 9th can be the brilliant teacher who loves their own voice, the traveler collecting experiences like trophies, the philosopher more interested in being right than in truth. The seed cracked around ego in your worldview.
Scorpio in the 12th transforms this through dissolution and transcendence. By November, your beliefs must descend into the underworld. Everything you thought you knew gets tested in the darkness where no one's watching and there's no one to impress. You discover that real wisdom comes from what survives when your ego can't see it, when there's no glory in the knowing. Your philosophy becomes lived truth rather than performed understanding.
The maturation: From brilliant belief to humble wisdom. From performed knowing to transcendent understanding.
Your character arc: Uncle Iroh in Avatar: The Last Airbender—once the proud Dragon of the West, his wisdom comes from loss and darkness that dissolved his ego. Or Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen, whose understanding transcends human perspective entirely, having been destroyed and remade.
Capricorn
Leo in 8th House → Scorpio in 11th House
Your intimate exchanges, transformation, and shared resources have been asking: "Do I perform depth or actually experience it?" Leo in the 8th is the paradox of theatrical intimacy—wanting to be seen as profound, performing vulnerability, turning even shadow work into a show. The seed cracked around ego in your deepest merges.
Scorpio in the 11th transforms this by taking your hard-won transformation into community. By November, what you've learned through intimacy and crisis must serve the collective. Your depth becomes contribution. Your wounds become medicine for others. You discover that real transformation isn't about being the most evolved person—it's about what you're willing to give away from what you've learned. Your power multiplies when you stop hoarding it and start sharing it.
The maturation: From performed depth to transformed community. From impressive shadow work to collective healing.
Your character arc: Jesper Fahey in Six of Crows—his transformation through intimacy and facing his shadow becomes the thing that helps save everyone. Or Finn in The 100, whose personal trauma and transformation becomes medicine for the entire community's survival.
Aquarius
Leo in 7th House → Scorpio in 10th House
Your partnerships and one-on-one relationships have been under scrutiny. Leo in the 7th can mean performing for your partner, choosing relationships that make you look good, or being the impressive one in the dynamic. The seed cracked around: "Do I choose partners who see me or applaud me? Am I in relationship or am I performing relationship?"
Scorpio in the 10th transforms this by bringing partnership lessons into your public role. By November, what you've learned about authentic relating becomes your career, your calling, your legacy. You discover that real authority comes from being transformed by others, from letting relationship destroy and remake you, and then bringing that wisdom into your work. Your reputation becomes built not on solo achievement but on the depth you've gained through genuine partnership.
The maturation: From impressive partnership to transformed authority. From performed relating to vocational intimacy.
Your character arc: Nora in A Doll's House—the performed perfect wife whose crisis in partnership becomes her revolutionary act. Or Mulan, whose journey through partnership (with Shang, with her fellow soldiers) transforms her into a leader whose authority comes from having been changed by genuine relationship.
Pisces
Leo in 6th House → Scorpio in 9th House
Your daily practice, service, and health routines have been asking: "Am I serving genuinely or performing service?" Leo in the 6th can be the need to be the best at your job, to have impressive routines, to make even devotion look glorious. The seed cracked around ego in service and practice.
Scorpio in the 9th transforms this through philosophical depth. By November, your daily devotion reveals larger truths. Your service becomes spiritual practice. Your routines transform into ritual. You discover that mastery isn't about impressive skill—it's about what you're willing to do every single day even when it transforms you, even when it's dark, even when no one sees. Your work becomes your teacher, your path, your truth.
The maturation: From impressive service to devoted truth-seeking. From glorious routine to transformative practice.
Your character arc: Jiro in Jiro Dreams of Sushi—daily devotion to craft that becomes spiritual practice, philosophy, truth. Or Keanu Reeves' John Wick, whose service (as assassin) was impressive skill until it becomes transformative practice driven by devotion to something beyond glory.
