Mercury’s Journey of the Impactful Mind
A Trickster's Journey emphasizes 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 it focuses more on finding authenticity than individuation.
The Scorpio Mercury Journey
A Trickster's Path from Power to Humanity
November 20, 2025 - March 7, 2026
Seeded in Scorpio's depths, this journey asks: Can you transform your power from control into contribution? Can the wielder become the collaborator? Can the master of secrets learn to share the truth?
While the seed of this journey’s theme ignites in Scorpio and ends in Pisces, the fruit of its purpose and maturity ripens in Aquarius, a quarter turn from its start, where it finds its authentic truth.
Overall Character Arcs for This Journey:
Severus Snape (Harry Potter): From wielding power through secrecy and control to revealing truth that serves the collective good
Elphaba (Wicked): From dangerous outsider power to understanding how her gifts serve humanity
Joaquin Phoenix's Joker (inverted): What happens when power never matures into collaboration—the cautionary tale
Keanu Reeves in The Matrix trilogy: Neo's journey from "The One" (individual power) to understanding the system and choosing connection over control
Stage 1: The Achieved World / Pressure Point
November 20-24, 2025 | Mercury in Scorpio
You've mastered something. Perhaps it's power over your own psyche, intimate knowledge of how things really work, or control through understanding what others hide. You exist in Scorpio's realm—wielding influence through depth, transformation, and seeing what others can't or won't see. But on November 20th, as Mercury and Earth align in Scorpio's waters, a crack appears. A glimpse: This power isolates. This control is another prison. This mastery is loneliness.
You feel the pressure building. The seed has cracked, but you'll fight to maintain what you've built. Scorpio doesn't surrender power easily—it would rather die first. And perhaps that's exactly what needs to happen.
Character moments:
Michael Corleone (The Godfather Part II): At the height of his power, realizing he's destroyed everything he claimed to protect
Elsa (Frozen): "Conceal, don't feel" has given her control but cost her connection
Immortan Joe (Mad Max: Fury Road): Power achieved through control and secrets, the moment before it all cracks
Think of Gollum with the Ring—ultimate power, ultimate isolation. The pressure point: realizing you're becoming what you possess.
Stage 2: The Unmasking / Forced Revelation
November 25-29, 2025 | Mercury in Scorpio
The call arrives through exposure. Something—or someone—reveals what you've been hiding, or forces you to see what your power has cost. The distance between Mercury and Earth grows, and with it, your ability to maintain the secret unravels. You might try to tighten control first, go deeper into Scorpio's defensive intensity. But underneath, rebellion stirs: the part of you exhausted by carrying everything alone, by being the powerful one, by never being vulnerable.
This is when you realize: the power you wield is also wielding you.
Character moments:
Kilmonger (Black Panther): His justified rage and power revealed—but also the isolation and pain driving it
Amy Dunne (Gone Girl): Her perfect manipulation exposed in her own voice
Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender): Her control fraying, paranoia emerging—power without connection collapses
Or Claire Underwood in House of Cards, the moment she realizes performing ruthless power has made her unreachable, even to herself.
Stage 3: The Mirror / Trickster Mentor
November 30 - December 5, 2025 | Mercury in Scorpio
You encounter someone who reflects your intensity back at you. Another person who wields power through depth, who plays the same game, who sees through you because they're playing from the same playbook. This is disturbing—you thought you were unique in your mastery. Instead, you're confronted with your own tactics, your own defensive maneuvers, your own fear disguised as strength.
Scorpio hates being seen, and now you're transparent.
Character moments:
Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs): Two people who see through surfaces, recognizing each other's masks
Erik and Charles (X-Men: First Class): Charles showing Erik that his pain-fueled power is still a cage
Villanelle and Eve (Killing Eve): Obsessive mirrors showing each other their shadows
Or Will Graham and Hannibal—the therapist as dark mirror, showing Will his own capacity for darkness.
Stage 4: The Trap Springs / Loss of Control
December 6-10, 2025 | Mercury in Scorpio
Your power backfires. The very control you've mastered becomes the trap. By early December, something you orchestrated comes back to destroy you, or you discover you've been playing in someone else's deeper game all along. Scorpio's nightmare: being outplayed in your own territory. The vulnerability you avoided, the trust you refused—their absence becomes your downfall.
This is rock bottom for your sense of mastery. Everyone sees that the powerful one is actually terrified.
Character moments:
Walter White (Breaking Bad, "Ozymandias"): His empire built on control collapses, destroying his family
Cersei Lannister (Game of Thrones, Walk of Shame): Ultimate public humiliation for the one who wielded power through pride
The Operative (Serenity): Discovering he's been a weapon for a lie, his absolute certainty shattered
Or Adrian Veidt in Watchmen, the moment his perfect plan's cost is revealed—power that achieved nothing but loss.
Stage 5: The Game Within Games / Shifting Alliances
December 11-30, 2025 | Mercury moves Scorpio → Sagittarius (Dec 11)
As Mercury enters Sagittarius, the energy shifts dramatically. The intense control of Scorpio gives way to broader perspective, philosophical questions, the need to see beyond the immediate power dynamics. Now the trials begin—but they're not about dominating, they're about understanding systems larger than yourself. Every challenge requires you to think beyond survival, beyond control, toward meaning.
Alliances become genuinely uncertain. Who can you trust when trust itself is the lesson? Sagittarius asks Scorpio: What's the point of all this power if it doesn't mean something?
Character moments:
Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars): Leaving the Jedi Order, navigating without institutional power, learning to trust new alliances
Daenerys (Game of Thrones, middle seasons): Power must become justice, control must become leadership, but how?
Miles Morales (Spider-Verse): Shifting between universes, learning every Spider-person has a different approach to power
Or Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders—constantly reassessing allegiances, learning that power politics require more than control, they require vision.
Stage 6: Recognition / Seeing the Self in the Other
December 31, 2025 - January 10, 2026 | Mercury moves Sagittarius → Capricorn (Jan 1)
As the new year arrives and Mercury moves into Capricorn, you encounter someone—or something—that makes you feel truly seen beyond your power. Not impressed by your intensity, not afraid of your depth, just... seeing you. This might be genuine partnership, unexpected friendship, or simply recognition. It's terrifying because you've built your identity on being the powerful one, the one who doesn't need, the one who controls through withholding.
Now someone sees past that. And Capricorn's influence asks: What do you actually want to build that lasts?
Character moments:
Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice): Darcy's pride (his power, his control) meeting someone who sees through it and demands authenticity
The Beast (Beauty and the Beast): Recognized not for power or appearance but for the capacity to change
Kratos and Atreus (God of War): The god of war learning to be seen as a father, not just a weapon
Or Maleficent and Aurora—the powerful dark fairy whose heart opens when truly seen by the one person who doesn't fear her.
Stage 7: Confronting the Author / The Architect Revealed
January 11-28, 2026 | Mercury moves Capricorn → Aquarius (Jan 20)
Mid-January brings the confrontation with whoever—or whatever—created the game you've been playing. Maybe it's a system, a family legacy of power and control, a trauma that taught you to wield intensity as defense. You realize the rules were constructed. Someone benefited from you playing this way. And you've been complicit in your own cage.
As Mercury enters Aquarius on January 20th, the energy shifts toward collective awareness, systemic thinking, detachment. You begin to see your personal power games as part of larger patterns. Aquarius asks: Who profits from you staying isolated in your power?
Character moments:
Westworld's Dolores (Season 1 finale): Discovering Ford, understanding the system, seeing her role in maintaining it
V (V for Vendetta): Confronting the fascist system and his own creation by it
Katniss (Mockingjay): Realizing both Capitol and District 13 are using her, both systems exploit power
Or Paul Atreides fully awakening to see the Golden Path, understanding he's both victim and perpetrator of systems of control.
Stage 8: The Cosmic Joke / Understanding
January 29 - February 4, 2026 | Mercury in Aquarius
You get it. The whole structure. The way your intense personal power was always already connected to everyone else's freedom or bondage. The way your control was just another form of fear. The way your depth was both gift and defense. Aquarius brings the detached clarity to see it all—the paradox of power that isolates versus power that connects.
This is devastating wisdom: you were powerful and powerless simultaneously. Your mastery was real and irrelevant. The cosmic joke is that all your control was an attempt to avoid the one thing you actually needed—genuine human connection.
Character moments:
Arrival's Louise Banks: Understanding the gift of seeing time also means seeing all loss—power and powerlessness intertwined
The Good Place's final revelation: The actual good place is choosing for others, not controlling outcomes
Dr. Manhattan: Seeing all of time, understanding everything, and realizing human connection is what mattered
Or Thanos understanding that his perfectly balanced universe still lost everything that mattered—the cosmic joke of control.
Stage 9: The Glorious Burden / Duty Over Desire
February 5-10, 2026 | Mercury moves Aquarius → Pisces (Feb 6)
This is the ultimate boon: realizing your power was never meant for domination—it was meant for service. Not the Scorpio version of service (controlling others "for their own good"), but genuine contribution. As Mercury enters Pisces on February 6th, the energy becomes about dissolution of boundaries, compassion, universal connection.
You finally understand your purpose, and it requires giving up the need to control outcomes. Power becomes the capacity to hold space, to transform through presence rather than force. You stop grasping and start offering.
Aquarius matured your Scorpio power into something collaborative and human; now, in Pisces, you must share without boundaries.
Character moments:
Gandalf the White: Power fully embodied but in service to the free peoples, not control of them
Uncle Iroh's entire arc: From dragon of the West to spiritual guide who serves through tea and wisdom
Moana: Returning the heart not through force but through understanding and compassion
Or Loki holding the timelines—ultimate power expressed as ultimate service, control transformed into stewardship.
Stage 10: The Grand Illusion / Reality Restructured
February 11-20, 2026 | Mercury in Pisces
Through mid-February in Pisces, you perform one final act of power—but it's transparent, truthful, and in service. You use every ounce of Scorpio's intensity, Aquarius's systemic understanding, and Pisces's compassion to reshape something. Not through manipulation, but through genuine magic: showing people the truth in ways they can finally see it.
This is power as art, as healing, as revelation. Pisces knows that boundaries are illusions, and you use that knowledge to dissolve what needs dissolving, to connect what needs connecting.
Character moments:
Inception's final kick: Using all the dreamwork skills to plant truth that will liberate
Doctor Strange vs. Dormammu: The bargain that uses power to save through sacrifice and persistence
The Prestige's final revelation: The entire illusion was real, magic and truth intertwined
Or Yennefer in The Witcher, using her full power not to control but to protect and restore—the sorceress becoming the mother.
Stage 11: The Story Echoes / Witnessing the Ripples
February 21-25, 2026 | Mercury in Pisces
Late February brings the witnessing. From your position of transformed power, you actively see the paths you've created—not for yourself, but for others. People are free because you stopped controlling. Systems are different because you revealed their workings. Connection exists because you became vulnerable.
This is your rescue from without: the outcome that proves your transformation wasn't futile. You remain powerful but are sustained by observing and subtly influencing all the movement you've enabled. Pisces shows you that you're not alone—you're part of an infinite web of connection.
Character moments:
Gandalf at the Grey Havens: Watching those he served sail into their own futures
Mary Poppins: Leaving when the family can fly on their own, witnessing the transformation continue
The Ancient One's death in Doctor Strange: Seeing Strange become what he needs to be
Or Obi-Wan becoming one with the Force—no longer controlling the outcome but witnessing and guiding from within the larger flow.
Stage 12: The Eternal Paradox / The Transformer Transformed
February 26 - March 3, 2026 | Mercury in Pisces
The final stage in Pisces before the cycle turns. You exist between worlds now—power and vulnerability, control and surrender, isolation and connection. You've been transformed by your own transformation. The world is different because you stopped using power to protect yourself and started using it to free others.
This is the quarter-turn of maturity: from Scorpio's isolating mastery to Aquarius's collaborative humanity. You don't wield power over anymore. You ARE power with—because you're willing to be changed, to be vulnerable, to serve the collective rather than dominate it.
The trickster has learned that true power is power shared, power that liberates rather than controls.
Character moments:
Zuko's complete arc (Avatar): From seeking power for honor to understanding honor through service and friendship
Elsa (Frozen II): From controlling ice to becoming the bridge between worlds
Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities): "It is a far, far better thing I do"—power transformed into sacrifice for the collective
Or Magneto's best moments—when he stops trying to control outcomes and works with Charles toward genuine mutant freedom.
The Return to Stage 1
March 4-6, 2026 | Mercury in Pisces
On March 4th, Mercury and Earth return to the same sign, but the new journey won't seed until March 7th in Pisces. These days are liminal—dissolving, integrating, releasing. Pisces asks you to let go of the narrative entirely, to float in the space between stories.
What world will you build this time? What will you achieve now that you know power is meant to connect, not control?
The next journey awaits.
By-Sign Horoscopes: Scorpio Seeds, Aquarius Transforms
Each sign's journey moves from Scorpio's personal power and matures in Aquarius's collective contribution. The quarter-turn teaches that true mastery comes from sharing your gifts, that intensity finds its purpose in serving humanity.
Aries
Scorpio in 8th House → Aquarius in 11th House
Your intimate transformations, shared resources, and power in deep merges have been asking: "Do I use intimacy to control or to truly connect?" Scorpio seeded in your 8th house—perhaps revealing where you've wielded vulnerability as power, where you've controlled through emotional intensity, where you've used others' secrets as leverage.
By February, Aquarius in the 11th transforms this through community and friendship. What you've learned through the crucible of intimacy must become medicine for the collective. Your depth becomes contribution. Your understanding of human psychology becomes service to groups, movements, causes larger than any one relationship. You discover that real power in intimacy is what you're willing to share with many, not hoard with one.
The maturation: From controlling through intimacy to healing through community. From personal transformation to collective liberation.
Your character arc: Elliot Alderson (Mr. Robot)—from isolated hacker using his knowledge of systems to control and protect, to understanding his power serves collective freedom. Or Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road), whose intimate knowledge of survival and escape becomes the path to freedom for many.
Taurus
Scorpio in 7th House → Aquarius in 10th House
Your partnerships and one-on-one relationships have been under Scorpio's intense scrutiny. "Do I choose relationships where I have power, or relationships where I'm genuinely seen?" The seed cracked around control in partnership—using depth as defense, intensity as a test, transformation as a way to avoid being transformed yourself.
Aquarius in the 10th matures this through career and public role. By February, what you've learned about authentic relating becomes your calling, your authority, your contribution to the world. Your reputation becomes built on your capacity to facilitate transformation in others—not through control but through radical authenticity. You discover that leadership means creating space for others' power, not managing them through emotional intensity.
The maturation: From controlling partnership to liberating leadership. From intimate intensity to public authenticity.
Your character arc: Annalise Keating (How to Get Away with Murder)—from controlling students through intensity and secrets to teaching them genuine liberation through truth. Or Marge Gunderson (Fargo), whose partnership grounds her and whose public role comes from authentic human decency rather than power games.
Gemini
Scorpio in 6th House → Aquarius in 9th House
Your daily practice, work, and service have been seeded with Scorpio's intensity. "Am I working to transform or to control? Do I serve with power or in service of power?" Perhaps your routines have become ritualistic armor, your skill set a way to maintain mastery, your work a place where you wield influence through being indispensable.
Aquarius in the 9th transforms this through philosophy and expanded worldview. By February, your daily devotion reveals universal truths. Your work becomes your teaching. Your service becomes your wisdom. You discover that mastery isn't about being the expert everyone needs—it's about what you're willing to give away freely. Your skills multiply when you teach them, your power grows when you share the methodology.
The maturation: From indispensable service to liberated wisdom. From controlled expertise to shared knowledge.
Your character arc: Hermione Granger (late Harry Potter)—from needing to be the smartest person in the room to sharing knowledge freely for the war effort. Or Hiro's brother Tadashi (Big Hero 6), whose daily work in service of others becomes the philosophy that transforms a city.
Cancer
Scorpio in 5th House → Aquarius in 8th House
Your creativity, joy, and self-expression have been under Scorpio's transformative pressure. "Do I create to control how I'm seen, or do I create to truly express?" Perhaps your art has become armor, your romance a performance of depth, your joy contingent on maintaining a certain powerful image.
Aquarius in the 8th matures this through intimate transformation and shared power. By February, your creativity must get vulnerable enough to genuinely merge with others. Your self-expression becomes the catalyst for others' transformation—not because you're controlling the outcome but because you're willing to be changed by the collaborative process. You discover that real creative power comes from co-creation, from risking your vision in service of something larger.
The maturation: From controlled creativity to collaborative transformation. From protective self-expression to vulnerable co-creation.
Your character arc: Elphaba and Glinda (Wicked)—their friendship transforms both their powers from individual defense to collaborative magic. Or Pixar's Soul (Joe Gardner)—from trying to control his one perfect performance to understanding music is about connection and transformation.
Leo
Scorpio in 4th House → Aquarius in 7th House
Your foundation, home, and private self have been seeded in Scorpio's depths. "Do I control my roots, or do I allow them to transform me?" Perhaps you've maintained power through family secrets, emotional intensity behind closed doors, or using your past as a fortress rather than fertile ground.
Aquarius in the 7th transforms this through partnership and collaboration. By February, what you've excavated in your private world must become the basis for authentic relating. Your hidden depths become shared ground. You discover that real partnership can only exist when you stop using your past as power and start offering your transformation as gift. Others' perspectives liberate you from your own intense narrative.
The maturation: From private power to collaborative authenticity. From family fortress to partnership bridge.
Your character arc: Thor (Thor: Ragnarok through Endgame)—from the weight of Asgard's legacy and family trauma to finding partnership with the Guardians. Or Michael Corleone (if he'd transformed)—letting family intensity become something shared rather than controlled.
Virgo
Scorpio in 3rd House → Aquarius in 6th House
Your communication, learning, and daily movement through the world have been asking: "Do I wield words as weapons or as medicine?" Scorpio seeded in your 3rd house—perhaps revealing where your perception has become surveillance, your insight a form of control, your words designed to maintain power rather than create connection.
Aquarius in the 6th transforms this through daily service and practice. By February, your penetrating mind must serve the collective good. Your communication becomes a tool, not a weapon. Your understanding of systems becomes service to systems. You discover that real mastery of language and perception comes from using those gifts to help others see clearly, not to maintain your superior position.
The maturation: From weaponized insight to healing communication. From controlling perception to serving clarity.
Your character arc: Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs)—from using her perceptiveness to survive and control outcomes to serving justice and truth. Or Hermione (again, but differently)—her words moving from proving correctness to teaching liberation.
Libra
Scorpio in 2nd House → Aquarius in 5th House
Your values, resources, and self-worth have been under Scorpio's scrutiny. "Do I build worth through control, or through authentic value?" Perhaps you've hoarded resources as power, used money or talent as leverage, or measured your worth by what you can withhold or wield.
Aquarius in the 5th transforms this through creative authenticity and generous self-expression. By February, your resources must flow into joy and creation, not be locked in vaults of self-protection. You discover that real wealth multiplies when given, that value increases when shared. Your worth becomes about what you generate for the collective pleasure and evolution, not what you control for personal power.
The maturation: From hoarded worth to generous creativity. From controlled resources to collaborative abundance.
Your character arc: Scrooge (A Christmas Carol)—the ultimate transformation from resource-hoarding to generous celebration. Or Tony Stark's evolution—from weapons manufacturer hoarding tech to sharing clean energy and mentoring Peter Parker.
Scorpio
Scorpio in 1st House → Aquarius in 4th House
This is YOUR journey, Scorpio. The seed cracked in your very identity—"Who am I without the intensity? Who am I when I'm not wielding power?" Your whole self has been asking whether the powerful, transformative person you present is actually connecting or just controlling, protecting, surviving.
Aquarius in the 4th brings you home to yourself through collective belonging and detached compassion. By February, you descend into understanding that your foundation is humanity itself, not your personal fortress. Your identity transforms from lone powerful force to essential part of a larger system. You stop needing to be the most intense person in the room and become the one who holds space for everyone's transformation.
The maturation: From isolated power to collaborative foundation. From intense control to human belonging.
Your character arc: This is Severus Snape's full arc—from using power to protect through control to offering everything for collective good. Or Jessica Jones (Jessica Jones)—learning her power serves best not through isolation but through messy human connection.
Sagittarius
Scorpio in 12th House → Aquarius in 3rd House
Your hidden world, unconscious patterns, and spiritual depths have been seeded in Scorpio. "Do I use my private intensity as superiority, or as genuine transformation?" Perhaps your hidden life has been where you wield secret power, where you control through what others don't know, where your spiritual understanding has become another way to be above rather than connected.
Aquarius in the 3rd transforms this by bringing your private revelation into clear, liberating communication. By February, what you've learned in solitude must become accessible language. Your depth becomes conversation. Your secrets become shared wisdom. You discover that real spiritual power comes from making the mysterious accessible, from translating the underworld for everyday use.
The maturation: From secret power to accessible wisdom. From hidden intensity to liberating communication.
Your character arc: Dumbledore (his failures and growth)—from keeping secrets as power to Harry learning the truth is what liberates. Or Qui-Gon Jinn, whose mystical understanding becomes practical teaching about living Force.
Capricorn
Scorpio in 11th House → Aquarius in 2nd House
Your community, friendships, and collective aspirations have been under Scorpio's transformative pressure. "Do I use groups as power base, or genuinely contribute?" Perhaps you've wielded influence in communities through intensity, controlled movements through emotional leverage, or used your understanding of collective psychology as manipulation.
Aquarius in the 2nd grounds this through personal resource and authentic value. By February, your community involvement must become about what you're actually willing to give—your time, your skills, your wealth redistributed in service of collective good. You discover that real influence comes from offering value freely, that leadership means making your resources available, not controlling through strategic withholding.
The maturation: From strategic community power to generous contribution. From controlled influence to freely given resources.
Your character arc: Harvey Dent (The Dark Knight)—before becoming Two-Face, his journey of using legal power for justice (or the tragedy of not completing it). Or Robin Hood—transforming stolen power into distributed resources for collective good.
Aquarius
Scorpio in 10th House → Aquarius in 1st House
Your public role, career, and legacy have been seeded in Scorpio's intensity. "Do I build authority through control, or through authentic mastery?" Perhaps your professional reputation is built on being the powerful one, the one who knows secrets, the indispensable transformer who maintains influence through intensity.
Aquarius in the 1st brings this home to your very identity. By February, your public mask must dissolve into who you actually are—someone whose power is collaborative, whose authority comes from making space for others, whose legacy is liberation rather than control. Your career transforms from personal empire to collective service. You stop performing powerful expert and become genuinely available human.
The maturation: From controlled authority to authentic humanity. From powerful reputation to collaborative identity.
Your character arc: Gus Fring (Breaking Bad)—if he'd transformed rather than imploded, letting the controlled empire become something genuinely contributive. Or Shuri (Black Panther)—whose genius serves Wakanda's opening to the world rather than maintaining control.
Pisces
Scorpio in 9th House → Aquarius in 12th House
Your beliefs, philosophy, and search for meaning have been asking: "Do I use my understanding as power, or as genuine wisdom?" Scorpio seeded in your 9th—perhaps revealing where your worldview has become weapon, where your spiritual or philosophical insights have been wielded as superiority, where you've controlled through claiming to know the deeper truth.
Aquarius in the 12th transforms this through dissolution and universal compassion. By February, your beliefs must dissolve into something larger than personal knowing. Your philosophy becomes service to the collective unconscious. You discover that real wisdom comes from understanding you know nothing, that genuine spiritual power is power given away completely. Your truth becomes everyone's truth, your knowing becomes humble service.
The maturation: From wielded wisdom to dissolved knowing. From powerful belief to universal service.
Your character arc: Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender)—from being The Avatar with all the power to understanding his role is serving balance through connection. Or Yoda—whose immense knowledge becomes humble service, making himself small to teach others to be large.
This Mercury cycle transforms Scorpio's isolating power into Aquarius's collaborative humanity. You learned that control without connection is just another prison, but intensity in service of the collective becomes liberation. The trickster's path leads here: to the moment you stop using power over and become power with.
