Mercury in Aries: A Writing Practice Without Routine
Ever since I started writing, I’ve wanted to be a writer with a daily writing routine. I’ve fantasized about sitting outside at the patio table in the morning with a well-loved journal and a fountain pen, blissfully staring off into space while I search for the perfect word, filled with the sweet satisfaction of knowing that I’ve shown up for the work every day since I can remember.
I’ve nursed the fantasy of a consistent writing routine for almost two decades, and I haven’t managed to make it reality for more than a few days at a time. It’s not that I haven’t tried. While searching for the perfect daily writing routine, I’ve given myself word count goals. I’ve set the intention to write morning pages first thing in the morning. I’ve read Natalie Goldberg religiously. I’ve picked up a book on writers’ daily habits and tried the most likely habits on for size.
Even when I was in graduate school and had to turn in ten pages a week, my writing practice was irregular. I knew I was running a marathon, not a sprint, so I was determined to write two pages a day. Instead, there were days when I wrote nothing and days when I wrote ten pages in a sitting. When I got up in the morning, I had no idea what kind of day it was going to be.
I always start a new writing practice with high hopes. I try to make it as pleasant as possible, bribing myself with a huge mug of my favorite tea and the most pleasant writing environment I can conjure. Even with all this kindness, I quickly watch my energy dwindle. By the time I finally quit, the only thing that has happened daily is a steady decline in productivity.
Most of the time, I accept that having a daily writing routine just isn’t the way I work best. I have learned that I am capable of keeping a regular publishing rhythm most of the time, as long as the beats in the rhythm are counted in weeks, not days. Like the seasons of the year, my writing rhythm has periods of intense productivity and fallow, winter periods where I need to step away from my pen and live life without thinking about recording it all the time. I prefer to be productive, but I have learned that I need fallow periods. I come back refreshed and a better writer.
I was coming out of a fallow writing period during the New Moon in Aries.
As the daffodils and tulips put out new buds, I was full of schemes. The first day of Aries season is the New Year for astrologers, and a New Moon on the same day as the New Year felt like an excellent time to start something new. Since my Mercury in Aries is in the house of publishing, I decided it would be a good time to commit to a writing practice and start publishing articles again.
In retrospect, setting the intention to break my silence was a good idea. Trying to impose daily discipline and a strict structure was, as always, less successful than I wanted it to be.
As I created the plan for my new writing practice, I felt a bleak void growing in my chest. Deep down, I knew this was a sign that I wasn't fully onboard with the plan, but I pushed ahead, telling myself that the feeling was just baggage.
"The past is past," I told myself, contradicting Faulkner. "This time can be different."
Then the New Moon actually arrived, and one of the members of the Narrative Astrology Lab asked if I could teach about decans. I didn't know enough about decans to teach them, but I asked the community if there would be interest in starting a study group and researching the topic together.
The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Unbeknownst to me, several members of the Lab already used the decans in their practices, and they were delighted for the chance to share their knowledge. Others had tried to study the decans and failed to find the information they needed, and they were just as happy to have some help.
In a few hours we went from doing nothing with decans to starting a whole new study group. I was excited. I ended the day feeling like I was doing good work, exactly the work I should be doing. None of that work included writing.
Mercury in Aries is the Big Bang: First there is nothing. Then a universe appears.
Aries is great at starting things, but it’s a sprinter, not a marathon runner. Without help, it quickly runs out of energy and isn’t able to continue.
Aries needs Taurus to pick up where it left off if it’s going to have any staying power. Taurus is famously suspicious of change, and new beginnings naturally involve change, so it takes a lot to convince Taurus to give Aries-initiated ideas the lasting energy they need. More often than not, Taurus decides Aries’ ideas are harebrained schemes, meaning things that begin under the influence of Aries have the lifespan of a lit match.
There are times when Taurus' suspicion of Aries' projects is well-placed. Aries energy can be like being possessed by the full cast of Jackass. After the initial energy is spent, you wake up sheepish, wondering where your pants are and why you thought spraying pepper spray in your eyes was a good idea.
Even in the best of times, Aries energy has the tendency to forget what it’s good for. Just because it has the energy and motivation to lift a car now doesn’t mean that it will have the strength to do it 5,000 more times, but Aries forgets this in the heat of the moment. This makes it terrible at determining if a long-term project is realistic.
For its part, Taurus has the tendency to underestimate what’s possible. When an otherwise good idea fizzles because of a lack of energy or resources, Taurus' refusal to get onboard feels like negotiating with an 85 year old man who's spent the last 20 years eating pretzels and watching the Food Network. You wonder if Taurus’s lack of enthusiasm comes from wisdom or laziness.
There are many reasons, but they all lead to the same place: Aries starts many more things than it is able to finish.
It isn’t easy to finish writing projects with Mercury in Aries.
You would think a person with a Taurus sun and three Aries placements would be an expert at getting Aries and Taurus to work together. What I've learned, however, is that often I have absolutely no idea whether an Aries scheme is genius or unrealistic until I’ve fully committed to the idea. It isn’t enough to scheme. Until I actually get started—metaphorically, dropping a lit match—I have no idea if I’m standing in a puddle of water or an oil lake in Kuwait.
When working with Aries energy, it can take a thousand tries before I stumble on an idea that has enough staying-power to succeed. A new project might not have found the right timing, or it might be unrealistically large. Betting on an Aries-inspired project means risking ending up with egg on my face when something I’ve attempted doesn't work out.
I have learned over the years that the best way to get things accomplished when working with Aries is to keep throwing ideas at the wall in a controlled environment. I work best in places where it is acceptable to move fast and break things and good ideas are able to grow and thrive with the support of a community and the careful cultivation of Taurus.
It was exactly this type of community that I had in mind when I created the Narrative Astrology Lab. Labs are for experiments, and experiments never really fail. Even when they don't turn out the way you want them to, you've still learned something about the way the world works.
And, anyway, if you aren't blowing things up in a lab, are you really taking enough risks?
Mercury in Aries is sprout energy.
On the day of the New Moon, I went to a decans discussion group hosted by the 3 of Wands Discord Server. We talked about the Aries symbol being like a young sprout with two leaves. It got me thinking about how so many things have to come together to get a new sprout to appear in the world. The temperature has to be right. The seed has to be in hospitable soil. There has to be enough water, and the seed has to survive predators.
Even when all the necessary factors are present, a sprout is really delicate. A strong gust of wind or a hot day are the only things standing between it and destruction. Sprouts are so fragile that gardeners typically plant way more seeds than they need, so they can choose the strongest sprouts to cultivate.
Aries is the sign of the Warrior. It has a reputation for being hard as nails. In reality, Aries is just as fragile as a tiny sprout. It is all beginnings, no middles or endings. The only thing keeping it from disappearing entirely is the ram-headed determination—stupidity or courage?—to throw itself into obstacles again and again.
With Mercury in Aries, I should be prepared to have unpredictable energy.
I should be prepared to start many more things than I finish and have new writing projects suddenly spring to life or vanish.
A Mercury in Aries way of being in the world requires constant new beginnings, which means that a sustained and methodical process isn’t going to give me the best ideas. Aries-style new beginnings are mysterious. Inspiration comes from nowhere. I can set an intention and hope that it comes to something someday, but I can’t create a disciplined plan in advance the way a person can when starting a mountain climbing trip with Capricorn. I have no idea when I’m starting a writing project if I will have Taurus’ blessing to sustain me on a long journey or if the thing I’ve started will ultimately be an article, book, course, or Instagram carousel.
The Aries New Moon was less than a week ago, and I’ve already given up on the idea of a new daily practice, but my intention to write was not for nothing. This article started to germinate at the Aries New Moon. All I needed to do was wait until the moon slipped into Taurus and sent my Mercury in Aries an extra pack of batteries.
