High horses

Mercury enters Sagittarius on November 3 and leaves it on January 9. Given the fact that Mercury typically blows through a sign in 3 weeks to a month, this should alert you to the fact that Mercury will retrograde in Sagittarius (which starts at the end of November).

When I think about Mercury in Sagittarius, I always think of a woman I knew a long time ago: she was a lawyer from a religious family and she was an expert in everything and would tell you as much (please note that religion and lawyering are two of Sagittarius's favorite things). In my then-friend group, we would listen to her tell us of her infinite knowledge while raising our eyebrows at the person in the group who we knew was the real expert on the topic to see if they would blow a gasket restraining themselves from correcting her. She knew the "best" places to visit, eat, tour, etc. and her expertise knew no bounds. I started throwing obscure topics at her to see what she would do. She was okay in small doses: you could tell she meant well, she could just not help herself from advising you on living your life correctly. Also, once she got going, there was no stopping her, so when she showed up to hang out, everyone took a deep breath.

Regular Mercury (by itself) just gathers information. Gemini (Mercury's home sign) just gives you a bunch of data and doesn't parse it for you. Mix Mercury and Jupiter, and you get "right" information (as in, someone truly believes with their whole chest that they are unassailable), often delivered haughtily and at length. In other words: opinion as information. That's half the picture for Mercury in Sagittarius this round: we're going to experience some hot air and dueling geniuses. Imagine if you got all the TV political commentators and shoved them in one room to make them duke it out. Would you want to enter that room? My weapon of choice is leaving places, so that's my personal answer. I'd say "let me know how it turns out" while closing the door and locking them all in behind me. (I'd come back in a week to let them out and see who

was still alive.)

However, this round, it's more complicated, because Mercury and Jupiter (which will be in aspect to each other*, egging each other on for much of Mercury's stay in Sagittarius) will spend some serious time squared by Saturn. So now add to your mental image a fact checker: imagine if the woman above got checked by the real expert in the friend group every time she opened her mouth. Think about how happy she'd be, because trust me, she LOVED telling you how to live your life right. So, now she's sulking. Imagine the dueling geniuses above with a third genius who possesses no social skills and is either saying "yes, correct" or "no, wrong." As someone who spends a lot of time around geniuses, they get really nervous around someone they perceive to be smarter than them. They also tend to respect that person...but avoid them.

So you'll get to choose how to align yourself. This period is really the perfect time for moral high ground posturing ad infinitum OR shutting it down and walking away from someone who wants to best you. I personally feel it's a losing game, but I've gotten into enough arguments for one lifetime. Anecdotally, I was raised two religions and alternated Sunday schools quite literally: one week I was at one, and the next I was at the other one. There was never an option for zero religion until I was a decade past supporting myself (and I don't have a problem with religion, I just personally burned out). At the dueling Sunday schools, I was told that I was participating in the "right" religion. Then the next week, I'd be at the other one, being told that this was the "right" one. From a really early age, I realized that at a nuts and bolts level, they couldn't both be "right," because they had some fundamental differences. Naturally, I started speaking up in Sunday school: "that's not what they said at [other religion]." I was categorically not appreciated by my Sunday school teachers. One of them once said to me "well, maybe you shouldn't BE [religion]" because I was being that annoying.

A Saturnian nugget for the incoming times: "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

*Mercury and Jupiter will be in what's called a "mutual reception" which means they're in each other's sign, which basically just means they encourage each other more, so add emphasis in your head to everything I'm saying here if you'd like to make it more dramatic.