On Mercury in Virgo

or, is Ken a psychopomp?

Happy Venus day, bbs!

How are we all feeling in / after the constant deluge that is late July’s astrology? I’m happy to report that things ease up a bit from here. There’s a lot of processing to do but way less “events” to deal with. Venus is now on her retrograde journey and IMO, we’re now fully on what I’m calling Cosmic Summer Vacation™️. Yesterday (7/27) Mercury met up with Venus retrograde in the final degrees of Leo, and today (7/28) at 5:31 PM ET, the communication planet moves into Virgo where they’re not only at home but exalted.

Mercury will remain in the VIP section until October 4 due to their upcoming retrograde in late August and September. Though Mercury spends their first few days in Virgo applying to an opposition with Saturn (read: delays, mental frustration), they’re still very powerful here. Mercury’s ability to shapeshift and problem solve is unmatched in Virgo, and this is energy is here to stay for awhile. Also this influence doesn’t just make us better technicians and communicators, it also makes us better listeners. With Mercury in Virgo we can absorb all the details in full volume and texture and technicolor and be more nuanced in what we’re trying to say. I hope the Mercury in Virgo transit allows all of us to break molds and learn how to fit in places that once felt impossible to access.

What follows might read at first as a “review” of the Barbie movie, but really it’s yet another meditation on Venus retrograde in conversation with Mercury.

---

I was very unhappy when I lived in LA. But the one thing that city really has going for it—and for me, the only real pro for LA in the tired New York vs. Los Angeles debate—is the way it allows one to be refreshingly uncool. Being alone in a car all the time sets up an inherent lack of pretense. You don’t have to wear your identity on your sleeve, or on your walk of shame through lower Manhattan. You can like what you like. You can drive down the 405 listening to Coldplay without judgment. At least that was my experience. The Barbie movie gave me that same feeling.

Barbie’s call to adventure arrives when Barbie (Margot Robbie) interrupts a tightly choreographed dance party by shouting into the abyss, “Do you guys ever think about dying?”

In one fell swoop, she goes from Stereotypical Barbie to Existential Crisis Barbie, and wakes up the next morning to a cold shower and flat feet. The film follows her heroic quest out of Barbie Land and into the real world, in search of what’s projecting all these negative thoughts into her skull. The story that unfolds is told less through what happens to Barbie and more so through the intricate detailing of both Barbie Land and the “real” “world.” This is because Barbie is not just a hero’s journey, its a portrait of its Director Greta Gerwig.

“I never put anything in a movie I don’t love..I don’t really have use for things that I don’t have affection for…That was the core of it,” said Gerwig—who co-wrote Barbie with her creative and life partner Noah Baumbach—in an interview with Indiewire.

Greta Gerwig was born August 4, 1983, the day after Venus stationed retrograde in Virgo. She was born during the same Venus retrograde cycle that we’re experiencing now in Summer 2023. Greta Gerwig was born the day after Venus stationed retrograde and Barbie was released the day before Venus stationed retrograde (July 21). Important events in our lives often occur when our natal transits repeat.

Greta Gerwig’s birth chart also contains Mercury in Virgo, letting us know that she is not only a writer but also an adept shapeshifter and translator. Before Gerwig rose to prominence as a Writer and Director, she was an “it girl” actress in the mumblecore scene of the 00’s, a movement built on improvisation. Like Mercury, Gerwig is able to channel her characters. Also in her chart, Mercury is forming a conjunction with Venus retrograde making her not just any translator but a highly skilled translator of Venusian things, and more specifically Venus retrograde things.

All three movies Gerwig has directed (Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019) and Barbie) flip girlhood (often Gerwig’s own) on its head. Gerwig isn’t afraid to take an underworld journey with Venus, unearthing all the ugliness that comes with living an examined life. Her characters come out on the other side like a morning star, refreshed with a new sense of hope.

Gerwig’s mercurial fascinations are never more apparent than in Barbie, which is because (1) as mentioned, its release date reflects her own Venus retrograde natal promise, (2) the huge budget she had to work with, and (3) because the Barbie franchise itself is radically mercurial. Barbie is a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, the President, a construction worker, a hairstylist, a lifeguard, an artist, a costume designer, a choreographer and a Supreme Court Justice. Through Gerwig’s lens, we even meet a Proust Barbie. It’s through these kind of hyper specific details playfully scattered throughout the film that Gerwig creates something akin to queer auto portraiture in the style of performance artists like Karen Finley or Jack Ferver.

Some might think the “trick” of Barbie is the existential plot hidden inside the plastic doll franchise movie, but I think the actual trick is the portrait of the author hidden within the “story.” Through iconography, Greta Gerwig herself is revealed. What was subtle in Ladybird (the girls crying in the car to Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash Into Me”) becomes loud and clear in Barbie (the constant repetition of “Closer to Fine” as Barbie’s radio anthem and “Push” as Ken’s). What’s so joyful about Barbie isn’t the triumph of self discovery but the author’s unabashed ability from Proust references to Matchbox 20 singalongs to love what she loves.

Films this inherently “strange”—though the almost too direct feminist messaging of its literal dialogue and “plot” is not strange at all—are never blockbuster hits. But Barbie is. When asked about the movie’s tone by The New York Times, Gerwig said, “Anarchic dance-party emotional meltdown spiritual quest…is that a tone?” This is Mercury in Virgo doing its thing: the ability to so vividly articulate something and then immediately question that articulation in the same breath. Mercury puts things together but just as quickly takes them apart.

Ryan Gosling as Mercury and Margot Robbie as Venus retrograde

We also can’t discuss Barbie without talking about Ken. As played by Ryan Gosling as a near-spiritual open channel¹, I wonder if Ken is actually the most Mercurial of them all. Is Ken Barbie’s psychopomp?

We’re introduced to Ken as an accessory in Barbie’s story, someone who’s only happy when Barbie acknowledges him. As Barbie’s journey evolves so does Ken’s, and things really go off the rails once Ken gets to the real world and discovers that while he was living in Barbie Land, there’s this other thing called the patriarchy.

In Hellenistic Astrology, Chris Brennan shares this about whether Mercury’s qualities are benefic or malefic, “Mercury often plays a vacillating role…It can go in either direction…That is to say, Mercury is thought to be intrinsically neutral, although it is highly impressionable and in most cases tends to adapt to whatever it is most closely associated with or in proximity to in a given chart.”

Like Mercury, Ken is highly impressionable. Ken takes the form of what surrounds him. He is Mercury to Barbie’s Venus retrograde, revealing her weakness and her power, her freedom and her ugliness. In the movie’s first act, he shows up to Barbie’s party and does Barbie’s dance. Similarly, after visiting the real world, Ken becomes a reflection of the patriarchy and all the horses that he thinks built it. He decimates Barbie Land and erects his own mojo dojo casa house. As soon as Barbie returns though, he falters in his convictions of “who he is.” When Barbie knocks at the door of the mojo dojo casa house, he screams in panic and shows up to greet her holding up a book, trying to impress her. Ken, like Mercury adapts to whatever is closest. Gosling’s performance is so virtuosic because of his willingness to be an open channel, what he describes in interviews as “Kenergy.” He also inhabits this world so well because of how his talents reflect Greta Gerwig’s detail. Greta Gerwig loves musical theater and Ryan Gosling grew up singing for his supper as a kid performer at the mall.

“I let that guy retire because he got me here,” said Gosling to The New York Times. “But I had to pull him out of retirement for this film. One last heist.”

*

When Mercury enters Virgo today, they leave their conjunction with Venus retrograde, and start applying to a conjunction to Mars. Mercury and Mars get close but the aspect never perfects as Mercury starts slowing down to station retrograde.

Mercury’s upcoming journey is not unlike Ken’s in Barbie. Ken separates from the Venusian and flirts with the Martian, eventually turning back around to figure himself out instead. Mercury in Virgo gives us those figuring it out resources: the brain power and the articulation.

Spells are mercurial and so is “manifestation"; both require specificity of intent and ingredients to make the magic happen. We cast spells of joy when we get really specific about what makes us joyful. That’s why the closed container of belting a song while driving in LA produces such instant euphoria. The car interior is an empty vessel. Though it’s harder, I think one can channel that same openness while walking through the busy streets of New York too, it just requires a different focus and attention to detail.

The world is busy and chaotic right now. Existential crisis feels like a given. But there are ways to dance (which is to say: maneuver) through it, and Mercury in Virgo shows us some of those ways.

***

If you want to tease out what’s being revealed to you in this hyper Venusian and Mercurial time, I’d love to see you for an astrology consult in August. :)

1. Last year I received a Cameo from Aida Turturro (aka Janice from The Sopranos) as a birthday gift from a friend. It was a truly inspired performance. After showing the Cameo to my friend David, another Mercury in Virgo person who always knows exactly how to put things, he said, “the truest actors don’t need to do anything other than open direct lines to their uncommonly amplified joy.” That direct line to uncommonly amplified joy is Ryan Gosling as Ken in a nutshell.