Mercury Signs

Mercury in Taurus Takes Its Time, and Then Holds Its Ground

Mercury in Taurus is slow to decide and sure once it has. Max and Augusta Foss Heindel wrote in The Message of the Stars that once this Mercury reaches a conclusion, "it is almost as difficult to change as the laws of the Medes and Persians."

Of everyone born with Mercury in Taurus in our model of US births, 1930 to 2029, 52.5% have a Taurus Sun, 30.2% a Gemini Sun and 17.3% an Aries Sun.

Slow to decide, hard to move

"Plodding" is an old word for this placement. Alan Leo used it in the 1928 printing of his textbook: "Slow mind, plodding, patient and persevering; mind usually affected by feeling. Hence a love of the arts, music and poetry" (Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, 4th ed., 1928, p. 312).

Evangeline Adams measured it against the sign before: "In Taurus, Mercury is the very antithesis of himself in Aries. The mind of the native is slow, patient, solid and constructive, and often obstinate" (Evangeline Adams, Astrology: Your Place Among the Stars, Dodd, Mead, 1930, p. 190). The Heindels gave it a motto. "They believe thoroughly in the ancient adage that 'Silence is golden'," they wrote (The Message of the Stars, ch. X, pp. 201-202). These early 20th-century astrologers agree on the pace and the patience, and part ways on what comes with it: Leo adds feeling, Adams adds obstinacy.

In practice the slowness sits in the deciding. A Taurus Mercury takes in a new idea, turns it over, checks it against what it already knows and only then commits. After that it stops reopening the question, which is why arguing with it can feel like pushing a wall, and why its word tends to hold.

Ptolemy never wrote a reading for Mercury in each sign. He judged Mercury and the Moon by the kind of sign holding them, and Taurus belongs to his solid signs: "The solid signs make them just, unaffected by flattery, persistent, firm, intelligent, patient, industrious, stern, self-controlled, tenacious of grudges" (Tetrabiblos III.13, Robbins, Loeb 1940). Taurus shares that group with Leo, Aquarius and the sign straight across the zodiac, which has its own reading in Mercury in Scorpio, the opposite fixed Mercury.

What does it mean when Mercury is in Taurus?

In a birth chart it means a mind that thinks in concrete terms. It trusts what it can test, keeps what it has learned and says what it means in few words. When Mercury passes through Taurus in the sky, astrologers read the same slower, practical tone into everyone's talk for those few weeks.

Is it a good placement? Taurus gives Mercury no home and no exaltation, and no detriment or fall either. Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, is exalted in Virgo, and is in detriment in Sagittarius and Pisces, with its fall in Pisces. So tradition hands a Taurus Mercury no major strength and no major handicap (it does own a few degrees of Taurus in the old term tables), and it works through the sign's own temper, which is steady and earthy. Taurus is ruled by Venus, which fits the arts and music in Leo's line.

Mercury keeps within about 28 degrees of the Sun, which leaves a Taurus Mercury with an Aries, Taurus or Gemini Sun, and the guide to every Mercury sign splits each Sun sign's births across its three possible Mercury signs.

Mercury was retrograde at 20.1% of births with Mercury in Taurus in our model, about one in five.

If none of this sounds like you, look at two things. A Sun or Moon in a quicker sign can speed up how the mind shows itself. And if Mercury changed sign on your birth date, your birth time decides which side of the line you're on.

Why Mercury nearly got Taurus as its exaltation

Mercury's exaltation is Virgo, and calling it exalted in Taurus is a mistake in Western and Vedic astrology alike. The Vedic Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra puts its deepest exaltation at 15° Virgo (ch. 3 vv. 49-50, Santhanam translation, 1984, p. 19). Ptolemy's reason for Virgo was dryness. Mercury, he wrote, "in general is found at certain times alike to be drying and absorptive of moisture, because he never is far removed in longitude from the heat of the sun" (Tetrabiblos I.4), and in I.19 he exalts the drier planet in Virgo, the sign of the dry autumn.

A Hermetic text on the exaltations argues it differently, as Benjamin Dykes reads it on The Astrology Podcast, episode 255 (2020). In his reading the author's first choice was Taurus: "ideally, we would put him in Taurus because Taurus is a dry sign and Mercury is a dry planet." The Moon already had its exaltation there, Mars already had Capricorn, and so the text lands on Virgo. In the same episode Chris Brennan gives the standard set, with the Moon at 3 Taurus and Mercury at 15 Virgo.

The two explanations part ways on the reason. Ptolemy places Mercury by season; the Hermetic author, in Dykes's reading, matches it by nature to Taurus and settles on Virgo only because the Moon already held Taurus.

Aries and Gemini Suns with a Taurus Mercury

Close to half of the births with Mercury in Taurus belong to a Gemini or Aries Sun. Counted from the Sun's side, the numbers change. Among US births with the Sun in Taurus, 31.9% in our model have Mercury in Aries, so nearly a third of Taurus Sun births come with the faster, blunter Mercury of Aries instead.

An Aries Sun with Mercury in Taurus has its Mercury one sign ahead of the Sun. The drive is Aries and the thinking is Taurus: quick to want something, slower to talk about it. Conan O'Brien, below, has this mix.

A Gemini Sun with Mercury in Taurus has it one sign behind, so a sign famous for quick talk thinks at Taurus speed. It's one reason a Gemini may not recognize the chatty Gemini of the horoscope columns.

With the Sun in Taurus as well, the Sun and Mercury agree, and the Sun's side of the picture is on the Taurus page, with its traits and dates.

How it argues, texts and learns

In an argument a Taurus Mercury rarely moves first, and it doesn't move at all without a reason it can check. It listens, repeats its point in fewer words each time and waits for the other side to run out of steam. Pressure makes it dig in. A fact it hadn't weighed gives it a way out, which it takes quietly, often a day later.

Its texts are short and plain, and a reply can take a while because it answers when it has something settled to say.

It learns by doing and by repetition, and it trusts what it can see, hear or hold in its hands. Leo's word for it, patience, fits the classroom well: a slow start on new material, then a firm hold on it. One idea worked through properly sticks better than ten raced through, and hands-on subjects and music tend to suit it.

Which celebrities have Mercury in Taurus?

Orson Welles, George Carlin and Conan O'Brien were all born with Mercury in Taurus. Each degree below comes from a recorded birth time.

Orson Welles, born May 6, 1915, had a Taurus Sun and Mercury at about 20° Taurus. He directed and narrated the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, which led some listeners to believe a Martian invasion was real.

George Carlin, born May 12, 1937, had a Taurus Sun and Mercury at about 19° Taurus, retrograde all that day. He built routines around the English language, said he got his appreciation for using it well from his mother, and saw his "seven dirty words" routine reach the US Supreme Court.

Conan O'Brien, born April 18, 1963, has an Aries Sun and Mercury at about 16° Taurus. He was president of The Harvard Lampoon and a writer for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons before he became a host.

Patient at work, steady in love

At work this is the colleague who reads the whole contract and remembers what was agreed three meetings ago. It does well wherever accuracy outlasts speed, with materials, money or text to handle. A fast pitch meeting is its weakest room; give it the brief a day early and it walks in with the best questions.

In love it says less than it feels and means what it says. Care shows up as consistency: the call at the same hour, the detail from a first date it never forgot. Its flirting is slow, and its compliments are specific.

The friction comes in a fight: a quicker partner wants it settled tonight, and the Taurus Mercury wants to sleep on it. A hard talk with a time set for it goes better than one sprung at the door.

Behind the Sun in 2027, retrograde in 2029

A quick pass through Taurus takes 14.1 to 19.2 days. When Mercury's whole retrograde falls inside the sign, the visit stretches to about 68.2 days on average (1930 to 2029), and Mercury's longest stays in Taurus last about 68.8 days, as in 1977 (April 2 to June 10) and 1944.

During its brief 2027 pass, Mercury goes behind the Sun at 8°21′ Taurus on April 28. Mercury's retrograde of May 1 to May 25, 2029 stays entirely inside Taurus, from 26°40′ back to 17°33′, so a baby born between those two stations will have Mercury retrograde in Taurus. The last retrograde to stay inside the sign ran from April 21 to May 14, 2023.

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