This week the action in the sky is not something that’s visible to the naked eye observer. It’s a phenomenon known as the ‘inferior conjuncton’ of Mercury with the Sun, and it happens on Thursday.
At inferior conjunction, Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, comes to the place on its path that puts it between the Earth and the Sun. Usually we see Mercury , in the evening sky or the morning sky, and it’s never very far from the Sun. Then, several times each year, Mercury disappears from our view, and makes a motion referred to as a “retrograde loop”. This is how astronomers describe the phenomenon of the planet appearing to stop in its forward motion and move backward along its orbital path.
Mercury makes this retrograde loop about three times each year, and in the middle of each loop, it comes to inferior conjunction with the Sun.
For the Ancients, Mercury was the messenger of the Gods, and when the planet disappeared from view in this retrograde loop, it was as though the messenger was not available, and communications could get mixed up.
One of the mythologies connected to Mercury at the moment of the inferior conjunction has to do with his love of the flower deity, Chloris. Chloris had the task of casting rose petals along the path of the advancing Sun before it rose each morning. Mercury fell in love with Chloris, and sought to capture her. He stole a net that the mighty metalsmith Vulcan had crafted out of a metal that was strong enough to capture gods, but was as yet invisible to them. Vulcan made the net to capture his own wife, Venus. And once Mercury had the net, he hid with it in the face of the Sun, so he could cast it across the sunrise spot where he knew Chloris would travel, and so he captured her.
Unseen to us, Mercury will sweep into inferior conjunction with the Sun on Thursday, and when the retrograde motion completes later this month, the planet will emerge in the morning sky, with his love, Chloris, casting magnificent color across the dawn.