Mercury and Uranus and the polarity of language and technology

Mercury and Uranus…
This blog idea came out of the blue – how Uranian!

In recent weeks, especially since moving back to Vilamoura on the Algarve full time, I have seen how polarising social media and various current forms of technology based communication has become.

I have seen a distressing amount of non-consent based marketing…photos being taken and posted on a social media account to promote such and such a business or event without consent. When I raised the matter with several marketing experts, the feedback I got was that “They don’t even know it’s not OK to be doing this. And even when you try and explain it to them, they actually haven’t a clue what you are talking about!” Or even better, people saying, “Ah sure the Portugese don’t bother much with that GDPR or data protection stuff”! And when my ueber Gemini brain ruminated about it, I subsequently realised it was all the expats who were doing this, not the Portugese!

And then my newly painted original art got shared on social media without my consent instead! So it almost got to the stage where I wanted to stop going to any type of event because this was so intrusive and also personally distressing.

On top of that there was the endless chitter chatter about nothing much at all in a few business WhatsApp groups. And on Facebook groups (of which there are a lot on the Algarve) there was a lot of cross posting, posting on behalf of others who were not group members, over posting (which is highly annoying but not actually unethical!) and a rather a lot of amount of “Oops, I did not realise I shouldn’t have posted a promotion in this group” (yeah right). So I took a big big step back and left the chatter about nothing much at all in the WhatsApp groups and started consciously turning off my phone for two full days at the weekend.

The difference in my mood, and concentration level was instantaneous. It was also no coincidence that the people I was most resonating with, felt the exact same. I found myself painting up a storm, experimenting with different types of paints, having a go at mixed media, coming up with ideas out of the blue for new astrology and also artistic workshops. And yes, I can have these workshops here at home. Plenty of room on the balcony for everyone! I also found myself quietly writing more and more, including poems.

And most importantly, finally finding the time to go for those beach walks which my soul had craved for so, but oh so many years.

I live at the very end of Quartiera, a beach and promenade drag which spans about two kilometres, but which feels much longer, and so the next beach down – Praia do Almargen has a very different feel. Oh, as well as having a great, if noisy, beach bar right on the beach! So when meeting a lovely newbie friend I found myself being more direct than usual as to how meeting up is gonna work for me. And same with other newbie friends. It’s taking a lot longer to settle in that I wanted, but that’s just my impatient Mars in Aries in the eleventh house playing out! Turns out lots of kids are off school for a full three months in the Summer, and lots of others are, as expected, going to be leaving Vilamoura in August because of the heat and the crowds.

So the lovely soulful coffees, lunches and beach side drinks I have had with newbie friends have indeed been so nourishing.

Some weeks ago, when I pinged seven Instagram stories in a row – they all had the “All eyes on Rafah” image which I found extremely distressing. I go onto Brian O’Driscoll or Peter O’Mahony’s profile to read rugby stuff, same with other rugby players. I regularly go onto other artists Instagram accounts to see their beautiful paintings. I only recently learnt that this “All eyes on Rafah” image, which in fact got over 46 million views, was generated by AI. Which is apparently why it bypassed keyword detection. And there were then people apparently commenting about the digital erasure of the “real life” images of the war.

So I then unfollowed a ton of people on Instagram, but not Peter O’Mahony, he’s way too sexy, and Brian O’Driscoll is way too funny. Se he stays too! And for those of you who don’t know who Peter O’Mahony is, he was until recently Ireland’s rugby captain, and is now Munster’s rugby captain for another year. I subsequently took a fellow astrologers idea of culling my own social media even more, to give me as much control as possible over what I see, which is almost a full time job in itself these days.

So what of Mercury and Uranus in all this? Well AI and ChapGPT is as Uranian as it gets. AI is now generating more and more content for more and more platforms and obviously sales and marketing content platforms form part of that. Astrology too, unfortunately. And Google now also has a platform called Gemini – how fitting! There is now a noticeable increase in astrologers with no obvious training or formal background writing a ton of very authentically sounding astrology – where and how did they get this content?

I am really not sure I want to know….what I do know for sure is that the genuine astrologers, the ones who work from their heart soul and spirit, will still be around in three years time.

The online world is now also flooded with supposed expert astrocartographers too. People writing nonsense like – “Moving to your Venus line means you will find love” Or that you will be depressed on a Saturn line. These half baked made up posts do astrology a great disservice. There are now also, as I have recently learnt, even more and more super impressive astrology software programmes which proclaim to include astrocartography. Except many of them don’t even actually include aspects to the maps.

Which is what locational astrology as actually all about!

Oh, and the importance of understanding your natal chart and your current transits before deciding to relocate can never be emphasised enough.

It took a long chat with my spiritual mentor in Australia to realise that a lot of the fluffy “Look at me and what a perfect life me and my clients are living” which may seem to be non-consent based marketing, is in fact underneath it all, ego driven. Do I want to see these types of photos ? They certainly are entertaining but no they don’t necessarily persuade or influence me to go to that venue or sign up for that event. They are also highly distracting, and yes they suck you in.

That’s what a website is for. To engage transparently.

That’s what a newsletter is for. To engage and give content transparently.

There is a reason why people like Denise Duffield Thomas and Tash Corbin are doing so well in these times. Denise is an Australian money mindset mentor who I have followed for years and Tash (another Australian) runs a consent based marketing mentorship programme for female entrepreneurs worldwide. I found myself re-engaging in her Facebook group recently and it was like a breath of fresh air to be back in a consent based world.

The internet was founded by a Gemini – Tim Berners Lee, born 8th June 1955 in UK (TOB unknown), and of course, astrocartography was also developed by another ueber Gemini – Jim Lewis, who took what was at the time a basic concept and ran with it. Astrocartography is at it’s core, all about angularity to the angles. Relocated charts – which involve regenerating your chart “as if” you had been born in the new location, are a whole other thing. Tim Berners Lee gave his invention to the world for free and subsequently made money in other ways.

It’s so often the case. Do what your soul most craves, what makes your heart sing, and the pathways open. I have seen it happen so many times.

Is it any wonder that the three most ethical female business mentors I know – Sarah Leather, Denise Duffield Thomas and Tash Corbin – are all Virgos?! Well there you go! And they are all Australian born too.

My own natal Pluto in Virgo resonates with this, as does my Saturn in Capricorn in the much maligned eighth house. Do everything you do with integrity, and let what’s down the track with AI be what it will be.

Do everything you do with love, passion, integrity and it will all work out. Think U2, think Bruce Springsteen, think Sinead O’Connor, think Taylor Swift.

And turn off that WhatsApp ping on your phone as often as you can! My next blog post will be a follow on from this topic, as technology continues to change our lives at the speed of light.

Which was of course, exactly what was as predicted when Pluto moved into Aquarius in January 2024. Pluto does its last sweeping of the decks when it does its last and final sojurn back into Capricorn from 1st September until 19th November later this year. Bang on time for the USA Presidential elections.

Are you ready?

To help you navigate this time of groundbreaking change, you can book a transit reading.

And thank you all for continuing to support my work. And no, no AI whatsoever was used in the writing of this blog!

Thank you dear readers for reading my blog on Mercury and Uranus and the polarity of language and technology.