Aries

Mercury in Aries suggests ways of thinking that are decisive and to the point. This Mercury is argumentative by its nature, suggesting that you enjoy competing mentally. Your thinking is original. You love creating new ideas and intellectual adventures.

You think and debate well on your feet, but you may become impatient with opponents or opposition. You hate delays. Roadblocks frustrate you to no end. This attitude may extend to areas of your life other than speech, communication, and decision-making. You may drive too fast and become very impatient in traffic, too.

You may not be able to concentrate on any one subject for very long. You jump to conclusions quickly and with little hesitation. Impulsiveness can be a problem sometimes. If this trait is not controlled in your daily living, you will appear to have a type of intellectual egotism that is most unattractive. Guard against becoming too headstrong in your thinking and decision-making. A quick temper is sometimes a by-product of this placement.

Your mind is witty and inventive, and you are usually very quick on the mental trigger. You can come up with a clever answer and a quick repartee to any question. While you may not be the best at digging deeply in to subject matter, when it comes to having some sort of an answer quickly, you will surely lead the pack.

Taurus

In Taurus, Mercury produces a mind that is patient and practical. Your thinking is often conservative, and your thought processes are fixed and stable. You are more apt to learn from experiences than from formal training. Your powers of concentration are outstanding. Thinking and decision-making is based upon that which is practical, material and surrounded by common sense. Many will consider you a "slow-poke" when it comes to mental matters and communicating ideas. You are slow to form opinions because you put much thought into questions before you render an answer, and you don't like to be rushed in this.

You may excel in handling financial matters, for you are very dependable in managing money. You have a shrewd business mind and a natural inclination toward management of resources.

Often this position marks a degree of mental stubbornness and steadfastness. Once you have made up your mind, you do not like to change it or hear differing arguments and ideas. In extreme cases, you may ignore obvious conclusions that differ from your initial decision. Guard against a tendency toward intellectual obstinacy and the highly opinionated views that sometimes plague Mercury in Taurus people.

Gemini

Gemini is the natural home for Mercury, and the placement produces pure logical reasoning of the highest order. This Mercury denotes a lightning quick thinker. Your concern is with fact and unbiased understanding, rather than personal preference. Communication is easy, rapid, accurate and often eloquent. You are an interesting and incessant conversationalist. Mercury is at its quickest and best when it resides in Gemini.

If given proper training, you excel in mathematics as well as in language. You are very logical, and your mind moves very quickly. You love logic, a fact making you an excellent teacher or reporter.

When engaged in arguments, you may miss a basic premise, but you are clever enough to win anyway. The opponent is convinced by your rational remarks. You have a great variety of interests, and your mind may flit from one idea to the next, never digging in very deeply. You have an intense curiosity leading you to want to know a little about nearly everything. This makes you a very interesting person, but rarely an expert in any particular field.

The down side of Mercury in Gemini is the sensitive nervous system often noted. It's hard for you to shut out external stimulation of any sort. You may find yourself being forced to deal with too much activity and too many impressions from time to time. If you allow yourself to be subjected to too much stress and too many demands for an extended period, you can become frazzled and subject to breakdown. The obvious signs of this problem are irritability and mental confusion. The root cause of this is simply spreading yourself too thin. Getting away from it all generally provides a quick cure.

Cancer

In Cancer, Mercury produces a mind that is very intuitive. You are influenced more by an appeal to the senses, than by logic or common sense. Your thinking is regulated by deep-seated emotional patterns, many of which may be rooted deeply in your subconscious. Objective thinking is not easy for you because your biases seem to force you to make certain decisions and ignore certain facts that disagree with you internal initial judgment.

Your memory is exceptional, especially for names, dates, and historical events. You have a deep appreciation of history and any artifact or relic of the past. Your answers to present day problems are frequently drawn from precedence and past events. You are influenced by those around you, by your early training, and the opinions of friends and family. You are very close to family, friends and even to country. Loyalty and patriotism run very deep in your nature.

You seem to learn best by exposure to information via life experience, as if by osmosis. You are highly receptive to subliminal messages or subtle inferences that you receive.

You are sensitive to other people, and you have some difficulty being with those who you sense to be in some way unfriendly to you. It may be hard to explain why you feel uncomfortable with someone, but you do. A major strength of this placement is that you are such a very sympathetic listener. Yet you have to be careful not to identify too closely with the problems of others and take on those problems as if they were your own.

Leo

In Leo, Mercury produces a mind with strong will power and stubbornly fixed purposes. Your comprehension is broad, and your expression is authoritative, sometimes even dogmatic, as the position inclines to being opinionated and rigid in viewpoint.

Your thinking has a very human touch, permitting you to make decisions that are accepted and followed by most people. You are inclined to leadership because you such a capacity to command respect. You like to be considered as the authority on matters pertaining to your field of endeavor, and you probably are. This sense of authority is aided by the dramatic and forceful way that you express yourself orally and in writings.

Your mental charisma and leadership style sometimes makes you a little proud and boastful. Sometimes you can get a little carried away with the importance of your ideas and expressions. Mental pride and arrogance can be a problem.

Usually with Mercury in Leo there is the tendency to become a bit lazy in a mental sense. There is often a need to cultivate more attention and exercise for the mind. Your strength is dealing with subjects in a broad-brush way, and in very general terms. You can ignore important details that leave your plan somewhat short at times. When this does happen, it is hard for you to admit a mistake.

Virgo

In Virgo, Mercury produces a mind that is logical, but highly critical. You are mathematical, practical and careful about details. You are one of those people who catches on to things quickly, and you carry out your tasks in an orderly and businesslike manner. This placement indicates excellent analytical abilities, and a good common sense approach to most mental activities. You require orderly surroundings and efficient methods of operation.

There is some tendency for you to lack confidence or at least to seem to lack confidence. The hesitation that precedes action probably relates to your habit of checking, double checking and going over things one last time, before taking final action.

You rarely allow yourself to be spread so thin that you can't be sure of producing your standard of accuracy and discrimination. You want such a degree of minute precision and accuracy that many will perceive you as a nit-picker.

It is not at all uncommon for those with Mercury in Virgo to seek professional and financial success by acquiring much education and special technical skills. You also may possess special abilities in communication and in general writing. Your use of the language and grammar is probably near perfect. Be careful not to become to obsessed with detail and work, becoming shy and withdrawn, and failing to do as well as you should in casual and leisure conversation.