With Mercury becoming visible as an evening star, I have a gift of Hermes to share with you – Gemini Brett joining me to talk about the Homeric Hymn of Hermes and its starry telling link to the synodic cycles of Mercury and Jupiter, as well as the annual cycle of the Pleaides becoming invisible and visible in the sky.

We discuss aspects of the Homeric Hym of Hermes that evoke key phases of Mercury’s cycle, such as the link between Hermes marching the cattle he has stolen backwards just like Mercury moves backwards through the zodiac when retrograde.

Since Zeus (the planet Jupiter) and Maia (one of the stars in the Pleiades) are the parents of Hermes, Brett uses the stellarium astronomy program to visually display how it is possible for Jupiter to form a conjunction with the Pleiades while both are in their invisible phases followed by Mercury becoming visible in the sky timing with Hermes awaking and leaving the cave of Maia in the beginning of the story. Brett then visually shows how Mercury shifting retrograde and then forming a conjunction with the Sun links to Apollo meeting with Hermes in the story, and then how Apollo taking Hermes to visit Zeus on Mount Olympus goes with both Mercury and Jupiter becoming visible as morning stars at their heliacal rise.

At the end Brett displays a chart set for 800 BC that matches the story dynamics with the dynamic movement of Mercury, Jupiter, the Sun, and the Pleaides in the sky.

Altogether you’ll learn about the annual heliacal rising and setting of stars like the Pleiades, as well as the synodic cycles of both Mercury and Jupiter. It’s a real gift from Hermes – and we recorded this at the time that Mercury was shifting from being invisible into being visible as an evening star!

You’ll also learn about the extraordinary and beautiful astrological timing of the birth of Brett’s daughter Maia that also connects with the cycles of Mercury, Jupiter, and the Pleiades.

At one point Brett questions the original version of the hymn having Hermes steal the cattle before he steals the cattle. In the footnotes of the translation of the hymn by Apostols N Athanassakis he mentions how there are later versions of the hymn by Apollodors, Sophocles, and Eratosthenes “the episode of the tortoise follows the theft and slaughter of the cows. This change in the sequence of events must be due to a desire to make it logical: if Hermes slaughtered the cows first, he would have a supply of stringes for his lyre.” Instead, in the earliest version of the hymn Herme is seemingly magically able to use sheep guts to string the tortoise shell, without explanation of how he acquired the sheep guts.

I recommend reading the hymn, and there is an online version you can read here.