Yesterday, December 3, 2010, Amazon pulled the plug on the controversial website Wikileaks, triggering a challenging public discourse and opportunity for deep thinking about censorship, ownership of information, and the security of the internet. In my last post about airport security, I pointed out the current planetary alignment of Pluto conjunct the North Node, both in Capricorn and opposite the South Node in Cancer. This signals that the issues on the table concern deep truths that make us squeamish, uncomfortably mixed with our attachment to security and our fears of losing just that. Since then Mercury has joined the party. And right on time, we see the Wikileaks story break.

Mercury, often described as the fickle witty androgyne with no attention span, also has a very important and less mentioned function - that of the psychopomp. Mercury was the only god allowed access in and out of the underworld, and carried messages back and forth. Mercury's impartiality makes him the perfect companion to Pluto in some ways, who has a love for brutal truth and soul-shaking honesty. Mercury is the one god who can take in Pluto's message and remain unphased - it's just information after all, he thinks. As an underworld messenger, and currently in Capricorn, the messages Mercury delivers us have a sober darkness, a cold utilitarianism, and speak of unveiled truths concerning power, authority, death and domination.

The fact that Mercury just now begins to station retrograde while conjunct Pluto (Mercury will officially go retrograde on December 10, while still conjunct Pluto), alerts us to the fact that this Wikileaks information, and the conflict arising from it, is not only a brutal truth unearthed from the underworld, but one which can eventually lead us to a transformational processing of our deepest subconscious material. It has often been said that this long cycle of Pluto in Capricorn will lead to much unveiling of the shady behind-the-scenes and even criminal practices of governments, corporations and figures of authority. But perhaps not mentioned enough, is the extreme discomfort, pain, and catharsis such information will cause both globally and individually. One look around will confirm that many people are feeling this.