Mercury Correspondences

Metal: Mercury. Quicksilver

Colors: Orange

Zodiac Signs: Gemini. Virgo

Deities: Hermes, Mercury. Thoth

Archangel: Raphael

Day: Wednesday

Mercury riding a bicycle, from an 1899 advertisement

Mercury is the messenger of the gods and symbolizes communication, intelligence, commerce, and travel. He is associated with quick wit and cleverness, as well as trickery. He is able to mediate between spiritual and material worlds, including the underworld. He bridges opposites through his association with magic and alchemy, and he is often represented as gender fluid or as a mix of gendered attributes. His day of the week, Wednesday, is the middle of the week. The major arcana tarot card associated with Mercury is The Magician. 

As a symbol of alchemy he represents the fluid and transformative principle, like his metal mercury (or quicksilver). This extends to his connection with fluid and quick-moving thoughts and a changeable mind, which is where the term mercurial originates.

His most recognizable symbols are a pair of winged shoes, a winged hat, and a caduceus. The winged shoes and hat show his ability to swiftly travel through the air (especially as it relates to the mental plane) in his role of bringing messages to earth to heaven and vice versa. 

Qualities associated with Mercury are accuracy, adaptability, ambidexterity, androgyny, bisexuality,

Other gods associated with Mercury are the Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth.

Image illustrating the 3 March 1491 Venice edition of Dante's Divine Comedy.

In the body Mercury rules the arms, hands, lungs, air in the body and its circulation, bronchial tubes, the brain, collar bones, fingers, fingernails, nerves and nervous system, in general, optic nerves, and the cerebrospinal system. Note how the arms, hands, and fingers are connected to writing and the lungs and bronchial tubes are connected to speaking. 

Vehicles of travel over land such as buses, cars, trains, are ruled by Mercury, as well as those who operate them for a living, such as bus drivers, elevator operators, train conductors, and ticket agents, gas station attendants, and porters. He also rules luggage and maps.

Professionals bringing messages are ruled by Mercury—advertisers, advisors, announcers (radio and TV), attorneys, biographers, broadcasters, canvassers, copywriters, couriers, critics, delegates, educators, historians, humorists, interpreters, investigators, journalists, letter carriers, lecturers, linguists, merchants, narrators, newspaper publishers, novelists, public speakers, rabbis, script writers, spokespeople, story tellers, surveyors, telephone operators, weather forecasters and writers. 

Mediators and professionals who bridge parties or worlds are ruled by Mercury, including ambassadors, lawyers,

Those who work in commerce are ruled by Mercury, such as accountants, actuaries, auditors, bank tellers, deed recorders, distributers, and shopkeepers. 

Educational professionals are ruled by Mercury, including professors, teachers, tutors, and their students. 

In a larger sense, many Mercury-ruled professions include one or many aspects of him, such as delegates, who are meditating as well as bringing messages, and healers, who are involved in a type of alchemy as well as mediating between the worlds of the body and mind.

Those who work specifically with hands are connected to Mercury, such as manicurists and jugglers, as well as those who collect signatures, such as canvassers, escrow agents, and notaries, as well as handwriting analysts and stenographers.

Typical craftspeople and artisans are also ruled by Mercury, including weavers and textile workers. 

Professionals who publish books, including booksellers, editors, printers, proofreaders, typesetters, and writers are ruled by Mercury. 

Health-related professions are ruled by Mercury, as all health and medicine was originally alchemy. Professionals under his rulership include health officers, osteopaths, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and sanitation inspectors.

Technology professionals associated with Mercury include computer programmers, computer operators, and computer scientists. 

Illustration by Lauron William de Laurence from The Illustrated Key to the Tarot, 1918

Flora associated with Mercury are azalea, bittersweet, calamint, caraway, dill, elecampane, elf-wort, endive, filbert trees, hare’s foot, hazel trees, hound’s tongue, lavender, licorice, lilies of the valley, male fern, mandrake, marjoram, mulberry trees, myrtle trees, parsley, privet, savory, southernwood, starwort, trefoil, valerian, wild flowers, and wood sage.

Mercury rules wheat fields, bee hives, harvests, and looms. needles, proverbs, tricks, trifles, trombones, and twins. 

All animals in general are associated with Mercury, including small and domestic animals, as well as animal communicators and veterinarians. Specific fauna ruled by Mercury include ants, bees, butterflies, carrier pigeons, dogs, hounds, monkeys, parrots, and other small birds. 

Medallion from the atrium of the House of the Greek Epigrams Pompeii depicting Hermes (Mercury) with petasus and caduceus 1877, courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute

Foods governed by Mercury includes caraway seeds, carrots, celery, fennel, oats, and parsnips. 

Cigarette card, 1924

Orphic Hymn to Mercury (Hermes) 

Hermes, draw near, and to my prayer incline, angel of Jove [Zeus], and Maia's son divine; Studious of contests, ruler of mankind, with heart almighty, and a prudent mind. Celestial messenger, of various skill, whose powerful arts could watchful Argus kill: With winged feet, it is thine through air to course, O friend of man, and prophet of discourse: Great life-supporter, to rejoice is thine, in arts gymnastic, and in fraud divine: With power endured all language to explain, of care the loosener, and the source of gain. Whose hand contains of blameless peace the rod, Corucian, blessed, profitable God; Of various speech, whose aid in works we find, and in necessities to mortals kind: Dire weapon of the tongue, which men revere, be present, Hermes, and thy suppliant hear; Assist my works, conclude my life with peace, give graceful speech, and me memory's increase.