Mercury passes the far side of the Sun tomorrow. It's called a superior conjunction as opposed to an inferior conjunction when it passes between us and the Sun. In a series of charts, or on Stellarium, Mercury would be tracked overtaking the Sun along the ecliptic. I'm just presenting 2 charts, both for the moment of exact lineup, from 2 different places on Earth.
The chart above is for 1:04pm local time, the moment in Raleigh that Mercury is opposite Earth on the far side of the Sun. In the chart they are located at the top, right next to each other, both at 4degrees Virgo 27minutes. Below is a chart for 8:04pm local time, the same moment from Istanbul.
As in the Raleigh chart, they are right next to each other at 4 degrees Virgo 27 minutes, but instead of being at the top, they are on the right side under the horizontal line. In Istanbul it is dark; the Sun/Mercury pair have set in the west.
I am reading a very informative book about the Ottoman Empire in the few decades leading up to World War 1. In this book Kaiser Wilhelm 2 figures as a more realistic human being than the Kaiser in The Guns of August book I had read years ago. Maybe I just missed a lot of stuff that Barbara Tuckman outlined about Wilhelm's international relations, especially with the Ottoman Empire.
The book I am reading now is called The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: modernity, industrialization and the Ottoman decline. It is written in Turkish by Murat Ozyuksel and translated to English by Sezin Tekin. Ozyuksel does speak English, I have found at least one video of him presenting in English on the angloturkishsociety channel.
There's a lot of stuff coming out about history of Muslim Brotherhood which I think is helpful in understanding currents of thought in Muslim societies. Now, though, I'm getting a better understanding of the rivalry between Germany, France and England and how Germany came to be aligned with the Ottoman Empire before the rise of Nazi ideology, well before even WW1.
Is there anything you have been studying where you feel like you are gaining ground in your efforts? As an astrologer I associate my new, far reaching avenues of information with the Mercury Sun superior conjunction in Virgo, the sign of learning.
