Mercury in Leo is: shiny, combustible, staccato breathed and talking with the fever of a whisper because lapsing into a final yell, a true performer who knows that life is a stage and that drama is for the living, and given to high pitched squeaking whenever overexcited.

When we think of difficult Mercuries, we’re prone to thinking about Mercury in Sagittarius or Pisces or Mercury in the watery signs in general and we’re also prone to assuming that Mercury in Leo is a Mercury that speaks clearly without delay, with courage and with rigor. However, there is a little difficulty with Mercury in Leo.

Other signs write a poem and condense all of the complexities of what they signify into a flatten bump to be treasured and unraveled later. Mercury in Leo is different. Mercury in Leo writes a song about spring and they make the drama of the songbirds in the morning come alive. They write a poem about breakfast and it becomes a story about their mother.

There are often parts of Mercury in Leo that judge this Mercury for its whimsy, for its melodrama, for of course for its cringe. But what is cringe? Cringe is just the daunting of the self that you are not yet ready to share.

You see, Mercury in Leo is a Mercury that speaks with the rawness of the true self. The self is unmistakable in the voice with Mercury in Leo—this includes not just the practiced voice which we associate so closely with Leo, that sonic actor’s boom, but also the vocal breakages, the accidental squeaks, the impulsive whines, and the blatant swearing.

The voice, for Mercury in Leo, is a thing that comes alive whether you are prepared for it to do so or not. It is something that, like a child, disobeys its user.

This voice is also something that, like any child, fears judgment. Mercury in Leo is a Mercury that wants to chime in but also to speak out. It’s a Mercury that begs for something larger than the self to advocate for. It’s a Mercury that needs to get involved, whatever that means and whatever it looks like.

There’s something that Mercury in Leo does that we don’t usually associate with Leo—it hides. Mercury in Leo, most of all, wants the voice to be something that works in tandem with people and, for this reason, it wants to be embraced. No, Mercury in Leo is not satisfied with fitting in. How dull and tedious. Mercury in Leo wants to be embraced, uplifted, and celebrated for all of its innate talent and brilliance.

When Mercury in Leo is hesitant about whether this will happen, it tucks itself away. It judges itself within. It becomes shy and self critical.

Mercury, it turns out, is mostly peregrine in Leo.

Oh, Mercury in Leo wants to be celebrated! Not just celebrated for what it has learned to achieve but for its god given flair for the flamboyant, not for what it has practiced but for who it was always born to be. Mercury in Leo speaks in simple sentences, always memorable and with a catchy tune, like a child actor. There are two tensions alive in Mercury in Leo, it turns out—the tension between wanting to be with and be apart from and the tension between wanting to be good and wanting to be naturally good.

This is not a Mercury that often enjoys practice. It’s a Mercury that yearns to be the lucky type of person who gets it right the first time. This isn’t perfectionism. This is about being chosen.

When younger, there is a tendency in Mercury in Leo to become, loudly, the person who they are accepted for being. And then, there is a whole other self in shadow.

A planet that is peregrine in Leo is really a sentence to find it within you to applaud, to love, and to accept the self that is in shadow. For Mercury in Leo this has to do with loving the awkward voice.

Mercury in Leo writes a tweet and thinks to themself that it reveals far too much, editing it and deleting it altogether. They learn how to crack jokes that they enjoy for themselves and, soon, they find that other people find them funny too. They write a story and they find it too cringey. They learn that this is not a bad thing and that getting used to witnessing the self when writing is just a part of the process. They record themselves singing a song and find themselves whispering because they hate the sound of their own voice. They get used to hearing themselves and learn how to hear the music when it comes out of their own body.

That’s Mercury in Leo. It’s a voice, stuttering and cracking, and learns how not to be better and more polished and more vocal but how to appreciate with a full bodied shudder the person they already are.