=--m--=At the base of the 5 space we find the symbols for Virgo [Symbol: Virgo] and Mercury [Symbol: Mercury]. Virgo [Symbol: Virgo], one of the most motherly of signs, represents motherhood when called upon to make one of its greatest sacrifices in manifesting the law of Rejection or Discard. Mother must give up her boy or her girl, that they may go out into the world. It is a law, from the great whales in the sea to the eagle in her nest; from the oyster under the ocean to the king upon his throne. When that law of Discard or Rejection is not obeyed, both the discarder and the should-be-discarded are injured or hurt by the very presence of each other. =--n--=This applies also to friends who are not helping you to advance. You should continue to find ways to help them, when possible, but must cut off all ways in which they are keeping you back. If this cutting off cannot be done without stopping your help to them, then you must stop your help. If you cannot help them in a way that they can be caused to compensate, then you are not the ONE who should help them. You will have to decide in your own mind as to whether YOU are being helped or improved in your character by your helping of them. =--p--=There are thousands of cases of a mother still carrying and supporting and defending a big hulk of a man, because he is her son. Both of them would have been far happier if that mother had studied this law of Discard from his babyhood, making him do everything possible for himself, even if it did take more time and effort than to do it for him. You can also see little, hardworking sisters supporting big, overgrown, lazy brothers, who work on that sisters sympathies; or because that sister has promised some dying mother to always "look after poor, dear Percy." =--q--=Stop and think. Are you CRIPPLING the one you think you are helping? Are you encouraging them to still use the crutches of your support, when they would be ever so much stronger if compelled to walk alone? It is just as wrong for you to over-gratify your faculty of benevolence, your desire to feel the superiority-complex of having others depend on you, as it is to over-gratify any other appetite or desire. =--r--=The planet Mercury [Symbol: Mercury], signified in this 5 space, means changes. See to it that these changes are made in the right time and for the right purpose. [Sidenote: TRANSMUTATION]