Updated by: May 8, 2026
Walking the Solar System
I’d recently come across Gustav Holst’s – ‘The Planets’ Suite’ for the first time. Written between 1914 and 1916, it’s one of the great orchestral works — each movement capturing the character of a different planet. Mars brooding and aggressive. Venus gentle and luminous. Jupiter expansive and full of life. It got me thinking about the planets differently.
My surname is Mercuri — the Italian form of Mercury, the Roman messenger god. When I discovered there was actually a Mercury Street in my neighborhood I knew I had to walk it. What I didn’t expect was to find an entire solar system hiding in the suburbs.
Mercury Street is exactly what you’d expect from the messenger god’s street. Small, discreet, easy to miss. It doesn’t announce itself. It simply connects two larger streets, doing its essential work quietly and moving on.
Running directly off Mercury Street is Mars Street. Mars is the god of war. Mars Street is a dead end. A no through road. Make of that what you will.
From Mars I walked through to Jupiter Street. Where Mercury is quiet and Mars goes nowhere, Jupiter is alive — houses with toys on front lawns, ordinary abundant life on the street of the king of the gods.
Venus Street runs just off Jupiter. I turned right instead of my usual left and found a magnificent nature strip garden overflowing its boundaries with yucca, lavender, jade and succulents. A woman was watering it relentlessly, tending beauty for strangers passing by.
Later I walked down Saturn Street. Saturn is the god of time, patience and the long arc of consequence.
Five streets. Five planets. One morning walk in suburban Melbourne.
The solar system, it turns out, is hiding in plain sight.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
