Musings

August began with Mercury, the Messenger-god, once again at a standstill in the sky, having turned retrograde officially in the North American time-zone on August 2^nd.  Go back to the previous Full Moon phase, on the 14^th and 15^th of July and think about what happened, what messages or signals you received at that time in order to decipher the riddle that this retrograde phase is asking you to puzzle out. That was when Mercury, in the sign of Leo, entered the “shadow phase” of this next retrograde cycle.

Star-gazers tend to be sought after as problem solvers in times of uncertainty or crisis, so we astrologers, generally-speaking, are often looking for warning signs, and prone to ferret out potential challenges or “evil portents”. This interpreter of God’s cosmic shorthand is no exception and so must remind oneself that while practicing the adage “Forewarned is forearmed”, it makes at least equal sense to foretell how to best utilize the astrological weather in order to take advantage of the forces at work and accept the presenting energies as gifts from the gods, and find ways to make these gifts useful.

Take this Mercury retrograde phase that lasts from August 2^nd to August 26^th. I would be remiss not to share my usual advice to avoid signing contracts and seeking final judgments on deals and court cases, to double-check all details involving business transactions and all types of correspondence, and to put off purchases of anything that uses wires, batteries or operates using electrical means. Traffic tie-ups and travel in general can be more problematic than usual during Mercury retrograde, so confirm all meeting times, accommodations and reservations to avoid headaches, and even so, give extra time all through August to get where you are going by plane, train, or automobile.

While I appreciate that seemingly more people are becoming  astrologically literate, and by extension symbolically aware, I think the cliché “a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing” can often be applied when folks voice their “Oh no, not again!” fears associated with the retrograde phase of Mercury. After all, Mercury is retrograde for about three weeks at a time, three times a year. If the Trickster Deity was the harbinger of major disasters, we puny earthlings would be picking ourselves out of the ruins so often that not much could be accomplished, and so-called civilization would not have been possible.

Sometimes, the Tricksy Winged God can signify how the “Devil is in the details” and we need to act accordingly on the days when the Giver of Letters, Signs and Numbers is apparently at a stand-still, or in his “station”, in the heavens. The most disastrous (dis=against, aster=star) example of Mercurial mischief that I can think of came when the tiny planet stationed retrograde on Election Day in the U.S. in 2000. Counts, re-counts and dare I mention, hanging chads? Obviously, astrologers are no longer consulted when it comes to timing important state affairs. On that occasion, Hermes the Thief was set loose and some say that election became a se-lection and was “stolen”. So one more general warning for Merc is retro – remember to lock your doors and do not leave valuables lying about ripe for the picking.

Aside from the election crisis, most Mercury effects are simply frustrating and make us feel scatter-brained, or thwarted that things are not going the way they should. And that is the point around how to take advantage of the gifts of a retrograde Mercury phase. The apparent reverse-motion of the Heavenly Herald calls to consciousness some of the many tasks, talents and duties related to the mythical Mercury, or Hermes for the Greeks. Aside from lording over transactions and short journeys, thieves, merchants and scribes, Mercury also serves as Herald of the Gods, as well as the Psycho-pomp, or conveyor of souls to the afterlife. The everyday interchanges among people are operating under versatile Mercury’s purview. Exchanges of information, recording and transmitting data, movement from here to there, thinking, planning, listening and learning are happening in a more or less horizontal dimension, all within the plane of normal, commonplace interactivity.

With Mercury going against the flow of typical motion through the signs of the zodiac, we can interpret that the alteration means that Mercury’s “duties” are currently focused on areas not normal, regular or typical. Thus, the everyday transactions, transcriptions and communications are relatively unsupported, as they otherwise would be with forward-moving Mercury helping things function smoothly in our day-to-day affairs. What Mercury is up to when retrograde is bringing down messages from the heavens, especially from the King of Olympus, Jupiter. What Mercury is down to is the underworld, or perhaps better phrased these days, the inner world or the sub-conscious. Therefore, while seeming to fly backwards in the sky, Mercury, the Heavenly Herald, serves Olympus by opening us to matters of meaning and perspective, belief and world-view, the big questions, and The Quest – our personal hero and heroine’s journey. Attention to concepts related to philosophy, religion and life-purpose are routinely overlooked since we are absorbed and focused upon the surface details of our daily lives. Retrograde Mercury phases are times to broaden our scope of awareness.

Likewise, in service to the sub-conscious, or the underworld travels of Mercury, we are pulled to attend to our non-rational, so-called right brain functions and capacities, like the ability to associate coincidence with meaning, to recognize an omen or sign, to relate to poetry, music, drama and symbols. Attending to one’s dreams is a very favored activity while Mercury   retrogrades. So are meditations, prayer, inner exploration of all kinds, reveries, day-dreaming and generally goofing-off – because “goofing-off” is counter to the quality of mental attention required of most of us when we are “taking care of business”. So Mercury retrograde sloughs off his business attire and puts on a magician’s cloak or vagabond’s holey hat or grabs his poetry pen or stretches out prone on the couch and tunes out the world and tunes into inner space.  

The moral of the story is this: To make the most of August 2011’s Mercury retrograde phase, tell some jokes, pull some pranks, find ways to look at your life sideways, in retrospect, or through the looking glass. Ask yourself about the meaning of life, get high, get low, take a different route to work on purpose and try to let your right brain have its way for awhile.

        In the spirit of the Mercury retro-grade phase, I have a film recommendation for you. Go see “Magic Trip – Ken Kesey’s Search For A Kool Place”. It is a very well (re-)made documentary that takes us on a journey from California to New York and back with The Merry Pranksters on their famous bus, Further. The Mercurial trickster energy is evident throughout, aptly demonstrated in a truly Sixties-era journey with Coyote as the tour guide.  I saw it and loved it. The audio tape recording of Ken Kesey’s trip on L.S.D. at a Stanford University research laboratory was my favorite part because Kesey’s voice quality altered as his journey progressed and triggered my first flashback experience.  It was sublime. Four and a half stars. Check it out.