I’m a few days late with this post because I’ve basically been traveling since the beginning of May, all while Mercury has been retrograde. Lots of delays, changes, and revelations.
Didn’t expect that last one, did you?
Oh yes, that’s the delightful secret of Mercury Retrograde: something is always revealed. Whether you want the knowledge or not. But let’s back up for a moment, just in case you don’t know what I mean by Mercury Retrograde.
In astrology, Mercury is the planet that rules communication, commerce, and travel. Three times a year the planet appears to reverse it’s course through the arc of the zodiac through the sky. For those of us interested in astrology this seems to closely correlate with a period of confusion, delay, and frustration in matters of commerce, travel, and communication. This problem seems to be worse in our modern age when so very much depends on the uber-communication device, the internet.
Wisdom says that this is a time for slowing down and being extra careful. I call it the RE time. It’s time to REview, REflect, REdo, and (often) REveal.
Mercury, the deity, is a trickster. He loves to pulls pranks and frequently engages in activities that showcase his formidable cleverness, often provoking change.* To that end, he seems to enjoy revealing secrets and hidden information during the time he is moving ‘backwards’. For me, this side of his powers has been deeply transformative and powerful. Even when it was my secret revealed it has always led to a big step forward in my evolution as a better human.
This time the revelation took the form of a very difficult conversation that — in the end — revealed a long-held psychic and emotional wound. While I won’t go into specifics, I can say that this was an issue I’d thought I’d dealt with a long time ago. What I finally saw was that I’d started the work but let myself get sidetracked and so I didn’t finish. It’s like a deep wound that forms a layer of skin over the top. It looks ok, but underneath the wound remains, unhealed. The conversation ripped that layer off and I have been processing, and purging, the long-held ick. I am simultaneously devastated and refreshed, signs of a powerful shift, one long overdue.
The process isn’t instantaneous, nor do I expect it to be so.
In the meantime, I am doing the work of assimilation and acknowledgement.
* My sources are the many myths about him.