One very hot afternoon, during that particular part of the year which Mercury has claimed for his own, we were doing him homage in the way that made the most sense to us at the time--and our minds chanced to fall on the panic engendered by his retrograde phase. Why are people so averse to Mercury retrograde? we wondered. Everybody loves him during his periods of forward motion, after all. But let him turn around and stir up the aetheric currents a bit, and suddenly everybody is blaming him for everything.
In the midst of our musings, the god himself manifested--in a manner more spiritual than physical, perhaps. It was difficult to tell. The sun was very bright; and did we mention how hot it was? Needless to say, his appearance inspired in us a mighty awe--not to mention a profound desire to more closely examine the label on the wine we were drinking. But taking a page from Aleister Crowley and Robert Anton Wilson, two guys who could find their respective ways around a grimoire, we poured the god a glass and bade him take a load off.
He explained things, of course. It's what he does, sometimes. We have no hope of reproducing his words here: to attempt to do so would be both presumptuous and futile. This is, after all, the guy who invented words. But the sense of his meaning has remained with us.
Astrologically speaking, Mercury is the Fastest Guy on the Track. That's why he is the messenger of the gods. From our perspective here on Earth, Mercury moves so fast that, every so often, he actually pulls ahead of the apparent motion of the sun. Everything seems easy during this phase; our ideas manifest with barely any provocation, and communications soar. He is moving, so it would seem, into the realm of the gods.
But it's not his charter to stay there. He is a messenger, after all; and after a sojourn in that place beyond even the sun, he travels back to the mundane realm. This journey back, this apparent backward motion in the sky: this is Mercury Retrograde. Even people who don't follow the astrological play-by-play know this is a Very Different Mercury, and people who depend on his sunny side are confounded by this aspect.
Mercury in his retrograde phase is not a god of Happy Shiny Things, but a god on a journey into the dark and suberranean: this is not chatty energy but silence, not beginnings but manifestation and endings. In short, it's a time for work in the inner realms, for bringing our dreams and imaginings down to Earth. Writers fear this time, because the words may not come easily and emails tend to bounce senselessly around the net before winding up Mercury-only-knows-where; but the dreams are fertile and deep. Publishers fear this time more than anyone: they are in the business of launching words into the world. But no one needs to be afraid. We just have to understand, as the bard so eloquently put it, "To everything there is a season". Mercury's retrograde phase can be a profoundly productive time, as long as we're working on the right things.
As long as we make appropriate sacrifices to our gods. As we recall, he said this bit rather pointedly, and pushed his empty glass across the table, looking parched. Nobody had to tell us twice: taking a leaf from that greatest of all hosts, Jesus, who knew how to throw a wedding feast, we opened another bottle--making sure it was the good stuff. He smiled; a mad scramble for sunglasses ensued, followed by refilled glasses all around.
Mercury loves writers, and publishers, and dreamers. He was feeling expansive now; we made a mental note to always, always, keep some of the good stuff on hand for him. We journey the realms of imagination under his protection, and with his blessing. We just need to understand that sometimes the aetheric currents favor words, and sometimes wordless dreams, and point our ships in the appropriate direction. And we need to keep a substantial supply of the good stuff, just in case he drops by. And dedicating temples and naming publishing operations after him couldn't hurt.
At least, that's what he said. But he is a notorious trickster, and he could just have been screwing with us.
