Message for Thursday 13 January 2022

 Thursday 13 January 2022

}Mental Rest in Convent or Dance Hall{

Moon in Gemini

Mercury is moving hardly at all, nearly stationary (from our geocentric perspective), turning Retrograde Friday at 3:42a PT | 6:42a ET | 11:42a UT, until Friday February 4, three weeks later

The above sentence explains a lot to those familiar with these Mercurial or Hermetic cycles.  We are already experiencing the "Mercury Retrograde Syndrome" because it has been moving very slowly for days.  Yesterday my phone went off exactly when I tried to answer an important call and I had to wait for it to reboot, making a connection and meeting impossible.  I got misleading information about something politically sensitive and had to wait for a correction, and even now the facts remain unclear.  Right now I see that Microsoft is wanting to update Windows and that is always fun.  Good things have happened also, of course, but they are 'out of pattern' and unpredictable, often unexpected.  It would pay to notice the 'out of pattern' way things happen around you.  "In strange directions runs the intricate plan." --Sri Aurobindo, Savitri

Thursday:  

"A woman entering a convent' may have the right idea.  It has seemed to me that hiding in a cave could be the best response to Mercury Retrograde.  If one does not know how to pray, it is a good time to learn.  Says Dr. Jones:  'Life can have no satisfaction for the individual unless he is able to develop and maintain some enduring allegiance of an over-all significance.'  When one consecrates oneself one has 'the irresistible power of a true inner vision.'  But routine activities continue during the Dark or Slow Epoch, so 'boys and girls' still have to put on their 'gymnasium suits' to participate in 'the everyday potentials of human society.'  They train their powers and capacities in an animated way.  

At the emotional level there could be 'forlorn hope' because of 'loving without power to evoke response' or 'acting by impulse unallied to reason.'  We need to guard against misanthropy or jealousy.  'Loving unconditionally' is probably spoken of more often than accomplished, but trying to do it could turn the day around.  Venus, though going backward, still has good aspects and so 'a tankard set upon a table' offers some time spent with someone 'open to the reception of truth, whose passions are well regulated.'  What is simple and natural in human nature could be our refuge, with or without alcoholic lubrication.  A frank and open nature fosters sympathies with common people.  

Mercury is not only stationary but close to Saturn so there can be earnest study or research, like 'a person at the bottom of a deep ravine, with lamp in hand, looking for something.'  What you are questing for may drift to you while Mercury is motionless, as if past mental struggles were paying off in mysterious ways.  You looked for it and now it looks for you.  The last symbol may be harmless or it may be a demonic temptation:  'A man of stout make, good proportions, round rosy features, looking very merry, is dancing grotesquely.'  You or others might celebrate Mercury's "vacation" with carefree pleasures--eat, drink, dance and be merry--heedless of any lurking tomorrow.

Or not. At a deeper level this could be a realization that the thinking, plotting, conniving mind (Mercury) needs a rest, so one chooses to "live in the present" however that may go.

{Thursday}  {Mental Rest in Convent or Dance Hall}

Cosmic Piper