Tag Archives: Mercury Retrograde 2015

Mercury stations – enter domestic mayhem!

At this moment, with Mercury preparing to resume direct motion at 11.35pm BST on Thursday 11th June, I am sitting writing in my Glasgow office – wondering whether we will be spending the night here…. No matter how long one has been studying and practising astrology, there are times when its accuracy in describing the prevailing energy field of a given time period is simply breathtaking. So – sit back, fasten your seatbelts, and let me present you a case in point!

This is what I wrote on this blog’s Facebook Page on the evening of Tuesday 9th June : “Well, is everyone looking forward to Mercury resuming direct motion, at 11.35pm BST on Thursday 11th June? Or are you now – like me – too spaced out to care much? Tomorrow and Thursday sees our local Electricity Board replacing an electrical cable in our building, then linking it to the supply of each of our community’s ten flats.

I can barely contain my enthusiasm about this…how many bets that the whole job will go smoothly? No, I thought there wouldn’t be many! We are due to have our supply cut off from 830 am to 430 pm tomorrow (10th) and Thursday (11th) so that essential work as described above can be completed. Somehow, I don’t get the feeling that the Electricity Board knows anything at all about Mercury Retrograde…. Watch this space!…”

I just KNEW there would be complications, with the current planetary pattern linking Mercury with the prevailing Saturn/Neptune square…I just didn’t realise how bad it would get…

Mercury Direct Glasgow UK

Mercury Direct Glasgow UK

Day One went ok, apart from the Electricity Board’s workers discovering that “the wrong kind of scaffolding” had been erected on our third floor landing ( the building has four floors). This means that the job cannot be completed in the two days stated. So the whole rigmarole of alerting and informing all of us in writing, with accompanying instructions, arbitrary date and attendant inconvenience will have to be gone through all over again at some hitherto unknown date.

Day Two...well…picture the scene. Our podiatrist Lydia visited us this morning, weaving her way up through the building site that is our close in order to get to us. She had done Ian’s feet, and was half way through doing mine, when Ian burst into the room. “We all have to vacate the building, NOW!” he shouted. “There’s a gas scare!”. The strong odour of gas accompanied us as we hastily grabbed a few essentials for the day, Lydia hastily packing up her podiatry equipment as she ran.

Gas was pouring from the wall outside our second floor neighbour’s door. On the street, surrounded by neighbours, curious passers-by and stunned-looking Electricity Board workers, we discovered that they had accidentally sliced through a gas pipe which they had not expected would be embedded in the wall.

The emergency gas services had been alerted and half an hour later were allegedly on their way. There was absolutely nothing we could do, apart from pray that a random spark – the electricity supply apparently could not be turned off since it was too risky – would not result in our building being blown up.

I am not a person who panics in an emergency, or gives up easily (thanks, Mercury/Saturn/Pluto!). I turned to Lydia, who was standing beside her car on the pavement opposite our house. “Shall we finish the job?” She is not a giver-upper either. So I sat on the driver’s seat, feet resting on Lydia’s knees as she balanced herself on the pavement and coolly carried on beautifying my feet – quite a task at the best of times, it has to be said!!

We attracted quite a bit of  passer-by attention – I’m a Leo, no problem there! – and a very kind, chatty lady from the next street offered us coffee and a seat in her garden for the rest of the day, if we were going to remain homeless. So kind! Emergencies do indeed bring out the best in some people. In the course of our conversation I did such a good PR job for Lydia and her podiatry skills that the lady went away happily with one of her cards, promising to book a session for her son, a sufferer from bad feet.

The neighbours, who know me well enough to expect occasional bouts of left-field entertainment, were most diverted by all this from our collective worry that the building might blow up. It still might…but it hadn’t done so by the time the emergency services at last arrived, and Lydia, Ian and me went on our respective ways.

Being an astrologer, of course, absolutely everything no matter how dire is a potential astro-learning experience. You could scarcely make this one up: stationary Mercury square Neptune and Saturn: sliced-through gas pipe and interrupted podiatry session. Moon in Aries applying to the Uranus/Pluto square from Aries to Capricorn – threat of gas explosion in building.

Well,  I do hope you have found this dramatic tale interesting! I’d love to hear how any of my Readers have fared during these few days. Do let us all know! And I will post an update on this blog’s Facebook Page. Will we have a home to go to tonight? Watch this space…

 

Gorgeous Mercury

Gorgeous Mercury

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900 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2015

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

 

 

 

Mercury Retrograde status report: the pain – and the gain!

Well, this so far is the most tricksterish, troublesome Mercury Retrograde I’ve had for many a long year –a little post asking for feedback on my Astrology: Questions and Answers Facebook Page has validated this impression.

Mercury’s fellow travellers Mars and the Sun also in Gemini – opposing Saturn  square Neptune – do, I feel, explain this amplification. Such a complex, contradictory energy pattern also accounts for the accompanying confusion, lassitude, lethargy and feelings of being oppressed by tasks with which which one can’t quite come to grips… 

Gorgeous Mercury

Gorgeous Mercury

Mercury rules my horoscope, and aspects every planet, so I knew things might be a little tricky…the torture started on Tuesday morning, mere hours after Mercury went retrograde, with my losing my office keys.There followed frantic searching – husband helpfully went through all my handbags and coat/jacket pockets in my absence and could not believe how many pairs of gloves, lipsalves, emergency cash, pencils, notebooks, tissues etc etc inhabited those arcane corners of my life.

The keys turned up, eventually – in the cafe in the park across from my office where I’d been with a friend last week. Then, two days later, I had walked half way to work when I discovered I had left my office keys behind and had to trudge all the way back home ….there’s more, there’s more! 

In the last week, I have had to conduct a skype astrology reading over mobile phone because something happened my end and skype did not work. My client seemed much less phased by this than me, and wants to book another half hour very soon. Thank goodness I only do half hour sessions at present –I think I might have passed out if I’d had to do a whole reading between here and the USA over a mobile!

I have also got crossed wires with friends re timing of meet-ups, and offered people appointments which I later had to retract because of double booking. ( I am normally very well organised). And – how used I was to this feature of Mercury Retrograde in the days before my long 2001-8 sabbatical – my client/student cancellations and re-schedulings began just as Mercury stationed, prior to turning retrograde.

Today’s arrangements with two friends – I have given myself a writing day with no clients or students, worn out with the nervous strain of trying to keep my practice on an even keel – have been so interrupted and disrupted I cannot face describing what has happened. I haven’t even mentioned Web and computer glitchiness of which there was plenty. Advice: do not attempt to link your PayPal account to your bank account at these Retro times…

However, lest you readers out there imagine that Mercury Retrograde is all bad news, let me stress a fundamental principle of working creatively with planetary energies, whatever they may be. To quote Liz Greene in one of her 1990s Centre for Psychological Astrology Seminars:

“You have to give the god what the god wants. If it’s Mars, don’t offer a bunch of flowers!”

Capricious Mercury

Capricious Mercury

I have never forgotten this witty, sage advice. So – what should we offer Mercury in his retrograde phase? First of all, philosophical acceptance that, the more Mercurial one is, the more day to day screw-ups on the communication and travel front one is likely to have. Just allow more time to do everything, and don’t expect too much to flow smoothly if it is anything to do with communication or manual dexterity.

And of course, paying attention to the Retro part gives you a clue that going back over matters to do with communication/writing is a constructive use of this time.

I am now beginning seriously to contemplate getting to grips with my next book. So I used last Friday to dig out some material I had put together off and on over the last three years – and discovered that I have actually drafted an outline of my core idea, as well as having already conducted and recorded one of the case study interviews. I spent a happy couple of hours re-reading, refreshing my memory, and re-inspiring myself for the task ahead.

Also, on Monday I got down to completing one of my least favourite chores in the whole world: preparing my previous year’s accounts to send to my accountant. This involves going through receipts in excruciating detail, etc etc too boring even to list. My husband swears he simply has to utter the phrase “Tax Return” to me and steam immediately starts pouring from my ears…BUT…I did it!

So – how have you Mercurial folk out there been getting on this first week? Do let us all know – assuming you can get the Comments box to work!

Zodiac

Zodiac

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800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2015

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page