Mercury (Retrograde) wants what's best for me...
How it tries to pull me to the Underworld when I resist-a cautionary tale
Feeling mystically moved by my experience and all that’s opened up for me. This current Mercury retrograde was like a silent ship eyeing my shores. Waiting for the right moment to land. I knew things were off. Tiny malfunctions and tech issues, followed by a complete emotional break down, the world is ending kind of vibe, over something inane. My friend reminded me “Mercury retrograde starts tonight!”. Ah ha, I could breathe and let go of caring. Blame it on Mercury. Side note-I’m a Libra Stellium (Libra Sun, Mars, Venus, Pluto, Uranus) all in the 9th house. I’m heavily influenced by Jupiter (planet of luck, success, self awareness, growth) and tend to forget about Mercury until little retrograde issues pop up to get my attention. I’ve always been “lucky” but my luck runs out when I don’t evolve.
There’s a strange psychic current that flows between Mercury and me. My darkest fears/secret wishes are always pulled from the depths. I am seriously called on my shit. As much as I’m on this spiritual path-I’ve held onto my outdated matrix job because it felt stable and secure. Ok, two outdated matrix jobs but damn, they’re both “cool”, or so I’m told by everyone that asks me what I do for work. I’ve logged many hours in the trenches and have achieved a certain amount of mastery at both-even though there’s very little joy or sparkles there anymore. I know, like with every bit of my blood and bones that these “jobs” are just done. The cycle has completed and both have gone as far as I am meant to go. My guides have been warning me for a while that it’s time to go, give these crappy situations the old heave ho, end on an upswing, but I resisted and persisted cuz maybe a little of “the Devil you know..” style energy and just fear of the unknown. I felt this knowing, that I tried to ignore, of my guides cautioning “You’ll stop wasting time with these timed out jobs if all sales stop...”
Job 1-professionally since 1993. Selling clothes. Vintage Dealer, Vintage Curator, all the words to make is sound a little more glamorous than me digging through bins of donations and trash and dirty laundry looking for things I can sell at a profit. It was easy breezy until like 2010 and then still pretty chill until covid hit but damn, after lockdown everyone became a “reseller” and they have no qualms telling all their secrets on tik tok & instagram. The market is so over saturated with sellers and stuff that it’s not too profitable and just feels like another dull, grind of a job.
Job 2-professionally since 1997. Reading Tarot. I started by reading over the phone with Dionne Warwick’s psychic friends network. It was $1.99 a minute. I think I got .35 cents a minute plus tips-which was not awful in the 90s, especially because I could lounge around drinking Pernod, smoking joints and reading occult books while I waited for calls to come in. It was a respectable alternative to phone sex work. Callers were mostly lost and lonesome types who just wanted someone to talk to. That lasted about 6 months until I started freelancing and promoting myself via friends and word of mouth. I read Tarot at upscale events, art shows, parties, haunted hotels, anywhere and everywhere. A large client base was building and interest was expanding online, things were looking prosperous but I heard my guides whispering “You don’t even need cards. Just channel.”. Then lockdown killed all my in person gigs & online clients disappeared, I think most people were too busy numbing out to seek divination. There was also a boom of people promoting themselves as Tarot readers and insta witches began popping up all over the place. It seemed everyone was reading Tarot. What once seemed arcane had become somewhat mundane.
Mercury the God, as the Ancient Romans knew him, ruled commerce, goods (including vintage clothes for sale), luck, financial gain, trickery, thieves, boundaries, messages, communication (this includes all forms of divination).
Mercury was “the messenger of the Gods”. It falls to Mercury to deliver the souls of the dead, across the River Styx into the Underworld. He is swift and able to move between the worlds without getting stuck there.
This cycle, Mercury arrives to transport me away from a prison of complacency, a cosmic career rut, that I created- a space of hiding and refusing to let myself fully flower. I’ve had moments of harnessing my true nature and being fully in my magic, but not in my work. My work has been a place of safety and little risk. It was easy and effortless, until it wasn’t. I was in the shadow of Mercury Retrograde on December 10th when I realized that I hadn’t had an order on my website since November 27th, odd. Then I noticed vintage clothing sales across all platforms were dwindling or completely stopped. It was all coming to an end. I was relieved and terrified. And that fear… Mercury pushed and opened up a doorway into my heart and held the hand of the scared little girl that lived there. My usual thoughts were absorbed with work I did not love, every day. I felt afraid of insecurity and instability. But that was all I knew growing up. And my ancestors, well that thread came up. Previously unknown past lives were revealed (I’m very very old, on a soul level. My past lives have largely revealed themselves to me going backwards from where I am now. At least the Earth bound lifetimes). These are some of my gifts from this Mercurial experience.
Also love and money, career and romance are heavily intertwined. Like the snakes on the Caduceus that Mercury carries- they work together and are of similar, corresponding energies. As my heart has opened to let go of old work ideals, and grieve the loss/transformation of skills I had poured my creativity into for so long, I now feel my heart is opening to embrace the potential of romantic love arriving in my life. All of the pieces of a mystical, cosmic puzzle are finding each other in this current space in time. I don’t need to search or pursue. I am called to tend to my temple of body and spirit. To create with my hands and follow the golden threads of insight that appear to me. I simply need to BE my most authentic self (hint-who I was age 0-7 mostly) and receptive. Letting myself be placed in the right spot at this moment in time.
Mercury is here to shake things up and remind us that safety is an illusion. The desire is to reveal the ways we are lying to ourselves and ignoring Divine communication. Mercury pulls us from the imagined safety of our hiding places to remind us that we know we are meant for more. There is a mission and, if it’s ignored, things get sticky and uncomfortable. When we are stuck in the mud and choosing to stay there, the mud will turn to quicksand and pull us to the depths, drag us to the underworld to force us to face our fears and seek liberation. Mercury moves quickly and is endlessly delivering insight, weather we listen of not.
In Love and Magick, Mindy Sue