Mercury Retrograde, running on empty
While clearing over six miles on the trail Wednesday afternoon, I paused long enough to watch a hilarious scene from nature. One blackbird [boy grackle> was being hounded by three girl grackles.
He hopped away, spread his wings, and them three girl bird kept after him. All I could think about was an Eagles song, “Take It Easy“. I’m not familiar with the common grackle’s mating dance, but from what I could observe, I’m pretty sure that little henpecked dance wasn’t part of the usual ritual. Boy had himself three chicks, all hot after him. Lord knows, he probably didn’t do anything wrong.
See: it’s Mercury’s fault.
There’s an inherent fallacy with that statement, calling that male bird’s problems “Mercury’s fault.” It’s not like Mercury did anything to that bird. Or, for that matter, did Mercury do anything to me. Or any of the communications. Mercury isn’t at fault. Its orbit hasn’t changed. Its “errant ways,” though are caused by its apparent retrograde motion.
The symbol, as this crudely hand-drawn image {{popup mercury.jpg mercury 240×320}}shows, is like a Venus symbol, only it’s got little antennae sticking out the top. Just as a side note, when Mercury is in apparent retrograde motion, astrologers add {{popup mercuryRX.jpg mercuryRX 240×320}}a little RX symbol to denote this observed phenomenon.
Mercury is associated with Communications [Gemini> and mental processes [Virgo>. In old fashioned astrology, the term bantered about is that “Mercury **rules** these signs.” The first problem is with the term “rules,” as that denotes a patriarchal system that no longer seems applicable. I may be a sexist pig, but the patriarchy is going to fail and fall – read the handwriting on the wall. So I’m actively trying to get away from the term, “rules.” Let’s just suggest, for the time being, that Mercury is heavily associated with those two signs, Gemini and Virgo, and the behaviors associated with those two signs, communication and mental processes.
It’s all about flavor. Suppose, you’re like me, and you have a natal Mercury in Sagittarius, then your communication and thinking tends to be rather Sagittarius in essence. When I was a kid, I built a “crystal” radio set. It was basically a copper wire antenna, a headphone, and a little wire that poked a piece of crystal that served as the tuner. So, in a natal chart, that crystal **is** the tuner. That crystal has a flavor, as each chunk of crystal is unique. In my case, my natal crystal is Sagittarius. That means I tend to receive the incoming radio waves with my own, Sagittarius flavor attached to them.
When {{popup mercuryRX.jpg mercuryRX 240×320}}Mercury is Retrograde, the crystal in the radio picks up stray signals from all over the place. Maybe it’s something bouncing off of a sunspot. Perhaps it’s a shortwave transmission from another part of the planet. It could be your neighbor’s wireless phone. With a crystal radio like that, the tuning was done with a thin wire poking into the center of the crystal. To change reception values, that is, to get a different channel, the little wire’s location, relative to the heart of the crystal, had to be changed.
So standing here on Planet Earth, looking up at the heavens, the position of Mercury seems to be moving in pattern that is not consistent with the fixed stars. Hence the term “retrograde,” as it looks like Mercury is moving backwards when it’s compared with everything else. Happens to all the planets, at some point during the earth’s orbital cycle. It’s the mechanics of the solar system, regular and predictable.
The way any individual interprets communications, and then, how that person analyzes communications has to do with what sign the natal Mercury is in. At the heart of the radio set, there’s that crystal. Mercury is like that crystal. So right now, Mercury is backwards in Gemini. What’s that mean? That’s one influence on the scopes I write. Or on that poor, pitiful blackbird being hounded by those three girl birds.
Poor guy – must be Mercury’s fault.
