Shadows, Shadow Play

Toying with a simple pen and ink depiction, I was trying to convey the messages of Mercury in its apparent retrograde pattern, and what that means, how it plays out, and what the future holds by way of looking at the past.

The timing is what interests me. The messages have largely been familiar, and while my earliest teachers talked about how “Mercury in retrograde is bad,” I’ve grown to understand it is a natural time, and can be useful.

The image, I started with a simple line drawing of the alchemical glyph for Mercury, the symbol I associate with the planet. It looks like a Venus — or female — symbol with a little set of horns sprouting from the head. It is supposed to be a winged helmet, associated with Hermes, the messenger of the gods, later known as Mercury. Although somewhat distanced, Loki is similar in form and function. Personally, I like the character Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream as a mercurial fellow. That symbol, though, a simple line drawing, small circles, stick coming out the bottom, a cross bar, then, the little ears on the top, again symbolic of Hermes’ winged helmet. Mercury had wings on his sandals.

“Fly monkeys, fly!”

Sorry, wrong mythos. Anyway, the glyph? Venus with little antenna, for communications.

Shadows, Shadow Play

June 13, Mercury arrived at 16° Cancer. Mercury crawls up to 26° Cancer, turning retrograde on 6/29. Mercury retrogrades back to 16° Cancer on 7/23, staying at 16° until 7/28. Mercury doesn’t arrive back at 26° Cancer until 8/24 (coincidental with the Sun going into Virgo).

Shadows, Shadow Play

I’ve got a pepper plant thriving with my abuse, overwatering, drought, too much attention, no care, and similar inconsistent behaviors. It’s about two feet tall, and the shade in the direct sun is negligible, but as the afternoon light dips lower on the horizon? That plant can cast a shadow up to a few feet long if only for a short time. The shadow is ephemeral yet still exists. It can appear longer, taller than the object causing the shadow itself. The shadow of Mercury can extend well beyond the known limits of the actual, observed retrograde. This Mercury in Retrograde?

the Portable Mercury Retrograde

A Couple of Take Aways

Old family friend, former neighbor, Libra, if I recall correctly, published author, noted local columnist? She left me with two or three important points, mostly gathered from casual interaction, as she’s another one of the greats from East Texas. The connection, for me, goes much deeper, though, as I recollected. I was at school in Arizona, and a lonely winter’s night, temperature in the 70s? I hiked over to a Scholtzsky’s by campus, got a sandwich, and leafed through the tired, out-of-date magazines. One of them was a Texas Monthly, and that had one of her columns, and in it, a reference to Chaucer. As a writer, though, and through her successes, I listened.

A Couple of Take Aways

One offhand comment, discussing books, literature, what we were reading, the craft of writing, I think I was fixing her computer that time, and other topics for writers? She had a three-book deal, really just re-publishing three of her works as a package, what she made in that deal, up front?

“I just spoke at (something) and the honorarium for 20 minutes of talking was more than three times what I got in that book deal.”

The speaking, talking, ancillary fame pays better than the selling of books.

I see how that works. Last few years, my annual amazon royalties aren’t enough to trigger a 1099. I still report the pittance because that’s how I roll.

(See musical footnote¹.)

A Couple of Take Aways

There was another, End-Of-Life example, I’ll always cherish. Her 90+ year-old father was tucked away in a garage apartment, just a temporary setting for him, but he had gotten kicked out of hospice because he wasn’t dying fast enough. I think we shared a meal at the kitchen table, and I listened, he was an old newspaper man from East Texas, and while he was near-dead, as an editor emeritus? He was still writing a weekly column. I don’t know what it was, news, gossip, commentary? The last time I saw him, he was in the narrow confines of the back apartment, kind of an architectual afterthought as a studio, living space, with plumbing and family cars parked on the other side of the wall. He was broadly grinning, working away on a manuscript-looking page, still writing. He had an idea for his column, as it was stilling running, and this was after being “kicked out of hospice” — for not dying soon enough. Still writing, in his case, on a typewriter, but we all use whatever tools suit us best.

A Couple of Take Aways

How to get paid, what pays, what doesn’t pay as well, and then, still working at the craft, right up until the grave. Used before?

“Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” Mercutio 3.1.61

Where is Kramer Wetzel: astrofish.net/travel.

1. Bands make most of their profit from live shows rather than retainers and royalties from recorded music, especially with streaming services that pay so little. Live music, or any similar appearance is where the cash is. Or, I guess, licensing a song snippet for advertising. That must pay well. ↩