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

Ashes Never Lie

Sharpe and Walker, book 2.

“Where do you get that crap?” “Spenser.” She took her head off his damp chest so she could look at him, but she didn’t let go and neither did he. “Who is Spenser?” “He’s a Boston private eye whose girlfriend is a psychiatrist. She’s always telling him that kind of stuff and that she accepts the risks that come from his gallant pursuits.” Page 139.

Only two mentions in the book that I recall, so it wasn’t a running gag, but as a recurrent theme? Pretty funny. That I read the bulk of the Spenser series, almost compulsively? Made this funnier, to me. When I would “put the book down,” as this is only digital ink, digital library, but when I would stop reading the text, I kept thinking about characters, settings, plot line, the story, and what might happen next. While this one was available for a while, I waited until it popped up the amazon “free” list. Regular library doesn’t carry much of this modern pulp-like material. But the way it got under my skin? I think there’s a style and structure that could be studied, a master class in how to hook, keep, and serve a reader.

Ashes Never Lie

The peeks provided by amazon and the author’s afterword indicate that the writer was a TV writer, first., Hence the pacing, but the eye for details, what points are revealed, no wasted verbiage, with ear for dialogue, just made it more enjoyable. The fact that I’ve been stalking this text online, waiting for it to appear at either a library or the “free to me” section is merely window dressings.

Ashes Never Lie

Previously: Calico