Mercurial Inspirations

“O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little little less than little wit from them that they have, which short-arm’d ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web!”

Thersites in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, III.ii.1.

(We’ve seen this quote before.)

Inspired as much by an Instagram post as anything else, this approaching Mercury Retrograde is amusing, at best. At worst, it’s some kind of a hell for certain signs. Here’s the deal, I work with a number of belief systems, running the gamut from High Catholicism to pure Zen Buddhism. Heavy on ritual at one end, heavy on nothing at the other end.

All depends.

As I’ve intoned before, “All depends.”

Previously, I’ve worked out a ritual that seemed to work, and it did, at the time, but I lived in a different location, and location dictated some of the elements. As I’ve drifted to a less populated center, my needs, and demands, shift.

2014 | 2017 | 2019

Not long ago, I texted a fishing buddy an image of the conveyor belt at the grocery store, and my order was a 2-pound bag of cheap, local coffee (dark roast), and half-dozen “reversing” candles. My caption was something about getting ready for Mercury Retrograde.

As noted before, I read two online pieces, one suggested that “Big Box” coffee was no good, and the other suggested that “Big Box” coffee was the best. I’m not exactly torn, after this last shut-in, I’ve lived almost exclusively on grocery store coffee, usually the Texas Roast, “Jet Fuel,” brand-name coffee. But I do like what my Costco carries, there’s a rather inexpensive “Roasted by Starbucks” house brand that’s plentiful and as little as $4 per pound. Same as Starbucks house, dark roast crap, only, coasts a lot less.

Someplace in the dark recesses of my mind, though, a distant — early epicurean — memory recently surfaced. Back in days when I knew a lot more, I ran a place, and for a while, I was mixing up special coffee. I would get equal parts of light roast and dark roast, mixed. Dark roast, like French Roast, for the aromatic effect, and lighter roast for the sense of a less acidic brew. What I recalled was a half and half mix, half dark beans half light beans. Worked really well, as a budding mixmaster, and long-after, we all established I didn’t know what I was doing.

Still, there’s that memory of mixing light and dark beans, and with it? The correct mix of flavors. Dark roast and light roast, preferably cheap, bulk coffee. Like from Costco? Going through a lot of coffee at home, so yeah, cheaper is better. Then, starting to mix the lighter roast with a darker roast, that was part of the secret. Not really ideal, as the individual flavors get muddled, but this i coffee I’m drinking for effect, not for high-brow tasting.

The reversing candles are part of this, started one now, and just let it burn, reversing the negative energy of the situations. Incense, too, and sage, palo santo, plus the coffee. The reversing candles are key, but the other main component is the coffee. A couple of bags of coffee, one dark roast, one light roast, mixed, maybe 50/50.

Compound this with a few other elements, just to make this even more interesting. Eclipse along the Gemini/Sagittarius axis 5°, June 5. Another eclipse, June 21. Venus retrograde until June 24, again, ends at that point 5° of Gemini (same as earlier eclipse), and layered across the top? Mercury is retrograde from June 17 to July 9. Previously, I’d penned that at July 12, and that’s for some “wiggle room,” very much required with everything unfolding.

The new ritual is not about demitasse cups of coffee, like I used to do, regular coffee out of an espresso cup so it felt like more. These days? palo santo, mixed of bulk coffee Eans, and the reversing candle from the grocery store.

I’m also using a Yeti-style of insulated coffee cup, maybe 20-ounce tumbler? Keeps the coffee warm through the morning, and less time spent refilling. Changes in the ritual, adapted for time and space.

Simple. As a ritual it works well enough to enjoy and even thrive in the current climes. Weird astrological weather, no?

If only there was manual to help….