The man who told his story last night about battling cancer, twenty years ago when he was 31 and still feeling indestructible, described his Zen moment of insight as he drove to the public library to research everything he possibly could about his condition:
“I realized, in that moment, that there is nothing to worry about; that all those things we spend time worrying about do not matter — that we’re not these personae we think we are. We just put on these uniforms for this inning of the game.”
He went on to describe asking a psychologist friend if he’d always be able to remember that truth; the friend replied, “No, you’ll forget. You’ll go back to being your usual self. The trick is to try and remember it just once in a while and be kind to people.”
There is something about that anecdote that resonates with today’s square between the Sun and Pluto, as well as Mercury entering shadow phase, which is the initial overtures of its Scorpio retrograde period.
The Mercury retrograde connection may be the most obvious. Every time Mercury does its retrograde dance, we’re afforded access to layers of inner awareness that are less apparent when our mind (and its planetary symbol) is rushing forward, focused on externals. If you can get past the travel SNAFUS and mixed communications and electronic glitches, Mercury retrogrades can offer profound insights.
During the shadow phase, we can sometimes get a subtle preview of the material to come — or, at least, a sense of the general landscape. Eric and Len often call it ‘an echo from the future’.
The trick is to remember whatever magical “A-ha” you’ve experienced once Mercury stations direct — particularly once it finishes its post-retrograde shadow phase. Once Mercury leaves the section of zodiac it just traveled through three times (twice forward, once backward), the lessons it held can get a little hazy in the review mirror. There’s ground to be made up, and it’s new and exciting and now.