If it’s broke, maybe don’t fix it.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Here is the best advice I’ve ever given myself about Mercury retrograde. I’ve noticed there is this pattern of ‘electronic things breaking down’ as so reputed by the literature and experience is often another thing entirely. Mercury is the trickster; that’s always good to remember when considering Mercury retrograde. Many things that seem to not be working actually are working fine, or the issue will work itself out without heroic intervention during the course of the retrograde and/or the station direct in about 22 days. In other words, wait rather than act.

Now it’s not always possible to do that; sometimes you need to fix or purchase something right away, but I would say if you really use your discernment you’ll notice that you might be able to use the old one, borrow one, or something else. Or, if you consider the problem carefully enough you will see that whatever it was is fine; or you discover that something else was the problem before you try to ‘fix’ the first thing that wasn’t really having an issue.

This works in the human realm too. Most people who didn’t reply to your email didn’t see it, or they got distracted and you don’t need to take it personally. So when in doubt, try one or two more methods of reaching someone and clarifying a potential issue. Find out what is really going on. But let’s stick to digital gear, which surrounds most of us to an utterly insane degree here in Western Civ.

I can give one recent example from many that I’ve experienced over the retrogrades. When I left on my trip to New England the other day, I brought along a new camera body, a Canon 50D. On the first day all of a sudden, I noticed that it was ‘producing bad CR2 files’. My laptop could not read the files; it read the ones created in the morning but not the ones from the evening. CR2s are files that contain the most data; you can open a 15mp file at 72mb and so you have a lot more data than just a .jpg and this kind of file is used by many photographers on the level of serious amateur or better, for that reason; so it’s an important function. The camera would write .jpgs, but not CR2s.

Using a second camera, I went through a series of logical steps designed to eliminate the location of the problem from certain pieces of equipment along the chain, for example, the picture card or the computer; and my logic process pointed right back to the camera body writing bad files. Which is a drag because when that happens you have to send it in for three weeks, or I would have to reinstall the camera’s operating system, something I’ve never done and which looked ridiculously complex from the websites I read. (I had already decided I would ask my assistant Sarah to do this one, with the extra fun being experiencing how skilled and determined she is at solving problems.)

When I finally got home yesterday it was early enough to get Canon on the phone and by the way they have excellent tech support. Autumn, the technician, was adamant that it was not the camera; so I took the hard drive where the test shots were located and connected it to a desktop computer and sure enough the ‘bad’ files opened right up, just fine. This suggested, indeed proved, that it was the portable computer having the issue and not the camera.

We had still not solved the riddle of why they did not work on my laptop in the evening, but that’s a lot less serious issue probably relating to a file error in Photoshop (I am guessing that the CR2 filter got corrupted, but I still cannot make that work logically because the older files from earlier in the day still open!) which would probably be remedied by reinstalling the software — but that’s much easier than the camera needing to go back, and it’s always better to solve the right problem rather than the wrong one. Also note, there comes a time when you just say, “Well Mercury was retrograde” and use that to explain the unexplainable part of the issue.

To do that, you have to be patient, gather information, and sometimes you just have to wait. From what I have seen, it’s worth it. Rushing during Mercury retrograde can be expensive and frustrating. Problems can compound — you try to solve an issue that’s not there, and actually break something along the way — common issue. Most of what you think HAS to happen during Mercury retrograde does not. Things you absolutely NEED to buy you most surely do not. And the thing with things of any value purchased during retrogrades is — they tend to not be what you thought, or not what you needed and sometimes you have to invest a second time.

All in all you will most likely save time and money by using Mercury retrograde as an excuse to delay solving a problem or purchasing something. Three weeks is short, though it can seem maddening. If you want to really play it safe, wait for the end of the echo phase in about five weeks. It’s good practice in patience which, thank you, I would prefer not to get another time.

Retrograding into the future,

Eric Francis
home in Kingston