Mitigating The Effects Of Mercury Retrogrades Options

It's some time after the end of Mercury's Retrograde, and I feel like I just put back together everything that fell apart, when someone says there are two more this year. The first retrograde seems to have shaved off 20 points from my IQ. Mercury rules my birth sign so I get hit rather hard. Mercury Retrogrades seems to be times where the mind misses things. What it misses relates to the sign its in at the time, they also bring things from the past back or just sends whatever you’re trying to do back to where it started.

Assuming others have had some trouble from Mercury in the past, what ways did you uses to counter these effects?

Planetary magick is a little out of my realm so I'm not even sure what kind of magick could counter its effects.


This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Apr 25 2013, 02:16 PM

It's some time after the end of Mercury's Retrograde, and I feel like I just put back together everything that fell apart, when someone says there are two more this year. The first retrograde seems to have shaved off 20 points from my IQ. Mercury rules my birth sign so I get hit rather hard. Mercury Retrogrades seems to be times where the mind misses things. What it misses relates to the sign its in at the time, they also bring things from the past back or just sends whatever you’re trying to do back to where it started.

Assuming others have had some trouble from Mercury in the past, what ways did you uses to counter these effects?

Planetary magick is a little out of my realm so I'm not even sure what kind of magick could counter its effects.

I have a talisman made during mercury's highest point that I keep in a little brass box until the retrograde. I meant to make more of them a little while ago but things took off at work and I ended up without the time to do so - rather, I should say I didn't set aside the time to do so.

But the process isn't difficult. Pick the time when mercury is at its strongest (or the best you can get in the time you want, anyway), and engrave a bit of brass (some say pewter is okay as well and pewter is easier to engrave, or for that matter you can cast pewter on a stove safely) on one side with the names and symbols of mercury, and on the other with the specific symbols of mercury in it's strongest place. Just about every tradition has some astrological associations, so you can do this while sticking with the taoist magical current, I believe, if you do a little research. It's not a tradition I'm intimately familiar with so off the top of my head I coudn't say.

But with talismans, the basic idea is simply that the object reflects both the fundamental nature of the force you wish to invoke with it, and the state you wish that force to be in. The brass box is entirely a matter of personal choice, I keep most of my objects in special places.

Another option that could be a little more feasible if working with metal or some such (you can use parchment as well I imagine, with orange ink, for instance, but I personally find that the work that goes into the object helps to focus my own mind on the nature and outcome of the task), would be a kind of charm bag. Again at a time when mercury is strong you might assemble a small pouch and place in it 8 items associated with the positive qualities of mercury. Make the bag orange or white for the color correspondence - the Taoist tradition may have a different association, though - and place perhaps a bit of brass, anise stars, a small vial of mercury (could be dangerous, so, you know, choices), and so on, and 'feed' the bag with some kind of oil associated with mercury, or a fluid condenser prepared for the purpose. Each element that goes into the bag should be appropriately consecrated and the process should be ritualized in some way. With planetary bags I like to write a little invocation of so many lines - in this case, 8 lines - spoken as the objects go in.

A less ritualized method would be invocations to mercury, burning incense as offerings to the spirits of mercury with the request that they mitigate the retrograde nature of that energy while it is in effect. Meditation on the nature of mercury at it's strong point and drawing that energy in and down the way you would elemental energies is a realistic option - you could imagine collecting that energy and storing it (if you have a fluid conception of energy) or familiarizing yourself with it's signature and vibration, to then bolster yourself later during retrogrades.

You could, during a high point again, create a spirit bottle or shrine, and offer it as a home to a spirit of mercury, with the agreement that this spirit recieves offerings on a regular basis in exchange for its general assistance and especially for it's protection during retrogrades.

So there are options, lots of options. The important thing in any of them, in my own opinion and practice at least, is that the work you do is associated with mercury in a strong position.

Mercury rules the majority of my chart. Retrogrades used to pummel me from head to toe. My altar space is full of mercury magic.

peace