Over the years, I have come to appreciate the art of astrology.  I trace it back to the experience of being in labor with my daughter.  Everything was progressing along just fine.  I was in transition — for you non-baby-delivery-speak folks, that’s the 15 minutes of really intense (read: painful) contractions as you dilate those last few centimeters from 8 to 10 so the doctor can tell you it’s time to squeeze out that bundle of joy you are sure must be the size of one of Jupiter’s small moons.  I remember this moment of transitioning into transition because it was heralded with a rather impressive bout of projectile vomiting.  That 15 minutes lasted almost three hours for me.  It almost landed me into a C-section if I hadn’t been blessed with a laboring tub and a determination to make it through without an epidural.

Anyway, my daughter arrived, perfect and beautiful and has remained so (to my eyes) ever since.  I was awash in the bliss off new motherhood and didn’t think much more about the transition-from-hell as my Bradley childbirth coach has since referred to my experience.  A couple of months later, I received an astrological almanac as a Yule gift.  In this book was made mention of Void-Of-Course moons and their ability to “stall out” efforts made towards things while the Moon was between aspects.  I’m not sure what made me go look at my daughter’s birthdate after reading this article on VOC Moons, but when I did, there it was in black and white:  the hours I was stuck in transition correlated almost exactly to when the Moon moved into and out of its Void-Of-Course that day.

Color me a believer.  Or at least, the experience was enough to get my attention.  Since then, I’ve spent years working with and coming to a better understanding of astrology, the movements of the gears in the universal sky.  And because I’ve spent most of my life married to or dating men who worked in IT, I can tell you tale after tale of my life as an “IT widow” when Mercury throws it into reverse.

I’m not a fearin’ astrology person, though.  As I said, I see the planets as huge gears in the clockwork of existence, measuring out hours that span centuries and minutes that span years.  I don’t blame things that happen on astrology — that’s the mindset of a victim and someone taught to fear what you don’t fully understand.  I do see astrology as the art and science of timing.  And timing is everything, as they say.  For there are no coincidences.  The art of moving well through life is about timing one’s choices with the rhythm of the opening and closing doors of life’s opportunities.  If you know when the door is naturally going to be open, you don’t have to waste your energy beating your head against a shut door, so to speak.

All this to say that Mercury Retrograde is about reviewing, revisiting, rethinking, replanning, revising, retreating, and renewing.  I’ve not posted on this blog since the last time Mercury squealed his celestial tires, wrapped his arm around the back of the passenger seat, and forced everyone to grab the “Oh Shit!” handle on their lives.

Time, again, to move forward after a careful period of review and renewal.