Today Mercury turns retrograde in the sign of Scorpio…it’s a great day to discuss the mythology of Hermes and to eliminate some of the the negative hype surrounding Mercury retrogrades.
One of the first things to note about Hermes in Greek myth is that he is a journeyer rather than a traveler. Whereas a traveler has a goal, a mission, or a heroic deed to perform, a journeyer is someone for whom motion is a constant, and goals, however noble or lofty, are often rejected because of their limiting nature. Mercury represents the sudden turn of plot that provides a strange exit from a deterministic story line, or a sudden abundance of opportunities in contrast to an overly restrictive sense of fate or destiny that is possessing our consciousness.
It is so easy for us to plan the future and live in the present according to preexisting ideas. We often feel beholden to a certain fate or course of action and we forget that there are green pastures surrounding us everywhere, if we can only open our eyes.
Hermes, not coincidentally, ruled sleep, enchantment, dreams, and the sudden snap of the fingers that awakens us.
So when we talk about delayed or cancelled travel plans, or breakdowns of communication or the planned flow of events or activities during a Mercury retrograde, we’re missing the point. In fact, we’re trying to stay asleep by these explanations. For all of these events, Mercury’s gesture is always toward the limitless and overflowing multiplicity of options that for whatever reason we are forgetting about. It’s therefore important that we not bemoan, begrudge, or rant against Mercury when things break down during these times…but rather turn our eyes toward the winged footed god, and learn to pay attention to the interesting alternatives and the immediate freedom he brings.
However, this doesn’t mean that Hermes is always benefic or kind.To the Greeks, Hermes was a god who took people for a ride, enjoyed deception, trickery, and lies for the purpose of a lesson, and loved catching people with their pants down, so to speak. What looks to us like misfortune, in other words, looks like something else to Mercury.
For example, when Hermes stumbles across a mountain turtle outside of the cave he was born in, he talks to the turtle and delights in knowing that it’s greatest gift will be found in its death (when he kills the turtle and invents the Lyre).
During Mercury retrogrades there is sometimes a sense that someone with a sick sense of humor is trying to screw everything up for us. But if we learn to appreciate Mercury’s dark comedy, then the metaphorical death or breakdown we experience becomes the simultaneous crafting of a magical instrument. Hermes is always giving us gifts by stealing things away from us that we prize or hold with the most stubborn and moronic kind of ignorance. He’s like the fart in a yoga class that comes from the stuck up person whose totally vain and ruining it for everyone. And if he has his way with you, then you’ll laugh along with him the next time that person is you!
The story of how Hermes was created is also important because Hermes was born out of a love affair between Zeus and a nymph, hidden away in a secret cave. Hermes is thus a god of secrets. He is in a sense the god most symbolically begotten out of Zeus’ hypocrisy.
Zeus’ hypocrisy represents the tyranny of monotheism. The proud, singular, unifying, all important, goal oriented, heroic, solar, upward climbing, spiritual elitist. Accordingly, Hermes becomes like a gadfly to both his father Zeus and his sunny brother, Apollo. In fact, in one of the most well known Hermes’ stories, Hermes steals his brother Apollo’s herd of cattle. Apollo is the god of clarity, integrity, marksmanship, rationality, divination, and archery. Of course it is Apollo who owns the cattle…where the cattle are to some extent the docile, the fertile, and the masses of submissive folk. Those who are easily won over by Apollo’s ultimate claims are represented by the cattle. Hermes theft of Apollo’s cattle is therefore about the destabilizing of certainty and absolute thinking in general. Hermes theft of Apollo’s cattle back to the cave where his nymph mother still dwells is about the heretic, the rabble rouser, the goddess versus the god, and the exposing of the hypocritical or “rational elite.”
Hermes is not surprisingly called the magician, the trickster, the heretic, the one who moves against the pregivens and the high priestly or kingly figures. During retrogrades we often encounter breakdowns of various kinds because Mercury’s work is almost always about exposing our hypocrisy, opening up ambiguity, and confusing us where our certainty is most dubious.
As the guide of souls, psychopompos, Hermes has easy access back and forth between Hades. As the prince of thieves, Hermes also has a relationship to sudden discoveries, finds, and lootings.
Often enough during Mercury retrogrades, things that went missing show up again, back from the underworld. We lose things and find things out of the blue. We are guided through a dark period, uncertain, and yet mysteriously confident because we can sense the winged footed invisibility of our soul guide just around the corner.
Since I’m getting married in just one week from now, under a Mercury retrograde, I’ve gotten a number of emails asking me why we chose the timing. Wouldn’t it have been better to choose a different time?
First, I’m not big on the perfect astrological timing of things. Mercury is constantly foiling our plans, all the more so when we get too controlling and Apollonic about these things. My experience thus far with strong Mercury signatures in my birth chart has been that Mercury seems to screw with things at any point in time if you’re too confident about being in the “right” about something.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, Hermes has a beautiful relationship to oaths in Greek myth that is worth talking about. Worth talking about because one of the classic pieces of advice is always to “watch out for contracts signed or oaths or promises or agreements made under Mercury’s retrogrades.”
When it comes to oaths and promises and holy vows we have to ask ourselves who values these things the most? In the story where Hermes steals Apollo’s cattle he is eventually questioned by Zeus and Apollo, at which point he swears and offers oaths of his innocence (which are lies). As much as these oaths may seem like simple lies, Hermes is far too crafty and humorous to be a simple charlatan. We have to ask ourselves why he would choose the oaths and vows as deceptions before Zeus and Apollo? And of course the answer is that sacred and holy oaths and vows are just the kind of high moralizing and egoic things that Zeus and Apollo love. An oath is also exactly what Zeus broke when he had his love affair in the cave with Hermes’ nymph mother. When Hermes uses a “vow” or an “oath” to try and trick and deceive Apollo and Zeus he is essentially pointing out their hypocrisy in a kind of humorous evasion of their accusations.
The point being that in many ways oaths are like the prescripted storylines that we try to live by that can become a big target on our unsuspectings backs. It’s not that Mercury retrogrades are bad for oaths or that oaths are bad either…it’s that oaths made under retrogrades of Mercury are more naturally inclusive to all the doubt and uncertainty that oaths and vows are always in sacred relationship with (just like Mercury is the unavoidable son of Zeus…born out of Zeus’ oath breaking).
When Ashley and I met, during our first few months of planning and when launching Sky House Yoga, Mercury was retrograde. When I first started Nightilght, Mercury was retrograde. When we signed the lease on our second studio after the first, Mercury was retrograde. In each circumstance there has been the sense of an oath or commitment that is completely inclusive to the unknown, the potential for breakdown, and the ambiguity of a future we were both uncertain about at the time. And yet we’ve found this awkward uncertainty to be a critical component of how these things have evolved, including our own romantic relationship.
In our composite chart Ashley and I are also a Sun/Venus conjunction in Gemini (ruled by Mercury!). We will be married under a Sun/Venus conjunction in Libra, opposite Uranus in Aries, while Mercury is retrograde. We elected the chart with an astrologer friend of mine who specializes in elections. What was most important to us was to bring out into the open on the date of our wedding the tensions most enduring to the heart of our relationship. The subject of independent ambition versus coupled unity, the deep respect and love for each other and the presence of vows while also honoring the ambiguity of the future and our inherent suspicion of vows in general. Our priest is a practicing Episcopal, but our altar is pagan. We love these kinds of contradictions!
It’s been our experience, and it’s my astrological advice for the day, to embrace making commitments, purchases, oaths and travel plans during Mercury retrogrades if they come up. Because it’s not any of these things per se that Mercury likes to screw with or wreak havoc upon. Nope. That’s our superstition and laziness speaking. Mercury simply wants us to embrace the unknown and the uncertainties that can enter into any “plan” or “envisioned future” at any point in time.
Mercury is the “yes I’d do it again this way,” even when something breaks down or didn’t go as you hoped it would. Mercury is the “uncertainty at the outset” that creates heightened awareness..a kind of openness conducive to finding unexpected treasures. Mercury is the friendliness with ambiguity that says “I’m here to be guided, and I know that I can only control so much.”
Prayer: Stop me from trying to interpret every little thing, controlling every little ounce of certainty for my future. Let me embrace the deepest ambiguity of my holiest vows and let me laugh along with Mercury if and when he gets the “best” of me…
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Image courtesy of Mark, at Creative Commons Licensing.
