"Chop Wood, Carry Water," Build Fire, Breathe Steam - a Christmas/Mercury Retrograde Meditation
TAROT: Young Staff (Knight of Wands) / LENORMAND: Stars, House, Tower / ADINKRA: Adwo
How’s that for some steam to breathe? Ahhhh!
I am no astrologer, of course, but I have friends who are marvelous ones, and I keep up with their work. Check out Lori Lothian, Denise Siegel, Louise Edington, or Laurie Farrington if you want some suggestions. Anyway, I know enough to know that we have entered the period known as Mercury Retrograde, where we will be until New Year’s Day. I notice that lots of people view this several-time-a year occurrence with a degree of fear and trepidation: they refuse to sign contracts, do not begin new projects, won’t buy electronics, and are quick to back up their computers in advance of a retrograde. All of that is actually quite sensible, I think, so long as it is not panic that precedes any of this. Equally helpful advice, I think is to utilize this stretch of time to rest, reassess, retool, reevaluate, and how perfect is that for the end of the calendar year?
In my own life, this inventory revolves primarily around the ways in which I do my work. Overall, I find myself now perennially infused with delight that my “work” consists of reading cards in ways that help and writing words to comfort and inspire. I am planning a book of essays or maybe a work of fiction as a next thing, and being able to immerse myself in art that way is satisfyingly sublime. I am excited to see how things unfolds.
And still, there is the news: war in the world, war on women’s bodily autonomy, war on democracy and the constitution. No Mercury Retrograde pause happening on any of these fronts, except a trial delay for You Know Who, which is exactly the kind of thing that gives Mercury Retrograde a bad name. So much for allowing this holiday Retrograde to be about rest and reflection.
The cards, though, ask that we still give that a try:
As always, our first card is from the Tarot: Young Staff (Knight of Wands) from Courtney Alexander’s Dust2Onyx Tarot. In this version, Young Staff looks out at us through the eyes of the mystic poet/rapper Tupac Shakur. Alexander reminds us that this Knight is the combination of fire and air. Think of a hot air balloon, in which fire heats air, causing the balloon to soar. That is when fire and air are in a balanced state. We all have chopped wood and carried water this year. This Buddhist enjoinder asks us to follow one task with the next logical one; that as Robert Frost would put it, “Way leads onto way.” And of course, if the world were a logical place, that would be the case in every moment. One might argue that this indeed used to be the case, in the sense that history seemed to move in a cyclical fashion, and the events and outcomes stemming from particular actions could be predictably anticipated. Of course, the Mayan calendar ended more than a decade ago, which is to say, metaphorically if not literally, we are currently in a sort of free fall, with what comes next entirely up to us and the decisions we make, both individually and collectively. That is a thought that is at once terrifying and exhilarating, don’t you agree? If we think about Young Staff as fire and air together, the odds of us getting the proportions just right seem….long, at best. That is the scary part, because when fire grows too powerful for air, chaos can ensue. The evidence of that is all around us.
Lenormand has an antidote to chaos, at least in this holiday, Retrograde period, with the cards Star, House, Tower. As the events of the State and of the world, and of the state of the world swirl around us, we are asked to center ourselves at what poet T.S. Eliot called the “still point of the turning world.” The Star is that Universe in which we spin, of course. House is the place of refuge we must seek, both in regard to the place in which we live with the doors and the windows AND the place of refuge which is found inside our own hearts. The Tower, for the purposes of this period of time, is impervious to intrusion. It is the place where we find fortification, resolve, respite.
The Adinkra symbol today is Adwo, which is CALM. It is that which we are asked to cultivate in this season. If we have the Pentacle-like element of wood, and the elements of Air and Fire, what we must seek is the quenching element of water, which is why I began this post with the Christmas simmer pot photo. Let us use our fire and our wood and our water to purify our air, to breathe out worry and breathe in calm through the scents of nature in this time of winter. If we all were to collectively pause during this season, perhaps we can shift the odds that we can help balance out those air/fire proportions in ways that keep our pretty blue and green orb afloat in that silent, starry sky.
Amen and Ase
What a lovely post. Thank you Erika <3