Magical memos may  float in from the ethers & become par for the course during May thanks to a series of repeat squares forming between Mercury in Gemini and Neptune in Pisces! This energetic undercurrent serves as a prevailing backdrop for most of the month once messenger Mercury moves within range of magical Neptune in just a few days' time. As these planets remain in contact with one another for the duration of May, our everyday life may start to get a little....weird. I always think of Neptune as having a surrealist vibe - Neptune is the Lord of Dreams and in his domain, anything is possible. Since Mercury is the courier of the gods, this may translate to an uptick in otherworldly "memos" floating in to us from the ethers. For my part as Celestial Interpreter, I'm aiming to channel certain facets of this energy through my writing in order to convey the invisible spiritual messages at work when these planets meet - I hope you find this information helpful!

Now many of us may already familiar with Mercurial energy and its rulership over transportation and communication, but did you know this planet also essentially functions as Errand Boy of the Olympians? Mercury presides over the little, ordinary chores that make up our daily routines - he's the details; the nuts and bolts of our day-to-day lives that often get taken for granted. This is why people tend to groan whenever this planet turns retrograde, which will happen on the 18th - when the routine is no longer *routine* and the particulars can't continue to be written off as insignificant, we have to re-orient our mental focus so that we're paying better attention to the "small stuff", because otherwise it can be easy to find ourselves tripped up by something we would have previously dismissed as "trivial". Under Mercury retrograde, standard operating procedures may tend to go wonky, communications SNAFUS can become more frequent, appointments could get missed/forgotten about/double-booked...things like this. Because Mercury energy symbolizes all the "negligible minutiae" we generally pay no mind to, we might say the retrograde period could be thought of as a time where The Trickster gets to have a little fun with us for all the times we've ignored his presence in our everyday lives! Need to have an important convo with someone but suddenly can't find the words? Or have a massive autocorrect fail? Or totally read/say something in a way where it's completely misinterpreted and a big misunderstanding results? Yep, suddenly Mercury's energy isn't quite so diminutive anymore, is it, LOL?

 

While humor and an appreciation for the absurd definitely does help to mitigate any possible chagrin, this isn't at all about "blaming" a planet for anything/everything that seemingly goes "wrong" during this time. No, especially with the repeated contact to Neptune in this mix, perhaps there is a spiritual message (or two) hidden - like some kind of cosmic Easter Egg - in all of this. For one, Neptune is about stillness and about cultivating the ability to listen - in today's plugged-in, 24/7 connectivity world, we're often too distracted and/or addicted to continual stimulation to appreciate silence and just being alone with our thoughts. We may see it as "dead air" when this couldn't be further from the case. These days the mind (Mercury) is more apt than ever to be over-excitable and "wired", and for the sake of our mental health a periodic retreat from our normal method(s) of dealing with the day-to-day may be useful - this is where Mercury Retrogradus Interruptus (my highly technical name for the phenomenon, LOL) actually comes in handy. At its heart, the retrograde phase of Mercury represents a time to re-orient our mental focus - this period can represent a revisionary process where we're asked to take a closer look at the ordinary and commonplace because there may be a message there for us if we switch over to a more intuitive right-brained method of thinking. What would happen if we started looking at the delays, repetitions, and review processes that typically happen at this time as an aspect of the Divine trying to whisper in our ear? This may sound kind of woo-woo, but the mundane can be profoundly meaningful if/when we can find the symbolic metaphor typically obscured by the things we might otherwise try to rationalize away with left-brain logic. Similar to the way that words can sometimes have two meanings, perhaps all is not as it appears if a Mercury retrograde "mishap" occurs during May - perhaps the Trickster is actually giving us a subtle wink. Look for the ambiguity - for the way a circumstance or event might be translated into metaphor - to return this wink with a secret handshake!

 

One way to achieve this, as I hinted, is to do a little "mind-altering" (and I *don't* mean via a substance, which would only be inclined to muddle the brain and scramble the signal!) - figuring out how to ignore or turn off distractions so that we can mentally "float" along and engage the more intuitive right hemisphere of our psyche may be quite handy during this period. There are a variety of methods we can use to do this, but let's start out with mindfulness, because I think this is numero uno during all Mercury retrogrades and especially when Mercury contacts Neptune! What is this? It's a practice where we slow down and become very aware of the present moment, especially via sensory input. Mindfulness is like an active meditation where we take intentional notice of the small things in order to retrain our awareness...we might start with the breath, for example, and nonjudgmentally observe if it is shallow or deep. What might it feel like if we were to take a few slow, deep inhalations and exhalations? From there, we might notice any prevailing sensations in our bodies, noises we are hearing, thoughts floating through our heads, or emotions we are experiencing. Through this process practice we can realize that thoughts and feelings are transient and we need not be defined by them, which can not only lessen things like anxiety, but also help us tune into our Higher Self for guidance.

 

In fact, Mercury-Neptune contacts are fabulous for any tool or technique that facilitates a meditative, introspective state of mind - the emphasis is upon quieting the mental chatter so we can alter our typical brainwave activity and transcend to different headspace wherein we're able to access information from more fluid, non-linear, non-rational sources.  But for those of us with Monkey Minds (and there may be a lot of that this month with Mercury traversing Gemini!), we might be inclined to blow this off with the self-defeating insistence that we can't do the whole "think of nothing" thing. If so, we are missing the point entirely - it's not about making our minds completely blank. It's about retraining our consciousness in a way that gives our brains a break from all the background white noise, and this is a learned skill anyone can acquire with enough repetition. There are so many different techniques we can try, from mindfulness, to alternate nostril breathing, binaural beats (look it up!), laying quietly in shavasana at the end of a yoga class, visiting a floatation center for a sensory deprivation experience, or even just trying a simple guided meditation where we listen to a narrator lead us on an auditory journey that engages our imagination.

 

But why should you try this now? Because by repeatedly and routinely putting your mind in these sorts of reflective, receptive states during May, there is a higher than normal likelihood that information will come to you from the ethers. You could get messages through dreams, for example. Songs on the radio might start following you around and hold special meaning/significance for you. You could "just be thinking of" someone, only to have them call, text, or email you - a psychic link can be established that may allow you to contact one another through extrasensory means. You might get signs, symbols, or other evidence of a visitation where a departed loved one is communicating with you. You might pray, and then get an answer to that prayer. Your intuition may tell you things you couldn't know through ordinary means. You get the picture - the clearer a conduit you can make yourself by minimizing the static that interferes with this signal, the easier it will be for ethereal information to seep through into your consciousness and make the everyday magical. Remember there is no such thing as coincidence, and that synchronicity is the language of Divinity <3