This weekend’s astrological double whammy of Mercury Retrograde and a full supermoon in Gemini, elicited a collective ‘Whoah…’ from the Interwebz of Magicality. In fact, if this weekend had an entry in Astrology For Dummies, it would go something like this, there was a big full moon in Gemini which is ruled by Mercury and Mercury took a hike, and the whole thing happened in Sagittarius which is like the opposite of Gemini and all the witches poured another cup of mugwort tea and settled down to watch the show. Something like that…
“this Full Moon in Gemini arrives in a storm of glitches and glimmers. A square from Neptune will open a strange portal where all that you see or seem is but a dream within a dream. And Mercury’s station retrograde on this same day will shift your perceptions towards that which is uncategorical…As 2017 draws to a close, this Full Moon in Gemini will summon forth strange intelligence, where tid-bits, fragments, and fractals will be cut and pasted into waves of sudden revelation.”
Naturally, I went to the cards and asked:
Hey Mercury, What’s up with you? And more importantly what does this mean for me?
Mercury retrograde reading with the Tabula Mundi Tarot – 4 of Cups, Queen of discs & The Aeon
The Short Story
Hold steady, Mamma! The baby is coming, carried on oceanic tides of expansion and contraction. You’re heading for a new age of you. An Initiation is needed.
The Plot Thickens
The Queen of Discs gestates. She takes the long view on projects and holds fast. In her hands she holds the womb of the Great Work she has been at emblazoned with the alchemical symbols for mercury, sulphur and salt. She is literally pregnant with transmutation. Crowley said of her, “she represents the ambition of matter to take part in the great work of Creation.’ Ambition is important here, it ties her to The Devil, ruled by Capricorn and Capricorn season is on the horizon.
What is the Queen of Discs facing?
She sits steadfastly looking behind her at where she’s come from, facing the force of a great wave that is at the peak of its power and just about to break. In this card, all four moon phases have completed and a beautiful pearl, the fruit of her labour, is held at the centre. There is luxury here for sure. Fours are solid and steady, for a time. But this can only last a little longer.
The Queen of Discs is in a point of stasis, a stillpoint of potentiality, a dream within a dream held just there in the palm of her hands. This is a holographic reality. She holds the disc in her hands, leaning over it, protecting it and working it but her eye is on the pearl carried on the tide. She knows her inner work is working the outside thing. As within, so without.
Where is she going?
The waters break, all is dissolved and carried forward into The Aeon, a new age is upon The Queen of Discs. We see the dawn sun rising behind Stonehenge, the ouroborus of regeneration being heated over the spiritual fires. This is a call to step into Initiation. Initiation into what? The pearl has the clue.
In The Tempest Ariel sings of the drowned Phoenician sailor:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Therefore this Mercury Retrograde/Full Moon is the preamble to a sea-change which is unanticipated and beyond recognition. A new Aeon.
As a result, The Queen is moving into something rich and strange. She need not worry that her pearl, this precious gem that she has painstakingly laboured over, will not weather the tides of change. It is well protected and in fact relies on this sea-change to come into being.
In conclusion, all she has to do is hold steady during this time, then confidently stand up and take a step forward into her Initiation.
Hey Mercury, What About That Pearl?
Curious what the Queen of Discs has been gestating all this time? Well pearls are gorgeous, shiney-shiney and venusian so even if Mercury has gone a bit loopy, I know you’re going to love what I’ve been cooking up. Check out my upcoming course, Tarot Initiations where we go deep into tarot, magic and ritual for personal transformation.
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