"Remember when...?" Mercury backtracks into Cancer

Mercury is now moving out of Leo and into Cancer, still retrograding backwards pulling us on a journey to backtrack with it. We're encouraged by choice of course, or events will inevitably lead us to look back, no matter how painful it may be.

Cancer is a sign so strongly connected to the past, so for Mercury to retrograde in this sign holds a special promise and a special pain - and when was the past not bittersweet?

Cancer is our roots, our womb, the place we came from and the place we hope to go back to - at the end of a long, hard day or the end of our lives. It's our resting place, our home, and also our final resting place.

It's childhood days, it's the old apt we rented, the photos we took and the tears we wept when we knew we had to say goodbye. It's the fire engine we got for Christmas, and the pet we had to bury one cold November eve.

Cancer is emotional recall - ( I know so many photographers with Cancer planets, it seems the process of capturing a mood, a moment is Cancerian). We reflect (Cancer is a water sign) on who we are based on where we have been and what has transpired. We are after all, the sum total of all we have experienced.

Globally, we enter a period now where we Remember.

I find the word 'remember' an interesting one. Linda Goodman was the first to introduce the concept of Lexigrams - hidden meaning contained within words.

Remember suggests we are doing something again - re-membering. To become a member again. But of what?

As a whole, we'll be urged now to re-view and re-flect on Cancerian things:

We'll review our living situation, or find we need to re-pair and re-negotiate at home with families, roomies, or live-in friends/lovers. We may need to fix a phone, repair a sink, deal with water spills and leaks, or else we change the way our home life works.

We'll review our past - our old friends and flames, our old possessions - most of us will or already have, emptied out a few drawers or boxes sifting through to either find something we need from the past (even if it's just from last week) or because we want to clean stuff out. We'll want to hold on to some of it - but is it time to let go? We may even end up finding things we never knew we had.

People from the past will reappear to remind us of who were WERE and who we ARE. Using Lexigrams again - how did we get from THERE to HERE (and isn't it often the same place we find ourselves in...since the word 'here' appears in 'there'...?)

We'll see now what has changed and what will never change. Eternal and transitory emotions and experienced that make up the fabric of our fragile lives.


In the news:

The French are remembering this week...

Letters just released tell us stories of Einsteins past...

Retirement gift was 'lost treasure'...(A chinese vase given to a London cleaning woman as a retirement present was "a lost treasure of the Qing dynasty")

Men who cry...(Cancer rules emotions)

Women no longer need men for conception (can produce their own sperm!?)

I think the last one is my favorite article in the news - Cancer relates to motherhood and conception and the fact we are answering the question and reevaluating how we have babies is a pretty hilarious manifestation of just how far we'll go to review the basic foundations of our lives during Cancer Mercury's retrograde review.

I'd like to copy and paste an email I received from a reader (someone who actually replies to the postings here...tsk tsk to all you people who sneak in and read without givng your thoughts, or views...smile)

Demeter says:
My two cents about Mercury retrograde in Cancer. Cancer rules memory and in today's Chicago Tribune, a column by Mary Schmich titled "Memory Lane full of stories for retelling (another delightful retrograde word)."

One of her sources says the our brains have to forget things, that if we remembered everything we ever did, we would all be in psych wards.

So perhaps another activity for Mercury retro in Cancer would be to review and release memories we no longer need.

One way might be to start a memoir or a family history scrapbook, families also being ruled by Cancer.

I like to re-read favorite books and re-watch favorite films during Mercury retrograde periods. Currently I am reviewing for my national certification exam in massage therapy.

Just some thoughts.

Demeter (a Cancerian - check out her blog here)

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You may have read this reply in the last posting, but it was worth repeating here. Thanks, Demeter.

I think you summed this period up well when you said we arebeing urged now to review and release memories we no longer need.

Think back, enjoy the memory and change your mental perception of the past experience. In this way we can change our past and ultimately change our present and change the posibilities we can envision and manifest in the future.

This is time-displacement and it is possible under Mercury Retrograde now in Cancer, because our connection, perception and the meaning we instill on the events of the past, condition of enjoyment and experience of our emotional present.

Some food for thought for all...during Mercury's continued backwards procession.

Enjoy your own walk down Memory Lane. And re-member....if you live today fully, it will become some time ahead, another one of those deep and enjoyable memories you can indulge in.

Love,
Neil