Gold Seam Vintage

Midsummer

Summer happened fast. For the last 4 months I felt as if I was chasing spring. I saw daffodils in every state, spring blooms I had only ever read about, and met so many new plants in new places. I embraced the dampness, the humidity, the clouds. Now I'm sitting in dry heat. Vegas dry heat. The moment we crossed into the desert valley there was no going back. Summer hit me with a brick entering south from Utah into Arizona. I suffered a case of severe windburn from driving with all the windows down and then surrendered. Surrendered to the heat in that way that gives you goosebumps. Dry heat will ring you out. Forcing you to let go of things that will keep you hot and inflamed. No one wants to carry weight in dry heat. Lightness is the goal. So on the lightest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere, feel some solace in this solstice. Bask in the sun, yourself, and your surroundings, shed light and awareness, make peace with the darkness. Light is all that is needed to charge your possibly depleted reserve, and guess what, it's weightless! Hopefully it leads to happiness, because really, that is all. I am thankful to be surrounded, both near and far, by love...and light, because I'm sitting in the sunshine at the pool. Viva Las Vegas!

Retrograde Reminders

I haven't had a bad day in a while. I don't even like identifying entire days negatively, there's aways the smallest amount of good in a bad day that makes it okay. But I gotta say, yesterday was just one of those days. And I'm not going to call it a bad day, it was just one of those days.

^{Poppy, the AIR cooled Vanagon.}

I'm not going to go into every last detail, but here's a great example both literally and metaphorically: I just had a bunch of work done on the van at a local VW mechanic. If it were an option, I would have never taken it to the mechanic, it's a very delicate car and I can't help it if I only trust it in the hands of my family. But it needed a lot of work that required a lift; so taking it in was my only option at that point. Although I'm rooting for digging a giant hole in the ground to just drive the van over to get under it. While retrieving it and forking over a good chunk of money, the mechanic mentioned something about the "squeaking, chirping noise it always makes that has always been there and is still there"...what? what squeaking, chirping noise that has always been there?  I do not recall said noise. So upon starting it up, there it was, the piercing, alarming, loud squeaking & chirping noise that I had actually never heard before. "Well these things are like light bulbs, you never really know when they're going to go out" Really? That is so encouraging. So with my squeaking and chirping engine I drove away, hoping that since I had never heard it before it would eventually just go away. I picked up a friend to go on a drive to Fallon in order to break in the new repairs and save a bit of time waiting in their much shorter DMV queue. I was excited to fill it up with gas, as it had just had a brand spanking new tank put in it. I was and will never again be excited to spend money to put gas into a car. As quickly as the pumped clicked full, there was a puddle of gas rapidly growing underneath the van. So much gas was spilling out that all I could think was wait!? don't you have to pay large fines for spilling gas everywhere? oh my god this is so much gas and it's just getting worse. Michelle, the friend I was with, was also freaking out, it was intense, funny, and I did cry for a second. Anyway, it turns out that it happens all the time (!?) and they clean it up, no big deal. So I called the mechanic, very slowly drove it back and then confronted him with what I should have said in the first place…something along the lines of this squeaking, chirping ish is new to me so you need fix it, it may be a sign of compression loss due to an error you made (it was) and also the gas tank is clearly not installed properly and I am really confused and upset and disappointed in my experience blah, blah, blah. I'm not good with that kind of stuff, confronting people on their wrong doings because I prefer to think we all have the best intentions and accidents happen. I know, that attitude will not get me far driving across America by myself, but those lessons are coming at me quick and I'm learning. I swear this is going somewhere besides a rant, which brings me to:

Messenger of the gods is in retrograde from February 6^th - 28^th.

Mercury spends the first third in Pisces and the rest in Aquarius.

So set your intentions and watch 'em flow.

         

 Re -peat -lax -lease -alize -ward -move -think -do -vise -visit -call

-boot -enchanting -finish -focus -formulate -trograde

 

Lets be real here, days are days, filled with ups and downs, and sometimes it's hard to deal with life happening all around us, let alone take into account what the planets are doing. But a Mercury retrograde can catch the attention of even the utmost disbelievers in planetary nonsense.

We all know the clichés of Mercury in retro... My computer died. We’re fighting about that? Gas is spilling everywhere! We were supposed to meet when? Hello? Those are trivial and comical tricks Mercury likes to play. Things are best taken at a slow pace during this time and new projects should most likely wait until March (says the girl leaving on a road trip in a Vanagon). The ruler of water and Wednesdays is a sneaky one.

On a deeper and more progressive side, Mercury rules communication. Mercury retrogrades are a time for rewind and release. A intoroverted time, especially since it starts in Pisces. Robert Wilkinson from Aquarius Papers reassures "so be compassionate and forgiving of yourself, and all those old sorrows and vague feelings that need to be blessed and released without a lot of words." Words are the excuses, dams. Treat Mercury as a river, would you set something to sail that you wanted to let go with the flow, only to dam it up? Chances are no, but either way, Mercury would break the damn dam down. Why build a dam of excuses when we could just send it on its way? Skipping the grueling process of building the dam and risking the chance of not knowing what we're depriving of water on the other side. Whether it's something resurfacing from the past or it showing itself for the first time, send it on its way through precise and intentional communication. Not just with others, but ourselves, our surroundings, our goals and our inhibitions. And if no one hears you due to communication interruptions (thanks Mercury) at least you've got it out there.

If it's meant to return it will, all the while you will have a clearer and better understanding of yourself and the situation that is (re)presenting itself. You're safer dealing with the past than the future at this moment, so proceed with caution. Set internal intentions and watch them externally manifest. Make way for the water to flow to remove stuck energy and bring new life to aspects in need. It’s proper magick.

So the van needed to be fixed, squeaking and chirping is not something I need on a ever growing list of #vanlife, my trip to the gas station and back to the mechanic was my retrograde motion. A chance to repeat and give another try at communicating something that would have eventually got in the way of my trip, a dam I would have wished I knocked down.

And on a personal front, this retrograde is visible in every aspect of my life, so bring it on.