What the Mercury Retrograde means for you and the world

Today, Mercury is stationary today, but he is going retrograde. There are a few things aside from everything going half arsed backwards, breaking down and generally making you think Murphy has taken up residency with you that you need to know about a Mercury Retrograde.

Mercury is the planet of communications, electronics and movement. He is quicksilver. He influences not only the physical, but the mental and spiritual. He can make your life a picnic or a nightmare.
Mercury doesn't actually move backwards. The planet appears to move backwards to us but as he moves backwards in a sign of the Zodiac or rather a Zodiac Energy field, he revisits all the unfinished business in that sign and the aspects he makes to the planets are how the energy has to be resolved for a feeling of closure or is just repressed, canned and waits for a future date that resonates with it to explode.


Mercury will be spending his retrograde in Pisces and in my universe as a psychic, only Scorpio is worse but at least you get the sexual peccadilloes with Scorpio for entertainment value. With Pisces you just get the weeping, whining, psychotic breakdowns. To add to the - I really need a vacation aspect - of this Retrograde, old Mercury is giving a hug to a few planets and it is more like a strangle hold than anything pleasant. Old Mercury uses and abuses and is then out of there before you know who to blame.

I don't think anyone is going to disagree that we as a country and people have a LOT of ISSUES that need to be revisited and solved. If Mercury actually made it to the progessive Venus in Aquarian energies, we might stand a chance, but things are not going to be that easy. Mercury will not be returning to the progressive Aquarian energies but will eventually enter the war energies of Mars in, don't consider the consequences drop a bomb on it, Aries. So in the next three weeks expect Mercury, always in Pisces, who clings to the past like demented Velcro, to hit Mars the one planet that drowns in Pisces, punches everyone out just because it feels good and is generally a very unhappy camper to whisper words of dissonance in Mars' ears. Mars is male energy now sinking in a feminine sea of Piscean emotion when he really wants to start a war and clean house. Mercury will give this whining and screaming a voice like fingernails down a chalkboard. This will produce suppressed rage and a lion's share of that will be directed at women and what are considered to feminine occupations like education and healthcare.

Then for the real fun of it Mercury sneaks over to commiserate with Chiron, the wounded teacher, and when he gets finished Chiron takes a long dive into whatever affliction wounded him in the first place and has trouble crawling out. Mercury is also the planet of advertising and propaganda, so expect an attack on the entire educational system designed with one single purpose; to destroy it by any means possible. "Mercury in Pisces is not the most truthful of energies," she understated.....

Mercury is not satisfied with hitting the community of  national and local problems, he has to take a swing at the Sun and Pisces, along with Scorpio and Cancer, will have a difficult time with this Retrograde. Addictions, weaknesses, moral indiscretions are all in the news and since Pluto, the planet of change is in Capricorn, good old authority figures, scandals will come to the surface. Now the bad part of this is that to deflect the public's attention from the scandals of those in high positions, they will go on a witch hunt after the average guy who is unable to spend the money and time to defend himself. It's the old shell game. If the media says look here, quickly look there.

Mercury isn't having fun until he teams up with Neptune the planet of illusions and outright lies. You haven't been having fun until this point because now you can't trust or believe anything you are being told. All that glitters is and isn't gold. Confusion is the lay of the land. Nothing is as it appears and tensions are mounting.

The Mercury finally does the Venus dance but Venus has moved into Pisces, clinging to an idealized and fake past, wearing a mask and doing the dance of love in costume and lie. Let her take you back to the good old days. Take a look at the good old days through a thick veil. Find yourself in the good old days and they aren't at all nice....ooops....you should have been paying more attention! Must be your fault because Venus and Mercury in their beautiful dance have not only left the floor but the building leaving you on a scarred, dirty and ancient dance floor with no music and only skeletons doing an endless Minuet of failure.

Oh well, we'll just go dance with Neptune, Chiron, Mars and your ego, the Sun, again! OUCH!

The summation of this Retrograde is repressed rage because nothing gets settled and lies are the currency of anyone with power over you.

But expect nothing to happen except perhaps an ulcer until April 19th and then duck and run. This is the beginning of an explosive and revolutionary period. Mercury hits Uranus and the brown sticky smelly stuff hits the rotary propeller and this time, it is a jet engine. Since Uranus is very happy blowing things up, literally and figuratively, in Aries, rhetoric starts a very real revolution. Mars is in Aries applying its warlike energies to the Sun and Venus in Taurus which is money and property. People are demanding their fair share and fair treatment. Do not assume they will not resort to violence to get those things. All that repressed rage is going to erupt like an overripe pimple if changes do not come post haste, like yesterday......

Meet the Next President of the USA

Meet the next president of the USA, the man the right wants you to think was President Obama.....

Here's the way it is going down and I use no psychic ability to make the predictions. I just follow the money.

As I reported to you from just looking around in my Florida County, and the excellent article in Mother Jones, the Tea Party has tanked Florida's economy, resources, schools, drinking water, roads...heck..the whole state. As soon as Scott slimes his way out of office, we will be broke in so many ways Webster is probably just going to define the word broke: noun and verb. Definition: Florida. After the mosquitoes drain us of blood we won't have enough brain power to tell you what happened here.

We will not be recovering from this and thus, we are going to have very little to say over the next 4 years having been effectively silenced. I am going to say what we won't be able to say.

The Tea Party, a political movement financed by super right wing corporations like Koch's and the rest, took over the USA by starting at the bottom packing the courts, dismantling voting rights, gerrymandering districts to elect their candidates, maintaining a majority in state and national legislatures to block all social programs and dismantling the Post Office, Medicare and Social Security and distribution of money to repair bridges, roads, levees and dams. They will do this for the next 4 years by blocking all LIBERAL (the new dirty word) bills in order to continue to dismantle the entire country, disrupt the lines of supply (roads and bridges) for essential services like food and water, and privatize schools, fire protection, medical aid, prisons and the distribution of physical information (mail) and supplies (packages sent via the Post Office).

As an side, the attack on the Post Office exists because the Post Office has steadfastly refused various agencies once controlled by their people (like Bush, Sr.) access to your mail without due process whereas the for profit companies that deliver in their trucks to your home happily roll over and let them search and seize whatever the intelligence and law enforcement communities want. The type of merchandise you can send via the Post Office has been systematically restricted by the Tea Party gang to the point you cannot legally send perfume in a package because it contains oil. This is why you are paying so much for essential oils. We now have to ship UPS or FedEx at a premium. Guns and ammo also have to go via private carrier, be declared and have a hazardous sticker on them outlining what the contents are on the OUTSIDE of the package. Even the sulfur I use for Hot Foot Powder has to come via UPS or the like and so does the Hoodoo powder I send you after it is made.

In four years after the districts are rigged they will not be trying to get a majority in your state senate as they do not need one and your local elections are moot, not needed, a frivolous and dying attempt at sanity for anyone still standing. It won't matter who you elect because as you attempt to fix the damage at a state and federal level that has reduced the country to third world status it will be vetoed at the Top National Level, the presidency and with a packed Supreme Court there will be no way to overturn the veto. Remember, Bush packed the Supreme Court and the Tea Party Koch owned Congress is blocking every nomination.

These same PAC's that bankroll the Tea Party Congressmen are abandoning them in a sinking ship as they no longer need them. Instead, all the money is being channeled into the Tea Party's darling new presidential candidate, a little known water swilling opportunist who is personally perpetually broke and on the take named Marco Rubio. Yes, the same man who got elected in Miami by waving the anti-Fidel flag and wanting to raise the age for Social Security to over 70 and eliminating Medicare. He is the Tea Party, or whoever buys him this week, anti-women hero.

The reason so many radical Tea Party candidates who were stupid enough to join him found themselves out of a job is before the election of President Obama, Rubio's PAC which controls the majority of money in Florida for the Tea Party spent 1.7 Million Dollars trying to re-brand him into a moderate when he is the worst of the extremists following an even radical to his Catholic faith agenda where social and feminine programs are concerned. They spent $110,000.00 on OTHER candidates. Wait until you find out who they really are.....yes...just wait for it.....

He was re-elected and the other candidates are out of a job. BUT, the stated purpose of the PAC, ReClaim America (you may know them from the catchy memes on the sidebar of Facebook) is to elect other Conservatives. To bad all the money went to Rubio's STAFF.

Practically every penny of that money is spent on staff, travel, polling and fund raising lists.

You need to pay close attention to the word POLLING.

Rubio's staff positions him as a middle Class (He never was and never will be middle class. His family arrived before Castro, well off and just got richer off the incoming Cuban refugees who really did arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs. His financial problems come from spending more than he makes.) They challenge every point, even minor ones, in any article his name appears. They constantly conduct polls to determine the effect of every appearance and word their man of the people utters He is the sports fan, Joe next door who plans on making sure your parents can't eat and buy their medicines or retire, nice guy. After all, “It's time new messengers came forth to carry the torch”, as we the people are seriously considering tarring and feathering the old carpet, I mean Tea Baggers and running them out of town on a rail. It's the SAME TORCH, people.

I don't care how blinded you are by the lies, you can't deny the truth. This New son of immigrants who opposes any immigrant entering the country without lots of money to spend and the “right” political views....... the oppressed, persecuted and poor need not apply....... is just a more radical carbon copy of the mouthy Allen Wests of the Teapublicans with a team to gag him, groom him and write nice platitudes like: “Send the liberal detractors a message that not only does Marco Rubio inspire you...he hydrates you (sic) too.” It takes $25.00 to get one of those bottles of water. Just remember the type of immigrant his parents were, well off and politically connected to profit off the poor who arrived after them. In the South, we call them Carpet Baggers. In the rest of the country you can call them Tea Party/GOP.

Have you ever wondered why he needed that drink? Perhaps he was choking on all the BS he was reading but the drink has effectively moved the focus from the speech which should be analyzed sentence by sentence as the GOP/Tea Party agenda for the next 8 years and instead placed it on a bottle of water. Then again, the bottle of water had more substance than the speech and the emphasis is on the pretty boy quoting sport's scores and pop tunes rather than the ugly plans within.....

BUT the question you really should be asking is: who is the Tea Party and who is financing them. It's not some weirdo on the corner screaming and waving a smaller government sign. It is an off-shore mega corporation whom I think is still pissed off we won WWII. Think about it. The money is coming from out of the country. Who is your real enemy? Who is buying this country and why? It might have something to do with the simple fact that they have been thrown out of Europe....hmmmmm.....

A Little Karma Story for Everyone

Once upon a time there were 4 people in college. One was a somewhat talented artist studying at University. Her roommate was a talented scientist. One day the roommate tried to draw a person and did a halfway decent job but the artist could see the proportions were all off.

You see, at the time they went to school, if a student had extraordinary talent in the arts, they received special instruction and everyone else got to learn how to push the broom as they were going to become workers in a factory somewhere.

But the artist always wanted to teach art, so she spent several weeks after classes teaching her moderately talented roommate how to grid and copy pieces of artwork and proportions. The artist got her wish and became an art teacher, married and had her children and generally enjoyed a lovely and very happy, but mundane life to some. Her children were all successful and went on to change the lives of other people for the better.

In the other room there was a talented musician who had just learned how to write music but already, her playing and little songs were touching other people. Her roommate may have had a talent but she was too focused on her complexion and constant break outs, nails and hair to study and find her talent and focus. Nothing made her happy but new boots for a few minutes. She was jealous of her musician roommate's clear complexion and couldn't enjoy the music she produced and the pleasure she gave the other students only infuriated the jealous one more.

Finally in frustration, she bought a curse for sex with a local babalawo, male priest in Santeria, to give the girl a nasty breakout. She didn't understand or listen to the warning that there was no way to completely predict the severity of the curse and anyway, she really didn't care. She just wanted this girl to suffer the way she did with horrible pimples. The babalawo also didn't mention the karma for the curse would be attached to her, not him and perhaps at a later date, he might use the nice saliva samples he had on the condom to attach the karma for a few curses he intended to throw for his personal revenge upon her, skating the karma himself for just being a nasty, bad person.

She was ecstatic as the musician was totally broken out, so distracted she almost missed her recital and couldn't preform her music correctly. This lead the musician to agree with her parents and change her major to something practical. The jealous one now had a simple way to deal with her pain. She would pay someone to inflict pain on others and it seemed she was quite successful, even though her marriages ended in divorce and her precious children were all in menial jobs and getting psychiatric help. Finally the culmination of her success as a person (in her view point) arrived in the guise of a grandchild.

One night the grandchild suffered problems breathing and was rushed to the emergency room where the child died within a few minutes, devastating the jealous one and throwing her into a fit screaming that everyone had cursed her and driving her daughter down the same path spending every penny and moment trying to buy more curses against all the people that were cursing them to this miserable life of loneliness and pain.

Little did the jealous one know that Karma had set her up from the beginning. The musician whose potential career she ruined had suffered from devastating and disfiguring skin cancer her entire life making her a recluse, so she never wrote the song that would have inspired the young man devastated by the death of his baby sister from pulmonary collapse to finish medical school and get the job he wanted in the very same emergency room where his sister had died years before, and the jealous one's grandchild died that night, on the night shift so he would be there to help the children and adults who arrived dying with this rare condition. And as each person who should have lived: died, another piece of karma returned to the original sender as a broken promise, a divorce, a mentally unstable child and finally the death of the most important thing in her life.

Now, had the jealous one learned not to inflict her pain deliberately on other people and solve her problems, seek her bliss and talent, and enjoy the talents of others instead of cursing them because she could not become them, she would have had a loving family and lots of grandchildren to enjoy and tell stories to at night. She could have stopped the cycle when she saw the devastation she had caused over a few pimples, rectified it by encouraging her roommate musician rather then secretly gloating and undermining her, but instead, she enjoyed the power and as the old adage says, “power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately”.

A curse, prayer or spell ties you to the fate of the person you curse or have cursed, prayed for or cast a spell upon and that is Karma. So you might find the “good spells and prayers” for jobs or health or success boring and the curses, prayers to harm the misguided, and blocking paths spells more exciting as you watch someone's life fall apart and justify it with “they deserved it” but while you are watching the very real reality show, your life is getting ready to crash and burn and sometimes karma will even provide you a house and car so you can really watch the show in comfort just before she delivers the final blow. Karma is a lot like Anonymous. She never forgets. She never forgives. She will come for you. She just balances the damage and good you do by doing it to you.

Some Things NEVER Change

Seems there was a bit of a rumour on Facebook that (a) we didn't have a shop and since there are a hundred pictures of the shop I won't answer it. However, I will post a picture from 06-24-1996 after the hurricane had hit and all the trees were stripped out.  I had been in business at this location for almost 15 years at that time.

20/20 Intuitive Hindsight or Oh, That's why it happened.

I was just reading a copy of Pentacle and a paragraph in the editorial caught my attention:

“I've noticed a worrying trend in recent months. It seems that a number of conferences, moots, events and Balls have been canceled through lack of interest, poor ticket sales, or just the 'feh factor'. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. Fifteen years ago there were only a few conferences or events where Pagans could meet and discuss together.”.........

“That is something else that seems to be creeping into Pagan Spirituality – Consumerist Paganism. People wanting the Path or Tradition to mould round , rather than invest the time and energy in understanding their place within it. Further to this, when people are asked to invest time and effort, they flounce off citing they are now 'Traditional Witches' or whatever this week's special spiritual offer is....and sod the nasty Wic(c)cans. I'm too good for them anyway. Oh well in the end someone else provide entertainment and mental stimulation for you.... won't they?”

Well, maybe two paragraphs.....

Imagine my shock when I looked at the cover and discovered the date of the magazine was Samhain, Winter 2007.

Now I wonder if the projected reasons for the decline in attendance were everything we thought or were the truly psychic beginning already to pull back for monetary reasons sensing the crash of the world economy in 2008. Were we really taking the criticism too hard and canceling things in a pique or was the Universe giving us a nudge to back off and save our resources?

So, I looked back at my own life as I tend to live by my intuition and that is, of course, how I make my living.

In 2007, on a fairly nice evening I opened the mail to discover my favorite dealership was having a sale on vehicles. I didn't think they had commercial vans like I was looking for but I carefully typed in the website as the name is VERY hard to spell and I still don't have the hang of pronouncing it, and up popped two pages of vans.

I chose the one I thought was the best and started to type in a request when the hours and map came up and I muttered, “What the Heck?” It seems I didn't go to their web page when I typed in this very hard to spell name, Lou Bachrot.com...just butchered it again....I went to OffLease.com. Now, if you can see any possible similarity between those two names, you need help. But, there was the van I wanted at the price I could afford so I dragged George three quarters of the way into the next county, got directed to furthest end of the 40 acres (it seemed that way), climbed over a few cars and discovered the van I wanted was trashed, needed four tires and generally was a total disappointment. While perusing the remaining vans, most of which were in the same condition being recent rejects from various county projects, I happened upon a pristine van, with new tires (tires are expensive) and I drooled but I had been warned if the papers weren't on the dashboard, it was sold. The dashboard was bare. Finally after circling it several times I decided there was no harm in opening the door and there on the floor lay the papers...it was bit more than I planned to pay but it was in warranty for another year and I flew to the office...this time really climbing over cars....and bought it. One week later, all car loans were suspended and you couldn't get financing for a car if you were the Donald. I even had a low interest loan!

Within weeks, my readings all started to say, pay off debt, don't take out this refinancing or any loans and start putting at least 6 months money aside. People's jobs suddenly started looking iffy when they had been employed their entire lives and had sterling resumes. I almost thought the cards were going crazy but I dutifully read what they said and started taking their advice. I was about the only one who did. By the fall of 2008, the cards were coming up dismal, I was cutting back on everything and no one was listening to me, as usual. I think you know what happened.

The issue of the magazine is right in line with my life. I bought my van in September of 2007 and though I had bought it to attend in state events as a vendor, I just couldn't seem to part with the money the events would have cost. Information slowly trickled back, when people started telling the truth, that they had lost money on the events. Events disappeared that had existed for years. Even the huge commercial/professional events took a hit. This was all in 2007. By 2008, there were few if any events scheduled and the rest is history.

Now when you consider the economy was riding a false high, people were flipping house like flapjacks and making loads of money and the Secret was to visualize money falling out of the sky and it would, why did people start pulling back in 2007? There was absolutely nothing in the news or the economy that would explain to the average person, it was time to stop and get off the merry-go-round. Yet, the truly intuitive jumped ship. The only possible answer is they sensed something no one else did. Since hindsight is 20/20, it now seems obvious, the fault really didn't belong to the providers or the consumers in the above paragraphs. The fault was a crumbling economy to come and, thankfully for the providers, they dropped anchor before the ship sailed into the sandbar.

So, the next time someone tells you that you are just too sensitive, say, “Thank you.” It might just save your economic future.

However, taking a look at the second paragraph, that is something to discuss and really finally put the blame for it squarely where it belongs: The Infamous Simplistic Think It and It Will Manifest out of thin air..... If it was really that easy, do you think occultists, Druids and magicians would have spent lifetimes studying and spent fortunes acquiring books and information and objects? Do you think most would have died in poverty when wealth was that easy to manifest? Come on...use a little common sense. They would have stumbled over it in the first week. When everyone is making money it's easy to make money circa pre 2008...Now try it after 2008 and see if it works or wonder why this wonderful intuitive metaphysical secret of the ages didn't protect you from the fall......

This eclectic nonsense makes about as much sense as thinking you can take a toaster, a microwave and a refrigerator and make a car. You might start by noticing none of them has wheels. Now, you might be able to take a car and install a toaster, microwave and refrigerator in it...in fact I think one of the stretch limos even has a hot tub...but it doesn't work the other way around. In other words, you need to learn one system and learn it well before you start grabbing bits and pieces and incorporating them into your practice.

True, I am Druid and I have been studying ceremonial magic(k) since I was 16. I think I spent my entire allowance with the Mystic Arts Book Club every month until I found Triad for supplies and then I had to get a job. Thank you Eagle Army Navy for making me the Druid I am. Without that pay check I would never have had Anna Riva's original Power Oil and a better job. You see, pretty much every job I ever held had a single purpose to bring home a paycheck so I could buy supplies and more books. Conferences were a luxury item, I chose carefully and went into debt to attend. Until someone would discover my expertise might actually be greater than the presenters, I soaked up every ounce of information and nuance of practice I could. Nothing was ever wasted and I was more curious as to how people reached the conclusion they did than the actual conclusion.

You might want to read that last sentence about ten times because the process in magic(k) is a thousand times more important than the desire. It is a lot like learning to drive a car. First you learn the road rules so you manage to get on the right side of the two lane highway and stay off the sidewalk. Then you have to learn what the key does and each pedal. For a long time, you clench the steering wheel, can't drive a straight line and ding things parking until finally, it becomes, with a lot of practice, a reflex. But when you change cars there is a period of adjustment before you easily drive the new one. You become reluctant to change cars. Still, if you grab the cell phone, the reflex goes down the drain with the distraction and you are picking yourself out of another car's rear. Now do you see why starting with an eclectic or a simplistic framework will crash and burn.

Perhaps a lot of people were misled simply because the people who they investigated appeared to be creating magic(k) with a simple flip of the switch and they never bothered to spend the time and effort to look at all the wiring behind the curtain. Or maybe they deliberately misled thousands of people making their first step into the metaphysical for the simple purpose of putting them off it and making them furious at anything metaphysical for a generation or two? I'm sure time will provide the answer and karma will provide the reward. Karma always does.....Just remember, forewarned is forearmed.