Edward Henry Potthast “Starry Night”

July 11 - July 27, 2021

Mercury in Cancer is a Moon-mind, a diary of impressions and feelings, a record of reflections. It is intuition and active imagination; it’s animal familiars and nocturnal transmissions; bedtime stories and old wives’ tales; recipes and reminiscences. It stores the lyrics to songs you haven’t heard in years, or the phone number of your childhood best friend. It holds special smells and tastes, deep in the recesses of our bodies and our psyches. It remembers people (to paraphrase Maya Angelou), not by what they say or do but by how they make us feel. 

And so, as Mercury starts to internalize, process, and digest our experiences of the past three weeks of Cancer season and of the recent New Moon, words may feel insufficient to describe our emotional state. They feel fickle, or fluid, coming in waves or escaping us altogether. Out of caution, we ration our words, sharing them when, where and with whom we feel safe. We know their power to comfort and console, as well as their power to wound more deeply than any sticks and stones. Mercury in Cancer knows that conversation can be a vulnerable thing, and so for the next two weeks, cultivate close encounters as well as personal space, check the vibe often, and have a care with each other.