Profection Prep, a Diary of a Practical/Magical Practice: Lessons from Failed First Dates
"A couple times, students of mine have actually made talismans or bought talismans (of planets) that were afflicted in their chart. They had a tough time, but they said, ‘Oh, it was useful for spiritual growth.’”
- Christopher Warnock, on The Astrology Podcast, Episode 239: “The Picatrix: A Grimoire of Astrological Magic”; January 24th, 2020
“If you’re like, ‘Hey, Saturn, I would like to live a life of ease and luxury,’ that’s not what Saturn does. That’s not what you ask Saturn for. You ask the planets what they are capable of bestowing… there’s not a difference in what the planets bestow in astrology vs. astrological magic.”
- Austin Coppock, on The Astrology Podcast, Episode 235: “The Relationship Between Astrology and Magic”; December 22nd, 2019
I’ve never been good at dating. This may come as a surprise to people who have known me for a long time, and never known me to be single for very long, but it’s true. Sitting across the table from someone you don’t know, answering the same questions about what you do and where you grew up and where you see yourself in five years feels like a job interview to figure out if you want to sleep with someone. I know, if not at all comprehend, that some people think dating is a blast! They’re good at it. They love the casual one or two hour coffee chats at 4PM on a Saturday afternoon.
I do not.
If I find you attractive, I want to skip the chit-chat and get down to the soft, gooey center of a person ASAP. I want to know what you think happens when you die. I want to know the stories you can’t tell without crying— yours, or someone else’s; real or fiction. I want to know the language you use to talk to God, and the first time you realized no one could keep you safe forever, and whether your first memory is also just a little snippet of mental video that your mom has confirmed had to have happened before you could even walk.
It’s not that I’m bad at small talk, it’s just that I have always seen it as a boring, an obstacle in the way of building intimacy, and thus a “real” relationship with a person.
The reason I bring this up is that Mercury doesn’t skip the chit-chat. In fact, Mercury rules all conversation, but particularly the airy, light, getting to know you kind, the details details details that, if you get enough of them, will actually lead you, eventually and less aggressively, to someone’s soft, gooey center.
This past weekend, I tried to win Mercury over by skipping all of those steps and doing it my way.
And it didn’t work at all.
Friday, September 15th, 2023, 6:03 PM
Venus’s Day, Jupiter’s Hour, Mercury stationed direct less than 2 hours before
I started my planned weekend with a ritual cleansing, à la Kaitlin Coppock’s Sphere & Sundry protocol. I’d started deep cleaning my bathroom the day before, getting the space ready for something sacred to take place. I spent several hours setting up. I wrote out all the steps and the prayers by hand, taping them to the walls around the bathroom in the appropriate places. I laid out all the tools over an hour in advance so all I would have to do is step in to the bathroom and begin at the right time.
I’d wanted to do it right at the moment of the station, but that was at 4:21 PM, in an hour belonging to the Moon. It felt like the wrong time, since the Moon is so feeling and Mercury is so thinking, and anyway, Jupiter’s always auspicious, right?
I mean, I knew that Jupiter and Mercury were opposites. That Lilly does not list Jupiter among Mercury’s friends. That Mercury is in detriment in both Jupiter ruled signs, and vice versa. But Jupiter’s a benefic! Benefics get along with everyone!
Maybe, but maybe not equally well.
Even with all the preparation, there were several ways things went off course. I felt like I was being challenged. Like Mercury was playing hard to get… or maybe just wasn’t that into me.
My incense kept going out. I went through five matches before I had finished with everything I needed to smoke bathe.
The bath water was way too hot, even though I take baths in this tub all the time, and I’d set the faucet to what has always been a reasonable temperature.
Once I was able to complete the ritual, the bathtub drained incredibly slowly. It had drained perfectly earlier that day, and was fine the next time I showered. It was only when Mercury was almost standing still that this occurred.
While I am not sure it was entirely successful, the ritual was certainly effective. I won’t go into details (some of them are private, and perhaps a little embarrassing), but there were definitely signatures of a major release of energy in my apartment. One I will share is that the lights in my kitchen would not stop flickering in totally unusual and inexplicable ways, like when you see New York City subway lights go out and come back on again in movies. And again, they’ve been fine since.
Afterward, I ate a light meal and drank some passionflower tea with lavender syrup (both Mercury ruled herbs) topped with steamed milk. Shortly afterward I went to bed.
I slept for 12 hours.
Saturday, September 16th, 2023
Preparing for the next day’s planned feast in honor of Mercury
On Saturday, I ran around buying crystals and candles, while researching Virgo Mercury foods for Sunday’s feast to honor Mercury in its Exaltation as it moved into a trine with Jupiter. I’d even found what I thought was a pretty good election: Jupiter’s hour, 7:03 PM, where Mercury would be in the 7th House of relationships, and Jupiter in the 3rd, the place of brotherhood.
The traditional sources were pretty light on food associations for Mercury. I’d looked at Valens, Lilly, and Agrippa, as well as multiple Vedic astrology websites with lists of foods ruled by Mercury. Lilly says that legumes are Mercury’s, which seemed pretty Virgo. The Vedic sources had no references, so I wasn’t sure how much these were just copied from website to website without any foundation.
So I asked around.
On the Sphere & Sundry community, Kaitlin Coppock pointed out that the Virgin is holding a sheaf of grain in almost all representations of Virgo, and that we are at the time of the harvest. That foods in line with Mercury in Virgo would be local, fresh, of the highest quality, and absolutely in line with the seasons. Some others pointed out that Virgo, as opposed to Gemini, would be less interested in the variety and novelty of flavors, so much as the variety of nutrients in the food.
Over on the What Magic is This? Discord channel, astrologer Andrew B. Watt also suggested wheat, as well as siting traditional astrological sources tying Mercury to nuts and seeds with hard shells. He also mentioned that we’re nearing the time of year when the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries took place. The 10 day festivities likely involved sacrifices of pigs and wheat, and Andrew suggested I cook some kind of pork dish, bake some bread, and leave a little bit as sacrifice to Demeter and Persephone while I was at it. This spun me off into trying to find how much we know about the Greater Mysteries, which I now realize was me losing focus… and losing connection to Mercury.
Sunday, September 17th, 2023
The day of the feast in honor of Mercury (with guests the Sun and Jupiter)
The next morning I woke up to some incredibly well thought out and strongly founded suggestions on the What Magic is This? Discord, courtesy of the incomparably generous Samantha Giacalone. Samantha is an actual sorceress of food and natural medicine, and a total inspiration to me on leaning into my Taurus Rising + bunches of 6th House placements in learning more about astrology and how it relates to food and medicine.
I am just going to quote her in her entirety, because these insights are so good:
I correspond Virgo to Yellow-green: green grapes, pears, squash, etc. Astrologically, Mercury, who rules Gemini/Virgo, corresponds to our Central Nervous System, so you might want to check out foods high in Omega-3s. So like Andrew said - nuts. Walnuts, flaxseed, chia seeds, fish. Virgo is also related to our digestive system [ mostly the intestines ], so bitters are an amazing add. Dandelion root is the most popular! What else? Parsley is ruled by Gemini! Its an herb that helps with so many things, particularly for the liver and nervous system. However, its has been shown to reduce the risk of asthma [lungs = Gemini/Mercury] due to its beta-carotene content and its expectorant properties. Kira Sutherland gives Potassium to Gemini, and gives magnesium to Virgo. So, potassium: obvi bananas, squash, apricot, lentils, nuts again, brown rice, broccoli. Also fennel is high in potassium, and that's a Gemini herb. Dark chocolate is my favorite food that is high in magnesium. Spinach, avocado, bananas, cashews...most nuts, oatmeal. B1 [Thiamin] is also a mercury vitamin. Foods rich in B1 are pork, legumes, and whole grains. B1 turns food into energy [Virgo as fuck]. It is crucial for the structure of brain cells [related to the nervous system].
On parsley, this is out of my personal Materia Medica: "Parsley contains a significant amount of the bioflavonoid [ flavone ] called apigenin. Flavones are the yellow pigments in certain plants. Apigenin It is often used for maintaining mental & immune health. While cooking parsley reduces its health benefits, cooking parsley increases its apigenin content, and dried parsley is a great natural source of apigenin."
It is also interesting that your question is related to feeding your Mercury with nutrients, and you mentioned here that you wanted to stay away from sugary foods. Again, not a doctor, but I find that when I need a sugar rush for cognitive effects, it is because my nervous system is overloaded and it NEEDS nutrients. Sugar is a quick fix for your body, and your body sends signals in the form of cravings. Aquarius also has some relation to the nervous system and the "electrical" body. In that regard, I would highly suggest blue-purple foods, which are high in anthocyanins. Anthocyanins have been proven to increase cognitive function, and from my Holographic Phytonutrients Data Base: "Studies also show that anthocyanins support the body's ability to manage blood sugar levels [ improving glucose tolerance ] [94], with some studies showing that it may aid the body in recognizing and using insulin [95]" Resource: Speer, Hollie et al. “Anthocyanins and Human Health-A Focus on Oxidative Stress, Inflammation and Disease.” Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 9,5 366. 28 Apr. 2020, doi:10.3390/antiox9050366
See what I mean? She’s brilliant.
I now had multiple people confirm wheat, pork, and seeds, and just to narrow down all the options, I also decided to follow the dietary restrictions of practitioners leading up to the Greater Mysteries. No poultry, no eggs, and, though these fruits consistently showed up on Vedic astrology lists of Mercury foods, no apples or pomegranates.
I made a short list of must-haves I would get at the farmer’s market:
Whole grain, seeded bread
Pork
Parsley
Legumes of some kind
I had until 7:03 PM to hit the election I wanted, and I had to get to the farmer’s market, cook whatever I found there, doing laundry for the week, oh, and finish watching 2 hours of a movie to record an episode of the podcast I host with my best friend at 5:00 PM. The first Mercury hour of the day was at 8:42 AM. I wanted to be on the way to the farmer’s market during the planet’s hour, since Mercury rules travel.
I grabbed my grocery bags, got dressed, and ran out of the house without my Metrocard.
Detail oversight number one.
I realized I didn’t have it when I got to the train station, and paused for thirty seconds weighing if I should go back or just eat the $5 for a roundtrip. Unfortunately, thirty seconds was exactly enough time for me to get to the platform just as the train was pulling out of the station, meaning I’d have to wait 14 minutes for the next one. The usually 30 minute trip ended up taking a solid hour!
When I got there, I did a quick circuit of all of the tents and stands, until I found Gaia’s Breath Farm. Biodynamic and named after primordial Greek goddess of the earth, this seemed perfect. They were selling vegetables, greens, and most importantly, fresh pork! The woman at the farmstand repeated to me several times that the pork was “Very fresh. It’s never been frozen… you understand? It’s fresh, today.” All I could think was that she was telling me the pigs had been sacrificed specifically for this day, a perfect sync with the Greater Mysteries. In addition to two pork loin chops, I grabbed a bunch of parsley and 10 or so Dragon’s Tongue beans for shelling, thinking that would certainly be enough legumes for one person plus a small portion as the planetary offering.
I got an abundance of summer-meets-fall, mutable season produce, including beautiful fresh, fragrant English lavender for Mercury, sunflowers for the Sun, grapes for Jupiter, and a beautiful, whole wheat sourdough loaf studded and encrusted with seeds. I couldn’t help feeling it was going to be a perfect meal, and I would at last make snare the heart of the Messenger.
Local sunflowers, peaches, pork loin chop, whole grain seeded sourdough, Dragon’s Tongue beans, rosemary, English lavender, “flat leaf parsley” (read on), and my fire escape grown basil
But all day, I kept missing little details. Mercury’s little details.
As I was doing laundry, I accidentally left one of the drier balls in my apartment. The parsley which I’d left on the counter since I’d be prepping it soon started to wilt, releasing its aroma… of cilantro. Shelling the beans, I realized that I should have looked up how many I’d get from a pod. Their large, purple speckled pods concealed a very few, very small legumes. I shrugged, thinking this certainly made them closer to the Trickster planet.
At 3:00 PM, I got a text from David saying he couldn’t record today. I now felt like I had more time to make sure that dinner was served, the altar candles were lit, and I had said the Orphic hymns at exactly 7:03 PM.
By 7:00 PM the beans were braised, the pork chops seared and roasted with onions, rosemary, and the grapes, the peaches sliced, and the basil harvested from my fire escape. The altar was set, and I had served each planet with a drink corresponding their nature, and which I would be sharing, as well. For the sun, ginger tea, strong and hot in gold rimmed tea glasses. For Mercury, sparkling water in rainbow treated glass. For Jupiter, (non-alcoholic) wine in a huge balloon glass.
But I hadn’t whipped the cream for the peaches and basil. In fact, I hadn’t really decided if I was going to serve it whipped or just poured over the peaches. With only 3 minutes to go to hit the election, I decided to whip a small amount with a whisk. I stirred and stirred, and the cream started to thicken a bit, but was far from holding even soft peaks. It was 7:03 PM. I checked the transits to see where Mercury would be in a couple of minutes— still in the 7th House!— and decided I could do this. I whipped and whipped and the cream refused to set.
I looked up at the clock and it was 7:11 PM. Mercury had moved into the 6th House of injury, illness, and, most relevantly, hard work and toil. I’d gotten distracted, focused on the wrong detail while being wishy washy about the right one, and I’d lost something precious: time.
Trying not to feel morose, I set the table, lit the candles, and said invocations, anyway. For one thing, I was hungry, and the food smelled and looked delicious.
The full feast and altar. The meal is whole grain seeded bread, a tiny dish of Dragon’s Tongue beans, a big pork loin chop roasted with concord grapes and rosemary, and peaches surrounding not-quite-whipped, topped with fresh basil
And it was. Throughout the meal, I could feel warm approval from the Sun and Jupiter side of the altar.
But from Mercury’s side? The kind of awkwardness I’d feel if I’d taken a vegetarian on a date to a Brazilian steak house. Sure, they can see the thought and expense I put into it, but that wouldn’t change the fact that I had done the wrong thing.
I took it in stride, though. I had come far enough in this relationship with Mercury to learn its lessons without frustration or hurt, and I appreciated that I felt at least humored.
I learned that I am not going to please Mercury with non-Mercury things, anymore than I could ask Mercury for non-Mercury things. Everything I had done was too sensual, too embodied, and any relevance to Mercury was only the thinnest veneer. Mercury values food for its nutrition, not for the enjoyment of eating it. I had let so many details slip my attention in order to orchestrate this feast that was totally wrong for the planet for whom I planned it. I wasn’t listening to Mercury, and accordingly Mercury wasn’t happy… Not as angry as it would have been had I asked for something without an established relationship, but annoyed that I hadn’t taken the time to get to know it well enough to know how to appeal to it. That I’d been hubristic enough to think I could just do my things and a whole cosmic entity, an entire planet and god and nigh on ageless being would think whatever I felt like doing for it was an honor.
Frankly, I’m lucky that all I feel is kind of dismissed and pitied, instead of in some kind of peril. Mercury does let things go pretty quickly, and for that, I am grateful.
So. Lesson learned. I can only impress Mercury with attention to detail. The right details. Not my inability to make decisions until the last second, and then choosing cream over the clock. I can’t woo Mercury. The way to the planet’s heart is not through the stomach, or the body, but the mind.
The day after the uncomfortable feast, I ordered Chris Brennan’s Hellenistic Astrology, and resolved to regroup and try again.
I was going to have to start with the small talk.
Though I will say that fresh peaches with basil and not-quite-whipped cream is fantastic.
