Profection Prep, a Diary of a Practical/Magical Practice: It Never Hurts to Ask
“The great question that has never been answered , and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is: What does a woman want?”
- Supposedly said by Sigmund Freud to great-grandniece of Napoleon, patron of psychoanalysis Marie Bonaparte (herself, a woman)
Though it is probably apocryphal and appears nowhere in his writings, it’s not that much of a stretch given everything else he wrote on them to believe Freud struggled with the question of what women want. If it’s true that he said this to Marie Bonaparte, I’ve often wondered why her reply wasn’t, “Well, why don’t you ask us?” I know I certainly would have!
After my failed attempts at romancing Mercury last weekend, I decided to take my own advice. I just asked.
Inquiry 1: I Ching
Digging out my old copy of the I Ching, which I hadn’t consulted since 2006. I was introduced to this method of divination by a guy I briefly dated for about a month around Easter during my first year of grad school. Some time between telling me that his meeting me was the result of a months long devotional ritual to Bastet, the Egyptian cat-headed goddess of love, sex, and pleasure, and when I kind of ghosted him because his idea of a date was falling in and out of consciousness for 48 hours, watching movies on his sofa in a haze of fruit-flavored shisha smoke and vicodin, he showed me how to cast hexagrams using yarrow stalks.
It wasn’t all wasted time, though, because I did end up creating a digital I Ching caster for one of my graduate school classes when the weekly assignment was to make something using the principles of randomness. After I learned that you could cast hexagrams in a simpler fashion using three coins, I wired three Chinese coins I bought in Chinatown into sensors. When you placed three fingers on them to close the circuit, the little machine would spit out the six lines of red LEDs, randomly choosing which were closed and broken. If I’d had more time, I’d have worked on teaching the machine to blink or pulse to show changing lines, but the next week we moved on to some other concept. I kept the machine for a long time intending to add that functionality, maybe 10 years, until I scavenged it for parts for some other project.
But that had been the last time I’d really consulted the I Ching until earlier this week when I lit a candle to Mercury and asked, “What does Mercury want?” Well, close enough. I asked what Mercury wanted me to do in order to improve our relationship. I tossed three dimes (not Mercury dimes, though add that to my ever expanding wishlist of magical materia), made my hexagram, and then looked up the meaning of two of them, as I’d had several changing lines. Diligently, I wrote lots of notes and interpretations, and then, only then, did I think to check the introduction to my copy of the I Ching to make sure I’d done everything right.
I am sure you can guess that, no, I didn’t.
I’d drawn my hexagram lines top to bottom, instead of stacking them from the bottom to top. I’m not sure what made me double check that I had cast my hexagrams correctly, other than, one can hope, a little divine intervention from a certain fleet footed god… but one who delights in a little bit of trickery, first.
The corrected hexagrams were Ta Yu— Possession in Great Measure— changing to Lin— Approach. From the description of Ta Yu: “The I Ching indicates here that you increased your power by purifying your thoughts, actions, and attitudes.” And indeed, I had. I realized that while some foods are ruled by Mercury, that I could not approach Mercury for relationship through food. Instead of trying to find every single thing to which Mercury was even tangentially related, I purified my approach: making inquiry, and using divination to do it, both of which are Mercurial actions. Additionally, Ta Yu gave two excellent pieces of advice:
“Having attained a high position, you are wise to remain modest and generous to others.” Alright, noted, keep sharing, and don’t try to sugar coat my mistakes. Got it.
“Do not make the mistake of becoming proud, disdainful of others, or convinced of your ability to control events.” Emphasis there is mine, because the whole point of this strengthening of my relationship with Mercury is in preparation for my 8th House profection year, and I started this process in order to be able to face that year’s themes… and, I’ll admit, hope that I could influence potential events to be more positive than negative. More on that later, when I do a big, messy confession of previous 8th House profection years, the transits I’ve seen in a cursory flip through of the first few months of the upcoming 8th House profection, and the material ways I’m vulnerable to 8th House types of events heading into such a year.
The second hexagram, Lin, was also about humility, but with an additional recommendation not to let ego take over, lest I slip into laziness, “impurity and irresponsibility.” Alright, noted, I can’t just take my relationship with Mercury for granted, even when it gets better (and it does seem that it has already). Being open to the wisdom of others and seeking help, but also making sure to be someone people want to help was a big theme of Lin, as well. “Remaining open to the abilities of others insures a greater success,” Lin read. “Help from others is attracted by modesty and correctness. One who acts alone out of ego cannot achieve lasting success.” OK, so I have to turn to and listen to others, instead of assuming I know everything, and I have to be the kind of person people want to help… maybe even that Mercury wants to help, if I surrender to admitting I need it.
Inquiry 2: Tarot
Later that day, at the next Mercury hour, I asked again, but this time using tarot. “What specific activities do I need to do to improve my relationship to Mercury?”
I pulled 4 cards: IV of Cups reversed, VIII of Cups reversed, The Emperor, and IX of Wands.
I looked them over and meditated on them a bit, seeing the ways in which these were relevant to my situation. It seemed pretty clear that the first two were a double admonishment not to get bored and give up and go try something else. There was something I was or had already been doing that was good for Mercury remediation. I immediately thought of my podcast, Screen Test of Time, that I’ve barely edited the last year, that I’d somehow gotten completely out of the habit of releasing, even though my friend and co-host David keep watching the movies and recording every week. The podcast that I’d thought, “Oh, surely editing this counts as Mercury remediation,” and then the other part of my brain going, “Uuuugggghhhhh, but I don’t wannaaaaaaa.” But the cards were pretty clear.
The Emperor as discipline and self-mastery seemed to confirm this, and as the card is related to Aries, it seemed to say that it must be through action, not just sitting and reading books. That absorbing knowledge and studying are Mercurial, but in my case, I needed to be more active than passive. The IX of Wands shows resilience, the ability to adapt and change as needed, but also not giving up even when the odds are against you (or, in my case, the eight distractions to the one thing I should, and even, on some level want to do).
It was pretty obvious: Mercury says edit your damn podcast, Suzan.
So what did I do? Oh, well, I asked for more clarity and cast four more cards. This time, it was, “OK, this is what you want me to do, but how do I do these things?”
I pulled 4 cards, laying each alongside the others: III of Wands, III of Pentacles reversed, Ace of Pentacles reversed, King of Pentacles reversed.
This one was loud. T. Susan Chang describes the III of Wands as the quickening of creative projects— not their spark, not their conception, but the point where they become alive, but not necessarily born. It’s the gestating, the creation, that is the point. The III of Wands is also right action, it is fiery but also patient, do the work, but wait and see what comes of it. In relation to the IV of Cups reversed, this was don’t just chuck the things you’re working on to start any new projects. Work on the ones already in process.
The III of Pentacles reversed was just confirming this, and all three of the reversed Pentacles were telling me that my inclination toward the material was not the way to go. Audio editing a podcast, writing, astrological study, all not making material things! And again with the VIII of Cups reversed, it was telling me not to turn away from what I’d already achieved to go do something material.
The Ace of Pentacles reversed… again, don’t start anything new, and especially not something material. The Emperor is action, is doing, is movement, is Aries and is Cardinal, but in this case I had to reign in that energy and where I would direct it was not in creating something new and physical. The King of Pentacles reversed just drove this home: the IX of Wands, creativity at the heights of its power, was not for use by a King of the material, of land and farms and specifically agricultural production.
The spread was all Fire (creativity, action, doing stuff, experience), yes; Water (feelings, and with these cards specifically, feelings of boredom and disinterest that drive one to abandon something) and Earth (material, physical, stuff), no.
Putting Advice into Practice
With this recommendation, I tried to go about spending one Mercury hour each day editing my podcast. And you know what? It was great. I hadn’t felt excited to edit in years, and here I was, by the end of the week, with a new episode to go out! I also felt more energetic than I had in awhile. The best way to describe it is that I felt like I had more movement.
And then I fell out of rhythm. I didn’t set my alarms for Mercury hours, thinking I could just record what time they were happening in my daily planner, but instead what I did was lose track of time and somehow miss them every day. The result is that I felt a huge drop in my energy. Despite transiting Mars aspecting three of my personal planets, two outer planets, and squaring my Midheaven, I felt tired, rather than motivated. Angry, yes. Frustrated, yes. Totally overwhelmed with work and trying to get my shit together each day? Extremely yes.
Today, I am spending my available Mercury hour writing this recap, though, and I’m already feeling better. More awake. More intellectually sharp and less angry. Mars has moved out of a square with my Mars, but continues the rest of its aspects, and most importantly, it hasn’t moved off of my Moon, my Sun, or my Midheaven. And yet taking this time out to do a Mercury related task (writing), I’ve felt like I had more time today, not less.
Right, so. Mercury’s divinatory message was this:
Don’t give up and don’t change course. Stick to the basics: podcast editing, astrological study, and writing this blog.
Self-mastery, discipline, and responsibility.
Know when you don’t know, and ask for help when you need it.
Be kind, humble, and open, so people want to help you.
And, most importantly… never forget that you cannot control the course of events.
That last one is the one we’ll be digging into next time. Probably. After all, I can’t control the course of events.
