Retrograde

Earthmom tells me that Mercury is retrograde. I haven't the foggiest what that means -- and to be frank, I don't put much stock in astrology (if any.) (another parenthetical: actually, there are times that I wonder if the Wise Men, the Magi, were astrologers. I know enough to realize that they read the stars in some mysterious ways -- and I've helped out with enough Planetarium programs to realize there were indeed portents in the sky oh so long ago. God is all-powerful; God created the stars and the sky. God has written things in nature that if we have eyes, we can see. All creation shouts praise to God -- why not the stars?)

But if there is anything to astrology -- if there is anything to the flow of gravity or energy or chi or whatever (the force!), I can believe that Mercury is retrograde. I certainly am retrograde recently. Retrograde, simply put, means that even though the planet is indeed speeding along its proscribed path through the universe, to us the planet seems to be going backwards.

I am retrograde with my universe right now. It appears that I am going backwards. I'm not involved in anything "important" (and we can debate exactly what THAT means!) -- no school, no big church project, no embroidery project, no writing project (except that may change a little). My big thing is just getting all this STUFF out of my house.

Jung would tell us that the house is the person -- that parts of the house are parts of ourselves. The main living room/kitchen is our public life, the bedroom is our intimate life. The basement is our sub-conscious, the attic is our awareness of the "other" (i.e. God) or the higher life above us. I am cleaning house. And it's not going so fast. I have a self-imposed deadline of next May. I would like the majority of it done in March. If I am to become (God willing and crick don't rise) a Probationary Elder and move in June, I need both houses -- my interior life and my exterior life -- in order.

So, I have recycled an entire box of paper this morning, sorted a rough sort of pictures/mementos from the grandfather's house (which made me blue -- we need to cherish the people in our lives while we can) and began to sort two drawers in the kitchen, throwing away what I could. I may even take pictures of the results in a few minutes.

Retrograde is a matter of perspective. I am indeed going forward, speeding along my prescribed path right now. Soon enough I will appear loop forward, but I know that I've always been going forward -- I need to learn to rest in that assurance.