The Show Must Go On

Mercury Retrograde in Leo x New Moon in Leo opposite Pluto

We went to see Wicked last weekend.

It caused consternation in the family to challenge the conviction that buoyantly beautiful Glinda could be anything other than an unquestionably loving and supportive sorceress, that the Good Witch of the South might (God forbid!) do something even a little bit wicked. And as the questions kept coming in - as is often and somewhat surprisingly the case in conversations with curious children - I found myself getting more and more philosophical.

“Maybe it’s not about being good or bad," I heard myself say, “Maybe good and bad don’t even really exist, maybe they’re just witches and you don’t have to decide who’s good and who’s bad.”

It was such a relief to say, both because I’m never entirely sure what’s going to come out of my mouth at the end of a vigorous interrogation and because it’s what I really needed to hear. I needed to hear it because there is (always?) a show about good and bad going on out there on the world stage, and it’s remarkably similar to the narrative I saw play out on stage.

Perhaps you know the story: There is a wonderfully powerful and ultimately impotent wizard who is intent on consolidating power over the people of the land. He declares there is a common enemy, and then he proceeds to subjugate, imprison and kidnap both the vulnerable members of society and those who would threaten his dominance. He spreads fear and misinformation among the populace, he co-opts an institution of higher learning to quell intellectual opposition, and then he dances between temptation and threat as he seeks to expand his inner circle of influence. It works brilliantly until suddenly it doesn’t, when the witches wake up to the love in their hearts and find the courage to assert a new universal vision of peace, harmony and cooperation.

The wizard draws his power not from the grimoire he cannot read, but from the well-worn dictator’s playbook. And what’s amazing is that he doesn’t even try to hide it. He’s doing it right there out in the open, reading publicly from his playbook at every possible opportunity. It is painfully obvious to behold, and yet as a member of the audience there is nothing you can do to stop the show. Worse yet, because you know how it ends, it would be positively detrimental to cry for a halt before the terrifying chaos of the wizard’s reign gives way to the benevolent forces of order.

So you watch. You watch with hope, you watch with faith, you watch with trust. You watch and you learn. You see where this story has been playing out in your own life; you see the way you’ve created good guys and bad guys. You see how you’ve been a good witch; you see how you’ve been a bad witch. You start to see yourself in all of the characters because - in someone else’s world - you have played all of these roles. And then you step back for long enough to appreciate this invitation to see more of yourself; you find gratitude for getting to watch the show at all. You remember that your power grows as you allow your awareness to expand, and you know that - like quantum physics shows us - you are in fact changing the world just by looking at it differently.

This wisdom comes to me as jack-of-all-trades Mercury makes its way backwards through the playfully performative sign of Leo. I love Mercury retrogrades because they give us the distance we need to appreciate the patterns we weave with our thoughts, the patterns that create our personal experience of reality. And it is all too fitting for Leo to consider this through the lens of the theater, to step out of the spotlight and sit down to watch how our patterns play out like personalities.

Mercury retrogrades are not times to direct our perceptual prowess into outward observations, but rather occasions to consider our perspective as the observer. In other words: this is the moment to realize that the story is in the eye of the beholder, that it’s you in there writing the chapters of your life. Your awareness is the audience of your thought theater, and you consciously merge with it when you exit stage left from the drama your mind has been busy creating. I say this because our minds love to talk about good and bad, because they will cheerfully cast all of the characters we meet as allies and opponents. We will find an “us” and we will find a “them”, and we will duel with ourselves until one of us plays dead.

This show goes on as long as we permit it, and with yesterday’s New Moon in Leo sitting opposite Pluto, the show might currently look like watching a parade of horribles. Pluto loves to plumb the depths of our subconscious, and in Aquarius we are likely to find shadows of exclusion, isolation, and inhumane treatment. This Leo New Moon is here to bring our skeletons out of the closet and into the sunshine, and retrograde Mercury can help us to reflect on best to see them. Yes, the show must go on - and also yes, the show looks awfully different if we look at it through the loving eyes of the heart.

It is all too fitting that Leo rules the heart, and Mercury in Leo can lead us into the generous place of non-judgment that exists below our ego’s need to be on the “right” side. This is where we find our peace, and it is where we get to make a more conscious choice about the kind of narrator we want to be. So let’s use this energy to challenge our thoughts and change how we see things. Let’s find a story that provides us with hope, faith and trust. Let’s take another look at the versions of Wicked that are playing out in our heads, in our lives, in our world, and let’s dare to ask:

Is this a story of oppression, or is it a story of empowerment?

Mercury will be retrograde through August 11, and then we’ll have another two weeks to integrate our experience as it makes it way back forward to the point of initial departure. We’ll also be blessed with another New Moon in Leo - a true astrological Blue Moon - on August 23, so we’ll soon get another serving of the story as it continues to unfold all around us.

This is also a particularly wonderful month to get to know Leo, and we’ll be working with the stars more closely over on Loving Astrology this month. Our mission is to offer straightforward ways to move from fear to love with stellar support, and - especially with Pluto in the cosmic headlines - there are big opportunities for this in the air right now. I’d love to see you there.

Love,

Patrick

PS: To get a flavor for the kinds of energy exercises you’ll see on Loving Astrology, check out the latest entry from my Energy Encyclopedia and learn how a Havening practice can help you calm your nervous system in minutes.

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