What do we blame our problems on when Mercury isn’t in retrograde?
Emily Apuzzo Hopkins | March 1, 2020
My husband is a massage therapist and as a result of being in a field in which people are in touch with their more celestially selves, there is an awful lot of hooey spoken in those circles.
The other day I heard a slight guffaw as he ran across an article posted by friends in the field. A long paragraph accompanied it, of course, because the reader needs to learn everything that can be learned about this phenomenon that will grace us another two times this year… Mercury retrograde.
It got me thinking…
When Mercury isn’t in retrograde, what do we blame our problems on?
One article posted on the digital version of the Farmer’s Almanac mentioned that it was the period of time for blundered emails and mixed up travel plans among other hiccups one might come across during this 3-week period. Most of the other websites that pop up when you do a quick Google search are ‘astrologyzone’ this and ‘fortunetelling’ that. I also found an article by the title “Mercury Retrograde 2020 Calendar and Survival Guide”.
Survival. Guide.
It’s not like our reaction to this event is new… humans have been reacting to the sky in weird ways since humans have been watching the sky. It is in our very nature to be curious about what’s going on with our infinite umbrella. With that curiosity, however, often come twisted explanations and connected dots that aren’t meant to be connected.
When I spill a cup of coffee, I highly doubt Mercury’s motion in the sky is to blame.
Correlation that it happened yesterday on the 13th day of Mercury’s retrograde? Yes. Causation? … No. I spilled the coffee because I was trying to use the same hand to open the door… not because Mercury looks like he’s moving backward in the sky. Nothing can be blamed here but my hubris.
My question still remains, however.
What do we blame our problems on when Mercury isn’t in retrograde?
I suppose this question would be better suited to someone who does blame their problems on Mercury retrograde and then try to dig down to see what is responsible the other approximately 43 weeks of the year, but I’m afraid the answer - and the conversation to get there - would only leave me more befuddled than when we started.
The fact of the matter is, most of us don’t like to take responsibility for things. We don’t. Especially when it’s an error. We like seeking out the explanation that supports why something was out of our control. It’s much easier. And it’s especially easier when the responsible party is a 3.285 x 10^20 ton orb who isn’t going to be told “no”.
So, back to the question once again… what do we blame?
Oh, I don’t know. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we will think of something.
