Mercury retrograde: friend or foe?!
I’ve been having the ultimate Mercury retrograde experience. I had six free days without work scheduled due to a canceled trip. Instead of going camping or on some other summer adventure, I decided to stay home and tackle my project piles filling every corner, shelf, and cupboard of the house. Projects here, ideas there, paperwork to manage everywhere!
I struggled with this decision, berating myself for not choosing FUN. For choosing work, cleaning my house, and tidying my piles instead of going out into the big, wide world; being in nature; having some downtime with Jordy. The truth is: I needed this time at home. And I needed to struggle with it to come around to it. Mercury retrograde often trips us up and teaches us some lessons if we listen.
I did have some herbal help along the way. Damiana and milky oats a few times a day calms and lifts my mood. While cleaning out my tincture shelf, I found an almost-full bottle of eleuthero. Taking that in the earlier parts of the day helps with focus and energy. I usually make a French press of tea after dinner, but this week I started making one in the morning to highlight hydration. Tulsi, for adaptogenic, cheering properties; nettles for strength and nourishment; mint for its fresh, enlivening zip makes drinking a non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic beverage easy.
Mercury retrograde is a great time to reconsider things. Do I need this belt? Do I really need to keep a huge bin full of bubble wrap and packing paper? Let’s not even get started on the clothes in the closet! Everything goes under the microscope. Michelle Schultz and I even reconsidered the popup at Lucky Heron.
We decided to push it out a week, so instead of popping up this Thursday, July 24th as I had mentioned last email, we celebrated National Cheesecake Day with Shannon Moore of Flour Girl on Wednesday, July 30th. Remember those Lemon Crinkle Cookies I mentioned? Same fabulous baker; new round of goodies to enjoy!
We offered an herbally based Summer Dreams Experience. Michelle helped participants stitch up an herbal dream pillow, while I had the infused oil bar stocked for customized, luxurious body oil blends. The properties of the chosen herbs will follow the makers into their dreams and throughout their days as they massage the oils into their lovely skin, and snuggle up to their dream pillows at night.
And there was, of course, wine and cheesecake! Because enjoying cheesecake and wine (or tea) with friends IS self-care. Shannon had four options to choose from, and I wasn’t at all sad that the one she had set aside for me was chocolate cheesecake with espresso cream!
Visit Lucky Heron when you’re looking for a gift or for something to treat yourself to. Michelle has impeccable taste and the friendliest staff! And keep an eye: there will be more community events there.
A few lessons I’ve learned from Mercury:
DON’T go down the clutter-clearing rabbit hole! Keep it or not; just decide.
Use airplane mode to maintain FOCUS on the task at hand instead of on the phone in hand.
Take breaks.
Exercise is the best way to start the day.
In the future, a ten-minute tidy up each day is easier than a six-day tidy up once a year.
While I won’t share a picture of my many project piles scattered about the house, I will share one of my favorite parts of the weekend. My nieces and I went blackberry picking, which obviously means we have to make pie! Summertime at its best!