moonday retrograde

I wanted to stitch on black cotton velveteen so after looking for about 15 minutes, going up and down the stairs, I found it. Then I couldn't find an embroidery needle. A single embroidery needle. I have about a dozen but not one of the three pincushions has one in it. So this is what I have to show for my little cotton velveteen excursion. A backstitch seems appropriate today!

On this moonday, we have a waxing moon moving into the fiery sign of Leo later today. The dryness of Leo requires us to keep up on hydration, our own and for those little seedlings we've been tending for the garden. Add to that houseplants, newly-potted pansies, trees & shrubs planted within the last year, the compost pile, our animals -- and we've got quite a watering list for the next few days.

Leo affects the heart and circulation, the back and the diaphragm. A Leo moon-time can be heart-warming or  heart-breaking. We can enjoy and direct Leo's fiery power, or we can over-do and over-stress giving way to emotional pain, high-blood pressure and a strained back. Leo gives us extroverted energy to shine however we may, it's up to us.

All the miscommunications and things I've forgotten or lost lately have been both comical and slightly annoying. But it's OK because I know that Mercury is retrograde (3/30/11 to 4/23/11) influencing such matters as communication, travel and ideas. Things like computer glitches, disconnects, misunderstandings, car problems, lost luggage, and even issues with contracts and filling out forms seem to occur now.  A Mercury Retrograde sometimes causes us to have to redo things, we may get the dates mixed up, the wrong data, etc. The good part is that it makes sense now to take time to reflect, review the past, reconsider, find things, listen better, and verify.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and has the fastest orbit. Its effect on us is high energy, it's going, going, going. So when it retrogrades for a three-week period, we get a sense of slowing down, stopping, maybe even going backwards. It's actually sort of a relief.

Of course, Mercury isn't literally going backwards now, it only appears that way. Like when a car next to you goes forward and makes you feel like you're rolling backward. In this case, as the faster planet passes a slower one, each sees the other one as moving backwards during that time.

Mercury Retrogrades ahead: 8/2/11 to 8/26/11 and 11/23/11 to 12/13/11!