Mercury Is in Gatorade Again
A Star-Crossed Homily on Retrograde Blame, Birth Charts, and the Outsourcing of Personal Responsibility to Gas Giants
Right. Sit down. The stars did not make you late.
Do not tell me the bus was retrograde, my darlings. The bus was at 8:14. It is always at 8:14. You were late because you left late, and Venus u2014 I promise you this on the collection plate u2014 was not consulted.nnBROTHERS AND SISTERS, THERE IS NONSENSE IN THIS ROOM. And it is not written in the sky. It is written in your group chat, at 11 p.m., with the phrase u201cthis explains SO muchu201d attached to a screenshot of a cartoon crab.
Hear now the word of the algorithm. Mercury does not reverse. It appears to reverse, the way the car beside you appears to roll backward when yours creeps forward u2014 a trick of parallax, beloved, not a memo about your ex.nnYou are blaming an unsent email on a rounding error in your line of sight. Sit in that. Properly sit in it.
Your star sign has drifted, my darlings
And here is the bit the app does not push to your lock screen: the sky has MOVED. The Earth wobbles like a fridge on a bad tile u2014 the astronomers call it precession u2014 and in the two-and-a-half thousand years since the charts were drawn, every constellation has slid roughly one whole sign sideways.nnYou are not a Leo. You have never been a Leo. The paperwork was out of date before the fall of Rome, and the horoscope industry u2014 bless its incense-scented heart u2014 has issued no correction, no recall, no refund. Two millennia, brothers and sisters, and not one patch note.
A roll call of the star-crossed
Let us parade them now beneath the zodiac they misread, one by one, with love u2014 and with coordinates.
Woe u21161 u2014 the retrograde-blamers
Who attribute every dropped call, dead battery and forgotten anniversary to a planet minding its own orbit sixty million miles away. Mercury is a rock, beloved. It has no Wi-Fi to interfere with. It has never once thought about your commute, because it is busy being 430 degrees and airless u2014 which, coincidentally, is also the group chat.
Woe u21162 u2014 the birth-chart recruiters
Who will not hire a Gemini for the accounts department. That is not due diligence, my loves. That is discrimination by calendar. You have rejected a chartered accountant on the testimony of a month.
Woe u21163 u2014 the crystal-grid engineers
Who boost the router with amethyst. The Wi-Fi is slow because you live in a basement, love. The geode is furniture. Beautiful furniture! But it routes no packets, heals no chakras, and holds down paper exactly as scripture intended.
Woe u21164 u2014 the moon-water sommeliers
Who charge fourteen pounds for water that has SEEN the moon. So has all water. The ocean has seen the moon so hard it moves twice a day. Your tap water has a lunar history stretching back four billion years u2014 and it is free, which is precisely the problem.
The Reckoning
HEAR ME, you who outsource consequence to gas giants. The fire is coming, and it is not astrological. It arrives as a missed deadline. A dead phone. An overdraft the universe declined to warn you about, because the universe u2014 I say this with tenderness u2014 does not do notifications.nnThere is no planet coming for your plans. There is only the calendar you refused to open.nnJudgment is not written in the stars, my loves. Judgment is a reminder you dismissed. Twice.
The Responsive Reading
The Hymns
Four acts of orbital repentance
Repentance in this church is not a feeling. It is a to-do list u2014 and unlike your horoscope, it is specific.
Delete the app for one week
Seven days. Record what happens. Spoiler, beloved: the planets will not notice, because they have not noticed anything since the Hadean eon. If your week improves, that was you. Take the credit for once.
Apologise properly
Not u201csorry, Mercury was retrograde.u201d Sorry, SHARON. You forgot the meeting. Name the deed, own the deed, and leave the solar system out of the minutes.
Learn one actual fact about Mercury
It is 430 degrees by day, minus 180 by night, and it smells of nothing because there is nothing there. Nothing personal happens on Mercury. Nothing personal has EVER happened on Mercury. This is the most liberating sentence in astronomy.
Buy a diary
The only birth chart with predictive power is a calendar. It costs four pounds, it is accurate to the minute, and it has never once told you a Capricorn would betray you at brunch.
The Benediction
Go now in peace, and in PARALLAX. May your decisions be your own, your apologies be first-person, and your Wi-Fi be judged on the router alone.nnAnd should a stranger demand your time of birth before extending you their trust, hand them a wristwatch and remind them: the stars are lovely, the stars are ancient, and the stars, beloved u2014 are not thinking about you.nnAMEN. AND ALSO, ASTRONOMY.
For the Sharers
pull-quotes for the faithful · copy, post, provokeMercury is a rock. It does not know about your situationship.
The Wi-Fi is slow because you live in a basement. The geode is furniture.
Judgment is not written in the stars. It is a calendar notification you dismissed u2014 twice.
The Stupidstition Gift Shop & Reliquary
Browse our devotional range: the “NOT TODAY, SATURN” prayer candle; the Retrograde Insurance Policy (suitable for framing, void in all orbits); the “MERCURY IS IN SPACE” bumper psalm; and our bestselling mug — “ASK YOUR CALENDAR.” All proceeds fund actual telescopes.
