making the most of Mercury Retrograde

Autumn Round 1 - Clearing the Channels in MYOGA SEASONS for Subscribers, Southern Hemisphere 2024

As you likely know, Mercury Retrograde is the time to clear communication pathways - back up your devices, clear unneeded media and messages, disrupt and dispose of the detrimental debris in the psyche, be cautious of conversations going awry...

That’s some of what I’ve personally been working with this past week (Mercury went retro 2 Apr). Mainly I’ve been noticing my mental patternings, and actively countering the thoughts and emotions that keep me stuck in regret, guilt, anger, victimization.

The seeming-backwards movement of Mercury is from Earth’s perspective and happens 3-4 times each year. It is not to be feared or blamed. Rather, we can welcome it as an opportunity to shore up communication channels in the sign and area it plays out.

As I write this, Mercury is conjoined to my natal Sun in the last degrees of Aries, a sign known for its bold, courageous (leaning towards impetuous), sovereign, yet childlike, nature. These degrees are familiar terrain for me since I live them and express them through my very beingness. But for those not steeped in late Aries energy, this could all feel very exciting, brash, headstrong, and even childish in the not-so-evolved way.

I often find I take such care during the actual retrograde period that the snafus I’ve been painstakingly avoiding generally happen as we emerge on the other side (which is 25 April). Because I’m super ready to move from retreat realm to advance mode, but we’re all so rusty after 3 weeks of navel gazing, I end up in ridiculous sumo wrestling type collisions of bumping bellies and heads with folks. I say ridiculous, but that light-hearted perspective is only possible when I’m not attached to the outcome, which is not all-ways the easiest vantage point to come by.

Here’s a song I’m learning. Translate that sentence to mean I am playing it on repeat, ad infinitum, and likely aggravating the neighbors with my voice in learning mode. I thought you might enjoy aggravating your neighbors with it too:

In the Southern Hemisphere, the MYOGA Season we have just shifted into is Autumn. In late 2009, when I was streamlining my teaching so I could focus more fully on the students rather than trying to invent new sequences for each class, I aligned the 7 traditional Vedic chakras (Kundalini considers the aura the 8th and Tibeten Bön works with 5) with the traditional 4 seasons of the year that I had the blessing to experience growing up in the NorthEastern USA.

As you can see from my drawing, I aligned 2 chakras with each season.

Except for Autumn.

I considered including the Aura to make it an even 2 chakras for each season, but instead opted to keep Autumn on its own. The neck, and in particular the voice that emerges from it, are stand out features of being human. Our accelerated evolution is closely tied to the point in time when we started speaking.

In a recent Environmental Problem Solving class, when asked who the stakeholders were, I said, “The dingo.” The teacher graciously tried to on-board my offer, but when I did it again in the next class with the flying fox, he responded, “But they can’t speak English.” It was clearly not the moment to take on the philosophical inquiry of how we define our terms and methods, but questioning the questions has become a bit of a theme for me and I suspect I’m becoming known for it.

Yet I persist because it’s baldly evident to me that the biggest stakeholder - the one with the most to lose in the problem we’re grappling with - is the plant or animal whose very existence is threatened. Often the whole reason we’re applying wicked problem solving skills in the first place is because some critter or plant is facing extinction. The professor’s allowance was to agree that the human groups advocating for the species are definitely key stakeholders.

So you see, not only is Voice hugely vital, English is the preferred language for the voice. Even when you’re a bird.

And I am acutely aware of this in my classes. We have such an amazing cohort of international students (whom I’ll highlight in an upcoming post) who speak so many languages and therefore need to translate not only from English into their native paradigm of comprehension, but also scientific English, which is an engrossing language-ing all on its own. I’m so impressed with them and the amount of extra work they do in simply receiving the materials. I imagine they bring entirely different and valuable views simply because their main filter is a different framework than English.

If you know me at all, you know that I am drawn to tracing back to the origins or words. Etymonline.com was the first app I ever installed. Friends and family have given me word-related gifts like books about language and a family dictionary with its dedicated wooden stand.

I’ve also been given gifts and clues for tracing my blood origins, such as recorded documentation of our ancestors. My first solo show is based on this tracing back of my family tree to the origins of the USA and the conflict that created it.

Now in grad school I am forever seeking to qualify terms. How do we know we’re speaking the same language, even when it seems to be English?!

So, getting back to the Mercury Retrograde, it’s a good moment (about 3 weeks) to reconsider. In fact anything starting in re- is generally the energy of retrogrades. Re-do, re-cycle, re-new, re-generate, re-evaluate, re-spond (perhaps more so than re-act, if at all possible!), and on and on.

When it’s a Mercury Retrograde, the re- focus is especially and particularly in relation to one’s thinking and communication. Mercury is the Roman hermaphroditic (in Greek it was Hermes—see the word connection?!) god who had access to all realms. S/he could go anywhere. The messenger with winged feet who is mercurially quick.

It’s good to slow down and re-cognize our own thinking processes, assumptions, and patterns of communication every once in a while.

Neck and wrist releases from a ceremonial sharing of the Seasons I did in 2016 in my old Wellington studio Powa Centre, to raise money for Standing Rock.

Swooping back around to Autumn standing alone as a MYOGA Season, the neck is such a singular channel. Not only is it the channel from which we express our truth - which is why public speaking is more horrifying than death for many - it is also the channel through which we receive our nourishment. It’s a two-way street whose Sanskrit name, appropriately enough, means purification. We’ll get into that in coming weeks though.

Here's what Others have to say about this practice:

"Melissa, thank you so much. In this brittle time, there's nothing better than hearing your clear, calm and sure voice in iso-yoga. I really am truly grateful for all the love you put into making these treasures. Namaste, esteemed teacher :)" ~John

For the free subscribers, here are some freely available videos from MYOGA’s YouTube channel that will give you a taste of the Seasons practice that’s beyond the paywall. Everyone wins!

Although the arms are connected to Anahata, the heart chakra, and the palms of the hands are considered secondary energy centres of the heart, the expressions we make with the hands are part of how we communicate, which is the realm of Vishuddha, the throat chakra. We generally gesture when we speak.

I think of mudras like programming the brain in reverse. Instead of the brain sending signals to manipulate something with the hands, we manipulate the hands and the pressure put on the nerve endings in the fingers sends a message back to the brain. I love mudras!

Here, in Autumn’s throat chakra focus, we’ll do quite a few mudras, starting with Surya (Sun) and Shankh (Conch shell) mudras in our purification pranayam practice from Kundalini Yoga. If you’re new to Breath of Fire, do it on its own first by going to the video below. We’ll be channeling this dynamic breathing into the left nostril only so it’s good to have some familiarity with it in both nostrils first. Also, have some tissues handy! You might wish to watch and listen before you give it a go, as it can be tricky to simultaneously hear the directions and do this somewhat noisy breathing.

In fact, the entire Sounds Module is the realm of Vishuddha and our focus in the ears, nose and throat, so check it out! You’ll find other pranayams and mantra sessions, including Breath of Joy that we get into later in this Autumn Round 1. If you’re short on time, yet want to create an impact or shift a mood, go to Sounds for single short practices.

That’s our extended intro to this practice with the free options from Sounds and Basics. If you’re keen to give MYOGA Seasons a go and want to receive new intermediate level sessions throughout the year that carry you through the Seasons and the Chakras, it’s only $6/month to subscribe!

And now for the fuller Sequencing Story: