A friend of mine recently described a scene from a yoga class she attended: there she was, unrolling her mat and getting ready to practice her sun salutations, when she overheard another classmate earnestly say, “Are ANY of us going to survive Mercury in retrograde?”
She thought it was amusing that such a curious statement could have so much universal understanding in that setting, and it made me think. To the uninitiated, Mercury retrograde is said to happen several times a year. It happens when the planet appears to slow down and change its movement, and astrological chaos ensues. Plans change, you become less proactive, and full of doubt. Misunderstandings and bad luck abound for all of the signs of the zodiac when Mercury is in retrograde.
According to the internet (so it must be true) people with my sign (Taurus) develop communication issues with loved ones when Mercury is retrograde. Others experience money problems, a short temper or trouble at work. Honestly, I don’t know how much stock to put in my horoscope, but as I saw my friend’s post, I started thinking.
I have been feeling quite untethered lately. I’ve been feeling that my world is turned upside down, and nothing is certain. More than once in the last few weeks, I’ve woken up in a cold sweat, damp through my pajamas. And I notice that I toss and turn during the night. Something is unsettling me. Quite frankly, it did seem to start around the time Mercury supposedly started misbehaving, around Oct. 31.
One of the things that has very much been on my mind is my dear friend Tanya Maeser.
This time last year, I thought of her every step of every walk I took alone in the woods. I thought of her on every bike ride, and every hike. At the time, I was wondering if she would get better, then pondering how I could possibly say goodbye. And then, in a blink, it was as though someone blew out the candle and her light was gone.
The change was pretty sudden and unexpected to me. It was also about a year ago that I went to her funeral. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, with a blindingly blue sky and a biting wind that whipped through my skirt and chilled me to the bone. It blew and blew, beautiful but sad, oddly peaceful and yet physically uncomfortable.
As this anniversary approached, I wasn’t sure what to do. Do I reach out to her husband and let him know I’m thinking of her, or would that be an unwelcome reminder if it came during an unpredictable respite from the pain? Do I send him a letter? Make a comment on his Facebook page? I wasn’t sure, so I did nothing.
Then one day I saw a post he wrote about sweet Tanya, and I realized the best thing I could do is remember her in any way I can. And so I started to think about the influence Tanya had on my life, and the ways she impacted me.
For starters, Tanya is one of the reasons I decided to become a yoga instructor and receive my 200-hour registered yoga teacher certificate. When we lived in Taiwan, she would take a few of the teachers and lead them in a heartfelt practice. She was such a natural teacher, and I’ve never felt as cleansed by deep twists than in her class.
Tanya taught me to worry less about what the world thinks. One morning, she wrote the lyrics to a Cat Stevens song, “On the Road to Find Out,” on the large whiteboard in the kitchen where we lived. “Well I left my happy home to see what I could find out,” she wrote. “I left my folk and friends with the aim to clear my mind out. Well I hit the rowdy road and many kinds I met there, and many stories told me on the way to get there.”
Tanya was openly vulnerable, and she wasn’t afraid to show her weaknesses. One time, we got in a disagreement because my birthday was a week or so before hers, and she was annoyed at me because she wanted more time to have the spotlight on herself, and I was stealing the thunder. But her genuine, open communication allowed me later in life to have the most honest and difficult conversation with her than I have ever had with anyone. I remember thinking after how much I loved her, that I was willing to share my vulnerabilities with her as well.
Tanya is also the first person to make me begin to have an understanding of metaphysical things, like the potential credibility of astrological signs. She told me about the moon and rising signs, in addition to my more commonly known sun sign of Taurus. I remember her looking in a reference book to figure out the cosmos’ explanation of what makes me who I am.
This time of year, I’m scattered, sometimes unfocused and a little worried. It sounds exactly like the symptoms of something that my friend Tanya absolutely would have believed in, and something that further reminds me, lovingly, of her — it sounds like Mercury is in retrograde.
Amy Choate-Nielsen writes a bimonthly column on her family experiences and lessons learned from her grandmother, Fleeta, who died before she was born.