Although I don’t have hard data to compare to, and I’m still dealing with the fallout in a lot of ways, I do feel that the Venus talisman and tincture I made in preparation for that retrograde period helped me get through relatively unscathed. So, in anticipation of the upcoming Mercury retrograde, Aradia and I decided to put together some talismans along similar lines.
Now, in a magical fantasy world where we’re planning further than two weeks ahead, we’d have done that a week or so ago, before the “pre-retrograde period” I keep reading about. In that same magical fantasy world, though, sticking to one’s daily practice would be fun and easy, not real effort, and I would already have fixed everything that’s wrong with my brain years ago.
I like to work during the Hours of Night. Unfortunately, this is the wrong time of year for that. We printed out the templates and started casting our circle just as the Hour of Mercury came this past Tuesday—taking advantage of the waxing, near-full Moon, rather than waiting on the Day of Mercury—and were barely able to suffumigate the charms, incant the Orphic Hymn to Hermes, and light the offering candles before the Hour had ended. As with the Venus retrograde, we made a planetary incense blend to suffumigate, and then used the excess to make a tincture as a backup/battery for the talismans. We also recharged the safe-travel talisman I made with Sannafrid shortly before making the road trip from Sunrise to KC.
I look forward to seeing how well they help. We should probably have made a separate talisman for Aradia’s workplace; we should definitely do so before the retrograde gets much closer.