Houston Chronicle - 2006

Mercury Retrograde July 2005

Questions & Answers by Marva Boehm Mason

What is Mercury Retrograde all about?

We have just emerged from the second Mercury Retrograde period of 2005, spanning from July 24 through August 17, and from 20 Leo back to stationary direct 8 Leo, and will be in Mercury Retrograde “shadow” period until August 30.    This happens about three times per year.   

You have heard a lot of myths and suggestions for these retrograde periods during year, but I would like to expand on them.   Its typically suggested that, during Mercury Retrograde,  you don’t sign legal papers, pour the slab on a new home, buy a car, start any new projects, or begin anything in your life that is “NEW”.    This is all good, but you cannot stop your life and stand still under Mercury is moving in direct motion again.  We all have lives to live and have to stay in motion.   We can’t crawl under the covers and stay there until August 30 when the coast is clear again.   So, let’s see how we can continue living, breathing, during this time.   

Mercury Retrograde is a wonderful time to look at all the things you have done, assess what has worked and what has not worked.   This is the time for marriage difficulties to surface, or difficulties in any type of relations – business, parent/child, personal.    Whatever is not working…..   the difficulties will rise to the surface so that when Mercury goes direct, after August 17, you then have the opportunity to fix what has not worked by whatever means is appropriate.

The retrograde period is good in business settings to go back through old client files, contact clients you haven’t heard from in a long time, find out why you haven’t heard from them, and have the opportunity to remedy whatever went wrong in the past.    Let the client know that you are using new ways or are interested in implementing new techniques to solve their problems.   Regain your client!   

We can’t all avoid buying a new car during a Mercury Retrograde period.   How to get around this dilemma?   Have your salesperson check the lot for cars which were not manufactured during the retrograde period.   There is a date on the new car which shows when it rolled off the manufacturer’s line and that’s the date you want to check for.  

As the current issue of Your Own Universe hits the streets, we will just be coming out of the shadow period.   This is the time when you will be having realizations from the previous retrograde period and looking for ways to resolve whatever surfaced for you during that time and that you are seeing clearly that you need to find remedies to old situations which are no longer workable for you.   

The retrogrades are wonderful to give us time to rehash, reassess, and truly examine our feelings, thoughts, emotions, and practical issues in our lives to see where we are out of sync.

Animal/Pet Communication

Questions & Answers – by Marva Boehm Mason

Communicating with your pet –

Are there times when you can’t quite understand what your pet wants, or you can’t convey to your pet what you want?   We’ve all been there!    Time to call a pet psychic?   Not really.   Its time for you to communicate with your own pet!

The first thing to do in communicating with your pet is to clear your mind.   What is it that you want to make your animal understand.    How can your pet possibly understand you when you have so many thoughts racing through your brain.   Its not the same as telling your child or spouse that you are off to go shopping as you race through the house with your keys in your hand and out the door.    Your animal needs for you to settle down your mind and thoughts, almost to a meditative state.

Second, let’s get on the eye level of your animal.   Either have them in your lap near you, or get down to their level where eye contact can be made.   Your pet doesn’t understand English, Spanish, French, Italian, or Russian.   Pets understand tone and intent.   Why is it that is has always been said that pets are intuitive and can pick up on whether someone likes animals or not?   Because they do.   They understand truth, and what is coming from the “vibes” of the person projecting them.   

Now, we have slowed down our thoughts and mind, we have gotten on the eye level of our pet  and now we are ready to “hear” what is on their mind, and allow them to “understand” what is on our mind.    Don’t allow your actions to be in direct conflict of what you want them to understand.    Anger and frustration will get you nowhere.   If an animal is acting out a problem, try to understand the root of the problem.   Is the animal upset because they are left alone too much?   How can you compensate with them…..  After all, you do have to go to work, and have to be gone a certain amount of time to earn your paycheck.   

Animals need reassurance that you will return, you will love and feed them, and you will take care of them.   Communicating with your animal starts in your heart and mind.   Remember, your pet doesn’t understand English, but does understand the tone in which language in spoken and understands the body language that you convey at the same time.

Tarot Cards - Justice

Questions & Answers – February 2006

By Marva Boehm Mason

Karma seems to be on my mind as I contemplate the Tarot Card “Justice”.   What is Justice?    In my early training with the Tarot, I learned that Justice showed that the “right thing will happen”.   But, what is the right thing?   Is it limited to just this lifetime?    Through my personal exploration of this card, and readings, I have come to feel that this is a card which may encompass more than this particular existence that we are living.   

We all, from time to time, watch detective, sleuthing programs on television, and watch how sometimes the murderer gets away, or there’s a mistake and there is a wrong victim.   If we rise above this earthly existence and try to look at some of this from another perspective, from the perspective of karma, it sheds new light on the happenings of life.

In particular, I was watching a movie recently, in which a cop pulls over a couple and takes things too far by intimidating the couple who were at a disadvantage because, obviously, the cop is the one with the gun.   The cop took personal liberties with the wife, then let them go.   The wife was enraged   The following day, the wife was traveling in a vehicle and involved in a traffic accident where the vehicle rolled over.   This same cop happened to be at the scene and was the only one there who could now save this woman from a fiery death within moments if he didn’t get her out of the vehicle where she was trapped.    I can’t help but look at these situations from a karmic viewpoint.    What was the karma between this cop and this particular woman?   One day he violates her, and the following day he saves and restores her life.

Life is so short and yet so chocked full of events which are entangled in karma with others.   I have come to feel that, like the Justice card in the Tarot, sometimes the right thing happening is not necessarily tied to this life time, but to a collection of lifetimes involving the various participants.  Without knowing what is written in the Akashic Records, we really don’t know what the “right thing” is.   We just keep on living and going through those revolving chamber doors making karmic deposits to be reckoned with at some later time.