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Beauty Is Perhaps a Matter of Distance
Skin, hair, shadow, texture. A closer look at beauty, where the smallest details matter and being seen means letting your guard down.
Words by Rashunda Tramble
Illustration by Weicher Umbruch
Opinion
Are you really behind in life? Or are you under the illusion that you have to meet society’s standards? During Mercury retrograde season, the Moon card can help you find your own path.
Mercury is retrograde from 29 June to 24 July. Cue the warnings about checking your electronics, backing up important data, avoiding miscommunication and so on. I’m not a fan of the negative messages normally connected to the event. But what happens astronomically during that time has always captured my attention: Mercury does not move backwards during retrograde. It appears to move backwards because of an optical illusion.
The planets in our solar system travel at different speeds. Think about what happens when you’re driving and you pass a slow-moving car on the autobahn. The car you’re passing looks like it’s going backwards, but it’s not. It’s an illusion.
With Mercury, it’s the other way round. It is the fastest planet in our solar system, and on its inner orbit it regularly overtakes the Earth. As it swings past between us and the Sun, it looks like Mercury is moving backwards. But it’s not: it’s an illusion.
WHAT THE CARD IS TELLING YOU
And that’s where July’s Tarot Card, the Moon, comes in.
The Moon card shows a wolf and a dog howling at the sky as the luminary rises overhead. A crayfish climbs slowly out of a pool. Two towers frame a path that winds into the distance.
The card can represent our fears and how we wrestle with the dark and spooky. But the Moon card can also signal illusions, perhaps things we really believe are true and present in our lives but aren’t. And maybe those things are dark and spooky as well. ‘I’m 35 and I haven’t landed a director position at my company. My co-worker is 10 years younger than me and has just been promoted. I’m a complete failure.’
‘Ugh, this damned influencer posts nothing but bullshit and has 50,000 followers. I can’t crack 10,000. What am I doing wrong?’
‘I would love to invite my classmate to my flat, but it’s not as nice as hers. And all of my furniture is from Ikea.’ We travel through life noticing how much better everyone else is supposedly doing, how much faster everyone else is moving. We try our best to keep up. And when we can’t keep up, the self-criticism starts. We think we’re moving too slowly, like that car on the autobahn. Or that crayfish crawling out of the pool.
But the Moon card has a few questions for us this month: What if we allowed our eyes to adapt to the dark? What if we waited for the landscape to reveal itself and watched how the scary shadows morph into beautiful trees? What if we climbed out of that pool of competition and allowed the soft light of the Moon to lead us down our own path at the speed that’s right for us?
Of course, some life events are determined by biology. The role age plays in getting pregnant is an example. But other norms and events, such as when someone should be promoted, what a suitable net worth is, or what social status we should strive for, are constructs of the capitalist, patriarchal society we live in.
ASK YOURSELF
Perhaps you think you’re behind or haven’t lived up to society’s expectations because you’re looking at things from one perspective, like us standing here on Earth believing that Mercury is actually going backwards.
There are a couple of ways you can work with the Moon card’s messages and Mercury retrograde this month:
Write down, or record in a voice note, the life events you believe you should have achieved by now. Then reread or listen to your list and ask yourself where those ideas came from. Are they actually true for you? Or are you under the illusion that they’re true? What adjustments can you make to live life at a speed that’s right for you?
Since Mercury rules communication, think about how you’re communicating with yourself this month. Can you speak kind words about your achievements, whether they’re big or small? And what if you don’t ‘achieve’ anything this month? How about communicating with yourself in a loving way no matter what?
This month, allow yourself to slow down and let the gentle beams of the Moon show you where you are in the here and now. And remember, you’re not behind. You’re travelling at the right speed in your own lane.
WEICHER UMBRUCH’S TAROT DECK HAS 78 CARDS AND COMES WITH A MANUAL. IT IS AVAILABLE ON THEIR WEBSITE.
