Lammas 2011



Pete Standfast:Wheat field on a stormy day near Cardiff:

Well our closest neighbouring planet Mercury turned retrograde on Tuesday 2nd August 2011. Ruling communications and travel this portents delays, glitches, lost emails, missed phone calls and other such funky contemporary stuff until Friday 25th August. In ye olden days this would have indicated delays in similar but more lengthy processes. The horses would go lame or throw a shoe, the wheel would come off the cart, the messenger would never arrive - literally.  A contemporary example for the unbelieving - the NHS jobs website began experiencing technical  problems on August 2nd and was still malfunctioning three days later. This site serves the entire UK for NHS recruitment with all Health Authorities via Human Resource departments linked in. The scale of the problem therefore is nationwide, and anyone wishing to search for any  NHS job vacancies or process one, would have to revert to phoning the relevant organisation [if they could find the number on the web]. Coincidental to those who think astrology is bunkum, but look at the recent history of other significant web issues - newer viruses or wholesale Trojan attacks, and the dates often fall within the realm of Mercury retrograde. Clouds of volcanic ash, airline strikes or industrial action at  ferry terminals occurred, as did  the closure of the Channel Tunnel by the elements of fire and snow a couple of Christmases ago. So what to do- ironically planning ahead  can help you and your business to cruise through. Awareness of the cyclical nature of the planets and their interplay is useful- however much a society of scientific rationalists may decry their influence. Noting the annual triple events of 'Mercury retros' prepares you for delays and hiccups in general plans - in my case the throttle potentiometer of the car giving out and needing replacing.  Do not assume your emails arrived; check in with recipients of goods and communications; followup travel plans with backups; double check tickets and details. Prepare to wait and be more thorough in general,and accept that however much we may like to think we have total control over events, there are many factors seen and unseen that are in play.