In Search of the Roman God Mercurius

I have been working with Mercury also known as Mercurius (the Roman God of Exchange et cetera), since 2008 but have only recently begun to scratch the surface of his personality (let alone his mysteries!). I have encountered him as stately diplomat, knowledgeable teacher, wordsmith, swift-footed divine messenger, animal husbandman, lord of commerce, patron of public transportation, god of communication, and also as meddler, confusion monger, cheat, liar, and thief of wit. His facets are many. In addition to his manysidedness, I will say one of the greatest challenges in my search for Mercury has been his syncretism with Hermes. Sometimes I think I am one of zero people who actually think of Mercury as an individual god, separate from Hermes. To my thinking, they are like twins; they look alike, but they are different people with their own unique proclivities and personalities. A few times I have actually given up and tried working with Hermes. Each time, both gods protested! The second big challenge to working with Mercury is the scarcity of scholarly, English language works that treat him within his Roman cultural context with minimal (or even simply moderate) reference to his Greek brother. I have no trouble locating the precious few books that exist but they are in a language that I do not speak (usually French)…So close, yet so far. Each time this happens I hear Mercury whisper, “You know, you could always learn French.” Given the problem at hand (my lacking French knowledge not being the least of it), I appealed to him and constantly received the message that direct communication with him was best anyway, whether I had the scholarly sources of not. Who’d of thought it? The god of communication wanted me to actually communicate with him. Such rocket science was beyond me in the early stages of our relationship, but I eventually figured it out.

We slowly made regular direct contact; however, over the course of the three years that I have known him, at times he has seemed utterly present and at others profoundly distant. At first, I childishly thought it was me, that he did not like me or that I was not doing enough to honor him, but based on further conversations with him, I discovered that being everywhere and nowhere, present and distant is part and parcel of his nature. This realization was solidified for me in a vision from about four weeks ago. In it, I was in the middle of a vast ocean standing on a very, very tiny landmass. I felt very insecure and unsafe. The water was everywhere and I was nowhere. When I took control of my emotions in the situation I could suddenly leave the tiny landmass and navigate my way to more solid ground. When I arrived on the much larger, lush tropical island, Mercury was waiting for me on a high cliff overlooking the vast ocean that I had traversed. He actually looked completely out of place (black shirt, jeans, and bare feet sans wings) in this tropical paradise. We talked for a time and he helped me to see that I was being too clingy for a swift-footed god of wind and change. When I began to accept his transient nature, he reminded me of some old roles and began cluing me into other roles that he was playing in my life at the time. In the very same vision, as divine messenger (an oldie but a goodie) he returned my attention to Elegua, who also happened to be on the island and who had some words for me regarding our budding relationship. As I began speaking with Elegua about offerings and other matters, Mercury flitted off.

Mercurius’ transitory nature as expressed in the vision is consistent with other experiences I have had. Earlier I had noticed that he was exceedingly good to me when I needed him for “the big stuff” and wily as ever when I wanted him for “the little stuff”. For example, when my life changes majorly, that often but not always heralds the coming or going of a deity or spirit in my life. When the deity or spirit is coming, Mercury is usually the one who makes initial overtures with deities (before I figure out what the heck is happening), drafts contracts and the first set of “rules of engagement”, and arranges for the preliminary sets of signatures. This is the behind the scenes stuff that he only recently saw fit to share with me via an impression during a divination session; by the time I get a tap on my noggin (i.e. Mercury patching a call through from a deity), he, Hekate, Odin, and the other deities I work with have already come to some conclusions about their relationships with one another and the basics of how and why they will involve me. In the case of my March 2011 initial contact with Dionysos, by the time my head stopped spinning from the initial encounter, Mercury had a contract and sticky notes labeled “Initial Here” on the proverbial table for me to sign. He’d all but licked the tip of the pen. On the flip side, when I have to be out and about by 8:30AM, I hit snooze at 8:15 for ten minutes and then jump out of bed yammering prayers to Mercury to make the bus late. He pats me on the head for being audacious, and then chuckles knowingly as I exit my apartment just in time to see the bus sail by…without me on it. The bus was indeed late, but not late enough. He gets a kick out of that sort of thing because I was foolishly more than half serious in my brazen request.

The search for Mercury has been long and hard, but I think that fact is my fault. The tighter I squeeze the farther he flies but, when I relax and go with the flow, he’s present in some way or another, or sometimes he isn’t but in either case I am alright. Whether our relationship continues or ends in the near future, I feel blessed to have known and worked with Mercurius. But I won’t lie, I hope to get to know him better in the coming months! At this point, my intuition tells me that Mercurius and I have a least a few more encounters to look forward to.

Offerings at St. Louis Cemetery #1

From June 30th through July 5th, I visited New Orleans, LA for the Essence Music Festival. As a part of that trip, I also reveled in the rich spiritual heritage of the city. The highlight of that revelry was a visit on Tuesday morning to St. Louis Cemetery #1 where Marie Laveau, the “Voodoo” Queen of New Orleans was laid to rest in 1881 (just over a century before my birth). What can I say? It was a powerful and completely amazing experience to be near the resting place of such a well known, well respected, and highly magical person.

Marie Laveau by Dimitri Fouquet, native New Orleans artist

Around 11AM, I arrived at the cemetery gate with three others who knew nothing of M. Laveau or the spiritual heritage of the city. At the gate, I made offerings of Bacardi Gold Puerto Rican Rum and an old penny to Elegua as the Opener of the Way and the same to Oya as Lady of the Cemetery and Queen of the Dead. I had the intuitive sense that the offerings were accepted and so I entered. Of course my friends were already inside, starting to course through the Necropolis in search of M.L. We knew that she was near the front of the cemetery but with no map and no prior experience in such a place, we wandered. In our 20 minutes of searching, we discovered several places in the cemetery where spiritually-minded visitors had left offerings for the Dead. Each place was awe-inspiring, sacred, and beautiful. Between secret smiles and silent personal reflections, I explained to my three friends the significance of the offerings and the ways in which New Orleans style “Voodoo” and similar African-derived, syncretic traditions diverge from mainstream Christianity in terms of what constitutes an offering and the reasons for them.

Marie LaVeau by Holly Sarre', a contemporary folk artist and native of New Orleans

At the 20 minute mark, we found her! One of my friends saw the plaque on the tomb and signaled the end of the search. I was so giddy I could hardly contain myself. I waited for the picture takers and tourists to roam in other directions before I placed my hand on her tomb and paid my respects. I left pennies for her and her neighbors, the other residents of the Dead City. A sense of contentment and peace washed over me after I laid the offerings down and said my prayers of honor and respect. I did not get a creepy feeling in the cemetery, which was actually a little surprising, but then again, I was not alone roaming the Necropolis at midnight under a moonless sky; it was 11AM, birds were chirping and people were out and about in NOLA.

I will never forget the experience of entering that place, laying down offerings, sending prayers, and touching the sacred. I am so grateful to have been granted access and to leave offerings. My givings did not have strings attached. I was not asking for anything in return; I just wanted to give to the spirits there, M.L. not being the least of them. I took pictures of the tomb for my ancestor altar because I think of M.L. as an ancestor-in-spirit. The pictures that I do not use for my altar will be destroyed. Also, if and when my altar changes and the inclusion of M.L.’s tomb no longer seems right (either to her or to me), I will destroy that image too. The way I am thinking about it at this point: I entered St. Louis #1 for spiritual reasons and a photo without a spiritual purpose would be disrespectful to M.L. I don’t want to hang it on my wall, to put her on display and say look how cool this is. That scenario just seems wrong to me. So, if the picture’s spiritual purpose (in this case, as a private altar item) ever expires, it will be destroyed. But until that time, I look forward to having M.L. among those that I honor as Ancestors.

Energy Play, Spider the Messenger, and Singing for Elegua

On Sunday night, basically two days ago, Lady of Bones and I decided to flex our magickal muscles and engage in some energy exercises. We created an energy orb and experimented with various ways to power it and also a few different ways to give it instructions. As usual, I had moderate visual sensory input from the energy orb but was most sensitive to temperature and pressure changes related to our manipulations. Once the orb was formed, it was moderately warmer than the room itself and as I gave it shape, pressure gradients developed to denote its form and location. In terms of visual cues, it seemed white and once we hooked in “power cord” to feed it, it looked a lot like a light bulb just floating in my living room . It was great practice for me as well as being huge amounts of fun.

During one of the manipulations, a tiny spider descended from the ceiling directly over our altar and hung out for quite a while. He had the energy signature of a deity so we politely asked him who sent him. He replied Elegua (to me; Legba to Lady of Bones). We pondered why Elegua would send a spider. Neither of us had heard of any connections between Elegua and spiders (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist, we just have not heard of any). Our conclusion was that the gods are nothing if not practical. Elegua probably saw that the spider was the only thing around and so decided to send him as a herald. The spider did not seem off-put by the request.

Lady of Bones and I were honored by the visit, so we laid out an offering of a special orange-flavored tequila. Elegua also instructed me to sing for him, so I did. I half know one song dedicated to him, entitled Yaba Legba by OshunGaia (I love their work by the way!). I enjoyed singing for him and even considered throwing in a dance step or two but I refrained. I plan to learn a few more songs to sing for him as offerings (of course this is in addition to the rum and candy, which are still on my list of items to procure). I will share how that process proceeds as it moves along.

Praises to Elegua, Opener of the Way!

Orisha Elegua’s Sweet Tooth

So, random comment: A while back I posted about offerings for Elegua, Oya, and my ancestors. My intuition (or Elegua himself) kicked in and said he would like a dark liquor like rum, paired with some sort of candy. Well, I just bothered to research rum today, because I was curious about what it’s made from. Low and behold, rum is made of molasses or sometimes directly from sugarcane itself. Of course rum is not sweet to the taste but I have to give him points for being consistent . He likes his offerings sugar based.

An Offering for the Ancestors

Here’s a picture of last week’s Ancestor altar containing a few simple offerings to Elegua, the Opener of the Way (even to the Egun), to Oya, the One at the Cemetery Gate, and to my Ancestors. As mentioned in a previous post, I did some cleromancy to see what my Ancestors wanted for offerings, but that process was sidetracked by Elegua who demanded his due first. Once I acknowledged him, then Oya also voiced her opinions regarding offerings. I have yet to do a full divination session with my ancestors since Elegua appropriated my attention back in the day, but last Saturday I used my intuition to determine what they might like.

So, Elegua received two candles – one red and one black – dressed with Florida Oil, and a shot of Smirnoff Vodka. Oya also received a shot of the same type of vodka. And, my ancestors received vodka as well and a small dish containing an Ancestral Floral Water blend that I made myself (It smells amazing but I actually seem to have lost the formula so I doubt I will be able to recreate it). They accepted the offerings given this time around. However, I have this nagging intuitive sense that they would prefer rich, dark alcohol. So, in the future, I think I will offer my Ancestors some whiskey, give dark rum to Elegua, and cinnamon-infused vodka to Oya. I also owe Elegua some candy. I am thinking peppermints because my grandmother loved them, they are classic, and they contain one of his sacred colors. I hope that they like that a little more that what I was able to muster for last week’s offering.

I am really excited about moving forward with my Egun and with the deities who have taken to guiding me through the process.