A planetary meditation for Mercury

a planetary meditation practice addressed to Mercury

What the tradition reads

The Western planetary tradition treats a meditation to Mercury as an appeal for clear thought, honest speech and skill in exchange with others, worked in Mercury's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on a Wednesday, dressed in green or another of the colours Agrippa's own chapter gives the planet, with mastick burning if it can be had, mastick being named first among the gums Agrippa's chapter on planetary fumes gives to Mercury. The tradition reads Mercury as a planet that takes on the character of whatever it stands near, and treats a Mercury practice as an exercise in choosing, deliberately, what that changeable nature will be turned toward on this occasion, speech that persuades honestly rather than speech that merely wins. The Vedic remedial tradition reads the same working through Budha, and prescribes it most often for whoever stands in a Mercury dasha or whose lagna lord is Mercury: the Navagraha Stotram's verse to Budha recited on his day, Wednesday, charity of green cloth or moong beans given on the same day, and, where a jyotishi has examined the whole chart and prescribed it, an emerald worn on the little finger, for a trial period, removed if the trial does not go well. Both traditions read the practice as steadying a quick mind rather than slowing it down.

The story

The twenty eighth hymn in the standard Orphic sequence addresses Mercury under his Greek name Hermes, calling him messenger of Jove and Maia's son, prefect of contests, ruler of mankind, and prophet of discourse, whose winged feet carry him through the air and whose cunning once killed the watchful Argus, closing with a plea for graceful speech and an increase of memory; the hymn's own instructions name frankincense as its fumigation. Thomas Taylor's English translation of the whole collection, made at the close of the eighteenth century, remains the version most commonly read. The Vedic tradition's parallel verse, from the Navagraha Stotram attributed to Vyasa, calls Budha matchless in form and gentle, His own Wikipedia page names him the son of Chandra, the Moon, and of Rohini or Tara, and ties his birth from Tara to the myth of the Tarakamaya War. Two unrelated hymns, Greek and Sanskrit, each address the same quick planet as gentle and persuasive rather than as forceful.

The practice

1. Begin with the blessing of the room, cleaning the space, setting out salted water and an unlit lamp, and asking the One who made the lights that the place be clean, quiet and kept. 2. Sit in Mercury's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on a Wednesday, with green set out and mastick burning if available. 3. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, twelve rounds, letting the mind settle. 4. Say the address aloud: in the name of the One who made the lights, turn to the light of Mercury, and to its angel or deva, asking for clear thought and honest speech, and that it be given in the light and harm no one and ask nothing against anyone's will. 5. Recite the Navagraha Stotram's verse to Budha, or read the Orphic hymn to Mercury, slowly, three times. 6. For the sitting, choose one exchange, a letter, a conversation, an agreement, that needs honest words, and rehearse it silently until it feels plain rather than clever. 7. Sit for five to twenty minutes, then give thanks, put out the lamp, and carry that plain speech into the exchange itself.

Written from

Corpus key practice:Mercury.