So, you know it is Mercury Retrograde when that little missive you meant to publish at a later date from Hermes is accidentally published, and then you can’t find it for a while, because it was published as a page.

You especially know it is Mercury Retrograde when all the gods are in maximum rant mode. Well, maybe not. My natal Mercury is retrograde, so maybe deities are just inherently ranty, and I only notice during the retrograde. 

So, since it was that important, I have a message for you from Hermes.

Hermes, Re: Your Brains.

Ok. So, maybe not so much your brains.

Sorry, sometimes it’s all about packaging. You could be trying to give a person the world’s greatest gift, but all they are going to see it the brown paper on the outside, maybe not even open it.

That’s the people around you, by the by. The package you’ll never open.

Funny thing is, you were the one that wrapped them. You wrapped them in words like “ugly” and all the societal baggage that goes with it — reams and reams of crumpled paper.

You wrapped them with “dumb,” and “wrong.” You wrapped them in scorn.

Your loss, really.

So, maybe I lied. Because, really, this is about brains. The miracle of humanity is that no brain is an island. You think together, and by that miracle are all secrets uncovered.

Oh. Those mysteries you say you want to solve. Each person you know holds a puzzle piece. Wrapped up in the labels and epithets and slurs and categories you applied to them. And you’ve looked carefully on the outside of that paper, but see no puzzle pieces.

And what I don’t get. What I really really  don’t get, is what you imagine you are gaining by putting up that paper barier between you and the people around you. Why do you imagine that thinking of others as small will make you bigger?

You want to be great? You are only as big as your heart. You are only as big as the number of people that you love. The more qualifications a person needs to enter your sphere of affection, the smaller you are.

You don’t have to be small. Help people out of the paper they’ve been wrapped in. The more people, actual people, you find, the mightier you will become.

Some people are asshole filled assholes with asshole wrapping, but most people aren’t. Most people are still waiting for you to look for them.