July was a blast of summer heat and Mercury retrograde mess.
And Mercury retrograde means a lot, but most of all, that things will happen to you — things outside your control. Errors, glitches, or worse: your ex can reach out. The terror. This same time last year, I successfully lost my luggage as I was travelling home, and it took me the whole month to track it down and get it back. It found its way back to me eventually — I received the poor thing after it flew across the whole of Europe four or five times. This year? The flat above me had a broken pipe and flooded my upstairs neighbours, and consequently, my ceiling too.
Picture undefined watermarks all over my ceiling, like pipelines, abstract markings. Even tiny cracks appeared along the edges of the walls. Damage done. And picture me just standing in the middle of my room, staring up, helpless and frozen in time, watching the water appear and run, paving its way across my walls. Formless figures, disorganised patchwork. I just stood there and waited, almost expecting the whole ceiling to fall on me. Maybe this is what they mean when they say the sky is falling. It felt like that. In that moment I had no idea when — or if — it was going to stop. I didn't know it wouldn't drown my whole flat. I didn't know what would come. A moment that, in its entirety, felt like: nothing is under my control. All you can do is watch and pray. Or something along those lines — like asking the universe not to let the heavens fall on you.
And that's what happened. Suddenly it all stopped; water didn't try to escape anymore. What's left is watermarks all over my head, and tiny cracks along the edges of the walls. Barely visible, but they are there.
Water running across my ceiling is so metaphoric to me — there's something otherworldly about it. And my first instinct is to question it: what does this mean? Because everything must mean something, right? What was the universe trying to tell me? Probably to stop and look — because that's all you can do when there's disorder around you and above you. And really, sometimes this is all someone can do. Now, every time I look up, I see those tiny cracks that remind me something happened, and needs to be fixed. Every big and small thing that happens to us leaves a mark — barely visible, or one that screams from afar. A reminder. A memento. Time happened, chaos was here, and now you heal.
In occult studies — tarot, astrology, alchemy — water represents our emotions. Maybe somewhere along the way, emotions ran amok: high, crazy, all-encompassing, all over the place. Outer turmoil and inner, because peace was disturbed, nerves were tense. And now — settle down. The roof is still over your head, and that's more than the majority of the world can say about themselves and their lives. Here is the reminder: how lucky I am that I survived with just some tiny cracks.
And if our outer world is always reflecting our inner world, then yes — exactly — this is how I see my insides, considering what I've been through so far. So many organised fires, and then floods; paths built of ashes and tiny cracks in the landscape, marked for life. It's okay. Only I know, only I see the full picture, and I'm okay with it. Recovery takes time, and walls can always be painted over. It's already in the plan — divine plan, for all I care.
Watch those cracks in the ground, nature unapologetically paving its way through them. I'd like to think ivy will grow on my ceiling too, in one of those cracks, and cover my whole room. New life will grow, my ceiling will be whiter than before, and whether there’s torrent above me, or inside me, I will stay afloat in any water.
