On the final Thursday of September 2008, instead of feeling pulled to my 7:00 a.m. yoga class, I felt called to the beach instead. Living fifteen minutes from Palm Beach, Florida, I don’t visit the beach (any beach, there are several to chose from) nearly as much as I should. So that morning seemed like a prime opportunity to salute the sun in person rather than perform the usual sun salutations and downward dogs to the yoga studio mirror.
Prime opportunity, that is, until I arrived at the beach (Lantana Beach to be exact—the closest to my home) to find not only no sun, but also no beach. A shallow expanse of sand even at low tide, Lantana Beach was now covered in waves crashing on the verge of the concrete break wall separating the sea from the Ritz Carlton and its high-priced neighbors on Ocean Drive. Normally calm turquoise waters and low September surf instead roiled and churned into three successive lines of gray, foamy waves.
I hopped the low wall separating the flooded public parking lot from the Ritz to get a better look at the coast to the south, but as far as I could see the tide was at an all time high. The sand was there, but the surf was too deep to do any strolling. The beach was officially closed; gates to the stairways down to the shore, locked; and the local sheriff and city parks officials were assessing the situation. A massive chunk of bluff had already been swept away, eroded by the elevated sea from alongside the Dune Deck Café, a stone’s throw from the Ritz. As I ordered a cappuccino, the Dune Deck wasn’t sure how long they’d be around either.
I sighed. For September 2008, it was par for the course.
This September will go on record as being the most turbulent, chaotic, and ridiculously nonsensical month I can recall—ever. If your experience was anything like that of most people I know, you’re still feeling the whiplash of jerking your head between absurdity and incredulity. To say nothing has turned out quite as expected is an understatement. Predictions have been flummoxed (who’d have guessed Palin?). Macro disasters (U.S. economy, Hurricane Ike) and micro inconveniences (I’ve now rescheduled my daughter’s eye exam for the third time in a week) have materialized—consistently so—straight out of left field. Yet the calm surface crust belies the festering magma and rupturing earth beneath. On one level, daily life continues to operate without a hitch: planes fly, garbage is collected, people go to work, kids attend soccer practice. On another, upsets bubble to the surface as banks fail, foreclosure notices are delivered, jobs are lost, and Presidential debates nearly cancelled. Something is most definitely up.
Granted, astrologically we know Mercury is in retrograde between September 24 and October 15, in the sign of Libra. According to Astrology.com, a planet is described as retrograde when it appears to be moving backwards through the zodiac. Planets are never actually retrograde or stationary; they just seem that way due to the orbital rotation of the earth in relation to the other planets in our solar system. Although a powerful astrological influence, Mercury is a small planet that travels at a relatively fast speed through the zodiac, so it achieves retrograde three times a year. Depending on the sign in which it retrogrades, different effects can be felt. Mercury in retrograde is typically characterized by misunderstandings, confusion, and indecision. Most experts agree, the effects of a retrograde period are felt up to a month before and for as long as a month after the planet is in its specific backwards march across the sky.
As validating as the astrological view is, I don’t need the stars and planets to tell me how out of whack things are. Just look around. I can chart an unsettled September not only from without, but from within. In the space of a week, my three closest friends each experienced new and unpredictable upsets. One found herself at the abrupt and dramatic end of a seven-year romantic relationship, another on the brink of chucking her twenty-year corporate career in technical engineering. The third, a bit eccentric to begin with, showed up on my doorstep one afternoon only to enact a startling episode of psychotic behavior brought on by a prescription drug interaction.
