We are in the middle of,,,

 

A Hermes Moment

“Hermes, Greek god and herald of the Olympian pantheon, is protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators…Hermes moves swiftly, aided by winged sandals. He is also the psychopomp or ‘soul guide’ who conducts souls into the afterlife.”

Wikipedia

          Hermes, the Greek god of the underworld, is also the deity of liminality, when all things are unfocused and out of control. He is most active in darkness but “the marvelous and mysterious which is peculiar to night may also appear by day as a sudden darkening or enigmatic smile.” (Walter Otto, as quoted in In Midlife by Murray Stein, p.20) The Greek gods had jobs. Hermes job was to bring messages to humans from the gods of Olympus, and to conduct souls safely through the underworld and into the afterlife. You might recognize Hermes, also known as Mercury, as the god with wings on his shoes, and sometimes on his shoulders as well. He was swift in delivering his messages.

          Hermes energy is most active in darkness, i.e. in times of ambiguity, where nothing is quite what it seems, and distortions are common. Have you ever taken a walk at night? In darkness, even familiar streets seem slightly sinister, as though something is going to happen, something unpleasant or unexpected. This engenders feelings of anxiety and restlessness in human beings, as though we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, or the bad news to arrive.

          Someone posted on Facebook this week, “I feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone!” Well said. You are. We are all living in the twilight zone right now—which is simply another way of saying, we are in a period of liminality. We are standing on a threshold. We haven’t taken the next step because we’re anxious about what might jump out at us from the dark if we do. We will stand here until we feel reassured that nothing terrible is going to happen to us. No one wants to travel the underworld with Hermes.

          This free-floating anxiety is a basic component of all transitional periods. Perhaps this awareness will help us tolerate the “out of control-ness” we feel. We feel as though we are in freefall without the net beneath us. But the good thing about liminal periods is that they are short—they are a hyphen, a pause between notes, in the great flow of time. The pandemic has made time stretch long, and seem to be moving in slow motion, when it is just a blip on the radar of life—albeit a big one. We will prevail. Hang on a while longer. Like everybody else, Hermes is overworked. He needs a coffee break.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane