What is Besieging You? Or, How the Onslaught Became My Memoir, Boundless, and Life Turned into Art

In response to the parade of sorrows and disasters, I am tempted to form a Mercury Retrograde support group. Instead, I turn to poetry.

Moonrise over Sandia Mountains. There is beauty, even during the onslaught of Mercury Retrograde.

I am ever-so tempted to send out a call for a Mercury Retrograde support group, given the onslaught of trouble this month, but instead, I am turning to the poet David Whyte’s essay, “Besieged,” from his Consolations collection.

Plus, wouldn’t that be an exercise in supreme frustration—to attempt to get a Mercury Retrograde support group going? We already know that all the technology would fail and all those needlessly suffering people would never be able to match up their Mercury-disrupted schedules. Then we would have a wound on a wound and have to choose trauma therapy over peer support.

A senseless idea, that. I turned to a poet.

My thought here is maybe you feel besieged, too, much of the time, as
David Whyte writes in the opening line of his essay, and this post may give you some relief. 

While this month, I seem to be responding to a parade of sorrows and disasters, I can also see that t…