Buon Mercuralia!

Happy Birthday Mercury!

I started writing a post about The Mercuralia, which was a Roman/State celebration, and the different regional traditions and celebrations involving Mercury/Turms/Hermes, etc. But I just threw a kiddie birthday party and I'm telling you, 8 children in one room feels like 18 children. The energy just multiplies itself. I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to share with you a favorite musing of mine:

Mercury was "born of May." aka Maia for whom the month is named. Considering that 'Planting May" or piantarmaggio is a euphemism for sex, and His father is said to be Zeus, it makes sense to me that Mercury is the energy (lightning/divine spark) of sex itself. His parentage is both aetheric and cthonic. A lot of the sex has been taken out of Mercury's popular lore. He is better known for thievery and merchant patronage and delivering messages. Outside of Rome, however, He has a very different depiction. Apologies for leaving it hanging here tonight. I really do want to keep going with this, but I'm afraid I'm going to fall asleep at the keyboard tonight and I want to write this up properly and do justice to the topics; Both Mercury and regional differences with the official roman state religion are favorite musings of mine and tackling both together gives me a happy the likes of which I can't describe.

Hail Mercury!