Asking Germaine

Why don’t you ask Germaine?

— Excuse me?

My sister Marie smiled at me.

— Yes, ask Germaine!

It takes me a few moments to understand the meaning of her proposal. We were discussing my expectations regarding Les Mailles sanguines. I explained to my sister that I was beginning to grieve for a possible publication by a publisher.

— I often talk to her... she adds.

I didn’t know what to say to him. Although I have asked the Moon to help me (yes, the full moon, you know, when it is so beautiful above your head and seems to be waiting for you to start the conversation...), although I look at the intertwining of my heaven chart with a pseudo detached look, it never occurred to me to approach a saint, a god, or... my grandmother, my ancestors.

However, I know the widespread practice. I know a nice Mexican woman who, even in Montreal, erects altars in respect for the dead. The cult of the ancestor is popular. I understand very well the reflex, as old as hope, of submitting to one’s destiny so that the wind turns in one’s favor.

So why don’t I ask Germaine?

I had nothing smart to answer my sister, certainly not something scientific anyway. I could have replied that Germaine and I were not the best friends in the world, that I had minimal contact with her. So I don’t want to abuse it. She probably has to satisfy people who will have been more agreeable to her...

And then, I am the first to say it: help yourself, and the sky (or Germaine) will help you.

But here it seems to me that I have done everything in my power to help me and that nothing is coming. Well, we could blame it on Mercury’s fault, which is currently retrograde (no time to do business), at the Book Fair, which will have kept all the publishers busy...

No, it’s not an idea to ask Germaine. She’d have to hear me first if she can (she’s dead, after all). And then I could also ask Antoinette, or Hector (my maternal grandparents). I don’t even think about Lucien (my paternal grandfather) whom I didn’t even know.

Sometimes I join my hands when I let myself be rocked by the water in the shower. I then feel close to the invisible Ganges. I wait for the sweet breath of hope to deign to blow on me. Launching a prayer in heaven, throwing a bottle into the sea, lingering on a cloud of symbolic stillness, all this can work because so little is known about the Unknown.

I just smiled at Marie. Our conversation went in different directions. The subject was closed.

However, for the past two days, I have been thinking about Germaine and my sister’s suggestion.

I have nothing to lose... Mercury becomes direct again soon...

How do we do that?

Germaine? Are you there?