Coffee? Who needs coffee when you have Exalted Mercury S&S. Not quite the same buzz as the other Exalted Mercury materia, but it does seem to fortify you internally for layering, and its just a good wake up pep in your step. Also if you're trying to lay off the caffeine.

I’ve been really enjoying this as a smoke, it’s smooth & smells nice.
This iteration of Mercury has been helping untangle my words & get them out, which has been really difficult for me recently.

It just goes to show how different forms within the same series do different things. The Exalted Mercury tincture hits me like a firehose and has to be heavily layered to be manageable. The effect is also immediate, like a light switch. The steep & smoke is much less in-your-face. I use it as a steep, a loose 1/4 tsp mixed in with my hot beverage, usually chamomile, on Mercury's day. The effect settles in over a few minutes.

And like the other steep & smokes, it feels soothing. Like it's smoothing out my existing, very highly strung Virgo placements. I have to have a plan in place before using the s&s, just as I do the tincture, because it's easy to become unfocused and fixated on something unproductive.

As you can imagine, this s&s is great for helping you communicate, not just effectively, but compassionately. I use this whenever I need to rein in my Jokey Smurf tendencies, or to curb my natal Mars conjunct Mercury impulse to argue. Really thrilled to have this in my tool box.

*Cross-posting some of this text from my review of the oil, since it's super relevant here too*

Um, wow. So, I was not at all sure how this materia was going to go for me. Virgo is my 12th house, so I've been forever watching astro ppl post about how Virgo transits help them get all their stuff in order, meanwhile the second the moon moves into Virgo I'm fighting the urge to crawl into bed and simply daydream for hours.

I took a chance and met Exalted Mercury. I lit a candle, I read the hymn aloud (interrupted once by my kitchen timer, which I can't explain why but it felt like a trickster sort of wink). I brewed some steep + smoke, I anointed my wrists and ankles with oil.

And then -- for the first time in recent memory -- I checked everything off of my to-do list for the day. *Everything.* It was all little maintenance type tasks I'd been putting off, and I did them all and then some. Easily, with neither panicked rush nor procrastination. I'm also feeling, really for the first time, pulled, or drawn to connect with Mercury Themself.

This was the first steep + smoke I've tried, and it's become part of my morning ritual. It's a lovely herbal flavor on its own; I usually add 1/4 tsp to my tea blend. So good for a calm-yet-active mind that's ready to do 10000 things. Hail, Hermes!