Counting sunspots over time helps in knowing the activity of our star but the two indices used by scientists disagree on dates prior to 1885. Now an international team of researchers has tried to standardise the historical results and has discovered that, contrary to what one may think, the solar activity of our times is very similar to that of other times, such as the Enlightenment.

Scientists have been counting sunspots since 1610 with small telescopes. Thus it has been verified that the Sun's activity increases every eleven years, according to the interval in the growth of the number of darker and colder spots in comparison with the rest of its surface. The more spots that appear, the more luminous the surrounding areas are, and our star shines brighter.

Nonetheless, the eleven-year cycles do not always have the same intensity. The more intense peaks of the Sun's luminosity were produced in the 20th century, which experts have called the 'modern maximum'. However, an international team of scientists has reviewed the historical data and has verified that there were also elevated values in other periods.

V-day can feel like D-Day.

The day is, in my opinion, slightly ridiculous. But probably not for the reasons you think. I have no problem with the cheesy commercialized crap. I like cinnamon hearts and I even miss making those old-school valentines out of construction papers and doilies.

The ridiculousness is my expectations. When I’m single, I beat myself up for not being with someone. And when I’m with someone, I hold him to impossibly high standards. Is it too much to ask that my boyfriend give me a puppy with an engagement ring around his collar all while singing a song that he’s written especially for me?!

Yup, my boyfriend is screwed.

It’s not like I actually want another dog. I’m certainly not ready to get engaged. And I’m betting that he’s tone-deaf (based on the fact that I’ve never heard him sing).

So if I’m not actually interested in any of those things, why do I want them so much? Where are these crazy expectations coming from?

By Indra

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

We are here at the cusp of the Golden Age, the age of nature, where natural order will return to balance the Earth. The way of this natural order can be understood by applying a universal system called the Golden Ratio.

The Golden Ratio is a pattern that nature follows in the construction of all of its art and beauty. It is the order within the apparent chaos of nature. Although it doesn’t always appear that way, everything is aligned in perfect harmony – the order of the Golden Ratio.

What is the Golden Ratio?

The Golden Ratio is the principal of exponential evolution. Instead of growing in a linear formation of 1+1+1+1, evolution is by nature essentially exponential. The Golden Ratio describes the rate at which that exponential growth unfolds.

As you sit waiting for someone to rescue you, opportunities to rescue yourself fly by.  Do not wait; be your own champion. ~ Creator

By Sarah Elkhaldy

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Why is knowledge power? How does awareness give you more free will?

When a person chooses willful ignorance over obtaining knowledge and becoming more aware of themselves and the world, they do not gain any immunity by this free will choice. Instead, they leave themselves under the rule of the “General Law” otherwise known as The Matrix.

In that level of being, you are bound by all the mechanical laws of this reality. You have no higher consciousness, therefore no higher connection, and you function from a somnambulistic, sleep-like/trance state of mind, which makes you easily manipulated and gives you no individual fate (since fate is tied to persons with a connection to something “higher”). Therefore, you share the collective “fate” of the sleep reality, because you have made no choice with your own freewill to become consciously aware.

To what do I owe this occasion of your visit to Me? You who are My Vision come to visit Me when We have never been apart! You make a special point to sit yourself before Me as if We are not always One!

There is no penitent before Me. You may think so, yet I know Who You Are. I know you as Myself. Will you now come to know you as Myself? This does not make you boastful. This is not an accomplishment of yours. That We are One has always been the case, and you are just waking up to this Reality now. Our acquaintance is not something new. We have always been together. Before the beginning of time, it simply was not a question because there I was, the Whole Potential of You. You were My Thought, and yet you were Before Thought and Beyond Thought.

Who Created Whom when We always have shared Being? There is no ownership of Being. Oneness is not a production. It is a revelation. I hold hands with the supposed you, and We hold hands together, even as our Oneness is far beyond hands. Our hearts are One. What else is there to discuss?