When you think of the current state of the world, you may have negative thoughts about how our future will turn out. It’s not your fault that what you usually read or hear is, for the most part, pretty dismal. Reporters and journalists seem to love covering the scrumptious scandals, the devastating wars, and the natural disasters. Tragedy is the product, and apparently, we’re still buying. And so they’ll tell you about the trees that burn down, not about the trees that grow.

But I want to tell you something different. We are in much better shape than we think. Despite what you have been told, global poverty, illiteracy, and disease rates have all dropped in recent years. Yet not many people know or think about these encouraging statistics. For example, when asked what percentage of the world’s population is living in extreme poverty and how that number had changed over the past 20 years, Americans were way off the mark. Two-thirds thought the percentage had doubled, while 29% thought it had remained more or less the same. According to the World Bank, however, the number has actually halved. How can 95% of the population be so wrong? Maybe it’s the way issues are covered (or not covered) in the media.

God said:

Take heart today. Take heart today with your head. You are on the upswing. Accept: This is God talking to you. With all My love and with all My heart, I speak to you today. BE HAPPY TODAY. I sing these words to you. Be My child who swims the Ocean on My behalf. What can you not do for God? You can be happy for God. Yes, you can even be happy for God. You can allow yourself to be happy for the love of God, for your love of God.

Here’s the secret of happiness. Forget yourself. Remember Me. Remember what you are here on Earth for. Not to serve yourself. Not to focus on yourself. Make Me happy. Even as I am happy always, be happy for Me.

You are here on Earth to serve Me. You serve Me very well when you are happy.

So, then, when you are blue, how do you become sunny? How do you change the color of this moment from gray sky to sunny sky reaching into your heart?

Be happy as you think of Me. This is not artificial. This is not pretending. This is not – absolutely not – forcing yourself to be anything. This is allowing happiness to take over your heart and soul. Look up. Think of Me. Think of making Me happy. Without obsequious attention on your own happiness, you will simply be happier. Without even polite or distant attention on your happiness, happiness will appear and thrive. Your happiness is your gift to Me. Be happy for Me.

Chronic pain is estimated to affect over 76 million people, more than diabetes and heart disease combined, and back pain is our country’s leading cause of disability for people under 45. And though the pharmaceutical industry seems very adept at introducing one new painkiller after another, the pills don’t always help. A new study in the Journal of Neuroscience, however, suggests something else might: meditation. It seems that improving your meditation technique could very well be more effective than painkillers at cutting down on pain, and that could save you hundreds in prescription drug costs.

These magnetic resonance images from a Wake Forest University study published in the journal Neuroscience in April 2011 show how meditating reduced pain unpleasantness by 57 percent and pain intensity ratings by 40 percent when compared to rest. The yellow areas show activity corresponding to pain sensation.

Please like my page at http://www.facebook.com/triplewaterastrology!

Uranus and Neptune are now the only two retrograde planets in the heavens. This recalls the current overarching theme of the struggle and connection between the two: time groans slowly forward and carries us closer to Neptune releasing his influence to Uranus and the Age of Aquarius. Of interest and perhaps relief to some people, Mercury in Libra is no longer retrograde. Thought and communication, particularly in a social context, feels more “normal”. However, Mercury retrograde’s better features may have been savored by those who diligently took advantage of the opportunities. (Deep and meaningful communication and initiating extensive networking efforts, to name a few.) Sun in Libra forms a t-square with Uranus and Pluto this week. While Pluto is the focal point of the cardinal t-square, the most direct aspect among the three planets is the Sun-Uranus opposition. With core consciousness touching both Uranus’ revolution and Pluto’s transformation by hard aspects, this week is largely about change. Disruption and upheaval might be unpleasant – but perhaps Sun in Libra is suggesting that teamwork is one antidote to managing the two outer titans’ more undesirable effects. No doubt that opportunities exist via the difficulties. Taking the initiative and finding ways to make change constructive can significantly push personal and professional goals forward this week.

It has been recently scientifically validated that hugging trees is good for you. Research has shown that you don’t even have to touch a tree to get better, you just need to be within its vicinity has a beneficial effect.

In a recently published book, Blinded by Science, the author Matthew Silverstone, proves scientifically that trees do in fact improve many health issues such as concentration levels, reaction times, depression, stress and other various forms of mental illness. He even points to research indicating a tree’s ability to alleviate headaches in humans seeking relief by communing with trees.

The author points to a number of studies that have shown that children show significant psychological and physiological improvement in terms of their health and well being when they interact with plants and trees. Specifically, the research indicates that children function better cognitively and emotionally in green environments and have more creative play in green areas. Also, he quotes a major public health report that investigated the association between green spaces and mental health concluded that “access to nature can significantly contribute to our mental capital and wellbeing”.

Kingsley L. Dennis, Guest
Waking Times

As celebrated thinker Edward de Bono notes: ‘If everyone is going in the same direction, then anyone who is going in a different direction is “wrong”. The other direction might be better – but it is still wrong.’

Such is the powerful pull of social conformity. People cannot be fully trusted to say and do what they think is right if others around them are all expressing an opposite opinion. This is because the pull towards social conformity, whether conscious or unconscious, is just too strong. The danger here is that in such environments a person is more likely to give away their personal responsibility than act upon it. A group more generally exhibits a lack of responsibility on the part of its members since each person thinks that the overall responsibility can be shared. Since there is no individual blame to be accrued, a person tends to relinquish their own personal responsibility.

“The door to the soul is unlocked; you do not need to please the doorkeeper, the door in front of you is yours, intended for you,  and the doorkeeper obeys when spoken to.” -Robert Bly

What if you found out there was a key that would enable you to open and close your doors of perception at will, void of psychedelics? What if you found out you not only held the key, but you were the key? Would you unlock the doors, or keep them shut?

Well, you are the key, and whether or not you choose to enter through the doors is a choice that, although invisible, is life changing. You are the vehicle for the trip, consider this but a mere travel summary.

And for a detailed itinerary?  Well, that can only be fetched by you -not the part of you reading this, but the altered dream state part of your consciousness that will travel beyond the doors of perception to the wildness of the world where there is a livingness to all things- as it can only be found in a place with exclusive access. A place where you can travel, but no one may follow -not even the conscious, waking state version of yourself scanning these very words.

By Carolanne Wright
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

We’ve all been touched by death in one form or another — whether through a beloved animal, the rhythm of nature or someone close and dear to us. Autumn in the northern hemisphere is the quintessential time of death and decay, as the abundant growth and life of summer quickly fades away to barren trees and fallow fields. It is considered the season of sorrow and grief in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

As commonplace as the cycle of life and death is, those in the West tend to have an aversion to the reality of this most natural of transitions. We try our best to evade the aging process and glorify youth — while ignoring the elderly and dying. Many times, we are completely numb to our emotional terrain or become overwhelmed when faced with death. But an organization in the United States is on a heart-centered quest to change the way we relate to death and return a sense of sacredness to the process.