Mercury has just gone retrograde again. This time in Gemini, the sign it rules. 

All the planets, except Sun and Moon, go in apparent backward motion from time to time, yet the Mercury retrograde seems to be the most famous one. Almost everyone knows about it, including the people who know nothing about astrology and those who don't even believe in it. 

In astrology, when a planet is in retrograde, it doesn't actually move backwards in the sky. It only appears to change direction, so it is really an optical illusion. When this happens, the energy turns inward and backwards, resulting in slightly unusual effects. 

So should we just stop living every time Mercury goes retrograde? Of course not. Mercury retrograde happens three or even four times a year, and it usually lasts for about three weeks. I even believe that the most challenging moments don't happen during the retrograde motion period, but during those slow and stationary periods, right before Mercury changes its direction. Mercury is a quick planet which rules all kinds of movement, so it gets a bit awkward when it slows down or stops (to be exact, when it appears to slow down or stop), because it's contrary to its essential nature. 

Did you ever think you would hear Me say that you have to face facts? I love to tell you to look at all the amazing possibilities in life. I certainly do.

What I am suggesting now is to face the fact that you may have growing to do. If you are going to grow, you have to start from a place where you are aware that you don’t already know everything or even what you are most sure of right now.

Just as you do not give yourself the true recognition of your great worth, you may close your eyes to areas of your life where you may need to wake up to, and to see from new eyes.

Here’s how it is:

On one hand, you are far greater than you give credence to. You don’t begin to know your capabilities. You are way out in left field in regard to knowing the great gift you are.

Yet there are other areas where you get stuck in your point of view, and that point of view is that you know without a doubt the rightness of your way of thinking. This is what I speak of now. There are areas where you are convinced of how right you are, and you won’t let any occurrences in life or anything change your mind. You don’t have to change your mind, yet you can listen to a different opinion.

There are occasions where you may need some shaking up. Life will do this - shake you up. Yet you may be convinced tooth and nail that you are right and hold on for dear life. You are adamant. Let it cross your mind that you could be mistaken. There is not even a shadow of doubt in your mind that you are 100% right. Your mind is made up.

by Audrey Wright

Earthship is a concept of over 40 years and yet the first one ever built in Europe was in 2000. The idea is a trademark of Michael Reynolds  — a US architect. In the 70s, Reynolds envisioned a home which would have three exciting traits — self sustainability, construction utilizing basic and recycled materials for the most part and affordability to the average man.

So, what is an Earthship ?

It’s a home completely or for most of it’s part off the grid. That means no electricity and water networks. There is nothing to tie it to any utility services, which eradicates dozens of potential problems.

But is the Earthship primitive ? Absolutely not.

Hassam, Guest
Waking Times

While controversy continues to surround the way the content screen media affects our thoughts and behaviour, a growing body of empirical evidence is indicating that watching television causes physiological changes, which are really not for the better. Most of these effects occur irrespective of the type of programme that people watch – whether it is violence or teletubbies (fun, games, etc). It is the medium, not the message.

Watching television is now the industrialised world’s main pastime, taking up more of our time than any other single activity except work and sleep.However, biological sciences are fast becoming the new arena for examining the effects of society’s favourite pastime. And in industrialised societies, the findings are set to recast the role of the television screen as the greatest unacknowledged public health issue of our time.

By John Holland

If you’re anything like me, you generally go into autopilot when you go to your local supermarket. But just this past week, I had an interesting experience as I was leaving with my groceries. I noticed an elderly woman having trouble trying to load all her bags into her car. Her produce was spilling out of one bag, while another one was splitting wide open, and she continued to try to grab what she could. You could clearly see she was frustrated and stressed, and needed help. I walked up to her and asked if I could help. She turned round with a look of pure shock!

I wasn’t sure if she was surprised that someone was helping her, or if she thought I was a stranger approaching her for something quite different. Anyway, I helped her pick up her groceries, and chased after cans of peas rolling across the parking lot. No sooner had I helped her, than she quickly got in her car, and drove off! It was as though she’d been really scared having a stranger in her space.

by Debbie Peluso

Welcome to the pleasures of life, the senses, and unlimited abundance! Spring is in full bloom. Our seeds were planted, both metaphorically and physically speaking, during the energy of Aries, and we now see, feel, and enjoy their beauty perceptually. Welcome to Taurus, lover of luxuries, nature, the arts, and the senses. All that we can see, touch, taste and hear.

Everything begins with a thought, an idea, a seed. All the flowers we so graciously planted, blooming in our yards or in pots, originated from one little seed containing the DNA intelligence to instruct it specifically to become a begonia, a daisy, a basil plant, or whatever. Our largest trees stem from one little seed with nature’s instructions to produce a tree yet all seeds have the same basic appearance. Still, within each one is encoded a formula whose source is One intelligence. There is lot of work involved to encode billions upon billions of seeds that make up all of nature, including us.

We have all heard of lucid dreaming before.  Lucid dreaming is the act of waking up within your dream, and becoming aware that you are operating within a dream world.  Everything around you becomes a little more saturated with colour and life as the realization sits in that the world around you is yours to create.  You can fly, manipulate matter, and influence the behaviour of other characters in your dream.

More profound than the new abilities you have is the underlying sense of being present in a realm of dreams.  Sometimes, it has almost moved me to tears while being in a lucid dream.  It’s so beautiful. One of the best parts about lucid dreaming is the profound implications they can have on our experience of reality.  I once had a lucid dream where it felt more real than real life.  There are times where I know I am lucid within a dream, but this felt so hyper-real I couldn’t decipher between lucid dream and reality anymore.

Then I thought to myself, “If I can’t tell the difference between this and real life, how can I be so certain that ‘real life’ is not a dream also?”.  A few moments after that, I found myself awake in my bedroom, hovering four feet over my body looking around my room which had now become illuminated by my astral body.