The planet Mercury, Messenger of the Gods, ruler of the signs of Gemini and Virgo, represents the mind; our connection between spirit and matter. Mercury symbolizes the power of communication and our ability to interpret and make sense of what we perceive and experience.

This year Mercury is in the sign of Pisces from February 8th-April 16th. Since Mercury usually moves through an entire thirty degree sign in about three weeks this extended journey through Pisces is notable. You may already have seen or felt the effects in your life.

Mercury, has just completed the first of three retrograde phases of its cycle for this year. Mercury “goes retrograde” three times a year for approximately three weeks before resuming forward motion. During the retrograde cycles we revisit the ground covered in the recent and distant past. Anything with the prefix re- is favored, return, reconsider, refinance, retreat, realize, restore, recapitulate, remind, remember, respond, reply, responsibility, reward, etc. People and things return to us under Mercury retrograde cycles, lost ideas or incomplete projects are up for reconsideration. It is time to pick up the dropped threads and either weave them into the tapestry of our lives or decide to cut them and be done with them.

Mercury has been floating through the spiritual, imaginative, twelfth and final sign of the zodiac, Pisces, since February 8th dissolving old, outdated thought processes, and ways of communication. While in Pisces, Mercury’s natural logic and analysis give way to more nebulous right-brain activities. You may find you are more prone to daydreaming and flights of fancy, now. Imagination is stimulated and fantasy reigns supreme as cold hard facts are hard to pin down in this spacey atmosphere of the ideal and the surreal.

During Mercury’s recent three week retrograde cycle in Pisces (March 3rd-25th) you may have gained insight into some of the things that once were true and valuable for you but no longer offer the same benefits because either you have changed, the situation has changed or your life is calling you in new directions today.

While Mercury is in Pisces, we are more apt to consider having a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives a priority, and are more inclined to release old concepts and ways of communicating that no longer work. It is easier now to see that which we value and can embrace with compassion. Looking at where we’ve been in order to integrate past experiences, clean up loose ends, and catch up with the activity of the recent or even distant past is indicated.

Now that Mercury has resumed direct motion, and is making its final sweep through Pisces for this year we can look forward to greater clarity and imagination. Pisces favors photography, dancing, images, art, theatre, the oceans, beaches, fishing and all things spiritual. Enjoy

© 2006 Jodi Flesberg Lilly

Light In Motion—Intuition*Astrology*Insight

A newly published report from the Earth Policy Institute says that wind energy power is now cheaper than convention sources in at least two areas: Austin, Texas and Colorado. The report also says that this trend is will likely be seen in other parts of the U.S. It was during the fall of 2005 that climbing natural gas prices pulled conventional electricity costs above those of wind-generated electricity. Austin Energy, the publicly owned utility in Austin, Texas, buys wind-generated electricity under 10-year, fixed-price contracts and passes this stable price on to its GreenChoice subscribers. (click for more)

Until recently I had no idea there was a national community dedicated to encouraging and supporting adults in recovering and affirming their playful spirit and creating community, among many other things. The organization is called InterPLAY and has a program coming up here in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to play, this should be that and more.

TN Mountain UNtensive-Earth Day SpringFest
April 21-22-23
Knoxville, Tennessee

Three FULL Days of Play at Riverdale School and Workshops/BodySpirit Celebrations and more in a great spacious rural location featuring Masankho Banda, Meg MacLeod, Diane Saliba Ault and 25+ InterPlay leaders from 9 states.

A sampling of the workshops includes:
African Inspired Dance, Drumming IS Dancing!, HeArt Play, Lightening Up with Yoga, FLOWetry, Simply Stories- Building Cross Cultural Community through Play!, Embodying the Enneagram, The Spiritual Spoken Word, Music 4 the Moment!, The Sensuous Mystic, Health through Movement and many more.

More about the upcoming workshop in Knoxville (link to their site)

What is InterPLAY? (link to their site)

The morning breeze comes back
and from the southern desert
the lapwing returns
The dove’s soft song about roses
I hear that again.

The tulip, who understands what the lily says,
went away, but now she’s back.

With the sound of a bell,
strength and gentleness.

Hafiz broke his vow and damaged his heart,
but now, for no reason, his Friend forgives that,
and turns, and walks back up to his door.

—Hafiz

Never mind what you’ve heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us.

The problem — as scientists suspected but few others appreciated — is that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. That’s just what’s happening now.

read more | digg story

I’m experiencing a lot of pain recently—spiritual, emotional and physical—and have been reminded by my mentors and friends (as recently as this morning—thanks Asha!) that all pain is a sign that you’re resisting something.

And so now the question is, what? What am I resisting and how can I stop resisting and surrender to reality? The key, it seems, is sensitivity to the pain and a willingness to dive deep into the center of that pain once you’ve found it and then “sit” there basking in it until it is transformed and you no longer “have to” resist it. When you finally accept the pain, you are then able to perceive the cause of it—specifically, how and what you are resisting, and finally release your attachment. So we’re not so attached to the pain it seems so much as we’re attached to the resistance. And it’s an invisible resistance! I don’t even know I’m resisting something most of the time and I have accepted as normal the chronic tension in some part of my body, or the way I maintain an unnatural body position even though it taxes me terribly to do it.

So I am cultivating a sensitivity these days to pain in all my bodies (physical, emotional, spiritual) as well as other sensations previously ignored. I continue to realize as I go that I was unaware of many forms of pain. And when I say pain, I might just as easily be saying awareness. Pain is really an invitation to awareness, an opportunity to wake up and face reality. It amazes me that I have so frequently chosen to maintain my resistance to awareness and therefore, maintain my level of pain thinking on some level that it was easier to just keep sleeping through it, hoping that it would eventually go away if I avoided it long enough. But, in fact, I find now that the opposite is true. When we avoid, we deny and suppress and end up storing the pain for a later (and usually much unhappier and more intensely painful) release—if we’re lucky. Additionally, stored pain (resistance to reality) can also be transformed into chronic disease and inexplicable suffering.

My goal now is to welcome pain when it comes and better learn to read and understand the message that’s being sent. I see that the pain is bearing gifts of awareness and I want to accept those gifts when I can. At the same time, I am also realizing that I can only accept so much pain (awareness) at any one time before I need to shut down and process it. So, I am also giving myself permission to shut down and deal with what I can before accepting any more as well. It’s a cycle of open, close-and-process, open, close-and-process and maybe, eventually, I won’t have to shut down completely each time. Maybe it’s even possible to actually stay open and process as I go. Won’t that be a treat!

Sincerely,
-Zack

Ever wonder what to do with old batteries? I found a great site listing drop-off locations. The link below will take you to Chattanooga area locations, but you can find a place anywhere in the country if you go to the main page.

http://tennessee.earth911.org/usa/master.asp?newpostal=37405&s=ls&serviceid=126

by J. Krishnamurti

Observation without reward

Questioner: “I have listened to you for many years and I have become quite good at watching my thoughts and being aware of every thing I do, but I have never touched the deep waters or experienced the transformation of which you speak. Why?”

Krishnamurti: I think it is fairly clear why none of us do experience something beyond the mere watching. There may be rare moments of an emotional state in which we see, as it were, the clarity of the sky between clouds, but I do not mean anything of that kind. All such experiences are temporary and have very little significance. The questioner wants to know why, after these many years of watching, he hasn’t found the deep waters. Why should he find them? Do you understand? You think that by watching your own thoughts you are going to get a reward: if you do this, you will get that. You are really not watching at all, because your mind is concerned with gaining a reward. You think that by watching, by being aware, you will be more loving, you will suffer less, be less irritable, get something beyond; so your watching is a process of buying. With this coin you are buying that, which means that your watching is a process of choice; therefore it isn’t watching, it isn’t attention. To watch is to observe without choice, to see yourself as you are without any movement of desire to change, which is an extremely arduous thing to do; but that doesn’t mean that you are going to remain in your present state. You do not know what will happen if you see yourself as you are without wishing to bring about a change in that which you see. Do you understand?

I am going to take an example and work it out, and you will see. Let us say I am violent, as most people are. Our whole culture is violent; but I won’t enter into the anatomy of violence now, because that is not the problem we are considering. I am violent, and I realize that I am violent. What happens? My immediate response is that I must do something about it, is it not? I say I must become non-violent. That is what every religious teacher has told us for centuries: that if one is violent one must become non-violent. So I practise, I do all the ideological things. But now I see how absurd that is, because the entity who observes violence and wishes to change it into non-violence, is still violent. So I am concerned, not with the expression of that entity, but with the entity himself. You are following all this, I hope?

Now, what is that entity who says, `I must not be violent’? Is that entity different from the violence he has observed? Are they two different states? Do you understand, sirs, or is this too abstract? It is near the end of the talk and probably you are a bit tired. Surely, the violence and the entity who says, `I must change violence into non-violence’, are both the same. To recognize that fact is to put an end to all conflict, is it not? There is no longer the conflict of trying to change, because I see that the very movement of the mind not to be violent is itself the outcome of violence.

So, the questioner wants to know why it is that he cannot go beyond all these superficial wrangles of the mind. For the simple reason that, consciously or unconsciously, the mind is always seeking something, and that very search brings violence, competition, the sense of utter dissatisfaction. It is only when the mind is completely still that there is a possibility of touching the deep waters.

6th public talk Ojai, 21st July 1955 from the booklet “Surely, Freedom From the Self is the True Function of Man”