For quite some time, I have felt as though the Universe has sped up quite noticeably and that we are being swept along as though we are being tossed around in a tumble dryer. Sudden, unexpected events—globally as well as personally—are taking us by surprise, knocking us back. There comes a point when this has to stop for our own well-being and to deal with our daily obligations. So how do we set about it?
On a global level, when we realize that we are not really part of it personally but just an observer, we can begin to readjust ourselves and start to concentrate on our own lives and the lives and needs of other people. In a word, distance yourself, and if you can, move forward projecting normalcy, calm, and positivity. More and more people now refuse to read a newspaper or listen to the news. We cannot ignore it completely, nor should we. Burying our heads in the sand does not help anyone.
However, on a personal level, this is not so easy, but at such times, we may not realize that help is often at hand—and from unexpected quarters. The rest of the world has not stopped; it is continuing with its daily tasks, and we too can play our individual, useful parts in so many different ways. I am a great optimist. I feel, in a way, that I am on an obstacle course and have to experience all sorts of difficulties before I reach the finish. Try not to lose heart on the way, and indeed, help can appear out of the blue and in so many different and unexpected ways.
The Seven-Planet Alignment
I am showing you various images of this unique planetary alignment below. As we focus on this event, our minds are set in motion to consider further implications.
Not one, not two, but seven planets are due to line up in the night sky later this week in a relatively rare planetary parade—for the last time until 2040—with some of the planets visible to the naked eye.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14437797/Rare-planetary-parade-night-sky.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14437797/Rare-planetary-parade-night-sky.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14437797/Rare-planetary-parade-night-sky.html
I asked David Olliff, a friend and polymath, to express this remarkable event in his own terms; he kindly sent me the following:
“I have enjoyed some backyard astronomy over the years, so it was intriguing to see the seven-planet alignment this week. Mercury will join Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in splendid alignment on February 28th, something that won’t happen again until 2040. It’s easy to forget, of course, that there is one more planet that must be part of this alignment if it is going to mean anything from our point of view: our own planet, Earth.
“However well-versed we are in Copernican cosmology, we still have a tendency to see our own position as the center of everything, as though we are a fixed point and everything revolves around us. It’s natural, of course, and not something to feel bad about. Our solar system isn’t geocentric, no matter how much it seems that way; our lives are not egocentric, no matter how much we would like them to be.
“An alignment like this is a matter of profound beauty. Planets, silently tracing their course through space—they do not, it turns out, move through nothing. There is no ‘nothing.’ Instead, they move through darkness without form, sailing perhaps as gentle ships through a sea that knows nothing of waves. When we sense such profound beauty, it often comes to us with that feeling I think of as ‘the trace.’ It is that remnant, that moment when all that may be said is silent, that sense that the universe is trying to tell us something.
“All that the trace can say is that there is something yet unsaid. All that the trace can show is that the trace is there to be found. How then should we respond to the sacred trace at times of wonder like these?
“Sense the trace and feel it through your whole self. Take the time to notice it. Remember it. Let the trace radiate and amplify within and through you. It is possible not just to witness the sacred trace in the beauty of things in the world around you; you are not a fixed point witnessing a world arrange itself before you. You are not merely in this universe or of this universe—you are this universe. You need not quest for the trace if you choose to live as and be the trace. In this way, when the planets align themselves, you may place yourself in alignment with the planets.”
We are at the beginning of March, and the shackles of winter have officially fallen away as we enter meteorological spring! What a gloriously liberating feeling. Begone, icy fingers of winter!
In the UK, the fields are still brown, with few signs of green appearing as yet. However, as we have been blessed with several days of hot sun, this all may change in the blink of an eye—so remains the same question we always ask: What does this year hold for us? Will there be early delights, heralds of more wonders to come? Who knows?!
Oliver’s Castle, near Devizes, Wiltshire. 15 April 2007