October 30, 2011 - Sarah Wilson

Ever come across Yasmin Boland‘s astrological insights? The other day she wrote about how things right now are primed for quitting sugar. Or, more to the point, right now we can’t tolerate sugar….we’re all wanting to quit. Which would explain why a few of you have quite liked my I Quit Sugar ebook. Which, by the way, is still $15. You can catch up on the health changes and weight loss others have experienced here.

Picture 312 why the stars are saying "quit sugar" now (Yasmin Boland guest posts!) — photo via browneyedbellejulie.blogspot.com

So. Yasmin very kindly offered to explain the deal… it’s fun and weird and got me thinking in different directions. I thought you’d like to know about it, too. Basically, Yasmin reckons we are in the biggest Smash Sugar Forever cycle that we’ve been in for 30 years, which is the length of one Saturn cycle. And Saturn is the planet of wisdom and hard facts and truths.
I’ve asked Yasmin to share a little more:

“In astrology, every planet represents certain qualities or parts of life. Saturn is about teaching and wisdom among other things. Saturn is the mean old headmaster and the strict parent, as well as the representative of the truth in the horoscope. Right now it is in the sign of sweetness Libra. Just as with the planets, each sign governs certain parts of life. Libra is about balance and harmony, art and luxury. And sweetness, including anything made of sugar.

If you’re wondering how these classifications came about, the short answer is that astrologers have observed the movements of the planets for literally thousands of years and noted what happens when and how it coincides with events on the planet and in peoples’ lives. This is Astrology 101. If you want to know more, delve into Secrets From A Stargazer’s Notebook by the awesome Debbi Kempton-Smith.

This Saturn in Libra transit continues until October 2012. (If you happen to be a Libran, now you know why the past couple of years have been so intense! The harder you work between now until October next year, the easier the rest of this Saturn in Libra transit will be).

So if you take the keywords for Saturn and Libra, it’s easy to see that Sarah really has tapped into the skies.

We are all learning (Saturn is all about learning) the truth (Saturn is all about truth) about sugar (Libra is all about sugar) and it’s not pretty (Libra is all about All Things Pretty).

The truth about sugar is coming out. I’ve even read that sugar is more addictive than crack. People who give it up say they feel amazing. It’s everywhere and it’s hard to kick. However since I found out that the food industry actually puts sugar into our foods as a way of hooking us, it’s become a little easier to just say no.

Read more

This week in Sunday Life I drop certainty anchors

mind on fire creating too much chaos in your life? this jonathan fields trick works — By mind on fire

So lately I’ve become increasingly distrustful of the overly certain.

When someone puffs out their chest at the head of a dinner table to emphatically declare climate change isn’t happening or that their son will grow up to follow Collingwood or that the only smoked small goods worth buying are from such-and-such-purveyor-of-such-things, it sets off alarm bells. Because nothing is certain any more. No one knows anything for sure.

We can’t be certain we’ll knock off work at 5 tomorrow or that we’ll be having Irish stew on Wednesday night or that our plane will turn up. The only certainty, beyond death, is uncertainty. Oh, and the fact that uncertainty in the world is on the up and up.

So when a leader or some blinkered commentator issues a black or white pronouncement these days I immediately think, “Hmmm, you’re sooo struggling with the inevitable anxiety of these doubtful times”. Far from giving them credibility, their surety comes across as cringefully out of step. As evolutionary epistemologist Jeremy Sherman wrote recently, today “self-certainty is weakly correlated with veracity.”

Uncertainty is the new fear. Twenty years ago we felt fear and did it anyway.

Now we accept we don’t know, and use this to humbly grow ourselves forward.

Or at least we do if we know what’s good for us. The research shows, over and over, that uncertainty – or an ability to flow with it – goes hand in hand with true creative success. It’s the very act of being in the unknown that sees us strive to know more, and thus stumble upon fresh ideas.

What distinguishes the new entrepreneurs from the rest of us who sit back waiting for our “moment” is an appreciation that we can no longer wait for a perfect understanding of a situation before acting. As Jonathan Fields, author of new book Uncertainty, reasons, “The only time we have perfect understanding before launching into something is when it’s already been done before”.

I spoke to Fields this week. He became so fascinated by this new not-knowing that he studied hundreds of successful creatives to determine what they were doing differently, culminating in his book, published this month. What did he find? “Happy, successful entrepreneurs ritualize everything in their lives but their creative work.”