Johanita Olivier

Mercury Retrograde – Friend or Foe
For millennia certain periods in a year were in total chaos. The pressing question is whether the Zodiac could be the culprit? First, we must explore a few technical, interesting, though controversial definitions:
The name of Mercury, the planet of communication, in the constellation of Gemini springs to mind often; it must be Mercury is in retrograde again.
A retrograde planet means the motion is an APPARENT change in the movement of the planet through the sky. It is not REAL in that the planet does not physically start moving backwards in its orbit. It just appears to do so because of the relative positions of the planet and Earth and how they are moving around the Sun.
What does the mischievous, though playful Mercury retrograde do when the planet nearest to the Sun retrogrades, it appears to move "backwards" (east to west rather than west to east) across the sky.
This apparent reversal in Mercury's orbit is just an illusion to the people viewing it from Earth. Picture Mercury and Earth circling the Sun like cars on a racetrack. For endless Millennia humans have been affected by the Universe and its awesome paradoxes.
The movement of the different planets affect us all in different ways. ... It's because Mercury rules communication, clear thinking, truth and travel, so when the planet goes retrograde — which means that it looks like it's going backwards in the sky — all those things go backwards.
For millennia certain periods in a year were in total chaos. The pressing question is whether the Zodiac could be the culprit? First, we must explore a few technical, interesting, though controversial definitions:
The name of Mercury, the planet of communication, in the constellation of Gemini springs to mind often; it must be Mercury is in retrograde again.
A retrograde planet means the motion is an APPARENT change in the movement of the planet through the sky. It is not REAL in that the planet does not physically start moving backwards in its orbit. It just appears to do so because of the relative positions of the planet and Earth and how they are moving around the Sun.
What does the mischievous, though playful Mercury retrograde do when the planet nearest to the Sun retrogrades, it appears to move "backwards" (east to west rather than west to east) across the sky.
This apparent reversal in Mercury's orbit is just an illusion to the people viewing it from Earth. Picture Mercury and Earth circling the Sun like cars on a racetrack. For endless Millennia humans have been affected by the Universe and its awesome paradoxes.
The movement of the different planets affect us all in different ways. ... It's because Mercury rules communication, clear thinking, truth and travel, so when the planet goes retrograde — which means that it looks like it's going backwards in the sky — all those things go backwards.

This is a time when communications go haywire. Our routine works even get more stressful during this period. Mercury rules over transport and communications and when it retrogrades, these domains experience chaos of sorts. In general, lost mail, accidents, break-ups, and other mishaps are associated with Mercury retrograde periods.
Mercury keeps going around the Sun, always in the same direction and at the same speed. Knowing the Mercury retrograde periods can help you to plan your ventures in advance so that do not go off-track.
Retrograde period it is best advised not to venture into any new territory and to stay put. As Mercury completes its orbit around the Sun in 88 days, it becomes retrograde three or four times in a calendar year.
In 2019, Mercury will be in retrograde three times during the date ranges of:
Mercury keeps going around the Sun, always in the same direction and at the same speed. Knowing the Mercury retrograde periods can help you to plan your ventures in advance so that do not go off-track.
Retrograde period it is best advised not to venture into any new territory and to stay put. As Mercury completes its orbit around the Sun in 88 days, it becomes retrograde three or four times in a calendar year.
In 2019, Mercury will be in retrograde three times during the date ranges of:
- March 5 to 28
- July 7 to August 2
- October 31 to November 20

The Wonderful, Mysterious Concept Of Time
Time As We Know It
In today’s world our lives typically revolve around a 9 to 5 schedule. You wake up around six, hit the gym at seven, and sit in traffic at eight to finally end up in the office by nine. Your evening consists of an after work happy hour followed by dinner and your favorite Netflix show, etc. What’s the common theme? Routine. Our world has pushed us to conform to routines.
Time
History has proven the concept of “time” has been shaped by man. Daylight and darkness have given civilizations past a structure to develop efficient use of time. Prehistoric civilizations for instance used astrology to determine time while ancient Egyptians developed the sundial to measure time. It wasn’t until the 1300s that the mechanical clock was invented. Fast forward to 1999, when scientists had developed the cesium fountain atomic clock, which is off by only one second every 20 million years. This clock is the most accurate in the world….
Time Does Not Exist
As we know, Albert Einstein became famous because of his theory of relativity. This was first demonstrated by Albert Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity and famously expressed in his iconic equation, E=mc2, where E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of light (squared). In our context it is interesting to understand that Einstein studied the method of calculating time. He discovered a moment in time from my position need not necessarily to be the same from your position. Actually there is only NOW in which all that is manifested appeared, changes and disappears.
What is Einstein’s Theory?
Time is relative, and flexible and, according to Einstein, "the dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion". So reality is ultimately TIMELESS. This sounds pretty bizarre from the view of classical physics, but from the view of consciousness theory and spirituality, it fits in perfectly. And they claim that Albert Einstein was only a rigid scientist . . .
Time As We Know It
In today’s world our lives typically revolve around a 9 to 5 schedule. You wake up around six, hit the gym at seven, and sit in traffic at eight to finally end up in the office by nine. Your evening consists of an after work happy hour followed by dinner and your favorite Netflix show, etc. What’s the common theme? Routine. Our world has pushed us to conform to routines.
Time
History has proven the concept of “time” has been shaped by man. Daylight and darkness have given civilizations past a structure to develop efficient use of time. Prehistoric civilizations for instance used astrology to determine time while ancient Egyptians developed the sundial to measure time. It wasn’t until the 1300s that the mechanical clock was invented. Fast forward to 1999, when scientists had developed the cesium fountain atomic clock, which is off by only one second every 20 million years. This clock is the most accurate in the world….
Time Does Not Exist
As we know, Albert Einstein became famous because of his theory of relativity. This was first demonstrated by Albert Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity and famously expressed in his iconic equation, E=mc2, where E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of light (squared). In our context it is interesting to understand that Einstein studied the method of calculating time. He discovered a moment in time from my position need not necessarily to be the same from your position. Actually there is only NOW in which all that is manifested appeared, changes and disappears.
What is Einstein’s Theory?
Time is relative, and flexible and, according to Einstein, "the dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion". So reality is ultimately TIMELESS. This sounds pretty bizarre from the view of classical physics, but from the view of consciousness theory and spirituality, it fits in perfectly. And they claim that Albert Einstein was only a rigid scientist . . .

Time Illusion or Realty
I travel on the N1 towards Worcester. You travel on the N1 towards Cape Town. Relatively and subjectively speaking, you and I are traveling from our pasts into our futures from opposite points of departure. Thus, you are driving into your future into my past and I am driving into my future into your past the exact moment we pass each other. Does time then exist as we were indoctrinated to believe? All we have is NOW and to BE and exist in the NOW. Like a train passing and you are watching it standing stationary at one point. Here comes the future, there it goes into the past. The only moment you had is the NOW when you could look into one compartment for a moment in the NOW and your perception of reality. The nearest star to earth is our sun. It takes 8 minutes for its rays to reach the earth. At the speed, literally, of light. However, if you could be on the sun and look at earth, you will be looking 8 minutes into the past on earth. If you could move at the speed of light, nothing will age. If you could move faster than the speed of light, you would be moving into the future that is created as reality as you move along in the now
I travel on the N1 towards Worcester. You travel on the N1 towards Cape Town. Relatively and subjectively speaking, you and I are traveling from our pasts into our futures from opposite points of departure. Thus, you are driving into your future into my past and I am driving into my future into your past the exact moment we pass each other. Does time then exist as we were indoctrinated to believe? All we have is NOW and to BE and exist in the NOW. Like a train passing and you are watching it standing stationary at one point. Here comes the future, there it goes into the past. The only moment you had is the NOW when you could look into one compartment for a moment in the NOW and your perception of reality. The nearest star to earth is our sun. It takes 8 minutes for its rays to reach the earth. At the speed, literally, of light. However, if you could be on the sun and look at earth, you will be looking 8 minutes into the past on earth. If you could move at the speed of light, nothing will age. If you could move faster than the speed of light, you would be moving into the future that is created as reality as you move along in the now

Sutherland – Gateway to the Universe
Sutherland is a small Karoo town, famous for its warm hospitality, snowy winters, starlit nights and dramatic landscapes. Fascinating history and unique natural assets.
Like the earliest people, we are still awed by the mystery of the stars, planets and distant galaxies. Today, the extraordinary clarity of Sutherland’s cloudless, pollution-free night skies and its high elevation above sea level makes it a prime star-gazing destination and the perfect site for the South African Astronomical Observatory.
Over 25 000 years ago, the KhoiSan or Bushmen people who inhabited this region knew that time is in the stars. They had a remarkably extensive knowledge of the stars and wove this wisdom into the rhythm of their lives. The 19th-century scholar Dr Wilhelm Bleek, who studied their languages and analysed their legends, found evidence that the Bushmen had observed the movements of the planet Jupiter and its four main moons with the naked eye. These Bushman legends date back to before Galileo made his observations with his first telescope
The observatory houses the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, SALT, Southern African Large Telescope. Based on the design of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas, it consists of a primary, hexagonal mirror 11 metres wide made up of 91 individual hexagonal mirrors, each one meter wide and weighing about 100kg.
This great eye probing the universe is sensitive enough to pick up the light of a single candle on the moon – but its main job is to scan deep space, witnessing the birth and death of planets, gazing into distant galaxies and recording the scale and age of the universe, stars, galaxies and quasars billions of light years away.
Sutherland is a small Karoo town, famous for its warm hospitality, snowy winters, starlit nights and dramatic landscapes. Fascinating history and unique natural assets.
Like the earliest people, we are still awed by the mystery of the stars, planets and distant galaxies. Today, the extraordinary clarity of Sutherland’s cloudless, pollution-free night skies and its high elevation above sea level makes it a prime star-gazing destination and the perfect site for the South African Astronomical Observatory.
Over 25 000 years ago, the KhoiSan or Bushmen people who inhabited this region knew that time is in the stars. They had a remarkably extensive knowledge of the stars and wove this wisdom into the rhythm of their lives. The 19th-century scholar Dr Wilhelm Bleek, who studied their languages and analysed their legends, found evidence that the Bushmen had observed the movements of the planet Jupiter and its four main moons with the naked eye. These Bushman legends date back to before Galileo made his observations with his first telescope
The observatory houses the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, SALT, Southern African Large Telescope. Based on the design of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas, it consists of a primary, hexagonal mirror 11 metres wide made up of 91 individual hexagonal mirrors, each one meter wide and weighing about 100kg.
This great eye probing the universe is sensitive enough to pick up the light of a single candle on the moon – but its main job is to scan deep space, witnessing the birth and death of planets, gazing into distant galaxies and recording the scale and age of the universe, stars, galaxies and quasars billions of light years away.

So you still haven’t seen the true beauty of the African sky even though you’ve lived in South Africa all your life? Perhaps someone told you the Big Dipper is only visible from the Northern Hemisphere, and you took the news as a bit of a downer?
No more, excuses, you live in South Africa! People fly from the other side of the planet just to gape at our perfect night sky ─ and it is truly perfect, you just have to know where to look. It’s about time you hit the road to the place where the Milky Way is so close you can almost touch it with your fingertips. All you have to do is get up on the first windmill.
The sky is clearest during winter. Pack warm clothes! Thermal everything. It’s hard to marvel at the sky if you can’t feel your toes. Wake up at the crack of dawn, stroll down the main road and explore its dusty tributaries. Inhale the crisp, fragrant Karoo-morning air. There’s no better way to get the smoggy city out of your system.
Sutherland - Gateway to the Universe is beautiful, magical, life altering, extraordinary, allow experiences on all levels of existence and the panicle of life-enhancing energy flowing through your soul!
It seems like you just ran out of excuses for your date with the Universe. Pay it a never to forget visit, on your doorstep in Sutherland!
No more, excuses, you live in South Africa! People fly from the other side of the planet just to gape at our perfect night sky ─ and it is truly perfect, you just have to know where to look. It’s about time you hit the road to the place where the Milky Way is so close you can almost touch it with your fingertips. All you have to do is get up on the first windmill.
The sky is clearest during winter. Pack warm clothes! Thermal everything. It’s hard to marvel at the sky if you can’t feel your toes. Wake up at the crack of dawn, stroll down the main road and explore its dusty tributaries. Inhale the crisp, fragrant Karoo-morning air. There’s no better way to get the smoggy city out of your system.
Sutherland - Gateway to the Universe is beautiful, magical, life altering, extraordinary, allow experiences on all levels of existence and the panicle of life-enhancing energy flowing through your soul!
It seems like you just ran out of excuses for your date with the Universe. Pay it a never to forget visit, on your doorstep in Sutherland!

What is Astrology?
For centuries humans have looked for the skies for guidance. Astrology is the study of the relative positions and the movements of celestial bodies. It pertains to the astronomical positions of the sun, the moon and the planets at the time of a person’s birth
Astrology is one of the most profound Sacred Sciences known to man. Since the dawn of civilization the stars and planets have been used as celestial guides for human affairs.
Surely none other than the Infinite One could have created something with such unfathomable depth, complexity, and beauty.
What is the difference between astronomy and astrology?
Astronomy is the study of the universe and its contents outside of Earth's atmosphere. Astronomers examine the positions, motions, and properties of celestial objects.
Astrology studies how those positions, motions, and properties affect people and events on Earth. Keep in mind the moon determines low tide and high tide.
Humans are relatively made up of between 60% and 70% water. How can the celestial bodies not have an influence on our approach to life, characteristics, emotions and much more?
For centuries humans have looked for the skies for guidance. Astrology is the study of the relative positions and the movements of celestial bodies. It pertains to the astronomical positions of the sun, the moon and the planets at the time of a person’s birth
Astrology is one of the most profound Sacred Sciences known to man. Since the dawn of civilization the stars and planets have been used as celestial guides for human affairs.
Surely none other than the Infinite One could have created something with such unfathomable depth, complexity, and beauty.
What is the difference between astronomy and astrology?
Astronomy is the study of the universe and its contents outside of Earth's atmosphere. Astronomers examine the positions, motions, and properties of celestial objects.
Astrology studies how those positions, motions, and properties affect people and events on Earth. Keep in mind the moon determines low tide and high tide.
Humans are relatively made up of between 60% and 70% water. How can the celestial bodies not have an influence on our approach to life, characteristics, emotions and much more?

How does Astrology work?
Astrology is a glorious and beautiful harmonization of science and spirit. By using the Earth's orbit around the Sun as a fixed reference point and through precise astronomical plotting of planetary movements, people can understand, with remarkable accuracy, the highest spiritual meanings and most practical physical potentials that synchronize with celestial events.
The 'map' against which one superimposes this extremely precise scientific data is the birth or natal chart. The birth chart, which everyone has, is essentially a snapshot of the heavens at the moment of birth. The locations and aspects of the Sun, Moon, and planets mysteriously reveal the nature and purpose of one's life.
How can I benefit from Astrology?
The value of Astrology transcends mundane concerns and is a priceless treasure for all mankind to share. Astrology can reveal one's life purpose, one's ascension path, and provide tremendous clarity on all matters of love, family, health, career, finance, education, experience, and of course, spirit.
It offers solutions to life's most difficult, seemingly hopeless challenges as well as revealing pathways to manifesting abundance and success at spectacular levels. It empowers individuals by helping them understand their inherent strengths and potentials that they may embrace and develop. There is nothing hidden under the heavens and nothing that one can't understand through the luminous lens of Astrology.
Astrology is a glorious and beautiful harmonization of science and spirit. By using the Earth's orbit around the Sun as a fixed reference point and through precise astronomical plotting of planetary movements, people can understand, with remarkable accuracy, the highest spiritual meanings and most practical physical potentials that synchronize with celestial events.
The 'map' against which one superimposes this extremely precise scientific data is the birth or natal chart. The birth chart, which everyone has, is essentially a snapshot of the heavens at the moment of birth. The locations and aspects of the Sun, Moon, and planets mysteriously reveal the nature and purpose of one's life.
How can I benefit from Astrology?
The value of Astrology transcends mundane concerns and is a priceless treasure for all mankind to share. Astrology can reveal one's life purpose, one's ascension path, and provide tremendous clarity on all matters of love, family, health, career, finance, education, experience, and of course, spirit.
It offers solutions to life's most difficult, seemingly hopeless challenges as well as revealing pathways to manifesting abundance and success at spectacular levels. It empowers individuals by helping them understand their inherent strengths and potentials that they may embrace and develop. There is nothing hidden under the heavens and nothing that one can't understand through the luminous lens of Astrology.