"The earth laughs in flowers."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The First Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the foragers, was followed by the Second Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the farmers, and gives us an important perspetive on the Third Wave Extinction, which industrial activity is causing today.  Don't believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature.  Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving th emost plant and animmal species to their extinctions.  We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.
--Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 2015, p74.

The current retrograde is supposed to last until September 22.  It's a long one.  Lots of people think that this planetary phenomenon is the reason that things haven't been going their way.  You're not supposed to make any major decisions or stick your neck out during a retrograde.  Why?  Superstition, in a word.

Most people who believe this bunk don't understand what the mercury retrograde really is.  They think it's something serious, when it is really just an optical illusion in the sky.  Mercury appears to be going backwards because of our perspective from here on earth, and the relative movements of the other planets.  For a sky-watcher, it's interesting.  For the superstitious person, it's momentous.  Like zodiac signs in astrology, it guides their choices and gives meaning to events.

People who embrace "new age" spirituality are the most likely to believe in the negative effects of a mercury retrograde.  They also tend to believe in karma and reincarnation.  These beliefs are indicative of the overall ignorance of our populace.  People think that because they have shed institutionalized religion that their new superstition must be better.  Too many people seek explanations for what they experience, and then latch onto them without further consideration.

How is reincarnation any more plausible than heaven and hell?  Are we capable of living with "I don't know" as our answer?  Is intellectual laziness really our future?

This is an order of magnitude greater moral offense...because what is at stake is the fate of the planet, humanity, and the future of civilization, not to be melodramatic.

—Alyssa Bernstein, ethics expert at Ohio U, comparing Exxon's funding deniers (despite knowing about climate change since the 80's) to the tobacco industry denying the link between smoking and cancer.

It's simple. All we have to do is let Ebola decimate the human population.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/04/doctor_doom_eric_pianka_receiv002118.html
We are not the only or most important species, but we think we are.

Somehow it helps me to keep the big picture in mind. We live, then we die. Our species rises to dominance, then fades. The planet goes on. The Universe goes on.

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.
--Carl Sagan

Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go do that,
because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.

~Howard Thurman