We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind, and watch the stars go out

Well, we're approaching a real, honest-to-goodness Mercury retrograde period in a few days. It'll run from January 11 through February 1.

I know most folks don't really care or believe in astrology, but I've named this blog (and my corresponding design/organization business) Retrograde for a good reason. According to supercool (and eerily accurate) astrologer Susan Miller, "Mercury retrograde phases urge us to look back to find things of value from the past." Regardless of what you believe, I  think that's a good attitude to have at various times of the year.

We should take time to organize our homes and offices several times a year, cleaning, rotating artwork and furniture, and putting up new things like fresh flowers or plants. Over the last few days I've used my own home as a place to experiment. I rearranged things a bit to come up with the photo above.

Here's how it was before:

Now I know there probably wasn't anything wrong with the "before", but I had been living with it for almost two years now, pretty much unchanged. So it felt good to shake things up a bit. I took out an old coffee table from storage and pulled back the sofa to make room. I moved the large blue painting to another wall and put up a new piece. The vertical bookshelf was actually there before, too, so I kept it there.

We shouldn't be afraid to re-examine our lives, and Mercury retrograde is kind of like a big cosmic "time out" forcing us to stay in a corner and think about what we've done. Embrace it!