In the Moment...Anne's Writings

Tomorrow at 4:52 p.m. Chicago time, the Sun leaves placid, nature-loving Taurus for talkative, information-loving Gemini. Then, at 7:12 a.m. this Saturday, the Moon begins a new monthly cycle when it leaves the balsamic (or final) phase of its Taurus cycle and enters the new (or dark moon) phase in this year’s Gemini lunar cycle. These events grant us our annual double dose of Gemini.

This yearly emphasis on the sign of the Messenger asks us to focus on our minds, communication, learning new information and skills, and interacting with siblings and our local communities. This year, however, our efforts require a deeply spiritual approach because Mercury—which rules the sign of Gemini—is retrograde.  

Whenever any planet is retrograde (meaning it appears to move backward as seen from our vantage point on Earth), it indicates a need to review the area of life the planet governs. It also invites us to perform this review by going within via reflection, solitude, prayer, and meditation so that our minds operate on a spiritual level. Later, whenever the planet in question ends its retrograde and begins to move forward again, we can apply any insights we gain to improve ourselves as well as our interactions with family and friends and our contributions to society via work and volunteer efforts. 

The current Mercury retrograde began May 6, while the planet was in its home sign of Gemini; by May 13, Mercury had slipped far enough backward to re-enter Taurus. Taken together, the retrograde and the shift to Taurus tell us clearly how to work with this month’s planetary energies: focus our thoughts on the spiritual aspects of our material world by contemplating nature’s higher purpose and the pleasures of being a soul incarnate in a human body. 

Ultimately, this inward process leads us to consider the feminine—especially God’s female aspect as the Divine Mother, Holy Spirit, or Divine Feminine. Probably since the first humans walked our planet, people have associated the sky with male or active energy and the Earth with female or passive energy. This impulse led people to personify our planet as Gaia or the Goddess and led astrologers to associate all the zodiac’s earth signs with the feminine. Taurus, earthiest of all, comes during spring in the northern hemisphere, when earth’s explosion of flowers proclaims our planet’s fertility and beauty. Given this timing, May became associated with the Goddess and marked the time for ancient cultures’ fertility celebrations; some of those rituals remain with us, such as the maypole and the custom of making May Day baskets filled with flowers. 

As Christianity began to dominate the West, the Divine Feminine became associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and eventually the Roman Catholic Church designated May as Mary’s month. Today, this devotion survives in the May crowning (placing a crown of flowers on the head of a statue of Mary), special prayers, and other observances throughout May. 

All of us, regardless of our religious background, can benefit from harmonizing with this powerful, beautiful energy during this fertile, flower-filled month. Those whose background does not include any experience with Roman Catholicism might choose to tap into the Divine Feminine by reflecting on our material mother, Earth, or by researching and then meditating on ancient Goddess images and cultures or by spending time alone in a park or other natural setting. 

One of the most apt approaches for all of us, and one that elegantly combines the highest Taurus and Gemini energies, can be found in a type of Italian Renaissance painting called the sacra conversazione. Translated as “holy conversation” or “sacred conversation,” the sacra conversazione arose because Renaissance painters sought new ways of depicting the ubiquitous theme of the Madonna and child with various saints. Until that time, artists typically created multi-panel paintings showing Mary and Jesus in the central panel and the saints specified by the purchaser (generally a church or a rich person) in separate panels flanking the central image; sometimes the donors and perhaps their family members might appear in such paintings, often kneeling among the saints.  

With the Renaissance development of perspective came the ability to paint realistic depictions of space, and Italian painters began placing Mary, Jesus, and all the selected saints together in a single architectural space that was rendered as realistically as possible. In such works, the saints stand nearby Mary’s chair, but all the figures appear to be communicating silently (presumably about elevated spiritual subjects and feelings) with mouths closed and faces at rest, rather than holding an everyday conversation with their mouths open and faces looking at one another. 

Such images combine Taurus’s energy of the Divine Feminine and material fertility with Gemini’s energy of the Higher Mind and human sociability. By contemplating these paintings, we can learn to make fertile use of our minds by dwelling on beautiful thoughts. We also can receive inspiration to make our conversations with others as holy or sacred as possible by avoiding gossip and judgment in favor of constructive subjects, kind words, and a spirit of unconditional love. 

The sacra conversazione also suggests our great spiritual potential. Although saints, ascended masters, and all other spiritually evolved beings may dwell on the spiritual plane, they started out like us: souls who had to evolve through incarnation in a human body. Their spiritual achievement proves that we can reach the spiritual heights, too—if we are willing to elevate our thoughts and dedicate ourselves to goodness. To begin, we can enter into our own sacred conversation with such beings through prayer and meditation and ask for their help. Just as a mother hears her child’s cry and responds, so will the Divine Feminine hear our petition and grant us whatever help we need. 

May her spirit inspire you well at this auspicious time. 

Today, the Moon begins a new monthly cycle when it enters the astrological sign of Aries at 11:06 a.m. Chicago time. It joins the Sun in Aries, giving all of us a double dose of this powerful energy and a special opportunity to launch new spiritual beginnings in our lives.

Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, heralds the start of a new year on earth every March at the time of the equinox. Ruled by Mars and symbolized by the Ram, Aries is the sign of the warrior as well as action, energy, and new beginnings. As a fire sign, it sparks all things new and inspires us to pioneer by beating a path through uncharted territory. 

Today’s combination of the New Moon and the Sun in Aries asks us to remember our calling to serve as spiritual warriors. Each of the zodiac’s 12 signs holds a key to the spiritual kingdom, and Aries’s key finds expression in the phrase “I am.” As astrology’s first sign, Aries represents the Divine’s first incarnation into matter—the fiery “I am” coming to earth by taking on human form. In this sense, we receive the gift of incarnation into earthly life in order to proclaim with all our being the glory of “I am”—not in an egotistical sense, but by living the Law of Love in all that we think, say, and do. 

Success in this daunting mission requires courage. Fortunately, Aries gives us bravery in abundance and a willingness to dare when we might otherwise shrink back in fear. As we rise to the occasion, over and over, we receive rewards in the form of inspiration that helps us meet every challenge. We also gain the energy to take the next step, overcome the next obstacle, and never give up until we emerge victorious. 

Along the way, Aries subjects us to the trial by fire. When we enter the inner battleground, life’s true playing field and competitive arena, we encounter an inner light, a flame that reveals our every weakness, flaw, and bit of unfinished business. Aries asks us to be brave enough to let that light shine and to look directly at all it shows us. Then, it asks us to undertake the spiritual warrior’s work of burning off our imperfections with spiritual fire by overcoming our weaknesses through discipline, correcting our flaws through honest reflection and patient transformation, and cleaning up our karmic messes through forgiving and making amends. 

Aries also asks us to let the inner light show us our strengths, our gifts, and our wisdom gained through previous victories in spiritual trials. To live the Law of Love, we must give thanks for these riches and share them freely and wisely with others to help uplift humanity. 

Starting today, at this annual joining of Sun and Moon in Aries, we enjoy a double portion of spiritual courage and fire. This powerful combination continues for three days as the Sun and Moon remain together in the sign of the Ram until the Moon moves into Taurus; afterward, the Sun will continue to inspire us in Aries until it moves into Taurus on April 19. We can make the most of this beginning of the new year and start of the new lunar cycle by recognizing our inner light, honoring our soul courage, and setting inspiring new spiritual goals. 

May we rise to this annual challenge by embarking on the way of the divine warrior and daring to be our best selves as we embody consciously the eternal “I am.” 

For nearly a month, the Sun has been making its annual journey through Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac. This time of year always invites us to go inward and contemplate our spiritual lives, especially our connection to the Divine and to all creation. It also gives us the opportunity to review the past 12 months and reflect on our personal spiritual progress, all in preparation for the powerful new beginnings that come with the Sun’s move into Aries at the time of the equinox in the latter half of March.

This call to contemplation takes on more urgency this year. Joining the Sun in Pisces are Mercury (our minds, thoughts, and capacity for reasoning and communication), Mars (our energy, pioneering spirit, and traditionally male urge—regardless of our gender—to sexual or other active expression), and Uranus (our experience of sudden change, spiritual awakening, and genius). When the Sun moves into Aries at 6:44 a.m. Chicago time this Friday, these three planets will continue on in Pisces—Mercury for a few days, Mars for a few weeks, and Uranus for more than a year—to further focus our attention and amplify our inward efforts. 

Right behind these planets, in the sign of Aquarius, lie Jupiter (expansion), Neptune (spirituality), the North Node (a point in space linked to destiny and the future), and Chiron (the gifts that grow out of our greatest wounding). Their sheer number commands our attention; the fact that Aquarius is ruled by Uranus, which is highlighted now because of its placement in Pisces along with the Sun, adds pressure along with electric intensity. 

This combination of Aquarius and Pisces can raise us to the heights of humanitarianism, idealism, spiritual breakthroughs, and mystical ecstasy. Yet it also can feel overwhelming, mysterious, and exhausting. Aquarius’s sudden bursts of electrical force can tax our nervous systems, while Pisces’s sensitivity and yearning for union with all that is can overload our emotions and trigger escapist behavior. In addition, Aquarius’s preoccupation with humanity as a whole tempts us to sacrifice our individual well-being for the collective good, while Pisces’s empathy for suffering tempts us to lose ourselves in martyrdom or to numb our pain in addiction. 

The way through this astral minefield can be found by tuning in to Mercury and Mars. Expressing the best of Mercury means focusing our minds, thoughts, and reasoning power on our ideals. Expressing the best of Mars means directing our willpower to live up to those ideals. With both these planets in Pisces, our thoughts and actions naturally turn toward altruistic urges and our deep desire for unity. To succeed, we must balance our wish to help others with the need to nurture ourselves. Mercury’s inherent love of logic can help by reminding us that we cannot serve effectively unless we attend to our own needs for rest, nourishment, play, and contemplation; Mars’s preoccupation with the self can help by ensuring we put our needs first so we can contribute to others from strength rather than guilt. 

Beyond these practical considerations, Mercury and Mars in Pisces demand that we see our minds and our actions in spiritual terms, as gifts we receive to support our soul progress. Pisces’s deep wisdom reminds us that we are not material creatures but rather spiritual beings residing temporarily in physical bodies within creation, which exists simply to assist our souls in evolving toward perfection. 

From that perspective, we come to understand the pressing need to make constructive choices in all that we think, say, and do. If we misuse Mercury’s energy, for example by thinking negative thoughts, lying, or gossiping, we delay our spiritual progress. We also lose precious opportunities to help make our ideals a reality—to create Heaven on Earth—because we waste our thoughts on what degrades us instead of what uplifts and inspires us. If we misuse Mars’s power, for instance by resorting to violence, anger, or recklessness, we destroy relationships and property instead of helping to build a new and joyful world. 

The need for spiritually based thought and action grows ever more important as our planet hurtles through an unprecedented era of relentless change. Rather than giving in to fear and going into mourning for a world and a way of life that are fast falling apart, we have an opportunity to surrender our hold on a past that has outlived its usefulness…simply by changing our minds. As we turn our attention away from what is dying, we make room in our minds for new thoughts of a new and better world…and where our minds go, our actions will follow in order to build that better world. 

Today we stand not only on the brink of a new season but on the cusp of a new, spiritual era for humanity. In these final days of the Sun’s stay in Pisces, may our thoughts, words, and actions turn toward the Divine as we embrace our highest ideals and begin the work of making our Heaven on Earth.

Yesterday marked the start of a new cycle for humanity. At 1:56 a.m. Chicago time, the new Moon in Aquarius eclipsed the Sun, also in Aquarius.

To further intensify this celestial set-up, Jupiter and Neptune also are in the sign of the Water Bearer, as are the North Node (a point in the sky offering insight to our collective future) and Chiron (a type of planet known as a centaur and associated with wounding and healing). Also, every other major planet but one (Saturn, which is in Virgo) is stacked up in that same sector of the sky and sitting right next door to Aquarius, either in Capricorn or Pisces.

These planetary placements serve as a huge billboard in the sky telling us to pay attention to Aquarius. How to do so is indicated by Mercury, which has been retrograde since January 11 and will not begin moving forward until the early morning (Chicago time) of February 1. Mercury governs our minds and communication, and when this planet is retrograde we have an opportunity to review how we think and how we express those thoughts to others.  Our greatest opportunity during Mercury’s thrice yearly retrograde can be found by taking a spiritual approach, using prayer and meditation to reflect honestly on how we use our minds and mouths and to make improvements as needed.

The Aquarian focus throughout the next month calls us to reflect on how the Water Bearer’s influence manifests in our lives. For example, Aquarius rules technology—especially computers—so we have a tremendous opportunity now to evaluate the tools we use to communicate, both as individuals and globally. To make the most of this, however, we must raise our sights to the spiritual realm and work to make technology serve Aquarius’s noble ideals of brotherhood, personal freedom, and innovation.

Aquarius also rules electricity, making this a good time to evaluate all the appliances, entertainment devices, and gadgets we use and to make changes if necessary to ensure they serve us well and support our highest good. For example, eliminating certain items or creating a new habit of unplugging anything not in use can save us money, streamline our lives, and eliminate unnecessary electrical fields from our everyday environment.

Aquarius also rules electricity on the spiritual level, which comes to us in the form of sudden awakenings or flashes of brilliance—just as lightning flashes on the physical plane during an electrical storm. We can harness this heavenly power and direct it toward noble ends thanks to our bodies, which operate as individual electromagnetic power plants.

We can make the most of this opportunity by making it easy for spiritual electricity to reach us and by grounding it when it does arrive. Spending time alone each day, in silence, and away from all technology, offers the surest means to success. A solitary walk in nature, a period of meditation, or unstructured time enjoying a hobby increases the odds that inspiration will pay a visit.

When inner lightning does strike, we need to ground it by giving it a healthy body that can absorb the energy and do something constructive with it. That means nourishing the physical self with nutritious, homemade food and doing an enjoyable physical activity in moderation on a regular basis. It also requires exceptional attention to getting deep and restful sleep each night and allowing time for extra rest during the day (or at least quiet relaxation), as electricity taxes the nervous system.

Finally, when good ideas present themselves, we need to get them down on paper immediately or risk losing them. Keeping a blank notebook at hand provides a simple way to record ideas and makes it easy to review them later. Over time, personal reflection will reveal how and when to act on these nuggets of wisdom, and prayer or meditation will allow the inner self to give thanks and to receive even more flashes of heavenly power.

The winter solstice arrives today. As the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, it caps six months of gradually decreasing light since the amount of daily sunlight peaked with the summer solstice—the longest day of the year—in June. 

Over the last half year, the waning light has brought changing seasons and cooling temperatures that encourage us to imitate nature by slowing down and harvesting the fruits of our labors over the past year. Also, this period’s longer nights draw us indoors and help us recharge from months of increased activity by encouraging us to rest and sleep more. 

Along with these necessary physical adaptations, the decreasing daylight signals us to give more time to spiritual pursuits; with less physical light to guide us, we must increase our inner or spiritual light and learn how to let it direct our lives. This focus on spirituality accelerates as the amount of daily darkness increases and peaks at the winter solstice. As a result, today offers one of the year’s most powerful opportunities for going within, reflecting on our spiritual lives, and setting new intentions. 

Also, every year at the winter solstice, the Sun moves out of fun-loving, philosophical Sagittarius and into sober, disciplined Capricorn, marking the official start of winter. This year, the shift occurs at 6:04 a.m. Chicago time. 

In 2008, winter’s start and the yearly change from Sagittarius to Capricorn take on unusual depth and seriousness because Jupiter, which rules Sagittarius, has been in Capricorn since last December, a placement that blunts Jupiter’s natural exuberance and inhibits its urge to expand. In addition, small but mighty Pluto, which had been in Sagittarius since 1995, moved into Capricorn last month and will stay there until 2024. 

Given these momentous planetary changes, this year’s solstice encourages us to reflect on Sagittarius themes—such as higher education, publishing, travel, law, religion, philosophy, and beliefs—and how they have evolved in our lives since 1995. Pluto’s penchant for destruction typically brings turmoil, especially if we hold onto what no longer serves us, yet its power ultimately frees us by reducing anything that is outmoded to rubble so it can be rebuilt on a firm, fitting foundation. Along the way, it transforms us by connecting us to our inner selves as we search our souls for signs of the Divine. 

This year’s solstice also presents a potent opportunity to explore the Capricorn themes—such as discipline, ambition, solitude, karma, and the kind of authority represented by big government and big business—that will become increasingly important over the next month during the Sun’s annual journey through this sign and in the years ahead as Pluto brings transforming energy to all things Capricorn. If we have the courage to set aside the materialism and worldly ambition that so easily distract this sign, we will be ready to undertake Capricorn’s true work of climbing the inner or spiritual mountain and using the highest ideals as a foundation for anything we build in the material world. 

On this day of greatest physical darkness, may our inner light shine brightly as we reflect on the past and begin the work of building the future.

With the Sun’s move into Scorpio a little after 8 p.m. Chicago time on October 22, we make the collective shift away from Libra’s airy idealism and search for balance to Scorpio’s dramatic intensity and quest for truth. During the Sun’s annual passage through the sign of the Scorpion, we may be rocked by intense waves of emotion as we experience this sign’s passion and desire. In the process, we must face our personal darkness in the form of feelings such as anger, jealousy, and hatred that come surging to the surface thanks to Scorpio’s penchant for going to extremes.

Such feelings may come to us through other people, who either exhibit these emotions or behave in ways that provoke them within us. Either way, we are brought face to face with many so-called negative aspects of the human condition that most of us would prefer to ignore or suppress. During this process, we may be reminded of the secrets we hold within and fear examining, let alone exposing to the light of public scrutiny.

Scorpio shows us the folly of fleeing the darkness. If we decide not to explore our inner landscape and refuse to examine our thoughts and feelings, we likely will express this sign’s negative side by using the Scorpion’s famous stinger to inflict pain on others whenever we feel bad. We also may project our dark side onto others by judging them harshly for the very same “sins” we refuse to face in ourselves. We even may use our eyes as weapons by “staring daggers” at another person or habitually seeing an entire group or nation with hatred. Over time, such behavior leads to the Scorpionic tendency to appear cold as ice while concealing a vengeful inner volcano ready to erupt at the slightest provocation. It also leads to serious consequences in the form of strained interactions with other people, reckless driving and other anger-fueled behavior, and broken relationships.

We can avoid all these dangers by surrendering to Scorpio’s wisdom, which asks us to walk courageously into our inner darkness and stay long enough to see it for what it really is. Anger then becomes a powerful clue showing us where our lives have fallen out of balance rather than an excuse for blaming others. Jealousy becomes a clue showing us where our self-esteem is suffering rather than an excuse for being possessive in love relationships. Hatred becomes a clue showing us what we fear most within ourselves rather than an excuse for persecuting others.

As we realize these truths, we tap into Scorpio’s deep power for transformation and begin to heal all our hidden, wounded parts. As we become whole, we grow spiritually and become worthy of this sign’s priceless gifts, which include psychic ability; healing powers; and knowledge of the mysteries of birth, sexuality, life, and death.

One of the Scorpion’s greatest gifts lies in the ability to focus intently, like a laser beam, on a single goal or object. When we heal ourselves under Scorpio’s demanding tutelage, we learn the power for good we hold in our eyes—those fabled “windows to the soul”—when we shine their beams with love. One of the greatest gifts we can give another consists of seeing that person with love. This deeply spiritual act not only uplifts the object of our gaze but brings out what is most noble within ourselves. Take it a step farther and imagine the power we wield when we resolve to see everything and everyone with that same intense love. With that step, we come home to Scorpio’s true power and its potential for catapulting us into the company of humanity’s great philosophers, mystics, and saints.

The Sun continues its passage through Scorpio until November 21. During that time, may life bring us all ample opportunities to bask in loving glances and to bestow our own loving gaze upon all that we see.

The Sun entered the astrological sign of Libra at 10:46 a.m. Chicago time on Monday, 22 September, a shift that brought us the autumnal equinox and the official start of fall. Equinox comes from Latin and means “equal night”; twice each year, at the fall and spring equinox, we experience a 24-hour period when night and day are of equal length.

The equinoxes offer us potent points of stillness enabling us to reflect on the prior six months before we shift our attention and energy to operate in opposite ways. At the spring equinox, when the Sun enters Aries, we look back on autumn’s waning light and winter’s cold; at the same time, energy that has been building since the winter solstice finally breaks free and spurs us to the assertive—even aggressive—action Aries demands.

Autumn’s energy calls us to do the opposite. This equinox offers us a time to look back at six months of pushing and striving on all planes so we can evaluate our successes and failures and glean the wheat from the chaff in all areas of life. Libra provides the clues for focusing our attention most effectively: its symbol, the scales, calls us to balance Aries’s warrior energy with Libra’s peacemaking urges. Its pastel colors ask us to let go of Aries’s red intensity to embrace tranquility. Its ruling planet, Venus, shows us the wisdom of putting Mars’s masculine, action-oriented approach on hold to embrace feminine qualities such as receptivity and intuition.

On the physical plane, autumn pulls us back indoors because darkness falls much earlier and temperatures begin to drop. This emphasis continues for the next six months, because even though the days begin to grow longer with the solstice in December, they remain shorter than the nights until the spring equinox. As a result, daytime and the Sun step back to give center stage to nighttime and the Moon…the lack of outer light signals our need to turn toward the inner light.

Some people fear this darker half of the year, especially those who lack spiritual focus or who base their security on material assets such as money, awards, and possessions. Even those who acknowledge their spiritual nature may grow anxious as leaves fall and plants die and darkness brings them face to face with unknown parts of themselves. Libra symbolizes the way through any fears by reminding us that all aspects of life must work in balance. To have light, we must have darkness.

Autumn gives us the opportunity to embrace the dark to bring ourselves into perfect balance. To make the most of this time, we must make nighttime our priority by doing less, staying home more, and slowing down. We also must harmonize our lives with Nature by giving ourselves permission to sleep more; besides repairing our exhausted bodies, sleep allows us to tap into our inner selves through dreams. As we rest, our lives take on the quiet needed for reflection, and we can begin to hear the inner call to prayer and meditation.

This process teaches us that night and darkness are nothing to fear. Just as a baby must develop in the quiet darkness of the womb, so must we nourish our souls by letting the inner light guide us as we explore and make peace with the dark corners within us. Only then can we begin to fulfill Libra’s beautiful promise of harmony and wholeness.

On the outer plane, Libra brings out the diplomat and peacemaker, but on the inner plane, this sign brings us Peace Profound, “the peace that passes understanding.” In the quiet, as we allow ourselves to be receptive, we fulfill the call to “be still and know that I AM.” In that stillness, we enter into the Libran mystery to find our true peace and rest in the Divine.

On July 31, we went to a concert at Ravinia, our first visit to this outdoor classical music venue in several years. We left our house on the edge of Chicago’s southwest side at 5:30 p.m., traveling from I55 to Lake Shore Drive to head north. We had prepared ourselves mentally for a long ride because of rush hour congestion and road construction, so we were able to relax in the car and enjoy the late in the day sunshine. The weather was perfect: sunny and summertime warm without being too hot or too humid for comfort. 

After snaking past the Loop, traffic came to a halt. When it finally began to move again, we inched forward and saw the remains of a multi-car crash along with a host of police and rescue workers. Then the traffic began to move faster, and the sun, now low in the west, sent its nearly horizontal beams between the highrises on our left, across Lake Shore Drive, and into the lush green park beside Lake Michigan to our right. 

At the top of the Drive, we turned onto Sheridan Road and followed its twists and turns through Chicago’s far northeast neighborhoods of Edgewater and Rogers Park. Past dense clusters of highrises that gave the road the feeling of a canyon’s floor, the energy shifted to an open feeling as we moved through blocks of low-rise, vintage apartment buildings. As we reached the end of Chicago and the beginning of Evanston, the buildings ended, affording us an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan sparkling to the right as its restless surface caught the sun’s rays. To the left, all was immobility in Calvary Catholic Cemetery, where a profusion of huge, ornate grave markers evoked a giant green chessboard overrun with extra pieces. 

Soon we found ourselves in the stretch of Sheridan lined with North Shore mansions, which called up memories of countless drives past these same houses in my childhood and later, after receiving my driver’s license, as a teenager on outings with high school friends. Every trip through the area made me imagine life inside those mansions—not for their current inhabitants, but for their original owners from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Once again, traffic halted, this time because road construction had removed all southbound traffic (along with nearly the entire road) and reduced the northbound flow to a single lane. When we began moving again, our slow pace became a blessing because the way was narrow, and the dropoff at the edge of our lane was well more than a foot. Along the way, the bricks that had once formed this quite old part of Sheridan were thrown up into huge heaps of dark, dirty red. 

As we drew closer to our destination, we entered the area of Sheridan Road called “the ravines,” which gave Ravinia its name. The pavement became a narrow ribbon through deep, tree-covered gorges with houses perched here and there. The temporary darkness and seclusion cut me off from the present, plunging me deep into the time in prehistory when rushing water carved through the land to create the ravines. My inner trip back in time ended almost as quickly as it began, for soon the ground leveled out, the trees cleared, and the road curved west. We went a little way, turned onto Green Bay Road, and soon found ourselves passing beneath the rustic wooden sign announcing Ravinia Park. To my relief, we saw that the night’s crowd was small and parking was easy. A glance at the time while taking our folding chairs from the trunk revealed it had taken us exactly two hours to reach Ravinia. 

On entering the park, we headed left around the Martin Theatre, which was built in 1904 and would host the evening’s concert. Looking up from the path, my eyes saw the top half of the theatre’s west wall, shimmering an intense gold in the sun’s final burst of light. Suddenly, a soul memory surfaced…something about the building’s Arts and Crafts style and the sun’s dying light made me feel this sight was familiar, probably from a prior lifetime that included the period around the turn of the 20th century. My steps slowed to let my eyes absorb the image and my heart drink in the feeling of being outside of time, in the realm of eternity, where all times and possibilities exist together. 

After a moment that held forever in its fleeting existence, we turned away and walked onto the green expanse of the lawn. Nearly all those attending the concert had tickets for seats inside the theatre, as only about ten parties dotted the grass. My mind traveled back to my school days…my family lived five minutes from Ravinia, and we often spent evenings on the lawn among smallish crowds listening to classical music and occasionally to folk or pop music concerts. In high school, we children typically attended with each other or with our friends. The richness of those nights, and their later dwindling and ultimate disappearance as my adult life took shape, rose up together in my memory and deepened the spell that Eternity had begun casting over me as soon as we left home. 

We placed our chairs on the grass and walked to a nearby pavilion to purchase dinner because the concert would be starting soon. The light was waning rapidly now, as the sun had sunk beneath the horizon; the theatre’s west wall had lost all its shimmer and was sinking into gray insubstantiality, as if it would disappear completely until the sun rose the next morning to call it back into existence with its beams. 

We were eating dinner as the concert began. Soprano Nicole Cabell, accompanied by pianist Susan Tang, opened with three songs by Liszt, followed by five Greek folk songs composed by Ravel. She closed the first half with four pieces by the 20th century Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino. About midway through, the jumble of sights and memories and music inspired me to walk the park while my husband finished his dinner. By now, the sky had turned milky in the twilight, deepening my impression of being in a world apart from everyday life, buffered from the outside by a cottony cocoon.  

Every step took me past a building, a tree, or a section of the lawn that helped the past press its case for occupying my thoughts. My throat began to ache with the effort of holding my emotions in check. Many pasts began to fill me: the remembered past of childhood and teen years, the unremembered experiences that snapped to life with exposure to Ravinia’s every facet, and the dimly sensed soul past of the turn of the 20th century. Stopping at a washroom, the Arts and Crafts architecture and the park’s resemblance to a summer camp heightened this multi-layered, multi-time effect. 

The music ended just before my walking tour did. Back by our chairs, my husband had stretched out on the grass, which was gradually growing damp with evening dew. Sitting in my chair, a firefly fluttered by, and in the distance, a leafy green tree lit from below looked like a white hydrangea in the strange mix of artificial light and deepening blue twilight. The first stars appeared against the murmurs of other groups’ conversations and the flickers from their candles’ flames. 

As the second half began, Cabell left behind the first segment’s older and sometimes heavier pieces for more recent songs that seemed closer to her heart and touched us more deeply. After three works by Andre Previn from Honey and Rue, she served up a trio of songs by Ben Moore that included the jaunty The Ivy-Wife and the carousel-like Bright Cap and Streamers. Edward Hammond Boatner’s uplifting spiritual O What a Beautiful City followed. The formal program ended with the heartbreaking Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child and the joyous Ride On, King Jesus. Throughout, progressively louder cicadas accompanied Cabell outside as her pianist accompanied her inside, and once or twice a commuter train rumbled by on the nearby tracks. 

Cabell returned to the stage and spoke briefly to the audience before giving two encores. Echoes of her perfect, polished, clear singing voice sounded in her speaking voice, which exuded grace, charm, and warm emotion as she thanked patrons and sponsors who have supported her artistry. It did not surprise me to learn later that she is a Libra, born 17 October 1977. Then she launched into Wouldn’t You Like to be on Broadway? and What Good Would the Moon Be? from Kurt Weill’s opera Street Scene, which features lyrics by Langston Hughes. She closed the evening with Puccini’s famous O Mio Babbino Caro. 

We stopped inside the theatre on our way out to admire its recent restoration and fulfill my need to anchor the Arts and Crafts inspiration for the evening’s soul impressions into my consciousness. Heading back to the car, we agreed to take the Edens Expressway southward; as with our journey to Ravinia, the trip was slowed by construction and by a multi-car accident. Driving with the windows open and feeling the summer night, we decided to stop for ice cream. At the combination Baskin Robbins and Dunkin’ Donuts on Elston Avenue in Chicago, a huge cicada with colorful wings was lying just inside the entrance. Although it probably was near the end of its life, my heart couldn’t bear leaving it vulnerable to being stepped on, so we moved it outside out of harm’s way. 

More than four weeks have passed since our Ravinia experience, but the feeling of being outside time—or rather, in all times at one time—has persisted and pushed me to put its effect and its power into words. Although the title of Thomas Wolfe’s novel tells us You Can’t Go Home Again, my experience tells me we are souls who can go any where and to any time through the magic of memory, music, and emotion.

The Sun left watery Cancer for fiery Leo a few minutes before 6 a.m. Chicago time on Tuesday, July 22. It remains in the sign of the Lion until August 22, giving us a full month to explore our creativity, bring out our playful inner child, and seek our heart’s desire. 

All these aspects of Leo point to the higher truth this sign represents. Creativity comes from the Divine, and we serve on Earth as its channels in order to express our uniqueness, help others, and uplift the world. Also, no matter our age, we forever remain children of the Divine; regardless of our earthly parents, our true parent remains the divine Mother-Father from whom we came to be. In addition, Leo rules the heart, that enduring symbol of love and the powerful center within each of us that allows us to attune with our true spiritual nature. 

Another clue to Leo’s significance comes from its ruler, the Sun, that great, fiery symbol of the Divine that bestows its blazing light on all creation. Just as the Sun shines generously for all, the Leo part within each of us longs to give freely and abundantly and to love fully and unconditionally. 

This morning, Leo’s connections with the heart brought to mind the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma’at, whose name means truth and who personifies the order that came out of the primordial chaos. According to Egyptian beliefs, every person came face to face with Ma’at after death, when she weighed the individual’s soul against a white feather. (See the text for Found Feather I in the Gallery for more on Ma’at; while there, check out Found Feather II and Found Feathers.) 

During our time on Earth, our work consists in making our hearts light and pure enough to balance perfectly with a single feather. To reach that goal, we must refrain from destructive behaviors and negative thoughts so we don’t make our hearts heavy with guilt and shame. At the same time, we need to engage in constructive behaviors and positive thoughts that fill our hearts with joy. 

The Sun’s passage through Leo is a wonderful opportunity to pay particular attention to our hearts…not simply eating healthfully to care for our physical hearts, but nurturing our emotional hearts. That means doing what makes us happy—what makes our hearts sing. It also means protecting our inner child when necessary and letting that little one out to play. Most of all, it means giving ourselves the gift of laughter as often as possible, for a good laugh lessens life’s often considerable burdens and makes our hearts light.

Today marks the Sun’s final day in the astrological sign of Cancer for this year, as tomorrow it moves into the sign of Leo at a few minutes before 6 a.m. Chicago time. As it does every year, the Sun began its journey through Cancer at the Summer Solstice, which this year occurred at 7 p.m. Chicago time on Friday, 20 June. 

Since the Solstice, Cancer’s energies have given all of us opportunities to reflect on the feminine aspects of in our lives, especially our mothers, our need for nurturing, our relationship with food, and our quest for security. In a final burst of lunar energy before the shift to Leo, three days ago the Moon was full in Cancer’s opposite sign of Capricorn at 3 a.m. Chicago time. Since then, although the Moon has begun to wane, its nearly full shape has stood guard in the evening sky, lighting up the heavens with a comforting presence.

Last night, looking across the street before closing the living room blinds, my heart felt happy at seeing the bright white Moon to the southeast, partially hidden behind an enormous tree. It called forth memories of warm summer nights without air conditioning but made more bearable by cooling moonlight…and the haunting image of a Full Moon reflected in a pool of water as part of an initiation described in the Brownie handbook from my early days in grammar school. After going to bed and falling asleep, something woke me in the early hours of this morning…and a glance out our bedroom window gave me a dramatic view of the Moon, which had moved far across the sky and now sat in the southwest among dark horizontal clouds. 

How fitting, then, that today, this final day of Cancer, should fall on a Monday—whose name comes from “Moon Day” to indicate how the Moon rules this day of the week. The Moon also rules Cancer, giving this sign its deep imagination, emotional sensitivity, and strong intuitive abilities. Today, we woke to a completely overcast sky that gave way to a hard rain. After a wet and moody morning—typically Cancer—it now has grown partly cloudy, as if heralding the shift from the Moon and Cancer to Sun-ruled Leo. The morning weather came like a motherly prescription to stay indoors, enjoy the quiet of routine tasks, and allow feelings and memories to surface. 

Looking back over the past month, it occurred to me today that my experience of the Sun’s sojourn in Cancer had—without my conscious awareness— been filled with deeply feminine, nurturing experiences. It began appropriately enough with attending a lecture and book signing by the Yarn Harlot, a Toronto knitter, blogger, and writer of humorous books about knitting. Two days later, we took five blankets created by me in recent months to our contact for the Linus Project, which provides blankets for abused, neglected, and hospitalized children. Throughout the month, my social life has revolved largely around outings and phone calls with female friends. 

About a week after the Sun’s entry into Cancer, a health concern gave me an opportunity to compare a hard-edged, stereotypically masculine approach to health care with a soft, deeply feminine course of treatment that ultimately healed my ailment. This experience called forth deep emotions and a desire for change that prompted me to engage in the highly Cancerian pursuit of evaluating excessive rigidity in my diet and health routine, releasing the need to be so hard on myself, and allowing myself to get extra rest. 

Cancer’s feminine and family-oriented symbols and experiences seemed to follow me everywhere. On the 4th of July, we attended a barbecue hosted by my father and stepmother and attended by my husband’s parents and several of my siblings; seeing so much family plunged me into childhood memories and musings on the role of holidays and food in holding families together. It also filled me with longing for a Norman Rockwell childhood that never existed…and for the time when all of my siblings lived together. We are all long since grown, and those days will never come again, and my heart grieved at the losses time inevitably brings. Later that day, we attended a neighbor’s Independence Day party, and being with her large extended family amplified my earlier reflections. After dark, area residents set off (illegal) fireworks for hours by the nearby railroad tracks in an annual display unofficially sanctioned by law enforcement; watching these colorbursts splash red, white, blue, and green across the sky took me back to childhood’s summer nights, 4th of July sparklers, my father’s few holiday explosives made with ammunitions expertise gained in W.W. II, and watching Yankee Doodle Dandy on television after attending our town’s fireworks show. 

Cancer’s watery energy came through in early July on a lunch outing with a friend followed by an afternoon sitting on the rocks at Lake Michigan just north of Lawrence Avenue. We drank in the lake’s cooling blue color, and the sunshine, whitecaps, and gull cries reminded me of water’s vast healing power. Before going to Margie’s Candies for sundaes, we enjoyed a long meditation made more intense by our closeness to the water. The following week, my husband joined me for a sunset cruise on Lake Michigan as guests of a friend, a Cancer who was celebrating her birthday that day. 

Bringing the feminine energies full circle, this month we marked the passing of two women from our lives. Two days ago found me attending the deeply mystical funeral service for a friend who died unexpectedly last month at 56; the rites brought together many of the friends she made as a member of the Rosicrucian and Martinist Orders. Last weekend, we attended the funeral for one of my husband’s cousins, a retired nurse who died earlier this month at 66. The service was held at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church on Chicago’s South Side in the Marquette Park neighborhood. After experiencing the moving music and recitations, we waited to go over to the luncheon next door in order to admire the church, which is filled with stained glass windows, statues, and paintings of Mary that proclaim the glory and power of the divine feminine.  

This feminine power expressed itself most forcefully to me this month on the day after Independence Day. Late that morning, we went outside to weed the garden, prune trees and bushes, and clean up the yard. We finished in the afternoon and went to run several errands. Shortly before sunset, we returned to the backyard to sit on the patio and enjoy the newly spruced up landscape. After a while, something inspired me to get a blanket from the house and spread it out on the grass so we could lie down. As we stretched out our arms and legs, closed our eyes, and breathed in the early evening air, my body let go of all the day’s tensions and concerns. Soon, my being felt at one with the Earth, melding into her depth and grounding energy…and then a pulsing power made its way up from the core of the Earth and into the core of my body. It filled me with a healing, uplifting energy and made me know Earth as an expression of our Divine Mother, always ready to nurture and protect us as we journey through life. 

Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Moon. The planet Venus. The goddesses of earlier times. Along with these archetypes, the Earth offers us a key to the mystery of Creation and the role of the feminine in the Divine plan. Together, they bring us closer to the mystery of Cancer and the beautiful Divine Mother. As the astrological times shift to Leo, may we carry with us and cherish all the love and nurturing the Crab’s maternal presence has given us this past month.

Thursday brought rain, giving us a perfect opportunity to visit the Denver Art Museum. We started with the small but interesting collection of European and American painting, sculpture, and furniture; then toured a special exhibit of Amish and Mennonite quilts; and ended up on the ground floor for a special show of quilts from Gee’s Bend, Louisiana. After lunch of gourmet macaroni and cheese (whole grain pasta with a sauce made from four kinds of cheese), we entered the Asian galleries, where we stayed until closing. 

Statues of Vishnu, Shiva and Parvati, Ganesh, and other deities greeted us in the India section. Later on, we communed with several Buddhas and then immersed ourselves in the inkwells, tables, paintings, and other accoutrements of the scholar’s tradition in China. Just before leaving, we came upon a gallery devoted to objects from the Han Dynasty, which ruled China from 206 BCE to 220 CE. The sculptures there enchanted me with their simple shapes and flowing lines. A prancing horse stood out from the other pieces thanks to his swaggering stride and enormous lips pulled back to reveal large teeth and a mischievous smile. 

On our way home we stopped for a treat at Bonnie Brae ice cream parlor, justly famous for the many flavors it makes. In the evening, we dined at The Fort in Morrison, which specializes in wild game and preserves food traditions from the days of the Santa Fe Trail. Although the menu offered rocky mountain oysters, rattlesnake cakes, and other delicacies, my altitude-weary system made do with nothing more adventurous than a bison filet with lobster tail. My husband, however, tried the wild game platter, which presented a bison steak, elk chop, and roasted quail. We both enjoyed the prickly pear cocktail. While eating at our window table, we watched the sky darken and turn blue and then indigo as the Sun set and the city lights north of us began to twinkle against the sky and the mountain peaks. Afterward, we wandered through the restaurant’s courtyard, admiring the adobe architecture and the scent of the outdoor fire. 

The next day was our last in Colorado, and we opted to see downtown via a walking tour. At length we found the Brown Palace, an elegant old hotel that brought back memories of my stay there on business many years ago. After admiring the ornate lobby, we made our way to “Lodo” (lower downtown) for lunch with the daughter of a friend; our conversation ranged from travel and art to reincarnation and Atlantis, and suddenly three hours had passed and it was time to part. That evening, we took in a baseball game between the Rockies and the Milwaukee Brewers; Milwaukee led most of the way but Colorado began to score in the late innings and emerged victorious. 

The next morning, we got an early start for home. The time and the miles seemed to pass quickly, and by early evening we were deep into Iowa. In a final homage to Mercury’s retrograde, we scrapped our original plan for a two-day return journey and opted to drive straight through. We reached Chicago around three the next morning, pulling up in front of our house to the sound of birds chirping. Our two cats were confused yet overjoyed to see us and joined us on the bed when we finally turned in around 4 a.m. 

During day two of our drive west, the words “Cripple Creek” had caught my eye while scanning the atlas’s map for Colorado. In a flash, my mind made the connection with Linda Goodman, perhaps the most famous astrologer of the 20th century, whose 1968 book, Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, became the first astrology book to make the New York Times bestseller list. Goodman went to Cripple Creek on the advice of a guru, and the diary she kept while there became the basis for her book Star Signs. She later returned to the town, where she lived until her death in 1995. 

Immediately my heart longed to visit and see the surroundings that had inspired Goodman’s most mystical writings, but our queries about making the journey met with discouragement, as Cripple Creek is at least three hours from Denver. It seemed too long for a day trip, but something in me held on to the idea and trusted that if it was meant to be it would happen. 

On Wednesday of our vacation my altitude sickness had passed, so we rose early, had breakfast, and drove due south out of Denver. We missed the main exit for Garden of the Gods, our intended destination, so we drove into Colorado Springs and stopped at the visitors center to get revised directions. After asking the staff about Cripple Creek, we learned it was just an hour west…and suddenly a trip there seemed not only probable but fated. 

We drove the short distance into Garden of the Gods and felt the requisite awe at its massive red rock formations jutting jaggedly out of the earth. The day was hot, so we decided against hiking and instead drove slowly through the park twice to drink in the scenery, enjoy the sunshine, and take pictures. By then we had agreed we would make the trip to Cripple Creek, so we headed west. 

In a few minutes, we saw a sign announcing “Cliff Dwellings” and, in keeping with the spirit of Mercury retrograde (and serendipity), we decided to stop. When we pulled up, young Indian men clad in colorful garb were entertaining a small crowd with ceremonial dances. After watching a while, we explored the nearby pueblo; built on a mesa and inhabited until 1984, it now houses the Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings Museum filled with tools, pottery, and weapons. Afterward, we strolled over to the cliff dwellings that the Anasazi Indians carved into the rock centuries ago and enjoyed the self-guided tour that led us through window-size openings, up and down wooden ladders, and through cool, dark passages connecting the dwellings’ many rooms. Peering out from the pueblo revealed a spectacular view of the nearby mountains and evoked deep feelings of peace and connection with the people who settled here so long ago. 

Leaving the cliff dwellings, we made our way down a steep road with several switchbacks into the town of Manitou Springs, where we drove the bustling and picturesque main street and stopped at the Stagecoach Inn for lunch. Returning to Highway 24, we passed several towns and Pike’s Peak before taking the mountain road that leads to Cripple Creek. The way grew steep and narrow as we climbed higher, with the mountain’s bulk and the lane for oncoming traffic to our left and the edge of the road and a sheer dropoff (and no guard rails) to the right. As we drove, the elevation—and our anxiety—increased, and aspen began to outnumber the other trees.  

When we finally arrived, our first sight of this small city of just more than 1,000 people was one of its nearly two dozen casinos. Just up the street, we found the Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad, where the next tour aboard its more than century old team train was departing in ten minutes. We bought tickets and on board we saw a young engineer in the locomotive shovel coal into the firebox to heat the boiler that produced the steam to power the train. He also drove the train and gave the four-mile, 45-minute tour, telling Cripple Creek’s colorful history as a gold mining town, how it grew to nearly 50,000 inhabitants, how it survived floods and fires, and how underground mining gave way to today’s pit mining, which still extracts millions of dollars in gold and silver every year. During the trip, two antelopes in an aspen grove to the left of the tracks looked up at us before bolting away. On the other side of the tracks, the town stretched before us, a tiny flatland tucked away in a lonely corner of the mountains.  

Back at the depot, Laura, one of the young women on staff, sought us out. When we had bought our tour tickets, we’d asked if anyone knew where Linda Goodman had lived; Laura said her grandmother had been one of Goodman’s best friends, and while we were on the train she had driven to the house to obtain precise directions for us. So it came as no surprise when we learned she was a Libra, a sign famous for its hospitality. 

With the afternoon waning, we hurried to Hayden Street for a glimpse of the house. On our first pass, we drove right by it because it sits below street level and a mass of trees shields the structure from view. Reaching the end of the road, we made two left turns and found ourselves on the next street over, where we could spot the house easily. It was set into the hill perhaps two or three dozen feet above us, a two-story house with a one-story section to the right holding a pool and enclosed with windows to provide a panoramic view of the town below. We drove back to Hayden and parked; my husband waited in the car during my expedition to the house. After only a few steps, the elevation of nearly 9,500 feet had me breathless and gasping for oxygen. The entrance nestles in a nook along the house’s front, the trees at the roadside adding another barrier and increasing the sensation of a fairytale cottage enveloped in mystery. My mind’s eye imagined Goodman there, walking through her front door carrying groceries and setting them down before going into the pool area to gaze out her windows and feel the depth of No Time, or what she always called the Eternal Now. 

Her brash Aries spirit still seemed to permeate the area, and something inside me felt her snap, “I’m not here!” to me (and to anyone else making the pilgrimage to this place). Yet her personality dominates the house, with its stained glass windows filled with images dear to her heart: St. Francis with an angel and rainbow, the annunciation, and the nativity. Walking to the side of the house and looking out at Cripple Creek and the ridge of mountain tops far beyond it helped me see what brought Goodman to this magical, haunted, “slipping off the time track” town. 

By then, the sky was darkening as a storm gathered, and we had just enough daylight to get back down the mountain in the light. With a last look at the house and a silent thanks to Goodman for luring me there, we left for Denver. This time, our journey took us on the mountain side of the road, where our car could hug a reassuring edge bolstered by a mass of granite. We made it down the mountain before dark and reached town by dinnertime. Goodman always used to say, “Expect a miracle,” and even in death she’d granted me one with our unexpected journey to Cripple Creek.

After our high altitude adventures on Sunday, we decided to stay on the city’s flat plain for a while. On Monday, we drove downtown to the Denver Botanic Gardens, where we spent most of the day. Our good fortune and good timing became apparent immediately when we saw how much of the garden was in bloom. 

The lilac garden offered up abundant color and fragrance, thanks to more than 80 varieties at the height of their blooming. More than 200 kinds of iris also in full bloom sported nearly every color imaginable. As we walked, waterways throughout the gardens brought cooling relief and soothing sounds to fortify us against the intense heat. In the Romantic Gardens, climbing roses and small cottage-style structures evoked a fairytale world while the Victorian Secret Garden took us back more than a century to the age of tropical plant collecting. 

We ate lunch at an outdoor table in an area shaded by trees and bordered by the Kitchen and Herb Gardens on one side and the Monet Gardens on the other. Afterward, we explored the rest of the plants, from the Rock Alpine Garden to the Western Panoramas to the Woodland Mosaic. My favorites included the Japanese Garden, with its koi pond and carefully pruned pines, and PlantAsia, whose serene walk featured a little wooden pavilion, a gentle stream, and inspiring quotes. At the end, we went to the top of Anna’s Overlook, an earth pyramid planted with ground cover and native grasses, to rest and survey the many kinds of gardens we had just experienced. An insistent breeze cooled us as we marveled at the botanic gardens’ placement in the heart of Denver’s downtown amid highrises, low-rise apartment buildings, numerous churches, and an old neighborhood of single family houses. 

The next day took us to Boulder, where we walked tree-shaded Pearl Street, shopped, and enjoyed lunch at an outdoor café. Our first stop was Boulder Book Store, where my husband browsed books on politics and current events and where my intuition led me upstairs to the metaphysical section and a pass through the astrology books. At the end of the day, on our way to the car, we came across Lighthouse Bookstore, which specializes in all things mystical and metaphysical (or as my husband laughingly and lovingly calls it, “mumbo jumbo”). He set off to put more money in the parking meter and left me in the store to browse; about an hour later, while resting on a bench, he saw me emerge with a bag of books and other inspiring goodies along with tales of delightful conversation with the proprietor and his assistant about Chicago and its renowned hot dogs and pizza. 

That evening, we headed to the little mountain town of Morrison, south of Denver, for dinner at a Latin fusion restaurant, where we sat outside near a small waterfall whose splashing kept us company as we dined and seemed to become a murmuring part of the conversation as we talked. Driving back afterward, enveloped in the darkness and the mountains, my soul felt merged with the surroundings and completely disconnected from our usual routines in Chicago. Although we did not know it, the following day we would enter even deeper into the local territory and step even farther outside of time…  

Driving through Nebraska on the second day of our vacation took us past farms, all lush and green in the bright sunshine against brilliant blue skies, thanks to recent copious rains. Despite Nebraska’s great width and mostly unchanging scenery, we found the landscape soothing and restful—just the medicine we needed after months of intensity in our work lives. Also, being from the Midwest, the sight of a flat landscape feels familiar and comforting, as do farm fields, cattle, and barns. All of it reminded me of the 1992 film O Pioneers!, which was filmed in Nebraska and based on Willa Cather’s 1913 novel of the same name. 

At midday, we stopped in North Platte at Valentino’s for lunch, in homage to friends of that name. Back on the road, we revisited our childhoods by getting gas at a Sinclair station and admiring the dinosaur logo. Once in Colorado, we visited a rest stop in Sterling, which ranks as perhaps the cleanest of its kind, with the friendliest staff. We lingered a bit to enjoy cookies and conversation; on the way out, we admired Metamorphosis, an enormous statue featuring a caterpillar at the bottom and an emerging butterfly at the top. 

By late afternoon, we arrived in Denver. The next day, friends took us up to Rocky Mountain National Park, where the elevation exceeds 8,000 feet at the entrance and climbs sharply from there. Once inside, the park’s abundant wildlife became evident immediately via the elk grazing close to the road. We headed up to Bear Lake, where crowds of people in shorts basked in the warm sunshine while hiking about on the foot of snow that had fallen the night before. Coming through a clearing, we gasped as the lake came into view, its cold, clear mountain water partly covered in ice that sparkled in the brilliant midday light. After a brief walk, we left for Sprague Lake, where we found a shady spot to eat our sandwiches and cookies and then strolled the trail around the lake. In the water, a guide wearing waders was teaching two younger men how to fly fish. 

Afterward, we drove Trail Ridge Road, which affords breathtaking views of the park from dizzying heights of more than 12,000 feet in some parts. By then, it had become evident my body is one of those prone to altitude sickness, so my activity thereafter consisted of breathing deeply in the backseat to get oxygen into my system, drinking water to thin my blood and relieve the sickness, and exiting the car cautiously at each viewing area to look around (but not too close to the edge of any cliffs) and take photos. The sights we witnessed made up for my physical discomfort, however. The higher we drove, the deeper the snow, until the road was fenced on one side with a massive, high wall of white, with the other side open to the scenery (and steep drop) below. At the Continental Divide, snow covered most of the ground, except where someone had dug out the explanatory sign. During the journey, we watched the terrain change from high desert to alpine to tundra, and we saw the trees shift from pine to fir and aspen and then to nothing as we drove above the treeline. At the highest part of the road, we got out to witness other visitors throwing snowballs; by then, the altitude had me breathless and staggering. On the way down, we looked out over alpine meadows, natural waterfalls bursting forth and streams gushing in a frenzy, fed from melting snow on the mountain tops. At a lower altitude, we passed moose grazing with their young. 

Sated visually from so much spectacular scenery, we followed Trail Ridge Road to the end and left the park. On the journey home, we found a New Orleans style fish place and stopped for dinner. Now full in every possible way, we headed back to Denver and an early bedtime for me.

The next-to-last day of May found us driving westward for a vacation in Denver and surrounding areas. Knowing Mercury would be retrograde throughout the trip, we gave up making any firm plans—with the exception of our ultimate destination and the dates of our departures from Chicago and from Denver. Instead, we carried a few thoughts for things to do and places to see but allowed ourselves to surrender to the flow and let our spirits and our fluctuating energy levels guide our choices each day. The result was a journey filled with unexpected pleasures and free of the stresses and frustrations that typically accompany any kind of travel in this era.

On the first day, we stopped in Iowa City for lunch, but a wrong turn on the main road put us back onto the highway before we could get to any of the restaurants there. We took the incident as a message to press on, and presently we reached the Amana Colonies, where we pulled off and enjoyed a sumptuous family style lunch at an Amish restaurant. My beverage choice: a creamy Millstream root beer, made locally. Although we were full, when we heard that the servers double as pie makers each morning, we had to sample one of their creations. So we split a piece of fresh rhubarb pie that sported huge chunks of fruit, a perfect crust, and a tangy flavor just the right mix of sweet and sour. 

On our way out of the park, we gazed again at Path to Omaha, a monumental statue of four young men in baseball uniforms whose positions echo the shape and arrangement of the Iwo Jima Memorial. The statue commemorates Omaha’s role as home of the men’s NCAA world series since 1950. Then we ambled back to our hotel, where we turned in and slept soundly. The next day we were on the road before 8 a.m., anticipating new adventures in Denver…

The Sun moved out of Taurus and into airy Gemini on May 20, a shift that invites us to focus on our minds, new ideas, and all things associated with communication and transportation. The call to attend to these areas actually began May 2, when Mercury—which rules Gemini—entered the sign of the Twins, and it gained more urgency on May 24, when lovely Venus joined the fray by entering Gemini as well. 

Yesterday, the planetary energies grew more complex when Mercury went retrograde (meaning that from our perspective on Earth it appears to be moving backward, even though it actually continues its forward movement through the sky). On the same day, Neptune, which rules our spirituality and oneness with all creation (and our addictions and escapism, in its negative expression), also went retrograde. Jupiter and Pluto are adding their energies to this trend, as both already are retrograde.

When planets go retrograde, the areas of life associated with them slow down, become more challenging, and sometimes even go haywire. In the case of Mercury, computers and cell phones may stop working, miscommunication can become common, and travel plans (and plans in general) tend to go awry. With Neptune, our logical minds seem to fail us, as the world of dreams, illusion, and spirituality takes center stage. Jupiter retrograde halts our outward expansion, may force us to make do with less, and encourages us to contemplate philosophy, beliefs, and higher truth. When Pluto goes retrograde, forces beyond our control may affect our lives, and we may have to face issues about control and witness life changes associated with birth and death—and transformation. 

Many people react to the often frustrating delays, changes, and losses that retrogrades bring by pushing harder and forcing their lives to stay on track with their carefully made plans and stubbornly held beliefs. That approach typically intensifies the retrograde period’s already stressful energy and brings us more forceful demonstrations of our need to let go and relax into nature’s flow. By contrast, if we can accept the natural cycles of breakdown and even destruction that retrogrades bring, we have a powerful opportunity to rid ourselves of what no longer works so we can move forward on firmer ground once the retrograde period ends. 

Although the other planets mentioned here will remain retrograde for a few months, Mercury resumes its forward motion on June 19. So we have just a few weeks to step back from our overscheduled lives, review our thoughts and communications, and consider new and better ways to use our minds, communicate with others, and transport ourselves and our belongings.  

Mercury’s retrograde period offers an even greater opportunity, however, if we move beyond material considerations to focus on our spiritual lives. In general, retrogrades invite us to go inward to explore our spirituality and to consider how we can achieve the highest potential represented by the planet and the astrological sign involved in the retrograde. These periods of apparently backward planetary motion also point us backward toward the past, allowing us to review prior actions, relationships, jobs—even prior lives.  

With Mercury (the mind) and Neptune (spirituality) going retrograde on the same day, our call to the inward, spiritual way sounds even louder. From now until June 19, remember Mercury’s role in mythology as the Divine Messenger—a conduit for information between humans and the gods. When delays or other obstacles seem to block your progress, ask yourself what important message lies within the seeming chaos. Does a change in plans end up working out to save you from greater inconvenience? Does a canceled engagement allow you time for meditation or a walk in nature? Does a missed phone call mean you need to review and reflect before having that conversation? 

We can make the most of this brief retrograde by slowing down and giving ourselves time every day for silent reflection and meditation. That way, we can hear the messages being sent to us by the Divine through that “still, small voice” that speaks to us in feelings, hunches, or a sense of inner knowing. So listen well, for when Mercury moves direct again, we will become messengers ourselves, with opportunities to share what we receive with others.

Last Thursday my day included an outing to Lilacia Park in the western suburb of Lombard, IL, which holds a festival every May to showcase the park’s numerous varieties of lilacs. With the weather too chilly to eat my lunch outside, my visit began with munching on French bread and half of a stuffed pepper in the warmth of my car while admiring the wall of lilacs planted on the park’s east perimeter.

Afterward, a stroll into the park showed me the cool weather had preserved nearly all the flowers at the height of their blooming. Only a handful of lilac bushes had gone past their prime; a few others remained in bud, waiting for their turn to shine. The blooms on all the rest ranged in color from white to pale lilac to bluish lavender and on through pinkish lavender to mauve to deep purple. Wandering along the park’s paths, the flowers’ sharp-sweet scent filled the air and filled my heart with nostalgia for my childhood delight at the huge lilacs in our family’s yard.  

Spring bulbs surrounded the lilac bushes and offered contrast in both color and height. Although nearly all the daffodils were spent, the tulips had reached their full glory: some presented softly rounded petals on elegant stems nearly three feet tall, while their shorter sisters commanded attention with spiky or feathery “parrot” flowers. Massed together in artful color combinations, the tulips formed a sea of Easter purple, pink, and white in one area of the park, with another zone warmed with a mix of red, orange, and medium pink. Other sections blended yellow and purple tulips, white and purple ones, and yellow and pink ones. A combination of yellow, pink, and nearly black tulips completely filled the area beneath an enormous tree. 

Labels heightened the tulips’ beautiful mystique by sharing names such as Elegant Lady, White Triumphator, Westpoint, and Cum Laude. Others boldly announced themselves as Big Smile, Kingsblood, Texas Gold, Blue Heron, Flaming Parrot, and Fancy Frills. As for the lilacs, several honored public figures with names including Frederick Douglass and Presidents Lincoln and Monroe. Many of the white lilacs evoked the modesty of bygone days with both their color and names such as Miss Ellen Willmotte, Madame Lemoine, and Annabel. 

Passing through the park’s center, the aroma of pipe smoke reached me and mingled with the smell of damp earth, grass, tulips, and lilacs. At that moment, bells in a nearby church rang 60 times in succession, as if to call everyone within earshot to attention. A glance at my watch told me it was 3 p.m. Then the bells pealed out a hymn, but a freight train on the tracks just past the park’s northern boundary drowned out the melody. The hymn ended just as the train did, and then the bells sounded out “Faith of Our Fathers.” 

The entire experience gave me a feeling of being outside of actual time…and fully immersed in eternity thanks to Lilac Time. Every year, nature gives us a few weeks of Lilac Time, when a whiff of lilacs in bloom lets us travel back to our childhood, to our collective history (President Lincoln…and “when lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed”), and to an imagined past that can comfort us even as it inspires us to hold fast to our dreams and ideals as we create the future. 

Last Friday, a friend came over to paint with me in my studio. She was kind enough to bring some flowers she had just cut from her garden, which she arranged in an orange glass vase she had brought, alternating two sprigs of old fashioned lilacs with three orange tulips and three cuttings of bleeding hearts. She put the flowers on the dining room table, where we enjoyed their colors and rich scents with our lunch later in the day. 

That evening, a cold that had been coming on reached full bloom, and by the next day it had blunted my sense of smell so much that it denied me any pleasure from the flowers’ perfumes. It also has kept me housebound the past three days, longing to be outside in fresh air and sunshine. So the flowers have become my little link to nature, keeping me company three times daily when we sit down to eat and cheering me with every pass by the dining room. 

Lacking the ability to smell most things has given me an opportunity to savor the flowers’ visual beauty. The lilacs’ dark green leaves showcase the flowers’ delicate, powdery, pale purple color. Over the past few days, they reminded me of their brief bloom time—even when left on the bush—as they began to droop and turn a more intense and dark shade of purple in a final show of color before they eventually dry up and fall off the branches. The tulips, meanwhile, have come into their own, morphing from a modest cup shape into a freeform structure as their petals push outward and flatten more each day. That change has revealed their vibrant yellow centers containing six black stamens surrounding a pale yellow pistil. It also has shown off the petals, which are not a uniform orange but a swirly, watercolor blend of yellow, orange, and red marked here and there with bold pen-and-ink strokes of deep green. As the petals free themselves and stretch out, their jagged, feather-like edges become much more visible, in keeping with their ongoing liberation. 

The long branches of bleeding hearts continue to drape quietly, apparently unchanging next to their more dramatic sisters. Spiky medium green leaves contrast with the softly rounded pink hearts that bleed white drops. Their peacefulness and the obvious symbolism of their shape have made it easier to endure my forced time indoors by inspiring uplifting thoughts. They also have comforted me while thinking about a friend who died five years ago today…remembering his sideways sense of humor, endlessly loving heart, and fondness for cigars. 

This morning, some of my sense of smell has returned, just in time to enjoy the lilacs and tulips before their scents disappear. Although my spirit feels grateful for this unexpected gift of fading spring pleasure, the unscented little hearts now touch me far more deeply, fueling meditations about the human heart and its miraculous resilience. Today, my heart feels full, stout and strong enough to hold memories of friends now gone and mingle them with thoughts of so many friends who continue to enrich my life.

My May Day outing to the arboretum two days ago continues to inspire me with just how lush and fertile the earth becomes when the Sun makes its annual trek through Taurus. Besides the vision of so many flowers in bloom, that visit gave me a wealth of memorable encounters with wildlife.

While eating my lunch on a bench in the Fragrance Garden, two little birds kept me company as they hopped around on the paving stones and pecked at fallen petals, dropped seeds from nearby trees, and the earthen spaces in between the stones.

Later, while walking by the lake, geese were gliding through the water, and ducks were quacking quietly in the distance. Taking the way around the lake brought me face to beak with a Canada goose that stood in the middle of the path. After slowing my footsteps, it let me continue on and pass by about four feet from where it stood. Its unperturbed presence inspired me to stop and watch its mate, who was in the water, and another pair of geese swimming nearby.

With me standing absolutely still, the goose on the path went back to its business. It walked about on enormous webbed feet whose green-black color reminded me of army gear. Its spindly legs seemed inadequate to carry its copious torso, which wobbled widely to and fro as the goose walked, like a woman of the 19th century wearing a huge bustle. Suddenly the goose twitched its tail feathers three or four times, defecated, and then continued walking down the path. Joined by its mate, the two geese gorged on green plants growing near the water’s edge. Then one put its beak in the water and breathed out, stirring up the water, most likely in search of interesting edibles. After a few more underwater outbreaths, the pair plopped back into the water and glided away.

Continuing my walk after that brought me around a bend and into a clearing. In the distance, a little island appeared decked out in big oval beads because of all the turtles sitting there and sunning themselves.

After returning to the car, it was time to close my visit with a drive through both the west and east grounds before heading to the exit. On the west side, as the terrain shifted from prairie to woods, an adult white-tailed deer bounded in front of my car to join another adult deer and then looked back where it had come. Something prompted me to stop…and sure enough, a third deer appeared. This one was small, probably the child of the other two, and after it reached its parents safely, its worried mama relaxed and settled in to plucking up an enormous green plant, its leafy ends protruding two feet on either side of her mouth as she munched. All three continued their feast, their tails flapping.

Through the open windows, birdsong of all types reached my ears, and after a time the deer walked off into the woods. Resuming my drive through the grounds, a robin stood like a sentinel by the side of the road. For the rest of my tour, robin after robin appeared, either flying in front of the car or hopping right at the side of the road. The only break in my red-breasted company came from two bluebirds zooming together through the sky near a stand of magnolias.

Like an echo, my wildlife encounters continued after returning home. Two rabbits greeted me in my backyard, and like the goose on the path, they stayed put despite my arrival. They moved only when my footsteps brought me near the back door, and even then they simply moved off a few feet and then planted themselves in the garden. Seeing them there, so uncharacteristically confident of their place in the world and their right to be in the yard, made me smile. My heart sent them thoughts of peace and welcome and thanks for extending my adventurous afternoon with so many of the earth’s creatures.

One of my fondest and most enduring memories of kindergarten is making May Day baskets. Created in construction paper and decorated with nature images, the baskets honored the first day of May and the warmer weather and abundant blooms of mid-spring.

With no construction paper on hand and a late morning doctor’s appointment today, my May Day celebration this year took the form of an afternoon visit to one of my favorite places, the Morton Arboretum. It turned out to be a perfect choice, as the weather was just right (73 degrees and overcast, so not too hot) and nearly every spring flower was at the height of its blooming beauty. 

On the west side, hundreds of thousands of daffodils cut great swaths of yellow across the meadows. Tiny wild violets dotted the grass, and numerous miniscule flowers around several trees gave the appearance of pale lavender snow. At one of the arboretum’s lakes, a row of redbuds in bloom on the shore opposite me colored the center of the lake’s surface a soft pink. Everywhere, birds flew and hopped and twittered and chirped as an often robust breeze carried flower scents to my most appreciative nose. 

After making my way completely around the lake, more flowering trees in the central meadow near the education center caught my fancy. Five yellow fever magnolias with flowers just having opened upstaged their white magnolia sisters, whose blossoms had begun to brown at the edges and drop from their branches. More daffodils echoed the yellow magnolias’ rich color and rivaled their light but heady scent. 

The last part of my wanderings took me down a path planted with yet more magnolias and some pink and white tulips that resembled peppermint candy. Viburnum just starting to flower offered mostly coral buds, with the few that had opened softened to pale peach petals. And here and there stood peonies, grown tall but not ready to flower. Their fat, tightly wound buds held the promise of future pleasures long after May Day passes.

The Sun moved into Taurus on April 19, where it will stay until May 20 to remind us to tune in to nature, take special care of our bodies, and enjoy the pleasures of the physical world.

Here in Chicago, a chilly early spring delayed blooming for the tulips, daffodils, and other spring bulbs until recently and has allowed the flowers to last much longer than usual, as if the annual edict to finish their show and shed their blossoms has been suspended. On our block, the Bradford pear trees have entered their full glory in recent days, with white blossoms filling every branch and not a single petal fallen to the ground yet.

In the midst of this bounty of new life and beauty, we have been experiencing nature’s other side—the one that balances abundance by bringing cycles and lives to an end. This past Saturday, we attended a memorial service for a friend’s father. He had been an accomplished amateur pianist, and condolences and visiting occurred as a CD he had made played in the background. We ate carrot cake (one of his favorites) as we reminisced. The day was cold enough we needed our winter coats, yet so sunny we needed sunglasses, a combination that sums up my feelings of sadness at his passing and my gratitude for the Leo warmth he shared every time we met.

Yesterday, we attended another memorial service on another blindingly sunny day with winter temperatures, this time for my husband’s uncle, a veteran of World War II. We drove past Joliet to the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elburn, IL. My husband’s parents waited inside the visitors center as we walked nearby among the uniform rows of white tablets, most of which had been placed in 2006. After all the family had arrived, we drove to another section of the cemetery, where more than a dozen mostly elderly veterans formed an honor guard under a simple shelter. After we sat, the male veterans stood at attention while two female vets unfurled a U.S. flag and held it over a box containing the deceased’s ashes.

Then the seven men with rifles shot into the air in unison three times for a 21 gun salute, the women refolded the flag afterward and presented it to my husband’s cousin with thanks for his father’s service, then a bugler played Taps, and finally a vet in kilt and Scottish cap played Amazing Grace on a set of bagpipes as many of us dissolved into tears. This ritual lasted only a few minutes, yet its utter simplicity and solemn dignity made it seem as if time had stopped and taken us…for a moment…into eternity.

After returning home yesterday, we attended to yet another leave taking. Two doves often nest in the space above our front porch light, where my husband built a simple shelter a few years ago to protect them from spring storms that used to blow their nests away. This season, the pair again nested and produced two eggs. About two weeks ago, we saw the heads of two babies poking up among the twigs but well behind their mama’s protective presence. It gave us the same thrill at new life that inspires us every time the doves succeed with their hatchlings. So we were not prepared for the loss we felt last week when only one baby was visible. A few days ago, the baby apparently had grown big enough and took flight, but the dove parents continued to swoop in and around the nest. On our next trip outside, it looked as if the other baby had died, as a large clump of feathers formed a soft curve above the edge of the nest. Yesterday, my husband confirmed that was the case when he got on a stepladder to investigate; with his father’s help, he removed the little bird body and cleaned out all the nest materials. We hope the doves will return someday and nest again.

Today, looking out the window at the flowering trees brings me poignant pleasure, knowing that the perfect blossoms will fade and fall as the temperatures rise, just as human bodies must one day pass away. My heart is grieving for three lives that touched me profoundly, in different ways. Yet nature goes on giving us beauty to soothe our heartaches and restore our hopes.