As a writer, I've worked with my share of editors. I've appreciated every one of them. A couple of them, I've downright loved. The editors I've loved working with have had something important in common. Their focus was on what was right with my work, instead of what was wrong with it. Eventually we got around to refining the disjointed thoughts and cleaning up the sentences … [Read more...]

A new baby entered our family last week when my nephew and his wife welcomed their first child. They had already chosen to name him after my late brother, and baby obligingly debuted on the 28th anniversary of his namesake’s passing. The kid has a keen sense of timing and a terrific origin story. He’s also exceptionally good-looking. In my own baby pictures, I resemble a … [Read more...]

Creativity is a quality that most astrologers associate with Leo, the sign of this Full Moon, and with its ruler, the Sun. Absolutely everyone is creative, with a mad desire to connect with a powerful and loving Source, although many people deny that they’re creative at all. But if you ask them to remember a situation in which they lost all track of time because they were doing … [Read more...]

This Full Moon in the family-oriented sign of Cancer (Jan. 6, 2023, 3:07 pm PST) brings to mind a story from a 2018 trip to New Zealand. Jonny and I are standing in a tiny house, part of a museum in Okains Bay, a remote village on an out-of-the-way peninsula southeast of Christchurch. We’ve made a pilgrimage here to visit the general store, built by Jonny’s great grandfather … [Read more...]

When my friend's son was small, he talked incessantly. Born with Venus in loquacious Gemini, he jabbered constantly about stories he'd read or what he'd seen on television that morning. His mother is a patient woman, but eventually the sheer quantity of words wore her down. One day, she recalls, driving along with her child chattering away in the passenger seat, she suddenly … [Read more...]