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...]

My mom, a robustly optimistic Sun in Taurus person, was fond of saying that it’s the bad times in life that make us appreciate the good ones. That’s a fine theory; but a certain amount of Moon/Pluto, Neptune in Scorpio skepticism persuaded me early on that bad times can, in fact, taint the good ones – by making us distrustful, jaded, and regretful. Consider Adam and … [Read more...]

My friend Alice called me late one Friday afternoon. "I thought you'd be on your way to happy hour," I said; it was her usual Friday post-work ritual to go for drinks with her co-workers. "Nah," she said. "Ramona will be there." Alice and Ramona had once been close friends, but the relationship soured when they became rivals for a coveted sales position in their company. In a … [Read more...]

It's been 25 years since I had a living parent, and I'll admit, there are still days that I miss being someone’s child. However much one is loved by a spouse, friends, or children, there’s something about having a loving parent that makes you feel you’ve always got a soft place to fall. When I see friends my age coping with their ailing parents, though, part of me is … [Read more...]

When my mother's only sister passed away in 2000, right around the Cancer Solstice, she took with her an entire era of my family’s history. Hers was a generation which seemed to produce more than its share of great ladies, my aunt and my mother among them. You can judge the success of a person’s life, I think, by how many phone calls must be made to notify people of their … [Read more...]