By conservative estimates, there are currently enough wrongfully convicted people in prison in the United States to fill a football stadium.
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It’s summer, and I’m hearing my landlady’s pets more than I’d like to. She lives upstairs and told me when I moved in that her animals were quiet. Clearly I was a fool to believe her.
The Tao of Toast: In this workshop, participants will learn to brown toast, butter it, and eat it. A continuation, “What to Do with the Crumbs,” will be offered later this summer.
This, then, is the real purpose of astrology: to hold a mirror before the evolving self, to tell us what we already know deep within ourselves. Through astrology we fly far above the mass of details that constitutes our lives.
Each of us lives in a different reality. Each of us has a different perspective, a different purpose, a different viewpoint. We have to honor those differences. The function of astrology is not to thrust my view on someone else but to help another person see whatever it is they need to see more clearly.
I have a friend who’s a magician with a shovel and a rake. He could be dancing; the tools, no less than his hands and feet, are extensions of his will. I trust him not to come to dinner with them, though. How ridiculous to suggest they’d work better than a knife and fork.
Just as the ultimate goal of our civilization is the perfect dominance of human will over all physical processes, the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end for these ancient cultures was the realization of the One Law which would link every dimension of the universe. Astrology, with its Four Elements, is one heirloom passed down to us from those alien days.
Astrology, particularly predictive astrology, can be an awesomely powerful tool. Through it, consciousness is extended beyond its natural limits. Rather than seeing life from ground level as a series of confrontations with specific, seemingly unrelated situations, the awareness rises temporarily into the stratosphere. From that perspective, each event takes its place in a pattern of unfolding themes. All sense of randomness disappears, being replaced by a vivid feeling of life as a path with a clear direction.
No one needs astrology. Everything a person can learn from his or her birthchart can be learned someplace else. Like any other language, the symbolism of astrology is just a tool, just a finger pointing at reality. And like any tool it can be abused, used as a crutch, hidden behind, and misapplied. Despite all these pitfalls, it remains a good tool for certain people at certain times in their lives.
The sky is perfect tonight. The flawless close to a false Spring day in mid-February — an odd day with chirping birds, open windows, shirtless basketball and soft outdoor conversation before supper.