If you’re reading this essay soon after its publication, please understand it as a reference article, a foundation article, that will help put a lot of future pieces in better perspective because I can refer a future reader back to it — rather than telling him to “go Google it” himself.

Thus it intends to support pieces I haven’t yet published … even some I haven’t yet written — and maybe others I haven’t even yet though of. But one of my functions as a writer and teacher is to think ahead and make life as easy as possible for…

It’s complicated — and so are you

Astrology understands your personality is a complex, integrated structure. It’s composed of different parts, different Inner Selves, that theoretically work together as a whole.

Of course that’s not always true. (I called it “theoretical” for a reason.) Inner conflict is a huge part of being human. But working with the Selves who cooperate, and finding ways to compromise and accommodate those that don’t, is also one of Life’s grander lessons about “what it is to be human.”

Like it or not, we all have to find some way to make it work. Some manage it better than others. No surprise…

Earth Signs take care of practicalities

The Earth Signs: Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn represent energy directly concerned with practical issues, physical substance, financial matters, and the “business” of living. This energy supports, nourishes, stabilizes, and promotes growth — especially growth on investments. These signs are conservative, solid, pragmatic, constructive, and interested in administering “real circumstances” in the material world.

They themselves are physical and sensation-oriented. They make things solid, secure, and grounded in reality. They are sensible, logical, business-like, and matter-of-fact. They are committed to living well in a material and physical sense. …

Here again … another New Moon

The New Moon every month is the signal to turn your attention to some specific area of life … those interests ruled and defined by the Zodiac sign where it happens. Life itself will conspire to bring pertinent experiences to your journey.

Consciously or not, you will start to focus on these themes. Your passing thoughts and inner voices add their part to the mix. Sometimes life’s rituals themselves underline the whole effort. That’s especially true when the New Moon in Capricorn forms.

New Moons bring fresh starts on all kinds of subjects. and in the wheel-within-a-wheel structure of the…

Creating a legacy … leaving something behind

Don’t make a spectacle — and save the receipts!

Happy Birthday, Capricorn!! You are the birthday child this month, and as the last of the Earth Signs (the others being Taurus and Virgo) you’ll want to make sure you get your money’s worth from the festivities. Although as perhaps the most … umm … frugal of the Earth signs, you’ll want to get as much “bang for your buck” without having to turn loose of any more bucks than absolutely necessary. (C’mon now. I did not call you cheap. I did not.)

I know you say you hate for people to make…

West meets East

I had an interesting thought about Christmas and its colors the other day. Traditionally, of course, Christmas colors are red and green. Loud, blatant, kind of in-your-face colors, aren’t they? Festive and attention-grabbing, sure. But also a little nerve-wracking. In Feng Shui, of course, the color red is the energy of Fire element. The color green is the energy of Wood element.

Astrology and the Western esoteric sciences classify the world into four — arguably five — elements. Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Sometimes, Ether — or Spirit, is on that list, but that’s a realm beyond the familiar features…

Calming down … mellowing out

This mix is energetic, spirited and courageous. The colorful, cantankerous Aries-to-Taurus person will have a gentle, persistent, and luxury-loving side to his character.

He will have his notoriously assertive and pushy Aries character tempered (sometimes unexpectedly so) by the steadier, less impulsive, more patient, and, …ok, kinder qualities of Taurus.

As the dynamic, initiating energy of Aries matures and mellows, it becomes more comfortable in its use of assertiveness and power. Moving on to the transition of becoming “something else,” an uncharacteristic serenity weaves itself into this personality.

The Aries-to-Taurus blend is calmer, more deliberate, and more focused than the…

People think they know what Astrology is

Astrology. It’s perhaps the most popular of the occult sciences, having at least a toehold in almost everybody’s consciousness — a reputation gained usually through the daily horoscope whose idiocy continues to find a home on drugstore news-stands and in newspapers everywhere.

There are plenty of people who “don’t believe in astrology” … but who have no real grasp of what it’s really about. And, even scarier, there are bunches of people who say they believe in astrology who also haven’t a clue what Astrology is, how it works, or what it can really do.

Thus, Astrology has the strange…