A&E

The holiday season is a good time to reflect on the graces in our lives. I have a birthday in November, as does one of my brothers; my youngest daughter was born on December 4, and many friends are November-December babies. I live in a warm, garden-friendly area of California, and I travel to the sunny Texas deserts in the winter. I am relatively healthy and have a full family and a loving husband and friends. So yes, I feel blessed and content and I like to use this time to think about what I can do to maintain these gifts, but also to ponder what more I can do to pay back a society that has given me so much.

The two most significant astrological events this month are Venus turning retrograde on December 21, the same day as the Winter Solstice when the Sun enters Capricorn. The Winter Solstice was celebrated by many ancient cultures as the most important day of the year. It marked the time when the Sun had traveled as far south as it could go, turned around and was heading north. This symbolizes the return of the light; the promise that the growing season was coming back and that life would continue for another year. This could be used as a time to look deeply within, to define what we would like to achieve or accomplish when the warmth and promise of spring are renewed. This is probably the basis for making New Year’s resolutions based on the idea that we will have the time and resources to create new parts of our lives even as we maintain those that continue to have value.

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Rebels With A Cause

Climate change and other factors threaten our land, food and water security on a global scale. Nationally our health is deteriorating—there are 18.8 million people currently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, 7 million more people undiagnosed and 79 million people with pre-diabetes. Just the cost to treat the diagnosed was $245 billion in the United States in 2012, according to the CDC. Imagine the staggering figure if those 79 million people with pre-diabetes are added to the diagnosed figure. I could go on and on with sobering facts and statistics we all face.