A&E

A cobalt blue vase in front of me holds a bouquet of spring blossoms: calla lilies, freesias, narcissus of several kinds. Yellow, red-orange, cream, whites, and their fragrance fills the air around me. I cut their stems today, a day of sun, clean air and cool breezes.

In a year of challenging and potentially combustible energy patterns, this month seems relatively benign. It would be easy, therefore, to overlook the more subtle influences this month. For example, Mars, having been retrograde since January 23, turns direct on the 13th. After a few months of relative inactivity, spending our time finishing previously incomplete projects, cleaning up clutter and messes and researching for new projects to begin in the future, the time has come to act. However, the overall feeling of drive and motivation, usually low during a Mars retrograde, is just beginning to increase. Don’t be impulsive. Mars is in Virgo, a detail oriented sign that is highly meticulous and discerning in its choices and behaviors. Start to put your new ideas into motion in a manner that coincides with the nature of Virgo.

A “Festival” is defined as “a gala celebrating some aspect of the community,” and there in a nutshell, is why the Fifth Annual Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival  (SDFF) has been honored as:

We finally got enough rain to blow out the River. Over five inches fell in the hills above Healdsburg raising the Russian river to just under eight feet for the first time this year. This may be just what the doctor ordered as far as the fish go. The fishermen, many whom have had their way with the fish this year especially in the lower river, will have to wait for the river to clear once again. This will happen up towards Healdsburg by this weekend but for those in the Guerneville area, their days in the sun have passed I am afraid (figuratively and literally). The Russian River Steelhead Season closes to bait fishermen on April 1 and the river will likely not be clear enough down that way before then for anything but bait.

Mary’s son died in Afghanistan a few years ago. Not much later she developed a painful ovarian cyst. She did not want to have surgery. When she came into my office, she was skeptical about the possibility of her son’s death and her cyst being related.