Editor’s Note: Here is the original article by Eric introducing the Celtic Wings spread that we link to above every tarot article. Sarah Taylor is away and will return with next Sunday’s weekend reading. She has selected a piece by Pamela Eakins for Wednesday, so stay tuned. – amanda
WHEN I had finished my last political job before becoming an astrologer, I packed up my Mac II CX into my old station wagon and one dusky Friday evening drove up the New York State Thruway from Westchester, back home to Rosendale.
I had been living at the house in White Plains where the Center for Judicial Accountability was, and still is, based.
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At that point I had just won my lawsuit against the State of New York, my environmental magnum opus had just been on the cover ofSierra, and with a moment where there were no other pressing commitments, I did a short stint as a writer and publicist for CJA. It was an intense month. In the run-up to the 1994 midterm elections (which in New York included the election of the state attorney general), I was given the job of researching, writing and placing in The New York Times an advertorial (Op-Ed page ad) on the issue of corruption in judicial elections. That is to say, judges sitting on important courts being elected in rigged elections.
The Times had refused to cover the issue as a news story, but they did accept a check for $17,000 for a quarter-page spot on the Op-Ed page, as long as it looked good and made sense. Op-Ed page ads are reviewed by a special committee of the Editorial Board the day before they are published; whoever reviewed the thing had no questions, though I was fully prepared for the most thorough fact-checking session of my dreams.
The piece focused on a case called Castracan vs Colavita, wherein a bunch of political bosses were caught divvying up powerful judgeships in five wealthy counties near New York City, ensuring that about seven separate elections were decided up to three years in advance — long before the first voter had cast a ballot. It was a fascinating project, and working there rearranged my worldview (not exactly for the better, but at least I learned the truth of what happens in New York’s judicial elections, and what is probably happening in many other regions). Having accomplished what I was hired to do, and collecting my best writing fee ever, I headed back upstate.
When I got home, my cats were happy to see me, and my apartment was cozy and quiet. It felt so good that a home was waiting for me, at the edge of some woods near the Binnewater Lakes, about 10 miles north of New Paltz. But I didn’t have a job of any kind, having pledged to call it quits from journalism and politics for a while.