Note to subscribers — actually in true Aries fashion, I jumped the gun: tomorrow is the Aries New Moon. Check here for additional details and a link to Kirsti Melto’s Lunations blog on the event. –efc
Updata: It is Friday night and I am chilling. Not writing — except for this.
Dear Friend and Reader:
Today would be the 104th birthday of Aunt Josie. That is Mrs. Josephine Sharp, nee Nicastro, my Godmother, Great Aunt and writing benefactor. Her birthday was 04/04/04.
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In recent years, a reality or realization has been gradually dawning on me, which is that, based on a diversity of factors, I was at risk for serious mental illness in my 20s, when she was the most present in my adult life. (She and her husband Howard did a lot of babysitting for me and my brother as well.)
What Aunt Josie gave me and, in effect, guaranteed me, was the means to express myself through that crucial time in the life of some young adults when psychosis either forms, or heals. I am aware that in her gifts and support (economic and emotional, through some much earlier projects, and then, at the time I transitioned into being an astrologer), in effect she saved my life.
Coming from a family with a presence of mental illness, I dread to think what could have happened to me had I been frustrated in silence during those times, raging with passion and awareness but unable to fight for justice. I don’t know, perhaps I would have figured out a way, but I assure you I was not as strong then, and today I believe her help tipped the balance in a positive direction.
I was back in Brooklyn a couple of months ago, in my old neighborhood (Marine Park) and felt a deep longing to visit her and my Grandma Mary as if they were both alive. I recognized that this is part of why it was always difficult for me to go back to Brooklyn.
Anyway, Aunt Josie would be 104 today. (Today is also the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Josie was Aries with a Scorpio Moon. As an elderly woman, she carried the most beautiful aura of compassion, and always found something to laugh about. As a younger woman, she was a gorgeous, sexy, busty and unassuming Sicilian woman. Those who knew her very well would be treated to her wry, biting assessments of certain individuals, and also to her eminently Christian forgiveness of them.
She met and then fell for my Uncle Howard, who must have stood six feet four and looked like a giant American Indian, at a YMCA sing-along. (He was part Cherokee.)
She and Howard also raised my dad in some respects (Josie was my father’s mom’s sister). In the 1940s and 1950s Howard, Josie and my father Joe took numerous car trips to many places, when the automobile was still a thing of guaranteed adventure. They went places like the Jersey shore, which still feels exotic to me to this day. (They took trips to many other states along the Eastern Seaboard as well, back when you went someplace and visited everyplace else along the way, too.)
So it is interesting that the person who became my Godmother knew my father intimately growing up; she was, perhaps, the only person who knew both of us so well. She was also very good friends with my mother, and vicariously I recently got this bit of advice about life and investing in the stock market (Aunt Josie’s hobby and in a sense profession): bulls win, bears win, pigs lose.
I am certain that Aunt Josie is crying tears of joy regarding the miracle of the return of my mom to my life after so long. To her credit, Josie never tried to take her place — she was and remains always my Great Aunt.
Today’s aspects, courtesy of Serennu:
Friday 04 April 2008
Arachne (5+ Libra Rx) sesquiquadrate Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Eros (1+ Taurus) quintile Chiron (19+ Aquarius)
Mercury (2+ Aries) quincunx Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Mercury (2+ Aries) quintile Jupiter (20+ Capricorn)
Ceres (2+ Gemini) quintile Uranus (20+ Pisces)
Mercury (2+ Aries) septile Admetos (24+ Taurus)
Pandora (21+ Scorpio Rx) quincunx 1992 QB1 (21+ Aries)
Amor (21+ Aries) conjunct Eris (21+ Aries)
Mercury (2+ Aries) square Kronos (2+ Cancer)
Sun (14+ Aries) septile Neptune (23+ Aquarius)
Sisyphus (25+ Libra Rx) trine Hades (25+ Gemini)
Uranus (20+ Pisces) opposite Logos (20+ Virgo Rx)
Sun (15+ Aries) quincunx Hidalgo (15+ Scorpio Rx)
Atlantis (23+ Libra Rx) trine Neptune (23+ Aquarius)
Eros (2+ Taurus) trine Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Venus (28+ Pisces) quincunx Orcus (28+ Leo Rx)
Ceres (2+ Gemini) square Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Ceres (2+ Gemini) semisquare Varuna (17+ Cancer)
Jan. 14, 2000 – VIRGO – Weekly
It may seem that one particular individual has the power to come at you with great force while stirring up a frightening inner tempest that leaves you wide open to their unwholesome designs or manipulations. And for you who so value keeping at least a loose grip on your reality, this could be very disconcerting. It may seem that the solution resides in controlling or amping down your own desire nature, but I assure you this will only serve to stir up more chaos within your psyche, leaving you even more vulnerable. Instead, I suggest you just watch what is happening and let your feelings flow, but be guided by your sense of who you know you are. You’re less vulnerable than you think.
thank you for sharing this eric. i am someone who did end up in my late teens in several psych hospitalizations and with a mental illness diagnosis that was almost itself as debilitating as the depression and isolation.
I was “raging with passion and awareness”.
peace.