New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
Each year around this time, as we approach the holiday season, I am reminded of the hope that is a part of every philosophical and religious tradition. For everyone born north of the Equator, the winter solstice and its associated festivals center on the faith that the Sun will return to bring its life-giving warmth, and that new life will begin and grow very soon. I like to think of the gifts we exchange as a symbol of that hope. The earth may not be giving us crops and the Sun may not be so warm, but our hearts are warm, we share that feeling with the people around us, and gifts are just one form of sharing. I've noticed that gift giving can become a rather dull exercise. What do you ...
Could it be that the length of a woman's skirt has more to do with the weather than the fashion prescriptions of designers in Paris and Milan? Mini-skirt, maxi skirt, slacks, shorts, global warming, global cooling. What to wear? Many high-profile women, such as Oprah and Michelle Obama, are now wearing skirts below their knees. It must be the fashion, right? A long time ago, fashionable women wore long skirts with many petticoats. Throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, their skirts even covered their ankles. Was it modesty, fashion, cheap cloth, or cold weather? Believe it or not, the fashion may well have been inspired by necessity: the weather was simply too cold for shorter ...
As much as Mercury Retrograde makes me nervous to badly things write—I mean...write things badly—I wanted to get Earth signs to our readers. My project was simple: did the pandemic and its resulting global lockdowns make it more difficult for some of the twelve signs of the zodiac? Or were some folks better-equipped to handle the conditions of isolation and separation than others? I found that fire sign folks adjusted pretty quickly—such is responsive/adaptive nature of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, particularly in an emergency. But after talking to a lot of earth sign folks, I found many adapted readily, particularly as the rules (social distancing, wearing a mask, ...
None of us were prepared for the effects of COVID 19: not our health care system, nor our schools and businesses. When last year's quarantine was announced, we all needed to comply. This event was hard on everyone—but did the quarantine take more of a toll on some than others? As the months rolled on, I saw that some students I knew adjusted quickly and well to the prospect of remote learning, while others struggled. Every teacher I knew was frustrated at the limitations of online technology, particularly when students shut off their cameras. I know friends who lost jobs, such as Ash, a photographer. All of a sudden, you couldn't be close to people anymore. Others had their ...
