Astro Alchemy

In his book Why the World Doesn’t End, Michael Meade shares the Apache tale of an ancient woman who lives in a cave, unaffected by the strife of daily life. She spends her time weaving the most beautiful cloak she can imagine. Occasionally, she interrupts her task to go stir

You’re swimming along the cold, dark bottom of a river, fingers probing the mud, when suddenly you feel something hard and metallic. After carefully prying it loose, you rise to the surface with the bronze head of an ancient Hindu god, liberated from his watery grave after twelve centuries! That’s

In the Greek myth of Eris, this warrior goddess was not invited to a wedding on Mt. Olympus, due to her reputation as a troublemaker. But she turned up anyway – bearing a golden apple inscribed, “To the Fairest One.” Hera, Athena and Aphrodite began quarreling about which one of them

In two talks last month on climate change, Pope Francis called on us to heed the cry of the earth and pledge meaningful sacrifices for the planet’s sake. “There must be harmony between men and women and the environment,” asserted the pontiff. “We are not enemies; we are not indifferent.

In the miserably hot summer of 1963, when I turned eight, my next-door-neighbor Virginia took care of me while Mom was in the hospital, battling cancer. I adored Virginia, and spent as much time at her house as my own, hanging out and helping her with chores. That year, transiting

From raging hurricanes and flooding in the Gulf Coast to out-of-control fires in Lake Tahoe’s primeval forests, each day brings more dire warnings from Mother Nature. Despair is rampant. What to do? We can raise our voices about climate change and support alternatives to fossil fuels, but how do we

Late one Thursday afternoon, Vermont-based Brandon Jones emailed the restaurant Ekiben in Baltimore, MD, requesting their recipe for tempura broccoli. He wanted to make his mother-in-law’s favorite dish, so she could have it one last time before succumbing to the final stages of lung cancer. But when co-owner Steve Chu

“If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life.” — Cher Photo by Richard Avedon in Vogue Magazine, 1974. Recently I watched a series on Netflix called Love is Blind. In it, young couples get to know each other, sight unseen. Some fall

Welcome to the dog days of summer! Although canines do need to stay extra cool and hydrated at this languid time of year, the phrase actually refers to the rising of Sirius, the “Dog Star.” The star system Sirius (said to have  uncanny ties to Earth) disappears below the horizon

The first time California-based Jeannine Schrantz set foot on African soil, she knew she had come home. Her partner, Alan, had convinced her to take a month-long road trip between Uganda and Rwanda in Dec. of 2009. “He told me [Africa] would capture my soul – and he was so

Since Downton Abbey recently arrived on Netflix, I’ve been lost in early 20th Century England. Yes, I’m a bit late to the party – the saga of a highbrow household and its hardworking servants originally debuted in 2011 – but the sumptuous, superbly-written series  does serve as an apt reflection

What’s up with the sudden resurgence of interest in UFOs? Yes, of course it’s connected to the recent release of a long-awaited government assessment of the mysterious flying objects. But why now? The timing is interesting, as it falls not long after the dawn of the Age of Aquarius at

The 1896 Quadricycle was Henry Ford’s first attempt to build a gasoline-powered automobile. He patched together an iron frame, a leather belt, a chain drive, a buggy seat and a primitive ignition system. The result was sketchy, but it ran! Ford sold the Quadricycle for $200, then used the money

If you won the lottery, what would you do? Most would go on a spending spree, and soon the money would be gone. (Studies have found that bankruptcy rates soar for lottery winners three to five years after their win.) But Rachel Lapierre did something quite different with her 2018

When my mother died in the spring of 2005, I was inconsolable. My pain was an ocean too deep to be fathomed. Not only was I grieving the person I loved most in the world, but I was overwhelmed by my father’s pain and the hurtful ways he was expressing