Tasha's Astro Planner for November 2017
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Words to the Wise: Sharing Life, Lessons, and Observations
Words to the Wise is a collection of stories, observations and insight drawn from my own experience both in the past and in the present, together with my perspective on what I may have learned in the process. Occasional poetry and astrological insights will be included when appropriate. I welcome comments, suggestions and thoughts of all kinds and am happy to respond.
Tasha Halpert
Practical mystic and poet Tasha Halpert writes a column called Heartwings Love Notes for a Joyous Life, as well as a monthly astrology column for the internet. She writes a weekly perspective column for the Grafton News called Good Earthkeeping. Her poems and essays have appeared in Quest Magazine, For the Love of Life, Heart and Wings, The Unicorn, and other publications. She is staff poet and storyteller for the Unicorn, and a regular part of Granny Moon’s Morning Feast. Her book Heartwings: Love Notes for a Joyous Life is available; She has another in preparation: Up to my Neck in Lemons, as well as a poetry chapbook: Poems and Prayers. With her writings she hopes to be of help and comfort and perhaps even entertaining. With her husband Stephen she lives in Grafton and is the mother of 5, grandmother of 7, and great grandmother of 2.
Even as the last trees turn,
The last bees seek the last flowers
Storing up Autumn's nectar.
So too I layer the lovely leaves
In a pile of brilliant hue
Ready to jump into of a white Winter's day
When all around is bleached stark bare.
The bees are secure
With their honey for the winter
And I have stored up beauty
For my color starved self to feast upon.
Equinox
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As children we are often told to be kind, to be sharing and giving, and to show our love to others by how we treat them. We are seldom told to care for or to love ourselves. I remember as a child sending for a nurse kit from Quaker Oats. It was advertised on a radio program I listened to every weekday. I liked the idea of being a nurse. It was a way to care for others, as I was told to do. After my little kit came I bandaged up my teddy bear and treated him to a hospital stay as I played nurse in my little white cap and apron.
As young people we feel invulnerable; we can go for a night without sleep and hardly notice. Unless we have allergies or some medical condition, eating whatever we like is the rule rather than the exception. We seldom need to sit and rest after exertion but can continue on as if we were made of steel. I was in my late forties when I began to realize I could no longer treat my body as if it were some kind of machine that could go on and on.
...September begins with Mercury still retrograde, however it finishes up and turns direct on the 5th, so get all your " re" work accomplished and begin the new projects you have hopefully been planning and anticipating while awaiting the end of Mercury's retrograde period. I know I managed to get a review of a huge box of memorabilia done at last, What did you accomplish? The three heavies: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are all still retrograde, however their influence is more on the world at large and less in personal ways save for direct influence.
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My mother had some sheets in the linen closet that sat forever on a shelf with a pink ribbon tied around them. I remember seeing them there both as a young child and later when I was old enough to make my own bed. They had been a wedding present from some relative of her mother's, and certainly she thought they were very special.
My dad used to joke that she was keeping them for her second husband. He was a great one for teasing. Still, there the sheets stayed on the shelf until they became antiques. I have often puzzled over the whys and wherefores of those sheets. Now I have to wonder what my mother was afraid to risk by taking off the ribbons and actually putting the sheets to use?
...My first husband was in the ROTC in college. After his graduation we went to El Paso to live while he attended officers’ school. My little girl took her first steps there. We lived in a small housing complex with other young families. I became friend with another of the mothers in her twenties. She was from Oklahoma. One of the first things I noticed about her was that living in that hot, dry climate had scored deep frown and squint wrinkles in her youthful skin. Seeing them I determined right then that if I was going to have wrinkles at least they would be pleasant ones, and so I trained myself to notice whenever I started to squint or frown. Then as I caught myself, I would stop.
Some research on the Internet revealed that it takes more muscles for a genuine smile than it does for a frown. Furthermore, the act of smiling exercises the facial muscles and brings more blood to nourish the cells of the face. This I turn helps make us look younger and prettier. More important, so far as I m concerned is that the act of smiling releases endorphins in the brain. These are feel good hormones that makes us feel happier. So as we do so, we smile more and so forth. This is called a positive feedback loop.
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