“What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been”

 

“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.”

 H. Prather 

A long gap from my last blog… ongoing changes, stimulating travel and losses. I thought I was leading the way but “the way” leadeth me. This Monday morning, looking out my window, all is enveloped in gray like last June with rain on the way.

Prague & A Music Cruise on the Danube 

We spent four days exploring Prague. The highlights were: walking the wonderous Medieval city, attending music concerts especially an elegant Mozart dinner theatre with singers and chamber orchestra dressed in period costume, and visiting the Franz Kafka museum.

From Prague we traveled to Passau to board the Maria Theresa boat for a “Music Cruise” with Uniworld.

On board, we learned to yodel with an Austrian woman, heard a child prodigy dressed as young Mozart, and danced to disco. We attended concerts in  Vienna, Salzburg, Budapest, and Slovakia.  We enjoyed Vienna art museums especially viewing expressionist paintings. The last evening we cruised into Budapest on the full moon. We congregated on the top deck as the Blue Danube played!

Pushing the Boundaries: Robin Hood as Writer

Late August I spoke at the Astrological Association Conference in Nottingham England.

I explored  English authors who had Aquarian placements: Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, and Anne Lister. I visited their homes a year ago which inspired me to research their lives through an astrological and psychological lens.

These authors carry the Aquarius theme of freedom and justice for women, LGBTQ,  the poor and marginalized.

Dickens and Woolf were born with the Sun in Aquarius. Anne Lister “Gentleman Jack,” the first lesbian diarist, was born when Pluto was last transiting the sign of Aquarius in the late 1700’s, during the American and French Revolutionary Wars, a tumultuous time like our own.

Nottingham is a UNESCO city of literature and the childhood home of DH Lawerence.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no  lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”   -Virginia Woolf

 

 

 

 

 

Consider nothing impossible, Then treat possibilities as

probabilities. -Charles Dickens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I Did it My Way” 

This October 28 was my brother Anthony’s birthday. Last week we had a memorial service for Anthony who died on August 12, 2025. We celebrated him through song, Italian food, and lighting of candles.

The postlude played by John Read was a favorite song Anthony identified with:

Anthony’s sun sign was Scorpio’s whose motto is “I desire.” A fixed water sign with strong feelings, not easily swayed. My brother’s rising sign was Sagittarius a sign of positive energy and enthusiasm. He was not afraid to share his opinions.

Anthony filled the world with love through his creativity as a florist.  The Go to person for all the big passages in our lives…new babies, birthdays, weddings, funerals…his family and friends all had at some time been part of making flowers in his basement and delivering them around greater Boston.

Flowers weren’t just flowers. They were the heart and soul of my brother’s passion for shared community and family …a ministry of beauty and service in happy and sad occasions.

Wilderness and desert will sing joyously,                            
the badlands will celebrate and flower—Like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom,
a symphony of song and color. (Isaiah 35)

Judy and I sang this song at my brother’s memorial on October 25th at St. Mary’s, Barnstable.

Here is a recording performed by the Holy Name University Choir (Phillipines).