The Empress is the embodiment of womanhood. She covers all aspects of love, beauty and female strength. Her throne is one built of endurance, tenacity, loyalty and sheer determination. She stands for the mother, and for the daughter… who will in turn become mother.And at her highest level, the Empress also represents the Great Mother in her aspect of protector, nurturer, teacher, lover, and friend. Here are all the elements of compassion, unconditional love and acceptance that comes from a pure and unadulterated relationship with the Goddess.In recent times we have tended to overlook the importance of the innate strength in womanhood. We can get blinded by the dynamic power inherent in male strength, and completely forget the necessity for the counter-balancing influence of female power.There’s nothing mushy about this power – it’s no accident that many Goddesses are regarded as destroyers – but it is infinitely different to male strength. The entire dynamic of its expression is unique and enduring.On a day ruled by the Empress, we need to be trying to touch the Goddess – either within or without. You’ll see Her gentle beauty in a thousand places if you look for it.We also need to be considering love, and the ways in which we express love and receive love in our lives. It’s a good exercise to try out every now and again, anyhow. When we run a quick check on the level of love in our lives as a regular thing, we find it much harder to make the mistake of taking it for granted.On a more mundane level, this is a time to think of mothers – you, if you are one; your mother; the concept of motherhood. And finally, again we need to take that back to whatever we regard as the highest principle of mothering in our lives.And by the way – just because I have talked a lot about women, and mothers, I am not excluding men. You have many of these same qualities within your nature too. So get in touch with them!
Affirmation: “Love and beauty flow through my life in a limitless stream.”
“We are not separate from each other or from the world, from the whole earth, the sun or moon or billions of stars, not separate from the entire universe. Listening silently in quiet wonderment, without knowing anything, there is just one mysteriously palpitating aliveness.”
Toni Packer (1927-2013) German Meditation Teacher
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DAILY REFLECTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
London Symphony Orchestra • Oct 23, 2009 • Listen to the work in full here: https://apple.co/3bQfKyY Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra performing the complete version of Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Recorded in November 2008. This recording won Best Orchestral Performance and Disc of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2011.
Prokofiev Lieutenant Kijé (Suite), Op. 60
Boston Civic Symph • Oct 23, 2014 Boston Civic Symphony, 88th Season Guest Conductor, Konstantin Dobroykov Prokofiev Suite from Lt. Kijé March, 2013 Jordan Hall – New England Conservatory
Ever since Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. used “imperial presidency” as a book title, the term has become central to the debate about the balance of power in the U.S. government. Since the presidency of George W. Bush, when advocates of executive power such as Dick Cheney gained ascendancy, the argument has blazed hotter than ever. Many argue the Constitution itself is in grave danger. What is to be done? The answer, according to legal scholars Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule, is nothing. In The Executive Unbound , they provide a bracing challenge to conventional wisdom, arguing that a strong presidency is inevitable in the modern world. Most scholars, they note, object to today’s level of executive power because it varies so dramatically from the vision of the framers. But there is nothing in our system of checks and balances that intrinsically generates order or promotes positive arrangements. In fact, the greater complexity of the modern world produces a concentration of power, particularly in the White House. The authors chart the rise of executive authority straight through to the Obama presidency. Political, cultural and social restraints, they argue, have been more effective in preventing dictatorship than any law. The executive-centered state tends to generate political checks that substitute for the legal checks of the Madisonian constitution.
Eric Posner is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at The University of Chicago.
His books include Law and Social Norms (Harvard 2000); Chicago Lectures in Law and Economics (Foundation 2000) (editor); Cost-Benefit Analysis: Legal, Economic, and Philosophical Perspectives (University of Chicago 2001) (editor, with Matthew Adler); The Limits of International Law (Oxford 2005) (with Jack Goldsmith); New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (Harvard 2006) (with Matthew Adler); and Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts (Oxford 2007) (with Adrian Vermeule). He is also an editor of the Journal of Legal Studies. He has published articles on bankruptcy law, contract law, international law, cost-benefit analysis, constitutional law, and administrative law, and has taught courses on international law, foreign relations law, contracts, employment law, bankruptcy law, secured transactions, and game theory and the law. His current research focuses on international law, immigration law, and foreign relations law. He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.
On February 27th/28th, 2025, we have a New Moon at 9° Pisces. The Sun and the Moon join an already established Pisces stellium, bringing the total to a record 6 planets in the last sign of the zodiac!
The Sun and the Moon at 9° Pisces lead the way, followed by Saturn (20°), Mercury (24°), the North Node (27°), and Neptune (28°) – a mega-conjunction stellium that intensifies the Piscean pull to materialize dreams, dissolve boundaries, and step into the unknown.
This New Moon in Pisces, with its mystical and otherworldly alignment (Neptune/North Node), reminds us of the call of the mermaid – a force that is both alluring and impossible to ignore.
New Moon in Pisces – The Mermaid Call
Legends say that back in the day, sailors would hear the haunting songs of mermaids echoing across the waves, luring them toward the unknown.
The call of the mermaid is a symbol of longing – elusive, enchanting, and irresistible – that pulls us toward the mystical, the forbidden, and the uncharted.
Sometimes, the mermaid’s call is painted as a seductive danger – like the tales of sailors who found it impossible to resist and were ultimately swallowed by the vast ocean.
However, sailors’ doom is a terrestrial perspective. Not the Piscean, oceanic perspective.
How do we know that these sailors didn’t actually find something extraordinary when they answered the mermaid’s call? Perhaps they married the mermaids. Perhaps they became one with the soul of the ocean. Perhaps they stepped into Atlantis.
The mermaid’s call is a metaphor for the New Moon in Pisces. The New Moon, soaked in the energy of North Node conjunct Neptune, connects us to our deepest longing.
The mermaid is a metaphor for something we long for but can’t fully grasp – like a fleeting dream. The call of the mermaid is our desire to explore something beyond the ordinary.
Water (and the sea) represents emotion, intuition, and the unconscious mind. The mermaid’s call is a magnetic force pulling us toward the possibilities that lie beyond the ordinary.
New Moon In Pisces – (Re)connecting With Our True Essence
Deep inside, we already hold the answers. We already know the path to becoming what we were meant to become.
We are born like a block of marble. The David, the Nike – they are already there, hidden within the stone. Life is nothing more than the process of removing the excess – piece by piece – until the masterpiece within is revealed.
The problem is that in a world where we are constantly bombarded with societal expectations, rules, and conditioned beliefs, we end up forgetting who we are – our inner design, the essence that is unique to us and only us.
Thankfully, the Universe never stops speaking to us – it gives us gentle nods, subtle whispers, and signs along the way. These messages might not be straightforward, but if we close our eyes and allow them to be felt rather than rationalized, then we will KNOW.
Whenever we lose our compass, the call of the mermaid will guide us back to the right path.
Mercury conjunct Saturn might initially make us question or doubt what our intuition already knows.
Yet, the same Saturn can also help us channel ethereal guidance into our earthly, Mercurial minds – bringing structure to the intangible and allowing us to ‘see’ or make sense of what we knew all along.
The New Moon in Pisces – The Aspects
The New Moon is trine Mars in Cancer and square Jupiter in Gemini.
Mars has just turned direct in Cancer, so it has wind in its sails. It’s more determined than ever.
The beautiful trine between the Sun and Moon in Pisces and Mars in Cancer suggests that action arises not from our logical, rational mind, but from our intuition (water signs).
Our choices might not make sense to anyone else, but they will make perfect sense to us.
To move forward, we need to take action (Mars) – even when it challenges our existing beliefs (New Moon square Jupiter).
Truth be told, some of our deepest-held “truths” may not be entirely true after all.
There’s only so far we can go with a purely data-driven, science-based, “I only believe what I see” Jupiter-in-Gemini approach. The soul knows truths that cannot always be measured, quantified, or logically explained.
That is not to imply “don’t look at the data.” Yes, we look at it, see how it can help us, but also recognize its limitations. Then, we take action (New Moon trine Mars) that is aligned with our inner knowing and highest vision (Sun conjunct Moon in Pisces).
New Moon In Pisces – Planting A Seed
The New Moon in Pisces – and New Moons in general – are great times for intention setting. When the Yang (Sun) aligns with the Yin (Moon) a seed is planted.
The seed you are planting at the New Moon in Pisces is not any seed – it is encoded into the greatest vision (North Node conjunct Neptune) of what’s possible.
And if in doubt, Mercury conjunct Saturn is there to remind you that “whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”.
New Moons and transits in general do not influence everyone in the same way. They activate a specific house, or area of your life. Knowing how to interpret transits through the houses can help us find greater alignment with the cycles of the universe and with our own purpose.
The goal of working with lunar cycles and transits is not to ‘prepare’, ‘be wary’, or ‘manipulate’ celestial forces in any way.
The goal of working with the Moon and the transits is to find inner and outer alignment – because it’s in this space of alignment that magic happens.
Who’s really being removed by ICE tonight? The child who would’ve discovered the cure for cancer in 2046? The 9th grade nerd who would’ve stopped that Astroid that’s gonna hit us in 2032? Do we care?
70 years ago today in San Francisco, California, a son was born to Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian Muslim who had entered the United States and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin. I don’t have the evidence of his citizenship, or how or why he was allowed to enter our country. The records do show that he impregnated a young woman from Green Bay and, apparently, this baby (anchor baby?) is the result of that union. On the birth certificate, apparently, is the baby’s name, or his father’s, written in Arabic: عبدالفتاح جندلي. So one more unintended, unannounced, unapproved Arab-Muslim made his way into this great country and became a US citizen simply because on this day in 1955 he left his mother’s womb head first and landed in a birthing room at some random hospital in San Francisco — and, naturally, because of a reckless mistake our Founding Fathers made in granting automatic free-to-be-you-and-me unvetted but highly-valued American citizenship for doing… what? Just showing up after a few contractions and “Presto! Yes, you, too, are now an American — just like me!” Except my name on my birth certificate is written in American-English, not Arabic. You can see why Donald Trump and MAGA-nation are so rightfully upset at how randomly any baby can just become an American — even before they’ve had their first meal!
How many millions upon millions over the years have snuck into this nation without permission, without invitation, just wham-bam-thank-you-Uncle-Sam-you’re-an-American-man now — in this case because of the perhaps questionable morals of a Wisconsin farmer’s daughter. Unbelievable. And disgusting. People, please, let’s get the order correct. Write this down: “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes ستيف جوبز in the baby carriage — complete with immigration papers, references, a current passport and a landlord’s signed approval, including first and last month’s rent and security deposit.”
So here we are now, in 2025, with at least 11 million “illegal” migrants roaming about this hallowed land, driving on our roads, getting God-knows how much free welfare, free blankets, free Federal surplus cheese, free use of 9-1-1 and our public libraries while the rest of us have to work and pay taxes for all of this. And what, pray tell, can you tell me we have received in return for Abdulfattah’s “little mistake” that was deposited in that hellhole we call San Francisco, once a great place to leave your heart in that “city by the bay”? Nothing. We get nothing from that Syrian Muslim who sired a Jr. Abdulfattah. A nothing-migrant with a nothing-out-of-wedlock-baby.
Except… that “nothing-baby” was soon adopted and given an American name — Steve Jobs. Yes, that Steve Jobs. Who, along with Steve Wozniak, is responsible for this laptop I’m writing on, the phone that’s in my pocket, the iPod shuffle that I’ve had for a decade and holds 1,000 of my favorite songs on a device that isn’t even an inch wide, my AppleTV+ on my tv across the room is easily one of our top two streamers when it comes to exceptional content. I also just started wearing an Apple Watch that counts my steps, the beats of my heart, the number of teeth I have left and informs me that today my blood pressure is 106/60 (it is also predicting that INCIDENT will win the Oscar this Sunday for Best Documentary Short). I am grateful for that Muslim migrant baby being born here 70 years ago today. Because if he hadn’t, it’s possible we would have none of his inventions. We would also have no TED LASSO.
This little story, I hope, will give pause to any bigot who constantly rails against the danger we are all in because of these “filthy, lowlife aliens.” Those of us who count ourselves as part of the “non-hater” demographic of Americans cannot even begin to add up or ascertain the innumerable ways our lives have been made better by our beloved immigrant neighbors. Or how many lives have been saved because of their discoveries, or simply, their care for us in an emergency situation. If all of those strangers who have had some impact on our lives could suddenly appear on this screen, it would be an overwhelming cacophony of human love. For every time I have heard a negative word or blatant hatred spewed toward those who came from afar, I have felt that I should pause, get down on one knee, and thank all of those who gave up their lives elsewhere to come here and be with us.
If you have amongst your family and friends a few uninformed Trumpsters who still scream about building a wall or deporting anyone who can’t prove they belong here, maybe you could show them the following list of immigrants who somehow got here, and then contributed amazing things for the rest of us to benefit from. Perhaps they will see that the reason this is a great country is because these great people made it what it is today.
Check this out:
Mona Hanna uncovered the Flint Water Crisis and led the fight to protect the children of Flint.She was born in England. Her scientist parents fled Iraq during the Ba’ath years in the 1970s. They then moved to Michigan. Without her, it is possible we never would have known the full truth of how Flint’s children were poisoned by the State.
Harry Belafonte, one of the greatest singers, political activists and humanitarians in American history. He was born in Manhattan to a Jamaican immigrant mother working as a housekeeper. She sent him back to Jamaica to live with grandparents from age 5 to 13.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib represents the cities of Detroit and Dearborn. Her parents were Palestinian immigrants. She is serving her fourth term in Congress as the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.
Albert Einstein, born in Germany, in addition to developing the theory of relativity among other things, he also called for the creation of the IRC — the International Rescue Committee — that today helps refugees and displaced people around the world.
Pierre Omidyar, founder ofEbay. His parents left Iran to go to school in France, and when he was 6 they moved to the US where his dad got a residency at Johns Hopkins.
Joan Baez’s grandfather moved to the US from Mexico when her father was 2. Her father was instrumental in the development of X-Ray microscopes and related technologies, and Joan, well, is Joan.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google. His parents left the USSR when Sergey was a toddler.
Irving Berlin, the most famous composer of the Great American Songbook. He wrote “White Christmas.” His parents left Russia when he was 5, escaping the pogroms and the poverty. He brought joy into millions of American homes with such songs as “Cheek to Cheek,” “Count Your Blessings,” “Easter Parade,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” and “God Bless America.”
Gene Simmons, rock legend from the band KISS. His mother was a Holocaust survivor, spending seven months in the Mauthausen camp. After liberation, she made her way to Haifa, where Gene was born in 1949. At age 8, his parents divorced and his mom took Gene and moved to Queens.
Billy Wilder. He made SOME LIKE IT HOT, THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, SUNSET BOULEVARD, STALAG 17, THE APARTMENT and SABRINA. He was born in Austria-Hungary.
Linda Sarsour, born in Brooklyn, daughter of Palestinian immigrants, and co-chair of the Women’s March.
Two of the three founders of YouTube are immigrants. Steve Chen was born in Taiwan. His parents moved the family to Illinois when he was 7. Jawed Karim was born in East Germany to a Bangladeshi father and a German mother, and then moved to Minnesota when Jawed was 13.
Jan Koum, creator of WhatsApp.He was born in Ukraine in the mid 1970s. His mother moved him when he was 16 to a tiny apartment in Mountain View, CA.
Cesar Chavez, American labor leader and civil rights activist, was born in Arizona to Mexican immigrant parents.
Katalin Karikó, the famed biochemist, was born in Hungary before moving to the United States where she went on to lead development of mRNA vaccine science — key to the Covid 19 Vaccine — for which she won a Nobel prize and saved millions of lives.
This list of immigrants who made America great can literally go on for miles. And I’m going to guess that every single one of you works with, lives next door to, or has your groceries bagged by a kind young man from Honduras, or has been told the stories of those in your family who came to these shores many decades ago, and due to their perseverance, or perhaps even a hole in a fence, led you to be here today, reading these words.
We have to stop this current madness of rounding up people of color for committing the crime of not being born here — or as Trump would now like to change the Constitution, whether you were born here or not, if you aren’t white, you are suspect. Like, if you’re not white, there’s no way you got that job as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a Black man. There’s no way you got that job as the Chief of the US Coast Guard on your own merit because, after all, you’re a “lady.” Tonight, ICE agents all across America are banging down doors to remove the dangerous “illegals.” But one of them might’ve been the guy who tomorrow was going to help rebuild a children’s playground across town — but he is now in shackles on a military cargo plane on its way to Guatemala.
Then there’s the young woman in Boston from earlier today. If you hadn’t smashed her guitar and thrown her in the back of your government van, she was the one who might’ve gone on to write the sequel to the beautiful and haunting song, “Hallelujah.” Now our souls will never hear it.
Or there goes the little girl who would’ve one day grown up to be the scientist who discovered the cure for cancer, snatched from her mother’s arms, taking her to a military base in Oklahoma, now forever “lost in the system” and never to be seen by her mother again.
When I go to bed tonight, as I lay my head down to fall asleep, I will try not to think about the potential millions suffering from cancer some 30 years from now who might’ve lived had this little girl not been seen as a threat to our national security.
You know it’s important to take care of your physical and mental health. But what about your social health? Social scientist Kasley Killam shows how feeling a sense of belonging and connection has concrete benefits to your overall health — and explains why it may be the missing key to living a longer and happier life.
MORRISTOWN, NJ—Complaining that he is never able to relax and just be himself, local dog Crackers reported Thursday that he feels as though he always has to be “on” when he’s around the family to whom he belongs. “It’s like I always have to put on this show, whether it’s chasing a squeaky toy or licking someone’s face, and it just gets exhausting, you know?” said the 3-year-old labrador mix, explaining that he feels expectations are being placed on him every time a member of the family so much as pets him, though he acknowledged the cat who also lives in the home seems able to shrug off such burdens. “I can’t be perking up my ears and running to the door every time the kid comes home, let alone playing fetch every time we go to the park. I’m kind of an introvert, after all. Sometimes I just want to chill in the shade and not have to run up and sniff everyone who passes by. If it keeps going like this, someday I’m going to snap and just run away.” At press time, sources confirmed Crackers had decided that biting a stranger on a walk might be the best way for his owners to get the message.
In 2024, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.
When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer’s workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer’s workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
(Goodreads.com)
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