Planets in Retrograde -- The Basics
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Rebecca Brents

Astrology is for Believers.

With an open mind and a knowledge of Astrology you can watch your life unfold in ways that make sense.

You can understand the demands of change and "what's really going on" in a crisis.

Whether in a gentle push in the right direction or in a "hard knock upside the head," you can read the message behind what life is asking of you.

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Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st-Century Stress Syndrome
By
James L. Wilson, Jonathan V. Wright

Sometimes getting the right answer means asking the right question.

Life is full of hints, signs, and advice ... if you know where to look and what you're looking for.

Astrology and Tarot are tools that blend free will and useful information into new dimensions of thought ... so you can discover your best options. But the choice to act is always yours.

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The Key to Your Character ... hear the lecture in The Auditorium

	Painful Lessons from the Maternity Ward (Don't try this at home, folks.) by David Leonhardt Finding Happiness and Self-actualization
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

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Painful Lessons from the Maternity Ward
(Don't try this at home, folks.)
by David Leonhardt

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Whoever dubbed New York, New York "the city that never sleeps" should visit The Maternity Ward. My recent visit included a drop-in on several screenings of "A Star Is Born" at the late-show theatre, right near Mama's Breast (all night milk bar) and Papa's Gas Station ("We burp you on your way.").

To a chorus of infant cries, I drafted this column at 1:00 a.m. Of course, it was 3:00 p.m. in Tokyo, so I suppose it wasn't so late after all.

The whole experience of birthing seems to be a very traumatic way to build a family. Fortunately, it did lead to two very happy results. It gave me a new daughter, Lauralee, the Little Sister. And it taught me some valuable lessons, which it is my patriotic duty to share with you.

The first lesson - all men, take note - is that my wife is my hero.

As the husband, I experienced the whole birthing outburst second-hand. After careful observation, I conclude that this is the best way to experience it. (Apparently I had some first-hand experience over 40 years ago, but I can't remember too many details.)

Most husbands suffer great humiliation during childbirth. Wives hurl razor-sharp insults like "I hate you!" and "You fink!" and "You did this to me!" and "I HATE YOU!!!" My wife, truly original even in pure agony, didn't use any of those words. In fact, she didn't say a thing. Instead, she threw up on me.

Of course, I don't hold the throwing up against her. The second lesson I wish to share with you is the importance of forgiving people who act in haste, in anger, or in excruciating pain from pushing a six-inch wide baby through a one-inch wide hole in their bodies.

Did I mention that this was a "natural" childbirth? Natural, as in no painkillers. OK, so there was the epidural, which should have relieved the pain, if even one of the four dosage increases had worked. And I suppose you could call morphine and nubain painkillers if they had actually killed any pain.

So my wife, with a permanent back condition amplifying the stab of every contraction and reverberating it through the spine with no momentary relief between contractions, felt every glorious minute - 487 in all - of the unplanned "natural" childbirth.

Did I mention that she is my hero? The third lesson is, when the best-laid plans go astray, improvise (which might explain the throwing up - I have reason to believe it was not planned, either).

My wife's trauma was nothing compared to what Little Sister overcame. Her shoulders got stuck, pinching the umbilical cord and cutting the oxygen supply from her not-quite-yet-born brain. To do the equivalent, you would have to press your shoulder up into your nose, while a bulldozer on steroids pushes you in a river of blood through your mailbox. (Don't try this at home, folks.)

Thanks to Quick Thinking Doctor, the focused team of nurses, and a well-sharpened pair of scissors, Little Sister is enjoying great suction at the all-night milk bar with no more damage than a limp arm. (That's "brachial plexus injury" in medicalese.) The arm will hopefully recover.

Even if it doesn't, we know what the alternative would have been ... and we do not look good in black. Lesson number four is to appreciate what you have rather than worry about what you don't.

The Maternity Ward offers far too many lessons to share with you now. My fatigue is overtaking me. I feel like a wad of gum squished on the asphalt, baked in the sun, and stuck on a motorcycle tire burning rubber on a gravel trail. Ha! Bet you never felt like that in New York, New York.

David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy, is author of a self-help happiness book. He also serves as a SEO/SEM website marketing consultant. Read more personal growth articles in his Self-actualization Resource Center at The Happy Guy.

Good composition is like a suspension bridge
-- each line adds strength and takes none away.
~ Robert Henri ~
Born June 25, 1865

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Last updated October 28th, 2004

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This Year I Will...: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True
By
M. J. Ryan