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Cynique you are unconscious Magician of this I am certain. Two sides of the same coin. Some posted perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel is the birth canal. You mostly know how people feel even when you first meet them. You can feel people more so when you are in your feminine receptive mode than your take charge masculine mode.

I find all of the comments on this subject very thought-provoking. Astrology has never captivated me. I have had a chart cast and readings, and I didn't find them be especially accurate or prophetic. I was told by one reader that my aura inhibited her powers because she could sense that I was a skeptic. My skepticism may have had something to do with how she asked me more questions than I asked her. I figured that, with her psychic gift, she should've been able to divine the answers about me and shouldn't have needed to quiz me. I do harbor a certain amount of awe for Astronomy, however. The configurations of heavenly bodies are predictable and constant and they seem to represent order in a universe that is fraught with chaos. In this vein, I would like to share something interesting I've just experienced. Yesterday I was thinking about an old friend of mine who I haven't seen or heard from in over 25 years. The last time I saw her was when she was briefly in Chicago for a funeral. She caught up with me and we were able to spend a couple of hours together, and it was like we'd never lost touch. We parted with her extracting a promise that if I ever came to LA, I'd look her up and that was that, since I never made that trip. I always thought of her as the "golden girl". She was very pretty and very smart and - a very nice person, and she was able to beat out a few other girls for a really cool, smart, popular guy they all had eyes for. When she became pregnant, they got married and moved to California, where from all reports they were apparently living happily ever after. They had a long marriage (about 63 years) and in a recent picture their niece posted on FaceBook, they looked well preserved and happy. Of all my girlfriends, she was the one who had it all, a beautiful home, a good income, a high achieving daughter. The golden girl who enjoyed a fulfilling life. Then today, this same niece, who is a friend of mine on FaceBook, in-boxed me a message telling me that my friend had lost her husband My first thought was that the golden girl's sheen was probably a little dulled. But the story doesn't end here. There was my other old faraway friend, who I talked with on the phone from time to time, and we would always reminisce about the salad days of our youth. it was during one of our last conversations that she mentioned what I had always known but didn't think it was something she still dwelt on. She had been one of the girls that my other friend beat out for this guy they both liked. The health of this friend was very frail and she would become depressed, looking back over her life, thinking about all the trials and tribulations she had gone through. Indeed, she was not somebody I'd label a "golden girl" despite that fact that she was also pretty, and smart and nice. Anyway, the subject of what evolved into an intriguing love triangle involving my 2 friends and the guy one had married, often came up and we would laugh about it. But, then, during one conversation, she opened up about her feelings, saying that this guy had been the love of her life and that she'd never really gotten over her broken heart and that over the years when their paths crossed she thought she saw a glint in his eyes that signaled to her what might have been. One of the last things I said to this friend when she'd declared she was tired and ready to go, was to "cheer up", adding that maybe in another place and another time, she would be reunited with this love of her life. She chuckled and said "who knows?" This friend, who I'll call Jackie, died in December a week after her 83rd birthday. The second thing I thought about upon hearing about the death of the first friend's husband today, was: "now it's your turn, Jackie". Coincidence? Maybe. The only mystery deeper than Life, is Death. Two words that have no meaning.

I don't like to characterize black men as being the weak link either especially when 46 % who handle their family responsibilities aren't. But that leaves black women with sole-custody of 54% of the nation's black children. So, if we're to believe Xeon's claim of” a celebrated impoverished American Negro baby mama society” in which black women give birth to the children, raise the children, work a job/start a business to maintain the household and get advance academic degrees to provide some semblance of a life for herself and her children; then the only person missing from the 2-parent equation is the man who sired the child(ren). Black women are left holding the chain. So, you're correct @Troy. Black men who choose to be absent aren't weak links - they are the missing links. . There's no excuses for fathers/men who choose to be absent. Nor is it a woman's responsibility to get him to return. A mother/woman raises her children but it's not her responsibility to raise, repair or rehabilitate a broken man or the relationship from which he walks away. That is all very much an inside job.

I read this quote in an article I just finished reading, Black-Owned Bookstores: Anchors of the Black Power Movement, by Joshua Clark Davis (January 28, 2017). This quote, and others like it in the article, struck me because the sentiment expressed is the ONLY way these stores were created and endured. If I, for example, were only concerned about making money, I would have wrapped up AALBC.com a long time ago. The tough part about all of this is that we operate in a climate where increasing one's level of consciousness. Is very low on the list of things to do. Success is measured by how much money you amass, how you amass it is largely irrelevant. Exhibit #1: President Trump. Is it any wonder we live in a country where Black owned bookstores (brick and mortar and web based), struggle for survival?

Welp, you win... "I got tears" from "salad days of our youth" to the quoted. All beautifully expressed, @Cynique

Ha! Well that's certainly an attention-grabber!

I'm not speaking for the author - ( Aside: It seems as though folks drop stuff here and never return) just offering my observation to your remark @Troy Currently there is no difference between men and women because as the quote indicates "both men and women participate in the patriarchal system"... I believe some women are working to free themselves from the mindset and as the author suggest men too - but as I wrote in my blog the other day, women spend so much time loosening themselves from the shackles that its hard to do anything else. All this to say; yes, men need to have that conversation separately -

12-year-old Activist Lands Book Publishing Deal Marley Dias, Pictured Photo credit: Andrea Cipriani Mecchi Tired of the school's reading list filled with white boy and dog protagonist, Marley Dias kicked off her own hashtag #1000BlackGirlBooks, last January, which featured Black girls as stars of their stories. She achieved her goal of collecting and donating books with black girls as the protagonist. Today Scholastic announced Dias will pen her own story about social activism. “Marley is using her voice to advocate for social justice, a commitment reflected by her ambitious life goals: she dreams of becoming an editor of her very own magazine and plans to use media to spread positive messages and to perpetuate more socially conscious pop culture” Scholastic, Inc. reports the book will be released in the Spring of 2018 .