Don’t argue; RADIATE! A Discourse on LOVE

February 10, 2026

Thinking about making this into a tee-shirt:

At 83 years old, on my daily 4-mile walks (which lately include carefully navigating over ice; I sometimes slip, but I do not fall), I can’t help but ponder the entirety of my very long life, a contemplation which is only possible when one reaches this age!

Uranus, the planet of surprises, sudden changes, volatility, unexpected directions, is busy returning to its native place at 1°36 Gemini when I was born for the very first time in my life. Unless I live to be 168 (joke) there will not be another. And believe me, I am savoring this extended 84-year return, which, since Uranus, in my chart, sits at the midpoint between Moon (23° Taurus) and Saturn (7°) includes fthe first ever conjunction to both these planets. Plus, that Uranus midpoint happens to be directly across from Mars (2°40) Sagittarius!

The entire process, for me, takes nearly five years. I’m now about 3/5 of the way through it.

It began with the Uranus conjunction to the Moon, which governs nurturing, mothering, in July 2023, when Uranus reached 22°, one degree from exact conjunction with the Moon’s natal position. During that month, and for the first half of the following month, I was enduring a powerful, uncanny dread, centered on my 58-year-old son inventor Colin Cudmore, who lived next door to me: his health. I kept seeing visions of emergencies in my mind’s eye; this itself distressed me so much that I began to intone the mantra, “I wish him healing, healthy whole,” internally, all day long.

Then, on August 16, 2023, which just happened to be the very day that Uranus reached its exact degree and minute of 23°02 Taurus, conjuncting my natal Moon, the emergency erupted.

At 8:30 in the morning, Colin called me: “Mom, would you please come over here right away . . .” It turned out that both ascending and descending branches of his aorta has dissected (delaminated.)

The local hospital emergency had him airlifted to a hospital in Indianapolis. The subsequent operations — during which not enough blood circulated through the legs, left him paralyzed from the waist down, and in sometimes horrific nerve pain, 24×7, ever since.

He should have died. What he went through was considered impossible. Yet he did not die, and the saga has not ended.

Nine days later, I began posting, daily, on his journey:  caringbridge.org.

 

So this is how my Uranus completion journey began, with its first-ever conjunction to the Moon. And as I said, the entire process will not complete until May of 2028.

You’d think I’d get cynical, or at least bitter, worn down. And yet, I have not. Why?

Well, on these daily walks, I’m periodically amazed at how my view of, and my desire for, my all-too-human longing for “LOVE” has mutated to the point where now, rather than being something I want to get to fill a hole in my being, Love is experienced as a fluid, a flow, coursing through me and radiating. Every person whom I pass by feels that radiation, and it is often returned! Which lifts the hearts of both of us.

 

I wrote the following essay, one which I still consider my magnum opus,  when I was 65 years old. That was nearly 20 years ago!

The evolutionary process indicated in that essay continues, in spades.

Discourse on Love

 

 

 

NATURE IS UNCANNY: I watch as thousands of crows . . .

February 9, 2026

I’ve long had an interest in crows and ravens. In fact, the magazine Crone Chronicles (1989-2001) was ignited via a nighttime visit from a Raven, clawing my shoulders from behind, cawing “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT’S TIME!

That was the first of a number of numinous Raven encounters (all but that first one in waking life) that guided me on that 12-year journey.

Here’s an interview in which I talk about that journey. Truly magical, the entire experience. See this for more.

THE CRONE CHRONICLES EXPERIMENT

In Wyoming, where I then lived, ravens were not rare. Here in Indiana, instead, we have crows. Investigate the difference:

Crows tend to be city dwellers, flock together and are very noisy. Besides being larger . . .

. . . ravens are more archetypal, one might say, singular, brooding.

Interesting, relevant aside: I see the deep mountain west as a land of intrepid (raven-esk) individuals; very different from here in the midwest, much more focused on (crow-like) community. Me? I’m utterly fascinated by the shifting relationship between both Individual and Community, as well as any two paradoxical polarities, always seeking to inhabit the pulsing space between them.

 

That was definitely Raven on my shoulders shocking me awake from that dream. And that raven inspired a 12-year journey into the archetypal investigation of the word “Crone,” the third and final archetypal 30-year period of a woman’s life.

 

So, crows flock together, ravens don’t.

But both ravens and crows are extremely intelligent.

 

Three evening ago, just as dusk was arriving, so did thousands of crows, literally thousands. Cawing vociferously, and settling (for how long? I don’t know) on the upper branches of nearby trees.

For two more evenings, one after another, they gathered in trees, cawing lustily, as dusk settled in. I was the grateful recipient of this seemingly uncanny, but very very natural phenomenon.

Question: do you often find, like I do, that Nature herself is utterly Uncanny?

Here are three photos, taken from a single observation point on my porch. First panoramic, then a closer view, one after another.

 

Question: why do crows gather? There are lots of theories, having to do with courtship, nesting, safety in numbers, and so on.

Actually, we humans have no idea, no idea at all. Nature IS uncanny, from our limited, all-too-human perspective!