JUNE 2007  

by Susan Pomeroy

I seldom miss my mother more than when I'm putting together the next month's issue of Daykeeper. Her spirit, her wisdom, her sense of humor, her seriousness, her facility with words and her poetic, down-to-earth way of explaining things are so vivid for me in these pages that I feel her absence most keenly. And yet at the same time, I paradoxically feel closest to her when I'm working on Daykeeper. The skill, grace, expertise and generosity of her friends Nina Bouska and Sue Taylor in contributing their work to Daykeeper, the alacrity of other writers, the support and kindness of so many of Daykeeper's loyal readers—these are an amazing, palpable and very much appreciated testament to my mother's wise and generous spirit.

Many of us are generous... especially when we've had a moment to think about it. My mother's first, unthinking reflex was always generosity. She'd give away the clothes off her back, the food from her plate, she'd stay up all night talking if talking was needed, she'd travel to the ends of the earth (literally, to Argentina) on a dime to help a friend in need. When my partner and I hit an unexpected series of misfortunes, she offered us her life savings... and even her credit cards. She always had money for musicians, homeless people, anyone in need... not just a quarter, or even just a dollar. And she contributed whatever she could to literally dozens of environmental and human rights groups. Perhaps as a result, she seemed to live a charmed life—and her karma came back to her, sometimes in surprising ways. Once, when she was caught in San Francisco without cash for the ferry ride home, she passed a homeless man to whom she'd often given money. "Nothing for you today," she told him. "Well, I have something for you," he said, and handed her several dollars, more than enough for her fare.

My mother's passion was astrology. Going through her home after her death, we found hundreds of pages of astrological notes taken over the years—enough to earn her a Ph.D. degree several times over. For decades she kept a "lunar return diary," noting both what kinds of things she expected to happen, and what actually did occur. This scientific spirit—taking nothing for granted, but subjecting conjecture to the test of experience and analysis—was the essence of her approach. Decades of working with her own chart, her family and friends, her long-standing Pleiades group, and with clients, gave her an extraordinarily rich understanding of astrological processes, and of life. She knew this, she was confident of her abilities... and yet she would have been utterly shocked and deeply moved by the outpouring of sympathy and loss from her readers after her passing... many of whom knew her only through her writing. Her Leo rising loved attention... but her Virgo moon, her deeper emotional self, always felt that her writing wasn't quite as good as she hoped it would be. And yet she modestly offered it forth each month, an entire magazine authored by her, with her unique and impeccable sensibility.

What I really want to say is that I wish she were here to feel the enormous surge of love, from friends and strangers, that has accompanied the rebirth of Daykeeper. She would be moved, as I am, by the many testaments to the strength and sincerity of her efforts to add to the sum of insight and truth in the world, to improve human lives, and to create a world where freedom, dignity and justice for all are truly a given. Thank you readers, thank you Nina and Sue, thank you Crystal, and Alex, and Boots and Jessica, and thank you, dear Mother, for your inspiring, courageous, and shining example.