Donna Henes

The circle of time, the celestial cycles, the round of the seasons, surrounds us and encompasses us. All there is, was, and will be exists within its spinning circumference.

Consider the cycles of the systems: the celestial revolutions, rotations, and orbits, which collaboratively choreograph the complex ballet of the...

It is promulgated in some paleontological circles that all of humankind is the offspring of a single lady who lived in Africa, or some say Asia, a very long time ago. The geometrically multiplied generations of her darling daughters and sons have since become geographically dispersed and ethnically diverse. Over...

May Day is the halfway point, or cross-quarter Day, of spring. By mid-spring, Nature has dug in Her roots and taken hold. Once-tentative buds have unfolded and flourished, spread green with the surging effervescent, aphrodisiac substance of life. The sap, the shoot, the root, the bud, the bark, the branch,...

Fear of the number 13 is the most prevalent superstition in the Western world. We even have a name for it: triskaidekaphobia. It is quite common for even the most ordinarily rational and otherwise exemplary person -- Winston Churchill, for example -- to refuse to sit in row 13 in...

I am mad. No, that doesn't begin to describe it. I am pissed. I am angry. I am irate. I am incensed. I am enraged. I am livid. I am FURIOUS.

"All men are created equal," states the Declaration of Independence. From the very beginning, women were...

Light equals life. It is precious and we are loath to lose it. Not that the dark does not bring its own healing, life-enhancing atmosphere, but after the long pitch of winter, we are eager, anxious, impatient for more light. Nature knows that and obliges.

The worst of the dark...

The year 2012 is a leap year. The year in four during which there is an extra day. An extra day! What an odd concept. How in the world could there be an extra day? Extra comes from the Latin word for "outside of" or "beyond." According to Webster, it...

A great way to pamper yourself with the attention and affection that we all crave -- that we lavish on others but never think to give to ourselves -- is to have a love affair with your Self.

An affair with your Self enables you to know, own and honor...

Feb. 2 is the exact halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is the winter midpoint or cross-quarter day. The darkest, coldest season is now officially half over!

Though the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the day with the fewest sunlit hours, is...

A year, no matter how it is determined, is simply the marker of a complete cycle. The transition, the precise turning point, between the end of one cyclical period and the start of another designates a new year. Our birthday is our own personal New Year.

I was born...

A year, no matter how it is determined, is simply a complete cycle. The transition, the precise turning point, between the end of one cyclical period and the start of another designates a new year.

A year is like a life cycle.
It starts, it ends, then you...

With the recognition that the solar light in the sky makes it possible for there to be life on Earth, comes enlightened responsibility. As the sun energizes our lives, so too, must we return energy skyward at the solstice when the winter light is at its weakest.

As Mother...

At the close of the growing season in autumn, people, like squirrels, like ants, like bees, get busy gathering the great bounty of the land. We forage and harvest, hunt and herd; industriously amassing the abundance proffered by the earth, water and sky. After the toil, the patient tending of...

Where in the world did October go? September sped by in a blur. And August was gone in a flash. How did that happen? Where did the time go? The weeks and months, it seems, just melted into each other. But each single day seemed endless.

Last week I bumped...

Halloween descends from Samhain, the most significant holiday of the Celtic calendar. Being a pastoral people, the Celts counted their seasons according to the needs of their cattle and sheep, rather than the agricultural seasons that farmers might mark. The year was divided into summer, when the herds are led...

We have been inundated lately on all fronts -- astrological, spiritual, political, economic, environmental -- with threats of terror and trauma. These are indeed very scary times. What is at stake is our safety, our peace of mind, our centered inner selves, our very lives and the lives of all...

Since the world and all of its constituent parts are always turning, there are many possible ways to calculate when a year is new. And, consequently, there is great diversity among peoples as to the determination of the actual new year.

The Slavs and Norse reckoned years from one...

When the planes flew into the twin towers, I was out of the country. It took me more than a week to get past the sealed borders and return home. One thought consumed my mind during that agonizing week of separation from my house, pets, friends and the city that...

Avid moon watcher that I am, I must confess that I never could recognize the face of the man in the moon. How could anyone conceivably mistake that face -- that round, profoundly gentle face, jolly and eternally indulgent, that unconditionally comforting countenance -- for male?

The dark marks...

Summer has become intolerable for me. It is just too damn hot and I am miserable, sweaty and cranky most of the time. But when my little pooch, Poppy, starts panting in the heat -- her little pink tongue hanging out of her open mouth -- I know the dog...