Influencing Destiny

I am always intrigued by factors influencing destiny, which is the subject of this article. But first I must tell you about Ernest Hemingway. With his short, declarative sentences and terse prose, Hemingway did more than anyone else to change the style of English writing in the twentieth century. For his stories and novels, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize.

Tara and I first visited Ernest Hemingway's Key West, Florida home in 1984 while on our honeymoon. His writing room was on the second floor of a carriage house behind the main house, and the room looked out on a swimming pool. Hemingway wrote with a pencil at a small table while sitting in a leather-slung chair. My visit to that room has always remained with me.

Twenty years later, we visited the Hemingway home again -- this time while celebrating our 20th anniversary during a cruise-ship stop. My response to his writing room was as intense as the first time, and I have been reading Hemingway and books about him for the last three weeks. "The Hemingway Women -- Those Who Loved Him -- the Wives and Others" by Bernice Kert, is a large volume, which I verbally condensed for Tara over morning coffee.

In regard to Hemingway's relationship with his mother, Tara said, "She sounds just like your mother." The more of the book I shared, the more intrigued my wife became.

Tara worked up Ernest Hemingway's astrological chart. "He had a nine-degree Capricorn Moon. You have a ten-degree Capricorn Moon. His moon was in the Fifth House of creativity, lessons and emotions. So is yours. No wonder your mothers were alike."

Destiny's blueprint is our astrological birth chart. Mother relationships can be read in the aspects of the moon. This information is not new to most readers of this article, nor to me. Tara and I have just finished writing a book about destiny, so I should not be surprised when the puzzle pieces come together like this to make a strong point.

But I am surprised. At the same time, I find such verification comforting. There is an old Zen adage that says, "If you want to know where you are supposed to be, look down at your feet." We seem to have chosen before birth to be where we are, doing what we are doing, with the people we are with. As for tomorrow, next month or next year, ask a good astrologer.