In the interest of journalistic transparency, I do need to report that Virginia Bell is much older than me—well, five and a half years older anyway. I therefore bow before her venerable wisdom when it comes to life's passages; and—giggles aside—a compassionate, wise look at life's passages through the clear lens of astrology is the subject of this very fine volume.
To further preserve my integrity, before I launch into the heart of this foreword, I should add that I am biased. I have loved Virginia Bell since the moment I met her. That was at an astrological conference in Connecticut, probably a quarter century ago. I had mailed her several recorded readings before that, so I “knew” her in that strange way an astrologer gets to know someone via hieroglyphics on a sheet of paper. But when we met face to face, the karmic violins played. Miracle of miracles, in that moment, the main meeting hall at the conference hotel cleared of every soul.
That simple fact demonstrates one basic truth about Virginia Bell—as befits her Sun/Moon conjunction in the magical eighth house, Ginnie wields some serious ju-ju. The crowd went poof. She and I were left standing there solo, without interruption, talking and connecting, and I was impressed on a whole other level. I also felt as if we had known each other for a thousand years. Which is probably the approximate truth of the matter.
All this of course makes it sound like Virginia Bell and I were “an item,” but it wasn't like that. There was never a grand romance or even a “moment” for that matter. Instead of skidding down that slippery Romeo and Juliet slope, we instead planted our four Earth-sign feet upon the solid ground of that human masterpiece: a lifelong friendship—one that has now stood for nearly half my life.
In the fashion of friendship, there has always been a sense of spiritual parity between Ginnie and me. I would turn to her for help or perspective as easily as she would turn to me. Over the years, I have confidently referred many clients to her. When she decided to become a student in my apprenticeship program, I had a moment of feeling as if the Dalai Lama had asked me for meditation tips. I was flattered and a little disoriented. Ginnie is a true wise woman. Read any page at random in this excellent book, and you will immediately see what I mean. What could I possibly teach her? But one of Virginia Bell's virtues is her ability to learn something from everyone she meets—and again, these pages will demonstrate that to you.
Albert Einstein famously said, “When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a redhot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.” Well, our clearing that room at the conference in Connecticut seems like it just happened yesterday. We were both in mid-life then—and now we are gray-haired and wrinkled enough that younger folks fancy us wise. Life goes by so quickly. Those words have become a cliché. Pronounce them in front of a group of intelligent young people in their twenties, and they all sagaciously nod their heads. And they do understand—but not as they will understand when they are fifty or seventy.
There are plenty of fine young astrologers today—and no shortage of pontificating old fools. Age itself teaches us very little. But one point is sure: those fine young astrologers will mostly be even better with another few decades of experience. That is true in general but especially so when it comes to the actual subject of this book: life's chronological milestones. It really helps to have experienced them personally before we speak about them! Only an arrogant young fool, destined to become an annoying old one, would argue against that idea.
I vividly recall the vague sense of illegitimacy I had at age thirty while talking to a wise “old” man or woman about the meaning of the Second Saturn Return at about one's fifty-ninth birthday. I laugh to remember that one of my struggles back then was to avoid speaking of their lives in the past tense. Such are the illusions of youth . . .
Robbie Robertson put it so well in one of his solo tunes: “We grow up so slowly, and we grow old so fast.” I guess everyone over fifty would agree with that line. What makes the difference though are the usual pivotal questions: Have we honestly examined our own experiences? Have we taken responsibility for the repeating patterns in our lives? Have we actually gotten anything deeper than mere memory from them? Did we acknowledge our own errors truthfully enough to have learned from them? Did we love, and dare, and occasionally fly though fog on pure faith with no plan B and no parachute?
No one can answer those questions about another soul. But I am going to ditch my parachute and take off in the fog anyway. Virginia Bell has lived that way. She embodies these human virtues with humility, grace, and—blessedly—with a naughty twinkle in her eye. Many a tree has been turned to pulp in order to rehash old astrological ideas and print them yet again under a new title. This is not one of those books. In these pages, a wise woman has left us a treasure.
I wish Ginnie a long life, but I am confident that people will be reading this book long after we are both gone. And they, like myself, will be thanking her for illuminating the path we must all follow, a path that society has festooned with needless fear, draped in anxiety, and spiced with gloom—the path of aging. In Virginia Bell's hands, that path is no longer so foreboding. Instead it beckons.
—Steven Forrest, author of The Inner Sky