This is my natal chart, done around 1975 by astrologist Ray Couture. In the back room of a bookstore in Berkeley, he explained to me that I was a Grand Trine, a rare configuration of three or more planets forming an equilateral triangle, a pattern believed to foster creativity, energy flow, and harmony. My Sun, Mars, Mercury and Neptune are in Virgo, my Moon is in Capricorn, and my Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are in Taurus.

I don’t really follow astrology, but I took it more seriously when in 1992 in a village in the highlands of Guatemala, Rigoberto Itztep Chanchavac, a Mayan Daykeeper priest/shaman, explained the Mayan astrological calendar to me, and that I was 7 Ajpu. But that is another story for another time.