A few months ago, I had my Vedic Astrology chart done. It was infinitely entertaining and confusing. In spite of that, I learned a few things about myself that may explain some of my behaviors. But isn’t that how these always go? We fit our story into the fortune to create a reason from which we gain insight.

In addition, I have been writing my book on India (for four years now, but just recently with for real earnestness) and a few of my traits are being revealed to me here as well.

Stay with me, this all relates to the purging food organizational structure trying to find peace phase I’ve been going through the past 50 years or so.

In the astrology chart it shows that my ruling deity is Yama. He is the god of death. This excited me. What I have learned in this journey is death of anything makes room for new beginnings, new life. The death of an idea, a habit, yes, even a person, creates space. I do not wish to end the lives of others, I do however like to complete things. Moment to moment our inhale dies to the exhale, day dies to night and is reborn 12 hours later. The birth of a child is the death of the pregnancy. One year dies to the next and so on.

This chart also proclaims my dharma (the thing I was born to do) as “carrying things away.” This too, made sense. My favorite creature on the whole planet is the vulture – nature’s humble janitor. THEY CARRY THINGS AWAY. Stuff we don’t want, dead stuff, so we don’t have to deal with it. It’s noble.

The writing has revealed my tendency to live my life in fragmented sentences. Grammatically this would look like … To be continued, more to come, stay tuned. Which is completely counter to carrying things away or ending them.

Balance? Harmony? Insanity?

I rush. I cram too much stuff in. I’m learning to let go of a few things on my schedule.  I’m better at prioritizing. But there’s still a lot I don’t complete.

I noticed this as I was writing about an experience in the desert of India when I was on safari with a group. We were at a park looking for interesting animals and such. When I felt we had seen everything there was to see, I was ready to go. The yoga guru I was traveling with, chose that exact moment to lay down on the hard cracked earth, knees bent, hands folded on his belly. What? Why? C’mon! I walked back to the jeep like a spoiled child denied a treat.

The pouting lasted about 10 minutes. I walked back out to where he was and stood there willing him to hop up, clap his hands and say, “let’s go.” Instead he waxed poetic about all that he could see. For about 20 more minutes. I surrendered – mostly because I didn’t have a choice. When we finally did make it back to our jeeps to leave, the sky turned a brilliant orange. The setting ball of fire filtered through unseen pollution created a magical show for us. That we would have missed had my Vulcan mind meld worked.

I’m great at beginnings. I am an ideator, an instigator, a starter. Initiation is my wheelhouse. Implementation so-so. Completion? Let’s just call that an area of opportunity.

This purging, ordering, organizing, cataloging seems like a reaction to this fragmentation and a fulfillment of my dharma all at once. I am carrying away the stuff I no longer need. Or want. The physical and the energetic – if you believe in that hokum – are being distributed among friends, thrift stores and ebay.

It’s another project started that I intend to see through.

It seems the less stuff I have the more space there will be to complete those sentences. To sit still and notice. To be where I am when I am.

To stay for the sunset.