Twelve Nations of the Zodiac Each of us cycles through the Signs of the ancient Zodiac, though the order of this cycle is not known. While here on Earth we meet members of The Twelve, each forming a mystical ‘nation’ with language and customs all it is own.

Even if you are not an Aquarian by Sun Sign, it may be well worth a great deal of investigation! You may have an individual very primary in your life who is an Aquarian and a little extra clear or deep perception may only help. And, every one has the Sign of Aquarius governing one of the 12 houses in their birth chart. If this is the 1st house, Aquarius is your Rising Sign or Ascendant and really, is the “other half” of your Self, partnered with your Sun Sign. If you have assorted planets (or the goddesses or Lilith, Chiron, Saturn, or Uranus, for example) in Aquarius, then you are more of an Aquarian than you know!

If you discover you have Venus in Aquarius – or Mars in Aquarius – this may change your entire self-understanding, for Venus rules not only our partnerships – including marriage – but to a huge extent our friendships and the quality and tone of all our relationships. This is unfeigned of the material world we attract into our life, including of course our financial resources.

Each of us, at a heap of point in our Earth History, is born into the Aquarian Sign, in all probability a good deal of times in the course of great Cycles of Time here on Earth. As we head into the Age of Aquarius, we are, in a way, all Aquarians now, for we will collectively experience the Aquarian archetype in a way not seen on Earth, for a long, long time…

We are not sure when The Age of Aqarius begins. Some think it begun in the Sixties, with the explosion of the Baby Boomers into the world. Some feel it will commence when Pluto, the karmic and evolutionary planet par excellence, moves into Aquarius in 2023 and remains there through 2043. The Age itself will last around 2,000 years, and if Uranus and Saturn have anything at all to do with it, we may have to hold onto our hats! Nothing in regards to the Sixties was simple. The transformations begun were deep, mysterious and in a heap of ways, even disturbing…much Uranus earthquake debris has had to be revisited, and sorted through, by Saturn. In any case, here’s to the Age of Aquarius – it looks like we’ll be finding the Maps as we go along…

Sun Sign as Archetype Each Sun Sign represents a major Archetype or cosmic pattern – a flowing, dynamic field of energy which enfolds, shapes and interacts with a given person, two people, or group of people – even nations – in a given time. An Archetype is an emanation of God – one of the Energy Patterns/Stories in the Creator’s Mind. Hence we refer to the archetypes as gods and goddesses. They are mysteries which we honor, and whose strength we recognise and respect.

Archetypes partly include a broader Past, Present and Future. They also comprise their own opposites, which in a way, helps us to work through their main “lesson” – the moral of the story. Each has a strength, and each it is weakness or Achilles heel. Like the great tales from mythology, we connect, as the Hero of the story, with calibers within us – the Dark and the Light – of which we had been totally unaware. As we come to know these mysteries of the Self, our story unfolds outward, to join with, and to become percentage of, the World we fabricate with others.

The Sun Sign is one of the Hero’s galore Roads – the one we have chosen for this life…we can not put it in a bottle or beneath a microscope – any more than an actor or actress may become too self-conscious when acting their role. We have to throw ourselves into being ourselves – and not look back in over-analysis or too some “if only’s…” We are on a journeying of exploration and self-expression in the cosmos. We are not exclusively in charge of this journey! So ride the wave and don’t be too concerned in regards to the negatives of your Sun Sign – because those negatives are genuinely percentage of the positives, but this we only perceive in the fullness of time.

Aquarius * Bearer of Mysterious Waters The Water Bearer – symbol of Aquarius – hints at a heavenly or esoteric essence, which Aquarius alone brings to humanity. The Waters are affiliated with life-giving water for the planet Earth – and this may lie in the original “gods” who taught irrigation to early humane beings on the planet (see Enki, below). The Waters are also said to be symbolic of the waters of spiritual life – Aquarius symbolized baptism in a lot of faiths, including Christian.

Ancient teachings hint that the “waters” are actually a kind of strength field or energy field, better understood through physics than through the world sciences and the waters of our oceans and the rains. The Waters of Aquarius surely appear to be connected with Neptune, but this may be less to do with the seas on earth, and more to do with a kind of Cosmic Sea. There are a great galore Sumerian tablets whose writings comprise a rich mythology, which, as Zecharia Sitchin has suggested, may genuinely be history, and not legend. Beginning with The Twelfth Planet, Sitchin lays out what the tablets say with regards to the gods/astronauts who came to the Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. Astrology – in terms of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, and the celestial and world timing used by the astronauts, played a critical role in the visits of these “gods” and their role in creating humanity along with establishing rich gardens of civilization throughout the face of the earth.

In a arousing and attention holding description of how our solar system was created, the “gods” describe in detail the introductory act of conception amid a solitary pair of planets drifting in a rich sea of Waters which became the Petrie dish for the creation, one by one, of each of the major planets in our solar system. As a final touch in the somewhat turbulent emergence and stabilization of the solar system, it was said that it was Neptune’s odd, magnetic, hypnotic energy field which at last held the other planets in their orbits. Interestingly, Sumerian records show that these early “gods” – and the Sumerian civilization they nurtured – knew when it comes to all the planets in our solar system, including Uranus, “discovered” in 1781 which is the outer planet that co-rules Aquarius with Saturn. They likewise related Aquarius with perchance the most noteworthy of all the astronauts, a “god” called Enki.

Enki * Ancient Origins of the Aquarius Archetype Enki is very similar to Prometheus, who stole Fire from the Gods to give to Mankind. The theme is strangely the same, for Enki gave to early humanity the practical plans and blueprints for civilization, such as the science of irrigation. Enki is said to have defended Humanity from his brother gods, when they were disappointed with our moral weaknesses (specifically, obsession with sex, it seems), and to have given the plans for the Ark before the Flood to the initial Noah, whose story was later, along with others, lifted from Sumerian records to form the early books of the Bible.

Enki was always affiliated in Sumerian records with Aquarius, but was likewise in a lot of contexts affiliated with the sign of Capricorn (planet Saturn) and sign of Pisces (planet Neptune). It appears that this triple identification comes from both the “ages” in which he visited and worked on Earth, and to the kind of work, as a science officer, he performed. If Enki is the uttermost archetype for Aquarius, this may be why Aquarius is more complex – and also more mysterious – than is so oftentimes portrayed in Astrology.

Earth-Centered Aquarius Enki was the science officer and genetics specialist. The ancient tablets from Sumer state that it was Enki, with the support of a Mother Goddess who was likewise a specialist in this area, who physically produced humanity. They did this by blending the DNA of one of the young gods with that of early Man – a “primitive” found already evolving on earth. Enki loved humanity as a father, in that sense, and continued to nurture and manufacture all civilization, as he was the keeper of the outstanding technical keys for agriculture, irrigation, and much more.

Aquarius represents, through this aweinspiring historical record, a distinctive bridge among the “gods and men” – including the genetic bridge. This produces an aura of mystery around Aquarius as a sign, and proposes concealed reasons why Aquarians always feel as if they are “strangers in a strange land”. As players in the Enki archetype, Aquarians do feel an vast sense of connectedness and indeed, obligation for, the fate of humanity. Humanitarian issues like refugees, feeding the hungry, freedom of movement, speech, thought and association are all worries to which the Aquarian, and the Aquarius portion of each person’s birth chart, will resonate. The formation of global bodies such as the War Crimes Tribunal and the United Nations is a direction for humanity which Aquarians will tend not to see as galore fearful New World Order but rather welcome it is coming as freedom from the tyranny of secretive houses, closed off villages, nations behind barbed wire, and so on. As we shall see, Aquarians publicize freedom and revolution (Uranus), but justice, order and world courts (Saturn) too.

Aquarius “remembers” that while we carry the genes of the early persons within us, we take out “image” from those who came from the Stars – out there. These memories convey a keen sense of fate beckoning us toward the starry heavens. We feel them arouse in astrology, astronomy, NASA, science fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars, and in our longing hearts as we look upwards on a clear night. The Aquarian essence of humanity reminds us, collectively, of our destiny…that we are not for a limitless time earthbound, but will become a song of Life on the solar winds. Just as ancient space travellers like Enki helped to carry out the Creator’s plan, so we too will carry ourselves, as the Seed Children, to other planets, other systems, other worlds.

Saturn and Uranus – Chakra Wheels of Aquarius We come to perceive the sign and archetypal energy of Aquarius through the story of Enki – science-oriented, rebellious, freedom-defending archetype of Enki – Bringer of Gifts to Humanity. But there are other forces at work in Aquarius and other ways to meet and comprehend this sign. There are the two big planets that rule Aquarius – Uranus, The Great Awakener and Saturn, Father of Time and Lord of Karma. The Aquarian may best be understood as a person and as a strength for change when we comprehend these two planets and how they work together.

Whether you are an Aquarian or have one in your life, you may find you have signed on for deep, many times violent, shocking awakenings – these resonate to Uranus, the innovative ruling planet of Aquarius. However – the awakening of Uranus seems then to be followed by a amount of time of evenly intense shaping, disciplining, teaching, and chastening energies – these will be Saturn, ancient ruler of Aquarius, and known as the Lord of Karma!

So Uranus brings revolution, but Saturn goes back, retraces the steps as to why the revolution was needed, examines the science and doctrine involved, and works out new Laws to incorporate and direct the new architecture rising on the ruins that Uranus has left behind.

The Aquarian Archetype and it is ruling planets are when it comes to violent change, upheaval, accounting, facing truth, and reaping of karma. Aquarians – and the Age of Aquarius – will fetch dramatic, sweeping and many times disturbing changes into our lives and into planetary history. It is hard to imagine where we got the idea that The Aquarian Age was going to be so of a sudden harmonious. We already see and feel around us the tremendous political, climatic and spiritual upheavals all over this planet which may reach a level of instability which will threaten the survival of this world…whether it survives, or does not, and is “reborn” as worlds oftentimes are, is beyond our psychological result of perception learning and reasoning now. However, when the Uranus forces – bombs, revolutions, earthquakes, electrical storms, and the empowerment of the masses thru the internet – are finished, it will require the other shoe to drop – the Saturnian parts of order, rebuilding and respective forms of truth and reconciliation – to finish the Age of Aquarius.

The Aquarian Personality * Uranus and Saturn Aquarians are freedom-lovers, social challengers, stereotype-breakers, and innovators. They may alter direction at a moment’s notice. That is Uranus breathing through them! At the same time, Aquarians may be conservative, traditional, deeply loyal, stubborn, and fixated on justice not served. That is Saturn talking – normally lecturing! The Aquarian is therefore funnily gifted at not only tearing down, but also building – if given the right opportunity. Aquarians may write laws and constitutions, and are found creating systems everywhere, whether in office procedures manuals, Mozart’s outstanding compositions, Einstein’s new laws of the universe, Lincoln’s proclamation of freedom for the slaves, and so on.

It is a fault to overlook the role of Saturn in the life, gifts, and burdens of Aquarians. To live their Sun Sign, Aquarians need to receive without guilt feelings or regret that they fetch challenge to the lives of others, but Saturn makes them brood and worry, and doubt their own wunderkind Uranus-style energies. The Aquarius is always aware, at a great deal of level, that ‘here” is only part-way there. There is always the sentiment that the road of Humanity is still a long one, and that it someways falls to the Aquarian, more than to other signs, to lead the way, to find the cure, to make the peace, or to raise the flag of freedom and revolution. Aquarians feel a deep need to love and be loved, yet likewise feel, as in a tragic play on stage, that in the end, they will have to ride off into the sunset, to find another people in need of a leader, or another town in need of a sheriff. The peculiar sense of history living through the Aquarian, of having to part his or her life with “something larger”, is one of the most powerful distinct features of this archetypal Sign.

Relationships with Aquarians It is ofttimes observed that it is hard to get close to an Aquarian, that Aquarius is an Air Sign and thence intellectually gifted but in an emotional manner cold. Yet this is not thought to be the case with Air Signs Libra and Gemini. There is something innately abstract with regards to the Aquarian Soul, as if the price of sure gifts is the loss of others. One of the lost gifts is the capacity to merge with others – as if this would be so detrimental to the intent of Aquarius that it has been made almost genetically inconceivable for Aquarians to genuinely seek, receive or achieve intimacy. For this reason, of course, the rest of the “typical profile” holds – Aquarians have a very low tolerance for the more clinging, dependent personality type, as such persons will closely drown their souls. They will value most highly somebody who has goals and aspirations beyond them the kinship itself, so that the Aquarian is assured that they are not themselves going to be the focus of intense personal drives.

For some persons the uttermost idea of pleasure is to be exclusively crucial to someone, and in turn, they offer such status to their collaborator or friend. This makes a kinship akin to staking a claim, really, of a kind of ownership. This is exceedingly uncomfortable for the Aquarian, but there are reasons why. For the Aquarian, staking a assert to someone, as one might a gold mine, runs counter to the spiritual requisite to recognize the finish freedom of another humane being. “Ownership” of another being, even an animal, seems alien – a form of slavery. An Aquarian asks: “Aren’t we fighting all over the world to free our brothers and sisters from the chains of being owned? Why would I want to own you, or have you in some way acquire “rights” to me?”

Often humans complain that the interests and enquiring minds of Aquarians may be overwhelming. They feel they are in the presence of a strength of nature, a gust of mental energy sweeping them up like a whirlwind, rather than a “normal” each day person. They feel that the Aquarian’s futuristic, restless urge to explore new frontiers proposes lack of contentment with the status quo, and this may undermine a relationship. But the reverse is ofttimes true – Aquarians find a heap of non-Aquarians underwhelming, and feel lowspirited and alienated when their dreams and visions are misinterpreted, resented, and in a lot of subtle or open ways, rejected. Aquarians will panic when incarcerated within needy aroused webs, and feel existential pain in an interchange where their ideas meet with a blank look with fixed eyes or a alter of subject.

The Soul, for the Aquarian, is what the person’s “essence” actually is – that is why an Aquarian may seem to find your each and everyday doings and personality uninteresting! But if an Aquarian may connect with your soul, and you are fascinated in his, then the bond will be instant and forever, no matter of the worldly obstacles or setbacks which may come. Because the soul connection comes most naturally to an Aquarian, friendship is in some ways the most natural kinship for an Aquarian. Freedom, easygoing companionship, shared interests and ideals, all these succeed where aroused demands and social measurements plainly drive the Aquarian into introductory depression, then desperation, and in the end flight.

Aquarius In Love In the end, perhaps only an Aquarian may know and love another Aquarian, though Leo, Libra, Sagittarius and Gemini may make good partners. Aquarius appreciates the deep, silent, unquestioning dedication of Leo, Sagittarius’ quest for knowledge, the piercing, searching intensity of Scorpio, the mental gifts of Virgo, Libra’s quest for justice, Gemini’s assortment of interests and verbal skills, Capricorn’s severe approach to life (they are both ruled by Saturn), and the innovative, fearless leadership of Aries. Aquarius may be overwhelmed by, and distrustful of, the secrecy and aroused needs of the Water Signs – Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. The Aquarian does love mystery and drama along with freedom, however, and this combining oftentimes leads them into odd relationships – with an individual who is married, in jail, of another race or culture, perchance (with Saturn in the background denoting karma) handicapped or dealing with a severe karmic problem. This of course may draw the Scorpio personality – and the shadow of Pluto’s mysteries – directly to an Aquarian. The fact is, all relationships form, and un-form, as karma rises and fades in our lives – until we break free of old patterns, so one’s astrological sign is not the final word. It is often, however, the basi word!

Aquarian males and females are curiously similar since Aquarius is more or less androgynous. Aquarians are capable of painfully obsessive love, which seems to possess them with the wind and fury of their ruling planet Uranus…and often times in conflict with their higher ideals, as Saturn will remind them. Inevitably, it seems, the Aquarian will return to a solitary path, unless he or she may find that comfortable, roomy kinship that starts and ends with friendship amidst equals.

Aquarius Woman She will touch the life of a man with an unforgettable yearning for something he may never grasp, but is awakened to. The Animus in the Aquarian Woman is cosmic, spiritual, and magical. Thus home, fireside and babies may be alien to her. She may nevertheless transform a home and family with her playful, ever-young presence, and she may be deeply, fiercely truehearted to a man who seeks salvation and transformation. Pick an Aquarian woman if you have a strong heart and powerful ideals; if you need intuitive understanding and acceptance of what makes you dissimilar from the crowd. An Aquarian woman will pardon you much, but don’t – even once – lie to her. This is true of an Aquarian man, perhaps even more so, because a woman’s lies will harm his Anima – though he may rally, if he feels you actually need rescuing! Children will love an Aquarian woman, and she will defend and nurture their uniqueness. She will touch their souls, and stress knowledge, friendship and equality as values.

Aquarius Man If you love an Aquarian man, don’t look for social status, cash or security. He may become famous, yet lose it all, many times through no fault of his own, as part of the Aquarian Archetype. Be prepared to share him with his work, and perceive it is always, for him, a kind of priesthood no matter how modest his setting. Aquarian males may also be attracted to the underworld of crime, merely because of it is wild Uranus lawlessness, only to discover that Saturn rules the mob with an iron hand!

Aquarian men have been not only revolutionaries in history, but a big portion of those called geniuses have been Aquarian males. There is a one-pointedness, an intensity of focus combined with other-worldly attunement, that makes such a man hard to engage in a sustained, day-to-day manner.

However, he may be a breathtakingly good family man, provided he is not a closet priest or flirting with underworld connections! Ronald Reagan was an Aquarian man who did – and had – it all! He had the fame, the introductory divorce, and more or less unorthodox children and family life, but he also was one-half of an astounding love story that lasted through to his death, and beyond. The Aquarian male is amazed by the warmth of love and family, but often times grows into it rather nicely! He may be a delightful father, but not always in the traditionalisti sense, for he may be more mesmerized in a child’s initial ideas and values than in shaping them in a parental style. Aquarian men ofttimes seem to have had genuinely dominant father figures (Saturn) and in turn, they may spend their lives remaining rebellious teenage males. The child in him does not receive authority, any more than the adult in him does, and he is uncomfortable when forced to discipline anyone, including his children – so may do it badly.

An Aquarian man can, when pushed too hard to be head of the family, become harsh and in an emotional manner or even physically violent with their families (Saturn, Uranus). This is because they are uncomfortable in a totally adult role – and underneath pressure will revert to the dominant archetypal Saturn male versus which they have expended their lives rebelling. He will learn rather happily nevertheless to share home chores and is an idealisti house-husband for he needs the shelter of a home and appreciates it more than most. Aquarian men and woman are both androgynous and will work together as comrades, be it making dinner or fixing the car, so they can, if they recognize it, be most compatible partnered with another Aquarian. If it is your dharma – or perchance your karma! – to love an Aquarian, arouse your inner imaginativeness of humanity – it is mutual dreams – and you will walk hand and hand in freedom out into the Stars.

Aquarians and Group Karma The Aquarian may suffer from the darker distinct elements of the collective consciousness so much a share of his sign. Aquarians are often tentative, marginal members of a group to begin with, seeming to hold themselves ready to leave at any moment. The Aquarian many times suffers deeply as a result of, and as the focus of, group dynamics. It is as if the Aquarian, that the World (Saturn in the Tarot) – and all it is “noble causes” – is still Maya to be passed through and left behind. Aquarians oftentimes absorb group karma such that they suddenly, without warning, become the “scapegoat” onto which the unowned, and disowned self- transformative urges of the group become projected… The group will be changed, and often times for the better, in the end…but in the procedure the group, as an entity, will in a literal sense drive the Aquarius away. He or she will have to set out, once again, alone on the Road – like the Fool of the Tarot.

Aquarius * Darkness At Noon The task of the Aquarius Archetype is the evolution of civilization through dramatic, revolutionary break-throughs that affect grass-roots humanity. Technological scientific noesis is one branch of Aquarius’ contribution. The political framework of peace, justice and equality for all is the other branch. Without the political vision, there will be no Earth. Aquarius ought to rise above personal desires and ambitions in order to make a contribution to the good of the whole. The karmic trap, weakness, Achilles heel of Aquarius is in making these big altruistic goals into obsessions that are in fact extensions of the Aquarian’s Ego.

Throughout history, this theme has manifested in Aquarian revolutions in which humanity has been sacrificed to the personal ambitions of visionary leaders who tolerate no obstacles to their own plans. The mystery societies which believe themselves to be the carriers of the Great Blueprint for humanity have ofttimes been behind such dramatic events as the French Revolution, and the founding of America. These mystery societies, some linked to Christianity, Judaism and mystic Paganism, have given birth to tremendous experiments (truly Uranus!) in humane political life which have been disastrous for humanity as a whole. The roots of these transformative attempts (communism, fascism and the occult blueprint of the French Revolution) lie in the legends and archetypes of those who basi came from Space to support seed and develop this planet. There are glances of the experimental talent gone bad in Atlantis – as channeled through Edgar Cayce.

Mother Russia Russia is said to be ruled by Aquarius, and it is Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, was led by Lenin, whose Moon was in Aquarius. The revolution was a veritably Aquarian enterprise in the scope of it is vision (Moon), violence (Uranus) and obsession with authority, control and reshaping (Saturn). It was only fitting that it would be an Aquarian, Boris Yeltsin, who in 1989 broke isolated the last rotten walls of the Soviet Union. Yet, the post-Soviet era in Russia has not innovative beyond the revolutionary chaos of Uranus to the orderly development of Saturn. Uranus still haunts Russia in the internal lawlessness that prevails. Saturn’s presence is seen only in the new mystery police, the oligarchs and their bag-men – enforcers of codes and “laws” best suitable to the underworld.

American Dreams Closer to home, Dick Cheney is an Aquarius and he surely led the “Neo-Conservative” and Christian-Zionist undertake to remake the Middle East in a grand resourcefulness beginning with the ill-starred invasion of Iraq. The violence of Uranus has hardly abated in Iraq, and such parts of Saturn as are present have been for the most part it is worst features – justice turned into vengeance, order turned into tyranny and control turned into organized remorseless cruelty – Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act cast the dark shadow of Saturn’s totalitarian streak all over the United States and other nations who followed so willingly along.

The United States has an Aquarian Moon, and numerous strongly Aquarian presidents, but her dreams for mankind have yet to be shown to be worth the price that has been paid for American Aquarian visions. The genocides – of the Native American peoples, of the buffalo – and the oppressions – in Vietnam, Iraq, West Bank and Gaza, (open-air concentration camps run by a US-backed Israel) – all these were born underneath these “grand visions” and schemes so deeply linked to the controlling, Big-Picture drives of Aquarius.

The current US president, Barak Obama, has Aquarius Rising, and Jupiter in Aquarius as well – Grand Dreams indeed! While galore fear he will fail in his great visions, others fear he may succeed. It is too soon to tell what America – and this latest of a lot of Presidents with strong Aquarian features – will do for itself and for the world. But the time of reckoning grows closer…

Aquarius * Light At Dawn Cautionary tales indeed…Aquarius may invent a perfective Karmic Storm, tossing us back and forth amongst the worst features of both Uranus and Saturn. It is as if Saturn may so quickly become the driving, narrow, cruel Ego, and Uranus may become the eruption of the contents of the Unconscious in the life of an person or in that of a nation. Only a powerful philosophical and spiritual framework may hold these twin forces in check. The Ego yields to the Spirit so that Saturn becomes the indwelling teacher and shaman, while Uranus yields to the direction of the Higher Self – blending the wild, creative, free parts of Soul with love and higher purpose.

In each Aquarian’s life, these tremendous themes will play out in much smaller, but often times very dramatic forms. Of all the signs, Aquarius is the most likely to mystify those who live within it and through it as an archetype, and those drawn into it is waves of energy. Yet it is through the Aquarian Archtype, wherever it lies in our charts, that we see further and further than the horizons, and listen distant drummers in other realms.

We are all Aquarians in the Aquarian Age, in ways we may not see on the surface of our lives. But as the Dawn Light breaks, the Big Jet carrying Humanity taxies down the runway, is turning now, getting set for it is final run. Building speed not seen for thousands of years, it will lift off at last, and take us home to the Stars.

©Carol Leigh Rice 2010

All Souls A Family Story From Southie

A breakaway bestseller since it is firstborn printing, All Souls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald’s Southie, the proudly insular neighborhood with the most eminent concentration of white poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger’s crime systems and busing riots, MacDonald’s Southie is populated by sharply hewn characters like his Ma, a miniskirted, accordion-playing single mother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children. Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community’s code of silence, MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but moving honesty.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17282 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Released on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.50″ h x .73″ w x 5.45″ l, .80 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

54 of 54 people found the following review helpful.
Good Job Mike, I wish you well.
By Nellie’s daughter
I grew up in Dorchester which was on the other side of the tracks. Therefore, I already had something wrong with me should I venture to Southie. I was labeled an outsider and wouldn’t dare go there alone even though I was white, Irish and Catholic. They were dangerous kids and if one of them accused you of looking at any of them the wrong way, that was enough for a gang beating. They were so full of anger and rage, and they could not ever form a sentence without using a slur of obsenities. I often wondered as a kid how these so called Irish Catholics could be so consumed with hate and venom not only against the rest of society, but towards each other as well. It never made sense to me. I am also Mike’s cousin and even though we haven’t seen each other since he was a kid, I always felt there was something different about Mike as compared to the rest of the pack. I did go to the apartment a couple of times and the atmosphere was exactly as he described it. Helen getting ready to go out with her accordian, the other tenant’s yelling echoing in the halls, Mike at the window or watching TV and the endless metal door slamming from the coming and going activity. I was there for the Frank’s funeral, he was a good guy who made a fatal error in judgement just looking for a way out. I also spent a little time with Kathy after her accident. A beautiful girl who loved to dance, now another statistic to the horrors of drugs. What might have been if she had grown up somewhere else is now just speculation. The family’s pain was unbearable as one by one they were slipping away. They were caught up in a world of out of control madness with devastating consequences. Mike did an excellent job telling the truth for the most part. I recently drove through Patterson Way on a trip back home, and the sheer gloominess of the street is like a cemetary. It is so sad. For those of you who have read the book and might have wondered what happened to Nellie and her brood of fatherless children as Michael so eloquently pointed out, they all went on to further their educations and are responsible productive citizens. Morals and values begin at home, and what is most crucial to raising children is a loving and stable home that in some cases only the mother can provide. Helen just wouldn’t leave, “The Best Place On Earth,” under any circumstances. You be the judge of what can and cannot be accomplished raising children alone when you have your priorities in order.

88 of 97 people found the following review helpful.
Terrific book..I hope everyone reads it!
By john larrabee
This piece of literature has it all: it’s moving, riveting, gripping, and revealing; and it’s very well written. The author’s clearly a talented story teller, and he’s very courageous to put this revealing story of his family’s tragic experiences in the public domain. Michael MacDonald(and Ma) should be commended just for that courage, not even considering his literary talents. I can’t imagine the level of pain he endured writing it because of the pain I felt just reading it. The book’s emotional spectrum runs the whole gamut from sadness, grief, and despair to sheer hilartity…there’s that Irish wit and humor throughout.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone and everyone in our American society. The story had to be told: it’s poverty and class, folks, not race! Whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc., whatever ethnic or racial group there is, those at the poor end of the specrum will suffer until society changes.”All Souls” teaches us that. Hopefully we’ll learn from this marvelous work, and things will improve.

Like Michael, I’m someone born and brought up in a Southie housing project(The Old Harbor Village), albeit some 25 years earlier. I was luckier than Michael and his siblings because I had two parents, and drugs and guns were virtually nonexistent in Southie’s projects in the 40′s, 50′s, and early 60′s when I was there. However, I can identify with and testify to the existence of “Southie Pride”, and the insular nature of “The Town”, that “us versus the rest of the world” mentality. Combine that with the forced busing saga produced by a self-serving state legislature which passed laws to insure their lily-white towns wouldn’t be affected by busing, and a judge from Wellesley who didn’t have a clue, along with extreme poverty, organized crime controlling Southie ,an incompetent and/or corrupt police force, a similarly corrupt local FBI contingent, guns, drugs, and booze pouring in uninhibited by law enforcement, and lo and behold, you have the perfect formula for the disaster that ensued, the anger, hate, despair, misery, grief, the premature deaths, suicides, murders, ODs’ etc, the exacerbation of Southie’s natural introversion! Thanks to this wonderful book, the story is out there,and the healing process has begun.

I really hope all of America reads the book, especially those non-Southies who live in Boston and its environs. I guarantee you will all change your perspective of Southie afterwards. I would also recommend that “All Souls” be mandatory in the high school English courses of the Boston Public School system, as well as those across the country. There’a a major lesson to be learned here.

Michael MacDonald..Thank you for your story, and I’ll be waiting for to write more!

54 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
hitting home
By saundra thomas
Wow! I just finished reading the book…it brought a tear to my eye. As an African-American woman four years older tham Michael, born in the same housing project as he…the story hit home. I commend Mr. MacDonald for his poignant memoir. I grew up in Roslindale, at the time a predominately Irish-Catholic neighborhood, where I lived in fear of the “Southie” types. My family even experienced first-hand being chased out of Southie when I was a teen. My leaving Boston after high school was pretty much a reaction to the racism that permeated the city at that time. It was refreshing to get insight to the “other side” through Mr. MacDonald’s brutal honesty. My heart does not bleed for his family or the people in the “best place in the world”, but it does help me to understand the pathology that divide and conquer creates. And how when all is said and done and people have died…be all have much more in common than we’d like to think. It also has inspired me to tell my own story and look forward to more tales from Southie from this sensitive, daring writer. Thanks for the insight and memories!

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All Souls A Family Story From Southie Photo

All Souls A Family Story From Southie Pic

All Souls A Family Story From Southie Photo

All Souls A Family Story From Southie Photo

All Souls A Family Story From Southie Image

All Souls A Family Story From Southie Image