Lucky for us, Ulster County has a great collection of old stone houses. They are sublime. Old stone houses look fiercely elegant in the landscape and their interiors are often charmingly redolent of the past. One such fine house is the Bevier House on Route 209 in Marbletown, now the Bevier House Museum, and headquarters of the Ulster County Historic Society.

The over 300-year-old Bevier House is an amazing asset to our community. The Ulster County Historic Society received the house in 1938 from Louis Bevier and his sisters. They had occupied the house and site for seven generations. The stately house effectively meets the Historic Society’s mission as curator and collector of significant Hudson Valley artifacts, documents, and cultural items and to educate our community and public on the very important role Ulster County has played in the formation of our nation.

The building is of excellent design and contains many items of beauty and interest. Today’s Ulster County residents can find enormous inspiration and practical knowledge within the exhibits and special events.

The house includes a fascinating kitchen dating back to c.1680, and carefully and accurately dressed rooms in the Victorian style. Sometimes, to our modern eye the Victorian home can be overwhelming with its profusion of objects. Victorians loved to decorate—filling almost every open space with some little treasure. Even picture frames were elaborate. You can see some fine examples of pinecone picture frames in the second floor hall. They are a marvel of ingenuity. It took great inspiration and skill to create these. They are astonishing.

Also of note, the tool room, known as the Peter Sinclair Gallery of Early American Crafts and Trades, holds an extensive collection of farm and homestead equipment, many demonstrated in their use. This exhibit is fun and informative—a must for any country homeowner.

On the house’s formidable façade is an intriguing detail, about 12 feet up at the southwest corner, the remains of a vertical sundial is visible. Sundials are fascinating, stimulating with all their complexities. This particular vertical sundial seems a unique addition to a residential home; they were most often installed on civic buildings. The Museum’s director believes that the sundial was built into the second level of the house sometime in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Two upcoming events at Bevier House Museum are an opportunity to see the Museum and participate in their wonderful education outreach. November 26 is A Children’s Christmas, which will include period craft building, carol singing, and snacks plus a visit from St. Nicholas. November 26, 12-3pm. Fee: $5.00, call for reservations. 845-338-5614.

On December 3 and 4, Bevier Museum holds their Holiday Open House and fundraiser. This is a beautiful event and an easy way to support the UCHS. Just pop in and enjoy. The house is decorated in Victorian holiday grandeur, there is music, snacks, and inspiration—and good cheer abounds. December 3 & 4, 12-4pm. Fee: $5 members, $8 nonmembers.

The Bevier House Museum is open May 1 to October 31, Thursday to Sunday, 12-5pm. Admission: $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $3 for students ages 5-15, children under 5 are free. Library & Archives: Open only by appointment. Call or email museum@bevierhousemuseum.org.

November is the month when the Sun moves from Scorpio to Sagittarius. As autumn develops, the theme evolves from the deepest emotional and sexual consciousness (flavored by Days of the Dead in early November) to the most etheric, global, and cosmic. Yet the concepts of these two signs contain one another. Scorpio and Sagittarius present us with an essential diagram of the human experience, representing the two seeming polarities of what we long for. Scorpio endorses desire, which we find within ourselves and ultimately fulfill within ourselves. Sagittarius reminds us that the most cosmic experiences are often the most grounded ones. We can find the truth of God contemplating the Galactic Core or gazing at a flower. What all of this has in common is how we experience our awareness. Whether we experience something as emotional, erotic, mysterious, or natural is all about how we experience ourselves—and this can change from moment to moment.

After a phase of experimenting with your expressive passions, you reach an inner fork in the road: you can direct your creativity into a focused project or vocation, or you can get lost in your doubts and self-criticism. While I'm not a big fan of dichotomies, this one seems to contain some truth, at least this far: you cannot be too self-critical and still be free to express your passions. Self-reflective is one thing. Self-aware is closely related. It's necessary to be able to critique your work without criticizing yourself. You seem determined to make some practical use of your passions, and to keep yourself busy with what actually matters to you. You can do that, though it's going to take a mix of effort and flow, thought and intuition, motivation and attention to detail.

You may feel like you're right near potential that you cannot quite access. This might be in the form of having limited options or feeling like you're boxed into the circumstances in your life. Yet there is something obvious you may be missing, which is that in any given moment, no matter what you're doing, you have the privilege and the ability to express your quest. You may not think you do; you may have the idea that you're not free till you make your great escape. That itself is a kind of trap. Your freedom of existence and creativity is contained in your daily activity. Yet to get there you have to make a decision to think of two things that usually seem separate or unrelated as the same thing, then explore how that feels.

You are in an unusual position to experience the world as the people who are close to you do. This is not the usual mirror effect of relationships but rather the sensation of a world opening. Remember to define the word “relationship” as broadly as you can, remembering that human encounters are as diverse as the people we have them with. Connecting with people is not about getting married or hooking up or doing business—it's vital to be open to any possibility, and greet the many people you encounter with a sense of potential and openness to adventure. That means keeping an open mind, and using your freedom to adapt to the people and circumstances that surround you. You don't need an agenda, though your authentic curiosity will come in handy every day.

You need a lot of freedom around your work, and this is the time to take it. You know you're not the type to sit in an office, so if you find yourself in one, do your best to get out as much as you can, on whatever excuse or project you can think of. If you're self-employed, experiment with the most creative aspects of what you do, and then as the month progresses, work out of the house as much as possible. Your mind will be happier and your ideas will flow better. This is the time of year when you can connect to your infinite source of creativity. Many have wondered where you get your energy, and whatever the answer to that question may be, these are the months when you connect to your source, refill your well, and guide the abundant activity of the month toward your highest vision.

Expression is the opposite of depression. Keep telling yourself that. You may not be depressed, but approximately two-thirds of the world seems to be—and it has a way of being contagious. At the moment you're especially empathic and absorbent. You can feel just about anything anyone else is feeling, which is good for them. But when the Sun enters your fellow fire sign Sagittarius in a few weeks, you're going to feel like a galaxy of ideas you want to share with the world. I suggest you start sooner rather than later. Clear a table, make space in your mind, and make space in your life as best you can in this busy world, because a wave of visionary creative passion is on its way. This is yours to explore and enjoy, however you can.

You need to learn the art of evaluation. All kinds of spiritual and psychological paths decry the toxin of judgment, but we don't get much information about what to do after that. Virgo is famous for its self-critical nature, and you're now beginning an extended phase of your life when you may be tempted to go there even more than usual. So I suggest that you create alternatives that give you a constructive use of that drive, giving you something useful to do with the energy. Along with this, I suggest you truly explore the concept of being open-minded. Like many things, it's easier said than done, but more valuable than you may realize. One cannot really think, unless they are open-minded. Since you'll be thinking a lot about yourself, it will help to do that in the gentlest, most self-supportive way.

Libra (September 22-October 23)

This has been a rather interesting few weeks in your experience of (and study of) your relationships. I trust that you've left one concept behind—grafting yourself permanently to another person for the rest of your life. Obviously you're someone to whom commitment is deeply important. You believe in fidelity and you thrive on trust. But that is different than the idea of absolute permanence. You have, at least, begun to ask yourself real questions about what it means to be an autonomous, independent person. I would suggest that only such a person is in a good position to relate to someone else in an authentic way. Now and for the foreseeable future, you could say that the theme of your relationships is “love is freedom.”

You're at your most magnetic right now. The Scorpiophobia of the world is melting away and most days it will be more obvious that you're the sensitive, passionate person you know yourself to be. That said, I suggest you remain picky about who your friends are. Fortunately, there will be a self-selection process working for you: the more authentic you are, the more you'll attract the right people and repel the ones you don't want. But don't be too harsh on others; they may not seem to have your sharp wits or your notorious insight into psychology, but there will be certain days when you are feeling especially judgmental of the people around you. Everyone has their positive attributes, and one of yours is being able to notice that.

This is the time of year when you feel the calling to the astonishing adventures for which you came to this Earth. As the Sun moves through your sign, you feel many of your deepest longings and sense of cosmic connection. If you cannot go on a worldly adventure now, make plans to do so. You're being called places; orient on them, collect information, make friends with people who live there. Make time in your schedule at the next possible moment. Set aside some money. Meanwhile, the deeper adventure involves the possibilities for your incarnation on our planet at this time. You came here with a purpose, whether it was to accomplish certain things, to learn, to have fun, or to serve. Connect with that mission now. Give yourself permission to let it be real.

You will get a lot further if you give up caring what other people think about you, but that's another way of saying that self-acceptance is the key to success and happiness. You tend to be a private person, but you must also live with a sense of transparency that can be unnerving. In truth all you can really do is be comfortable within your own skin, though that's a learned skill. Here is a clue: there are a number of people who factor prominently in your life right now, and you don't feel the same way about any of them. If you practice objectivity, which basically means accepting them for who they are without judgment, you're really offering yourself a space of belonging in the world at the same time. Said another way, the more freedom you give people to be themselves, the more you will feel to be yourself.

You may be on an odd emotional edge where what you desire as your greatest success also feels the most dangerous. As you approach an accomplishment or take on new responsibilities, you may have this lurking sense that disaster is looming. You won't be able to tell if it's your intuition or a bit of paranoia, but I would suggest that the closer you get to that feeling, the more effective you're being at working toward a deeply cherished goal. While this sensation is especially poignant for you now, many people experience this sensation—and in running from it, avoid actually accomplishing what they set out to do. Progress demands a measure of uncertainty, and if you can dance with that, you can do anything.

I'm not sure if you have an erotic vision—that is, a dream of how your sexuality would be ideally—but if you do, this is the month to take a real step toward making it real. It would help if you state your ideas outright. This may feel radical; you may have the sense that nobody else will understand. What matters most is that you understand what you want. Why you want it is not so important; I suggest you connect your desire to direct ideas and visualizations. Then, see who and what comes your way, and the influence this has on the relationship experiences you have. What's never said often enough about Pisces is that sex is your true religion, that is, where you seek your God-source. This idea is cosmologically and biologically accurate. It's only judgment that gets in the way.

Read Eric Francis daily at PlanetWaves.net.

Taking to the streets in order to protest an injustice is as American as apple pie. Students of this nation's history will note, for example, that the revolution which eventually secured our independence from Great Britain was touched-off by a group of individuals who no doubt would have been described as "rabble" by their British overlords. When you mix in the destruction of private property—i.e. the boxes of tea dumped into Boston Harbor—it's easy to envision an alternate history, one written by the victorious colonial power that depicts these patriots as nothing more than a bunch of terrorists. Had the fledgling United States lost that war, effigies of Thomas Jefferson, et al. might be going up in flames alongside Guy Fawkes each November 5.

Enter: Occupy Wall Street. This movement has been described as rudderless by the mass media. "They don't know what they want," we hear on a regular basis. "They're nothing but a bunch of unwashed, unemployed ne'er-do-wells looking for a handout. I worked for my money." But an awareness of injustice can come in many forms. It can come from the knowledge that good wages and benefits, as many of our parents experienced during the boom years of the mid-to-late 20th century, are a thing of the past. It can come in the form of an awakening to the fact that the current economic system is unsustainable, and that for every winner there must be dozens, hundreds, thousands, of losers.

Thus, one of the things the Occupy Wall Street protestors are, well, protesting, albeit indirectly, is the relentless corporate consolidation which in recent decades has led to a severe erosion of consumer choice, and with this an erosion of our standard of living. For every new big-box store, with all of its convenience and alleged low prices, more and more small businesses go belly-up, as they are simply unable to compete with the economies-of-scale that make an item manufactured and shipped halfway around the world cheaper than the same item manufactured just up the road.

And there appears to be little we can do about this continued consolidation. The United States Justice Department, at least in recent years, has never met a cartel it doesn't like. And can anyone remember the last time a merger between two corporate behemoths was scrapped by the feds? It appears that the disconnect between Washington, DC and the voters has become fait accompli. Or, as GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said recently, "Corporations are people." But these corporate persons don't need clean air or water, they can theoretically live forever, and their sole purpose is to come up with new ways to make more profit, even at the expense of the communities in which they are located.

How can we fight such potential super-villains? By spending our money, and taking our business elsewhere. Deciding to spend your money at a local business, even if that means paying slightly higher prices, will send a message that will be heard loud-and-clear in boardrooms across the country and around the world. Like the Occupy Wall Street movement's spread into other cities, and other countries, consumers must make a decision as to whether they will stand with their neighbors, or if they will be given to the ersatz allure of cheap junk from overseas.

A 2007 study funded by a pair of civic associations in Kent County (Grand Rapids), Michigan found that when consumers did their business at locally owned banks, restaurants, pharmacies, and grocery stores, only 32 percent of this money left the local community, this in the form of items imported from outside the area. Conversely, spending money at a non-locally owned business saw 57 percent of this economic activity leave the local community. The out-of-area companies, in addition to stocking imported supplies, spent money on marketing as well as factory-farmed products that were produced at facilities in other parts of the country (and the world, even). An item such as signage, for instance, which for small businesses is almost always produced on the local level, the big retailers almost always produce either in-house or through another large, non-local company.

The most startling finding, however, came in the form of some tangible numbers. The Kent County study concluded that locally owned businesses annually generated $140 million in completely new business activity. This, in turn, led to the creation of an additional 1,600 local jobs, with a commensurate increase in local wages totaling $53 million. To bring this down to our scale, Ulster County has just under one-third the population of Kent County.

An even more dramatic finding came during a 2003 study of businesses in the mid-coast region of Maine. Funded by the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the study concluded that locally owned businesses spent more of their dollars in-state. These businesses relied upon local vendors for their inventory. These vendors, in turn, employed people locally, as did their vendors, and so on. The impact this kind of spending had on these local communities cannot be overstated, given that these businesses spent approximately 54 percent in-state, with 44.6 percent of their revenue being spent within two local counties. Conversely, the big retailers spent just 14.1 percent in-state. The rest of this economic activity left the area, enriching shareholders and executives rather than family farms and mom-and-pop businesses in the area.

Another telling statistic from this study relates to the impact big-box retailers have on local charities. The study found that for every $1 million in sales, big-box stores gave approximately $1,000 to local charities. Conversely, locally owned businesses gave more than $4,000 per $1 million in sales—a fourfold increase. For communities strapped by the current slump, charitable giving is an important component of the local economy. Buying at a big-box retailer offers very little assurance that the money you spend will be helping your neighbors.

We've seen the signs as we drive throughout the Ulster County area. These signs admonish us to spend our money at locally owned businesses. And when it comes to the farm stands in our area, buying local isn't just a way to improve the economy, it's also a way to improve the food you see on your dinner table, and often at lower prices than what you might pay at the local supermarket.

If you are someone who shops for produce on a regular basis, you cannot help but be appalled, for instance, at the quality of the tomatoes encountered in the produce sections of the big retailers. They are often overpriced, pinkish in hue, grainy, flavorless, and unappealing. At the same time, taking a short drive to scope-out a local farm stand reveals that prices are often the same or lower (typically $1.49-$2.49 per pound, or even less), and for tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes. Local farm stands sometimes have excellent tomatoes for about $1 per pound or less during the growing season. And don’t forget all the other items, such as locally produced organic, grass-fed beef for very reasonable prices (ground beef for just $4.99 per pound is just a little bit more than the who-knows-what-it-is you buy at the supermarket).

Another way to send a message without taking to the streets is to move your money. In recent weeks the Occupy Wall Street movement has been focusing on the negative impact the big banks are having on our economy. Like vast vacuum cleaners, these banks, despite trillions in bailouts, are still seeking new "profit centers." One national bank recently announced that it will start charging customers $5 per month for the privilege of using a debit card. For some, this was the final straw.

The Move Your Money project is a national campaign that is designed to help individuals who are looking to divest from these “Too Big to Fail” banks, with the project encouraging people to instead join local credit unions and smaller, locally owned banks. According to the Kent County study, local banks loan most of their money to people in the local community. Instead of investing in something outside your region, by depositing your money in a local bank you have some assurance that your money will be put to good work in your own neighborhood.

There are, no doubt, many other ways to become more locally centered when it comes to how you spend your hard-earned dollars. Some communities have even gone so far as to develop local currencies. Whatever you do, taking the time for some exploration—away from the mall and the big-box stores—means better food for your dinner table, it means that you're helping to boost the local economy, and it also means that you're getting to know your neighbors—folks, like you, who have a stake in what's happening in your community.