Sign Special — LUNARA · August 13 – September 1

Thank you, Benedetto.

Lunara then, August thirteenth through September first, twenty days of the year, and the sign of rose quartz, a quartz stone blushed pink all the way through, as though the rock itself had been caught in the act of being kind, whose mood is gentle compassion, which is a polite way of saying this dog can detect a sad person through two closed doors and a thunderstorm.

Lunara is the caregiver of the pack, and it runs on the pack instinct, which means nobody in a Lunara's world stays a stranger for long.

A stranger is simply somebody whose troubles have not been adopted yet.

Its gift is compassion.

The Lunara dog is compassionate, nurturing, and holds one unshakable article of faith, that no one in this house should have to carry anything heavy alone, not a bag, not a bill, and especially not a bad day.

While the rest of the pack is still deciding what the morning is for, the Lunara has checked on the neighbor, the neighbor's dog, and the worrying sound the neighbor's dog made in the night because to a Lunara, that is precisely what a morning is for.

Now, the other side of the page because this paper tells the whole truth.

This is a dog that adopts emotional responsibilities nobody assigned it.

It has sat up all night beside a thunderstorm-frightened cat it officially dislikes, keeps a private list of everyone's sorrows in order of urgency, updated hourly, and once took personal responsibility for the morale of an entire veterinary waiting room.

The sign's great temptation is worry, and its standing warning is a serious one delivered kindly.

Beware of carrying everyone else's baggage, of arriving at every emergency with soup in your mouth and leaving with the sorrow in your chest.

Under stress, the compassion swells into emotional exhaustion, and its one true companion fear is rejection.

Not indifference, which it could survive, but the terrible day it brings all that tenderness to the door, and the door for once does not open.

Its vice is worry, its virtue is empathy, the same heart offered or overwhelmed.

Its official motto is the whole biography in three words: Are you okay? And its favorite human excuse is the motto's other half, which tells you everything.

I was only trying to help.

To a Lunara, the question and the excuse are one continuous act of care.

Its natural habitat is the cozy couch.

Anywhere there is a blanket folded for two, a corner of cushion left deliberately open, and somebody sitting a little too quietly at the far end.

Its lucky object is the rose pendant, its lucky place the lakeside dock, its lucky color soft pink, and its lucky food is chicken soup, which is, of course, a caregiver's prescription.

The meal you carry to a house where the news has been bad, warm, unglamorous, and precisely what was needed.

Its best match is Valor, the sapphire sign, the protector who runs on steady confidence.

Motto: We made a commitment, and who is the one dog in the pack whose devotion never reads as distance to a Lunara because Valor has also adopted the whole household.

Valor simply stands guard over its hearts from the door.