This month, THE SUN is seven years old. I don’t know what’s more amazing: that we’ve lasted this long, or that I ever doubted we would.

Seven is a lucky throw, an occult symbol, a number with wings. Many natural cycles occur in seven phases: there are seven chakras, or power centers, in the body; there are seven notes in an octave before it begins again on the eighth; the ancient astrologers, who knew of only seven planets, tell us that at seven years of age we begin to realize our own essence.