Tag Archives: Tarot

Boots, deck, and a poem

The boxes arrive like secrets
waiting to be heard. The beauty
of forgetting. Memory herded and
exploited the stuff of scholars,
but let’s not neglect the joy
of a blurred-out past. What
did I order, exactly?

The slicing of tape like
ripping cloth. One violent jerk
with a blade. Last time I jabbed
my thumb and bled all over
the fur of my new boots before
I knew of the wound. Some
injuries come like that, stealthily,
all consequence and no memory
of impact.

The time before there was
no blood, just mystery. What
did I order, exactly?

Opening, remembering
— a pre-ordered deck.
The American Renaissance
Tarot
. It winks in promise.
Remember? Remember?

It is still a stranger to me,
this collection of 78 cards
but already I thrill to
its character – American,
not Egyptian, not medieval
European. Say it again,
the breath rising, cresting,
enunciating with the power
of recognition, four syllables:

A-mer-i-can.

There’s Harriet Tubman!
Edgar Allan Poe! Oh, and
look, Moby Dick and Frederick
Douglass. One figure
teaches a young Black boy
to read, another upholds
a sacred root. Hawthorne,
Stowe, Harriet Jacobs. They’re calling
to me and they’re calling me
home.

Hello. Been writing a lot and editing even more and they somehow take away from showing up here.

We got a little snow last night. The cooler temps make it seem like December. Almost nothing else does. More on that in the next days.

 

Making under the radar

Sometimes a lot gets done even though it seems like nothing gets done. This weekend was like that. It felt wattless, but maybe wasn’t.

A new charm is underway. The finished sigil is for protection but given how disoriented I feel (blame it on the July temperatures in the middle of October!) — perhaps I ought to make one for clarity?

Finn and I just walked in air so hot and muggy that I might actually put the AC on (again! we broke down & got it going on Saturday). Meanwhile, D texted me while I was rounding the corner of Maplewood to say: it’s snowing hard in Boulder.

A weekend that saw me puttering, cleaning, sorting stuff (STUFF!) down in the studio and elsewhere, also saw a few things being completed, born, or dusted off. Since Tina Zaffiro asked about pouches, I pressed the two I came across in my cleaning to share. Also: partnered up cloth downstairs for some new ones. Think: Christmas. I like to get going before Thanksgiving on my Christmas list, that way shopping and making feel fun instead of oppressive.

The fish pouch is ideal for my Orisha Tarot deck because it easily houses the book as well as the cards. Also, the lining is silk which is reputed to have the power to filter out negativity.

That’s it! I should be wearing all silk, all the time!

And now I’m just avoiding writing, so bye. Have a great start to your week!

Pick any three

How three become a story.

This morning I found a big pile of finished Soul Collage cards in my studio (what can I say? And also, aren’t there more somewhere? And what happened to the two dozen plus color copies ready to be trimmed and mounted? — This is what ADD looks like).

Years of Tarot reading (and now Soul Collage card pulling) have taught me that while within every single card there is a story to be found, with three cards, the story tells itself.

These three narrate a tale of parenting. Happening right now. There’s the young man being launched! Into the mountains, specifically.

After a bit of a fall (Humpty Dumpty) and emergency care (doctors have more skill than all the King’s horsemen).

Now the three of us huddle close, two holding up the third for the moment. Fluid, shared creativity will outsmart that horned and hulking bully. Bye bye big reptile guy!

(Fluid creativity is also what ADD looks like, PS).

The meaning of the dance photo is heightened by the fact that the image came from a glossy Vail resort magazine that I clipped years ago. We were at the resort while both boys were still in high school. It was a really special, once in a life time kind of get away (courtesy of my brother). D. fell in love with the Rockies during that trip.

There are a lot of “launch” cards in my deck. That I picked the one with a snowy mountain range demonstrates how synchronicity informs the process.

‘Nuff said. Much still up in the air. There and here. I have tons of pictures from our wonderful trip to Charleston and need to figure out how to share them. Reconsidering Flickr: yahoo keeps getting hacked.

It’s fifty degrees here. Hotter, I’m told, in Boulder.

Crescent of light

It is bitterly cold today. Cops tend a downed wire at the corner. Gusts of wind are taking branches down and forcing kids on the playground to wear hats. Finn and I take brisk but short walks around the neighborhood. All of a sudden it is a new year.

2015/01/img_7203.jpgThe light is different already. I noticed it on the buildings near the airport this morning. I noticed it on this Chinese plate this afternoon. Less wan and with a little more warmth.
light-chinese-plate-deemallonI don’t seem to know what I am doing anymore. Or maybe transitions throw me more than they used to. Back to the empty nest, which now includes Finn so it’s a lot less empty, but still….

Here is a rambling list of hopes/intentions for the new year — only things on my mind at the moment, and not an attempt at comprehensive breadth or corrective sway:  I hope to make a blanket for one of the boys this year. And then for the other next year. They have twin sized quilts but it’s time for doubles. I would like to read a little more this year. Walk a lot more. Let more stuff roll off my back, even if it means letting go of reactive anger and feeling more sadness. I plan to learn how to sharpen knives in 2015. And, I am going to get rid of a lot more shit.  A lot more. (It continues to amaze me how satisfying this decluttering process is!) Better blogging – especially, reading favorites — I HOPE so. Progress on the writing front — I HOPE so.  Continued health of my loved ones — I chant daily.

2015/01/img_7207.jpgAnd now I’ll leave you with a double image that serves as a visual prayer from me to you for the New Year — may you have more abundance, joy, ease!

PS  Finn ate the Nine of Cups this morning.  Thankfully, I have a spare deck which now will only serve to supply replacement cards, though of course the full deck is boxed and out of reach now!

Sea Island Indigo and The Fool

four-quarters-moonWhen I found out about a three-day indigo forum in Charleston, South Carolina this coming September, I practically jumped out of my seat.  I didn’t even go to the impracticality of the opportunity given its price…  just reveled in the notion of a free and clear calendar.

How different to consider a pricey tuition than to anticipate the juggling of school and doctors’ appointments and meals and well, you know, parenting!
scrap-bundleCheck it out:  Sea Island Indigo Workshop.

Here is the revised and nearly complete “Fool”. I let the underlying blue paper serve as mountains, instead of the cut-out denim I had originally.  And I replaced the sad-eyed basset with the black and white mutt you see below.  I was happy to find this dog — it so nearly mimics the one depicted in the Rider deck. The Rider deck will be my prime source, by the way.
IMG_9796
In terms of synchronicity — I was cutting out the suitcase, wondering whether I would find a good rose (something I considered essential for the card), when I flipped over the page and found the one you see there!

All that remains is to add title and number and make color xerox at proper size. And maybe revise the sun rays. What do you think? Too hokey? Inconsistent with the rest?