Remnant #13: Harvest

Seasons shift again and there is a certain way the air cuts across my skin. I'm sorry, I want to say. But, I don't know what it is I'm sorry for. Dead rising in empty fields of corn. My heart, lost in between the rows. I used to know how to love. It was as easy as breathing.

I used to know how to let go. It was as easy as an open hand filled with empty space. The absence of blistering across my fingertips. I read Patti Smith & Margaret Atwood to call in literary mothers for the real one I am missing now. I build altars for the dead and offer tea and candlelight against these newly dark nights. 

Otherwise, everything is changing. Otherwise, this constant change is the same. I used to know how to pretend like things could last. It was as easy as a slip of silk over a hipbone. My body believing anything. I throw tarot cards and the future card is always stuck to Death. So, I won't sing. I won't read. I won't let the silk puddle onto the floor in summertime waves. 

November now. We'll just reap what we sow and watch everything fall fallow outside our window. Only the crows still singing.     

Relic #8: Aggie

There was light — then it was gone. George. The house. The babies. All of it. Aggie wouldn’t say what went wrong. Couldn’t say. It just ended. Everything lost. You said you’d come to me, no matter what. You said you’d come to me if I was a thousand years old and my body had withered down to root and rail. You said you’d peel back my ancient skin and worship my bones.

Diagnosis. Medication. Prognosis. Relapse. Then suddenly she was an old woman in a white dress. Hair done by a woman whose name escaped her. Pearls pulled taut against her neck by a child she was sure she was supposed to know. Aggie looks wonderful. They said this. She heard them say this. You said my mouth was honey and you said violets bloomed between my legs. You said I was beautiful. Said I tasted like berries and the ocean and something else that had no name.

There was light — and then a splintering of light. Before words slipped away. Floating downstream. Washed out. Now they talk to her like she’s deaf, but she hears them. The echo of them. They talk to her like she’s a child, but she is his. She is the mother of everything. Everyone who knew what she did is dead, so now she’s left alone. You said you would burn it all down then take me with you.

I am still here. Waiting.

Remnant #12: A Celtic Cross for This Summer's Work

All Summer I have held one solid ritual...wake, wander downstairs, make tea, head to the desk, open the notebook and begin. Somehow, this has led me to write a full and complete fiction manuscript of twenty-two chapters and 293 pages--a feat I never would've believed myself capable of before these past two months. I am returning to work in a few days and my wild creative heart wonders how it will fit itself inside a cubicle or a classroom after it has been given freedom to wander across time and narrative like this. But, I return knowing that I've done the one thing I set out to do when school ended in June. I return knowing that I have the full skeleton of a manuscript that means more to me than any other fiction I have written.

This morning, I got out of bed and made my tea and returned to my desk--I held my ritual. It was a truly strange feeling to not have new chapters waiting to start. Instead, I stand on the verge of revision and rewriting--and, for me, when I face new crossroads I turn to the cards. Today it was a Celtic Cross, old familiar spread, to tell me about the work I've done and what comes next for the project.

I see that I have nurtured my project like a mother would--staying resourceful and practical as I followed my ripening work. It has required me to use my creative power and a bit of magic/ritual to create where I am now and the cards also tell of me taking great pleasure in this creating--specifically pointing to a book project with the Ace of Wands, dealing as it does with communication and writing. All of this rings true for my process so far. I see in the Two of Swords a bit of what has passed to get me to this point--the choices I've had to make, the block I fought for a number of years, the worry that I wasn't up to task with this. Also, what works against me is Judgement--of course, my self-criticism and perfectionism is undeniably my biggest creative hurdle to overcome. I can see that it will continue to oppose me if I am not mindful of it. There will be a lot of support of my creativity coming soon via community and friends and listening to my own heart. But, I see the Five of Cups as a warning that someone in my life could cause some issues that will influence my emotions and my work. I need to stay conscious of not letting anyone's negativity or disloyalty interfere with what I'm doing. I am being very careful how I share this manuscript until its ready for this very reason, so the cards echo my own knowing. If I follow this project through, there is accomplishment and success and feeling very fulfilled--but then, as all creative people know, it requires me to go back into my solitude to ultimately find meaning and the source of my creativity. The Hermit is a card I love and relate to--so I see it as my current creative project running a full cycle that eventually leads me right back to where I began...time alone and a blank page waiting before me.

I think this is exactly what I needed to see today as I start the next stage. All creative work just leads to more creative work--and it cycles endlessly on. I've used the tarot seriously for twenty-two years to tap into my own inner-knowledge. It isn't dark or magic, to me, in the way most people think of it. The cards are tools made powerful only by my deep study of them. I continue to use them as relics and guides in my own work and in the readings I do for people close to me. I am seeing their message today, as I do every day. I'm pausing to celebrate the work my "Summer at the Desk" has yielded...this long-overdue season of flowering.

Remnant #11: Pilgrimage

"At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can." ~Frida Kahlo~

The whole first year after my mother died, I wore a metal bracelet with these words engraved on it, every single day. It was a reminder. A prayer. A promise.  Frida was already important to me for many years when I was a teenager, and had reemerged as "Saint Frida" to me during the two years I'd navigated my own husband's affair and our painful divorce. Our last anniversary together, lucky number thirteen, we'd spent the day at the Philadelphia Art Museum at Frida's exhibit there. I stood and wept before "The Two Fridas" and he held me, knowing why. The pain she experienced over Diego, and how she survived, directly tied to my survival. Then, when I lost my mother, I returned to her images of despair and felt kindred to her and everyone who suffered. The first year of my bereavement, I wore the bracelet. The second year after, I got a silver runt of a kitten with a big personality and named her Frida Kahlo.

I turn to Frida's art when I am broken and find comfort in the way she articulates pain for me, without a word being spoken. I turn to Frida's art when I am thriving and notice the lush, verdant life in her work--the whole world blooming. I turn to Frida's art when I am deep in my own creative wilds, as I am right now, hiding completely underground while my fourth novel manuscript burns through me. Yesterday, I visited her exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens and I told my friend who wandered with me, "This feels like church." And, it did. When we got to her painting, "Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird," imagery of which will, in a week and a half, be forever tattooed under my skin, my eyes teared up and I wanted to freeze the moment--the whole day--the whole story of what Frida means.

But, my story with Frida is always evolving. All I can do is watch it rise and flower and fall away and return, knowing that she is a gift, belonging to no one and everyone all at once. 

Curiosity #9: Yumi Okita

“My turn shall also come:
I sense the spreading of a wing.”
~Osip Mandelstam~