Daily Dose #1: Tarot as Medicine: Strength

"Strength is "total" living - living with the undiluted multiplicity of your being. Combining your capacity to destroy with your power to regenerate and heal. Taming your powers and drives by finding the "inner" power that gives you your strength. Affirm all your individual qualities - be sensitive to what you are feeling every moment."

~Crystal Reflections~

This morning, I cried in the shower, laughed as I drove my kids to school, and stared in silent awe at a giant birdcloud alighting from a strand of trees near my new house. I went inside, made a cup of tea and threw today's card. Strength. The power of strength. The simplicity of strength. The gentle touch of the woman in traditional Rider Waite soothing-taming-overcoming the beast. I set the card on my tarot altar in my bedroom, beside a deer skull and an antique poison bottle full of dirt I filched from outside of Georgia O'Keeffe's studio in New Mexico. Strong medicine.

Today, Strength fell out of the deck as I shuffled it. What I need to know about today. Being in touch with all aspects of myself with solid acceptance. Not letting things get me down. Using gentleness to soothe the wild aches I carry within and the ones I stumble across outside of myself. This woman has known struggle, has learned her way around her own inner nature, has realized that a gentle but determined approach will be the best one at this time. All things I needed to know.

My relationship with tarot over the years has ebbed and flowed. Always present, but not always something I've been willing to discuss with others outside of my immediate circle. That has certainly been shifting over this past year as I am now doing events and private readings for individual clients and parties with my tarot work. My creativity and writing has also been completely guided by tarot--not something I am yet able to share publicly, but the depth of my experience has been profound to me. So, it seemed time that here, on my quiet little blog, I let myself start to share the tarot as medicine and and narrative and to offer doses of my own cards and what they mean to me. I love reading about the tarot and I love the act of being accountable with it. So, this is where my Tarot as Medicine: Daily Dose category begins. I have no rules around it for myself, but it felt important to give it its own space in these occasional rambling words I post here.  

Since this year my card is the Star, guided by Strength, and Strength is what fell into my hands today, this seemed the right moment to let the category-marker start. Another touchstone. Another mirror. Another story to tell.

Curiosity #11: Literary Witches- A New Comic by Katy Horan & Taisia Kitaiskaia

This work by Horan & Kitaiskaia re-imagines five literary goddesses as witches & high priestesses & the magic that they are with art & words that sing. See all five at Electric Lit HERE. Unbelievably perfect to me in every way.

Remnant #18: On Rereading

“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”

~Ursula K. Le Guin~

Packing up my house...again. And this means more than the odds & ends & bones & candles & tarot decks & art & photographs...it means more than just the pots & pans & linens & furniture & papers & clothes. If you are me, it means dealing with the most important (and overwhelming) objects--the books. No really. Look:

And that is just some of them, nowhere near all. And that is after bagging up four bags of them to donate. My first move, my brother joked that I could build a house of books. My second, he asked if I was sure I'd really read all of these books. My third, he asked if I really needed to keep all of these books. My fourth, he said he would move everything except my books. I get it. I really do. This latest move I'm in the midst of now, as I started packing up the bookcases and sorting things through, I first felt excited about seeing old books like seeing old friends. I kept saying, "Oh, this was a great book!" and, "I remember when I got this." But, eventually, I started feeling something almost like guilt.

Too many books. Waaaay too many.  They are my escape...my teachers...my comfort. Wherever I am in the world, if I can just get to the bookstore, I am home. Whenever I move, however strange the new house feels, as soon as I unpack them, I am home. But, all but a few of them are short-term pleasures I savor quickly, then stack against the wall or put in the bookcase with all of the others. That is, until now.

While dusting off these spines this past weekend and boxing them up, I decided that it's time to slow down my constant impulse to find new titles to read. There is so much important literature in my library already. So, from today until at least the start of summer in June, I will only be pulling from my current shelves. It's time to reread what I have and remember what I loved about these books and recall the person I was when I first read it versus the person I am now. I may post about it here and there as I move through the experiment, in the spirit of remembering and celebrating the transformative power of books in my life.

  “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader.”  ~Nabokov~

Remnant #17: Home

I can't stop thinking of leaving. Of roots. Of wandering. Of spending a whole life living in the house I grew up in only to move when I found myself alone for the first time--then to move again & again & again. Six times, now, in seven years. It becomes all about nesting. My things...books, empty nests, bones, art, scraps of wood and furniture pulled from other people's trash, lace, shells, spent blooms, old photos. My belongings matter because I make home happen wherever I end up by surrounding myself with familiar talismans.

I seek out new places. I start over. I throw tarot cards and the Chariot comes and I know I am moving even before the house presents itself to me. I daydream out of windows that aren't mine--decorating bedrooms I'll never sleep in and worrying about dinner parties with friends I fear won't come in kitchens I'll never set foot in. I decide where the bookcases will go. I count the miles for commuting. I imagine running or walking in the area and how it will feel to carry myself across unknown streets. I can picture everything. Except staying.    

Now, I've found my next one to move into next month. Another cape cod. Another red door. Another parkland view. A zip code I never planned to return to. A heart-of-winter move when the whole world looks stark and unforgiving. A heart-of-winter move when it is the perfect time for hibernating inside and starting over again. Then, spring will close in and blunt the edges of the unfamiliar and I will open windows wide. And breathe.

And call it home.        

Writing the Wolf Moon

illustration by artist Helen Coldwell

     According to the Old Farmer's Almanac and even older stories, the Full Wolf Moon appeared every January--when snow gathered deep in the woods and wolves howled with hunger outside towns and villages. This January, join me for a new writing session for women honoring the Full Wolf Moon.              
     

     Using the lessons of my previous courses, I will pull in elements of Writing the Body and Writing the Tarot. Also, unique to this session is its focus on myth, fable, and fairytale as they relate to the female experience. Keeping the narrative of the Full Wolf Moon in mind, we'll use story to enhance self-expression, thriving in lean months, and building community. My sessions are for women of all writing levels and are safe spaces for creative exploration. As a longtime writing teacher and facilitator, I'm honored to create these offerings for my participants and I hope you'll join us!
     

When: Four Mondays: January 4, 11, 18, and 25 from 6-8pm (with an optional full moon gathering on Saturday, January 23)

Where: Oddporium: 2115 Marsh Road Arden Delaware 19810

Cost: $80 for full session (payment options are available, just ask!)

Register: call the shop today: (302) 757-9544 to reserve your space via $20 deposit or contact me directly for information