Whale Fall

Dear Dad,

Hope you are full of gentle quiet

Ashes, bits of bone, and debris

Scattered on the sea

Now layered, feeding the osedax

Snot covered flowers

Indeed

Baby Crone's Tarot Playbook

 Now available in paperback, kindle, or hardcover!

Baby Crone's Tarot Playbook

or Laphrodite's Mini Mindfulness Meditations

Baby Crone's Tarot Playbook offers seventy-eight short practices for that tarot on-the-go feeling. Rich, full-color images accompany the guided meditations to create a synthesis of right-brain and left-brain activity by combining potent imagery with meaningful words. Whether you flip to a random page for a quick hit, spend an hour using an image as a writing prompt in your journal, or dedicate yourself to delving deep into the meaning and symbolism of each piece, this is a treasure trove of accessible wisdom.

Fuschia Tattoo

I had a smooth, quiet ride down to San Luis Obispo. I left with plenty of time since my brother had warned of "Carmageddon" after the Thanksgiving holiday. The only time there was traffic was at our favorite rest stop in Bradley - every parking place was full, and at least 20 cars were parked along the "no parking" strip so I figured they couldn't tow/fine us all, so I pulled over. Once in SLO, I had a nice lunch at House of Bread - a Panini with chicken, pesto, provolone, and artichoke hearts. Yum!

I had decided on a spray of Fuschia. I remember being a kid and going out on Nona Linda's balcony, the rich baskets blooming with pinks and greens. A three-hour session, mostly in silence, while I thought about my Mom, my brother, and mostly my Dad.

After my session, I hung out for a few minutes and then walked over to meet my friend at Giuseppe's—it seemed appropriate to get Italian food. My goodness, SLO has more restaurants than Santa Barbara! I couldn't decide between the spaghetti carbonara and the wood-fired pizza, and would you know it, the special was a carbonara pizza. It was so ridiculously rich that the next day, I had a slice for breakfast, and then Chip and I feasted for dinner.

The drive home was also good, and quiet - I do love California at this time of year - the quality of light, the duskiness over the grape vines in the valley, and the first view of the ocean when coming back to Santa Cruz.

Poppy survived despite me being gone for a night, and June was happy to have me home, as well as Chip, maybe because I brought scrumptious leftovers. It was a good sojourn and I feel I did what was right, I did my rites, and I feel at peace.

Amaterasu and Uzume

Amaterasu is the Goddess of the Sun, still worshipped in the Shinto Temples in Japan today. She is the Goddess of Beauty. One day she came home to find that her temple had been vandalized by her brother, the storm god Susano’o. All her handmaidens had been slaughtered, their bodies left to decimate her sacred space.
 

Outraged, she withdrew into a cave, pulling a big boulder over the opening to seal it shut. Now, as you can imagine, if the sun seals herself tight inside a cave, darkness falls all over the land. Soon the plants began to die, then the animals. The people came to plead and weep outside the cave, crying, “Amaterasu! Amaterasu! Come shine your face!” But she would have nothing of it.

The people appealed to the other deities, and 800 gods and goddesses gathered outside the cave. They cried and pleaded, “Amaterasu! Amaterasu! Come shine your face!” But she would have nothing of it.

The goddess Uzume stepped up to the cave, flipped over a sake barrel, and began a sexy and bawdy dance. She opened her kimono and exposed her breasts, flashed her genitals, and made fun of traditional shamanic rituals All the other deities began to laugh and laugh.

Amaterasu heard the laughter and became quite intrigued. The moment she rolled away the boulder, Uzume handed her a mirror, where she could see how beautiful she was. And in that moment she decided to burst forth and illuminate the day again.

---

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a sexy and bawdy dance to bring me out of my cave. Are you ready to change? I invite you to become curious and full of wonder, discover and explore your own inner landscape, and be fluid in transforming as you go through morphosis. Cultivating lightheartedness is a serious practice.

Pressed For Time

It is coming up on the first anniversary of my father's death. I've been working on a collection of poems, Pressed for Time: a Little Book of Grief. Creating this book was much like the stages of grief, as I went through shock, denial, negotiation, anger, and acceptance, not necessarily in that order, and some stages a few more times than others. Piecing together these ensembles was a part of my own healing, of feeling ripped apart and putting myself together, after not just the loss of my father but several other family members in the last few years.. 

I found it difficult to write after he passed, but little lines would float through my head, which I would then email to myself. This went on for about six months. Later I consolidated these, and chose Courier as the font, as it looks a little rough and raw, like my feelings. I printed them out on parchment paper, which I then shredded, line by line.

My stepson had gifted me a flower-press for my birthday. I began with the forget-me-nots and pansies that I had planted both at my father-in-law's gravesite as well as in my garden, along with other snippets from the various plants and bushes my father and I had planted together over the last three decades. Crocisimo, Euphorbia, English Roses as well as the Cecil Bruner, sprays of Salvia and ubiquitous fern.

During our stay in Carmel, I watercolored backgrounds in a sketchbook, simply free-flowing with the colors. I had been collecting rubber stamps for years, some of the rubber had decayed and certainly most of the inks had become dry and crusty, but they added an interesting layer. 

Finally, I assembled the pieces over a few months. I used Modge Podge to secure the dried flowers, standing the book up so the pages wouldn't stick together as they dried. I took photos of each page, some you've seen the last few months here on my blog. 

Mercury is going retrograde, and I have a feeling of tying up loose ends, completing projects, and really putting things at rest. 

Blessed be.

Letting Go

More than a thousand 

Peace cranes

Meditations

Secret frustrations

Friendships unfulfilled

 

Clearing

So nobody else goes

What the hell am I going to do

With all this dusty crap