BATS Foolery

It was hot, too hot for me. And there was not enough air in the room, either. I was backstage with my SF BATS buddies who were part of the Saturday night entertainers for the “stage” that was the area at the end of the hallway at the Doubletree in San Jose. We were waiting for Thalassa and for the start of the show.

Backstage is a funny place for players. We tug on our clothes, never quite sure if they are right and yet quite sure the overall effect will be, no doubt, a Show. David from Texas stood tall in his wizard…or was it swami? guise, a dramatic figure just standing there wordless. The sound man worked on the equipment. Lon Milo DuQuette sat quietly behind all of us in his impeccable white suit. Lon always looks like some deity to me, although the religion isn’t necessarily what it appears.

Peter and Jimmy are backstage with us, Jimmy in the best Fool costume with his yellow tights, green-sunflower tunic and green Robin Hood felt hat, Peter in his always-ready smile in the middle of us girls who were the first act.

Valentina had dressed as fall, and never a more luscious harvest than she with her great, broad-brimmed hat of fruit and whole dress the color of ripened pomegranate, a feast in herself with her dark hair and dark eyes. Rhonda made the most of her signature long white hair dressed in the charcoals-to-whites of winter, looking like the January that would never end, the frost, the ice, the snow, the wind. Beautiful Carrie was endless summer, bright in pinks and reds. And I was spring in my peacock green printed low-cut long gown and golden slippers. “Nature’s first green is gold,” I had quipped, mostly to myself as I had selected my dress. Now I was just hoping it would stay in place on my too-ample frame.

I was like a bud ready to burst in bloom (good) but I didn’t want to burst out of my dress (bad). I had abandoned the double-sticky wardrobe tape that they say Hollywood uses to keep actresses and their gowns in place.

“Duct tape,” I muttered. “I need duct tape.”

An astrologer had once told me that gravity was not my friend, predicting some 15 years before the event that I would suffer a great accident and injury to my leg. Well, I thought, gravity has done me more harm than my snapped knee and broken elbow.

I remembered a joke my friend Alice had told me. As we all fanned ourselves, waiting for the show to begin, I told it.

“At our age,” I began, “when they yell, ‘Show us your….’” And Peter dissolved into helpless laughter for minutes, gasping in horror at the thought of the ravages of gravity on tender lovelies as they drag towards the knees.

I said a few more things to keep the laughter up. It helps to laugh backstage. At least it helps me.

After a while and a few more crazy girl-jokes, Lon spoke up and said, “You know, this is exactly what my wife is afraid I do on these trips!”

“Give us the phone,” I urged him. “We can reassure her that you are safe!” He did not take me up on the offer, although it was sincere. Lon is a treasure of talent, musical and esoteric.

David handed me a plastic sword and I lent Carrie a cane. Suddenly, Thalassa came in and it was showtime.

Nancy, our director and principal dancer, directed covering us with white sheets so that our appearance would be revealed season by season. Lon and his ukulele went center stage, our Music Man. Covered in a sheet, I now could only hear the players move to the stage. And then it was my turn to be escorted to my mark.

Thalassa introduced us. The music started. I could hear Nancy dancing and suddenly, since I was Spring, I was first to be unveiled. I popped David’s plastic sword up like a jack-in-the-box with an equally bouncy smile on my face. Nancy danced. I mugged for the crowd, moving the sword in rhythm to Lon’s singing and playing. Laughter rose from the crowd.

Good, I thought. We all take ourselves too seriously sometimes. It was a relief to play the Fool for a weekend.

My life has been too serious this year. My workplace has been in upheaval. My job, along with all those of my co-workers, has been in question. Will it be there? Will I have to move to the Deep South and make the best of a hot and humid place, likely not to return to California? Will I be forced to get a job somewhere else in a time where jobs are not plentiful or guaranteed or often pleasant? Will I be forced to move all I have to continue to survive? Will I be able to make the most of another Tower event in my life, recreate myself one more time, find the Star in the rubble? Will I be able to rise above? And when will I know?

Finally, an indication of hope without a complete collapse has come. It looks like I will be able to stay in California. I have held back tears and screams and fear and panic since March, since first hearing of the possibility of great change. I know all reprieves are temporary, all respites brief, all comforts passing and all joys priceless. And for that, they are all the more precious.

So I try to laugh and make others laugh, to forget trouble for a while, a brief moment, as is the purpose of the jester, to make others laugh and to make the monarch think or feel. From within me, from my fears and sorrows and pain and anger, can well up the absurdity of our struggle to make things make sense. And from within me, a greater force arises out of love, to hold the plastic sword, to shield the principal dancer as she changes costume, to kiss the troubadour and flee to the stage door to exit, only to find it locked.

The show goes on while I pound on the door.

“Peter!” I cry in my best stage-whisper, my impromptu panic rising. “Peter! Let me in! Open the door!”

I expect it will be like that, knocking on heaven’s door. And Peter, helpless with laughter as gravity has taken its final toll, may let me in. Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll see most of my friends.

Best wishes from my BATS-termath!

Irene and the Tower

Weep, skies! We’ve lost Irene

Of the Queen Anne tall and palace-y.

She rides out on spring’s lightning bolt

And not pathetic fallacy.

Let the winds blow.
Let the stones fall low.

Let light itself lose its glow.

The Lioness is dead.

From Irene Buck's family:

IRENE P. BUCK

March 23, 1944 – March 30, 2013



Irene Patricia Buck, 69, passed away Saturday at her daughter’s home in Vallejo following a brief illness with an agressive cancer.



Irene was born in San Francisco to Edward and Esther Del Rosario on March 23, 1944. She held various positions throughout her life as a TV producer for KQED, an artist, a social worker and was the manager of the Cancer Society Thrift Shop. Irene was involved in politics and was a campaign manager for several local candidates. She enjoyed collecting antiques, gourmet cooking, gardening, and spending time with her family.



She was preceded in death by her parents and her brothers, Edward, Jack and Louis Del Rosario.



Survivors include her daughter and son-in-law, Angela and Anthony Brennan; and numerous nieces and nephews.


Peace be to you and your family, sweet Light and Lioness.

Best wishes.

Understood

Let me say this to begin: Even genius must put its pants on one leg at a time.

A recent disagreement between members of a group studying a particular area of interest that we all share got me thinking. Like many disagreements, at least one source of this conflict was communication.

People communicate differently.

Profound, huh? I have college degrees and years of training and work experience behind that little gem. I happen to think that you probably don’t need all that schooling and experience to come to that conclusion. I think you just need a little time with other people.

It’s pretty clear that not everyone agrees with me.

I learned a very strange lesson when I was still young. I was seeking feedback from co-workers on self-improvement after having received a mysteriously-worded performance review.

I had been called a snob. In writing. In an annual performance review. I was stunned, bowled over, dismayed at the long-lasting effects those words would have on my career at that company. And I was completely in the dark. I did not get it.

I had worked so hard to be professional. I wore suits. I called people “sir” and “ma’am”. I tried to do the very best job that I could. I had lost weight, cut my Alice-in-Wonderland hair off to a more businesslike shoulder-length and wore sensible heels. I never took my jacket off. I was Barbie Doll Secretary on roller-skates.

My reward was to be called a snob by my boss. What is it that made him think that I was that way? I was to ask my co-workers. I did. Most of them laughed and shook their heads. They didn’t know.

Finally Marty, in between laughs, quiet laughs because she was a quiet person, suggested that maybe I used too many big words.

I was a scared kid in a city all alone. I had taken a chance and moved there for work to improve my life. I had been ashamed of my nearly-useless college degree in English at the headquarters of a telephone company only to find out that I was one of the few people in the building who had been to college at all. My attempt to live up to my own professional standards had backfired miserably.

As an Irish co-worker so comically put it years later, I was seen to have “ideas about myself.” My respect for others and myself translated to academic and intellectual snobbery. I was crushed.

Intellectual snobbery was the opposite of my intent. I wanted to be the more modern version of Jeeves. I wanted to quietly keep everything going in the background so my boss could succeed. I wanted to be a Secret Weapon for doing good things. And apparently I had succeeded just about half-way, the wrong half.

Years earlier, Mom had told me the results of my I.Q. test. It was a cool number and I was pleased with it but it was, after all, just a stupid test. My mother had wanted me to understand why things were easy for me and perhaps not so easy for my friends. Instinctively, I knew that it was just one measure of human performance. It didn’t tell how nice you were.

Over time, though, it became clear I was that child. I read the dictionary for fun. I exhibited other behaviors that would probably make the list of How to Tell If Your Kid Is a Nerd. I learned other people felt bad when I was happy about making a good grade on my test. I hated the thought that I might make them feel bad. I tried to help my friends with schoolwork. I realized I liked school a lot more than other kids did.

I loved dictionaries that told what the origin of a word was, Greek, Latin, French, Old English. I wanted to know where words and ideas came from, how they had changed over time, how regional differences changed language, how it evolved. In junior high, my favorite class was geometry. In high school, my favorite class was a segment on the history of the English language. I wanted to understand language in its context, in its usefulness to its speakers. I wanted to solve the puzzle of communication. So I majored in English in college. I had wanted to major in linguistics but English linguistics; my university had no such degree offering. I majored in literature with the certain knowledge that my degree qualified me to teach or go back for more college.

I wanted to be in the “real” world.

The real world landed me at the telephone company headquarters during the time when the telephone industry was de-centralizing. Somehow I survived that, reviled by my co-workers because I had one college degree, cringing when they mentioned it. I never talked about it but they couldn’t stop talking about it. I wasn’t like them. I used “big words.” In my effort to be more precise, I was completely misunderstood. I had mistakenly thought I was out of grade school and junior high school; work was just another hallway of lockers and cliques.

I reminded myself that this is the world I wanted. I could have stayed in the world of academia and wallowed in big words, reveled in them, tossed them about like confetti, shot them out of the bazookas of the publish-or-perish rules of that world. But I knew that world wasn’t for me. I needed a more difficult job, one in the “real world” where even the simplest statement can be misunderstood because of assumptions, context and emotion.

The Tower in Tarot can represent the world of assumptions crumbling under the effect of sudden change, breaking the structure and its occupants into simpler components. Analysis can be said to be a kind of Tower activity, the process of breaking things apart. It sounds so destructive, especially if you don’t have a plan for what happens next. It represents an inevitability of the instability of false assumptions. Things break down.

Ideas and problems can be broken down, too. I knew my work was Tower energy. Instead of staying in the Tower of academia and piling big word upon big word to build distance between myself and the ground of reality, I chose to work to make things more easily understood. Pick up a brick and then another. And make sense of the puzzles. It’s kept me busy all this time.

Best wishes.

Uranian Holiday

I just got back from Readers Studio 2011 in New York and I’m still recovering. I’d like to stretch it out as long as possible to preserve the glow. It was a weekend of Big Things. As it turned out, there were many more Big Things than I had bargained for!

Thinking back, the last bit of really confident control I had over the weekend was packing for the trip on Tuesday. I had an early flight on Wednesday and did my typical pack bags until 11 pm dance. And oddly, I remembered everything: the costume for the parade of trumps, the decks people said they wanted to pick up in New York, the boarding pass, the shoes, the whole catastrophe. I was ready. Or so I thought.

The alarm went off at 4 am and I was up like a shot, jumped into my clothes, grabbed my bags, kissed the cats and dog goodbye and we were off for the airport. The line to check bags at the curb was proof positive that horses aren’t the only ones who can sleep standing up. After a pleasant exchange with my skycap, lumbering through the security line, being x-rayed head to toe (best done when you’re asleep and not thinking about it), I was grateful my gate was at the top of the escalator. Before I knew it I was on my way, and with only a slight delay in Chicago due to what turned out to be a Presidential visit, I had spent the day asleep in the air, grateful for my tendency to go “lights out” the instant my seat belt buckle is snapped. There is such a thing as a calm before the storm.

First, I want to send my heartfelt sorrow to those who lost loved ones, homes, etc in the tornadoes that ravaged the South last week. I have just a few phobias and tornadoes are in that slot; I don’t really consider it a phobia if you define phobia as an irrational fear. I’ve been close enough to tornadoes in my life to feel assured that my fears are quite rational. Of course the first thing I found out after getting into my hotel room was that there were tornadoes reported in the Hudson Valley. I immediately started thinking about which would be better shelter, the bathroom or the hallway. Luckily for everyone in Queens, the tornado warnings/watches lifted and it just looked like an annoyed sky rather than a vengeful one. I talked to my husband John and he joked that I was not to call him at 6 am the next morning just because I thought it was 9 am and was having fun.



Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



The Tower is a card indicating a change that is like a lightning bolt from the blue, something that resets your thinking, reprioritizes your life, makes you realize the good news or bad news that you have based your assumptions on some shaky ground and they are falling. It can be the “Great ZOT!” of realization but it also has its traditional “scary” meaning of something really big is going to happen, something you have minimal control over, something that brings your plans down in a sudden collapse of rubble. The Tower is tied in astrology to the planet Uranus, a surprise party planet that will be dancing in my sun sign of Aries for the next 7 years. Little did I know that my choice of Trump costume as Strength was going to be necessary in more than one way.

The call I got early in the morning on Thursday was a Tower call.

“Hi, Dolly.” He calls me Dolly.

“Hi, Sweetums.” I call him lots of things. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me so early in the morning?” It looked at my watch. Was it 3:30 am or 4:30 am in California?

“I’m at the emergency room.” The hotel room spins. And as it turns out he had emergency surgery later that afternoon. There was no way for me to get a flight back. Besides the weather delays, the President had made New York his next stop after Chicago. I called friends. I called in favors. I hoped my cell phone charge would last. I hoped I had remembered to take my blood pressure meds. Thank God for William, Nancy, Rosie and Derek and all our friends who tag-teamed to make sure John had someone there when I couldn’t be. Thank God for our family who tried to be there as best they could too from a long distance. Thank God for the surgeon and nurses and medical care performed with excellence and humanity. Thank God John is OK and home.

I should know better than to ask, “Good grief, what else can happen?”

Knowing John was safe, I stayed at Readers Studio and had a most excellent time. Thank God for all the Readers Studio folks who knew my story and sent healing and love and shored me up. I went to the wonderful classes on romance readings with Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone who are the Readers Studio organizers. I zipped over to the Aeclectic Tarot dinner and had a great time meeting people for the trade train. I had brought some copies of my decks to sell or trade and they went fast. The next day I talked to John all throughout the day, violating my own rule of having my cell phone on while in a class or meeting, but dashing for the door when it rang. All was good. The lovely Corinne Kenner’s class on astrology and the tarot hit the mark especially for those new to astrology and gave us different perspectives on the cards. “Cupcake” Barbara Moore helped us develop our own spreads with her effervescent charm. My group of three was proud of our new spread, the Sword of Action, and eagerly submitted it for Barbara’s compilation of the RS11 new spreads. I listened first with skepticism and then with awe and finally joy to Caitlin Matthews as she explained how she, once skeptical of using significators had learned their value. James Wells led a roundtable with our tarot stars. And my dear Thalassa provided wit and humor throughout, especially as organizer of the Parade of Trumps. And I fell in love, utterly head over heels with Lon Milo Duquette’s musical interlude, no less than the Pete Seeger of tarot!

My roomie Beth Seilonen stuck close to her vendor table and sold both her many luscious hand-crafted limited edition decks and my few offerings too. We agreed we were ready to take the bus to the diner with Marcus, Tali, Mike, Paul and the gang. I had the “lob-stah” and it was delish!

Oh, and I shopped. Wow, did I shop. I had seen Aaron Rathbun’s leather tarot cases at past tarot events and drooled. My goal this year was to get one or two. GOAL! My special orders will be shipped at the end of this month, pictures to come. There were cases made of antique sari material, cases made of recycled felted, quilted and embellished sweaters, cases knitted by the esteemed Mary K. Greer. There was jewelry and I indulged in pins made by the encyclopedic Robert M. Place, a cat, a mermaid and a wyvern, all at the hand of the alchemical master himself. And I sacrificed my checkbook at the table of the Tarot Garden, falling under the spell of a few goodies of rare and careful nature (Dan Pelletier was aptly cast as the Devil in our Parade of Trumps, tempter that he is).

And then the Tower proved not to be complete. As we were packing up after the certificates had been handed out and many of the hugs and email addresses had been exchanged, our hard-working Ruth Ann fell from the stage and landed hard and painfully. She broke her collar bone and a rib. I called 911 and handed the phone to a guard when they asked for the address. Those of us with her rushed to her side to provide what we could in Reiki, prayers and support, making sure that she was as comfortable as possible until the EMT’s arrived.

After a delicious meal at Uncle Peter’s with our enormous Sunday night group where I was fortunate to sit near some of our Australian attendees including none other than Annie Dunlop, former president of the Tarot Guild of Australia, we returned to the hotel. Invited for a nightcap and asked if I had one more copy of one of my decks, I dashed back downstairs to the lounge in time to see the stunning announcement by President Obama: Osama Bin Laden was dead. Yet another Tower moment for this amazing weekend! And we were all curious about the future once again.

Thanks to all of the wonderful people who were there, who were my partners in the classes, who were charming dinner companions, who purchased my decks and who made even the most Uranian of holidays a delight!

Best wishes!

Love in the Time of Influenza

I had the flu. Then the hubs had the flu. This wasn’t the “search the cabinets for anything to help you breathe again” flu. This was that other flu. The flu we don’t talk about. You know what I mean. I don’t mean to paint too graphic a picture here but there are some tarot cards that can tell the story.



It seems like it should have been a short story. Its suddenness was like a lightning strike, a Tower fallen, the rug ripped out from under me. Luckily, I was within range of familiar conveniences. In times of stress, they were never more convenient. Dark moments like these are times when we examine our souls. I really hadn’t wanted to examine my soul from the inside out, though.

But after the initial assault, the siege went on. And on. It was 8 of Wands, the rain of fire, the sudden swiftness of burning, even the up-in-the-air feeling of having been launched, wanting to land but afraid to do so from such a height. The fever raged. The battle continued. The topsy-turvy world of war was upon me. Even water would not put out this flame, would not seek its own level but beat its retreat.

I sought comfort in the dark and quiet, hoping the sweet little songbirds would cease their concerts, the dog would not snore, the cats would not breathe so loudly. Light and air and logic and imagination were enemies. I waved a sheet in surrender and prayed for an end, however it may come. As a soldier crawling from the blast, the 4 of Swords, I sought oblivion even if from cold stone or smooth tiles.

I fought despair of the 5 of Cups. This was still Day 1. And yet I continued to work, to answer emails and telephone calls, to offer guidance on complex computer projects. And sprint. And despair some more. No, I said. This was not flu. This was food poisoning, a poorly prepared potato past its prime in search of revenge for its neglect. It would not be flu.

After the long siege of day and night, I rallied at dawn, sure the worst was over. After all, my husband’s birthday weekend was almost upon us and I would not, would not give in and cancel it. I tenderly tried to regain the balance of my strength, to sip both eagerly and cautiously to win back some of what I had lost. Sweet Temperance led me to sip and sip and sip again.

Ah, but cruel warning came! Peace is not merely the lack of open warfare. Dissembling stillness led me astray and I called out for sustenance. My husband responded in his usual generosity and brought me what would ordinarily be healing itself, Sizzling Rice Soup, and perhaps, if I were daring, a little vegetable fried rice. What harm could a little soothing soup do? Yet, like a thief, like the 7 of Swords, in a flash from full bowl to empty was all the time it took for me to find that the battle was not yet won. Even the sight of the veggie rice was too much to be gazed upon. I lost ground and I retreated once more.

Flu, like Death, be not proud. It takes us all, the willing and the unwilling, from time to time. Flu rode in with my husband on a portion of spicy eggplant from that same nearby Chinese restaurant. He felt fine while I turned green over my bland soup. Yet scant hours later, he was struck, with all the force of all the same symptoms, all the same remorse. And we fought fire with water once again, rallied and sank, retreated and wandered restlessly. All the while our dog and cats watched over us in dismay, concern and perhaps portion calculation should the worst occur.

And in our lowest moment, we knew we were defeated. The birthday weekend was off. The trip to the redwoods was postponed. The prime rib and chocolate cake were not to be. We were betrayed by a microbe, stabbed in the back like the 10 of Swords for providing too friendly an environment for its welfare. We made phone calls. We choked out our apologies and gave our best intentions to our comrades to save themselves, to run.

I determined the only cure for the worst of it was never to eat again. Like the 2 of Swords, I drew a thin treaty with the beastly bug, denying defeat as well as victory. My resolve lasted only into the evening of Day 3 and I rummaged for something, anything like real food. I found a bagel and toasted it, throwing caution to the wind. I returned to fuss and coo over my ailing sweetie whose head was bursting in between other bursts. We slept again.

Day 4. The fire retreats and leaves the charred remains, soothed, finally, by the cooling waters. We rise, having let go of earthly cares and woes, mostly woes. My husband has ventured as far as the kitchen and made chicken noodle soup. While this balm may not last for long, it is a breakthrough. Even the thought of food was torture a couple of days ago. We’ve dared to watch a little television, its trumpet blare and fireworks now not too painful to take. There are so many food commercials on television and not a lot of them are appetizing.

I even watched Julie & Julia, a movie about the love of food. It reminded me of the joy our cousin Patti has in her cooking, her love of France, her annual Thanksgiving “Babette’s” Feast where all is made from loving scratch. It also reminded me that love goes through things together, weathers indignities, unpleasantness, inconveniences, disappointments, defeats as well as joys and celebrations. We drink from the same cup and get the same reward, whether it’s the sweetness of the wine or the wretched influenza, in sickness and in health. We share the same cup.

But it will still be a while before that boned duck thing from J&J starts to look tasty. And I’d better go wash that cup again.

**

All images in this posting are from my Art Postcard Tarot, still available.  See my page called Tarot Decks on this blog for more information. 

Best wishes.

The Incompleat Workes of Beth the Jester

Oh, wow, I’m breathless! I just received my latest Beth Seilonen decks, among them, the Tarot of the Red Jester. And I also just received the originals of a deck not otherwise published, Owls in the Night. Beth lives and breathes art and tarot in Maine. I would like to say I’m one of her oldest fans, but I think there are people older than I am who love her work too. At least I hope so.

I first saw mention of her work on Aeclectic Tarot where some of her other fans were oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over her decks. I had to see what the fuss was about. And what a delight! Now, I know that there’s a time and place for those bite-you-in-the-neck-scream-and-swoon decks; I have those too, trust me. Even the relentlessly optimistic have a dark side. But Beth’s work fills a gap in the whimsy department like no other tarot artist. So I’ve become one of her frequent patrons of the arts.

Besides those two new arrivals, my collection of Beth’s work is, to my mind, small: Another Way, Arcana Cats, Fishy Tarot (true, I’m a fish-nut but I love these fish), Foxy Arcana, Funky Lighthouse, the incomparable Isabel Snail, the Pink Arcana, Purple Penguin, Home Sweet Home, Split View, Tree Women, Watchers, Whimsy Tarot, Witches II and Jester’s Tarot (not to be confused with Tarot of the Red Jester). It is by no means a complete collection! Yet to be snagged are The Maine, Sun Conure, Symbolically Simplistic, Hues, Sails, Baby of Thine, well, good grief, you guys, just go look at all this lovely stuff! http://www.catseyeart.com/index.html

Beth’s decks aren’t just whimsy and color. Her trees bear messages of the harm we do to the environment, the preciousness of our earth, the delight of life and the enormity of circumstance as viewed by the individual. Take a close look at her Watchers and you’ll start looking over your shoulder. Her Tree Women have deep roots. Even bouncy little Nestor the Jester in the Pink Arcana shows the emotion and ambiguity of the tarot much deeper than his pink rolly-polliness may at first glance convey. The Jester makes us laugh, but stay a moment because he (or is that she?) makes us think too. The Jester plucks the conscience of the king as Shakespeare might suggest. Even slow-moving, unsuspecting, gentle and delicate Isabel Snail can ooze up to rest on the wrong golf ball of life with dire consequences. As in that funny-but-true song, “Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.”

Beth’s limited edition decks are easy to read with but personally, I don’t usually want to take the risk of ruining them with shuffling and use. I do like to get them out to admire and meditate. Isabel Snail’s Tower feels just like October 2002 for me. I can still feel that *whoosh* of the wind I caught just before life hit me right square in the snail shell. The Foxy Arcana “Yearn” shows we all have dreams, the fox and the chickens: If you have sweet little dreams, you sleep; if you have obsessive dreams, you’re up all night.

Just this past weekend, though, I broke my own rule about reading with Beth’s cards. Owls in the Night is so tiny (most of Beth’s decks are “normal” playing card size, but the Owls deck is a bit smaller) that it easily slips into my purse along with what seems to be several hundred pounds of other stuff in there (the Hubs swears this is where the missing Mr Hoffa may be…gotta love those vintage Dooney & Burkes for durability). I read for a private party, some delightful ladies, one of whom had been the successful bidder on my silent auction offering at the Benicia Vallejo Humane Society’s Barkitecture fundraiser. Our hostess plied me with the always-welcome endless glass of water and a glazed donut, plus treated me to a break between readings with a walk in her backyard full of roses and a glorious view of the Carquinez Straits. As a special treat, each sitter got to pick an owl’s card as their closing message for the day. It ended what might have been a “heavy” session on a light note.

Each of Beth’s decks has come with its own hand-decorated box and usually a little drawstring pouch. They are generally laminated, numbered, signed and easy to hold. Beth’s note cards are nearly as much fun as her decks. And, with Beth’s permission, I wanted to share some examples here with you.

The best news of all is that Beth appears to be nowhere near the end of her creativity with tarot. Her Red Jester comes in two alternatives, true to her tailored to the customer’s wish, in its limited edition. For those who want only to be guided by the image, there is the choice of having the card interpretations printed on additional cards supplied with the deck. For those collectors who want to preserve both her images and words together on each card, there is the choice to have the Red Jester “with interpretation.” In addition, there’s a silk cloth, 11” x 11” in choice of 4 colors. I picked “with” and red, being subtle in my collecting.

I’m quite pleased to note that we have available to us here the (happily) Incompleat Workes of Beth the Jester, a whimsical Maine artist and mom, with wonderful new visions of the funny, scary, angry, sad, joyful and loving world of tarot. Encore! Encore! May your inks and watercolors never run dry!

You can find Beth’s decks through this website: http://www.catseyeart.com/index.html, on Etsy, on eBay and if you’re really nice, she’ll accept your friend invitation on Facebook. Please write to her to encourage her to come to this year’s BATS (Bay Area Tarot Symposium) too!

**

Psst! Registration for BATS just opened and they accept PayPal. The dates are August 28-29, 2010 in San Francisco. It’s loads of fun for tarot enthusiasts and always features fabulously informed experts and a luscious marketplace. For more information and registration, go to http://www.dodivination.com/sf_bats



Best wishes!

Lighting the Candle of Hope

Haiti. Have you seen the pictures? From palace to shanty there is devastation to property. Worse, so much worse, is loss of life. Thousands, maybe one hundred thousand.  Those who survived have injuries that may never heal. These people did nothing more than live their lives on a tectonic fault zone, one we don't usually think of as being very active.

They probably thought this would never happen.

I live in a fault zone. Actually, most of the world is seismically active in one way or another, just not subject to earthquakes or volcanoes. Until one happens. I don't mean to scare you, but we live on something like ice floes and the currents of the earth carry us around. There isn't actually anyone driving the "ice floe" we live on, so it's subject to running into other "ice floes." OK, substitute the word "plate" for ice floe and that's what tectontic plates are. Yes, it looks and feels like rock.  Heck, it is rock.  And it's floating on the surface of the hotter-than-you-can-imagine gooey part of our earth.  Some plates scrape past each other, sideswiping continents. That's mostly what the San Andreas Fault is with the Pacific Plate scootching vaguely northward.

So all of you who are secretly hoping that California will someday fall into the sea, I hate to break the news but we're just inching northward.  Now, with major storms in the winter, there are definitely some apartment buildings and houses on crumbling cliffs in Pacifica and other places on the coast with a little more ocean view than their occupants really wanted.  When your own home is sliding at a rakish angle down a cliff, that can seem like your own personal Tower card.  Pack your stuff.  Get to safety.  But I'm talking about bigger things here.

If you think of this "bumper car" concept, some plates sideswipe, some actually rip apart and some have head-on collisions that may either wrinkle both into a pile-up of a mountain range (or even wrinkle downwards like the Mariannas Trench) or jam one plate under another one. So if you think that by running something into the ground there are no consequences, think again.

This isn't a sudden process. It happens all the time. It just usually happens so slowly that we don't really realize it. It builds up pressure until it pops.  Until, of course, something terrible happens. Then, it's personal. Toss out the Little Professor and please, call the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders and other truly helpful organizations to help these people. 

As big and powerful as the bumper-car-ice-floe-tectonic plates of the world are as they split and scrape and collide, nothing is as important as the human toll.

So, in times like this, it is important to remember that the next card after The Tower, the unexpected devastation that tears down to the foundation, is The Star. The Star is Hope.

Be the gift of hope for those in need.

Red Cross International Response Fund:
https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?4306.donation=form1&idb=428732091&df_id=4306&JServSessionIdr004=yxa9a0v901.app194a


UNICEF:
https://secure.unicefusa.org/site/Donation2?df_id=6680&6680.donation=form1

Doctors Without Borders:
https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=197&hbc=1&source=ADQ1001E1D01

Other sources of relief can be found at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100113/cm_huffpost/421014


And finally, light a candle for those in need, those whose lives have been unutterably marked by this terrible event.
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=HTI


Best wishes.