Secrets

We all have secrets in our past. Some of them are very interesting or would be if the story was told properly. Some are just things we don’t talk about much or don’t talk about until much later.

My brother and I happened to be visiting my Dad and step-mom Noni at the same time at their house in the Missouri woods. We were sitting around the table after dinner telling funny stories. Suddenly, a little bit of magic happened. I caught a glint in my brother’s eye and we dipped into once-dangerous territory. We began telling on ourselves, not on each other, stories from our wild high-school days, the things we were pretty sure Dad didn’t know about. And we were right!

No, that scar on my brother’s chin hadn’t been from slipping on the ice and prat-falling into his car door handle. It was an old car and door handles weren’t sleek and streamlined like they are now; they were sharp sometimes and stuck out away from the car doors. But that wasn’t what cut his chin. No, he was on a friend’s forbidden motorcycle that bucked under my brother’s inexpertise, rearing up to create that humdinger of a cut that required more than a couple of stitches. He later mastered control of motorcycles, but the scar was a permanent reminder of how quickly things could go wrong.

And Dad really hadn’t known it wasn’t the door handle. He laughed, bugged his eyes out at my brother, shook his finger at him and laughed some more.

“Fool me once,” Dad said, “and that’s your fault. Fool me twice, and that’s my fault.”

Dad was fooled twice, of course. My brother has a couple of scars. There were lots of stories that night.

Since we were confessing, I admitted that I actually had crawled out my bedroom window for late night excursions. Just riding in cars with kids my own age in broad daylight was verboten.

When I was in high school I figured there was truly little trouble I could get into, even at midnight in a car. That’s stupid, of course, but like most kids that age, I was pretty sure I knew just about everything. We lived in a small town in New Mexico that for many years had only one stoplight in town. My youthful indiscretions were few and I generally shared my parents’ hesitance to ride with other teenage drivers. I volunteered for three years at the hospital across the street from our house and saw enough of drunk-driving accidents to last maybe forever.

But, I was a teenager and occasionally the call of the wild was hard to resist. My best friend Cindy and I sometimes hung out with our older brothers’ friends who called themselves the “Squirrel Squad.” I’m not sure the word “nerd” had been invented yet but basically that was the idea. These guys were linked in friendship to the semi-scientific experiments they perpetrated, usually on rural mailboxes late at night. They loved cars and owned perhaps the worst ones in town. One was an old Ford Falcon which had a maximum speed of perhaps 35 miles per hour. They tried to fly radio-controlled airplanes, build and launch rockets and were on the fringes of the chess club. Some of them formed a band and played at our local high school dances. There was a lot of focus on electronic equipment. I think if there had been all the equipment for ghost hunting available, they might have done that too.

This became just a little too nerdy for my brother, who wanted to play varsity sports but ended up with a broken foot or wrist at the beginning of every season and was relegated to the bench. He also liked cars and drag racing. One of the things I learned around the dinner table that night was that he had been part of a group of guys who were drag racing outside of town. I remember he had a very cool looking car, a “442” that was a turquoise color with two big white “surfer stripes” painted down the middle. But I had no idea that he had been part of the drag racing scene that had been raided by the police and that our Dad had to pick my brother up at the police station one night.

My late night excursions were much tamer although not without the possibility of danger. One of the geological features of our part of eastern New Mexico was the dry lake. Weather patterns have changed a bit, but when I lived there, dry was the main weather feature. Underneath the sand and scrub and cactus was caliche, a super-hard limestone. The dry lakes around town were a mix of this hardpan and sand dunes with scrub and sagebrush. Teenagers would go out to the dry lakes, make a fire if they could find anything like wood to burn, dance, ride dirt-bikes and drink soda, Annie Greensprings and Ripple wine. There romances bloomed and faded, we discussed the Viet Nam war and wondered about our futures. And then, my friends dropped me off near my house and I crawled back through my bedroom window. As it turns out, my parents never guessed. And lucky for me, nothing bad happened from it.

We laughed about other stories, like my brother teaching me how to arm wrestle and my challenging all the boys in junior high to duels. I was the arm wrestling champion of the junior high two years in a row. That and playing football in earnest with the neighborhood boys required that I remake myself almost entirely in high school to get back in touch with my feminine side. After all, the reason I liked hanging out with the boys was, well, I liked boys. They were cute. They were goofy. They were kind of simple, single-minded dopey clowns if they weren’t completely bumfuzzled by sexual tension. But they were hilarious when they were. And launching model rockets was a lot more interesting than mastering fashion nuances to me.

The stories I didn’t tell around the dinner table that night were those too precious, embarrassing or titillating to reveal.

I had been asked out on a date by one of the high school football heroes. I was flabbergasted. I was elated. When he picked me up, my heart nearly stopped when he reached down, lifted the lever under my seat and pulled it back for leg room. Little did I know that he was not the least bit interested in me until we got to the drive-in movie and it became clear that first base was this sports king’s only goal. I was crushed. Having been “blessed” with an ample “first base” I realized it was going to be difficult to be liked for my personality. Well, crud. The attempted one-night stand turned into a one-night slap and I was home before the movie ended.

A couple of years earlier one of my junior high friends had gotten hold of a book called Eustace Chisholm and the Works, the most explicit and hedonistic novel ever and may still be at the top of that list. It was, in spite of all these possibilities, also of dubious literary merit (no offense to the author). It was what I sometimes call the 2 of Cups, a phrase from Dharma and Greg, “Hot Monkey Love.”

2 of Cups
Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

My friend wanted me to hide it for her until the coast was clear with her folks. I read it of course. My. Goodness. It made everything quite clear just exactly why I liked boys. Yup, that did it. I had the good sense to be a bit shy about trying the things I read which, I suspect, would have shocked my mother. Oh, she would have been certifiably catatonic about the book and its contents, beyond depravity in her view, I’m pretty sure. What would have merely shocked her, though, was that I actually resisted the urge to experiment freely with the suggestions from that novel. She lived in constant fear that I didn’t share her horror of the opposite sex. Nope. I liked ‘em. Lucky me again: My parents never found the book. I think I finally passed it back to my friend with the newly-enriched understanding of the weight of its danger.

Now that both Mom and Dad are gone, I am sure they are over the shock of my high school indiscretions. Yes, I did crazier things than crawling out my window. I actually thought a high school boy could like me for my personality! But something about that time is sweet with memory of the simplicity of teenage hopes and of the now-admitted innocence of the realities of responsibilities of real life. Some little secrets are meant to be savored, like those first moments sitting in a friend’s car in the night sky on the way to the rest of my life.

Best wishes.

But You Said

“It happened just like you said!”

I get that a lot. That kind of feedback gives me a lot of satisfaction, I must admit. After all, the future isn’t a fixed thing, nailed down to the floor like a carpet of yellow brick roses or whatever mixed metaphor seems right. I’m a big fan of free will. Your choices do make all the difference.

People in the position of expecting the future, especially out loud, are always subject to criticism. No matter how scientific the process is or isn’t, the guys on Wall Street basically didn’t tell everyone in time to run for their financial lives, not early enough, not well enough, not clearly enough, not loudly enough. Will those of you who feel you are currently prosperous enough and have plenty of disposable income please step over here to the right? You can go. And those of you in the line to the left, please wait patiently to explain to the financial guys how your life is now much more difficult. One at a time, please. Weapons in the basket, please. Yes, all of them. This is a non-violent feedback session.

I’d hate to be in the business of forecasting weather. When I lived in the Midwest, the only thing that was listened to more closely than commodities pricing was the weather forecast. And, poor saps, they could be so wrong. Here in Northern California, I often giggle at the struggling weather folk who, in a moderate Mediterranean climate, are likely to be bored senseless at the lack of excitement. So they start to report “bitter” cold temperatures of the low 40’s and “searing” heat in the lower 80’s.

Sometimes forecasters can get so embedded in their own worlds that they become delighted when any extreme occurs. So financial crashes and hurricanes or earthquakes tend to bring out a sparkle to their eyes and a trace of foam around their lips. Hey, they’ve been waiting all year for something cool to happen. But they’ve been in their bubble of forecasting for so long that they’ve forgotten that hurricanes destroy property and kill people who happen to be in their way. Naturally, point of view is important. Insurance adjusters, bless their hearts, are delighted (if they are polite, they are at least quietly delighted) when a big fire occurs or a big storm hits. It means work for them. People like work. They like to earn a living. But the people who are charged with forecasting sometimes should keep their delight in anything happening, good or bad, to themselves because they forget, on occasion, that their customers are the people affected by the event. It’s not really about the event itself.

This kind of work, whether it’s my tarot cards or something considered more traditionally scientific, has to be centered around the client, including the way the information is delivered.


Page of Cups
Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


I had the delight to run into one of my clients this recently. She was radiant and introduced me to her friend, a nice-looking young man with a gentle handshake.

“It all happened just like you said!” she was breathless. “This is the guy you said I would meet.” He blushed and offered his hand. I smiled, pleased to meet him.

Indeed, he certainly fit the description and impression I had gotten when I read for her months before. Just from a handshake and introduction, I wouldn’t presume to predict whether they are a “happily ever after” couple. But it gave me joy to see my client transformed from someone haunted by unhappiness to this. She positively twinkled. It was little that I did. She chose to be happy, to break an unhappy pattern in her life. I know it wasn’t easy. Seeing her like this was better for me than any verbal or written feedback.

Of course, not all my feedback is positive. Just recently I had someone call what I do nonsense. This person had theoretically been my good friend for 20 years. But tarot, writing about tarot and apparently the one posting she responded to tipped it over the edge. I quickly complied with her request to be removed from my list of friends. Quickly, but not happily.

She and I had been through a lot together. She had been my boss and sometimes the only sane person, perhaps merely my kind of insane, I had to talk to in a very stressful job. I worked for her for five years. She gave me good and timely advice out of the kindness of her heart, and from someone so strong, outspoken and ferocious, I felt that was a huge gift. I provided her with two job opportunities which she was successful in obtaining and I was pleased to have someone so strong as a co-worker. We went separate ways to different companies, yet kept in touch on a regular basis to discuss the fun and crazy life in corporate technology. But on this topic, we differed, enough so that she expressed her disgust and need to end our friendship.

Usually, people drop people who read tarot cards for religious reasons, mistaking the work we do with tarot to be our religion or adhering to their own beliefs which do not leave room for this alternative as being something that can be good. That’s happened too. But it wasn’t the case with my friend; it was closer to political and ideological without being a religious objection. It’s true that I can’t agree with her political conclusions, but I also chose not to engage her in an intense political discussion ever. I always wanted to enjoy what I like about her and let the rest of her be. That doesn’t work for everyone, though, and in a way I understand her decision.

Sad as I am to lose her wonderfully unique point of view, her feedback as well as that from my client above is, at least, clear. It’s a BIG NO from my former friend and a BIG YES from my client. More difficult, of course, is that curiously ambiguous feedback.

In a recent exchange where a tarot enthusiast was looking for clarification of a reading he or she did for themselves, I provided a clear but I was sure a bit difficult message. This person had asked for advice and guidance from cards, had difficulty interpreting them, put the question out to the community of readers. It was a difficult personal situation for the person and someone they cared about deeply. My message, after reading the cards they drew, was one of tough love.

I got a response that is all too common. The sitter/client/recipient of the reading thanked me cheerfully and stated in the clearest terms possible their intent to do exactly the opposite of the advice given. In this situation, some readers become angry. To me, that anger is just as misdirected as the excitement of the weather forecaster at the thought of a hurricane hitting the coast. The reader was paid or else freely offered their time.

But nothing at all negates the client’s free will to do whatever they want with the advice. It is theirs to embrace or discard. Once my reading leaves my lips, or in the case of email readings, my send key, it is no longer mine. I’m a translator. I’m not in charge. I was just listening to the fish and giving the message that was asked for. That, and trying to help. The client must exercise their own choices, whether they have a forecast or not. He or she, like anyone else, must select the next steps, make choices, and own the outcome. Neither the cards nor I have told them what to do. And clients who are looking for me to tell them what to do, how to live their lives, or what decision to make might be disappointed. I want to give them help so that they can make their own decisions.

Still, all in all, if I had my druthers, I’d rather have, “But you said…” followed by, “and that’s just what happened!” And, if the outcome is happy, then I get to smile too.

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 Emperor’s Year

2011 is the Year of the Emperor in Tarot. It’s not that hard to figure. 2 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 4 and 4 is the Emperor’s number in the major arcana.

The Emperor is Big Daddy. He’s the Executive. He’s the guy who makes decisions, not just for himself, but for the good of the Empire. He outranks the Kings of Cups (Mr. Sweetie-Pie), Wands (Mr. Energy), Swords (Mr. Logic-even-if-it-hurts) and Pentacles (Mr. Practical, including Mr. Business). Those designations for each suit are a little too high-level but they’ll do for now. The basic thought about the Emperor is that he is the Grand Administrator for the Realm. It’s his job to take theory and turn it into workable practice. He makes it happen.

He’s usually portrayed seated on his throne with his symbols of power. Being seated, it’s clear he isn’t building the bridge or hospital or road himself; he delegates to the specialists. He has the whole Empire to draw his resources from and issues orders to execute his plans. If he didn’t accomplish anything, he might just be The Fool without focus. If he did it all himself, he might just be the Magician and his personal will with limited impact. If all he did was stay in the realm of ideas and mysteries, he would find himself to be the High Priestess. And if he were the creative force itself, he would be the Empress. But he isn’t one of those; he is the next step beyond those. He is the Implementer. He makes it real.

For all the ladies who have tuned out while I used the masculine pronouns up to now, this is to notify you that you are not off the hook. The Emperor, while portrayed as a masculine archetype, is not just for guys. We all have a little bit of Emperor in us, as we do the entire tarot. You might not like the implementer, the decider, the-buck-stops-here personae. But that person is a part of all of us to some degree.

A lot of tarot decks portray the Emperor with a bit of a grumpy expression. That’s because it is lonely at the top. I don’t mean the Emperor lacks for company. Oh, no, he’s often surrounded by company, usually people who want something from him because their view of him is the guy who has the Power to implement. What he lacks is the certainty that any of the advice he gets is unbiased or complete. And yet he is still saddled with making the best decision overall for the Empire. And if something goes wrong? Everyone else steps away and says, The Boss made the decision. And suddenly the weight of less-than-ideal results is on his shoulders.

Sure, some Emperors use the “sh** rolls downhill” concept and share the responsibility for bad results with their subjects. Maybe that’s “overshare.” Some bear the responsibility themselves. Similarly, when things go right, some Emperors share the glory and some hog it, which was one of the ideas when I picked out my Emperor in the Victorian Trade Card Tarot.

The Emperor
Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright Marcia McCord 2010

The Emperor doesn’t have to be President of the United States or CEO of a major corporation. He can be you or me. He’s an archetype, not a person, so he represents aspects of each of us. He can be just Dad.

About ten years ago I was working for a major financial firm who shall remain nameless, not my current job. I really liked the work we were doing. It was fun for me and involved creating reusable parts of code that different systems could use to basically get the same answer every time any system within the company needed information about a customer. Instead of having to keep a zillion copies of a customer’s address, for instance, we could keep just one and have everyone look there. It had a couple of advantages, like if the address changed, we had to change it in just one place. This made for better customer service.

One of the funniest conversations about this initiative, in retrospect, was talking to one of the architects. The architect expressed what I could only guess to be sincere annoyance that we had actually implemented the cool ideas about this. The idea was that, once implemented and made real, these “tinker toy” parts were no longer in the realm of perfect ideas but manifested in the flawed real world where any shortcomings in the supposedly-perfect ideas would eventually be found out. And, because they were in use and people now had expectations about them, they would be harder to fix and perhaps worst yet, visible revisions to the once-perfect idea.

But isn’t that the problem with implementing any idea? Once you’ve made a decision, you’ve chosen not to do the other thing. Once you’ve selected your partner, you’ve said no to whomever else. If you wear red, you aren’t wearing blue. Deciding is committing, if only for a little while. Nothing says you can’t wear blue tomorrow. Ah, the limitations of choice! And oh, the woes of responsibility!

A long time ago in a far-away state when I was in my 20’s (yes, there was electricity), I had a fun and goofy boss I’ll call John G. I worked for a major utility and had an odd data entry job where I typed a bunch of numbers, plus the letter F. It wasn’t exactly a rewarding job, but I didn’t think of it as the pinnacle of my career either. I wanted to do well and then see what was next. John G had a great attitude about it too, realizing it was a strange job tied to an experiment in computing people’s time cards. Accuracy and speed were important; actual understanding was not particularly. With those limitations, the job could hardly be called interesting, especially since it was my job to type those numbers and his job to supervise me.

John G was a pleasant, kind-hearted fellow, happily married with two lively little kids. He didn’t have big worries and he wasn’t on a power trip. He was basically a nice guy. He told goofy, not offensive, jokes. He would walk in on a slow afternoon about 3 pm, sit down to rest and drawl, “Shooooore don’t seem like 5 o’clock!” We’d laugh.

John G decided to take the family in the Jeep Wagoneer on a road trip to Canada to enjoy the beautiful scenery and go camping. We were all anxious to hear how his vacation had treated him since he almost always had a funny story to tell. But when he walked into the office his first day back, I knew the news wasn’t good.

“What happened?” I demanded, wanting to know the whole story. As it turns out, their vacation was wonderful until the drive home. They had just crossed back over into the USA when a doe and twin fawns dashed across the road in front of them. The Wagoneer lived, as did all the people, but sadly at least one of the deer was dead.

“Oh, no!” I said. “Will it cost a lot to repair the damage?”

“Not that much,” John G admitted. “It’s my family.”

“Were they hurt?” I was confused. I figured he would have said something about his family immediately.

“No,” John G sighed. “They were a little shaken up of course but we all had our seatbelts on. When I got through talking to the highway patrolman and we were on our way again, no one said anything for miles. Finally, after about 100 miles of silence, my daughter burst into tears and said, ‘Daddy killed Bambi!’”

John G sat before me, the sad Emperor, responsible for the safety of his realm, successful in avoiding harm to his loved ones, even lucky in the cost of the damages to his vehicle. But, in his family he was forever branded the one responsible for the death of a beloved childhood icon. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

In your Emperor year, remember that no action is without its consequences, both good and bad, and yet nothing ever gets done unless ideas are actually implemented.

Best wishes.

Tony Tony Turn Around

“Where is it? I saw it and I know it’s here somewhere!”

It’s 2011 and I wanted my pocket calendar. Now.

Yes, yes, I know, I’m a technology professional along with everything else and I have a million ways to keep my calendar through my cell phone, computer, Blackberry, etc. I happen to like calendars that are little books that I can stuff in my purse. Little books only get misplaced. Their batteries don’t die; they don’t fizzle in Merlot accidents or untimely dives into vessels of water in the bathroom or anywhere else. They might be damaged or unsavory after such events but paper still talks even after torture. There’s something intimate about paper and pen that is lost in the electronic medium. Low-tech has its pluses too.

Take my haircut appointments, for instance. It’s really important for me to note in my appointment book whether the time I listed is the time I need to leave the house to get to the appointment on time or the actual appointment time. Sometimes that kind of notation is more easily made on paper. At least it feels that way to me. Debbie really appreciates it when I show up on time. Or at all.

And I really like my calendars to be different colors in different years, at a glance, in my purse. 2009 was bright tomato red Moroccan leather. 2010 was a sedate oxblood red, only because it didn’t come in any more startling colors. 2011, wherever it went, is an eye-popping chartreuse, basically “bug-squash” green, almost fluorescent. You’d think something that bright would be hard to lose. Never underestimate the power of an untidy packrat!

I used to use those cute little cheap plastic coated calendars with kittens or seashells on the front and the month at a glance with each day as its own square. Over time, those squares have gotten smaller and smaller (it just can’t be my eyes going bad) and I need just a little more room. I liked the compact and lightweight aspect of those little calendars and so transitioned to the slim notebook style bound in some delicious and smooth leather, hopefully in bright colors. I had black before, but it gets awfully dark in that purse. My purse isn’t that deep until you’re looking for a key or your casino card or something else that has sifted through the big stuff to nearly but not quite the bottom. Then I need one of those deep water submarines they use in the Monterey trench to find sea critters never before seen by humans, one with really bright lights. Something dark down in the bottom, like a calendar with a black cover, could hide for weeks without being found. Even those deep-sea critters use their own home made glow in the dark stuff to get around down there.

I really loved the calendars I’ve had in the past. They have had almost everything in it. There were color maps of the world in last year’s. One year there was a very cool map of the London Underground, not that I live in London or anything. But it was like memory lane or maybe memory tube stop to look at it. Remember that terrific pizza we had at the Embankment? It was heaven after one too many mushy peas experiences in the pubs that trip. But there is always seriously useful stuff in them too along with the requisite calendar days to write in the appointments, birthdays and reminders for the year. I pasted little souvenirs of the year in last year’s, like my dentist’s phone number stickers. And my favorite little memento last year was the autograph of a young man who had been the voice of the baby in the movie The Incredibles, one Eli Fucile. Incredibly, we were having a hamburger in Sonoma and happened to strike up conversation with the gentleman’s father. By then, The Voice was a strapping young man who was pleased to write his name in the back of my calendar. My husband and I of course admired his work and hoped to hear more of him in the future.

So where on earth was it? Lightning-lime green should stand out like…like…well, heck, I like lime green a lot but still it’s a peculiar size lime-green thing and I remember having it in my hands. I remember putting it in a tote or purse or something. I took apart the purse I recently transferred from, realizing that recent was a few months ago now. It was a useful exercise at least. I found a lot of other stuff I was looking for including that spare house key I had been looking for. I found a key ring I got at a technical conference that is solar powered and blinks when it’s charged up, good for those deep dives into the purse for something that was recently exposed to sunlight at least. I spent time taking it apart to see if I could put my own name in it instead of the company being advertised. I can’t. Bother. But the solar cell is still very cool.

Calendar, calendar, calendar. I went through all kinds of totes and bags from various events with no luck. No luck, except to find other useful items which had not been put in their proper places like a zillion ball-point pens and a nice little flashlight.

The Hermit from the
Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

The light flashing thing was starting to gel with me. In the tarot, the Hermit is the seeker who lights his way with a lamp. If he didn’t have the lamp, he’d be stumbling around in the darkness. My husband called in, “Do you need any help.” “No,” I puffed forlornly, wishing the calendar really was fluorescent and I could turn off the lights and see the glow. Like most Hermit moments, looking for something only you can find is something that feels best done alone. You turn over the rocks in your soul and poke at the crawly things a bit. You don’t really welcome visitors because, well, they might touch something and you’d have to start over. I had put it somewhere. I had to find it.

“Tony, Tony, turn around. Something’s lost and can’t be found.” An old Catholic tradition says that St. Anthony of Padua is helpful in retrieving lost articles, provided a small charity donation is made to the first worthy cause you see. At least that’s how my husband tells it. I like St. Anthony. He was Franciscan. He practiced preaching to fish. Besides the saint thing, he also seems to have been a nice guy.

Along the way, I did find a half-full container of catnip my House Elf had helpfully squirreled away into a box with a painful journal written by my father, a couple of copies of the magazine my mother had been an associate editor for and some sheet music. And my ardent admirer, Tony the cat, was trying to assist without getting in the way and would benefit from this scavenger hunt from this find. He’s a dark (some would say dim also) mackerel tabby with a purr like an outboard motor and a devotion to me that in cat culture would be considered no less than a religious calling. He sniffed every bag, stuck his head in every box, and earnestly listened to my sputterings about my purchasing a 2011 calendar in the summer of 2010 with all likelihood of never seeing it in 2011.

And then I experienced a moment of calm. Tony beat me to the bedroom door where he knows another stash of fresher and more aromatic catnip is hidden. He ran straight for the bedside table drawer but I muttered, “Suitcase.”

Hmm. Wonder if I put that silly calendar in my suitcase when we went on vacation in September? One unzip and there it was, green, near-fluorescent, pristine and ready for 2011. So Tony got his catnip reward for “finding” my lost calendar, grateful for any charity, and I now have the beginnings of organization for the year. Now I have to put away all these pens and stuff. Nice kitty.

Best wishes!

Holiday Spirit

After the Ceili while the travelers slept late Christmas night on the Queenstown wharf in County Cork, Ireland, awaiting the arrival of the ship that would take them to Boston, a strange procession made their way in the moonlight. Some held deer antlers aloft but there were also additional characters: the Folk Fool, the Man-Woman or Maid Marian, the Hobby Horse and the Boy Archer. The magical notes of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance led the group in spiraling dreamlike steps. Antlers clacked together as the men approached each other in two rhythmic lines, in greeting, in competition, in gratitude. And after they wove and dipped and clacked and skipped, as the music slowed and the recorder faded, they slipped off the stage and melted into the crowd.

This was part of my magical Christmas treat at the Christmas Revels which this year celebrated music and stories of Ireland and the British Isles around 1900. Directed by David Parr, this was the 25th anniversary of the Revels at the Oakland, California, Scottish Rite Center. My husband and I had attended once before years ago and I had found it charming. This year, in the spirit of “Consumables!” I wanted something wonderfully Christmas-y, something with unmistakable holiday spirit.

In the past, we have threatened to attend the Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus sing-along but never quite made it. We tried the Oakland Ballet’s Nutcracker Suite, somewhat less overwhelming than the San Francisco production but no less fun. And we’ve traveled on a family pilgrimage to San Juan Bautista to watch El Teatro Campesino for Christmas musical wonder. We’ve taken the ferry into San Francisco to watch the skaters at Union Square and visited the Macy’s Christmas window displays. My favorite of those was the Mouse Christmas where all the mice were celebrating tiny mousey holiday treats, decorating tiny trees and giving mouse presents under the floorboards of human houses. All the creatures were stirring and it was holiday perfection.

This year I had hoped to take our friend Gerry, the one who crawls through her window when she’s locked herself out of the house, to the Revels because Gerry is about as Irish as they come. And, betting that the Christmas Revels would not be singing, “The Last Rose of Summer,” a beautiful Irish song that sends Gerry into Mood Indigo, I figured this would be the perfect holiday mood-setter. What better than the Ireland that her grandparents and parents knew, at a happy but wistful time, Christmas, with family, yet embarking for America and likely never to see the family in Ireland again.

Best laid plans and all that: Gerry got flu-like symptoms from the whooping cough shot and, miserably over-apologizing (really, dear, it’s OK), she had to bow out. With three tickets and two people, John called his cousin David, found that his wife Wendy was glad to have him out of the house for a few hours, and we had our happy substitute. We barely made it to the show on time, got to our seats and the magic of Christmas began. We were transported to Queenstown in County Cork in 1900, where the Irish, English and Welsh, dressed in their warm traveling clothes and dragging their steamer trunks assembled on the dock, waiting for the ship that will take them to their new lives.

The show started with a medley overture, next, a 12th century song from Ireland, the Wexford Carol and went on to provide us with stories and songs, solos and sing-alongs that embodied the spirit of Christmas. There was no Santa Claus. There was no manger scene. There were adults and children dancing and singing, showing the season’s best and giving us a glimpse into the traditions we in America find curious and wonderful.

The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance comes to us from the village of Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, England. It has been a family tradition in that village with the Bentley and Fowell families for centuries and is still performed today. The antlers used by the “deer men” in Abbots Bromley are actually reindeer antlers and have been carbon dated back to the 11th century. The basic concept of the dance is a thank you for allowing the villagers to hunt, but it is also a remnant of “sympathetic magic” acting out a successful hunt and bounty for all. The traditional village production of the Horn Dance occurs in September, but it also has ties to Christmas time. It shows the universal need to thank a higher power for gifts and hope for good things in the time to come, plenty for all. I love the Revels recorder music and the after-midnight dance because it echoes the magical traditions of Christmas: If you squint, you can see a semi-Santa in the Maid Marian who is a bearded man in a dress, with the deer like reindeer, the Boy Archer like an elf. It’s just a little different in the moonlight.

Much of the show was for the child in all of us, with the youngest performers dancing a “stitching” game, holding hands in a line and leading the line under the next two dancers’ arms. An Irish story edited by William Butler Yeats called “The Soul Cages” told us of the friendship between a young man and a magical creature half-man, half-fish called the Coomarra. We learned how to count sheep so that the faerie folk will not take them: Ain, tain, otherow, pothero, pitts. Umfit, cumfit, ethero, petherow, potts. No lost sheep! We sang The Holly and the Ivy and Lord of the Dance and a round in Latin, Dona Nobis Pacem. The Morris Men danced and the Cutty Wren was celebrated.

This was the winter solstice performance of the Christmas Revels. It’s only fitting today to note that not only do we experience the longest night this winter solstice but a rare full lunar eclipse, visible to most in North America tonight. The last time we had a full lunar eclipse on the solstice was 1368, so those clouds outside this afternoon better get on their way. I plan to stay up to see the red, red moon tonight. Moonlight can be deceptive in its own right, as reflected in the Tarot.  Are your eyes deceiving you?  Is there more to this story than you know?  Think you'll ever know? The full moon’s light made red by the shadow of the earth between it and the sun must be magical indeed. Is that a man in a red suit with eight tiny reindeer or Maid Marian with how many Deer Men? Ain, tain, otherow, pothero, pitts….

Gerry, don't worry.  We will do something else when you feel better!
Best wishes!

**

Want to know more about the fun and affordable California Revels, a bargain in the Bay Area with convenient and safe parking? Visit http://www.calrevels.org/ and get on their mailing list.

How about more adventure at Christmastime with El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista, California, an unforgettable performance in the historic mission right on the San Andreas Fault? Visit: http://www.elteatrocampesino.com/

Mercury Retrograde

I just won a contest for having the best Mercury Retrograde story! It’s a lot like winning the Darwin Award but on a much smaller scale. For one thing, unlike the Darwin Award, there isn’t a death penalty.

First, for those of you who don’t get what Mercury Retrograde is, it’s a term from astrology. Those of you who never got beyond, “Hey, what’s your sign?” may not grok this right away, but basically we have all the signs and all the planets in our chart. It’s not like they go away on our birthdays or any other day for that matter.

About three times a year Mercury appears to stand still or go backwards in relative motion to the earth. The planets don’t actually stand still; it’s the “in relative motion to the earth” that’s the key phrase here. It isn’t only Mercury that does this but Mercury gets talked about the most. You know how people talk about more crime and crazy stuff happening with the full moon? Well, some swear by it and some seek to prove that no more crime or crazy stuff happens then than any other time. But people still seem to note those times.

Mercury Retrograde periods are something like that but it’s not crime, at least major crime, and it’s not crazy stuff. It is little stuff that could send you over the edge, though. It usually has to do with Mercury-related topics like communication, electronics, new purchases, access to things, shipments, that kind of stuff. And during the retrograde times, people tend to be more aware of things going awry, snafus, if you will. And in fact, it also has to do with the “if you will” part. Mercury is identified with the Magician in tarot, presto, change-o, illusions, ability and the statement, “I will.” It’s the can-do card. In fact, it’s the ‘can do it in front of people’ card because the Magician is a bit of a showman. His number is 1. His cartoon character could be Thumper in Bambi. Thumper’s best quote in the movie is the ice skating scene where he zips across the freshly frozen pond ice shrieking for joy, “Look what I can do!” I love Thumper.

The Magician grows up to be a wizard after he gets over his Sorcerer’s Apprentice phase in youth. You see him more clearly next in the tarot as The Hermit. After he’s mastered the arts and tools ‘as above, so below,’ he retreats for a bit of introspection. Just being able to do something is not enough. How many times have we shaken our heads at youthful enthusiasm and hoped they will learn to use their force for good instead of evil? For instance, just because you can drive, should you? But the Magician is focusing on the “can” part of things in the first numbered card of the major arcana. He not only believes he can, he really can do it, whatever it is.

So just because the Magician can do it, should he? And that combination of showmanship and a dash of moral ambiguity gives him his Trickster reputation. So he is also Coyote in First People’s stories, an able magical creature with wonderful talents that you sometimes trust and sometimes don’t.

People have a natural mistrust of abilities beyond their own. It’s not so egotistical as it is just plain experience. If you’ve never seen something before, do you trust it immediately? Our natural case of the heebie-jeebies is part of that ol’ lizard brain telling us Yellow Alert just in case the new shiny or fuzzy thing has teeth and likes to eat people. Approach with caution. Curiosity is what we’re all about, but the point is to live through the experience.


Magician, reversed, from Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


When the Magician is upside down, or in tarot talk reversed, something is stopping him from doing what he can do. Or, the Trickster side is coming out. Things don’t go as planned. Unexpected results from your usual can-do may occur, but they are usually on a small scale. We’re not talking The Tower here. This is just the stuff that will drive you nuts. If it really is the little things in life, Mercury Retrograde is a time when those little things mean frustration, exasperation, errors in communication, etc.

Our current retrograde period lasts through Christmas. Think of all those fun electronic gizmos people give and get for Christmas. And the calls to the help desks for assistance when the durned thing doesn’t do what the instructions say. Instructions not exactly in English? Tab A, Slot B but there is no Tab A on your whatsit? You mean THAT is the On button? Oh, fresh batteries. I should have known. Yup, that’s Mercury territory. On hold for five and half hours with the help desk only to have the help desk person accidentally hang up? Mercury Retrograde. Your Magician is standing on his head. And he’s probably laughing. Funny guy. Ha ha.

I’m hoping Mr Mercury calms down for me but I wouldn’t put money on it. In my horoscope chart, Mercury is my rising planet, the first one to get over the horizon when I was born, and in my first house of self. Mercury is something of a big deal in my chart, so funny little things like the typical Magician reversed/Mercury Retrograde stuff could affect me personally a little more than other people. At least, that’s how they read it. I’m more likely to notice those little things. Good news, I’m more likely to think of them as funny, too.

My winning entry for the “retrograde-est” Mercury went like this. Theresa Reed, also known as The Tarot Lady, posted an offer for a free tarot reading to the author of the best entry on her Facebook page for a Mercury Retrograde story. Here’s my post:

It's the little things that send you over the edge. My 85-years-young friend has locked herself out of her house twice since the Merc Rx and crawled in through the window to get back in (pretty good). My husband could not get his electronic key to open his car, called AAA and they determined there was nothing wrong. Nothing. The alarm company called for routine maintenance via the phone, which hung up on us twice, then, finally, to diagnose an issue, I had to climb onto the washing machine. I told the tech at the alarm company that if she heard a scream, it was only me falling behind the washer and in that case she should call emergency to rescue me. Except for the constant laughter, we completed our mission unscathed, but the imagined picture of a 56-yr-old woman climbing onto her washer was just too much for the tech to keep a straight face. The housekeeper almost walked in on me when I was just out of the shower and not ready for guests. I got to the door on time to keep it closed, barely. Pun intended. He wouldn't have been phased though. And, finally, I figured out the reason I'm so out of synch with one of the shops where I read is that...I'm not on their mailing list!!

Oh and when I tried to post this, I had to close my browsers and relaunch Facebook!

I feel like Queen for a Day because my sad story won the clap-o-meter but in this case it was the laugh-o-meter. Sometimes I think, because of the strong influence of Mercury in my chart, I gravitate toward this kind of thing. And, like the Magician and his audience, even when these little things don’t work exactly as planned, at least I’m entertained.

My prize for winning The Tarot Lady’s contest is a free reading over the phone. Hmm, you know, phones are covered by Mercury too. I think I’ll wait until the Trickster goes direct before I collect.

Best wishes!