Feeling Special

I don't think I'm bleeding, at least not much. Tony the stripey cat just did handsprings across the bed with my chin and neck as gymnastics mats.

We had a long night. Louie the puppy was up at least four times and Tony woke me up twice trying to get under the covers. I love it when the weather turns cool and the critters want to snuggle. The second time Tony requested to burrow along my side, Louie just happened to be under the covers too. I interrupted my dream to speculate how long I would be able to keep my legs and whether I would be able to get them reattached. Fortunately for me, Tony realized this arrangement might not be the best and retreated before Louie woke up.

I resumed my dream about the neighbors and their four lions. The neighbors don't actually have four lions so save yourselves the gasoline and resume spending time with your loved ones and your fine Thanksgiving dinner.

But I was thinking about the nature of pain and memory nonetheless even as I was dreaming and the lions hopped easily over the neighbors' fence to roam the acreage in lionlike pursuit of something other than me or my loved ones. Tony' s springing about brought the night's events back to mind. I thought about some of the folks I have read for recently.

In my dream, the lions were lovely and I just didn't want them to consider me food. On waking and enjoying a bit of a lie-in to be even more grateful for, I contrasted my dream with the readings.

"Why did they hurt me?" It's a common question. It presumes intent that I almost regret to say is unfounded.

Tony didn't intend to hurt my chin (really, I'm fine. I can barely tell now). He just meant to get to the other side of the bed. Even if the dream lions had turned on me, it would not have been their intent to hurt me. Their intent might have been to eat to stay alive or to defend themselves against a perceived threat. I would be just as hurt, of course, but the intent would not have been there.

Sometimes the hardest news I have to deliver to people in a reading is that what happened really had nothing to do with them. It doesn't negate the pain by any means. But it can be difficult for some to hear that they aren't always the star of their own personal drama. For some that's just unthinkable. Of course, it was personal. It happened to me, right? Well, sometimes you are the star. Sometimes you are just part of the scenery, a vase tipped over in the rumblings of an impersonal earthquake.

Not to pick on modern Christians, although we do and sometimes for awfully good reasons, but the concept of having a personal lord and savior doesn't mean everything that happens is about you. Has our modern concept of deity arisen out of a narcissistic world? What else could make it unthinkable and even disappointing to grasp that most of the time it isn't about you, good or bad? Sometimes, stuff just happens.

I heard a saying recently that Fate (not determinism) may be what other people do to you, but karma is what you do in response. And I liked that because we do have the ability to choose. I decide to mourn. I decide to celebrate. I decide to speak up. I decide to retreat. I decide to postpone a decision. I decide to take something personally. I choose to take responsibility, whether it is mine or not. I choose to ignore responsibility. And perhaps ultimately, I choose to look at the world from another's point of view, with their fears and pain and blind spots and hopes. Or not.

And after a while you realize that people are mostly thinking about themselves as we are biologically meant to do. Of course, we hope each of us endeavors to rise above that.

The 9 of Wands always feels like a pause before the final push, one last moment to exercise our ability to choose how to approach the situation. It can be like your self-assessment in performance review. You, leaning there on your wand, the one you selected among many wands, reflect on the the past a moment. You can think about the pain and the struggle. Maybe going further isn't worth it, given the energy you have left. Maybe you ignore the bumps and just recharge a little. Your travels have as much to do with the energy you bring to the road as the energy the road brings to you. Maybe more, because you have a choice.

If you take yourself out of the spotlight, will you stop being special? Isn't that just a little silly? You're just as special as anyone else, no more, no less. Oh, perhaps a little bit more? You may then be able to laugh and help others and take care of yourself for the next steps along the way.

Happy Thanksgiving and best wishes.

How Was Your Week?

Greetings to all my friends at Readers Studio 2014 and all my friends who aren’t there, too! It turns out that it’s probably a good thing I didn’t come this year because I would have spent a great deal of what should be an utter blast (and from the pictures posted on Facebook so far, it is a blast) working for my Day Job.

I haven’t pulled an all-nighter in some time now but I did Thursday night. It was the usual world-will-come-to-an-end-if-this-stuff-isn’t-done-at-exactly-the-right-time sort of thing. Perhaps you have that kind of thing somewhere in your lives? Even a wedding or a birth can be a little flexible in its schedule, but not computer stuff that has regulations and oversight and other Important Factors.

I thought I would describe my week in terms of my Art Postcard Tarot.

Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

One thing that’s really accurate in this reading is the addition of a new floppy-eared fellow named Louie to my household. He arrived “after hours” one night in February and after trying to find his owner for a month, the Animal Control folks declared him officially mine. There’s some hunting dog gene in this pooch, a natural pointer, particularly in the assignment of blame phase of household disaster discovery. Louie points to the cats. The cats point back.

Louie’s best friend is Lizard, a soft squeaky green fellow who hasn’t got a lot to say unless he’s being chewed on by a little brown dog. Lizard has been part of the household since before Louie’s arrival, but only Binket paid attention to him and that only when she was working out her Puff Baby drama, a play of meller-drammer not yet available on Broadway.

Besides the accidental acquisition of an enthusiastic puppy, I have also purposefully acquired a new camera lens and have been going hog-wild with close-up photos of the flowers in my yard. It’s a “macro” lens that will just about let me count the hairs on an aphid’s nose. For those of you who are really photographers, I apologize but goodness this is fun!

I've been such a poor correspondent lately that my friend Sally, bless her heart, had to track me down and call to see if I were still alive. Oops. I've been busy. I had this birthday thing and, well, it's a long story. All of my stories are long stories.

I’m still planning on reprinting my decks later this year but currently have a few copies of the Dust Bunny Lenormand still available. To those who have asked, my Off-Center Lenormand will not be reprinted until my partner in that venture, Dan Pelletier of Tarot Garden, gives the signal. Dan tends to like collectable decks to be collectable and likes the idea of that deck being limited to its original 100 copies. Sorry to disappoint, but unless you see Off-Center up for resale on an auction, you are likely not to find a copy.

On the list are the Picture Postcard Tarot, the Art Postcard Tarot, the Victorian Trade Card Tarot and the Tea Tarot, again in limited quantities, later in the year. I’m gathering contact information from those interested in these decks, so stay tuned.

I will attend BATS again this year in San Jose and have a few other events in the works in the San Francisco area, and perhaps a new deck or two! Stay tuned for more fun!

Best wishes!

Los Dos Oros

There’s a little convenience shop a couple of blocks from here called Los Dos Oros. I look at it and call it The Two of Pentacles. The Two will often have the freshest Serrano peppers and vine-grown tomatoes, essential ingredients in my home-made salsa. If I can’t get the short season heirloom tomatoes I love, large, party-colored and dead ripe, then The Two usually has tomatoes as good as any in town. And I want to keep the little place going. I miss neighborhood groceries and I want to keep this one in business. Tarot reader doth not live by salsa alone, of course, so I do have to shop other places for things not usually found in the bodega. Still, I get a kind of snuggly feeling that a place that helps me juggle my dietary needs—addictions?—is named like a Tarot card with a similar meaning.

I think there may be a point in the “total immersion” process where every Tarot student starts to see Tarot cards everywhere. Suddenly the 7 of Swords is dancing to “Hernando’s Hideaway.” The Thanksgiving Day parade starts to look like the 6 of Wands. Flashbacks of my homeless hero Alma appear to be the 9 of Wands, taking a break from the hardships of life while sitting on a bus stop bench. Children under the Christmas tree playing with the boxes as much as the toys that came in them show a happy 9 of Cups.

One of my friends, Donnaleigh de LaRose, posts images on Facebook and asks, “TarotPic Teaser: If this picture were a tarot card, which one would it be? What do you see?”

Participants look at the image and relate it to their understanding of Tarot and post their answers. I play along sometimes if the picture grabs me and I usually post why I think so. It isn’t to influence what the “right” answer “should” be. It’s just for fun. In the same way, though, that play is the work of children, these fun exercises are reinforcement for those eager to learn tarot.

A couple of other friends will occasionally post, “People. People people people. Not everything is a Tarot card!”

Silly experts, I think of them, gently, fondly, lovingly. They are just past the learning phase where everything suddenly becomes a world of pattern recognition. The students trip over their robes rushing to see the Yin and Yang and declare, “A-ha! The Lovers! Where one ends, the other begins! One completes the other but never becomes the other.” Yes, Grasshoppers. Soon they will understand that the pattern is within human intelligence, within the mind and connect, if they are fortunate, that the spirit of the pattern is what they have breathed on or at least the museum-quality glass that stands between them and the idea and ideal, between them and the essence of the archetype.

If my very advanced friends had not progressed beyond the thrill of discovery of pattern recognition, they would likely have been bombarded forever in the madness of meaning in everything. Some people get lost there. The people I am thinking of did not get lost, at least not for very long. They emerged with filters and understanding.

But I love the Tarot learners at the “collector” phase. Even if they are not collectors of decks, they are collectors of the sight of a concept portrayed another way, collectors of the enrichment of meaning, collectors of the correlation between symbol and definition.

In preparation for a road trip I want to take this year, I dragged out my books on Puebloan rock art. I have some favorite places to go, places where I could spend hours looking at the carvings made in the oxidation-varnished sandstone cliffs in the Four Corners area. I want to go to some other places with rock art, too. So much of the fun of travel is anticipation so one of the tasks will be mapping the route. But for now, I’m noodling into the details of the topic.

Since I’m a used bookstore hound, some of my texts on the topic are older, like F. A. Barnes’ Canyon Country Prehistoric Rock Art. My first impression is gratitude that I am not considered an expert in this topic and as such I will be at worst vilified for being unlearned. I’m grateful because, while this book has some wonderful photography of rock art in the Four Corners area and some good information about materials, I think Barnes himself is one rude dude. Intermixed with the really valuable information about what was known in 1982 about the people who lived in the area before the historic period (that’s, uh, the invasion of the people who were sure that their technology, intelligence and religion were much better than the people who were living there at the time) is something I feel liberated by my lack of standing and expertise to label as at the very least bad manners.

Barnes is democratic in his insults in the text. He insults amateur archaeologists, even those with extensive knowledge, along with the ancient peoples he studies. Distilling his thoughts, Barnes thinks we’re all stupid.

Per Barnes, the amateur archaeologists are stupid for trampling sites, pot-digging and collecting trophies, destroying the pristine areas so that real archaeologists have trouble making heads or tails of them. My own two gold coins come out at this point. I agree that stumbling into an archaeological site and messing it up is very disappointing. In fact, every archaeologist, amateur or otherwise, has likely destroyed wildly important evidence, microscopic and otherwise. So, F. A., pointing fingers at the enthusiast does seem to point those other fingers right back at you. Methods have changed since 1982 and I’ll bet you messed plenty of stuff up.

Worse than that, because we “advanced” people should be more responsible and can stand to be picked on by scientists our own size, roughly, Barnes then goes on to berate the people who seek to find meaning in the images carved on the rock walls. Not only is our New Age interpretation of the most innocent kind such as, “Oh, look! A frog!” and “Wow, I think they’re saying that up the river and close to the mountain range there are a lot of deer,” wrong-headed. It gets worse.


Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park
(c) Copyright 2007 Marcia McCord

 Barnes says that since the designs are not lifelike representations of people, animals or anything else they carved into the walls, they were not the charming stylistic choices of a people who saw things a certain way. They are, according to Barnes, “bad artistry.” While it seems certain that the rock art, done over hundreds of years of occupation of the area, was done by adults, Barnes has concluded that they had a primitive, child-like intelligence. In short, they were stupid, too.

To which I say: Barnes, you meathead, you! How can you possibly say all these people are stupid? After all, you yourself call them “Anasazi,” a version of the Dine (Navajo) word for “ancient enemy.” Who on earth would call themselves Ancient Enemy? Your ancient enemy, maybe? (No insult to the Dine intended. Lovely people.)

Oh. I forgot. There are those computer games. I wonder what the archeologists will make of those?

While I’m not fighting with Barnes, his bad manners, misanthropy and obviously poor upbringing, I am getting a lot of information. Like the Two of Pentacles, you have to juggle the good with the bad and figure it out yourself.

Oooo, look! A Super Nova!

Best wishes!

Rubber Meets the Road

“There’s still time to change the road you’re on…” says the Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven.” Sometimes, you wonder if there’s still time though, don’t you? Birthdays will do that to you. Mine is coming up. I don’t mind. In fact, I revel in my birthday every year.

I like the idea that your birthday is your own personal New Year. You don’t have to wait for anything to happen in Times Square. Then again, usually you don’t get fireworks either. Celebration of a smaller scale doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. But it’s a great time for reflection, resolutions, goal-setting. It’s like your annual review at work or at least your own status report time.

If you’ve worked for someone other than yourself, you’ve probably had an annual performance review. If you’re like me, you hate them. The last thing in the world I want to talk about is a review of my shortcomings (hey, I AM standing up!) with someone whose view of your year is jaded by cold, cruel objectivity. And, if you’ve been working as long as I have, you’re pretty sure there isn’t anything out there like objectivity because, let’s face, humans are subjective. And yet, you’re expected to have an adult conversation with someone that you can’t exactly argue with. My favorite saying for moments like this is one I borrowed from my nephew, Rob, “SIGH.” Yes, I say this to myself.

So status reports and reviews are to be endured. So the big difference here is that when you have this conversation with yourself, you can argue. Take my advice, don’t do this aloud in front of people or if you do at least have the stealth to wear a Bluetooth so people will at least think you’re on the phone with someone, someone besides yourself.

OK, so now that I have you set up for the worst possible birthday you’ve ever imagined, we’d better set some ground rules.

1.      No mirrors. Hey, get real. You’re one year older. There may be grey hairs. There may be some extra pounds. There may be hair where it shouldn’t be and no hair where it should be. There might be speckles and spots and sags and wrinkles. You’ve earned all that. So, no mirrors. Do what you can, but it's not part of the review. OK, feeling better?

2.      No fair bringing up stuff from more than a year ago. This one is hard, isn’t it? You’ve got all those tapes playing in your head, all those things to kick yourself around the block about, what you might have done, what you didn’t do, what you did, what you shouldn’t have done. That was then. This is getting a little better, right?

3.      Here’s a biggie. It’s no fair grading yourself on something you couldn’t control. My dad was really big on this one. Both my mother and my step-mother died of cancer. My dad kept beating himself up because he “could have done something.” Even my most annoying daughter-logic wouldn’t let him absolve himself, “Daddy, you mean to tell me that you had the cure for cancer…and held out…twice?” He would tilt his head and raise his hand, his gesture for crying uncle when you had him. But seriously, think back over the last year and ask yourself if you could really control the disaster or perhaps just embarrassing flub that’s caught in your craw from the last year. Put through this filter, the list should be getting shorter of things you’d like to discuss with yourself, right? So, as much as I would like to spend time complaining that once again I did not win the Lotto, the tiniest bit of liability I can own up to is that I did not buy a ticket. Oh, well.

There are probably more ground rules, but I’m getting bored so you must be too. You get the idea, though. If you are going to pick a fight with yourself, you have to fight fair. But wait! You have to be fair when you’re patting yourself on the back too. That means no taking credit for things you haven’t actually done. Thinking about dieting isn’t dieting. We’re clear.

I like to think about the past year as part of a path or journey. Sometimes the road is bumpy. Sometimes the road is smooth. Sometimes there is rain; sometimes, sunshine. Did I stop and smell the roses? Sometimes. I think I could stand to do more of that. The Hubs says I need to get out more. I think he’s right. Did I work hard? Definitely, sometimes too hard. See that roses thing. Yup, I could stand some improvement in the work/life balance department.

Did waste my time on useless worrying, whining, procrastination, anger, drama or other emotional drains? Hmm, yes, some here and there. I’m really good at the sloth thing, maybe an over-achiever. I was pretty conscious of minimizing the drama and anger, though, not that I didn’t have ample opportunity to go overboard there. There have been some tempting tempests in teapots. I worked hard to make the distinction between those and Defining Moments.

Did I help others and myself? I feel pretty good about this one, although I think I could always help my husband more than I do. I ask him about this.

“Just scratch my head,” he says, reading the New Yorker with the snoring dog and the demando-kitty vying for his attention. It’s a small thing but he likes his head and back scratched.

I volunteered for stuff I didn’t have to do. I performed unplanned acts of kindness. I tried to give my young friends new experiences they might not otherwise have had. Dylan got to go ghost-hunting. Andrew got wheels, again, this time with a better lock. I helped at the spaghetti feed. Oh, a biggie: I helped with that family reunion last year, although that help was mitigated by my enjoying myself while I was there! I dragged my husband and friends with me on well-deserved breaks from the tedium. I tipped big. I gave people ups in line. I forced cake on the fire stations as a thank you for being First Responders and surprised all of them. I can be pleased with that. I could have done better, too. I tried to be kind. I tried to make people laugh. I prayed, prayed hard, for the sick, the sad, the poor, the mistaken, for after all, I am all of these too.

All-in-all, it was a good year. My solar return comes to me with a pretty good rating. There’s still room for improvement. I still have work to do. I’m not done yet. I’m looking forward to my new solar year.

The 9 of Wands shows someone who has had ups and downs in life. He’s taking a bit of a break in his journey, leaning on one of the wands like a walking stick. He needs a little support. He wears a bandage on his head. He’s been wounded, but he’s still standing. He assesses the road ahead.

If you look at your life as just happening to you, see yourself as a victim or recipient of what life has to offer, you just see the road, rough or interesting or a bit of both. But the secret of the 9 of Wands is this: If you look into the abyss and the abyss looks back, scary as that is, it also means that what you bring to the road is just as important as what the road brings you. You are an active participant in your life. Just take the next step and you'll bounce along, like a rubber ball.

Best wishes!

Happy Fall

“Marcia, why are you walking with a cane?”

“Oh, I went on vacation.”

Not every explanation makes sense right away, perhaps especially in tarot readings. When I read for people, I get part of the story. The cards, the person, the moment come together and trigger impressions, sometimes vivid, sometimes vague. The impressions can be in any form. People most often think they are visual because, well, seers see, right? Clairvoyance means “clear sight.” Sometimes it’s called “second sight.” But that’s really only part of the story. Sometimes the impressions are musical with lyrics of some silly song that start running through my own personal Muzak. Sometimes they are smells or sometimes very tactile. Sometimes words seem to just fall out of my mouth.

Of course my husband says this can happen at any time with me, even in my sleep. I don’t think I say anything of great importance when I’m sleeping. For instance, last night he says I uttered very clearly, “You will just have to get used to it,” or words to that effect. I figured I was talking myself through the new reorganization at work. But that’s another story.

Back to the cane and the vacation, naturally there is a story about why I’m limping. And it is connected to our vacation. I fell. It could happen to anyone. But the rest of the story is so much more fun than that, like a vacation all in itself.

I wanted an old-fashioned road trip vacation this year through the Wild West. We live in what is most certainly the Tame West in Northern California. Northern California isn’t exactly the California you see on television, all paved and sunny. That’s Malibu or Santa Barbara or Los Angeles or Orange County. That’s southern California which often seems like a world, or at least a state away. Northern California is cooler, often foggier, with redwoods and cows closer at hand than the crispy brown hills in SoCal. Northern California has the San Francisco Giants who just won their division last night (OK, no more baseball in this one; I just had to get a plug in there). Northern California is often, but not entirely more liberal in its politics, a point of view born out of kindness, love and generosity rather than starry-eyed give-aways. (OK, no more politics, either.) Roses and grapes and children grow well in Northern California, as do cats and dogs and ideas about environmental sustainability. So why would a person ever need a vacation from all that? Well, heck, I just wanted to go somewhere, that’s all.

Unlike my other vacations, this one wasn’t well planned. I had two weeks. I wanted to take my small car so we could share the driving. I just don’t think a road trip vacation is a good time to begin to renew my skills with a manual transmission. And I wanted to take the dog with us. He’s a companion animal and gets anxious when he’s not with us. And finally, since I acquired a new kitten who was just a few weeks old, I determined we had to take Pixie with us. It’s essential bonding time in her development. If we left her at home for two weeks, I was pretty sure I’d come back to a feral indoor kitten with difficult to correct bad habits. OK, so it’s a road trip with a cat and a dog. I wanted to visit my sister in Colorado and see the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park again.

That was the extent of the planning. No reservations, no particular route or itinerary and no other goals. This just isn’t like me. My husband is the spontaneous one, the one likely to go off on a trip without having packed. We made three very deliberate stops before leaving town: the gas station, the library for audio books and AAA for maps and things. And we left town.

We drove east, which for us takes us to the Old West. We stopped for lunch and had patty melts, forbidden fruit, in Lodi. We stopped for the evening in Sonora at a “pets ok” motel. The next day we drove the north road through Yosemite, past the meadows and mountain views, stopped at Mono Lake for a couple of other-worldly photos and pressed on to Candelaria in Esmerelda County, Nevada. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Candelaria. It’s a ghost town that bloomed and died with a silver strike in the 1870’s, evaporating about 1880 leaving the shells of the mercantile, the bank and a few other buildings. My husband’s great-grandparents were married there and we wanted to see it. I was so excited that we had found it, since ghost towns are so often not well-marked on maps, that I popped out of the car with my camera, ready to take photos of days gone by. I started to step up a small rubbly incline for a better view when I was immediately swept off my feet, landing flat on my back beside my car.

“Where’d you go?” my husband asked, noting my disappearance.

“I’m down here,” I sighed, camera in hand and a battalion of sticky, scratchy things now attached to the back of my knit shirt. I didn’t think much of the fall at the time.

We had a great time poking through the debris in Candelaria, discovering that the road approaching from the west was hardscrabble washboard rough, about an hour’s drive at 10 miles per hour, while just on the other side of “town” the same road was suddenly paved and striped, a convenience not noted on the AAA map. In our reservationless trek, we stayed places not found on Travelocity or AAA, like The Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, $34.95, pets OK. Bikers welcome. And free secured WiFi. The ice machine was broken but it was otherwise a pleasant stay. I particularly loved the Virgin River Casino and Hotel in Mesquite, Nevada, $24.95 weekday off-season price, again pets OK. We didn’t win big, but they really did have prime rib for $6.99 and the room was sparkling.

One of my favorite AAA maps, which we hear is soon to go out of print, is the Indian Country Map and we made good use of that. We wound through the Carnelian Cliffs through Navajo Country, marveling at the painted ponies and unusual sheep. We stopped for a moment at the Navajo National Monument, snapping photos of the dramatic landscape, and landed at the Ancient Puebloan site of Canyon de Chelly and The Thunderbird Lodge. Pets were OK there too, but the price was considerably more, $150 with the dog. And I slept poorly although the room was spotless and comfortable. We toured the south rim sites, made the acquaintance of several of the Navajo vendors including a 6 year old toothy animal lover named Randy who showed us his beading work and was fascinated with the dog and cat. We pressed on through back roads to Shiprock, New Mexico, and landed at the Tomahawk Motel in Cortez, Colorado. We took a little rest from driving and nosed around Cortez which included fine dining at Nero’s, shopping at the various trading posts and a short trip over to Mancos to view the hot air balloon evening display at the end of their Art and Balloon Festival.



Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park "Genesis Wall"
(c) Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

 Our Big Events were next. We took an all-day tour of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park, a huge horseshoe shaped reserve that holds not only historical Ute pictographs and remnants Chief Jack’s burned-out home, but also much older Ancient Puebloan petroglyphs, towers, kivas, storage bins and cliff dwellings. This park can be toured only with an approved Ute guide and is full of artifacts of at least two civilizations in nearly-untouched condition, unlike the highly restored and “swept forest floor” look of the adjoining Mesa Verde. With a generous offer to kitten-sit while we took our all-day tour, we set out with guide Marshall Deer and our driver Tommy to visit remote areas of the park where perched in the cliffs are Lion House and Forest House and other structures ca. 1100-1400. My favorite spot is still the “Genesis Wall” an Ancient Puebloan petroglyph wall telling the story of creation starting with the Spider Woman, the Spiral Path, Kokopelli, The Hero Twins, and all the way to the Fourth World where man leapt out of the jumping up places from within the earth.

From Cortez, we drove to my sister’s house on Vallecito Lake near Durango, somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 feet in elevation, just to remind me how out of shape I am. The weather was perfect, sun-splattered and golden-aspened, and we walked the new handicap-accessible trail my sister was instrumental in building. (I am just a bit proud of her, I admit.) We were treated to a Durango stroll with her women’s barbershop group and balcony seats at the Diamond Belle for lunch in the Strater Hotel.

Too soon it was time to head back to California, which had been deathly hot while we had been away, 108 in our town while we guiltily had enjoyed 83 degrees in the desert that day. My husband was treated to one of his favorites, a rip-roaring thunderstorm with a huge dust storm first act in Nevada. The kitten and the dog and I huddled together in the passenger seat while he drove through the dust and lightning with delight.

And then we were home and slept soundly in our own bed, soundly and late. I luxuriated and finally, on getting up, realized my bad knee wanted to bend in all directions again, not just knee-like. The only event was the Candelaria fall almost two weeks earlier. And so I found a cane to use. Our beloved chiropractor Dr Miller says, “Ice.” And I’ll be checking in with my Primary Care Physician.

I love our fall vacations! They give me a chance to pause along the road of my life and rest, to view the long road behind us and look forward to the long road ahead. Like the 9 of Wands, a little reflection of history helps us do better in the future and let us know that we can continue with our journey, even after a tumble or two.

Best wishes.

9 of Wands, the Flu, the Spider Bite, and Soup

Maybe I'm just a big baby, but when those several days ambush me all at once while I'm just trying to take one at a time, my Inner Child starts to whine. I like a little inspiration and the 9 of Wands helps. In the RWS (that's Rider-Waite-Smith) tradition, Pamela Colman Smith's depiction of the guy who's really been through the wringer but is bandaged and still going helps me whine AND get through it all.

My husband and I have followed the latest California fashion and have had at least two kinds of flu viruses, 2 flu shots and all the fun that goes with that. A few years ago, that would mean everyone was buying stock in tissues and cold remedies and the market would soar. Now, with everyone just getting by (or not), we're just looking for those tissues and cold remedies, period. We're both sadly getting used to making noises with our throats and noses we didn't think we could make. The train whistle thing has been especially entertaining. Inner Child: [sniffs]

To make matters worse, some sneaky spider had a quarrel with my foot on Halloween and scuttled off, leaving me with the trick instead of the treat. I'm still fighting that infection with an arsenal of traditional and not so traditional means. Inner Child whines: I even kind of LIKE spiders as long as they aren't on my face, so why me??

Rather than post photos of the mountain of tissues or my really ooky foot (Inner Child does NOT win this one), I thought I would post a 9 of Wands "hang in there, kids, you're going to make it after all" soup recipe that I created from things we had in the freezer and cupboards. My husband likes to call these "rareback" recipes because you "'rare' back and toss things in." It's a little more than that but not much.

Chicken Doodle Soup

My husband said there was nothing to eat in the house. I took this as a personal challenge and created this soup from what we had on hand. Because it was the “soup without a plan,” I called it Chicken “Doodle” for its spontaneous ingestion and because Mr. 9 of Wands looks a little like Yankee Doodle Dandy!

2 frozen boneless chicken breasts
2 14 oz. cans chopped stewed tomatoes
½ small bag frozen corn kernals
2 cups dry small pasta (I used tiny shells but use what you have)
5 small cans chicken broth, Italian seasoning (if you just have plain broth, add a little Italian seasoning)
½ red onion, chopped fine
2 Tbl olive oil
2 Tbl kalonji (from your local Indian or Asian food store)
Mrs Dash Garlic and Herb
Dash of salt
Dash of pepper

Dash of Jamaica Me Crazy
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp celery seed

Thaw chicken breasts (I used the microwave) until frosty instead of frozen (it’s easier to cut when still frosty), cube and cover generously with Mrs Dash Garlic and Herb and a dash of salt and pepper. Let sit for just a minute or so while you heat the oil (but no longer than that; please observe safe food handling practices).

In a large pot, heat oil, add kalonji, and heat until the seeds begin to sizzle. Add the seasoned chicken and onion. Brown until the chicken is cooked and the onion has started to carmelize. This is really important because the carmelized onion makes it just a little sweet.

Add broth, tomatoes, corn, dash of Jamaica, dry mustard, celery seed and pasta. (This is the "raring back" part.) Bring to a boil, then let simmer for at least 10 minutes or longer. Just don't let all the liquid boil off or it isn't soup.

Easy to freeze in freezer bags and reheat for lunch. Good with crackers or a sourdough roll. And, it is “good for what ails you.”


Note: The kalonji is the only unusual ingredient here and strictly speaking could be optional or substituted with dry onion. I happen to love kalonji as a companion with browning chicken, though, so try to find it, either in a small packet or by bulk. It is very inexpensive.

It is often called “black onion seed” and sometimes confused with black sesame seed. It is neither; instead, it is actually the seed of a lovely flower called Nigella or “Love in a Mist.”

Kalonji has a long history of being a healing agent:

“Nigella sativa has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries, both as a herb and pressed into oil, in Asia, Middle East, and Africa. It has been traditionally used for a variety of conditions and treatments related to respiratory health, stomach and intestinal health, kidney and liver function, circulatory and immune system support, and for general well-being.

“In Islam, it is regarded as one of the greatest forms of healing medicine available.”

For further information on this quote and nigella seed, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigella_sativa

Best wishes and best dishes!