Pink Coyote

New Year Tarot Spread

Please forgive me for forgetting where this was procured from last year. I did an internet search for New Year Tarot Spread after speaking with my friend Stevie of Owl and Crow about how much she was loving her reading. I did it on New Year's Eve and I have absolutely milked that reading ever single month of this year. It's really helped me with so much, particularly facing fears and staying open. I love the way the reading colored my experiences and guided me through the roughest moments. I started a fresh journal with a card for each page of each of the full moons (instead of the first of the month) and that made it easy to flip back to throughout the year.

I wanted to share it with you, in the event that you may be looking for some new year inspiration. I use a traditional Rider-Waite deck, but any deck will do, and it helps if the images really speak to you. As always, The Spiritual Tarot is my bible for interpreting the Tarot, if you need an awesome helper with a Jungian twist. I'd love to hear what your first card is-last year mine was the Wheel of Fortune, which kicked 2010 off with a surge of creative confidence. I'll be pulling my cards late tonight after an early party.

So here it is, and I send up gratitude for the source, which I cannot recall, but am eternally thankful for. Happy New Year, Healers, Seekers and Storykeepers!

Tarot Spreads for the New Year

**Each New Year provides us the ability to start anew, set goals and with any luck have a better, happier and more prosperous year than the last. However, the previous year may have been filled with challenges, obstacles and changes that have taken the zest out of life leaving some filled with apprehension as to what to expect in the coming New Year.

One way of getting a glimpse into what the New Year has in store for us is through utilizing the Tarot. There are various spreads available specifically geared towards the New Year. One of the most common is called The Zodiac Spread which provides a couple different options to obtain a yearly based reading. The typical Zodiac Spread is similar to the Keltic Cross. This spread looks at different aspects and areas of your life.

To do this spread, pull 13 cards placing them in a circle with the final card being the overall outcome or summary. The cards in each position are as follows:

1. deals with self expression, identity and how you see yourself.
2. represents tangible assets, personal income and earning capacity.
3. governs intellect and communication, family and relatives.
4. rules your home, property and the environment you find yourself in.
5. associated with pleasurable pursuits, romance and fortunate speculative ventures.
6. pertains to your job, working conditions, relationship with co-workers and circumstances regarding your health.
7. refers to partnerships, agreements, business relationships and close personal relationships including marriage and divorce.
8. governs death, rebirth, legacies, inheritances and new beginnings.
9. governs spiritual guidance and self awareness, travel, and often times denotes the best course of action for you to take.
10. describes your goals, ambitions, achievements, desires and success.
11. associated with friendships and affiliations that help to advance your personal goals.
12. denotes anxiety and hidden influences that can cause limitations and unnecessary suffering.
13. final outcome.

Another method of The Zodiac Spread is the month-by-month spread in which you pull 13 cards one representing each month of a the year and the final card indicates the overall general atmosphere you are likely to experience over the coming year according to the influences and elements present at the time of the reading.

Months that have a Major Arcana card land in that position will signify an important month. Any Aces that appear indicate a chance for new beginnings or a fresh start so pay particular attention to those cards and influences.

These are only a few examples but they are quite effective and informative in providing valuable insight into the New Year. And remember this is only an glimpse of possibilities as nothing is set in stone. Should you encounter a card that doesn't really provide clear insight, feel free to use clarification cards to assist the process.

To Your Divinatory Success! **

Medicine Bundles + Mad Rant

I set out to make some amazing bundles to fill my shop with and sneakily added them like a thief in the night last week thinking I would wait to share them until the holidays had passed. And then they all got bought up (not sad about that at all) except for one and so I'm setting out to make some more. This time I am adding some colorful vegan ones as well, because not everyone loves leather and I will be no slave to tradition.

Speaking of which, I have to kvetch for a long moment.

I was surfing blogs yesterday. One thing led to another and I was face to face with a beautiful woman who owns a beautiful store and takes stunning fashion photos of herself wearing daily outfits. You may know her. I don't know her personally, but my impression was that...she's lovely.

All this to say that her friend had made her a "cute teepee" as a display for her boutique, which she was decorating with the words "Fort Lovely" and painting some hippy flowers on, very peace and love and all of that. She also had photos of herself with overdyed bright, primary colored chicken feathers in her braided hair, the sort of which one would buy a plastic bagful from Michael's.

Stay with me, I'm not going where you think I might be. And I'm a terrible storyteller, so I'm sorry this is so damned long. I'm a card carrying American Indian (at least part of me is legit) who wears dreadlocks and suffers a mild form of Yiddish Turrets. I should hardly be trusted in these matters. But here's my best shot:

There were many comments on this teepee post. Among them, offended peoples, who were, I believe, non-Native with the exception of one (maybe two?) who accused her of appropriating Native customs in an offensive and fetishizing way...need I say more? There were links to sites which specialize in such matters, mainly an opinion blog, as well as a Jezebel article which shamed fashion designers for using tribal inspiration for their Spring collections. Also among the accused were cheesy pop performers who slung off fake headdresses and pranced about in faux moccasins, twisting the knife for the easily offended, but making asses enough out of themselves not to require any follow up lecture.

Oh, this is taking way to long to tell. I've got to make my point here. My ancestors probably killed a bunch of my more colorful ancestors, so I think I'm in a fair position to say: GET OVER IT, PEOPLE.

There was much guilt among the various websites, shaming and blaming, assuming, projecting and overprotecting. I get it. I do. But lighten the fuck up, already. I was disgusted at the amount of displaced emotions still floating about on the interwebs about stereotypification in art and fashion, etc. Natives today face major issues, most of them health and housing related. If the focus were taken off of fashion designers and one really wanted to help preserve a surviving, diminishing culture, wouldn't it be more productive to get active with those reservations or nations and offer your services, rather than henpecking about what's turning up in fashion and doing nothing else? Taking fashion seriously (remember, this is my first career) is a fruitless enterprise. It is based on trend, whim, and hype, nothing more. Coyote at work! (insert cackling yip).

The notion that a sacred way is the only way, ever, is ridiculously uptight. Letting go of the tight grasp on self-righteousness might be taken into consideration over there, in all of those discussions I can't bear to link to.

I've interacted with many non-natives over the years who are called to practice a more traditional way of life. Some have suffered guilt about using the medicine, wearing the garb, burning the herbs, beating the drums, sitting in the lodges, etc. All of which I think is useless suffering. Doesn't everyone have a tribal ancestry from somewhere? Don't we all share a primitive undercurrent handed down thousands of years to each of us, they whose customs were so similar in many ways though continents divided them? Does it forward our connection to each other and to Creator to continue to loiter in the past and fingerpoint? Don't some of us who live on this continent naturally jive with the vibe of the history of this land and it's people?

Blood does matter a great deal to some who are preserving an extinct people and their ways. I understand, and I honor it as sacred. And I don't know very much about it, as I was not raised in a household that showed me the sacred way, so let it be said that I only know what I know right now, what I've been taught by my teachers and the Earth Herself.

And in honor of oneness, diversity, evolution, and moving ever-towards the collective light shining on us all, I say, if one wants to braid and decorate her hair in a traditional way, or any other beautiful act of her own choice, that she should do it and do it fearlessly.

Love rules. Live in kindness. Walk in Beauty. Aho, Mitukaye Oyasin. The End.

 

I'm smudging this blog page. ;)

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Blizzard

 

 

A Week of Holidays

Boxing Day Love

Someone dear, who apparently knows just the medicine I need, honored me for the holidays by sending me The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master. It is translated by Daniel Ladinsky, who takes a few modern, snarky liberties with the Master's works, but conveys his desperate passion with good timing.

I read half of it Christmas Eve night while lounging in the bath, high on the bliss of watching my babies rip through paper and throw themselves screaming atop a telescope, a tabletop pool game, a baby doll, and a toy piano. I was stoned on the silence that fell over the house after they lay crashed in tangles of legs, blankies and stuffies; warm in the bubbly water and a window cracked.

I gasped appreciatively as I turned page after page, devouring enlightened passages in which the Sun and Stars, Light and Hearts are capitalized to indicate their holy quality.

 

THE GREAT WORK

 

Love

Is the great work

Though every heart is first an

Apprentice

 

That slaves beneath the city of Light.

 

This wondrous trade,

This magnificent throne your soul

Is destined for--

 

You should not have to think

Much about it,

 

Is is not clear

An apprentice needs a teacher

Who himself

 

Has charmed the universe

To reveal its wonders inside his cup.

 

Happiness is the great work,

Though every heart must first become

A student

 

To one

Who really knows

About Love.

 

-Hafiz

Winter Song and Solstice Light

This song has played in rotation quite a few times this season. The funny bit is that my husband thought Sara was singing, "Is love a lie?". This is the same man who, for many years, believed Elton crooned, "She's got electric boobs, a mohawk, too, you know I read it in a magazeeeeen, yeah".

Enjoy Sara Bareilles' and Ingrid Michaelson's video you have likely seen before, but is such a gentle, sweet love song, it's worth seeing again, no? If you know who created the animation, I'll send you some postcards. Yip!

Happy return of the light to all of you.

 

 

Medicine Lodge

Sioux Lodge

Saturday night I drove two and a half hours to Pasadena to attend my first lodge in a long time. It was a rainy torrent on the road, but I arrived just on time- to a roomful of strangers, all seeking a polishing of their spirits for the Solstice.

It was a powerful sweat, and a hot one, too. Especially that fourth round. The water-pourer kept that round short, but I could feel the water and all that I was letting go raining off of me in streams at that point, like tributaries flowing generously and sacrificially into the Great Mother.

Let me back up a bit and tell you about what I was really there for.

Midwinter is a traditional time for purification. It symbolizes a housecleaning and detoxification to prepare for the longer, deeper days of winter ahead. Though we celebrate the sun's return, it will be much colder before it gets warmer, in this hemisphere, anyway.

I consider that so many of us are Lightbringers. It is as if we have awoken to our collective purpose of giving away the best of ourselves so that others and the Earth will benefit. Thus, ceremoniously welcoming the Sun back to his seasonal throne, feels affirming to me. It feels a fitting celebration for the creative work ahead.

I went to release grief. Grief of the things which cannot be and that no longer are. Grief that clings and punishes when it has stayed on beyond its healing usefulness.

I was there to release fear, always fear. Because as soon as I think I'm the bravest mama in the world, something new creeps up and scares the holy beejeesus out of me and I have to learn to release that one.

I went to meet up with ego voices and the higher selves of those I share conflict with, to sit with them at the confrontation table of trance and heat, and to listen, and receive an understanding between us, and from higher Selves and guides, about how to proceed.

I went for messages from my ancestors about the things I have no control over- time-related grievances that can only be understood and accepted outside of the castle of time, in the deep and magical forest of trust and *always*.

I've carried many heavy burdens this year, as a year tends to pile up on a being, and this time of Peace on Earth is the perfect occasion to lighten the load and cultivate peace within. I felt called to sit in the lodge as the rain pelted the exterior, chanting and prayer-speaking in unison with fourteen others.

And I went to crawl out.

Exiting a sweat lodge feels like being born. Imagine the energy and heat that accumulates as we are making our way into this world. A Midwinter sweat, with it's focused intention and collective vision charges a lodge likewise. So as anticipated, I crawled out in the end, soaking wet and mostly naked, stopping to bless the Earth and my relations with my forehead to the wet ground, and stepped out into the darkness and cold winter rain outside the flap.

I went to brighten my soul up, release the funk, and ready my skin for the new year. My voice felt and sounded extra clear as I chatted and ate like a horse at the feast afterwards in the kitchen of the Firekeeper, who'd asked me to create a heartbeat while inside with one of his drums, at the instruction of the water-pourer. A huge honor.

A very young first time sweater spoke at the closing circle, saying that when he came in to get dressed, he'd studied himself in the mirror and noticed that something had transformed. His eyes were more...sparkly. He felt alive in a really different kind of way. It's no wonder the ancestors created so many roads to rise up and meet the Spirit. And it's not a bit surprising that so many of us are finding our ways back to them.

Eleventh Hour Wishlist

It's here, and truly at the Eleventh Hour! As I've anticipated Christmas this year, I've felt increasingly less stuff-oriented. That being said, there are still some fun and beautiful things I want to share with you. Wishing you an enchanting, magical season of giving...

Coyote Solstice is a book we love as much this year as we did last. Coyote is tricked by a drifter of a girl who takes him to the mall. He goes crazy with shopping and returns to his senses at the checkout stand. It's a fun way to teach children about overconsumption. Coyote returns to his home in the woods for a cozy meal with his friends..and the tricky girl.

A Little Lark has been a great resource for gifts all year and I love giving them my business. I particularly love their letterpressed cards and journals. But I'm showing you the baby, because...well, he's so much cuter than cards.

Felted Wolf and Lamb Baby Slippers by Little Hill Woolworks. Are these the cutest things ever?

 

Picnic, which is wrapped under the tree for Miles, but wondering if I'll be more excited to play it!

 

Wooden Sword and Shield for knighting about and learning how to play fair and act a bit chivalrous-like.

 

This Baba Hut found it's way to my inbox this morning and I have to say that I think it is the COOLEST stuffed thing I've ever seen. Can someone really be this clever?

Mother Nature, by Terri Windling.

 

The amazing vibrational healing talismans of Lilla Jizo.

 

The Top Hat, seen in my banner, can be found at Gentleman's Emporium, home of all your steampunk needs.

My favorite goodie of ALL TIME, by Next Organics, combines organic fruit and high quality chocolate. I've only had the cherries and the coconut so far, and could eat an entire bag by myself if left to my late night devices. Their website sells by the case, but I found individual bags at our local Whole Foods-like health food store. Find them at Amazon, too. It's the sort of treat you might be tempted to hide from loved ones, but so good you can't help but share...a few. Consumable gifts are really my favorite to give.

Aroma Naturals have been my first pick in candles for a very long time. Their Soy Vegpure line is now my uber-fave. We gave Peppermint Vanilla to Mile's teacher, but it's also offered without the whimsical Snowman for year-round burn. So much better than those stinky, synthetic Yankees.

 

 

Deer Flask, by Shoot From the Hip is almost outlaw enough for me to carry. I love the stitching up the back of this beauty, which will hold your cheer safely through the chilly season.

I'm loving This Warm December, the holiday album from Brushfire records featuring one of my three favorite Jacks, and also sweet little Zee Avi, among others on the label. It gets a frequent spin this year, sandwiched lovingly between Ten from the Galley and Hotel Cafe's Winter Songs.

 

And last, but not least, for the wild love on your list...

 

Happy Holidays...

Awroooooo!

 

 

 

 

No, Really, We're Fine

Today was Christmas photo day. It has been pouring rain for several days and so the best alternative to an outdoor picture, (which is pretty much the best I can take because in four years I still haven't figured out how to get indoor settings right on my camera for low light shots without a flash) was to shoot in front of the tree.

As you can see, it went swimmingly.

The non-stop rain also means that with a podunk satellite dish providing our internet service, internet has been very spotty.

I'm crafting with my hands in the interim, and will share tomorrow.

Peace in your home today :)

A Little Dar + Holiday Coupon

 

The Christians and the Pagans- a perennial favorite.

 

And coupon code HOLIDAY15 gets you 15% off of everything in ze shop, including original paintings. Just plug in the code at checkout time. Good through December 25th.

Wishing you more peace, and less red dye number three!

Tick Tock Ramble

The last day of FREE SHIPPING is tomorrow, so hustle to le shoppe and grab cards and prints for your special Christmas cupcake lovebunnies who are manifesting courage and change in the new year!

Would you like to receive updates about new listings? Email me here and I'll add you to my Constant Contact list. I'm going to be playing with Etsy's new coupon function in the next little while and I have an itch to try one out.

Speaking of *tick tock* I am getting a bit closer to sharing the Eleventh Hour Wishlist, and this year it'll truly be the eleventh hour when it finally posts! There are so many yummy sellers and goodies to share that each time I feel complete, another one pops up that I want to add. And so it goes.

Thank you for all of your support with my cryptic fairy tale of a last post. I'm excited to share some tools that I'm already finding which are helping me to fortify myself for the journey ahead. I have some fun things planned for the new year that might give all of us a bit of a boost, in fact. If you're familiar with the tarot, you know that the very first card is the Fool. I quite like him, so blissed out without a worry in the world, pack on his back, like Clumsy Hans. Coyote is the Fool, and so I've become rather intimate with the first position over the years. But the second card is the Magician, and he is the one with the tools. I'm still a Fool, make no mistake, I can't see much further than the end of my nose at the moment. But it never hurts to be prepared.

What's cookin' in your dutch oven, holiday fairies?

 

The Baba Yaga

Sami storehouse, Stockholm, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the chicken-footed hut of the Baba Yaga.

 

I'm totally headed for the hut again. This time I'm working to expand my toolbelt. I'm currently facing a challenge of rather large proportion that I feel extremely ill-equipped to handle alone-which is the only way I can do it.

I am in the process of creating a list of trials to complete during 2011, which I hope will help me to gain the skills and ego-strength needed to overcome my fierce adversaries. I don't think I'm ready to appear swordless in front of the two-headed dragon, which is how big my fear of this feels at times.

There are many, "I can'ts", "I don't know where to begins" and "Why didn't I get a degree in blahblahblahs", as well as scores more obstacles on the road ahead that I'm already hearing about in a series of strange cartoonish inner voices.

I'll be seperating a ton of black grains from a ton of peas, spinning flax into gold, questing for fire, and collecting the golden fleece. Attempting the impossible-doing the things I never thought I could do. The scary Baba Yaga, flying through the air in her mortar, paddling the air with her pestle, while threatening to eat me alive will no doubt test my courage and trigger my deepest fears.

As the solstice approaches, I'm growing my list of everything to be released. I'll be attending my first sweat in years, since I began having babies and nursing them through, which seems to be another aspect of this transition I've been experiencing between one who has babies and one who is finished having babies. At the top of my list to release at the lodge is that grief. I cry each time (like right now) I acknowledge that I am moving beyond that sacred place. I didn't see it coming when I was in the earlier stages of my mama bliss. It really hit me when I was weaning Ivy back in the summertime.

The body holds on to so much, doesn't it? And the mind spins a story that works to hold on, too. Unravelling those tales to find the meaning underneath is not easy. I'm asking for courage and endurance. I'm asking to stay open and vulnerable.

And so the Winter Solstice preparations begin as the light readies to return to the earth. Change flickers in the lantern, which I carry with me down the wooded road toward Her.

 

 

Sacred Listed

He is complete and in the shop...I'm excited about his message, I must say...

 

Happy Friday!

indulgence

snatches of solitude

warm, sunny mornings

elk albondigas

pannetone

a near-completed painting

a grieving ritual

babies who sing Doe, A Deer

laptop video-on-demand

going to bed before i turn into a pumpkin

going with the feeling

patching something up

hanging the stockings with care

slicing through the bullshit

bathtub tarot card readings

perfect holiday pedicure

shopping for children complete and ready to wrap

hilarious stories that threaten to make me pee

winter babies on the way

up late with harry potter and a saucer-eyed son

growing his hair out

the littlest one shouting "happy tutu!" when it's time to get dressed

pee pee in the potty

dreaming in pairs: geese, bats, doves

concert tickets taped to the fridge

reading the grail myth several different ways

all the pretty horses

holiday yoga giveaways

christmas dresses

sacred intention

skeleton woman

a bowlful of tiny beach stones

double fat eggnog

lion bars

barbecue chicken pizza

deep friendship made of trust, dipped in love, glittered with age

spirit gifts

mica flakes

horsie sheets

and nightcaps

 

 

Pan de Cielo

Being with real people who warm us, who endorse and exalt our creativity, is essential to the flow of creative life. Otherwise, we freeze. Nurture is a chorus of voices both from within and without that notices the state of a woman's being, takes care to encourage it, and if necessary, gives comfort, as well. I'm not certain how many friends one needs, but definitely one or two who think your gift, whatever it may be, is pan de cielo, the bread of heaven. Every woman is entitled to an Allelujia Chorus.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Winner Winner Foxy Dinner

Cat of Our Perspective won the postcard and greeting card giveaway! So fun. Yay, Cat! Your stories about the worst gifts ever kept me in laughing tears all weekend. Seriously, people!

As I try to persuade Miles to agree that Santa and Christmas are all about the giving, my words fall on deaf ears. And I'm determined not to bust his balls about it. Did I just say "bust his balls" about my five year old? Oh well.

While Miles and were last "discussing" the reason for the season, my other elf was being mounted by her friend, Gavin. She let us know she could handle herself just fine and was not in need of rescue.

Must be her foxy new bob, because he's never been this forward before.

 

 

 

 

giveaway give givity

Are you jingling your bells yet? It's upon us!

I've put together a pack of twelve postcards and four greeting cards, all that's required is that you leave a comment! Oh, let's make it fun-tell me about the worst Christmas gift you've ever received. I'll choose a winner on Monday evening!

I was given a 12 pack of resin-cast American Indian maiden Christmas ornaments with angel wings one year, that I still can't forget. They weren't horrible, but it just stands out to me as one of the most unusual gifts I've ever been given. Some of you have got to have much funnier stories than that.

Don't forget that first-class mail shipping is still free in the Etsy shop until December 13th, gift wrapping is available, and I'm also throwing a few postcards in with every order.

 

Elves

 

Just looking at them here makes my heart leap and wince all at once. How does it happen that they go from this and this to what I see before me?

It was time to share the wee people behind my days and nights here again and stop trying to give the impression I live alone as a peaceful and productive "creative type", as the other mothers at preschool have taken to calling me.

Tomorrow will be spent shopping for a vintage twin big girl bed for Ivy and a pony for both of them. Ivy wants to "Ride horse" all.day.and.into.the.night.

Well, I don't really know where to find a pony around here, but I'll make some calls. A freaking pony!? These are my instruciones from her whack-ass grandparents and, hey, I do what I'm told.

Friday I promise to post my giveaway here and next week....the wishlist! Yee haw!