Christmas List

I thought if I made a list of some of the material items I'd like it would focus me (a) away from unnecessary purchases and (b) away from obsessive purchases.

So...

• DVD player so that the Bean can watch her movies when she comes at Christmas
• Benjamin Moore paint for Princess Room
  
• Electric coffee maker that I can walk away from (I have a Chemex)
• Small microwave oven to replace the one I've had for nearly 20 years that my daughter Mary gave me
• More floral sheets and pillow cases
• Duvet cover for guest bedroom quilt
• Battery powered Grundig AM-FM radio
  
• Luxury quality, perhaps Egyptian cotton mattress pad

Full Moon Dreams

At one time I had hundreds of tarot decks and dozens of books on the subject. It was a collection I started at age 19.

Before I left New York I decided to sell most of them. With the help of two friends who had large tarot mailing lists, and two tarot groups of which I was a member, I was able to find good homes for most of the decks and 90% of the books.

Now three years later I can't recall what I kept--so an inventory is in order. It won't be as long a list as it once was and it might settle my mind as someone recently wrote asking for a deck and I had to pause to see if I had it.

Artist Inner Vision Deck, self published
Daughters of the Moon , self published
Full Moon Dreams, Lunaea Weatherstone, self published
The Golden Tarot, Karen Black (US Games)
H.R. Giger Tarot (self published)
The Healing Tarot, Rev. Jennifer Moore (self published)
Mantegna Tarot, Los Scarabeo, Torino
Mary El Tarot (self published)
Medicine Cards, Jamie Sams & David Carson (Bear & Co)
The Medieval Scapini Tarot, US Games
Morgan-Greer Tarot, Morgan and Morgan
Motherpeace Round Tarot, Karen Vogel & Vicki Noble (US Games)
The Mythic Tarot, Juliet Sharman-Burke & Liz Greene
The Rohrig Tarot, Carl W Rohrig, Bluestar Communications
The Shining Tribe, Rachel Pollack (Llewellyn Publications)
The Shining Woman, Rachel Pollack (Aquarian Press)
Songs of the Journey Home, self published
Star that Never walks around, self published
The Tarots of the Origins, Sergio Toppi (Lo Scarabeo, Torino)
Tarot of the Witches (AGMuller)
Thoth Tarot, Aleister Crowley (US Games)
Transformational Tarot, Arnell Ando, self published
Transformational Tarot, Arnell Ando (US Games revised edition)
The Universal Dali Tarot, distributed d'art surrealista s.a.
Vertigo Tarot, Dave McKean and Rachel Pollack, DC Comics
Visconti Tarots, Lo Scarabeo

And a few other decks I'm sorting out.

Image: Ace of Disks, Mary-El Tarot

Conversation with John Updike

John Updike on politics at the New York Times.

Senator John McClain

Once I held the Senator in esteem, now I loathe him and all his dirty politics. Wanting to be president does not give anyone the right to use any tactics, all tactics and dirty tactics.

Shame on you Senator!

Yes it snows in New Mexico ... Tony Hillerman

Several years before I moved to Taos, I was introduced to Tony Hillerman's fascinating mysteries by a colleague. She lent me the first in the Navajo series and I continued collecting and reading these mysteries during my year long sojourn in New Mexico.

Now it appears Mr. Hillerman has died.

I own all the Hillerman books that detail events on the Navajo, and the wonderful trials of his main character, Joe Leaphorn. In addition to learning more, in a fictional fashion about the Navajo, the books healed an interior rift that occurred after a brief, but not pleasant experience I had driving through the Nation in 1992.

Alone, with half a tank of gas and no cash, I was turned away and sent in an easterly direction, a 400-mile drive into the Hopi. I was so tired when I reached any sign of light that I nearly collapsed in the arms of a Hopi woman who not only put me up in her guest house, but got me to the Community House to eat some rather rich but filling dinner. Fourteen years later, 2006, my friend Dorothy and I stayed at that same Community House and shared a much improved, but still heavily starched menu.

And although by the end of my quest in 1992, I knew more about the People and in particular the Pueblo, it was Hillerman's portrayal of the Navajo that opened my eyes to the subtle differences in culture. And later when I spent some considerable time among the Zuni, my ignorance dissipated and I was gifted with friendship and knowledge.


Here's a tribute to Tony Hillerman.

A look at Ohio

With 1 day and 23 hours left to Election Day, I am not only fascinated but enthralled by the tides that move in and out of polls, observations by the press and the bloggers but most of all the state of my stomach juices.

I am running on scared coffee beans, late nights and Internet madness.

Not since John V. Lindsay have I been so hyped up. But this time I am also in a panic that the polls are off, the election booths rigged and my own State split between the two candidates.

I realized some time yesterday this is the first time I've lived in a purple state of indecision. Having spent so much time in either New York or New England, it always seemed I was surrounded by like-minded voters. Even when I lived in the Hill Towns of Western Massachusetts where my Kennedy lawn sign was stolen, three times, I knew that Massachusetts as a whole would re-elect the Senator. And then I only had a small portable radio and was in a latitude high enough to catch NPR.

Now I live in cow country, an underpopulated rural hamlet, with too much personal access to hourly updates. I am surrounded by these blue and white lawn signs that say, "McClain-Palin." My neighbours to the right and left of me are staunch Republicans, and on this road, I can count with one hand the neighbours who will vote Democratic.

It's only when I head over to Route 97 and into Sullivan County that the same blue and white lawn signs seem to shout "Obama-Biden" but even in New York, hereabouts, we are talking rural homesteaders or weekenders. I'd hazard a guess that the lawn signs are on those plots of land belonging to the outsiders--a term often applied to those who weren't born and bred in these here hills.

So, I for one will be relieved when this Election is over!

The World XXI

Today I plucked the World (XXI) from the Transformational Tarot deck.
Does it mean my world or the greater world--the world of history, politics, global warming, success or failure at making it better?

Two of Wands

A new month, a possible new path and a new assignment--not bad to get the Two of Wands today.

Although frankly all I've been up to is reading about the upcoming election, getting caught up on Studs Terkel, thinking about buying a Rotring 600--that I absolutely don't need and may not want--and mentally attempting to find a smooth path into a novel.

Late last night, but before the midnight hour, I scribbled and scribbled, joining one thought to another--mashing my teeth in an effort to grasp the loose thread before I went to sleep and lose forever the magic that might, just might develop into something more than the nonsense on the pad in front of me.

By this morning, all thoughts, loose or tightly woven, were lost to the new day.

I might be able not to recapture those thoughts today, but I must certainly take the Two of Wands as a positive sign that something can be salvaged.


Imagine: Mountain Dream Tarot (self published Nettles)

Do you remember Watergate?

John Dean was President Nixon's Counsel and has some very interesting things to say in his new book and here as Commentary about the GOP.