satyapriya: Macchu Picchu 2009 (Default)
Only a second to transform my own image
from odd girl
to witch.

Books unlocked her from the oven,
the cupboard, from the deep, dark woods.
She took my place in suburbia,
a cauldron for belly,
a hearthfire for heart,
a spitting black cat of a mind.

I Became,
spell by spell,
now that I had a name to call myself;
a regard for the Moon that went beyond
astronomy and science.

As the natural and unnatural world grew my backbone,
shaped me curved and sharp,
so those old Phoenician and Aramaic slopes and bowls
gave me what I’d hungered for:
a label, an understanding, something to believe in.
satyapriya: Macchu Picchu 2009 (Default)
This year, I read 105 books, spanning fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Here are my top reads.

5/5
Sigil Magic - T.Thorn Coyle
The Butter Spirit's Tithe - Charles de Lint
Every Heart A Doorway - Seanan McGuire
The Most Wanted - Jacqueline Mitchard
Skylarking - Kate Midenhall
Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline
The Year The Music Changed - Diane Thomas
How To Be Creative - Liz Dean
Night - Elie Wiesel
Upstream - Mary Oliver
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
Cold Vein - Anne Tonner
The White Mountains - John Christopher
The Case Against Fragrance - Kate Grenville
Mythos - Stephen Fry
The Unexpected Truth About Animals - Lucy Cooke
The Rules of Magic - Alice Hoffman

4.5/5
Letters of Note - Shaun Usher
The Miracle Morning For Writers - Hal Elroy
Shanghai Tango - Jin Xing
The Mad Scientist's Daughter - Cassandra Rose Clarke
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J K Rowling
Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
The Twelve Spoked Wheel Flashing - Marge Piercy
Dreams Underfoot - Charles de Lint
Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett
20 Master Plots - Ronald B Tobias

4/5
Fight Like A Girl - Clementine Ford
The Winter People - Jennifer McMahon
Bell, Book, and Murder - Rosemary Edghill
Prosperity Pie - Sark
The Green Bell - Paula Keogh
The Massacre of Mankind - Stephen Baxter
The Wonder - Emma Donahue
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
Ritual Body Art - Charles Arnold
Lady Cop Makes Trouble - Amy Stewart
Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets - J K Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban
Maskerade - Terry Pratchett
The Boy At The Top of the Mountain - John Boyne
Mozart's Starling - Lyanda Haupt
Crow Planet - Lyanda Haupt
Beauty Queens - Libba Bray
The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge
Being Alone - Debi Hamilton
The Postman - David Brin
Beauty in Thorns - Kate Forsyth
The Woman on the Orient Express - Lindsay Jane Ashford
Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers - M C Beaton
satyapriya: Macchu Picchu 2009 (Default)
I've been listening to 'The Break' by Marian Keyes on audio in the car. There's no way I'm going to finish it before PizzaBoy and I head away for our own break to Gaia Eco-Retreat (review after experiencing). So I've googling to find spoilers for how it ends. No one's giving it away. Plenty of hints, and yeah, I've gotten all that, because I'm at chapter sixty-something. But I need to know how it ends. The audio book will shortly go back to the library.
While I was tootling around the net, yelling 'Give me spoilers!' I came across a blog called something like 'eats vegetables and reads books'. It amused me, and I spent some idle brain time thinking what I could rename this blog so it would be a witty and clever book review thing.
Then I shrugged, and thought 'medicated, munching, and reads books' was both derivative, and boring.

Anyway, last week, I finished reading 'The Rules of Magic' by Alice Hoffman. It's the recently-released prequel to her famous 'Practical Magic'. This time, we get the story of Aunts Jet and Frances, who, in 'Practical Magic' are far more interesting than the main characters.
In this book, we see the childhood of the aunts, plus their brother, and their adult years leading up to the beginning of PM.
Frannie is a hard character to grab onto, but Jet was compelling, in both the 'what will happen' and the 'I wanna shake some sense into you' way.
I have to be in a particular mood to enjoy Hoffman, and her writing style, because she tells the reader. We are never intimately inside a character's head. Never. We don't feel their feelings, but we see their actions, and their thoughts. This annoys the shit out of me normally, which is why, even though I loved this book, and the take on magic is hedgewitchy, kitchen witchy, fanciful, and homespun, I don't list Hoffman in my top ten authors.
Nevertheless, I did like this book, and it's a keeper, which is a rare thing for me.
Does everyone live happily? Would it be a Hoffman book if they did?
satyapriya: Macchu Picchu 2009 (Default)
Following the Super-Psychic advice via SnakyPoet, I am duly resting. Resting from attempting to re-educate myself in matters tarot or oracle cards. Resting from conjuring fiction out of whole cloth, because that will come when it wants to, it seems, or when the right prompt comes along. Resting from all the labels I've had on my business cards since the late 90's: writer, tarot consultant, palmist, belly dance teacher. All the stuff that takes me further into the world, and into contact with people.
Instead, today has been a day where I've cleaned the three toilets, and the bathroom, powder room, and en suite until their belly buttons shone. I've finished reading 'Gizelle's Bucket List', which is about a girl and an English bull mastiff, and PizzaBoy and I took a walk through Bellbird Dell. Did necessary texts to Bear, and VampireDancer. Wrote up next week's To Do sheet. Gave my animals pats.
And that's enough. Tonight, I'll continue reading, this time Patti Miller's new memoir writing book. Not to do any of the exercises, but to simply read through it, as I used to do with writing books. Inhale another writer's mind and methods and prompts, and then let it sit in the stew of my head.
I'm not good at resting. Haven't been since....well, forever. Since I felt I had to prove I was 'of use' in the world to LoafAbout, to the ExBastard, to my mother, OldestBrother, and people who were likely not judging me at all(the ones listed sure were).
Now, living in the House of Sloth, I am the crazy-active one, and every oracle, person, and the animals are all saying 'rest'.
Well, sitting on my bed reading with PB, the Pupika, Angel, and Penny is as close as I get. I'll take it, until my mind looses its hold on busy-ness a fraction more, and I can sink further into this thing called 'rest'.
satyapriya: Macchu Picchu 2009 (Default)
I signed up for a Tarot Art Journalling course with Kiala Givehand a couple of months ago. March was THE month. The Facebook group went crazy, and it was all I could to do a daily pull and a matchbox-sized sketch, despite great intentions. Halfway through April, and I've just done my first lesson - Sigil work.
Because I was impatient to finish, the face has ended up looking like every face I've drawn since I was 15. I wanted her more manga, I wanted her more detailed, older. Well, I got a little older, because I put some bags under her eyes, but she's definitely big-eyed, with the same scrappy long hair I always draw because I get fed up by the hair point. I haven't even given her a neck. Under her face is a black cauldron full of black, red, and purple. The sigil I drew is on her right cheek, not her forehead like I planned. Her hair isn't red, her eyes not brown (like me). Purple, black, and blue hair, purple eyes, pinky red full mouth. She looks sad on one side, slightly distressed on the other.
Anyway, there she is in my art journal, with a sigil on her face. Now, I can leave that there, and move on with the next lesson, or I can work magic with the sigil, empower it, and set it free into the world. And I think it's time to do exactly that. I haven't worked any magic in at least two full moons, if not more.
I shall refer to my T.Thorn Coyle book of 'Sigil Magic for Writers', and perhaps read the pertinent chapters from a few other books to see which way of sigil empowerment I fancy. There's more than one way.
The first part of sigil magic is complete anyway, because I can no longer clearly remember what the sigil is for. Forgetting the sigil is often mentioned as an important step. Create it, empower it, release it into the world.
A recent talk with SexMagicMan: he says he's never come across the idea of forgetting the sigil purpose. He's done loads of magic across more than 30 years.
Oh, what to do, what to do....
Reading is always a good idea....

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