I am less active here than I once was, but I still post monthly and have no intention of stopping.

Right now I'm working on a dream memoir based on the Spirit Dream and the spiritual journey that followed—and where I ended up.

I chronicled that journey here—and even when I faltered or got things wrong, the blog and those who read it were there for me. I talk about The Mystic Review a lot in the memoir and I don't think I can overstate how important writing here has been for me. 

The Spirit Dream saved me after personal tragedy, yes, but when I hit a wall two years later, it was the blog that helped me find my way through. And that happened repeatedly over the last decade and a half.

Learning is its own reward, but not always and knowing that people were interested in my posts meant more than I can say. So I want to thank everyone who has followed and supported me through all the ups and downs.

And I want to wish a happy belated birthday to my old friend, The Mystic Review!

_________

You can read the intro to the memoir here: The Story of a Dream

 A new tarot layout 

I find tarot helpful in gaining insight on creative projects. Recently, I discovered a new tarot layout in a book called Tarot and Psychology by Arthur Rosengarten PhD that is especially good for this purpose.

This post is about that layout and how I applied it. It also includes some basic tarot pointers.

Here is Dr. Rosengarten’s Layout:

1. What is for us? 
2. What is what is against us? 
3. What is known? 
4. What is unknown? 
5. What do we need to know? 

How I read

The images on the cards are similar to images in dreams and the same rules of interpretation apply. A working knowledge of symbolism and mythology is helpful. Knowing the cards is helpful too but, as with dreams, personal associations matter.

When I read, I try to take it seriously. I dialogue with the cards and allow plenty of time to journal and reflect. I usually lay the cards out on my library table. Having a dedicated space is nice because you can leave the cards out as long as you like, but it’s definitely not required.

The ask

If you read tarot, you have probably heard all of this before but I think it bears repeating.

• The first step in any reading is to formulate a question. The question should be open-ended and leave room for reflection. 
• Asking for insight and understanding is good. Asking the cards to directly tell you what to do is not. 
• Asking about the future or a specific outcome (fortune-telling) is the lowest and most disempowering use of tarot. 

NOTE: Not everyone agrees with this list.

My question for this reading was, “What do I need to know about my new writing project?”

As I shuffle I consider the situation, looking at it from different angles, then try to enter into an open or detached state toward the end.

The reading

These are the first five cards I drew according to Dr. Rosengarten’s layout + two extra cards I’ll explain as we go.

1. What is for? The Fool (0)
2. What is against? 6 of Pentacles (6)
3. What is known? The Star (17)
4. What is unknown?  7 Cups (7)
5. What do I need to know? The Empress (0+6+17+7+=30=3)*

Looking at the first 5 cards

I journaled six and half pages on this reading so I’m just going include a few highlights. As you’ll see in the next photo, I have a second notebook I use to write down actionable ideas I come up with as I journal. 

I try to look at each card like I’ve never seen it before. While I know all the standard “meanings,” I like to think about what I see in the card in the here and now. 

When I journal on the cards, I end each entry on each card with a question for further reflection.

Here is a condensed example of what I wrote in my journal on this reading:

The Fool (for) Idealism. Seeker. The journey. Beginnings.  The Fool as I see him this morning isn’t only beginning a new journey filled with naivete and optimism—he’s embracing it. His arms are wide open, like he is open. The future is uncertain, the chasm yawns, but he is wholly in the moment. I see a visionary with his eyes fixed on the vision. I sense the energy of new beginning. How can I ride this wave?

The 6 of Pentacles (against) Earth. Generosity. Wealth. Over-spending. Need. I used to always read pentacles as money and I still look at that first. This is a card of flow. It can be seen as generosity, depletion or need. I’m not overspending on my writing business but what about my energy? Pentacles are earth so this might be about energy lost through projects. I’m not doing too much (for me) but there are several steps left in getting my last completed project published. How does that affect this project? Are there issues about distribution I need to consider?

The Star (known) Hope. Balance. Destiny. The unconscious. Like many major arcana cards there is a LOT that can be said about the Star. Today, the eight pointed star reminds me of Inanna and her descent and the pool is the deep well of the unconscious. I am reminded of archetypal energies pouring out the water of inspiration into both the deep well and the thirsty ground. These are familiar (known) motifs and associations but how might they apply to the story I’m writing?

The 7 of Cups (unknown) Emotion. Water. Fantasy. Confusion. Discernment. The same card in the same position it was in last week. That reading was about fiction writing in general but its reappearance (like a reoccurring dream) makes me think I haven’t really understood the message. In some ways it mirrors the 6 of Pentacles (both show division). Cups are water and water is emotion and therefore related to inner states. How I am divided or conflicted and how might this be showing up in or around the story? What have I missed? How am I scattered or indecisive?

The Empress (what I need to know) Fertility. Creativity. Venus. Queen of Heaven. Selected from the numerical total of the other cards (30 = 3 + 0 = 3), the Empress circles back a familiar goddess archetype. Romance books explore the feminine (note the symbol on the rock). Many of my stories have themes of trauma and healing, including the vampire story I just finished and the romance I’m writing now. The Empress, seems to be addressing some reservations I have about my FMC. But is this accurate?

Looking at Cards 6-8

Cards 6-8 are extra cards not in Dr. Rosengarten’s spread. They are the two aces in the photos plus Strength.

Possible progression (6 & 7) I like to pull two more cards to join with the “what is known” card in the top of the spread. This is a little predictive on the surface but I think of it as where things are > where they may be headed.

The Ace of Swords (air, beginning, spirit, inspiration) > Ace of Pentacles (earth, beginning, material, building). To me, this shows a good progression, from conception to implementation. This is the energy of beginnings (which connects to The Fool), however, not of completion. Aces are especially meaningful to me, so much so that I once wrote a poem on the topic. It was about starting over. I'm starting over with a new story. What are my next steps?

An 8th card for clarification I wasn’t sure if my insights on the Empress were on target or not. Given the symbolism in this reading, I liked the idea of an eighth card so I shuffled and drew one. That card was Strength which is card 8 in the major arcana. It is also the featured card on my tarot calendar for August. The number and symbolism seemed synchronistic so I read what was written on the calendar. 

I liked what the calendar said about strength from within vs. strength over others and the reminder that the original name of the Strength card was Fortitude—which is one of the four cardinal virtues as represented in the major arcana. Fortitude is strength that does not break. The woman taming the lion in the Strength card (3rd from the left below) reminds me of Ishtar with her lions. The Star and the Empress suggest other related goddess archetypes (Inanna and Isis). To me, the mythology is relevant. But how might I apply it? 

My takeaway

I think the questions posed by the 6 of Pentacles and the 7 of Cups call for further thought. I liked the idea of fortitude as it might apply to bother me FMC  and myself.  The aces call for a shift—from envisioning to building but it is all very preliminary.

I found the goddess imagery in this reading interesting. Associated attributes like creativity, intuition and independence are qualities I want to further develop in my FMC and in myself. 

As I journaled on this reading, I got some specific ideas about characterization and backstory—as well as some general insights about the plot.

The cards will stay out on the library table until I feel that I’ve gotten all I can from it—but I already feel that I’ve made progress.

___________

🩸 You can check out the first chapter of my vampire story (which I’m serializing to Substack) here. Check it out if you're curious about how I write romance: https://barbaragraver.substack.com/p/trancing-miranda-vampire-story-ch-1 

Luna wondering when tarot time ends and walk time starts: 

On the other hand, I lost hope and a dream saved me, and I feel called to tell that story.

The Spirit Dream Intro

In 2008, at the lowest point in my life, I had a dream I couldn’t explain.

Unlike the murky, sepia colored dreams I was used to, this dream was sharp and bright and saturated with color. A spectrum of blue, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Vivid reds. Shining white light. A beautiful woman with deep-water blue eyes, radiating love.

Filled with sparkling gemstones and mysterious beings, the dream told the story of a journey to and from an amazing location, and it told that story coherently.

As the woman in blue guided me from one dream experience to another, separate themes played out, like story-lines in a movie. When the dream finally ended, each loose end came together in a memorable and emotional conclusion.

I woke up convinced that my mysterious dream guide was someone special. I knew that the things that she showed me meant something. And even though I had no idea who she was or what she was trying to tell me, I was determined to find out.

This was the beginning of a spiritual journey that carried me through the New Age, in and out of Spiritualism and Wicca, halfway across the world, on pilgrimage to Israel, back to Christianity, through parapsychology, and onto the doorstep of Carl Gustav Jung.

And as I underwent this journey I would discover the person I was mean to be.

In the next chapter I talk about the life events that paved the way for the Spirit Dream. In chapter two I share the dream itself.

The Project

I like online media because my neurodivergent brain can handle short articles and even shorter podcasts without a problem. Long-form writing is a challenge, but I was able to finish a short vampire novel this year, anyway, and have a sequel in the works. 

I feel good about those projects and there is no shortage of ideas for other books. 

The book idea I want to talk about in this post is a memoir about the dream I call the Spirit Dream and how it affected me. I don't really like the idea of writing a memoir, but I feel called to tell the story of the dream because of the difference it made in my life.

The Affect the Dream Had

I spent the entire decade before the Spirit Dream suffering one loss after another. The vision of a perfect family. My lovely home. The profession I had trained for. My extended family. My entire inheritance. My ability to write.

I wasn't diagnosed with autism then and didn't know that I was in deep autistic burnout, but I knew I'd given up. And then the dream came and changed it all. Not all at once, of course, but gradually.

My family regrouped. Finances improved. We moved into a new house that is much better than the in-between one. Those things probably would have happened, anyway. What wouldn't have happened was the life I now lead.

The Spirit Dream kicked off the spiritual journey that became the Mystic Review. It taught me things that mattered. It brought me back full-circle to the place I needed to be. Not the picture-perfect life I projected. My real life. The one that I was meant for.

It took over fifteen years to make that circuit and during that time, a lot of things happened. I went on some amazing spiritual adventures. I made and lost friends. I had other dreams that helped correct my course. I learned important things. I rediscovered my creative spark. And in the end, just this year, an unexpected synchronicity put it all into perspective. 

There are still more questions. Just like there will always be more to learn. But I'm ready to share what I have so far. 

Not my wisdom. Dream wisdom.

But that doesn't make the writing any easier.

How I Struggle with Writing

I have poor executive functioning and a lot of self doubt and when I hit the 10,000 word mark on any project, I start ripping thins apart. 

Which is part of the reason I started and restarted the Spirit Dream story at least five different times. Each version had a slightly different focus. One version was about faith, another was about autism, others were about me. And not a single one of those versions worked.

The issues were thematic AND structural, as my writing issues always are.

And then I started working with my dreams again and waking up in the middle of the night with words running through my head. The words came in phrases and paragraphs and pages—and one of the phrases was, "structure the book on the dream."

So I went back to the Spirit Dream and saw that I had divided it into five parts. This was something I'd done a long time ago to make it readable. Now it occurred to me that five parts might be a thing. And it was.

Sister Regina Kelly is probably shaking her head in heaven right now, but somehow I had forgotten Shakespeare and the five act structure.

The Spirit Dream, as I wrote it down that morning in 2008, had that structure. Baked in.

So what does all this mean?

The difference between a symbol and a sign according to the Jungians is that a sign communicates a single thing, while a symbol has many different meanings. Dreams are full of symbols. So it makes sense that I would get multiple insights from this most recent encounter with the Spirit Dream.

One insight has to do with theme and another has to do with structure. But the most important insight in my opinion is that is this is something I need to do.

As always, I will keep you posted <3

When it comes to the actual writing, however, I flounder.  I pray about it.  I try to write it.  I give up.  Then the cycle starts again.

Sometimes I decide it is not worth doing and step away from it entirely.  At other times I get ideas about how I might be able to make it work and start to feel like I can actually do it.  

This week was an idea week.

The idea was that I could base the testimony around the dreams have influenced me the most and how sometimes that influence is supernatural in origin. 

The idea feels right to me because dreams have played such a big role in my life.  So I decided to look at the  dreams I'd shared in this blog.  I was especially struck by A Dream About Me?

In reading that dream, two things jumped out at me.  The first was that it seemed to be about me telling my story.  The second was that it also seemed to be about how I needed to accept my authentic self, which I've been doing lately, in this blog and elsewhere, but was definitely not doing then.  

I'm not sure, to be honest, if I will ever publish this book.  But I do feel that looking at the role dreams played in my journey is worth doing.  I will be sharing some of what I learn in a future post.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of The Ring

I'm participating in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing) for the first time this year.  For those who aren’t familiar, the challenge of NaNoWriMo is to write a complete, 50,000 word novel during the month of November. And I've reached the halfway point and while I am struggling I'm also learning a lot about writing. 

I didn't blog much during November or work on my etsy shop and, while I did manage to get to Mass and say the Rosary most mornings, my focus on my home definitely slipped.  So, I'm happy to go back to writing at my previous pace.

But the main issue that came up for me during NaNo is the conflict I'm feeling about writing any kind of popular fiction.  Before I came back to the Church I had no issues.  Now, I sometimes feel that I'm writing things that conflict with my Catholic faith. 

This is not to say that Catholic authors can't write genre fiction because, of course, they can.  J.R.R. Tolkien managed it.  And lots of people in the Catholic Writers Guild seem to be managing it too.  

So maybe I'm over complicating it.

I may just need to read more Catholic fiction!

Appalachia, On Leaving  

Only rain and streets of wet magnesium. 

These hundred panes are filled with

watered down yellow light. 

But the corners of the shop are webbed

with shadow.

There should be carriages and gas-lights here

but there is only a maroon and gold awning

out there across the street.

The tiny panes run with rain, blur the words,

whatever words

glisten up above that awning.

Plate glass windows and clothes behind.

Kresge's yellow-purple cotton housecoats,

old display cases, nineteen-forties styles,

and every looks so old.

My face, these shops, slip along grey-hound windows

lose their hold

and vanish.

Plans forgotten before the coffee's cold.

Promises I can't forget.

And you within your distance.

Tomorrow is waiting in a shipping crate,

one more highway, one more home.

I can't stop now.

So this time it's Miami, because there's no place left

I haven't been.

I take what was me in two-fisted filthy chunks

and wrench it out.

__________

The postcard above is a the actual view across the river less than a half mile down from my grandparents farm

My Grandparent's Farm, Appalachian Mountains of NE Pennsylvania

"Winter in Miami" 

My grandmother only goes to funerals.  

She will never see Florida 

but she has the world  

in her windows. 

In the morning the river is fog 

and the trees are lost.

Sunrise happens way up high.

It spills down the slopes,

and shines brighter than itself

in the imperfections of old glass.

There is shade all day until 

the sun gets lost in the hills again

and the light come on.

Forever is train noises and headlights

in the dark and every star in the universe

shining out across the fields.

I have been to Florida over and over

until I lost count.

Black seaweed, white sand,

the ocean is always itself.

The whole of humanity sits on towels

to watch it

stretch out of sight.

I wasn't ever there for that.

I was there for the dark days

and the rain.

Days when the wild things

cry out across the everglades

and the black-winged birds

come pouring in from the North

to wage war

upon the backlot dumpsters.

Days when the ocean churns its garbage out

onto cold beaches

and the tourists leave Miami

looking for other 

better places

where the weather is constant

and the sea 

stands still.

Detroit, Michigan

About this Poem

I wrote the first version of this poem when I was 17 or 18 and, even though I rewrote several years later, it is still awkward.  In many ways, it is, and was, more symbolic than literal.  Because even though it is about the city of Detroit, out of all the cities I have lived in, I probably knew Detroit the least.  

It is true that I was born there but it is also true that we moved to the suburbs when I was still quite young and then to Indiana when I was 13.  Meaning that, aside from the occasional event or shopping trip, I spent most of my childhood in the suburbs.  Things were not, of course, all good winds.  As I think is evident between the lines of the poem.

When I was old enough to drive, I went back and forth between Indiana and Michigan almost every weekend.  I spent most of my time there in closer proximity to the city.  A few years later, after the birth of my son, I moved to the Northeast Appalachian Mountains near to where my maternal grandparents lived. And stayed there.

I never went back to Detroit.  And I never went back to Indiana either.

A Short Dream

Childhood was such a short dream.

Michigan, all good wind and apples

giving way early to Detroit,

The hard city nights chain linked

and dangerous.

Childhood was a dozen ponds,

soft with algae, reed encircled,

one big Rousseaux - with no explanations.

We trouped through the wind-breaker days,

the almost time for dinner evenings.

That's all.

Later there were barbeques

and cousins coming.

Sweet purple and white nights

of wet grass, wide lawns, air and space.

We spun beneath all the pale moons until

we fell drunk upon wet earth,

toadstools, violet skies and Venus.

The Church stood in its own

pale bright light.

Pastel coasts, dark communions 

and a light which said

Eternal Life

But all that I've seen passes.

And somewhere beyond

all that motion

angels

to guide us.

Guiding me

through yellow lit tunnels,

dark houses huddling behind

the street lights.

A clear cold world of dark cars 

and black glass,

A galaxy of light like China Town

at New Year's.

And in the end it was Detroit

that somehow captured me.

In spite of, because of

the rummage sale sidewalks

rain on the windows.

In the end 

It was Detroit.

Empty shops, empty streets

and too much light 

in too much darkness.

_________

Providentially, the end in the poem wasn't the end of my story.

 

Last week I participated in a guided meditation in a course that I am taking.  And I wanted to write about that experience even though it does not fit in here in the way I'd like.  

The course is given by author of Writing Down Your Soul, Janet Connor.  It is call Plug in for Writer's and I recommend it highly.  During this, our third class, Janet lead us through a meditation aimed at removing blockages impeding our creative flow.  We were to imagine each blockage as a rock.  As Janet guided as gently through the meditation, I found a rock at each and every chakra.  My rocks were made of different material.  Each was a different shape, size and color.  

At my first chakra, I found hematite.  At my second an elongated piece of slate.  At my third and fourth a sort of chalk.  At my fifth  a black rock, very like the deep dark and always slightly iridescent anthracite coal which is everywhere here in Northeast PA.  At my sixth chakra small rusty shards.  At my seventh a small gray stone of no particular type.

At felt a wonderful sense of release during the meditation but I also felt that there was more work to be done.  That night I had two interesting experiences during sleep.  In the first, I woke up  to a voice speaking quietly but very clearly inside my head (as often happens to me at night).  It said, "We couldn't remove all.  Some are gone.  And some are changed."  I wrote down the message and went back to sleep and began to dream.

In the dream, I was thrilled to have been given a box that held a litter of new born wolf pups.  Or so I thought.  When I got home however I discovered that the box did not hold the actual puppies but a collection of soon to be hatched wolf eggs instead.  Each egg had a different shape and size and, as I remember, there were five of them.  Several of the eggs were round and rock-like - but I was quite sure that they were eggs nonetheless.  

I was worried sick that the eggs might not hatch but in the end they did.  Three of the egg-rocks yielded ducklings.  One broke and I didn't see anything inside.  I was happy to have ducks but still disappointed that there were no wolves.  And then the last egg opened.  Inside was a tiny perfect coal black wolf and I loved that wolf immediately.  

I carried the tiny wolf everywhere with me in the dream and as I did it grew into a beautiful and affectionate animal with a variegated coat of brown and tan.

There's more to the dream than that but I wanted to comment here on the message which I am quite sure concerned the meditation I'd participated in earlier that day - and the symbolism of the dream.  The rock-eggs were like the rocks I encountered in Janet's meditation.  The coal black wolf paralleled my third chakra rock.  Black rock.  Black wolf.  And now a third black to complete the circuit.

When I was nineteen, I left home for fifth or sixth or seventh time.  My family had long since given up on stopping me, if they had ever really tried at all.  I was living on my own for some time at that point but I liked to keep my parents updated.  In the name of doing that, I met mother one rainy afternoon in a coffee shop on the main street of a town which I have, in an unexpected way, come back to.  I told her I was leaving and I tried to tell her why.

The reasons, then and now, were murky.  I was passionate about poetry in those days and I wanted to garner the experiences of a great writer.  My mother didn't understand that, or perhaps she did, but I felt more misunderstood after that meeting than I had before.  I sat in the old-fashioned vinyl and Formica booth long after she had left, writing poetry on a series of paper napkins.  Pieced together they became this poem.

Pittston, On Leaving (1979)

There's nothing for me here.  Only rain

and streets of wet magnesium.

These hundred panes are filled with a watery yellow light

but the corners of the shop are webbed with shadow.

There should be carriages and gas-lights here

but there is only a maroon and gold awning

out there across the street.

The tiny window panes run with rain, blur the words,

whatever words

glisten up above that awning.

Plate glass windows and clothes behind:

Kresge's yellow-purple cotton housecoats,

old display cases, nineteen-forties styles,

and everything looks so old.

My face, these shops, slip along grey-hound windows

lost their hold

and vanish.

Plans forgotten before the coffee's cold.

Promises I cannot forget.

And you within your distance.

Tomorrow is waiting in a shipping crate,

one more highway, one more home.

I can't stop now.

So this time it's Miami, because there's no place left

I haven't been

I take what was me in two-fisted filthy chunks

and wrench it out.

I am quite sure that those chunks, however awkward poetically, were black.  Black as Northeast PA coal and blocked fifth chakra centers and the dark-bright promise of a newborn wolf.  And I am equally sure that removing them was not as simple as I imagined.  There is, I suspect, a message in all of that.

One last thing.  Several years ago I had an odd and somewhat disturbing reading at a psychic fair.  I was beaten down by life a bit that day, that year, that decade.  And the reader I paid to hear that I was a phoenix or a swan told me I was a wolf instead.  My immediate reaction was that I did not want to be a wolf at all. That I wanted to be something beautiful and transformational and winged. The reader saw that I wasn't pleased but he stuck to his assessment. "Some people are birds and some are sheep," he said firmly.  "But you're a wolf, my dear.   Whether you want to be or not."

Wolves are brave animals, both alone and in a pack, and I suspect that that was part of it. I didn't want to be brave then - or even really now.  But the truth was that I was already brave whether I wanted to admit to it or not.  I was brave at 15 or 17 or 19 - packing up my little VW bug to head out for parts unknown.  I was braver still in the years that followed as I battled bad luck, tragedy and loss.  

But there is a kind of bravery I still don't want -  an owning of things which I would like to finish and be done with - even  and especially because it seems I never will be.  I want to write about the light and yet, despite my best efforts, I find myself pulled back to the dark stories and changing  metaphors of fiction. Some things cannot be taken out, I am reminded.  But I've yet to discover how they will be transformed.