Mama Donna Henes guest post: Have a Love Affair with Yourself

Next up for my “Most Romantic Week on the Blogosphere” featuring the Love Tarot app, is Mama Donna Henes, an urban shaman and folklorist supreme. Someone commented earlier wondering what an urban shaman does. In Mama Donna’s case, she works with individuals, groups of all kinds, companies, and municipalities to create meaningful, non-denominational rituals for every conceivable occasion. For example, she performs solstice and equinox rituals for New York City; she also presides over the opening of the Village Halloween Parade. She also regularly reads tarot at my gallery’s popular Tarot Salon.

Mama Donna is also the author of several books, including the wonderfully empowering and award-winning The Queen of My Self: Stepping Into Sovereignty in Midlife.* Her blog entry here is adapted from The Queen of My Self — I think it offers a necessary corrective to so much media out there which suggests that a person can’t be complete unless they’re in a romantic relationship. Mais non, ma cherie! After all, our most important relationship with with ourselves.

Today we’re giving away a copy of Mama Donna’s book The Queen of Myself to one blog commenter. Details at the end of this post.

Tomorrow’s post: I conclude the week with a post about what I think is the most inspiring love story. Ever.

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TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: We have a copy of The Queen of My Self! To enter, simply leave a comment for this post. For a double entry, tell us about a an experience where you treated yourself like royalty. (For myself, it was during my recent trip to Montreal. I stayed at a nice hotel, ate at a famed restaurant, and saw intensely beautiful art.

The small print: You have until midnight EST on February 14 to leave your comment. Winner will be chosen at random and announced on this blog Monday, February 15, 2010. Sorry, but the giveaway is limited to U.S. and Canada only.

*If you enjoyed this entry, I hope you’ll become a fan of The Queen of My Self on Facebook. You can also follow The Queen of My Self on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thequeenbook.

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Top art: Isis and Osiris art from the Love Tarot app by Kris Waldherr.

More about the Love Tarot app: Considered to be the most romantic app in the App Store, the Love Tarot app offers gorgeous tarot readings inspired by famous love stories, such as Tristan and Isolde and Cupid and Psyche. This five star-rated app was recently relaunched to include a tarot journal for users to save their readings and other inspirations.

Available in Lite and Full versions, learn more here. Or download the Full version on iTunes now.

• Filed under creativity, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, iPhone apps, lover's path, queens, studio and gallery, tarot and oracles | 10 Responses

The Most Romantic Week on the Blogosphere begins….

As I mentioned last week, this upcoming week is going to be special for this blog. From February 8th through 12th, I’ll be having some very lofty guests here:

Best-selling author Sandra Gulland (Mistress of the Sun).

Urban shaman Donna Henes (Queen of My Self).

Renowned tarot authority Ruth Ann Amberstone (The Secret Language of  Tarot).

And, finally, acclaimed historian Holly Tucker (Wonders and Marvels, Blood Work).

These amazingly talented and inspiring women will be joining me for a week of love-themed posts and special giveaways. It’s all to celebrate Valentine’s Day — and the relaunch of the five star-rated Love Tarot iPhone app, which was recently updated with a tarot journal for saving readings and other inspirations.

The week will be kicked off tomorrow morning with a wonderfully romantic piece by Sandra about the writing of love letters.  (Side note: I’m extremely flattered that she writes that her post was inspired by my illustrated novel The Lover’s Path.) On top of that, we’ll be giving away a copy of Sandra’s bestselling book, Mistress of the Sun. To enter the raffle, all you need to do is comment.

A huge bouquet of thanks to these illustrious ladies for participating in what I hope will be the most romantic week on the blogosphere. And I hope you’ll to “see” you here beginning tomorrow!

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PS: To learn more about the Love Tarot and my other iPhone and iPod Touch apps, please visit my new-and-official app website here.

• Filed under be-mused, creativity, events, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, iPhone apps, lover's path, queens, tarot and oracles | 2 Responses

On life, love and loss

“I refuse to think of death. I decide that every day is going to be my best day ever. And it is.”

— Joyce Iris Miller (1930 – 2009)

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The abruptness of my last blog entry suggests that something sudden and unfortunate occurred here in Art and Words land. And it had. My mother-in-law, Joyce Miller, passed away on the evening of December 9th at the age of 79. Since then, we’ve been thrown into a land of bereavement and its aftermath, both emotional and practical.

It’s amazing how much time and energy loss takes. I’m certainly old enough to know loss in my life. But this one has really cut to the bone. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard if Joyce’s death had been expected. But it wasn’t — she had a sudden heart attack and died instantly. Otherwise, she was a vital force until the end, full of good humor and joy (as her name suggests). Besides a husband of 56 years, she left behind a daughter and a son — my husband — and two granddaughters.

How can I describe her without sounding like a hagiography? But all this is true — she was simply an extraordinarily generous person who saw the beauty and good wherever she went.

She gave her time and talents to numerous non-profits organizations, including the Library of Congress and the Women’s Democratic Club. She was someone who gathered friends everywhere she went and kept them. Joyce was also the best grandmother to my daughter Thea. Filled with patience and playfulness, she always had some special surprise to greet Thea with every time we visited her in Washington, DC, where she lived. She was always ready to tell a story or to give a hug.

Joyce also loved to have fun and enjoyed beautiful environments. Before her death, we had talked about taking a trip to Monticello and Newport to view the mansions of the rich and famous. She also enjoyed a good gossip and a dry vodka martini, preferably on the rocks with olives. One of my favorite Joyce quotes: “I gave up guilt. It wasn’t that hard to do.”

Joyce Miller was one of my favorite people in this world, and possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met. Last week, we laid her to rest in a grave we covered in peach-colored roses, not far from where John Philip Sousa was buried.

I miss her greatly already. But I feel blessed to have known her.

Joyce Miller with Tom in Rome, sometime in the 1970s.

• Filed under art and words, mythic living, queens, the world around me | 9 Responses

Deck-a-palooza! and more

First things first: The next stop on The Goddess Tarot app tour has gone live over at Lunaea Weatherstone’s blogue, At Brigid’s Forge. I’ve known Lunaea through various goddess-y endeavors for some years now. We’ve worked together on several Amber Lotus calenders; she’s featured my work on her sumptuous artisan rosaries. So it’s especially a pleasure to be her guest on her inspiring, beautiful blogue.

(You might be wondering why “blogue” instead of the standardly spelled “blog”. Lunaea explains, “It’s just an old-fashioned touch that harkens back to less-hurried (and harried) times. . . . When you visit my blogue, I invite you to take a nice deep breath, absorb things a little at a time, wander in a serendipitous fashion, and generally remember that even in the ultra-speedy world of the Internet, you control the pace of your life.” Lovely, wonderful advice.)

On this stop, Lunaea interviews me about using a tarot app for readings and much more. I hope you’ll take a moment to visit.

In other news, I’m pleased to formally announce that U.S. Games Systems will be publishing four new card decks by me. U.S Games is also the publisher of The Goddess Tarot and The Lover’s Path Tarot.

Two of these new projects are related to Doomed Queens — Doomed Queens playing cards and Ask the Queens advice cards — which will be most likely published in early 2010. The other two are The Sacred World Oracle and a deck which will tie into my new book underway. (Still too early to reveal the details about this, though I’ve posted hints on this blog. One thing I can safely admit is that it’s also royally-themed, like Doomed Queens.)

After so many years in publishing, I don’t count a deal as done until everyone’s John Hancock is on the page. But this week, I signed the contracts for all four decks. Now I’m awaiting countersignature and my copies in the mail and all that.

I look forward to sharing more about these new projects as they develop!

• Filed under events, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, goddesses, new projects, publishing, queens, tarot and oracles | 3 Responses

Doomed Queens bitter wisdom: Sarah Palin revisited

I don’t know about you, but the latest adventure of Sarah Palin has me shaking my head in bemusement. Even if filtered through the distorted perceptions of jetlag (yup, still have it), her behavior seems erratic at best, self-destructive at worst. If she’s planning for a 2012 campaign, is quitting the best way to do so? Or, is there some bigger scandal about to emerge?

Tom, who has been following her on Twitter, is always sharing her latest Tweet with me. Here’s one recent example:

Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again….”

Okaaaay. One wonders whether she’s in search of a bigger realm to rule. Or tired of getting kicked around by pundits. (Shades of “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”) Only time will tell.

In any event, it reminded me of a post I’d written way back after Obama won. Seems appropriate to resurrect it in honor of Sarah’s stepping down from her Alaskan throne.

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Here in NYC, we’re basking in the aftermath of an Obama win. No offense to McCain supporters, but the past eight years have proven that the politics of fear and violence only compound global disharmony. McCain’s resounding loss was accompanied by the defeat of Sarah Palin, his running mate. Like her or loathe her, one can’t help but wonder whether Palin is a Doomed Queen.

My answer: Yes, yes, and yes. And I knew Palin was one from the start — though of course, it’s easy to say so in retrospect. Even when Palin’s approval rating was through the roof (ie: pre-Katie Couric interview or Tina Fey’s devastating SNL impersonations), the signs were all there. While women aren’t forced nowadays into dynastic marriages or trapped in the Tower of London as they once were, the cautionary example of the Doomed Queen still lives and thrives, despite Hillary Clinton’s “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.”

Here are five ways Sarah Palin is a Doomed Queen:

1. Palin is the product of an arranged political marriage; she met only once with John McCain before he popped the question. Many Doomed Queens’ dynastic marriages ended unhappily due to inbreeding, incompatibility, even murder. In the case of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s starter wife, the demise of their union signaled the start of a new religion in England — one way to dump an unwanted alliance.

2. McCain was in love with someone else. It’s rumored that McCain desired Joe Lieberman as his running mate, but was pushed to accept Palin to protect his claim for the “throne.” McCain’s situation reminds me of Regency England’s George IV, who ruled England after his father George III lost the colonies along with his mind. George Junior was pushed to marry Caroline of Brunswick, his eccentric first cousin, though he was in love with another woman. When George met Caroline just before the wedding, he called for a stiff brandy and stumbled through the ceremony falling-down drunk. I don’t know if John McCain drinks, but one can imagine him in a similar choleric snit after learning that Sarah’s daughter Bristol was five months pregnant (though he claims to have been aware of it).

3. That written, McCain initially embraced his running mate despite the scandale. At first, Palin was more popular than him—just as Princess Diana proved to be after her glittery public wedding to Prince Charles. For Charles and Diana, jealousy became a destructive force in their royal alliance. But now that McCain has lost, the gloves have come off and Palin is being used as a scapegoat. As an unnamed source from his campaign leaked to the press that Palin is a whack job and was the one responsible for burning up the credit cards in Neiman Marcus a la Marie Antoinette.

4. It’s an old story. Like other Doomed Queens through history, Palin was used as a chess piece on another’s game board to woo a target demographic. Only this time, the powers-that-be got more than they bargained for. Palin wasn’t fully vetted, allowing for scandals to surface like poisoned fish in a pond. Federal funds for the Bridge to Nowhere were never refunded. Her friends were rewarded with cushy inappropriate appointments while her enemies were stonewalled. Rumors of book banning, anyone?

5. Biology is destiny. For many Doomed Queens, childbirth and infertility led to their loss of the throne. In the case of Palin, she’s used the fertility of herself and unwed pregnant Bristol to present herself as a pro-life candidate, appealing to the religious right. However in doing so, Palin has thrown her teenage daughter to the media wolves to further her political ambitions — not a sympathetic move. After all, even hard-core conservatives like to see mothers nurture their children, instead of hung out to dry in People magazine.

So is Sarah Palin’s story over? We won’t know for some time, but even if she does run in 2012, I’m sure she won’t be marched like other Doomed Queens to the guillotine. After all, the guillotine was last used by the French in 1977.

Instead, Palin might instead want to follow the path of another powerful Alaskan woman, Sinrock Mary, better known as the Reindeer Queen.

During the Alaskan Gold Rush, Sinrock Mary was an Eskimo who became the richest person in Alaska by raising reindeer for food and pack animals; Sinrock was an outpost of Nome. Gold miners were dependent on Mary for their very survival — and grew covetous of her power. To undermine her, they tried to seduce her with liquor and promises of marriage. When that didn’t work, they threatened violence. Though Mary could have used them to further expand her empire, she was no Doomed Queen.

To avoid the miners, the Reindeer Queen moved from Nome into the wilds of Alaska. She spent the rest of her life there in royal comfort — though no one knows if she owned a tanning bed, like Wasilla Sarah.

• Filed under be-mused, queens | One Response