The Herbcrafters Tarot

Hard Knot

Gather up simple tools of lifeways - teapot, herbs, kettle to cook in -
Pestle to grind away at the hard knots of rumination -
Carried communion - linen shroud will cover ignorance -
Heat - steam dilates a question to essential point - it simmers -
Distillation - contemplation - excavation - dig into marrow -
Embrace internal wisdom of priestess - people’s wisdom is not captured -
Turmeric - earthen colorway - warmth carried - dyed escape across oceans -
If rooted footsteps find - possible freedom - embodied -
Road side mandalas created - sign posts of what is to come - measured -
Forgotten - disagreement etched into memory - permanence -
Hat removed - carry the tablets across arid landscape -
Sweat pours down furrowed brow - rankled - wronged - wretched -
Blood pools - ask the question - another moon night glimmers across - Time -

~Linden of The Bone Lines

The Herbcrafters Tarot

apple boxes poverty land orchards

Long ago I worked at this orchard with a good friend that I had met at weaving school. That is a story for another day. These boxes! We filled so many of these apple boxes after full days picking and hauling and transporting in a tractor. Often we worked after being out at music late at night, contradancing, or breaking down in my old VW Beetle.

Soul Midwife

Found beside zucchini - pickles in a crock just inside the kitchen door
Friendship forming - as distraction of loves held us captured
Waking each day - me upstairs, you downstairs
The frost coming closer each day

Looking out over Poverty Lane - white old farmhouse surrounded by apples
The showers were ice cold - warmth was in the working
In the orchard - in the barns - next to the woodstove
Stacking wood - throwing firewood - scar on my finger is a wedding ring

Pulling on woolen socks - handknit hats - those confining boots - work
Later on stomping in boots - contra dancing late into the night on Halloween
Our food of choice was zucchini bread - pickles in the crock
Scooping off surface mold - a daily ritual

Poverty Lane Weavers - my fathers contribution of 300$ - yours from New Jersey
You kept weaving even after I had moved on - soul midwifing in my heart
Unexpected cars rolling backward down the driveway -
Migraines laying waste to another day of work - are you okay in there

Love snuck in through all the cracks - is it love at that age or lust
Walks in the woods with one too many - Tom Wessels before he was a nature teacher
Building his house - carved from extra curricular activities
Rock climbs - car rides - oatmeal so heavy you could plaster walls with it

Long talks into the night - a shaker table handmade by a local woodworker
Barn building - over the next ridge - hauling more than I could handle
Looking back - scent of apples in boxes brings me presently there
It occurs to me - looking back is cavernous - walking forward

~Linden of The Bone Lines

Poverty Land Orchards

The above images are from Poverty Land Orchard - a place I worked a very long time ago.

Joshua Hanson

Walk down the narrow corridor of broken
Cold tile floor - stained with tears - gauntlet
Lined up behind glass, eager men wait with wide eyes.
Each on holds a black phone receiver in hand, jumping the gun of trapped in a cage.
Beats not missed as a young, pretty girl walk past, banging on glass, hand gestures and screams echo
Stools are screwed into chipped flooring of forgotten
Broken dreams, scarred stories just beginning to form on bruised tile.
Count 1 - 2 - 3. Tired, blood shot eyes stare through the frame of smudge.
Hands reach out. Fingers touch. A heart is felt beating through tempered thick shield.
Stay just like that.
Moments are measure by big gray industrial clock on the wall, high enough that that all know their time is running out.
Time beats down on your back - your heart.
Blue eyes of sparkle with fleck of tender child swim in pools of remembering before.
Sadness creeps around edges - others have mad e a life of time behind glass.
A runner sits behind stories formed in a long-ago glass fed to you by your mother
Scars begin to formulate when a child is give a knife that goes down hard - then goes down smooth after a time.
A knife becomes dull when scraped over bone and sinew
Sharp becomes dull until a chasm etched into a life is deep
Running a finger over the edge of muscle - find stories of blood and blue-eyed ocean.
Say good-bye - the stars hold you
May I serve you a liquid posion -
It’s right here - a wooden vessel
Be - tray - for - All.

Muroidea Rat Tarot - https://society6.com/midio

Wide feet swollen from years of standing - clawed feet scratching their way to a mountaintop. The top is dismantled as the the rocks fall away - crushing whatever stands in its way. Trickle down - more like tumbledown - more like knock down - more like just plain down. Remove the bottom foundation - the foundation of people holding up tenuous sky higher ups. The din of sound is deafening if listened to with wide open hands. May we have Bread. Hands cupped to ears catch a phrase of desperation - ignored. Pretty words dressed up as rescue is a fancy cake that is just out of reach - at the bakery behind glass doors - crumbs for the mice. A bundle of carry holds treasured hopes at the end of a precarious branch plucked from the forest they have been traversing for lifetimes. Locked inside of the small leather satchel - cross bodied carry is a piece of paper that says you pass. Hold on tight - hold on for dear life lest you are cast off the cliff - precarious for not one. Heat of sun is massive power creating unbearable pressure - keep walking - don’t walk off the end of the precipice. One small leg of tickle is an unlucky pulse that can create abandoned. Layered choice is not foolish - understandable soil embeds your memorable footprint. Lady bug, lady bug - who do you know? Lady bug, lady bug - who do you ask? Lady bug, lady bug - red shelled messenger - droplets of dotted hopes. The rat creature is just like you - just like me. Only a fool would decide to turn back.