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

Seasons of life change. Just as the earth is turning into the autumnal equinox at this time where I live in New England - I too am turning toward. I am turning toward renewal as the earth is getting ready to begin her restful time. The days are becoming visibly shorter, with darkness falling around 7:00 pm. I love this time of year and it is where I feel most at home. The brightness of color is turning toward autumn hues. Black-eyed Susan’s still shine their vibrant yellow throughout the gardens. The plants are growing more brittle and withered. Leaves tumble down off the trees when the winds blow.

As I walk around the gardens I am everyday reminded of the continuity and spiralic nature of my heart beating in rhythm with the land that I live with. My very good friends the rabbits have visited me throughout the summer. I see less of them now. I think about their preparations for winter time. A House Wren landed on my door stoop yesterday. We said hello as I thought of how the animals remind me of signs and symbols - important to carry in my thinking in my days. Get ready for the autumn. Rest and Renewal - yes, even in the autumn time.

I have been absent for a very long time from this Field Notes space. My mother crossed over to the other side two summers ago now. I have been on a long journey of finding new ways of living in this world. It has not been an easy road -as many of you will know this territory as well. Perhaps as time goes on in this space - I will find ways to share some of the grief journey with all of you. There is no other side. There is - different. The noticing of who you become after your mother leaves you is at times a heavy boulder carried around on some days. I have so many things I wish I could tell her now. Other days - I feel her helping me along. Helping me to notice all the beautiful parts of my life.

I think of her each day I walk down my doorway pathway here in this image. She always loved my little spiritual altar at the end of the rock walkway. She stopped to admire it whenever she came by. I am surprised in big and small ways when my mother shows up in my presence. It is startling - comforting - wonderful - grief-stricken. I share this here as a way of telling you - I have been absent from here swimming in the waters of grief time. I have felt muddled and not quite my self. In the image we can see that even with the bright sunlight - a shadow is hovering nearby. Looking into a toolbox of experience - we can learn to navigate these hard places.

It is my intention to return to my Field Notes space with renewed energy and love. I have a great many things to offer in the realm of Biography and Sacred Arts to you kind reader. The tarot cards here-The Witches’ Wisdom Tarot by Phyllis Curott with artwork by Danielle Barlow - represent a deep intention setting for The Bone Lines land of wonder, imagination, creativity, kindness and deep listening. I feel that each card represents a frame for Field Notes going forward, While this is a quieter and more inward time of year on this land as I mentioned above - as the inner pieces of knowing become more crystalized as we travel inward - the outward expression of these jewels can become an offering to one’s self - to the world. It is my gift to the world.

May the inner knowing and wisdom - held onto so tenderly - when we feel lost - come to the surface in mindful ways that offer up to you a life of tending and listening to find your way. I hope that sacred magic and wonderment will drip into your full rivers of life. If I can bring a new perspective - a helping offering in looking at your life with a lens of - Biography: The Artful Life - a deep gratitude will envelop me. Holding this vision for myself and for you brings me great joy!

Books I am reading. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch by Rivka Galchen. The story begin in 1618, in the German duchy of Wurttemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years’ War has commenced and fear an suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch.

Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and her successful children, including the oldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and the renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It’s enough to make anyone jealous, Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone’s business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter witch drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble, facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution.

Drawing on real historical documents and infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state , and the mortal convulsions of history.

• November 2023
• poetry
• tarot
• The Bone Lines
• thebonelines

The Journey of the Sacred Bee Tarot

Rushunda Tramble at @staywoketarot on Instagram shared The Rock Bottom spread as a coping tool with tarot medicine. This process helps when you are feeling that you need a way to get through a difficult challenge and are not seeing clear options. The spread is a grounding and reminder to come back to yourself. She explains it beautifully on her page of March 21, 2021. Also, check out her website at staywoketarot . I see this tool also as a way to find some quick relief when perhaps you find yourself in a tunnel vision pathway.