Sex after Fifty, The Empress, and Tarot for Joy

Cover Photo, Unmasked

With two teenagers in the household and one tween, when am I not aware that I’m aging? Does it mean I’m not allowed to have anymore fun? Of course not! Now is the time to play more than ever. I won’t be bringing my children to this event although they do star in the non-fiction essay I’ll be reading as a contributor to Unmasked, Women Write about Sex and Intimacy After Fifty, an anthology of essays and poetry co-edited by Weeping Willow Books’ publisher Marcia Meier and her colleague, therapist Kathleen Barry. The collection explores the physical and emotional aspects of intimacy and sexuality after age 50 in pieces written by women from the United States and beyond.

Here’s what Gloria Steinem has to say about the collection:

“Sex for women after fifty is invisible for the same reason that contraception, abortion, and sex between two women or two men has been forbidden: sexuality is supposed to be only about procreation. This lie was invented by patriarchy, monotheism, racism and other hierarchies. Sexuality is and always has been also about bonding, communicating and pleasure. Unmasked helps to restore a human right.”

         -- Gloria Steinem

The reading and book signing, hosted by Weeping Willow Books’ publisher and editor Marcia Meier, will be held on October 7 from 5-7 p.m at San Diego Writers, Ink, so pencil us in on your calendar! I will share more details as we get closer. For more information, visit Weeping Willow Books. 

Poetry: Ron Salisbury, Peter Krumbach and Yours Truly

I’ll also be reading poetry in a couple of weeks for A Turn of the Verse at Meraki Café along with poets Peter Krumbach and Ron Salisbury; you’ll really enjoy their poetry. Ron’s work is rich, humble and often humorous while poignant and I love Peter’s masterful gems too. I will be reading from the commune manuscript as well as new poems I’ve written since then. I’d love to see you if you can make it, Friday September  8^th from 7-9 p.m., Meraki Café, 1735 Adams Avenue in University Heights.

Back in June I promised a sound file for “Dropping in the Eight,” which was published in SDWI’s A Year in Ink, Volume 10. Here’s the link: Dropping in the Eight, MP3

Tarot News: Tarot for Two Podcast

I jumped in to this new podcast adventure with writer Mary Allen at Tarot for Two. With our usual sense of humor and our growing library of Tarot reference books at hand, we look at the images and themes and colors and and give you our laid back impression of how the cards relate tangibly to us in present time.

Here’s a podcast in which we ask: How can we find meaning and joy simply by looking at images printed on paper? In other words, is a Tarot deck just a deck of cards?

Tarot for Two: Is it just a deck of cards? 

And we began to look at the Major Arcana one by one:

Tarot for Two: The Hanged One

 Tarot for Two: The Empress

Tarot for Two Cards of the Month: Even though we’ve started podcasting, we haven’t given up on our practice of writing about the cards. How do you define fortune? Which aspects of your life bring you a wealth of joy? Does writing help you see past poverty as a form of currency, as I discovered last month?

Tania on The Wheel of Fortune:

All month long I glance at the Thoth Wheel of Fortune card on my desk. Behind the pale green wheel in the center of the card, one sees lightning bolts, their top jags ending in stars. “The stars exploding into lightning bolts represent the experience of awakening to the possibilities that can turn our lives in more positive and expansive directions,” writes Angeles Arrien in relation to the Wheel of Fortune. The quote accurately reflects what I’m experiencing as I take scenes from my childhood that I first described in poetry and develop them in prose for a new writing project of mine.

Read the rest of Tania on The Wheel of Fortune 

How do you experience personal power and the joy of your will translated into action? How do you hold the world in your hands? Mary writes about the Two of Wands in relation to her writing practice:

I guess I can say that my month was about power brought down to the earth and made personal.  The way I do that is by writing, which as I see it involves connecting to some universal creative power floating in the air sort of like electricity, connecting to it and bringing it to earth and making it personal, through writing. For me this involves seeing and noticing and doing something with what I’ve seen and noticed, capturing it as precisely as I can, with all of its detail and meaning, and mirroring it back to the universe as I write about it. 

Read the rest of Mary on the Two of Wands

Artwork by Tania Pryputniewicz

Fall Writing Classes

Tarot for Joy: Fall Writing Class. Whether you are Tarot curious and new to Tarot or a life-long Tarot enthusiast, this course is designed to help you focus on love, light, and joy by writing about the joy cards in the deck. Love, Creativity, Prosperity, Clarity and Celestial support will be our focus. While we cast an eye back towards how we experienced the aspects of the card before, we also cast an eye forward towards what we’d like to invite into our lives and hearts. If you are interested or have questions and would like to know more about my particular approach to the Tarot, use my contact form to drop me a note and I will schedule you for a free simple three card layout reading over Zoom (or Skype if your prefer). Read the full course description here: Tarot for Joy.

Writing Through Fear: Free Your Butterfly:  Several years ago on book tour for my poetry collection, November Butterfly, I taught small two-hour workshops on the theme of writing core stories. I’m very excited to now offer two full seven-week course for which we use poems in November Butterfly and writing prompts in the accompanying PDF I’ve since created, Thirteen Writing Prompts Based on the Power and Creativity of Iconic Women Designed to Help You Write New Work From Multiple Points of View.

The PDF pairs beautiful stills from November Butterfly’s poetry movies with each featured iconic woman, multiple writing prompts, and links to additional writings and sources. My goal is to help you connect to your own mentors and invite you to draw strength from the ways they faced challenges as you prepare to write your own core story.

Questions we take up in this class include:

Who inspired you when you were growing up? Who do you consider to be the lighthouse women in your personal orbit? What have you learned from them that will shed light on your own story?

During this seven-week session, we read poems and selected writings about Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath, Amelia Earhart, Jay DeFeo, The Three Oranges Fairytale, and Lolita as a springboard to help you engage with writing your own work. For more information, feel free to reply to this newsletter. This online class starts September 5, 2017. Here’s the full course description on my website, Writing Through Fear: Free Your Butterfly.

Second Saturdays: Poetry Draft, Craft, Submit!

My Second Saturday morning San Diego in-person poetry workshop is a great place to keep your poetry writing practice going in a supportive environment. Class runs from 10 am to noon at Liberty Station in the art gallery upstairs. We always have room for a few more writers if you’d like to join us. In September we write to the theme of Livestock and Pets. Just bring paper, pencil, and an open heart and you’ll come away with prompt worksheets and some sample targets for where you might consider submitting poems for publication. In October we write to the theme of Omens. 

Sign up here for 2nd Saturdays: Poetry Draft, Craft, Submit.