March Events for November Butterfly

Author Signing, Coronado Public Library

I’ll be signing copies of my poetry collection, November Butterfly on Saturday, March 14^th from: 2-4 p.m. in the Winn Room of the Coronodo Public Library along with other local authors. I would love to see you there. 

Other writers you'll get to meet should you stop by include:

George Galdorisi, Leslie Crawford, Carl Luna, Jennifer Franks, Donald Hubbard, Raye Rinhgholz, Belinda Jones, Ted M. Nulty, Tamara Merrill, Jane Mitchell, Sue Crum, Cornelia Feye, Judy Eby, Alan Retzky.

Robyn Beattie, Guest Artist Exhibit in Sebastopol, "Get Pie-Eyed with Lauri Luck

Angel Bones by Robyn Beattie

at Dog House Studio"

My poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie is having an art show, hosted by Laurie Luck at Dog House Studio; if in Sebastopol for the weekend of March 14 and 15, stop in and see Robyn’s beautiful photographs. Visitors will be offered a piece of pie from 12-4 each day. Visit Robyn’s site: www.robynbeattie.com

Dog House Studio is located at 2371 Gravenstein Hwy. South, Sebastopol, CA 95472 (Turn at the Giant Yellow Duck and look for the “Lucky” sign).

Poetry, Poetry Movies, and Sonoma County Artists

Photo by Robyn Beattie

November Butterfly book launch will be hosted in Sonoma County by the Occidental Center for the Arts on Sunday, March 29 from 3-5 p.m. I'm very excited about this event which combines poetry reading, poetry movie screenings for Amelia, Corridor, Mordred's Dream, Thumbelina, and artwork. 

 On hand that afternoon we will have works of art featured in the four movies we will be screening by Sonoma County Artists Genevieve Barnhart, Loreen Barry, Paul Beattie, Robyn Beattie, Chris Boyd, Sandy Frank, Barbara Hoffmann, Orion James, Monty Monty, and Ron Rodgers. Sonoma County musicians Michael Greenberg, Lori O'Hara and Stephen Pryputniewicz provided the music behind the poetry movies. Stephen Pryputniewicz will be playing piano live for the event. 

New post up at Laundry Line Divine

At the invitation of Suzi Banks Baum, I wrote a post about the concept of The Village: Who Else Mothers When I am Here:

When the Mirror Daughter surfaces and the Empress fails to soothe, I turn to my tribe, in person, and online. Writing, collaborating, reaching out. Sorting through my poetry movie collaborator Robyn’s  beautiful images, searching for the ones that nail the day’s litany—today, Mirror Daughter, Water Mobius, twin Auburn Seed Pods, Girl Surfacing. Images and phrases merge in this healing mobius of collaboration, sometimes image first, sometimes words. Named, thus loved, brought into the open where they can be explored outside of the charged moments of living. My collaborators then, are also at the table while I mother.

Read the rest of Radiating Color: Mirror Daughters, Tarot Archetypes and Web Mothers.

Tarot for Two: Ace of Disks and Princess of Swords

Mary Allen and I continue to blog at Tarot for Two. This month's card of the month writings focus on the Ace of Disks and the Princess of Swords. 


Excerpt from Mary:

The Ace of Disks in the Thoth deck represents the wings of the Archangels, or at least that’s always how I describe it when I’m reading the cards for someone:  There are layers on layers of deep blue-green peacock-feather like wings, and there are some brown rings like the growth rings of bark in a tree, and at the center is a circle with two pentacles, one inside the other, inside it, and inside that are three little disks, which, I read somewhere recently, represent actual money, the angel’s wings and the bark representing layers and levels of spiritual growth and gifts. 

Excerpt from Tania:

I’m always drawn to the green light in the Princess of Swords. I was going to say that the green light shrouds her, but it doesn’t—she is green, thighs and arms and face lined gold due to the light emanating from behind rubble of dark clouds substantial enough apparently to brace her two slippered feet. Her sheer blue gown drapes off her thighs in swordfish pleats through which the green gold of her body permeates. Her helmet is the same dim blue as down-facing sword she holds in her right arm, having just finished a decisive swipe at the sky. The loose infinity loop of light could be something she wards off, or it could be the energy created by her act of protection.

Read the rest of Ace of Disks and Princess of Swords. 

Interview up at TCJWW

Jen Teeter-Moore was kind enough to post this interview about November Butterfly at The California Journal of Women Writers.

Upcoming Classes:

Classes are forming for my next Tarot and Writing Course offered online through Story Circle Network. Sign up here for Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Lovers to Strength.

Or join me in person at San Diego Writers, Ink for Intermediate Blogging.

A Cat Cafe, A TCJWW Review, Mentor Doll Musings and a Poetry Circus for You

You’d never guess what a stressful month we’re navigating by looking at these two—our husky and the kingly baby, Sam, lounging in their select stripe of sun. They’re my joy spot in a month overflowing with extra laundry (washing machine broken), family frays with flying elbows (five family members plus ocean wet dog in tiny four-door box of a car since engine block cracked in van), the five us falling like dominoes to the flu, water coursing down our daughter’s walls (broken courtyard ceiling pipe), said water driving hoards of termites to plaster their wings across the slider, and more I won’t broach here.

by Padgett Mason

No shortage of love, as always, to balance it out--caught the 14 year old teaching the 8 year old kickboxing moves in the tub in order to faciliate sure shampooing of that 8 year old’s hair…and my darling sister joined me to check out the Cat Café, newly opened in San Diego (427 Third Avenue), where you can order yourself a mocha or a latte and head to the adjoining room to peruse the adoptable cats and the rainbow

psychedelic cat paintings—for sale-- by Padgett Mason (“pet portraits and funky felines” reads Padgett’s business card).

Here's my sister out in front of the Cafe; we enjoyed chatting with owner Tony Wang and noticed a healthy circulation of coffee-wielding potential cat adopters scoping out the cats. Tony mentioned the coffee and the art are local--and he's open to hosting more artwork.

Other high spots: Jenn Teeter-Moore reviews November Butterfly at The California Journal of Women Writers: 

Pryputniewicz’ Guinevere is opinionated and strong compared to Marilyn and is a direct contrast to the helpless heroine she is in medieval poetry.—Jen Teeter-Moore, TCJWW

I also attended a beautiful reception for approximately 300 authors at San Diego Public Library on January 30, thoroughly enchanted by the indigo light swarming the columns and the gold circle lattices crowning the ceiling. Wouldn’t you know just as the speakers started, I found myself more than mildly annoyed to be fighting to hear over the sound of my husband bantering with an acquaintance. Fortunately for him, I fell in love with the friend’s wife, a brilliant millenial named Ellen Gustafson whose book I’m on fire now to read: We the Eaters: If We Change Dinner, We Can Change the World.

This Friday, I join thirty authors honored at “A Night at the Library: A Celebration of Local Authors.” Hosted by Friends of the Coronado Library, the fundraiser goes from 6-9 p.m. at 640 Orange Avenue; $50 person includes food, wine, beer and a $10 voucher for Second Hand Prose bookstore. See www.CoronadoFOL.org for more information or call Brenda Jo Robyn (619)890-6148.

Mary and I wrote about the Universe Card and the Two of Wands this month over at our new Tarot for Two blog; I opened with, “I took a look at this month’s Thoth Two of Wands with its red-faced grumpy Tibetan doorjies set against a blotchy uteral pink mess of a background suffused with a Kindergarten sky blue and decided to focus on the Rider Waite image instead.”

And Mary opened with: “My card this month was the Universe.  I used to get this card fairly often about twenty years ago, around the time I sold my book in an almost magical way and bought the house I live in now with the advance.  Back then I thought the card was telling me that the universe was waving its big old wand over my life…” Read the rest of The Two of Wands and The Universe.

Why Mentor Dolls? 

Why do you use paper dolls in your Writing Past Fear: Free Your Butterfly workshops? When a friend asked, I answered in a post on my main website, Shadow Bags, Joan Swift’s Dark Path of Our Names and Mentor Dolls on #LivetheQuest:

Additional Links of Interest: 

 Sandra Hunter shares her stunning black and white xray ice scapes—at least that’s how I describe them; her interview starts on page 18 and she dives deep into the subject of exposure and agency despite trauma; she says, "Art is the axle tree," and discusses "exhilaration as form of meditation." ART Habens Review, Winter 2015. 

If you are looking for a new place to post a poem, give Christine Klocek-Lim’s new daily publication a try; she’s back, with Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.

And check out Nicelle Davis, such an innovative poet and performance artist, celebrating her latest book, In the Circus of You (a collaboration with Cheryl Gross) with a wild event in Los Angeles, at the Merry-Go-Round in Griffith Park. Here’s her guest post for us over at Mother, Writer, Mentor: Circus as Sanctuary.