October is the twilight of the year. We enter the month with bountiful harvests from fruit trees and begin to pull gourds from the ground. We call this the Witches' Thanksgiving - a time to count your blessings. I'm celebrating the Season of the Witch with a slew of good fortune: my first book, The … Continue reading Witchy Manifestations
“When did you become so political?” my partner Joey asked me. I set down the irreverent flipbook while laughing at his response to the image that I posted with much glee on my Instagram page. “Mommy, when I grow up, I want to smash the white racist, homophobic, patriarchal bullshit paradigm too.” “I have always … Continue reading The Face of Courage
In early March, mama bear instincts urged me to convince my son to drive 300 miles to my home in the remote foothills of the Eastern Sierra Mountains. The rumble of fear was still quiet, but bears know when to move, even from their winter slumber. It was the same instinct, impulse, and all things … Continue reading The Isolation that Brought Us Together
I’m barefoot and braless without a stitch of makeup and that’s no different than any other day in the last three years I have lived in the rural mountain home built by my partner Joey. "The Mountains are Calling and I Must Go" - John Muir I’ll see no one today but family but that’s … Continue reading Barefoot and Braless on Earth Day
Originally published on Manifest Station March 30, 2018 She was a mystery, a ghost as close as my skin. I discovered her love through the scent of old photographs and White Shoulders perfume. And there she was: Della Ruiz Martinez, my nana. I bought a bottle of White Shoulders when I discovered it was her … Continue reading Hidden Love
Today we celebrate the pagan holiday of Lughnasadh, a festival in honor of Lugh, the Celtic Sun God, also known as the Long Arm for the long rays of August sun and Samildanach, the Many Skilled. Lugh was a poet, harper, smithy, carpenter, scientist, physician, a master of artistic and medicinal fields. Lugh represents the … Continue reading Your Gifts are meant to be shared
It's not recommended to travel during a Mercury Retrograde, but I like it. It's kind of like being the ball in the pinball machine. You just don't get to move the levers - that's up to the mischievious, mercurial God of Communication. Mercury appears to retreat its steps from our two-dimensional perspective four times a … Continue reading Touring with the Book of Spells
I have had a separate savings account labeled "Spain" for seven years. I have held onto primary accounts such as ship logs, diaries of Captains that led my ancestors over sea and land, and rare texts through seven moves. I have imagined what motivated my ancestor Jose Antonio Yorba to leave Jorba, Catalonia in 1767 … Continue reading Finally Going to Spain
Threadbare is to be without comfort or coziness, so they say… The old woman walked down the street with the remnants of a long sweater that had once been beautiful. Each time she connected with a new friend or for each birth that she attended as midwife, she gave a thread from her multicolored woven … Continue reading Threadbare
It's a funny thing to transition from hustle and bustle to stillness. For more than forty years, peace came from walking on the beach staring out at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I lived within five minutes of my beloved Trader Joe's, friends and family were nearby. I wove around traffic to a multitude … Continue reading Life in the Sticks