photo credit: Erica Feldman of Hauswitch

Reflections on a Project

As the last month of the 12 Moons Workbook comes to a close, I am in full reflection mode. The second half of the year has been written, the release party is around the corner, and I am giving myself about 5 days before I go into full-on planning, dreaming, and writing mode for ... 2017? Wow!

About 9 months ago, I got a very clear message from Spirit that I was to write this workbook. While I have made zines, written intros to art catalogues, and am a graphic designer and artist, I certainly would not call myself a "writer". I was a bit wary, but the message was clear. I was to write a workbook using all that I knew about Moon magick, Moon facts, Moon metaphors, and I was to commit to this project for 3 years.

As soon as I started writing the book in earnest, my schedule exploded. I make my living in a few different ways. My main income is through freelance graphic design. During the Fall of last year, I was also teaching 4 different classes at 3 different colleges as an adjunct. My freelance work increased, and I was working between 65 and 85 hours a week. There was a point in all this that I faltered and my doubt sprung up again. How was I to write this book on top of all this?

I had a Tarot reading with an excellent reader and she confirmed. I was to focus on my spiritual work, and something had to happen by January 1st. That was it. I got up early and wrote, stayed up late and wrote. Wrote on the weekends, wrote when the Moon was Full, Dark, and New. Really, I channelled. There are whole chunks of the first workbook that I honestly cannot say I wrote. It came from somewhere else, somewhere beyond me. Usually when I read Tarot cards I channel, sometimes when I work on art or music it is that same sensation: the sensation of spirit, of muse, of divine energy. Whatever you'd like to call it.

I joke that while Spirit told me to write this workbook, she sure didn't tell me about editing, designing, and shipping. Writing a book entails a lot, and on the first publication I literally just wrote it, copy and pasted it into Indesign, spent a couple of days designing, and sent it off to be printed. Not one soul read the book before hand. My partner, who I live with, did not even know I was writing a book! So there are tons of typos, inconsistencies, errors, you name it. But the spirit of what I was trying to do got across. Within the rawness of that channel are a bunch of gems.

This project has been one of the hardest I've undertaken in memory. It has tested parts of me I thought would buckle. Nightmares I didn't know I had became reality. In that way, I also believe that Spirit had a hand in these tests and trials, through showing me that I could deal, I could persevere through my most shameful vulnerabilities.Books don't make money if you are doing it all on your own and don't have some fancy advance. And I've thought about it, but I am really uninterested in doing an e-book. My love of books comes from their tangibility, their portability, their presence. I do not want to confuse this project with a business venture, so for me, it must remain fun, interesting, and first and foremost, a labor of love.

This work comes from my experience with the truth of magick, with amazing Moon manifesting, with my relationship with my own spiritual practice, via reading hundreds of books, through years of Tarot training and readings, through my need to reinsert the divine feminine back in my life and in other's lives. The Moon is a metaphor: of nature, our subconscious, of the divine feminine, of process, of time and intention.

If you are reading this, thank you. If you got anything out of the workbook, if it shifted your relationship with yourself, the divine, nature, cycles, time, or your feelings, then it is you that you must thank because that means you did the work. If anything amazing, cool, or weird manifested itself in your life then let me know, I'd love to hear about it.The release party is June 20th at the wonderful Otherwild! I'm so excited to have geniuses and visionaries Gina Young, Amanda-Faye Jimenez, and Romy joining me. It is free and there will be cookies!

I'll be shipping out all pre-orders before then.

 I'll be reading Tarot cards in Los Angeles twice this month: this Sunday at the Women's Center for Creative work. Sessions are at 3, 4, and 5 o'clock and they will result in a collaborative art piece. Contact myself to set up. Sunday, the 19th at Otherwild, you can sign up for a 25 session or book a 50 minute session with me.

Lots of love for you this June and beyond!