Visions of...Old Mermaids

I am asking more than usual this question: What would the Old Mermaids do? I asked that after I came home exhausted from looking for a car. I said, "What would the Old Mermaids do?" And I got an immediate answer: “They wouldn't have a car." I grumbled about how unrealistic that was, given where I live. But reality is: I like driving. I am rarely as happy as I am when I'm in my car, alone, driving down the highway. My happiest moment in recent years was when I drove from Santa Barbara to Phoenix. I was free of any anxiety: I knew everyone I loved was safe for the moment and I didn't have to save anyone or anything. I drove along the ocean, alone in the car, ecstatic.

Remember in Koyaanisqatsi when they showed the highways and biways and people running to and fro and we were supposed to think that was ugly and out of balance? I didn't think it was ugly. I thought it was beautiful. I thought the nature scenes were beautiful, too. I think our human need to create is natural and glorious human, but once we recognize our creations are a little bit too Frankenstein's monster, we have an obligation to the world to change what we've created—or destroy what we created.

This is the long way of saying that after a few days of grumbling about how unrealistic the Old Mermaids were, I was walking around town, up above the river, breathing in autumn, and I had a vision of the near future. I thought of all the books I’d written and stories I told. Most of them are about finding home. (I think I ended three books with the word “home” without consciously knowing it.) I imaginatively build amazing structures and communities. I am creating home with my novels.

I love to drive because I am on the move, always on the move. Because I am searching for home. I am not comfortable in my body, my house, my place in the world. Sometimes I think it’s because when I was a girl—a wild child, nature’s child running in the woods barefoot and disheveled most hours of the day—my grandparents sold the land next door to us, the land where my Lullabye Forest grew.

The new owners came in and cut down my woods. I was bereft. I have no conscious memory of the destruction, by the way. I just remember my life before and after. And after I felt homeless. But this may just be a story I tell myself. I was probably born this way: squirmy, crying out in raw unexplained grief when I was only an infant, always asking, asking, asking too many question. Railing against injustice like a little Irish Don Quixote, my Rocinante my dog—who got run over by a car when I was 12. (And I was in such terrible grief over his death that my parents took me to a doctor and he gave me tranquilizers.)

It doesn’t matter why I felt homeless or why I’ve felt homeless for much of my life. It is a modern ailment, I suspect. We have lost the songs of our ancestors, perhaps. Maybe when my relatives came to this land, we left behind our faeries—or the spirits of our ancestors. Maybe we’ve gone deaf to the songs of the land all around us. Perhaps we can’t hear our own siren songs any more. I don’t really know.

But as I was walking around my town, I had a vision of the near future—a future where I wouldn’t need a car, at least not often. I could see a home, a place, a purpose, and I suddenly felt completely at home with this vision, this idea. As if all of my life had been heading toward THIS. When I told Mario about it, he said, “Don’t tell anyone yet. Don’t research it. Don’t study it. Just dream it for a while, the way you would dream a novel.” Aaaah, exactly what the Old Mermaids would do. (I am so fortunate that my sweetheart is an Old Mermaid.)

Now I sit looking out into the cloudy day. Sunlight edges the clouds like a glorious silver white lining. I’m listening to Train sing Drops of Jupiter. About a woman flying through the stars. I am no star being. I am of this Earth. I have been chronically ill for a long time. I am sick of it. Truly. Someone once said that all sickness is homesickness. In my case, I believe this to be true. I know where my home is. It isn’t the stars. It isn’t even in my imagination. It isn’t someplace ELSE. I can see it now, feel it now—more than ever. This Earth is home. It is my place. It is my Beloved. Each of us is the Earth. Walking, dancing, singing, loving Earths. Each of us is the Beloved. Each of you is my Beloved.

As for my vision of my future? Well, it is still in the dreaming stages, and I will share more as time goes on.

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The Making of Whackadoodle Times

(I continue here with my series of "the making of" my novels, taken from my Weird and Wonderful Gazette. Enjoy!)

Whackadoodle Times was originally born out of my frustration over the state of the world and the apparent obliviousness of most of the population about what dire straits we’re in. But, of course, I can’t write novels from a soapbox. Can anyone? Still, I thought it would be fun to write an allegory or satire or blend them together to have an allegorical satire. In any case, we don’t have to label it. Let’s just call it a novel. I was initially poking fun at our culture’s obsession with celebrities and the apparent obliviousness of the rich to the plight of almost anyone else, but in the end what happened was that I wrote a story about Brooke McMurphy, a woman in trouble.

I wrote the first chapter several years ago. I loved the first chapter—just as I had with Butch. And just like with Butch, I got scared. Could I keep going and maintain the quality? I was also worried about length. As I’ve mentioned before, I believe the story should dictate the length, not the publisher. I tend to write short novels. I knew if I wrote a short novel, I probably couldn’t get a traditional publisher to publish it. But the world changed between the time I started Whackadoodle Times and when I finished it. I was now an indie writer with a publisher who didn’t care about length. Yes!

The novel begins when a bag lady comes to the house of two screenwriters and says she will do one great thing a day for them if they’ll let her stay in their guest cottage. When I started the novel, I was going to have the story revolve around that one great thing a day. After I wrote the first chapter, I began to worry about how I’d come up with one great thing a day. That was another reason I put the novel away for several years. When I brought it out to continue working on it, I just let the story evolve—which is what should always happen. The “one great thing a day” became an integral part of the story, not the focus of it.

Except for the first chapter, I ended up writing this novel at our winter retreat in Arizona. About eight years ago, I put out a call to friends to find a place in the Southwest where Mario and I could spend part of the winter writing and soaking up some sun instead of getting soaked by the Pacific Northwest rain. Terri Windling responded and told me about a retreat near Tucson, Arizona, for writers and artists and other creatives. That winter, we packed up our car and headed out to Tucson.

Going to this retreat has saved my life in so many ways; I don’t have the words to express my gratitude for its existence. Every part of it was designed with purpose, in beauty. When I’m there, my prayer every morning is a version of the Navajo Beauty Way; I often chant, “I walk in beauty before me, I walk in beauty beside me, I walk in beauty behind me, I walk in beauty all around me.” In the last few years, I have had a creative opening, and now stories flow very quickly from me. I believe being on retreat in Arizona every year is responsible for that, in part.

The second year I was at the retreat, I wrote Church of the Old Mermaids. This novel changed my life and continues to change my life because 13 of the characters—the Old Mermaids—are now a part of my everyday life. They are more like guardians or spirit helpers than characters in a novel. I’ve now written several novels where the Old Mermaids and kin make an appearance. (Besides Church of the Old Mermaids, there’s The Blue Tail, The Fish Wife, The Desert Siren, along with The First Book of Old Mermaids Tales and the as yet unpublished An Old Mermaid Sanctuary.)

I digress. We were talking about Whackadoodle Times. I wrote Whackadoodle Times while I was on retreat in Arizona. Once I had the characters, the story began flowing. At first, the tone was different from anything I’d done in a long while. Brooke isn’t a happy person. Her wit can be acerbic, but she was so funny that I didn’t care. The story was at times sexually graphic, too. I’ve written sexually explicit scenes before, but what happens in Whackadoodle Times is more realistic than romantic, so it could seem crude and rude to some. But that was what made it funny to me.

I never laughed as much as I did writing this novel, and in the end, I never cried so much. Although my life couldn’t be more different from hers, I understand her: I understand getting to a place in your life and wondering how the hell did I get here. 

I also understand her life because she’s in the entertainment business, and so am I. When the studio head (the stud) is trying to convince her to script doctor Zombie Town and make zombies sexy, I’m laughing at the absurdity, but I’ve been a part of very similar conversations over the year. I often think of the scene in Gypsy where the strippers are telling Gypsy “You Gotta Have a Gimmick.” Yep, sexy zombies are the gimmick the studios want from Brooke. Writers are often asked to come up with some kind of “gimmick” in order to get their work published. It’s not a particularly inspiring way to create!

Anyway, I had fun writing this novel. I hope you enjoy reading it. I plan on writing two more novels in the Whackadoodle Times universe. The second one will probably be called Whackadoodle Times Two. I’ve got the story. Maybe I’ll write it when I go to Arizona this year, knock wood.

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The Making of Butch

I don’t remember exactly where I got the idea for Butch. She just came to me, like characters often do, ready to tell me her story. 

I love New Mexico. I often think of it as my “soul home,” so I was thrilled to be able to tell a New Mexican story again. (Much of Mercy, Unbound takes place in New Mexico.) Here’s a secret about Butch that I think is funny. I originally thought Butch would have lots of sex scenes. Butch is a sensual woman. She lives large: lots of booze, lots of lovin’, lots of trouble. The book went its own way, however, and most of the sex is off stage! 

But that’s getting ahead of the story. I had the idea for Butch. Then I wrote the first chapter. I loved it. I thought it was one of the best first chapters I’d ever written. I got scared. I wasn’t sure I could make the rest of the book stand up to that first chapter. (See what I mean about having self-talk that is not helpful.) 

A few years went by. I kept wanting to get back to it. Then I decided the real reason I wasn’t working on it was because I didn’t know enough about Taos, New Mexico, which is where the novel was set. I had to go back to Taos. (What a great excuse, eh?) 

I didn’t have enough money to go, so I decided to try doing a kickstarter. (They help fund various artistic projects.) I am notoriously bad about marketing my work. I loathe advertising. I could talk about my novels all day long. That’s not the problem. But I don’t want to be constantly shilling. For one thing, I haven’t found any method for selling books that works except one: word of mouth. When readers tell other readers about an author or a book they like, that sells books. Anyway, long way of saying that I didn’t get the word out. (I just don’t know that many people!) And I didn’t get enough pledges to fund the kickstarter to go to Taos. But the enthusiasm of those who did pledge helped boost my confidence. That helped open the gates of my imagination which allowed this creative thought to flow through: “You’re a writer, Kim. You make stuff up. Why be attached to a ‘real’ particular town? Remember Sosegado, Arizona.” 

(Sosegado, Arizona was the setting for much of Coyote Cowgirl. I’ve had quite a few readers ask me where it is so that they can visit. Sosegado is Spanish for peaceful, tranquil, etc. Although I “made it up,” I am convinced the town is out there somewhere.) 

Of course! Butch needed her own town, one that wasn’t tied to so-called reality. The town immediately came to me, just like one of my characters: Santa Tierra, New Mexico. Although the name literally means “saint earth,” I translate it to mean “sacred earth.” 

Like many of the places in my novels, Santa Tierra is a vital and important part of the story. It is a character in the novel, and it certainly has its own character. 

Once I had the town, I was ready to start again. I enjoyed writing this book immensely. In the novel, Butch has many mysteries to solve, but the greatest mystery is the one of her own origins. She is not a very reflective person, so trying to figure out her life is problematic for her. I was quite moved to learn the truth of her life. She endured a rough childhood. She had to make some tough decisions when she was still a girl. I admire her and would love her for a best friend. 

I intend to write several other Butch novels. I want to spend more time at Wayward Ranch with TomA and Patrick and their daughter, Hunter. I want to ride through the Blood Mountains with Butch and George. I want to eat breakfast with Marigold and Butch while they flirt with one another. I want to know if Jezebel will show up again. (I want to know about all kinds of things that I can’t mention here or I might spoil the story for you.)

Wayward Art Spectacle

One of my favorites parts of Butch is the Wayward Art Spectacle. Every year in Santa Tierra, after the ditch cleaning is over, TomA and Patrick (Trick) sponsor the Wayward Art Spectacle on their ranch. Everything in the novel leads up to the Wayward Art Spectacle, but I don’t have a lot of description of the actual Spectacle. Originally I had a couple of pages of description, but it stopped the narrative cold. So it got cut. Now there’s just a couple paragraphs, but I’m hoping it’s enough to give the flavor of the Spectacle. 

Every year, artists from all over the area bring their art to Wayward Ranch. The art is displayed around the ranch—mostly near the house and barns. Some of the art is hung inside the house, but most of it is outside. There are wooden mobiles hanging from trees. Quilts are draped over bushes. Metal sculptures are scattered throughout the pastures, like frozen wild animals. It’s magical and mystical and earthy. 

The genesis of the Wayward Art Spectacle was probably my own Hallows Art Show which was sponsored at our house. (We renamed our house The Little Yellow House Art Gallery for a month.) 

I came up with the idea for the Hallows Art Show after feeling as though my art had been rebuffed at an art show here in town. I decided to turn our little rental house into an art gallery for a month. It was part of my nearly lifelong effort to gatecrash and thumb my nose at gatekeepers. I believe everyone is creative, and art is in the eye and heart of the beholder. I don’t want a couple dozen people in New York (or anywhere) deciding what the rest of the country reads, and I don’t want a couple dozen people anywhere deciding what is and isn’t art. 

So I invited people from all over my community (and beyond) to participate in the Hallows Art Show. The theme was Hallows (Halloween, honoring the ancestors, death and rebirth). People brought their art to my house. I “hung” the show, and then we had a gallery opening. The show stayed in the house for the month, and people could come and walk through the “gallery” by appointment. 

We had jewelry hung here and there, alongside beautiful scarves. One artist created a Day of the Dead altar in my room. In another room, we had a long dinner table that was set for a Dumb Supper. Different artists created different place settings for it. (That was AMAZING!) My father made a gorgeous Halloween quilt, and my mother made a matching beautiful Halloween pillow. We had paintings all over the house, too. 

It was one of the most amazing events of my life. At the end of it, one of the artists—a local retired dentist—gave us a piece of colored glass we still have hanging in one of our windows. A weaver gave us one of her baskets. And I curl up under my father’s Hallows quilt nearly every day. (In fact, it’s getting a little frayed.) 

So that was partly where the Wayward Art Spectacle came from. But also, it sprang up from the New Mexican soil. When I think of New Mexico, I think of beauty and art. 

I first visited New Mexico many years ago when I was in the midst of a heated battle with the county and some of my neighbors over pesticide use. I felt like I was surrounded by people who didn’t care about the land or nature or beauty or art. I was exhausted from the fight. Mario and I decided to visit New Mexico during this time. 

We arrived in Taos after a seventeen hour drive from Kingman, Arizona. (I don’t remember why it took that long.) It was dark when we drove down the dirt road toward the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. Our headlights skimmed over a painted adobe fence and I glimpsed a mermaid swimming. (My first mermaid in the desert.) A few moments later, we reached the house, found our room, and fell to sleep, exhausted. 

In the morning, I stepped out into the bright day and looked up at the bluest sky I had ever seen. I walked across a courtyard where Georgia O’Keeffe, D. H. Lawrence, Frieda Lawrence, Ansel Adams, and so many others had walked. Huge cottonwood trees towered over me. My knees nearly buckled. Everywhere I turned, I was surrounded by beauty. I could hear the whispers of artists, writers, and intellectuals. Here they talked about things that mattered to me. Here they honored beauty, nature, and art. 

That was my first encounter with New Mexico, and the spirit of that encounter carries over into the Wayward Art Spectacle—and into all of Butch.

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The Making of Jewelweed Station

(This was originally published in Kim's Weird & Wonderful Gazette. I write about each of the books that were published over the last six months. I do have a FAQ page for Jewelweed Station, but here I write in a little more depth about what was going on as I began to write this book. Enjoy!)

Jewelweed Station was inspired by the Scarlet Pimpernel which was a favorite book of mine when I was young. For one thing, I was impressed that this man could let himself be seen as a fool when he was really a hero. I never liked appearing foolish. I still don’t. Yet for a greater cause, he was able to pretend to be someone he wasn’t—someone who was pretty loathsome.  I wanted to write an American version of the Scarlet Pimpernel only I wanted the main character to be younger, maybe even a teen. When I asked myself what was the American equivalency of the Reign of Terror, I immediately thought of slavery.

I had studied the Underground Railroad in depth on other occasions. I knew there was no historical evidence that white Southerners participated in the Underground Railroad. In fact, most of the participants on the Underground Railroad were freed and escaped slaves, as far as historians know.  

History is an avocation of mine. It was one of my minors in college. And this is what I know for certain: We know only a fraction of the truth about history. Even our own history. Think about your own life. If someone were to write a history of your life, just what you did over the last month, what would they write? They’d have to trust what you told them, first off, and you’d  probably only tell them about the big events—if there were any—and you’d probably only tell them about the big events you thought were socially acceptable.

In other words, most of our history is left out of history books. As a writer, I do research, but then I let my imagination take over. And there’s no one alive who can contradict me in the case of Jewelweed Station. If things were done in secret, how would we ever know? If a person in the South wanted to help slaves escape, she would have to be extremely secretive because to do otherwise would put herself and her family and descendants in jeopardy.

So Calantha “Callie” Carter was born. She wasn’t as young as I originally thought she would be, mostly because she’d have to have some maturity to be part of the Underground Railroad. Plus I wanted her to be old enough for a romance with a young man, not a boy. 

Originally I wanted this book to be a fun adventure. Callie would pretend she was stupid while she was really doing great things behind the scenes. I soon realized that realistically Callie would be under some very tight restrictions because her parents were dead and because she was a young Southern woman with very little autonomy. So this wasn’t going to be easy for Callie.

She was young and inexperienced and used to getting her own way. I wanted her to try many things and fail. That seemed realistic to me. Naiveté can be a dangerous thing.

There were other reasons it couldn’t be a fun adventure. Slavery is not an adventure. The more research I did, the more the realities of slavery turned my stomach. For a time, I didn’t think I could write the book. I didn’t want to make slavery “entertaining.” I didn’t want to be exploitive.

Eventually, I realized I could write the book if it wasn’t a simple adventure story. It became a complex story about a young woman finding her true self and coming to terms with her family history and the terrible history of her own community. She has to decide—just like I think we all have to decide—how to deal with injustice: Does she stand up or does she fall down?

She tries to stand up for a long time and she keeps falling down. But she won’t let people be abused in her name. She has to learn to be strong and humble at the same time.

This story had twists and turns in it that I didn’t expect. This always happens when I’m writing, and I think it’s one of the reasons I love to write so much. I won’t tell you about those twists here, of course, since I don’t want to spoil to the story for you.

Although Jewelweed Station is a complete story, I am planning two other books with these characters. We’ll see how it goes!

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A Year and a Day Living the Old Mermaid Way

I'm going on a pilgrimage. Would you like to join me? Check out what it's all about here.

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The Old Mermaids Book of Days and Nights: A Year and a Day Journal

We love The Old Mermaids Book of Days and Nights so much that we decided to make a companion for it: a BIG sumptuous luxurious "a year and a day" journal. This 8.5 x 11 book has the same cover as The Old Mermaids Book of Days and Nights: A Daily Guide to the Magic and Inspiration of the Old Sea, the New Desert, and Beyond, but we've removed the dates so you can put in your own and we've made one journal lined and one unlined; you can use both for journals or use one for a journal and one for sketching or mix and match. A Year and A Day is a traditional period of time set aside for study or initiation: and you can begin any time. We hope you will find these journals inspiring and beautiful. Everyone who has seen it just oohs and ahs over it. This is a perfect place to tell your own story and find your siren song.  unlined • lined

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What's New?

I updated my "what's new" page here. ;-)

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Ruby's Imagine

I am pleased to announce the publication of the reprint of Ruby's Imagine which was originally published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was inspired by what happened during Hurricane Katrina. I researched the event for nearly a year before writing the book. (I was born in Louisiana.) The FAQ and the first chapter can be found here.

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The Old Mermaids Book of Days and Nights

We are so happy, elated, ecstatic, and happy (did I say) to announce the publication of The Old Mermaids Book of Days and Nights! We found 365 quotes—one for every day of the year—from the Old Mermaids novels (and from my other novels) to create this inspirational, sometimes humorous, sometimes mystical, always mysterious collection. It's available in print or as an e-book (at all your favorite e-book sites soon). Even if you get the e-book, I hope you can get the print book. We just love this book! 

From the cover: Kim Antieau guides you through a year of wisdom, humor, beauty, inspiration, and love in these daily quotes from her own writings featuring the Old Mermaids and some of the other wise and mystical characters from her books and stories. See what gifts Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid, Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid, Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid, Sister Sheila Na Giggle Mermaid, and others have to share with you all year long. (Cover art by Nancy Norman.) You can read FAQ and some excerpts here.

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The Desert Siren

My new novel The Desert Siren is out and about in the world. The e-books are up and the print copy should be available in a few days. You can find out more about The Desert Siren here.

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Whackadoodle Times

I'm so happy to announce the publication of Whackadoodle Times, one of my favorite novels. (No, I can't say it's my favorite ever because there's my gal Butch and Church of the Old Mermaids and The Fish Wife and...Well, you get the idea.) But I do love this book. I loved writing it and I loved reading it again and again. It's funny; it makes me laugh. I also cry every time I read it. It's honest and irreverent, poignant and impertinent. (It's also sexually explicit in some scenes.)

Anyway, I love this book. It's about love and loss and movies and the apocalypses we create--intentionally and unintentionally--in our lives and our world.

(By the way, the cover is much more vibrant in "real" life and on the e-reader. I can't figure out why it's not copying well on any of my websites.)

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Whackadoodle Times

Some of my favorite novels are now being published, and I am so happy. I love, love, love Butch and now Whackadoodle Times has arrived, on its own tattered red carpet. I loved writing this book. Brooke McMurphy, the main character (and narrator), is naughty and not nice, and I love her. She's got her own reasons for every crappy (and wonderful) thing she does. To me, she's the greatest kind of hera: all screwed up but trying to do the best she can. She's in la-la land, after all; things are not always what they seem to be.

(By the way, like some of my other novels, this one is sexually explicit in places. It is an adult book, for adults. It is funny in places, too, so you might laugh out loud, so be forewarned.)

You can get the book for your e-reader or in print. Have fun!

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Diving Deep

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
—Adrienne Rich from “Diving the Wreck”

I’ve been away from the outside world. Or at least trying to be. Diving deep into the imaginal realms.

That is what I do.

When I was young, I didn’t want an ordinary life. I don’t think I understood what the reality of that would mean.

For one thing, I still wanted all the accoutrements that went with an ordinary life: a house, home, land, enough wealth to be comfortable, good health, a partner.

I drew pictures when I was in elementary school. When I was five, I won first prize for my age group for drawing the Man in the Moon. I was impressed with the prize. I liked being the best. I liked being noticed for my talents, but I never tried to be the best at anything. I didn’t work at it. In my mind, that was akin to cheating. Let everyone just be themselves and then let the best girl win.

Or something like that.

I loved to draw. But I loved stories more. When I was five, I created my first book. On each page was a drawing. Put all the drawings together in a sequence and they told a story.

At some point when I was quite young--still in elementary school--I decided I couldn’t make a living as an artist. I’d have a better shot as a writer.

I laugh whenever I remember this.

What was I thinking?

But...

This was the life I chose. This is the life I wanted. It is different from what I expected, but it is my life. I am fortunate in so many ways that I can’t even articulate.

What is it to live a life dedicated to art?

Yes, that’s what I do. Storytelling is an art.

I have friends, other writer friends, who would laugh at the idea that writing is an art: It is a business, period. I have other friends who would laugh at the idea that what I do is art because they believe I am writing for the masses: I am merely a peddler.

I don’t care what they think or why other people write or create art. I know I do it because I am drawn to it, called to it, because it is what I do best in the world.

Lately, it is almost all I want to do.

Perhaps I am no longer a visitor to the imaginal worlds. Maybe that’s where I live.

I never wanted to be one of those reclusive writers who couldn’t bear to be in the world. I wanted to be a contributing member of my community. And I was, for the most part. I was an environmental and social justice activist for most of my adult life.

Most of the time I felt as though I was butting my head up against a brick wall.

Lately, I can’t make myself step into the fray. Too much shouting. Too many people with their heads in the sand, pretending nothing is wrong.

Now all I can do is dive deep into the imaginal realms and see what stories there are to tell.

Maybe that will help.

Storytelling is all about truth-telling, isn’t it?

A way for people to see the truth?

All of art is about the truth. Truth and beauty.

Or are they the same?

Lately, I feel raw.

Maybe since I was born.

My friend Stephanie Lillegard says that “good creative effort is always spiritually exfoliating--and so it's our raw selves with no skins we take out into the world then.”

I dive deep every time I write. I am listening, communing, becoming. I am finding the place, the sweet spot, where I can trust the creative flow, be the creative flow. I just am, while my fingers move, translating what I hear, see, feel, recollect.

I used to write a book a year. I’d write it, and then the rest of the year, I lived an ordinary life, doing what everyone does. Or doesn’t.

Now I have times when I cannot stop writing.

Sometimes it hurts.

This fast way of writing began about eleven years ago. I went to Michigan to visit my father who was ill at the time. It was an awful visit in ways that I don’t need to delineate here. Suffice to say, by the time I returned to the Pacific Northwest, I felt as though I have been emotionally flayed.

For the first time, I decided to write a novel based on my experiences--a roman à clef. For a little more than two weeks, the novel poured out of me. The words came so fast that some days I wept as I wrote it. I was writing longhand and I could barely read my own writing.

Not long after that, I began writing Swans in Winter. Again, it flowed from me so quickly that it was physically draining. I wrote all day for seventeen days. Some of those days, I wept from sheer exhaustion. But I had a novel at the end of it.

I knew I couldn’t sustain that pace. It didn’t feel healthy. I didn’t like it, actually.

I wrote my next few novels at a slower, more sustainable pace. But I was still writing quickly. Something had opened up in me, and I had to figure out how to go with it.

In the meanwhile, I got physically healthier. I also got a laptop. I wrote nearly all of Mercy, Unbound on the computer. This was new for me. After a lifetime of writing my first drafts on a yellow legal pad, I was now writing while I sat at the computer.

I started writing all of my novels on the computer. And then we began spending part of our winters in Tucson. In the second year we were there, I wrote Church of the Old Mermaids in less than a month.

I loved every minute of it.

This last winter, I wrote two and a half novels during our month in Tucson.

It was fun. It was exciting.

And it was exhausting. Once again, I had opened up those creative floodgates a little too wide.

It has taken me quite a few months to come back from that.

Does it mean I dove too deep?

Or did I work too hard?

Is it the job of every creative person to figure out how much is too much?

Lately I have been struggling with my own demons which seem to crawl out of my own private woodwork whenever I stop writing for a time.

When I work, when I create, when I tell stories, perhaps I “subdue the demons with splendor,” as the old Tibetan Buddhism texts say.

Or maybe I’m like Shahrazad, telling stories night after night to save my life.

A few days ago, I began putting together The Old Mermaids Book of Days and Nights. I’m collecting quotes from my novels--mostly those novels in the Old Mermaids universe. I have one quote per day of the year. I love doing this. I feel like I am in the Old Mermaids Sanctuary, and beyond, and all is well in the world. I’m not certain if I started to feel better and then I was able to begin this project, or if when I began this project, I subdued the demons with the splendor of the Old Mermaids.

Who knows?

This is my life. Sometimes it is a slog. Sometimes it is wondrous.

Do you remember the Irish fairy tale sometimes called "The Enchanted Heart?" A young woman has left her home and is traveling the countryside, looking for adventure. She stops one night in a village where the villagers are mourning the loss of a young man. The villagers are very hospitable to her. They give her food and invite her to stay. She asks if she can do anything to help. The parents and community members are tired from their grief. So they ask if she could sit with the body of the young man for a while so that they can get some sleep.

She agrees. They put a chair for her near the body. She can see the man’s face in the torch light, and she’s sorry for his death. He’s a handsome man, and he looks like he was a good-hearted soul.

Around midnight, the young woman is startled when the young man suddenly sits up and says, “I’m not dead! I’m under an enchantment. Can you help me?”

“What can I do?”

“If you will agree to go over the quaking bog, through the burning forest, and into the raging sea with me, I will be released from this enchantment.”

“Of course,” she says. “I will go with you.”

They clasp hands and immediately a whirlwind comes and carries them away and drops them down onto a quaking bog. They have no magic to help them. They only have each other. They make the perilous journey across the bog, somehow not falling in and drowning.

Next they are face to face with a wall of fire. They have no idea how they are going to traverse the burning forest. Then they see a stag running through, so they follow his trail. They barely make it out of the burning forest, but they come out of it and are standing at the edge of a cliff. Below them is a storm-tossed sea. They don’t know what to do. It seems impossible, but they hold hands and jump into the ocean.

Once in the icy water, they see a green light beneath the ocean waves. They swim toward the light--even as their limbs begin to freeze up, they swim toward the green light. They finally reach the green light, which is part of fairy land, and the enchantment is instantly broken. The whirlwind returns and takes them back to the man’s house. The young man and young woman fall in love and marry. The entire village celebrates at their wedding. The couple live long and happy lives together.

I often think of this story as a template for the life of a creative person.

Or maybe I think of it as a story of my own life.

The young woman leaving home on an adventure is the young creative person following the call of the wild. She soon enough meets someone in trouble. Maybe it’s the part of herself that is enchanted or dead to the world. Can any of us create if part of us is dead?

Or when she clasps the young man’s hand, is this when she truly begins her life as an artist? She has stepped out of the mainstream. She will go where the story takes her. She will go any place to awaken that which is dead. She will go anywhere to follow her heart’s desire.

And finally, they have to dive deep to release the enchantment. That is the most difficult part of the journey. They have to swim deep into the ocean to that green light.

I decided long ago to go on this journey. I clasped the young man’s hand. I agreed to do whatever it took to release the enchantment--to live a heartfelt life, a creative life.

But some days I feel bogged down.

Other days, I feel like I’m trapped in the fire. Will I ever find a way out?

Other days, I am in the icy ocean and I’ve lost sight of my true love and my goals.

I’ve lost sight of the green light.

But wait, there it is.

The light at the beginning of the fairy tale.

The connection to the divine creative flow.

Some days I feel close to the green light. Some days I am in the green light and any moment, the whirlwind will come and take me back to my community. Once there, I can celebrate and be a part of that world again.

Until then, I am diving.

I am diving toward that which is calling to me: the words are purposes, the words are maps, taking me to the story ready to be told.

I am not diving for the wreck. Especially if that wreck is me. I am diving for the divine. For creation.



Photograph taken at night (by me) by the Old Mermaids pool at the retreat in Tucson.

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Ending the Romance

Somehow I manage to find news even when I'm trying to avoid it. I've been looking for peace and happiness, yet I keep stumbling into stories of violence and mayhem.

One morning I opened my computer to listen to a meditation. Half asleep, for some unconscious reason I can't fathom, I checked a news website and found out about the shooting in Colorado.

As I read and listened, I saw in my mind's eye all the other shootings, bombings, and other acts of violence I had witnessed in my lifetime. It was like watching a tape of "This is Your Gruesome Life."

As always happens during these terrible violent events here in the United States, the media and others soon martyrized the crime victims. I heard story after story of the dead acting as heroes. A bloody awful horror story became mythologized into a story about good people doing good things. Romance overtook horror.

I understand: We often mythologize horrible events in our lives. It's a way of getting through them. I'm not addressing what the families of these crime victims have to do to survive this horror. That's their business. I'm talking about what we tend to do as a nation when something horrible and preventable happens. Instead of figuring out what really happened and how we can prevent it in the future, the nation seems to put on blood-stained rose-colored glasses.

The romanticization of this violent crime happened in tandem--as it almost always does when guns are involved--with various "shooters" (NRA spokespeople) declaring that "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

I heard one shooter pointing out that Norway had very strict gun laws, but that didn't stop a mass murderer from going on a rampage last year. The talking head didn't challenge this nonsense. Someone should have said, "Um, yes, but that happened in Norway ONCE. In the United States, 30,000 people die from guns every year. There are another 300,000 gun assaults EVERY YEAR."

The availability of guns and ammunition is definitely part of the problem.

But what's wrong here is more than just the availability of firearms.

We all know it's more than that.

Our culture, the culture of the United States of America, is awash in violence. Violence is an epidemic in this country, and it's as American as apple pie.

Our economic system is rapacious and all-consuming. Our political system is now basically controlled by bullies and nasty foul-thinking violence-spewing right-wing extremists. Our entertainment industry is gory with glorified killers of all kinds. Too much of the internet is populated with bullies, haters, and thieves--or people pretending none of the former exists. These are all forms of violence. (And I haven't even mentioned the rapes, murders, assaults, robberies, child abuse.)

Oh, and by the way, this epidemic of violence: It's a MALE epidemic. No question about it.

I have talked about this issue and written about it for years. It's all well and good to champion non-violence, or champion victims of violence. But once we bring up the perpetrators of this violence, all bets are off. "What? What are you talking about? Men and violence? Naw. Come on. Don't lay your feminist crap on me."

The majority of the violence in this country is perpetrated by boys and men. Yet when I and other writers point out this fact, people often stop listening.

Why?

Afraid to wake the patriarchal man beast?

Already awoken. Already raping and pillaging.

Afraid to acknowledge a difference between men and women?

Ah, the difference is as plain as the penis between his legs and the vagina between mine. Not to mention the hormonal and chemical differences.

It is a boy and man problem. Does it stem from something in the water, air, food, or culture? I don't know.

But shouldn't we try to figure it out?

As a nation, we have got to make some concrete changes. And first up, we have to look at the pathology reports: We are drowning in blood.

And let's stop romanticizing those who have been murdered. It's not romantic to be murdered. It's not heroic. It's just awful. There is no good that comes out of being murdered. What happened in Colorado is a horrible event that happened to dear and beloved innocent people.

This epidemic of violence has corrupted the heart and soul of the United States. Since few people will acknowledge this disease, I doubt anyone's even looking for a cure.

Nations are capable of changing, but I'm not sure our nation is capable of changing for the better. I've seen little evidence of that lately.

I hope I'm wrong. For the first time in my life, I'm considering leaving this country. I'm tired of worrying about crazy people with guns every time I leave the house. I'm tired of looking at neighbors and strangers with suspicion, wondering what they're hiding under their coats.

It's not a peaceful way of being in the world. And it's certainly not romantic.

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Peace Envoys

I’m sitting outside with Mario, on our back patio. It is near the end of the day. Mario is reading. I am looking around our yard. It’s not really “our” yard. We don’t own it, but I have lived in this place longer than I have lived anywhere except in my parents’ house. It feels like ours.

I am looking up at the Kuan Yin Peace Garden.

Kuan Yin is holding her concrete fan with her left hand and looking out toward me, yet not at me. The angelica I planted near her is stunted, probably from the acidic soil. Near Kuan Yin is a concrete birdbath and shells my neighbor gave me. I wish more flowers grew around her, but I don’t want to think about what’s “wrong” every time I look at her. Just like I don’t want to look at my yard or gardens and think, “I have to cut this, weed this, plant this.”

I just want some peace.

I created the Kuan Yin Peace Garden some years ago, after 9/11, when this country was about to go to war. I had to find some peace in all the strife. And my landlord had just “trimmed” the Doug fir, causing all sorts of creatures to scatter because he’d disturbed their homes. My peaceful backyard felt like a mini-war zone. And it looked like it. So I found Kuan Yin and the bird bath and some flagstones and I put them near the butchered Doug fir. In time, plants grew, all volunteers. Now it is quite lovely.



I feel as though I need a Peace Garden again. I need to unwind the knot in my belly. I recognize it. The last time I had it was when my father had heart surgery. The time before that was when my mother died. Now I think it’s an accumulation of work stress and working too much, not having enough down time. I need swaths of time where I don’t do anything but stare at the sky or listen to the wind through the trees.

Doesn’t everyone?

So I’m unwinding.

I’ve taken time off from work. For two weeks I’m going to try and not do any library work. I’ll try not to go into the city so much. I’ve gotten rid of my TV service—did that a few months ago. Trying not to read or hear any news. I was walking on the Mystic Trail nearly every day, but that made the knot worse. Every day I encountered some human being who was disruptive, rude, alien.

I’m not a people hater. I’m not one of those people who hates my own kind. I don’t prefer animals over people. I am almost always happier in the woods than I am in a crowd of people, but I often prefer being in the woods with my own kind.

Hmmm. But how many humans are my own kind?

Trees feel like my kind. My plants feel like my kin.

Lately, people bother me. I am angry most of the time. I wonder why people can’t act in a way that doesn’t annoy or harm me. Even as I think such thoughts I want to laugh because I know it’s ridiculous, but I don’t laugh. I’m still annoyed or angry.

Recently I lost my tribe. At least, it feels that way. It battered me a bit, this loss. The details aren’t important. I feel unmoored. Haven’t got back on my feet—or maybe like the Old Mermaids at first, I haven’t found my land legs yet. It was such a surprising thing to happen.

Ah well. Let’s not pick at that wound.

I can see my garden from here. My gardens, plural. The marigolds are so bright next to the greens. I put up a fence and hung prayer flags all around. They’re not actually prayer flags. They are pieces of fabric I ripped and then tied onto the fence so that the deer wouldn’t hurt themselves in the dark and the night. I don’t know if that works, but I did it.



Next to the vegetable garden is my massive and amazing rosemary bush, along with my sage bush and lavender bush. This is the first time the lavender bush has bloomed in several years. It was damaged in a storm when we were in Arizona one year. I was going to cut it down afterward because I thought it was dead, but I left it. Now it’s in bloom again. Near to the bushes, I recently planted a tobacco plant. I love being surrounded by warrior and healing plants.

Maybe they are my peace envoys.

As I gaze up at these plants, as I think about them and listen for their whispers, my mood lifts. I believe plants can heal anything. And I believe they know everything.

Yesterday, the knot was so tight in my stomach I could barely breathe. I took one of the quilts my father made for me and I went outside. I lay next to my medicinal herb beds—near to the comfrey and black cohosh—and I put the quilt over me. Closed my eyes. Listened. Felt the grass beneath my fingers. Breathed, breathed.

Later I got up and went to my rosemary bush. I lay next to her for a long while. She’s been with me for more than twenty years, and I felt like I was spending time with an old friend.

When I got up from the rosemary bush, a bright yellow and green spider was walking up my arm. She was so beautiful I nearly gasped.

This morning, I got up and spent time with my plants, watering them, feeding them, pulling “weeds.” I talked to them, sang to them, even as I was pulling some of them up, explaining why I did this and that.

Afterward, Mario and I walked down to the river. I was glad it was just Mario and myself sitting on the shore and watching the Columbia River move toward us and then away and then toward us and then away.

Once we got home again, we worked. I am most at home and happiest when I am doing writing work or when I’m out in the woods. Today was a work day so that’s what we did. I finished editing Whackadoodle Times. Then Mario worked on the covers for The Rift and Pricked: A Jane Deere novel. We used one of my photos for the The Rift and I found a photograph on dreamstime that I liked for Pricked. I want the Jane Deere covers to have a grunge fairy tale-like flavor, and I think this cover starts the series out nicely.

Now I’m listening to the day unwind. Too many dogs are barking. Machinery in the background. But I breathe, in and out, in and out. I look up at Kuan Yin. She looks so peaceful.

Of course, she’s made out of concrete.

She’s also surrounded by greenery, mostly plum trees. Behind her are blackberries, a young hawthorne tree, several young cherry trees. Towering above her is the Douglas fir.

All is well, all is well.

I look over at Mario and he smiles at me. I smile back.

I know peace will come to me again, too.

(Here are the covers we worked on today. These are jpgs so the detail isn't good. These are first drafts for the covers. My name needs to be smaller on The Rift and some other things on Pricked, but so far, so good.)

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Butch is Published!

I'm so happy to report that Butch: A Bent Western has been published! Yes! Butch is absolutely one of my favorite fictional characters EVER! In fact, I'm not convinced she is fictional. So let me tell you this: If you don't like Westerns, it's not that kind of Western. If you like Westerns, you will find this a kind of magical realist Western. If you don't like historicals, don't worry: It ain't that kind of historical. If you do like historicals, the story takes place 100 years ago, so it might have enough feeling of a historical for you. If you don't like mysteries, it ain't that kind of mystery, but Butch has quite a few mysteries on her plate. And come on: Who doesn't like a good mystery? Mostly it's a good story with a fabulous crew of people. It's funny and moving, and I hope you enjoy it!

Here's from the cover blurb:

Santa Tierra, New Mexico, 1918

Anything can happen in the weird and wonderful town of Santa Tierra where Butch McLean protects the residents of Wayward Ranch, finds lovin’ in the arms and up the skirts of her beloved Angel, and keeps one step ahead of the possibly supernatural jaguar who may or may not be stalking her. Come hell or high water, Butch will rescue any dude or damsel in distress with humor and aplomb.

But when Angel dumps her (for a man, no less), a wounded stranger stumbles into town, and the deputy is murdered, Butch may have more mysteries on her hands than even she can solve. Especially since she is suddenly plagued by memories of the terrible childhood years she spent at St. Anne’s Home for Wayward Boys. And to top it all off, she becomes obsessed with finding her prostitute mother’s suicide note.

Butch is not accustomed to being haunted by anything—and she is not interested in ruminating about her life—but now even the animals who cross her path tell her a time of reckoning is near. And when the mystery of the dead deputy leads to revelations about Butch’s own parentage, she might just have a shot at solving the greatest mystery of all: Who is she and why did her mother end up at the end of a rope?

print • kindle • nook • smashwords

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Butch is Here!

After a four year plus wait, my novel Butch is finished and published. Well, it's published in some venues. It's on smashwords for all e-readers except kindle and nook. The kindle version is up, and the nook version will be up soon. The print version will be available next week. We're doing a happy dance here!

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On the Mystic Trail: The Tale of Blue Tails

I have studied. The moon, stars, heavens, hell. I have studied. Plants, blossoms, rocks, rivers. I have studied. People, stories, the wind.

And yet none of this studying brought me any closer to the truth. Or to joy. Truth and joy are the same thing, right? I was not any closer to understanding love. No closer to the divine.

So one day I let it all go. That which I thought I knew. I let go of the studies. The rules. The dos and don’ts.

I asked: What brings me peace and joy?

The feel of my husband’s cheek against my hand. The sound of his laughter. His grin.

What else?

When I was a girl, I ran through the woods, barefoot, singing, loving, climbing trees, in communion with the world. I gave myself over—completely, for moments of time—to Nature. I was in love.

And in grief when it came to harm.

I was in awe of the mystery of it.

I understood it all as I walked sole to soul to sole.

I was an Earth Mystic then.

Of course.

Somehow I had stepped off that fecund path of Earth mysticism, Earth mystery, and onto a concrete path. Or at least onto someone else’s path. Veered off my own in a search for healing. Listened to other wisdoms, other traditions.

Perhaps that was part of it all.

But I am of this place: this land, this water, air, this sun.

Now I am an Earth Mystic. Now and again.

I have been walking the Mystic Trail looking for signs. It’s a busy trail this a trail near my home. Every time I walk it, it is a pilgrimage and a trial. I am accustomed to being in Nature where very few other humans walk. Those who come to the places where I roam are likewise Earth Mystics, for the most part. They are reverential. They understand all of it is sanctified. Sacred.

Human beings are a part of Nature. But they tax me. I listen for wisdom in the Wind. I hug trees and feel love back. I wave to crows, whisper to plants, look for signs in the clouds. I am in love when I am in Nature. I am in church when I am in Nature.

Most people don’t see the world the way I do. Sometimes it is too painful to be around others when I am in the woods. I can hardly bear to see how they treat what I worship.

But something about this busy trail calls to me: daily. I know I can find answers there. Here. On the Mystic Trail.

One day I went looking for signs. Isn’t that what an Earth Mystic would do?

I walked along the riverside, listening to the water, looking at the tall stalks of cow parsnip growing on the east side of the path, away from the creek, in marshy black soil. Their huge Queen Anne’s Lace-like flowers were beginning to dry out.

In some places along the creek, in the tall grass, lunaria annua (honesty) grew. Its pale violet colored four-petaled blossoms looked satiny and glorious, so rich and vibrant. I wanted to stand and gaze at them forever. I didn’t know why the plant was called “honesty,” but its nickname was “money plant” because its seed pods looked like coins. That apparently accounted for the “lunaria” name, too, since the round translucent seed pods looked like small full moons, complete with crater-like pockmarks that were actually seeds.

All I saw on this day were the satiny blossoms. The seed pods would come later.

Small violet-colored butterflies flew around my feet here and there as I walked. I stepped onto the first bridge at the first falls and turned my face toward the milky water as it cascaded down an almost smooth rock face. Near the bottom of the rock face, near the creek, was a hole in the rock. Every time I looked at it I thought of the sipacu in the floor of the Hopi kivas. Apparently the sipacu represented the hole where the Hopi ancestors emerged from the underworld into this world.

I felt like I was either emerging from the underworld here or diving down deep into it.

I continued walking between the moss and fern-covered rock face on my left and the creek on my right. Candy flowers—with white blossoms growing up between two leaves that together looked like exaggerated green lips—seemed to grow everywhere on the moss covered ground, looking like tiny stars that had fallen to earth.

This trail was so fecund—there was so much to see and experience, that it was almost overwhelming. I kept on the path, climbing up. The creek got farther and farther below me.

I stopped at the bottom of twenty-six wooden steps, next to a tiny cave--the grotto we called it—and listened to it echoing back the sound of the creek to me.

I whispered prayers.

Then I climbed again.

I gazed up at water falling down the canyon walls as I walked. I hugged Douglas firs that were hundreds of years old. I took the right path at the fork of the road and went down again, following the switchback to another bridge, as the world opened up and I could see the beautiful blue sky of the canyon. I crossed over the bridge and over the creek, stopping to gaze into the sea-foam colored water churned up as it fell over rocks and down, down.

There be Old Mermaids here.

I climbed down over slippery downed trees and around boulders until I was under the trees, some yards from the water. I sat on a rock.

I was flooded with so many thoughts of so many distressing things in my life and in the world. I wanted answers and I wanted them now. What could I do to be well, to be at peace, to be in joy?

Shhhh.

I’m so tired of struggling.

Shhhh.

I needed to close my eyes. Just rest. Meditate. When I opened my eyes, I would have an answer.

I breathed deeply and closed my eyes.

After a bit, I felt something. Something had changed.

I opened my eyes. A huge black dog was sniffing around the ground near me. I jumped up, startled and afraid. The dog didn’t seem to notice me. What would it do when it did? I looked around for the owner. I saw a man with three very young boys crossing the bridge.

The dog picked up something. A stick.

I was furious.

How dare that man let his dog off leash. I had been bitten by dogs twice. Been lunged at innumerable times. I didn’t blame the dogs. But I did blame the owners. They were always either completely clueless or else they’d get angry that I dared to say anything.

I was so angry now that I wanted to hurt someone.

The dog eagerly brought me over a stick. She wanted me to play fetch.

“No!” I said. And I pointed up the hill. I yelled at the man, “You’re supposed to have your dog on a leash.”

He mumbled something.

The dog ran up the hill again, leaving behind the stick, like some kind of offering.

My heartbeat started to go back to normal. After the dog and the man were gone, I looked at the stick. Maybe the cosmos had brought me an answer in the form of the stick.

It was just a stick with moss on it. And dog spit.

I remembered once years ago going to Bandon, Oregon, where we used to live. I was desperately sick and miserable. I cried out to the Universe for help. As I walked the deserted beaches, I came across the biggest pile of seaweed I had ever seen. I started laughing almost uncontrollably, and I yelled, “I said I needed help, not kelp!”

Maybe this was the same thing. Dog was god backward. Should I look for god in every dog I saw? And the stick. Talk softly and carry a big stick?

I sighed. I wanted people to be more responsible about their animals. But I couldn’t change their behavior, and despite years of trying, I hadn’t been able to change my response to their behavior. It was a safety thing. When I felt my safety threatened, I went for the jugular.

I got up and moved closer to the river, climbing carefully around boulders until I found a rock in the river, in the sun. I curled up on the rock. I felt like I was one of those iconic sunbathing mermaids. Only I was wearing clothes and no one could see my tails. Even me.

I sometimes wondered what color my tails would be. Probably New Mexico sky blue. Just like in my novel, The Blue Tail.

I needed to relax, to stop thinking.

I began singing the old Celtic chant, “Under the earth I go. On an oak leaf I stand. I ride a filly that was never foaled. I carry the dead in my hands. I carry the dead in my hands.”

I sang it over and over. The sound of the cascading water became my drum, my rattle, my accompanying music. I sang it loud. I sang it long.

It drowned out my thoughts.

It was just me and this place.

I breathed deeply. Across the river was a patch of coltsfoot, growing in the relative darkness created by the trees. The coltsfoot looked so present—or something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They looked so alive with their huge green leaves overlapping with other huge green leaves.

As I watched their stillness, a hummingbird flew out into the middle of the creek. Then she flew to the coltsfoot patch and then out to the creek again. I couldn’t tell what she was looking for or doing, but as always, I felt buoyed just to see a hummingbird. When she disappeared from my sight, I watched dragonflies diving now and again for insects flying above the water. A vulture flew overhead. A dipper stood on one of the many rocks in the creek. The dipper was so close to the water that it was almost in the water. Every once in a while it would dip its head into the creek, quickly, then come up again.

A tiny luna moth-like insect flew past me. It seemed to glow white. I was transfixed. It looked so otherworldly, and I wondered if the fairies had decided to visit me in this odd and lovely form.

At one point I saw a shadow on the water—a bird was flying overhead. I looked up and saw a huge bird. At first glance, it felt dinosaur-sized—and I only got a first glance. It flapped its wings like a great blue heron, but it was golden brown and its head was more like an eagle’s—although not quite. I only saw it for about three seconds before it flew behind a rock. I thought I knew all the big birds in our area, but I didn’t know what I had just seen.

I sat quietly for a time. I noticed spider webbing or some kind of filament seemed to be everywhere, streaming in the wind from some unknown place, connecting everything to everything. I watched these filaments and felt comforted by the idea of everything being connected.

Be still.

And understand your mermaid nature.

That’s what I heard, once my mind had quieted down. Those seemed to be opposing instructions. I didn’t imagine a mermaid was ever still. Weren’t they more like fish, always on the move?

I was often too literal, even when I was delving into myth and fairy tales.

Know thyself.

That was what was written at the Pythia’s oracle in Delphi: Know thyself. That was the way to magic. The way to power (power with not power over). The way to truth.

I was hearing this as I sat by the river in the canyon, just off the Mystic Trail.

Sometimes “know thyself” seemed impossible.

Be still and know thyself.

Oh, so I was getting instructions on how to know myself.

I looked at the white water coming down through two huge boulders in the creek.

Find your siren song.

Ahhh. So that was what it meant to understand my mermaid nature.

Wasn’t writing my siren song?

And something else. Maybe something not quite so concrete and literal?

After a while, I climbed back up to the path. I walked past the cave and went up and across another bridge. The waterfalls crashed down into the pool below—a dark green pool that looked like it held all kinds of mysteries.

I watched the falls for a time and then I headed north, away from the falls and up the trail. I crossed another bridge. I was walking by a sun-drenched patch of grass and rock when I saw a flash of blue. I looked over and saw what looked like a small snake’s tail moving on the incline, through the grass.

The tail was the color of the New Mexico sky.

I stopped and watched. The creature stopped. I could see it was slightly hidden under the shadow of a rock. And I could see its head and body. It looked like a small black and brown striped garter snake with a blue tail.

I somehow got out my camera. Because the sun was so bright I couldn’t tell if I was even pointing in the right place. I whispered, “Could you be still just for a moment so I could take your picture?”

The blue-tailed creature was still. I took photos. Suddenly, another of these creatures burst out of the grass and began chasing the first one. Now I could see they had legs. They were lizards! A lizard with a dull blue tail chased the lizard with the bright blue tail.

I was a witness to a blue-tailed lizard chase!

Later I learned that what I had seen were two Western skinks, an indigenous lizard of our area. As far as I could tell, the lizard with the bright blue tail was younger and the one chasing it was older. Or it could have been the other way around. The information was confusing. Scientists believed the skinks used their blue tail as a way to distract predators. The predators would grab onto the tail, then the lizard would detach the tail and keep going. They could only do this once, though. After they detached the tail the first time, a new tail grew back and it was not detachable.

The lizards disappeared from my view. I thanked the Universe for letting me see the blue-tailed creatures.

I went down the rest of the trail in bliss.

I kept wondering what it all meant, if anything. I was not obsessing or distressing. I felt like I was in a dream and marveling at the dream all at the same time.

I felt like I was surrounded by signs and metaphor. I felt like I was walking into and out of story. Into and out of dreaming and mythmaking.

Dog and god. Kelp and help.

Blue tails and blue tales.

What was the difference between a woman and a mermaid?

Her tail.

Her tale.

Something so profound and beautiful about seeing the blue tail on the lizard. That bright blue in the wild.

The lizard was wild. The mermaid is wild. She dives into the great ocean of herself and finds her siren song.

Be still.

Know thyself.

Find your siren song.

“Under the earth I go. On an oak leaf I stand...”

It had to be about the wild.

Be wilder.

Bewilder.

Perhaps that was how we found our tales—our stories. Perhaps that was how we could see our own tails, how we could know our true selves.

Be wilder

It was all bewildering.

And that was how it should be on the Mystic Trail.

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