May 25, 2009
No, you haven’t landed on the wrong blog. Though I usually only post about Tarot on my other blog, Spirit Blooms, in honor of World Tarot Day, I’d like to share my love of Tarot a bit more broadly, and also to honor some of the people of Tarot, including writers and artists that I think are rather special. So here it is, more than you ever thought you wanted to know about Tarot. At the same time I hope to dispel some misconceptions.
By the way, I understand that today is also World Towel Day for Arthur Dent fans (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).
Tarot Writers and Artists
First, I want to introduce you to the blogs of two women and one man who’ve contributed a great deal to the study of Tarot, for me personally and for a lot of others. Mary K. Greer is the author of Tarot For Your Self and The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals, along with many other insightful books on Tarot. Rachel Pollack is an award-winning novelist as well as author of numerous books on Tarot and the Kabbalah, including Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, The Forest of Souls, and a pair of detailed companion books for the Haindl Tarot created by Hermann Haindl. Ms. Pollack also created the Shining Tribe Tarot.
In addition to those who write books about Tarot are a number of people who write articles, publish newsletters, review Tarot decks and books, and operate online forums. Then there are the deck creators who continue to color the lives of Tarot lovers with new and fascinating decks, beautiful images, and deep symbolism. James Wanless, Ph.D., or Captain Pick A Card (notice I’m linking to two different blogs here), is the creator of the Voyager Tarot, which is the first Tarot I owned and learned with, back in the late 80s. It’s a photo collage deck, and it still resonates for me in its beauty and usefulness.
Some of the most innovative modern Tarot decks include Mark McElroy’s Bright Idea Deck, and Emily Carding’s Transparent Tarot. While my preference is for a more traditional look and feel to Tarot, it’s decks like these that bring Tarot to people who never considered it before, and have helped carry it into the 21st century.
Sometimes an established artist decides to create a Tarot deck. Hermann Haindl is a great example of an artist who is also knowledgeable about Tarot, and I find his Haindl Tarot to be phenomenal. Artist decks are sometimes disappointments, either because the artists haven’t studied Tarot in depth, don’t have the right feeling for it, or because some aspect we expect of Tarot is missing. It’s not enough for a Tarot to just have pretty pictures or a novel theme. The best art-based decks are fabulous for reading, as is Elisabetta Trevisan’s deck, the Crystal Tarots.
History and Structure
Tarot is a centuries old phenomenon, the earliest European decks having appeared by the 15th century. No one really knows its origin, or its original purpose, but we know that it’s been used both as a deck of playing cards and as a system of divination for hundreds of years. It’s the precursor to our standard modern playing cards.
A Tarot deck is defined primarily by its structure. The deck typically contains 78 cards and includes two parts, a Major Arcana and a Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana contains 22 archetypal images, or Trumps, and the Minor Arcana is more like a deck of ordinary playing cards, with four suits of numbered and Court cards. Whereas a deck of playing cards includes only three face cards in each suit, a Tarot deck has four Courts, traditionally titled Page or Knave (the Jack in a playing card deck), Knight, Queen, and King. The Joker in modern playing cards is derived from the Fool archetype in the Tarot’s Major Arcana.
Three styles of Tarot decks have developed in modern times. Some use only pip cards, with non-scenic illustrations of the given number of suit elements for the numbered Minor Arcana. Others contain scenic illustrations in the Minors, which many people find richer in symbolism and easier to use in readings.
But enough of the technical details and history. I’m positive that if you’re interested in learning more, you’ll find plenty to intrigue you with a simple online search. For more about Tarot history, check out Trionfi.com or Tarotpedia. You can also learn about the history of specific decks at Wikipedia, such as the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot and the much more ancient Tarot de Marseille.
The Art of Tarot
The draw for many people who love Tarot is the artwork. Some collectors don’t read with the cards at all. I won’t post any images here, for reasons of copyright. But I’ll provide a link or two to get you started at sites where samples of both ancient and modern decks can be viewed.
Golden Tarot by Kat Black (Use links at left to view the Majors, Coins, Cups, Swords, Wands.)
Tarot of Transformation by Jasmin Cori and Willow Arlenea is “an innovative deck by two psychotherapists offering an integrated and embodied spirituality.”
If you want to spend about two full days browsing samples of Tarot decks, you might want to try Aeclectic Tarot. This site also links to the Aeclectic Tarot Forum, one of the biggest and best places on the Internet to learn about and discuss Tarot, thanks to its most generous hostess, Solandia.
Last but not least, the German site Albideuter.de
compares the same cards from a staggering number of different Tarot decks.
Uses of Tarot
Tarot is most useful for gaining valuable insight into our lives, which is something that can’t be measured except through the experiences of those who use it or benefit from it. I don’t typically set out to use Tarot to predict the future, though there are times when it does that anyway, a mystery I won’t go into here in any depth, because frankly I can’t explain it. If someone is interested in how Tarot might do that, or how any kind of psychic ability or extra-sensory perception works, there are many theories, ranging from spiritual beliefs to quantum physics, and there are scientific studies going on all the time. Carl Jung experienced events that he classified as ESP, and as a scientist he thought the subject deserved further study. He also coined the term Synchronicity, or “meaningful coincidence,” which is what a lot of students of Tarot, including me, tend to think is at least partially behind how Tarot works.
If you’re interested in following some of the latest research into psychic and other related phenomena, you might want to check out these links:
Institute of Noetic Sciences
American Society for Psychical Research
Consciousness Research Laboratory
The Veritas Research Project, University of Arizona
I find that my personal use of Tarot helps me most with insight, helping me to understand what’s going on in my life — especially inside my own psyche. It sometimes helps me make decisions by pointing out options or perspectives that I hadn’t thought of on my own, and it helps me by pointing out where I have either deluded myself about something or I have a lot of unconscious stuff going on that I need to be more aware of. I’ve also at times used it as a tool for meditation. Some psychologists and therapists use Tarot in their practices to help clients understand their projections, archetypes at work in their lives, and other unconscious issues. Sometimes an image is much better than words at bringing unconscious material into the open or into greater clarity. Tarot could be compared to dreams in its symbolism, and to literature in how it provides a metaphor for typical situations and processes that all humans experience.
I’ve used Tarot to spark my creativity, either to inspire the topic of an essay or to help me work out plotting puzzles in my fiction. The solution to the mystery in Snow Angels came almost entirely from a series of Tarot readings. I’ve read of other Tarot users who also find Tarot helpful in their creative work.
Additionally, Tarot is used, mostly in Europe, to play a card game known as Tarock, Trionfi, or Tarocchi (more instructions here). I’ve never played this game, and the instructions look complex to me. (I grew up playing Canasta and Cribbage.) My understanding is that it’s something like Bridge.
I discovered my love of Tarot more than 20 years ago, and to this day it remains my favorite mystery.
Happy World Tarot Day!
— Barbara @ 1:48 pm PST, 05/25/09
April 19, 2009
Today is our local Avocado Festival. I don’t plan to go this year. My spouse went very early, before the crowds arrived, for some fresh produce and a carne asada burrito.
I would’ve titled this post with the name of the actual festival we had here in town today, except that I’m going to criticize it a little bit, and I don’t want to cast a shadow over that particular event for any locals who otherwise enjoy it. My criticism isn’t about just our Avocado Festival.
The positive side is, I’m eating a strawberry. That’s always a good thing. In fact, I’m rich today, with three little baskets of strawberries and a good week or two’s supply of avocados. Not only that, we got some of the avocados for free, from a local business near one of the avocado packing plants. Presumably they’re cast offs from the preparation for the festival, since they aren’t very pretty ones. But they’re still delicious, and dead ripe, so I already got to enjoy some for breakfast. My favorite way to eat avocado is mashed with salt and pepper and spread on toast. Since I live with my favorite bread baker, this is the ultimate easy (for me) and delicious breakfast.
My rant is not about the immense crowd that will be there later today, even though I’m not a crowd person. I can handle crowds, and even enjoy them, in small doses. My rant is not about the local vendors who show up each year. It’s not even about the non-local vendors who show up there. After all, everybody’s got to make a buck, right? Some of the vendors are wonderful.
You can get the best local tacos, tamales, and burritos at our Avocado Festival that you’ve ever eaten, and there’s always a nice supply of fresh avocados, of course. Then there’s the standard fair fare, funnel cakes and lemonade and . . . well, the list goes on. We don’t buy most of that standard fair food, so I’m not even aware of what it all is. We usually go for the Mexican food. Some of it’s not available year round, even here, because it’s from groups or businesses that put out a special effort just for the festival. It’s a rare treat, and one of the great draws of the festival for us in the years we attend.
In the years that we attend, we’ve learned to walk there early, as soon as the booths are opening. That way we avoid the biggest crowds and the worst heat.
I’m not sure why, but the day of the Avocado Festival is always hot, even though we can get some pretty cool weather in April. Three days ago we had a high of something like 67 degrees Fahrenheit and the nighttime temp dipped into the low 40s. I wore long sleeves all day, and sometimes a sweater. Yesterday the high was over 80, and today promises to be at least that. (Update, it got up to 93 in town today!) But as usual, of those two weather patterns, the festival happens to fall on the warmer day. Or should I say the warmer day happens to fall on the festival day — the festival was planned well in advance.
Because of the heat and the larger size of the crowd later in the day, and some combination of those factors that seems to make everyone tired and cranky by afternoon, the feeling of the late day crowd changes in a way that becomes distinctly unpleasant for me. So if I don’t go early, I’m not likely to go at all. In fact, I’d just as soon the booths opened at six in the morning rather than nine.
What bothers me about the festival is now fairly universal, I suspect, to local festivals and fairs all over the country. There are very few locals selling handcrafts and artwork anymore. Many of the vendors that sell non-food and non-produce items — and some of the food vendors as well — have traveled from other places. Some of them make the rounds of, possibly, every local festival and county fair in the state, and maybe more than one state. Some are from industry, manufacturers’ representatives selling things like secure mailboxes and automatic sprinkler systems, the sorts of things you expect at home shows and trade fairs, not unique to an Avocado Festival. Some are selling manufactured clothing and home decoration items that I can buy at a department store or a swap meet. The traveling vendors have always been around, but lately they seem to be the only ones. Where are the locals? To me this trend of increasing numbers of non-local vendors is like finding the same chain restaurants everywhere you travel. That used to disappoint me when traveling on business. If there’s any perk to having to take business trips, it’s discovering local eateries that are unique to the city you’re visiting. But if you travel to another place only to eat at Outback or Chilis, you might as well have stayed home. Why go to the local festival to buy the same items that will be sold at the county fair two months from now? More importantly, why go to find items you can buy at the department or hardware store? The point of a local festival, I thought, was to find things that can be found in only one place, to celebrate that location’s unique qualities and products.
I’m glad that we still have some local businesses that sell food and a few other items there. In the years I attend, if I go early, I can pick and choose which places to visit, and I usually enjoy myself. But I miss the kinds of things we used to see more of and that I always loved festivals and fairs for: handcrafts, local artists’ work, and those really unique and unusual items that once were only found at local fairs. They seem be rare these days, almost extinct.
I’m sure there’s a reason for this. Perhaps it has to do with the process of arranging to sell at one of these events, that it’s become so business-oriented that it shuts out local artists and craftspeople. Perhaps people don’t have time anymore to make things themselves and arrange to sell them locally unless that’s their full time business. If it is their full time business, they likely have to travel from fair to fair to make it pay off year-round.
We see some of those traveling vendors selling beautiful things, like handmade herbal soaps, stunning hand-carved gourd art, and some unique pottery. It’s great stuff, and I’m glad it’s there. But, whatever the reason it’s not there, I still find the lack of local handcrafts and artwork at these events sad. I know some of the vendors hate it when I ask, “Are you from around here?” But I continue to ask. It doesn’t mean that I won’t buy what they’re selling, if I love it and can afford it. But I can’t help being more enthusiastic about finding local goods that I love at our local festival.
The only other rant I have is, where are the hats? This is the time of year our warm weather sets in. In the past I’ve arrived at the festival only to wish I’d brought a hat. I can’t be the only one. There used to be hats for sale all over the place there. I usually bought my hat there to use for yard work or walking around in the sun for any reason, because it was the right time of year and they had a nice selection for good prices. Last year I hardly saw any hats. Maybe they were there and so few that I never came across them. I hope at least the hats were back this year.
Last year, too few local handcrafts, too few hats. This year I’m not going to the festival. Can anyone connect the dots?
Maybe the real problem is that I’m not like other people who attend. Maybe most people prefer mass-manufactured, universally available things. Who knew that would become the major draw of a local festival? Maybe it’s just me.
In any case, I’m happy for the strawberries and avocados. It’s a good day.
— Barbara @ 11:09 am PST, 04/19/09
March 27, 2009
We have crane flies like crazy here right now. I’ve always called them mosquito hawks, but apparently they don’t eat mosquitoes (and we’ve already had a few of those).
Tara’s pretty good at catching bugs. She loves to chase the crane flies that get into the house. I’m not sure which is worse, though, pesky crane flies, or a flying cat. She’ll leap, climb, or fly wherever in the house she needs to go in order to catch one. She got so busy hunting them a few nights ago that she didn’t even eat the chicken I gave her. They must be very tasty bugs.
Fortunately I stowed most of our breakables away when she was smaller, because now she’s a force to be reckoned with when she goes flying through the house after a bug. It’s almost like having a monkey on the premises. An eight-pound fur ball flying at you is no laughing matter. She proved that a few days ago when she knocked over my office chair. I wasn’t in it, I just came running when I heard the crash from the other room, and found the chair lying on its back on the floor with one of its adjustment knobs broken off. I think it had something to do with a running, flying leap into it from front to back. A few days later she tried to knock me over, seated in the chair, with an unbelievably football-like tackle for one so small. No claws were used, it was all in fun, of course, but what a cat. I think her Siamese is showing.
Mice beware. Do not enter here.
— Barbara @ 11:57 am PST, 03/27/09
May 17, 2008
I’ve always been a cat person, and my spouse converted soon after we got together. Our dog is a cat person too, since he grew up with cats. Ever since Emily died in August, Indi has been lonely and bored. He started acting like a very old dog. We’re apparently boring, depressing people for a dog to own unless he has a cat around to spice things up, and he’d known and loved Emily all his life. Well, things got spiced up again yesterday, but good.
Meet Tara, named for the Goddess Tara, revered in Tibetan Buddhism as well as in Celtic lore. Cats are supposed to be worshiped, right? Tara thinks so.
In the second photo she’s making friends. Any time she ventures near her new doggy friend she receives a great big juicy kiss on the face, which of course any cat should be delighted to receive. Especially if she just finished washing the last kiss off her face. Indi also loves to get swatted in the face. I think Emily taught him to see that as fun, as a former owner had Emily de-clawed. Indi realized earlier today that Tara comes fully loaded, though she only swats when she’s playing.
We were a little concerned about the introduction, since lately Indi’s become enthusiastic about chasing strange cats out of his back yard. But when his new kitten was introduced as a member of the pack, he happily reverted to baby sitter. Tara took to him with no hissing, having been born into a home with dogs. She knows the drill. Avoid doggy kisses by cruising behind furniture and darting under beds. Especially after the doggy has just taken a long drink of water. (Very drippy business.) Indi is getting old, which you can tell by all that white fur on his face where it used to be mahogany. But having a kitten around has put a smile on all our faces and zest in our steps. (Handy when there’s a kitten darting about underfoot.)
— Barbara @ 4:42 pm PST, 05/17/08
April 18, 2008
No, I did not mis-spell “sweater” in the title. We’re having a summery spring, with hot, dry Santa Ana conditions interspersed with normal spring weather, and it’s confusing our poor little seedlings.
I’m actually doing a tiny bit of gardening. Though I’m a plant — especially flower — lover, and I’ve hankered for some fresh garden produce for a long time, I’m shamefully lazy at doing anything about it. Any yard we’ve had that looked good in the past was entirely my spouse’s doing, except for a little weeding here and there on my part, and even now with my surge of interest in finally getting a real garden started here, I’m quite a bit lazier than he is. I’m much better at mental or creative, sedentary work than physical labor. But I’ve had my bursts of productive activity too, and I’ve gotten a little spring cleaning done indoors as well. Not enough to suit me just yet. There’s a lot of catching up to do around here. Thus my long absence, which has been partly rest periods due to the early lapses into summer. Hot weather tends to make me just want to lie down in a dark room with an icy drink of something and whine about the heat. When the thermometer rises above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, my brain even seems to go on vacation. Hopefully that helps explain the long absence from blogs — mine and yours.
How’s your spring going so far?
Had any summer yet?
Want some of mine?
— Barbara @ 4:00 pm PST, 04/18/08
March 15, 2008
Have you ever had trouble deciding which topic to read about next, or what to major in in college? Has anyone ever told you that you have too many hobbies? Have you ever thought about leaving a perfectly good job to look for something else that might interest you more — even if it doesn’t pay more? Maybe you’re a generalist.
This past Saturday, Dave Pollard at How To Save the World linked to an essay in his Links of the Week that he described as brilliant and liberating, and I agree.
The essay, by William Tozier of the Notional Slurry blog, is titled, There are exactly two ways: one, and many. The two ways he discusses are specialization and generalization.
William Tozier proposes the notion that we’re all evolved to be generalists, that specialization isn’t normal. I tend to agree when I consider that many of our forbears were more general in their skills and knowledge than we are. Even today, skills tend to be more generalized in humans living closer to nature, and survival in a wilderness requires a lot of flexibility.
When I think about it, the only things our earliest ancestors planned was to survive, and they were never sure how they would have to do that. The only things they finished were a good meal when food was available, or a new tool or garment when an old one wore out — often taking time to add improvements or embellishments, so even they were never finished. They paused to take in their world and observe it. They learned from everything around them. They were creative, they were nomads, and they were students of life. They paid attention to what came their way, they took them as signs of what they needed to do, for now.
William Tozier discusses the problem of explaining to specialists what we generalists do, how to label ourselves in today’s world. It can be a problem, and I think this must be why, long ago, I started to think of myself as a writer. Aside from having an aptitude for English and composition, a writer has to read and learn about many things in order to do what she does. Writing provides an excuse to research anything and everything, as possibly relevant to a project. Later still I began referring to myself as a creative person, because that can involve lots of different interests too, even more than writing. It can encompass activities that are finished when they’re finished, or never finished, rather than finished to deadlines. Of course writers have deadlines, if they hope to make money at it, and there the generalist has to adapt to the specialized modern world.
I conformed to the specialized world for years, in being a reliable employee and meeting deadlines. I glued myself to my chair and focused on my job. I met deadlines, and earned awards and promotions for my conformity and work ethic. But I wasn’t happy. I didn’t even feel healthy doing that. Eventually it became habit, and I got so I felt uneasy if I didn’t have a plan. So then I was really stuck — uneasy with my schedule and commitments, and uneasy when I didn’t have any.
After a lifetime of thinking I wasn’t doing life right, that I needed to be more energetic, and get more done, finish more things, I feel relief and satisfaction to realize that I’m a generalist and always have been — and there’s nothing wrong with that. It explains so much. Some people may think of being a generalist as a bad thing and call us dilettantes, or unwilling to commit, and some may even think it’s a sign of a problem, one of those recently defined mental disorders for which there always conveniently seems to be a new drug. (When did we start inventing diseases to match the drugs instead of the other way around?) Heaven forbid any of us should be anything but cookie cutter normal, whatever that means. In our culture it apparently means we have to specialize in something, we have to plan everything out, have goals and deadlines, in order to succeed. We have to finish long lists of things, and fill every minute with structured activity.
Today we don’t just have a work ethic, we have a work ethic on steroids.
I for one am ready to stop the madness. If we were intended to plan everything out, then why do we need artificial planners like Daytimers, Palm Pilots, and Blackberries? If we’re supposed to have jam-packed calendars and meetings overlapping meetings, then why didn’t we evolve to keep our schedules in our heads, and to be in two places at once? If we were supposed to travel the same road everyday, then why do we love vacations so much?
Unfortunately, being generalists brings some of us less material success in life, since it’s much less likely that we decide on distinct, well-defined career paths, and even if we do, we get this itch to change careers now and then. We’re looked down on when we tend not to finish things to a schedule — and I agree that makes sense when others are depending on us to finish so they can do their things. We’re often better off working on our own, to our own schedules, which are pretty much nonexistent, and without anyone else depending on us conforming to a schedule. Sometimes we’re called Jacks of all Trades.
Provided you figure out eventually that this is how you’re supposed to be, that there’s nothing wrong with you for wanting less structure and commitment in your life, being a generalist can bring a great deal of freedom and happiness. After all, what makes you happier than being yourself, no matter how many directions that may lead you?
I’m a generalist, and have been all my life. I’m grateful to finally figure this out. Thanks, William and Dave.
— Barbara @ 12:22 pm PST, 03/15/08
February 2, 2008
Some of our holidays have quite a lot of history behind them, and Groundhog Day is one of my favorites in this regard. I probed the pagan history of Yule a few years ago, so now I think it’s only fair to peer briefly into the past of Groundhog Day, earlier known as Candlemas or St. Brigid’s Day, and before that as Imbolc, which comes to us from the ancient Celts. The name Brigid has its roots in Celtic paganism, with the Goddess Brigid, also known as Bride. As a goddess she had three faces, each having to do with fire, according to the web page, Brigid: Goddess or Saint?
- Brigid, the ‘Fire of the Hearth’, was the goddess of fertility, family, childbirth and healing.
- Brigid, the ‘”Fire of the Forge’, was like the Greek goddess Athena, a patroness of the crafts (especially weaving, embroidery, and metalsmithing), and a goddess who was concerned with justice and law and order.
- Brigid, the ‘Fire of Inspiration’, was the muse of poetry, song history and the protector of all cultural learning.
(read more at Brigid: Goddess or Saint?)
According to Wikipedia, Imbolc:
“is traditionally a time of weather prognostication, and the old tradition of watching to see if serpents or badgers came from their winter dens is perhaps a precursor to the North American Groundhog Day. A Scottish Gaelic proverb about the day is:
Thig an nathair as an toll
La donn Bride,
Ged robh tri traighean dh’ an t-sneachd
Air leachd an lair.
“The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground.”
“Fire and purification are an important aspect of this festival.”
(read Wikipedia article)
The verse quoted above, and in the Wikipedia article, is from Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I by Alexander Carmichael (1900), and can be found on line at Sacred Texts Archive, where you can read even more about Bride.
Then there’s the perfect non-religious Groundhog Day celebration for our times, which is simply to enjoy the Bill Murray comedy by that title. That’s how I like to celebrate it.
— Barbara @ 10:30 am PST, 02/02/08
January 7, 2008
We’ve had a few more days of rain, enough to soak the ground, and this storm came before the ground dried out from the last rain, which is good — and unfortunately unusual for us in our past few drought years. So I really shouldn’t complain about the weather, but . . . it’s awfully dark out there.
I balk at turning on lights in the middle of the day, but that’s what I’ve had to do the past two days in order to get any work done. I’m sorting through files, which is a bit scary, especially in the dark. I’ve also hibernated through these dark days to some extent because I’ve been under the weather. We both had the flu over the Solstice and Christmas, and though we’ve recovered, it tried to come back on me a few days ago, sending me once again in search of my vitamin bottles and throat lozenges, and whining about an earache.
It’s a good, wet winter, good for staying indoors and drinking hot beverages, celebrating the fact that we’re actually having winter, even if it is most people’s idea of spring or fall. The more wet winters we have, the less likely we are to have such horrible fire seasons.
Meanwhile, because I’ve decided to keep politics mostly off this blog, whenever I get the urge to wax political I post my views at my other blog, Spirit Blooms. I am putting my political blogging efforts into support of Dennis Kucinich for President.
Don’t worry, I haven’t given up this blog, and I don’t intend to. I’m still somewhat of a mystery to me, and I intend to keep writing, even if not mystery novels. I’m also still opinionated and have lots to say about writing, books, and lots of other stuff you might find interesting. Mystery of a Shrinking Violet will live on until the bitter end of my blogging adventure, whenever that is, sometime in the far future. I’ll be back in a day or two, hopefully with more to write about than the weather — or politics, which I honestly hate but can’t avoid in good conscience these days.
— Barbara @ 11:21 am PST, 01/07/08
November 22, 2007
We have holidays for a reason, and every culture in the world has had them. But sometimes we need to take a look at our reasons for celebrating, and exactly what it is that matters. We need a way to mark the passage of the seasons, to remind ourselves with lessons from the past why we have reason to celebrate, to review our mistakes as well as our blessings.
When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about this song that I learned as a kid for Thanksgiving: (more…)
— Barbara @ 2:22 pm PST, 11/22/07
August 31, 2007
We had to say goodbye to our little gray cat Emily today. We think she was about 20 years old, but we’re not sure, because she adopted us just over nine years ago, appearing in our back yard to steal our puppy’s food. She had a lot of problems, resulting from having nearly starved on her own without front claws, and having possibly been abused. She was missing half her teeth when she found us, and we think she suffered the cat version of PTSD. But over time she warmed up to all of us and became an integral part of our family. We like to think we were able to give her a nice retirement here, after all her troubles. She helped us say goodbye to another dear cat friend, Merlin, in 2000, and today we said goodbye to her.
I’ll miss her purrs, her silky, silver-gray fur, and the gentle tap of her paw when she wakened me in the mornings.
Just a few nights ago, The Lord of the Rings trilogy played on television again. We didn’t watch, because I intended to watch our DVDs again soon, but we caught the tail end of Return of the King, and the final song.
For days that song has stayed in my mind, popping into consciousness at odd moments. Today it did again, and I wondered about it, because I couldn’t recall the singer’s name, the name of the song, or the lyrics. The music just kept haunting me. So I looked it up, and remembered as soon as I sat down to do a search that it was Into the West. Annie Lennox sang it for the film. I love this song. Right now it’s helping me say goodbye to Emily. I learned that it was partially inspired by the death of young New Zealand filmmaker, Cameron Duncan, and first performed in public at his funeral. That makes it seem even more appropriate as Emily’s song of passage.
Safe journey, little friend.
The song is available as part of the soundtrack from the film: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [SOUNDTRACK]
— Barbara @ 2:34 pm PST, 08/31/07