Anthropocentrism, Artwork, Cosmology, Death, Environmentalism, Paganism, Rituals, Skin Spirits, Way of the Scavenger

Roadkill is Not a Waste

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I love my fellow vultures, we fans of taxidermy and hides and bones and other such specimens. But I don’t always agree with them. Case in point: I recently read someone writing about how they thought they were obliged to pick up roadkill and salvage the hide and bones because otherwise it would be “a waste”.

On the one hand, I can see a good point in favor of that attitude. Roads aren’t “natural”, if by “natural” you mean “anything dating after humans discovered fire”. We see a deer accidentally hit by a car as a tragedy, but a rabbit accidentally trampled by a stampeding deer is “natural”. It’s only human intervention that seems to be “unnatural”. So if that’s your perspective, then yes, roadkill seems like a huge waste of life.

Furthermore, the argument is made that since the carcass is already there, we vultures should process it into tanned fur and cleaned bones and other specimens. It means one more set of animal remains funneled into the growing demands for taxidermy and curiosity cabinets, but without the deliberate killing of hunting (which for some people is worse than an accidental death by roadkill).

Both of these are valid reasons for making use of a roadkilled animal, and not letting a good opportunity go to waste. However, I would also argue that leaving the carcass there is not a waste. We may dislike seeing it on the side of the road, perhaps because it’s unsightly, often because we feel it’s disrespectful to the animal.

But what actually happens to roadkill when it’s simply rolled off the side of the road and into the ditch beside it? I had the unique opportunity a number of years ago to witness this in detail. I lived in a rural area close to Pittsburgh, PA. A whitetail doe got hit by a car right in front of the house, and her body ended up falling partway down a drainage ditch at the edge of our yard. This was mid-July, so it was hot, and flies showed up almost immediately. In the space of a week, a complete carcass was stripped almost completely of flesh by a growing army of maggots and bacteria, and likely was also nibbled on by local foxes, raccoons and other critters.

We do not see this process ourselves very often. Most people only see the remains of the deceased as bodies in funeral homes, meat in grocery stores, and fleeting glimpses of roadkill on the side of the highway. Few observe the stages of decomposition, and so we forget it is the most natural thing in the world. That roadkilled doe did not go to waste. She fed thousands of insects, countless bacteria, and even the fungi and plants beneath her. Even remains that “simply rot” feed something. There is no waste in nature.

But what about my work with preserved hides and bones? After all, I did collect the doe’s bones once the meat was all gone, and I did purification rites over them. Yes, I create my art and do my skin spirits rites because I feel I am honoring the animals that once wore these remains. But I also recognize that these are purely human conceptualizations of “honor”. The older I get, the more I think we do these rituals more for ourselves and our own sense of what is morally correct than what nature considers “honorable”. Wolves do not pray over dead elk. Elk do not pray over tree leaves. Leaves do not pray over nutrients in the soil that were only recently seeped from decaying salmon dropped there by grizzly bears. We are likely not the only animals to mourn lost loved ones, but we, and we alone, conduct elaborate rituals specifically because we feel the remains themselves–and not just the life that once wore them–should be so honored.

This is not to say I think roadkill collection is wrong, or that we should stop. After all, an opportunity is an opportunity, and besides, respect is a good thing to practice in general. But I think we need to stop justifying roadkill collection by saying it’s “waste” otherwise. That’s a very human-centric view of things; just because we won’t use it doesn’t mean nobody else will.

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Want more hides and bones? Please consider picking up a copy of my book, Skin Spirits: The Spiritual and Magical Uses of Animal Parts, or perusing my current hide and bone art selection on Etsy!

Artwork, Divination, Meaning, Ritual Tools, The Tarot of Bones

The Tarot: Major, Minor and Me

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Over the past few months, as I’ve been working on the Tarot of Bones, I’ve had the opportunity to reassess my relationship with this particular divination system. Like many newbie pagans, back in the 1990s I was eager to jump into all sorts of exciting topics of study and practice. I found I had a halfway decent affinity for divination, and so between the Shapeshifter Tarot and a set of elder futhark runes I carved from natural chalk found in a Missouri creek, I began practicing this ancient art. Also like many new diviners, I found myself sticking pretty closely to my books as I parsed out meanings of card and layouts and queries. Then in 1999 I discovered Ted Andrews’ Animal-Wise deck, and thus began a love affair that lasts to this day. I left behind traditional tarot, and delved into a more organic, nature-based form of divination.

When I was preparing last year to start creating the Tarot of Bones, I took the opportunity to revisit my relationship with the more traditional aspects of the tarot. What I found surprised me: even though I hadn’t been actively reading tarot in over fifteen years, I found my personal interpretations of the cards to be deeper and richer, as well as more personal, than they had ever been. All those years doing totem readings with the Animal-Wise deck had vastly improved my pattern recognition and intuition skills, and so I could focus primarily on reacquainting myself with the tarot as a specific system.

Not surprisingly, the Major and Minor Arcana each have distinct personalities and bailiwicks. I think of the Major Arcana as a sort of pageant, with actors in specific archetypal roles, telling the Fool’s Journey through trial and triumph. Death and the Tower bring about massive, sometimes terrifying changes, but these are integral to moving the story along so that the Star and Judgement and others can even things out again. I don’t see the Majors (or the Court Cards) as representing individual people so much, though I know that’s a common way to interpret them in readings. Rather, I see them as the grand mythical forces that run through the lore and cultures of people worldwide. They are the experiences shared among a species, grand and poetic and given a stage through epic tales. They rock us to sleep every night as children, and they see us into our dreams–and our deaths.

The Minor Arcana, on the other hand, are the everyday people watching the pageant as it proceeds through its stages. Once the Fool has greeted the World and all the players bow for applause and roses, the audience goes back to lives as artisans and lawyers, retail workers and cooks, tech professionals and musicians and students. The Minor Arcana includes the cards of the individual and the intimate. We’ve all had sleepless nights full of worry, and we’ve all had joyous moments of celebration with others. We know the small, petty conflicts that can blow up into great drama, and the seemingly enormous accomplishments that, in the grand scheme of things, don’t make a lot of difference to anyone but ourselves (and that’s okay.) The Courts, in particular, refer to states of being I can aspire to (or avoid!), rather than telling me to look for a dark-haired man (I only have to go as far as the next room in my apartment to find one of those. Hi, honey!)

So what’s the difference between the Majors and Minors in my readings? The way they’ve been lining up lately is that when a Major comes up, I look outward, into the greater patterns and machinations of humanity. Turn over a Minor Arcana card, and I look inward, or very close to me. Rarely will the reading bring up an individual person; mine tend more toward patterns and situations, often involving other people, sometimes myself alone. Of course, these are generalizations. There are always exceptions. Sometimes a Major will want to get up close and personal, and sometimes a Court or Pip will remind me that those deep moments of isolation or bursts of inspiration speak to much larger social or species-wide currents.

Of course, this is just a discussion of the strictly tarot-flavored elements of my readings. As the Tarot of Bones develops, the animals themselves are speaking up, particularly in the Major and Court cards. But that set isn’t finished yet, and so our conversation is still ongoing.

Do you enjoy my writing? Want to get sneak peeks of blog posts and work in progress shots of artwork, as well as care packages full of my art and books each month? Consider becoming my Patron on Patreon, starting at just $1/month!

Activism, Environmentalism

Today’s Nonprofit Donation: The Nature Conservancy

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For almost two decades I have donated a portion of money from my art sales (and, later, book sales) to various environmental nonprofit organizations. It’s one way for me to give back to the natural world that has given me so much, from art materials to important spiritual lessons, and it’s therefore one of my most important offerings as a pagan.

Today I renewed my membership to the Nature Conservancy. Founded in 1951, this organization works to protect sensitive wild habitats worldwide. While they work in a variety of arenas, from education to scientific research to calls for action, what initially inspired me to donate to them is their land acquisitions.

Starting in 1955, the Nature Conservancy began buying up wild lands, and later began to receive conservation easements. Both of these tactics allow them to take habitats that might otherwise be exploited or polluted and protect them permanently. They also work with indigenous people who have lived on certain pieces of land for many generations, and they train volunteers to act as interpreters at places that are popular with hikers and other outdoors enthusiasts.

Given that habitat loss is the leading cause of species endangerment and extinction in the world, I feel that this organization’s work is absolutely essential. I may not be able to buy and protect wild land myself, but I can at least help those who do.

For more information, please visit the Nature Conservancy’s website.

Artwork

Hey, Folks–My Art Commission List is Open!

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antlersHey, folks–my commission list is OPEN!

I’ve been working hard the past few weeks to whittle down the list of custom orders people have asked me to create for them, and I’m finishing up the last ones. The pictures above are just a few examples of what I’ve made for folks in the past couple of months–and I’m open to all sorts of ideas! Pouches! Jewelry! Ritual tools! Antler runes! Headdresses! And much, much more! You can see my portfolio here, and my Etsy shop here, to give you some more ideas of my work.

tumblr_np0npq0p381qi2nxpo6_1280Even if you have only a vague idea of what you want, that’s okay–I specialize in taking those few details and turning them into something awesome. I’ve had hundreds of satisfied commissioners over the years–why don’t you join them? You can PM me, or email me at lupa.greenwolf(at)gmail.com

Please share this to help get the word out, and thank you 🙂

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Animals, Cosmology, Creativity, Environmentalism, Fungi, Hiking, Meaning, Memories, Paganism, Plants, Ritual Tools, Science, Wonder and Awe, Writing

The Litany of Nature; Or, Time For a New Journal

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Townsend’s chipmunk.
Bleeding heart.
Chicken of the woods.

Earlier this month I experienced an important milestone: I filled up my hiking journal.

Most hikes I’ve gone on in the past seven and a half years, I’ve toted along an increasingly battered, well-loved spiral-bound blank book that was a gift from my aunt who has always indulged my love of journals. The covers are decorated with art by biologist and artist Heather A. Wallis-Murphy, rendered in lovely watercolors. (I highly recommend her journals, cards and the like on her website; you’ll need to order via snail mail, but it’s totally worth it.) And the pages are nice quality paper, perfect for jotting down notes and sketches.

Old man’s beard.
Sword fern.
Douglas squirrel.

I first started writing in this journal in September of 2007, a few months after I moved to Portland and began exploring the wilderness areas in the Columbia River Gorge. I was just getting into neoshamanism at the time (that’s about when I started blogging at Therioshamanism, the predecessor to this blog). So my excursions into wild places were punctuated by spiritual impressions and beings and meanings, and my journaling reflected that. There were rituals, and meditations, and other things besides simply hiking. There were reflective essays on how I’d developed since the last hike, complete with “Here’s where I am now, Journal!” walls of text. I did record the animals and plants I recognized; only a few at first, but more over time.  Still, those took a backseat to the longer-form writings.

As the years went on, the content of my entries changed. They were less about “me, me, me!”; instead, the focus shifted to more observations on the world around me. In my previous relationship which I’d been embroiled in at the start of the journal, I’d gotten into the bad habit of navel-gazing so hard that I ended up processing in circles. The same problems kept coming up over and over again, but ultimately were never solved (hence the end of that relationship). I began doubting the effectiveness of all these abstract symbols of the wilderness, and thinking maybe–like the constant “internal work”–they were distracting me from what was really important.

Fly agaric.
Lobaria pulmonaria.
Mountain chickadee.

It took years to finally get to the point where I felt I could admit that what I really needed wasn’t what I had been striving for–a more structured neoshamanic path. Instead, I yearned for a falling away of abstractions and symbols and other things that distanced me from the purest manifestation of nature. I required nothing less than immediate and direct contact with the physical world, not in myths or superstitions, but in soil and species and the ever-shifting clouds overhead. I wanted only the deepest, least cluttered connection I’d had as a child, when the sacredness of nature first became known to me. And so I lost my religion, and in doing so gained the world.

My journal entries shifted as well. I stopped trying to wax eloquent on theology and the dramas of my everyday life. Instead, I began to do more listing. Animals. Plants. Fungi. Even geological formations. Everything I noticed and could identify, I made note of. Even if I didn’t know the exact species, I took note of field marks and looked it up later when I was home with a reliable internet connection. It didn’t matter that no one else could read my horrible chicken scratch scribbled handwriting. What was on those pages was the blossoming of a curious mind that had been entangled for decades.

Red elderberry.
Common raven.
Black morel.
Sandhill crane.
Red admiral.
Hemlock.
Maidenhair fern.
Cooper’s hawk.
Miner’s lettuce.
Evernia prunastria.
Steller’s jay.
Skunk cabbage.
Mule deer.
And more.
So many more.

journals2In the years since that shift, my time in the woods has been better, more productive, more calming. I no longer care whether that bird I saw was really a spiritual messenger and I shouldn’t offend it. It is enough that my path crossed with that of another living being, one I might not get to see in my everyday sphere of existence. I no longer try to map out the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds. I content myself with vast, interrelated ecosystems, more full of wonder and magic than I had remembered from childhood.

And in my journal, I could trace that growth. My lists of beings I could identify was no longer a small handful, but dozens, and with many more to be learned and known and understood. Animals were no longer the main focus; I beheld entire systems, of which the wildlife was only one part. I recorded my excitement at seeing a new-to-me species or a behavior I hadn’t witnessed before. And I became hungry for even more.

My new journal is another Wild Tales creation, this time with eagles as the theme. It is pristine, but for the first few pages. These carry the memories and lists of my Oregon desert adventures, transcribed over from temporary paper while the journal arrived in the mail. Already the corners are a little bent from being shoved into my day pack in my subsequent hikes; my name and number adorn the cover, just in case I lose it somewhere. I suspect I’ll fill it up a lot quicker than the last one. I’m hiking more often, and I have a lot more to record. There’s the litany of nature to record, after all.

Yellow-headed blackbird.
Sagebrush.
Sunburst lichen…

Crowdfunding, The Tarot of Bones

203%! WOOHOO!!!!

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Final IndieGoGocomicsans

 

Well, folks, we did it! The Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign ended at midnight, 203% funded at $10,147! Considering I was just hoping for a couple thousand dollars for materials, and a bit more to defray operating costs, and I wasn’t even expecting it to get funded in the first place, the final tally is pretty damned astounding. Almost 250 of you believed enough in the project to back it over a year out from release, and more of you have contacted me telling me that if finances and other factors had been different you would have jumped in, too. (Don’t worry, there will be other preorder opportunities in the future.)

So now what? Well, IndieGoGo needs to take care of all its behind the scenes magic, which means over the next couple of weeks they’ll be charging everyone’s cards and Paypal accounts. No doubt there’ll be at least a few that are declined, just from sheer statistics’ sake, so I don’t know whether they spend part of the time asking those folks to try again or not. And of course both IndieGoGo and Paypal will want to take their cuts of the money that’s raised, so I’m definitely not going to end up with the entire $10,147 in my account. But theoretically in two weeks I’ll have both the deposit that’s left and a final list of those who successfully backed the campaign. After that I can contact my backers to find out perks details (what books/etc. they want, etc.), any address changes, and so forth. I’ve already begun asking my sources to arrange the last skulls, bones and other materials I need for the rest of the assemblages, so once the money arrives I can place my orders.

In the meantime I’ll keep working on the assemblages. I have 37 done at this point, which means I’m almost halfway done! In fact, I made ten of them in a two-week period, which is just absolutely crazy–so I’m taking a few days off to work on a few other projects on my work bench. I can’t stay away for too long, so expect more assemblages soon!

And, finally, though I’ve said it many times over the past six weeks: thank you. Thank you to everyone who helped me ramp up the promotion leading up to the campaign, thank you to everyone who promoted it through podcasts and interviews and reblogs and shares. And, most of all, thank you to everyone who’s believed in me and the Tarot of Bones so much that you invested in a nascent project fueled by creative insanity and a love for natural history. I hope that when Summer 2016 rolls around and the deck and book are in your hands that you find it was worth it all.

Crowdfunding, The Tarot of Bones

The Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign ends TONIGHT!!!

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magicianmockup

Okay, folks–THIS IS IT. This is the LAST DAY for the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign! It will end at midnight PST tonight (right when May 19 turns into May 20) That’s just a little over thirteen hours left.

Right now, it’s at $9,470, 189% funded. Please remember that I don’t get to keep all the money–IndieGoGo takes a percentage, and Paypal takes a chunk for every person who’s paying with Paypal instead of a debit/credit card. But every dollar I do get will be paying for all of the materials I need to complete the assemblage pieces for the Tarot of Bones (as of today I have 37 completed, almost halfway there!) and the rest will be put toward other expenses, from printing and shipping costs to perk fulfilment. This campaign won’t cover all my costs, but the more money raised today, the less I’ll need to pull together going forward, and the more time I’ll have toward completing the deck and book on or ahead of my production schedule.

PLEASE SHARE THIS POST!!!! And if you’ve been putting off backing this campaign, now’s your last chance! We’re so close to $10,000–that would make this campaign 200% funded. Let’s make it happen–and, as always, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hiking

More Oregon Desert Adventure Pictures!

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I took over 500 pictures while I was stomping around the desert last week, so here are a few more of my favorites. Enjoy! (Click the pictures for bigger versions.)

river

Here’s another shot of the Columbia from Celilo Park. (Not pictured: gulls, crows, and tourists.)

downriver

Down the Columbia toward the Dalles. Really lovely area and a great view.

sageebrush

I really love sagebrush country. I took sooooo many pictures of sagebrush. Here’s some of it along the Deschutes River near the Columbia.

sky

The sky was pretty remarkable, too. These were the vanguard of a storm system that would move in overnight.

antlerinn

The appropriately named Antler Inn in lovely Ukiah, OR (population 230).

45th

I love collecting locations of 45th Parallel signs. This one is the furthest east I’ve found, along highway 395 south of Pendleton.

foxstore

Fox, OR is a near-ghost town in the middle of nowhere. There are still a few people living there, but most of the buildings are shuttered like this one.

sleeping

The gravesite of Eveline Cozad, who passed away in 1884. Definitely one of the most unique monuments in the Canyon City cemetery.

antique

A wonderful little antique shop in the historic streets of Canyon City. Go chat with the owner, Jim, and check out the lovely old knickknacks and bits of history.

ponderoa

The Swick Old Growth Interpretive Trail is an oasis within the logged and farmed areas in and around the Malheur National Forest. It’s a nice loop, less than a mile, that goes through old Ponderosa pine forest, complete with a section that’s been subjected to 100 years of fire suppression, and one that’s been treated with controlled fires to help “catch up” and cut down on unnaturally thick undergrowth.

trumpeter

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has a small museum stuffed full of bird taxidermy, including this enormous trumpeter swan.

pronghorn

Here’s one of the pronghorn does I saw down near Steens Mountain. They’re one of my favorite critters, the last of their kind.

steens

While the east side of 205 was wildlife refuge with sage and other such things, the west was mostly pastureland that had been heavily grazed for decades.

storm

Tuesday was the stormiest day of my trip; while my time at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was sunny, the further south I went the more I ran into skies like these, and rain shortly thereafter. it was amazing watching the storm systems rolling over miles and miles of open land.

rocks

Smith Rock State Park is a geological adventure. The huge cliffs towering overhead are volcanic tuff (now heavily eroded) from explosive eruptions 30 million years ago. That ridge of darker rock on the left, though–that’s a basalt flow from almost 17 million years ago, known as the Steens Basalt. HUGE floods of molten lava traveled from far to the east, and bumped up against the already eroded tuff, then cooled into the basalt you see today.

juniper

Juniper trees are all over the Oregon desert. Unfortunately, due to fire suppression they’ve expanded far beyond their historical range, choking up sagebrush plains and soaking up much-needed water.

asterisk

Asterisk Pass is one of my favorite formations at Smith Rock. Bet you can’t guess how it got its name.

crooked

You could do a rock scramble over Asterisk Pass (ropes are strongly recommended) but then you might miss beautiful views of the Crooked River, like this one.

Again, all in all this was one of the best excursions I’ve made in a very long time, and I’m already eager to get back out into the wilderness. Alas, I need to do some work here at home; art needs to be made, writing needs to be written, etc. But I’ll remember my paramour, the Oregon desert, and go back for a visit as soon as I can.

Animals, Hiking, Wonder and Awe

Oregon Desert Adventures, Days Three and Four

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I had had grand plans of blogging my adventures as they happened, and as you noticed I managed to keep you caught up on Day One and Day Two. By the end of Day Three, I was just too damned tired to do anything other than hunt down a bit of food and get some sleep in my hotel room. Here, then, is the remainder of the trip.

Morning broke cool and overcast in Burns as I prepared to head even further south. I’ve always wanted to visit the Steens Mountain area, and not just for the mustangs! So I headed out 205 into the wilderness. The first few miles were mostly farmland–but then I rounded a bend, and got an AMAZING view of the valley below. It reminded me that the Great Basin does indeed extend well into eastern Oregon, and that I was in new-to-me territory. Farmland interlocked with sagebrush fields, and the craggy outcroppings of browned basalt looked over it all.

There were also dozens of red-winged blackbirds in attendance, including these feasting males.
There were also dozens of red-winged blackbirds in attendance, including these feasting males.
I had planned to go straight down to Steens–but then I saw a sign that would change my day completely. It announced the presence of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and there was no way I was going to pass that up! So I headed down the six mile road to the refuge headquarters just to see what was there. I was expecting more sagebrush and maybe a little outpost; instead, I found vast flooded fields and a large pond teeming with birds of all sorts. The headquarters were in a lovely building with a wide wooden deck festooned with bird feeders of all sorts. The feeders were in turn festooned with birds of all sorts, along with an assortment of Belding’s ground squirrels. I managed to add a few new birds to my birding life list, including scarlet tanagers, American goldfinches, and my very first sandhill crane, who was perched on her nest on the far side of the pond.

I spent a good two hours there with camera and binoculars, asking questions and also picking up a field guide to North American butterflies. I know a few species, but I’d love to be able to identify more, and this one had lovely illustrations and nice organization of field marks. And I like being able to patronize these parks services; gods know they need the funding. I tarried long enough to have lunch while black-chinned hummingbirds (another first!) zipped around my head on the patio, then I regretfully headed back to the car. I could have spent the entire day there, but this trip was mostly about identifying places for further in-depth exploration, and I had some distance yet to go.

buddiesBack out onto the road–I had been tipped off by the volunteer on duty that there was a golden eagle nest down the road across the highway about a mile. I found myself bouncing down a corrugated gravel road between farmland and high basalt walls. I never found the nest, but I did make the acquaintance of a large paint horse and his burro buddy. Because of their skittishness, I’m guessing they may have been former ferals; they were curious enough to come up to the fence when I stopped to take their picture, but startled back a bit when I stepped a bit closer. The BLM adoption corral isn’t too far away, either. Still, they were photogenic enough, and I was sorry to say goodbye.

I never saw any wild horses, though the weather wasn’t especially cooperative, and I mainly stuck to 205 rather than heading deeper into Steens territory. I did, however, get to see a pair of pronghorn antelope. They raced alongside the highway, and I remembered how they evolved to outrun the now-extinct North American cheetah. Eventually they decided they needed to be on the other side of the road. The barbed wire fences on both sides presenting something of a problem; pronghorn are runners, not jumpers, and so rather than leaping over the barriers they shoved themselves under the lowest wires. Unfortunately they were not the most graceful critters, and the hastier one ended up going tail-over-teakettle while her more patient friend carefully slipped through with little harm.

rainI drove for another hour or so, simply enjoying the scenery and keeping an eye out for the absenteee mustangs. I did get a close encounter with some yearling beef cattle on the road (thankfully I didn’t hit any of them, and nothing was injured but their dignity). And I got to see a pair of turkey vultures relaxing on a rock by the roadside, bright red heads beaming above black feathers. There was the additional pleasure of watching the rain roll in across the landscape from miles away, and scattered patches of sunlight beaming down through holes in the clouds. Nothing quite compares to smelling sage and petrichor as the desert drinks deeply.

Eventually I decided to turn around; the rain was coming down harder, it was getting late, and I wanted to overnight in Bend. So I turned back, gave a nod to Frenchglen as I passed back by the old hotel, and wended my way back up 205 and across 20. I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks in a little hotel, and awoke the next morning ready for one final hike before going home to Portland.

crookedriverI’ve been to Smith Rock before, but at the time I wasn’t able to do much hiking. This time, though, I set aside the day for it. I love the Crooked River that flows through the park; on one side high crags of volcanic tuff tower overhead, while on the other a ridge of slow-flowing basalt lazily decays over time. While sagebrush and junipers proliferate in the area, the river is flanked by horsetails, poison hemlock and other water-loving plants, and gives home to mergansers and mallards, orioles and robins, while bald and golden eagles soar overhead. It’s a truly magical place–though it was choked with tourists even on a Wednesday afternoon.

Still, it was a fitting end to a beautiful vacation. I made note of trails I wanted to explore in the future, and as I trudged my way back up out of the canyon a raven croaked off in the distance, dancing on the wind that flowed over the river. I carried that feeling back home as I transitioned from sage scrub to conifer forests, and a pair of those midnight corvids danced over my car as I approached Mt. Hood. This was just a scouting trip, I reminded myself. There’d be time enough in the future to get to know all the places I’d been–and more–in more detail and intimacy.

crags

Artwork, Crowdfunding, The Tarot of Bones

Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo: Stretch Goal Unlocked, and Five Days Left!

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(Here, have a picture of where I’ve been the past few days.)

Well, I just got back from my adventures in the Oregon desert last night to find that the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo did indeed reach $9000 and is 181% funded! That means that after the decks and books have been sent out Summer of 2016 I’ll be doing an exclusive Livestream class on how to use them, just for campaign backers. (Those who can’t make it will have a video emailed to them, and it’ll be a month before I make the video available for public consumption.) HUGE thanks to all of you who have backed the campaign so far–but we’re not done yet!

The campaign ends in five days, on May 19, 2015. And there’s another stretch goal outstanding–if the campaign reaches $12,000, I will record an audiobook version of the Tarot of Bones book. It’s something I really want to do, but it’s also time-consuming, and although $9000 is a LOT of money, it’s not enough to cover all the expenses for the Tarot of Bones deck and book PLUS all the perks and shipping and other expenses. (Keep in mind this campaign was originally just meant to bring in the funding for the materials for the remaining assemblages, which it did with gusto!) So the more this IndieGoGo campaign brings in now, the less money I have to fundraise later on–and the more time I have for things like audiobook recording.

$3,000 in five days seems like a lot–but remember that the campaign hit its goal of $5000 in under 100 hours! Four days! So let’s shoot for that goal of $12,000 by next Tuesday, and get that much closer to the Tarot of Bones being a reality. Here’s the link for the campaign itself–even if you’ve already backed it, please let others know about it as word of mouth is very important. ALL of your support is greatly appreciated, whether financial or not!

Now pardon me–I have assemblage pieces to create!