When I first went to my Vedic astrologer almost two decades ago, a man with whom I’ve studied those arts for near 15 years, he looked at my chart and said, “Have you thought about writing?” In subsequent sessions, as in almost every one, he cajoled, wheedled, and brow-beat me into following the destiny of my chart, which is to write.
I began, in earnest, with an early love – poetry – and have works published in journals, as well as a prize under my belt. I’ve written two collections, one epic poem à la the Aeneid, and a chapbook, each waiting for that magical day when major publishers care about putting poetry again into the world.
And now I’m hard at work on a new book, definitely not poetry, a book being shepherded by a published author and dear friend, a book about the central devotion of my life, the focal figure that gives context to everything I do, from cooking to asana, from astrology to cleaning the tub:
The Black Madonna.
From over 15 years as a professional actor and dancer, to 10 years as a yoga teacher, from studies in the yogic arts to dancing along with the frantic rhythm of a drum in Italy, my years of research and personal experience with the Dark Mother through prayer and ritual, through love and devastation, are fed into this book.
Lady of 1,000 Names. Isis. Hekate. Kali. Cybele. Yemaya. Call Her what you will, She doesn’t care. This goddess figure, regardless of Her outfit, is where everything begins and ends; a grave is just a birth canal to another world. She is the repository of our desire and repugnance, of what we most yearn for and the bone-grinding failures required in order to achieve those dreams.
Free subscribers will get my thoughts about this figure, my belief about Her necessity for our time of tectonic change, as well as observations about society and culture that reflect back to Her.
Twice a month, paid subscribers will get working excerpts from the actual book, a chance to get into the kitchen and sit at the table where the process occurs. More than that, you get to join the creative conversation.
This new version of my Substack, as well as the book, pulls back the curtain on my life, not to reveal a fraudulent wizard, but to show the mystical heart of my days – the dances around fires, the tears on the floor, the visitations with the dead, the excavation of a painful past, the ecstasy of drumming in Hawaiian waves, the grace of a perfect pesto, and perhaps the most wondrous magic I know: Love. I’ve kept so much of my life under wraps, fearful of being called insane, but now’s the time to swing for the fences.
Our era of scientific zealotry and political tribalism has disenchanted the world for too many people. Questions of the heart and the psyche have been denigrated for so long that shocking suicide rates, the overuse of psychotropic medication, the terrible addictions crushing city and country alike, the sense of disconnection with others and the world, the minds devoured by social media, the ecological calamity, the robots in our pockets – in short, the existential crises of the modern world – have led many of us to despair.
But it’s not Her way to keep us there.
So come with me, join the winding serpent through the labyrinth of the Dark Goddess, through processions in the hills of Italy, through chants in Southern Spain, through treks within the untamed wild of the American West, and into the ecstasy discovered in a lover’s arms.
Welcome to Dancing With the Black Madonna.
YES!!!!❤️🖤🖤🖤 so excited you’ve claimed your vision - and title- for this fabulous book coming through you!
So excited to read more !