Marilyn Muses
On Life, Cancer, and other stuff
Shana Tova
The dentist chair is in a reclining position and so my body is comfortable but my mouth is wide open with a block between my teeth so I can’t bite the dentist. My mouth is numb...
The Hierophant
“There are many paths, but only one journey.” In Greek, Hierophant translates as “expounder of sacred mysteries” and “one who teaches the rites of sacrifice and worship.” The...
The Emperor
The Emperor is all about recognizing and accessing our inner power and using it to master life’s challenges. Mary Greer states that the Emperor assumes responsibility and acts...
It’s Never Boring
How many times have we heard “this will be funny someday”? At the moment, funny is the last thing it is because fear, embarrassment or in my case anxiety doesn’t feel funny, it’s...
An Embarrassing Life Lesson
We used to visit my father’s parents every Saturday. They lived in an apartment over a bar on Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst Brooklyn —at the time - the 1950’s and 60’s, it...
Launching our Demands Into the Sky
I always liked the idea of wishing on a star, but which star? Which wish? As a child there were many. I wished school wasn’t so hard, I wish the boy I liked in the 6th grade...
The Hanged Man
In the 12th Major Arcana Tarot card, the Hanged Man is hanging from a tree upside down. He has a peaceful expression and in the Ryder Waite deck there is a halo around his head....
The Salt Marsh
I live across the street from a salt marsh, in the south-east corner of Brooklyn. Marine Park. When we first moved there, the salt marsh was a dumping ground for abandoned cars...
Choosing Life Again
When I was first diagnosed with cancer, February 2020, I wrote an essay called Choosing Life where I spoke about the ambivalence I often felt about life and a favorite cartoon on...
Management
I’m now managing the symptoms of my disease,And as you might expect, I’m feeling ill at ease.Prednisone shrank my lymph nodes, so it looks like I’m in remission, But the abnormal...
The Empress Within
The Empress lives within each of us. Though several Tarot decks depicts the Empress as a pregnant woman, the pregnancy itself can be seen as a metaphor of being pregnant...
The Golden Years
It’s unusually warm outside but I’m still very cold.One of the downfalls of getting so old. I was always so healthy, as to how I can’t answerBut now I am fighting my second round...
Free to Be Me
When I was 18, I went to live on a Kibbutz in Israel for 9 months. It was an elaborate way of running away from home and it saved my soul, which started me off on a path...
Groundhog Day
Sometime in January I read that the movie, Groundhog Day, would be having its’ 30th anniversary and that it will be on the AMC channel all day. I think I was the only one who...
The Wheel of Fortune is in Aruba
We were sitting in a resturant in Aruba, an open beautiful space overlooking a waterfall with big golden fishes, iguanas sunning themselves, and a glamorous black swan...
Well, this is unexpected
I’ve been a retired social worker for a few years now, and though retired, I was never finished being a social worker. I’m lucky to have found a profession that fills my heart...