a diary of words, paper and other ephemeral things
i sit
admiring
taking in refreshing
peppermint
steam
i should do this more
stop
b r e a t h e
then time pulls me
along by the hand
shows me moments
i long to pluck out
place in my pocket
save for later
time reminds me
the expansive
n o w
demands
attention
I watch you, determined face
I notice the refusal to accept
what I surrendered to
so long ago
Presence should be a
lightning bolt
striking
me back
into the moment
Stop looking away
Try to meet your gaze
Pick up the thread of the game
sweet secret you invite me into.
I watch you though
Even when the rest is
flickering.
I always see you.
found word packets, with some star confetti, just in case,
Can be used for writing prompts (journaling, poetry, stories), also for collage elements and abstract creations to come forth. see the little poem zine I made recently to see how I utilized these ✂️ I love cutting out words!
for my mail club goodies this month (subscribe through this Friday for this month’s mail)
these will go in the shop at their individual price on August 1st.
You also get an original artwork and letter from me 💚✂️ this tier for mail club is only $11 for international and domestic 🌟
There is also a sticker tier for those who just want the sticker of the month, $3 gets you a spot!
And there’s 5 spots available for personalized tarot art readings for the month ahead. You will receive a zine with your tarot reading, an abstract art piece to accompany it, and prompts, in addition to the sticker and zine of the month 💚 this is only $22, a wild value for the price!
Any questions? Let me know 🙏🏻
I’m curious if any other artists have experience with creating a book of their art. I’ve found myself enamored by art books lately and would really love to get something printed but am unsure of where to start.
Regardless, it feels good to make art. These are from last night. Thanks to this process, I feel ready for my day today.
Some of these collages will be going to mail club members. Sign up here. It’s $11 a month, you receive a zine, a sticker, and an original artwork. Here is the sticker design for this month:
Episode 11 of my podcast Living Practice is live here. It can also be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Book a tarot art and zine reading Here.
I tear up a lot of old artwork to transmute the energy into new work. This little scrap was laying on my chair to find. This is the back of it, on the front it’sa piece that was obviously glued over with something else. But when I ripped it from its original substrate, this is what was there. It became lost, only found right when it was meant to.
The world demands
So much from us
Attention
Time
Energy
Love
Devotion
May we never forget we are here
to experience
every mundane moment
May we show reverence to
this life
for the blessing it is
May we remember this
when ache weighs heavy
in our soul
This is going to be part bibliomancy zine, part creative prompt zine, and definitely pages to look at just for fun.
Shop all available art (as low as $5) and check out the care mail club membership on my ko-fi 🌟 the sticker ordered for members for the month of May is the collage about with the word now as the focal point. I love this piece and it reminds me of the importance of staying present. I am also working on a found poetry zine to enjoy, or to use as a creative prompt tool! I always include extra goodies in the shipments I send out, but care mail is generally an original artwork, a new sticker and a new zine every month. It’s my favorite offering at the moment 🌟 I should also note that Oracle art readings and collage paper packs can be found there as well.
I appreciate you all!
I also have 10 signed copies of my poetry book available here. You can also buy them (unsigned, and a bit cheaper) here. They are also available online at most major book retailers.
not just debris
from the storm
fallen twigs and
forgotten string
small dwelling
for growing
found the ground
from its
sky-kissed perch
oh, to scoop it up
to hold this proof
to dampen the structure
with saltwater tears
opportunistic
robin plays bath splashing in
puddles of fresh rain
I know you’re upset
But here
I carved a space
In my heart
Meet me there
We’ll have tea
Not too strong
So we can still
go to bed early
We’ll talk about the
meaning of
Our matching fingerprints
You scribble tears on your face
With blue crayon
They fall, rain from your cheeks
Splash into your cup
Allow me to drink it for you
It’s been long enough
You don’t have to do this alone
Episode five of the podcast Living Practice is live 💕 catch it here or find it on your favorite podcast platform.
you could say
hi pretty girl
and i would look for who
you’re speaking to
certainly not this rib cage
playing the song of
hollow bones
buried
too much flesh
bulging
fabric too tight
all wrong
she’ll tell herself
i’m all wrong
w a i t
for words of kindness
they do not come until
aged hands from
older me
grasp my tiny fingers
whispers triumphantly
“you are not all wrong
you are everything
you are wonderful
wonderful”
threads of being
curl through every cell
of this body
arms chest heart
opening like a flower
crying nectar at the
sunrise
penetration of light
both
pleasure and
pain
tended the garden of this mind
brains weren’t extraordinary
I cling to the title:
gifted
press the label onto my shirt
hand lingers above my breast
delusion
the tag tied round my toe in the morgue
it’s all I ever was…until, you know
I wasn‘t
plummeting grades, marks don’t matter
blackout nights, herded by strangers
bra stuffed with money
and tear-stained fights
this body became
the sacrifice;
payment on the altar of
expectation
color me surprised
you roll your eyes
not impressed
tell me this
is it enough yet?
The Tarot Diaries segment on the four of cups is now live. Swipe through the photos for previews of what I dive into 💚
Below is my sticker design for Care Mail Club. Sign ups are $11 to receive a sticker, zine and original artwork…and sometimes extra goodies 😜 check it out on my ko-fi.
The sticker shone below was from last month’s club mail. it’s available for $3 on ko-fi.
AI trained on human souls
yet their words taste like
pink plastic left
in the sun too long
I’d like to think I can tell
when words don’t have a body
like scraping the knee
on the playground asphalt
or bumping the funny bone
or drinking water underneath
scorching sun
Where it began: stilt houses
Skeletal remains emerging
from algae-green pools
Awe blooming at heart level
for faded places, forgotten
I whisper “thank you for open eyes”
now I lovingly see
crooked barns
crumbling factories
boarded-up businesses
debris piles left behind
wild-torn houses
places hold people, hold stories…
and now no one is left
to tend to these places,
they were once a flurry of
motion, aliveness, everyday mundanity
now no one bothered
to even tear them down
burn remains
memorialize their time here
honor what was
Creativity begets creativity. If you find yourself “stuck,” find another way to get creative…lower the stakes and have fun. It clears the channel.
“Stuck” is the framework because you’re caught in the loop of expectation and pushing. All it does is crowd you with nonsense.
Nothing will flow if you don’t keep the channel open. Creative play is basically inspirational housekeeping.
12:34
while my daughter screams
“I’M SO LUCKY”
she found a quarter on the porch
I think about
rollerblading because
I don’t remember ever
deciding to stop
my son wants to eat a whole
pizza for lunch
the porch door is open
I lay on the couch
as that’s what I usually do
I’ve bought so many
books and courses
hoping to learn how to do things
placing my trust
in anyone’s hands but
my own
Reading “Ordinary Mysticism” by Mirabai Starr
I find the presence of the sacred hidden in my aching bones when I have to push myself a little farther past my comfort zone. I am reminded I am alive.
I find the presence of the sacred as I walk, an obligation, yes…but also a gift. I move on familiar paths and marvel that I came together as this particular collection of cells, at least for now.
I also feel the sacred flowing through tingling fingers as I create. It is an openness that simply keeps me moving.
I feel the sacred in the hard moments, but also in the soft. Like asking the kids about how their day was, laying down for a daily nap because I respect this body enough to know rest is vital.
Although I can feel imperfect on my path, ultimately I believe the sacred meets me in the trying. I am forever in a state of reaching toward the unknowable mystery: my fingers imagine grasping the hem of its cloak…but remember that not knowing is beauty too. I breathe, my chest rises. the day is promising but also cold. I have shelter and warmth and unending love, even if only for this brief moment.
For more writing on where I meet the sacred, check out my recent essay in Fieldwren Journal: available here
I just started it, but go grab a copy of “Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground” by Mirabai Starr. Let me know what you think.
An automatic drawing I made last night while watching Uzumaki. Mostly just tried to set time apart where I wasn’t doomscrolling. Being locked in during a snow storm has made it hard to resist the phone, especially since I can’t go for my daily walk. My legs hurt intensely. Luckily my ulcer issues have chilled out, and the medicine I am allowed to take has kept the horrid headaches at bay. I still slept a lot today. I also began knitting a hat. Still trying to work through my stash.
Back to the drawing, into interesting because a lot of elements always seem to appear and I usually see some type of character or spirit manifest. Will probably do more of this tonight when I’m not knitting.
I am currently trying out selling some tiny artworks as ACEOs on eBay after learning about them on TikTok. I enjoy making tiny art anyway, and it does pile up quickly. I use to run an eBay shop back in college. This seems like it will be much less labor intensive (I hope) as far as admin is concerned. Each is on auction for a starting bid of .99, with a buy it now price of $5. I enjoy the accessibility of this practice, as someone who only started collecting artwork a few years ago. Each piece is also 3.5” x 2.5” which is just fun. You can check these all out here: https://www.ebay.com/usr/starmothx. The two images below are also cards I have available.
This is the design that won out for the sticker for this month’s care mail club (sign up on ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/starmothpress it’s available as a one-off purchase or a membership). I have a few others that I really love and was torn as far as using them, but ultimately the bunny was the winner (bunnies are my favorite, besides dogs…and birds.) Here were the other contenders. Perhaps they’ll be stickers in the future?
This evening I would really like to get to some fiction writing, but have also been recovering from a whole collection of illnesses. Last weekend, the family had the stomach flu. It kicked my butt! The kids had it as well, so I was extra beat from taking care of them. Then the week felt like a race from one thing to the next, not a moment to breathe. By the time Friday came, I was dealing with debilitating stomach pain. It seemed as though my ulcer was acting up again. I (stubbornly) did not go to the doctor right away, trying to push through with the thought it would be gone in the morning.
It was not.
The thing is the temperature and air pressure also dropped overnight. The lack of caffeine plus the sinus issues, plus the tension from so much body pain meant I had a triple whopper of a headache when I took the kids to basketball camp Saturday morning. It was all I had to sit there for an hour, and after taking them home and getting everyone settled…I headed to urgent care. They advised me of steps I could take to alleviate the stomach pain as well as meds I could safely take to manage the headaches. I could barely keep my eyes open. I slept most of the day. Thank goodness it was a Saturday.
The next morning I felt much better. Having slept so much I woke up at five. I treated my stomach gingerly, and have been slowly eliminating certain things (such as coffee :() in order to keep everything manageable. Sunday felt a little like a hangover day, today’s vibe was much better but with another temperature drop came another headache.
Luckily it was a mostly quiet day at home. I’ve been catching up on some admin, hence the fact that these items are up on eBay, and I finally posted some stickers for sale on my ko-fi. I’m on a strict order to take Benadryl before bed so I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I can hit the ground running with some writing in the morning — caring for the physical body comes first.
I did complete this weeks collage for The Tarot Diaries, which I hope to write on tomorrow. The podcast has fallen behind a couple of weeks, but I hope I can recover that as well. It can’t be done in poor health though, so rest it is.
I hope everyone has a safe week. Stay well friends.
More pages from the notebook obtained from the record shop. They are created by Half Hazard Press, and I found them in a new (to me) record shop I was perusing. I also got a Uriah Heap album, titled Demons and Wizards. It was a bold choice considering I had never heard of them but for $9 and a title like that who could resist. We recently pulled out the record player tucked away in a closet, in the hopes that more music enjoyment can be had together.
I am mulling over the idea of how to approach the zine for this month. I am proud of my ability to create a zine each month thus far, as well as figuring out the format to print it within Canva. You can sign up for mail club on my here.
My poetry collection is taking its final shape, I’m settled at between 30-40 poems. I am looking at setting the container to make the corresponding collages. If anyone has any experience self-publishing a book outside of Amazon’s service with text and full color images, please let me know.
A new essay for The Tarot Diaries will be on Substack later today.
I found a fun little notebook at a record store and now I’m filling it with collage
From one of the small collage diaries
I made a little journal that included vellum pages and have been able to create some really fun collages. It’s been so fun I filled the journal in two days! I’ll be uploading all of these designs to Redbubble.
this week’s edition of The Tarot Diaries is now available. We’re talking about the ace of pentacles, how the hand is offering you the pentacle just as Morpheus offered Neo the red pill out of the matrix, about analog practice, about cooking and the moments that make sobriety and presence worth it.
I combine the prompts for haunted house and unicorn to make a comic for this page.
I will be linking the newsletter archive here to avoid having to publish both places. No subscription is required, but it’s always appreciated!
The Tarot Diaries, my 78-week project has had me delving deeper than I anticipated, much faster than expected. In today’s post I share about self-identity, the myth of Narcissus, the cloudy depths of the subconscious, dealing with the throes of sobriety and memory loss. Trigger warnings are listed at the beginning of the essay. It’s a vulnerable one folks.
Starmoth Press 