Before embarking on a third revision of A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief, an intense book-length personal narrative, I worked with writer, photographer and shamanic practitioner Pam Hale Trachta for guidance in knowing what I wanted to do in developing my manuscript. Because it is about my son’s death in a snowboarding accident and the following months of my grief, my manuscript was difficult to work on. I questioned my purpose in reliving the events I’d written about. I had a deck of Pam’s Sand Spirits cards on my bookshelf in Washington State. I called her for help in working with them, work which offered me the opportunity to allow “photographic wisdom” to provide a mechanism for opening my intuition and grounding me in the task of re-entering my manuscript. Here is a transcipt of how Pam I worked together using the card I’d drawn from the deck.

Sheila
Pam, let’s start with your description of the Sand Spirit Cards and how you came to create them.

Pam
The Sand Spirits introduced themselves to me in July of 2000, on a beach on the Pacific side of the Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, where my husband and I had rented a house. The beach was dotted with colorful stones, seaweed, and streaks made by iron filings in the sand. As soon as I began to see forms and figures emerge from the landscape, I knew this was a special event. I asked Spirit if there were any rules. I was instructed not to touch anything, and to take only one photograph of each arrangement I chose. I spent four days photographing and watching the Sand Spirits being created and being destroyed by the ocean. They were hypnotic and alive. It was a “gift from the sea.”

When I got home and had the proof prints spread out all over my dining room table, I knew I had something special, but didn’t know what to do with my treasure. I narrowed the images down to 60, and then to 36.

Two weeks later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. During my treatment and recovery I used some of the images as guides for my healing journey. They were so powerful that I began sharing them and developed them, as they guided me, into the set of cards I use today.

During my cancer journey I made Xerox copies of the cards and began experimenting with them. I used them with friends, family, and other cancer survivors first. As I developed a way of dialoguing with the images, I asked them how they would like to be used. At their suggestion, I self-published 1000 sets in the fall of 2003 and wrote a simple manual that comes shrink-wrapped with the set.

Since then, I have used them in countless workshops and one-to-one sessions with people of all ages, for healing, for strengthening the inner voice, for decision-making, and for fun. The results continue to move me. People see things in these cards I never saw, and teach me about the sweetness, wisdom and power of the articulate inner voice we all possess. They seem to grow more powerful with use. In some strange way they really seem to be spirits who have a life and a purpose and a growth cycle all their own. I feel privileged to use them and share them.

Sheila
I was so impressed the first time we used the cards together in Tucson, and you told me your story about using them as part of your healing.  Why do you think they are especially good for those with a writing practice?

Pam
There are so many decisions to be made about whatever we write. Sometimes we just know what voice to use, where to start, and what form can hold our ideas the most powerfully. Other times we know we have something to say but aren’t sure how to begin or how to make changes. The Sand Spirit cards can help with these decisions, and make sure our insights come from a deep place within rather than a shallower, more strategic place. They also provide dialogue and content.

The cards are a natural for writers, because we have very active imaginations! These cards are like workout equipment for the creative imagination and for accessing that deep place within where our spiritual and creative natures reside.

Sheila
I’m really excited and ready to use the cards.

Pam
Okay, then, let’s start.  First, come to the Sand Spirits with a question, something about which you would like insight.

Sheila
My question is about the memoir I am writing.  What is this I have on my hands? I need to know what I am doing here.

Pam
Look at the images on the cards, first on the literal level. You see stones, sand, seaweed, and perhaps other objects. Now open your right brain or your creative imagination and see if you can see forms or figures emerging. Notice how it feels to see one way, and then to begin seeing other things emerge. Now see what card is drawing you the most strongly. Ask which one will give you the most insight about your question.

Sheila
I have spread them out before me, looked them over and am drawn to card number 7.

Pam
Okay, look at the card more closely. If you are holding it, you can turn it in different directions and choose an orientation. Name the literal objects in the card (“This is a red stone; this is a piece of seaweed,” etc.) Next, enter the state of pretend and allow forms and figures to emerge. Name the parts of the forms and figures you see.

Sheila
I have oriented the card vertically and the 7 on the back is on the bottom.  I know this form I see is made visually of seaweed and sand, but for me the card shows a goddess or a princess. Now when I look, I also see the scales of a dragon coming up the gown of the goddess and her arms are also like flames.  She is wearing a hat that ends in flame as well.  Perhaps she has a dragon’s tail.  She is dancing and light on her feel.  When I look again, I see a garlic bulb, with another one growing up behind the first, the top of mosques or buildings in a Far East city.  She seems, as I face her, to be looking over her left shoulder, a fringe of her hair peeking out from under her hat.  Her hat has a long slender flap that covers her left ear.  The fabric of her gown is earthy with eggplant colored veins.  At the bottom of the gown, a small animal, maybe a bird, seems to be lying in the billowing area of the skirt.

Pam
Great.  Now imagine that the goddess or princess is alive for you and that you can speak to her and she can speak back to you through your thoughts.

First, ask her, “Who are you?”  Tell me what comes to mind.

Sheila
She says, “I am the goddess of wonder and delight.  I lift my hands and the flame of my being to the heavens and I dance.  I am made of flames but never consumed.  I look over my left shoulder and know that evil spirits are behind me, not of consequence.  I raise my tail in delight.  I am like a clove of garlic, sections of me whole and growing, full and spreading.”

Pam
Now ask her, “So, out of all the cards I could have picked, why did I pick you?”  What does she say?

Sheila
She says, “Because you are writing of something you think is sad and it is something that has made you a part of the whole with every fiber of your being.  You need to see that in suffering the loss of your son you have entered the heavens as he has.  The ridge of scales on my back, reptilian, are what I carry with me always in the dance.  I celebrate the rough edges.  I celebrate the primal and the spirit. I love and I laugh as I carry the dragon on my back. It is light, really, and sparks all this love.

Pam
Now ask her, “So, out of all the cards I could have picked, why did I pick you?”  What does she say?

Sheila
She says, “So you can realize you are in the heavens as he is (though you are also on earth); that you are made of flames but never consumed; that even though he has died, you are whole and growing; you can celebrate the rough edges; and you can love and laugh as you carry the dragon on your back.”

When I posed these answers, the phrase, “Even though he has died you are whole and growing” brought tears to my eyes. They were like the ones that come when someone says, ‘I love you,’ or when someone sees to your core and mirrors what they see.  Does this make sense?

Pam
Yes, it does.  Ask the goddess if there is anything else you need to know about what the messages and spirit of your writing are.

Sheila
When I ask the goddess, “Is there anything else I need to know about what messages and spirit my writing needs to carry?” I write this: Eternal is the joy, eternal.

Pam
Ask how you can take the Sand Spirit into your writing project.

Sheila
When I ask, “How can I take your beautiful spirit into my writing project?” I think about the garlic I see in her dress.

****

I look up the history of garlic online at various sites and find out a lot: Garlic is indigenous to the Kirgiz desert region of Siberia, where there is very little precipitation.  Garlic had to grow when there was moisture in the spring and fall and survive without water by going dormant for the exceptionally dry summer and winter months. Garlic’s cloves store large amounts of food to enable the plant to withstand long dormancy.  A healthy root system with relatively small leaves is a key to the survival of the plant.  Once discovered by humans, garlic quickly became a staple crop of almost every civilization in the world.

Most likely dispersed by nomadic humans several thousand years ago, garlic is mentioned in Sanskrit writings as early as 3000 B.C., and in writings of the 8^th century BC, it is mentioned as growing in the King of Babylon’s garden.  The early Sumerian diet included garlic as a mainstay, and garlic is mentioned in the Shih Ching (The Book of Songs), a collection of ballads believed to be written by Confucius.  Garlic was so prized in ceremony and ritual, lambs offered for sacrifice in China were seasoned with it to make them more pleasing to the gods.  Ancient Egyptians worshiped garlic as a god, and its name was often invoked at oath takings.  By 1000 A.D. garlic was grown in virtually all the known world, and many cultures believed it had medicinal and even spiritual purposes– Pliny, Celsius, and the prophet Mohammed recommended garlic for medicinal purposes.

During the building of the Great Pyramid, the construction workers lived on a diet consisting primarily of onion and garlic.  Garlic was so important to the workers diet that depriving workers of their ration of garlic caused work stoppages.  Aristophanes suggested that athletes and soldiers eat garlic for courage.  Virgil wrote that garlic enhanced and sustained farm workers’ strength.  Sailors from the Vikings to the Phoenicians took healthy supplies of garlic with them on any voyage.

****

Sheila
I am pleased at the idea that garlic was believed to be food of the gods, that it can withstand difficult growing conditions and that it provides strength and courage.  The goddess on the Sand Spirit cards seems to tell me this: “Your writing was food during the drought of unhappiness; go back to what you wrote.  You will see my spirit sprouting.  You will see that from your grief, you have found a way to truth and can show the bulb of it to others.

Pam
I am really glad you have researched and found out so much.  Ask the goddess for some practices and rituals you can use to maintain her spirit in you as you write.

Sheila
“Sand Spirit Goddess, can you give me some practices or rituals that will help me take this spirit inside and use it for fuel and expression?” She answers, “You must remember that you stored much.  You must remember that you have grown deep roots in your first draft and you have the fuel you need. Sit down now with these roots and cloves in a growing season.  Perhaps you can keep fresh garlic on your desk next to the card that pictures my dance.”

Pam
You are doing well. Now ask, “How can I take care of myself during this project and make sure the sadness is not draining me or consuming me?”

Sheila
I posed the question silently. The answer is, “Days you write, garden as well. Plant herbs, plant vegetables among the flowers and shrubs.”

Pam
Do you have other questions for her?

Sheila
Yes.  “Who will want to read this writing and what will they see and know when they read it?” I hear the answer, “I believe those who mourn and want comfort may read this.  I believe that those who believe in poetry and its healing properties and its wisdom will read it.”

I think the Sand Spirit has told me a lot. I’m not sure if I have more to ask.  As soon as I write you this, though, I want to ask about the dragon.  “What more should I consider about the back of the dragon I see on your gown?”

I believe she tells me to get back online and find out what I can about dragons as I did for garlic.

****

Early myths often include a storm god or a god armed with thunder and lightning bolts, chasing a dragon that has something to do with water. I am going to write this next draft of my book overlooking a body of water called Discovery Bay. I hope that insight strikes like lightning.

I read on that in a Babylonian tale, a goddess dragon Tiamet defends her offspring and all of creation from all the minions and forces of evil. But later, when her husband Apsu is killed, she apparently goes mad and decides to end all creation in her grief. That is how I felt in my grief—I was not going to create anymore because I had raised a beautiful son, a wonderful human being, defending him as a mother does, and he was taken away. Then I found, through the words of a shaman I read then, that I had to remain alive for him.

Online I continue to read and find that the Egyptians had a story in which a hero named Seth destroyed the snake or Dragon named Apophis. My son’s name was Seth. I had always thought of the name as that of Eve’s third son.  Now, I look up Apophis and find that every day Apophis would try to devour the Sun Boat of Ra as it sailed the heavens. Seth’s original role was to battle Apophis and keep him from destroying the boat. Occasionally, Apophis would succeed, and the world would be plunged into darkness.  But Seth and his companion Mehen would cut a hole in Apophis’s belly to allow the Sun Boat to escape. Apophis commanded an army of demons that plagued mankind. Only by putting faith in the gods of light could people defeat the demons.

****

Sheila
I believe that finishing my healing and serving Seth means that I must put my faith in the goddesses of light and bring light with this book.

Pam
If you feel complete now with what the Sand Goddess has offered, thank the Sand Spirit for her wisdom, her beauty and her help and guidance.

Sheila
“Thank you, Sand Spirit Goddess, for your wisdom and beauty, for your help and the guidance you have given me to understand and believe in the heart of my book and my reasons for writing it.”

Pam
I am moved by your answers.  This is beautiful and rich. I love the way you took the lead and went out to research some of your images. The meanings are so right on, so remarkable. Now, honor yourself as a being who can welcome and contain the mysteries of guidance that comes both from the greater universe and from the universe within.

Sheila
“I honor myself as one who welcomes and contains the mysteries of guidance, who follows the path you set before me and help me find footing on.”

Pam
Much love to you, garlic-growing woman! Be sure to plant and cultivate the garlic when you garden after writing.

****

After publishing Lisa Hunter’s essay last week about her use of Caroline Myss’ Archetype Cards, it seemed relevant to add information about using another deck of cards for our ongoing writers’ tool kits. I hope youy’ll leave a comment and let us know how visual aides have helped you as a writer.