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Elves Runnin' Loose in the Kitchen Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/AKQKuhrRv4o Gene’s voice brought her back to her kitchen table when he said, “Yeah, Dad lived right behind Darrell’s grandparents,” then his voice went low, like he was sharin’ a secret. “I spent a lot of time with those folks. They were good to me. The whole family was.” For a moment, Mama thought he might not continue. “So, I saw Dad plenty, too. But don’t tell Mom about it. She

Elves Runnin’ Loose in the Kitchen Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/vM695nj5IWw In early April 1951, Mama’s younger brother, Gene, who’d be twenty in December, but had looked an’ lived like a grown man since he was fourteen, came for an unexpected visit. Mama was livin’ in Rock Island, workin’ at S.S. Kresge, a five-n-dime type department store that would eventually be called K-Mart. It was the kind of place where the smell of fresh popcorn and pe

They All Live Happily Ever After Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/nkJh8XO67Vg Mama an’ Barney’s house sat six miles from the Rock Island Arsenal, where the guns under their kitchen floor were manufactured, but it was just 50 yards from Rock River, a tributary spillin’ into the Mississippi less than a mile from their front door. Loaded down with weaponized metal, Mama ran outside, recallin’ how Barney insisted that livin’ by the river could come in

Hello everyone, We moved into Gemini season a few days ago. Everything moves faster in Gemini, the sign of the twins. Gemini is very curious and often leads us to ask lots of questions. The duality of this air sign takes us into more thinking, more talking, and (hopefully) more listening. Our minds can go into overdrive. Equally possible, we can download new ideas and sudden lightning bolt understandings that break us free of old stories that have kept us limited. This is hap

Read my new blog post here: https://www.thehealingriver.net/post/mama-and-barney-part-2 Hello Everyone, As I’m preparing this reading on May 16, we are in the middle of the Taurus New Moon. This New Moon initiates a big shift as the five main personal planets all change signs this week. The first one to move is the Moon, of course. She moves through every sign in the zodiac each month, so her cycles move quickly. This is a powerful Super New Moon that invites us to slow down,

They All Live Happily Ever After Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/4BCqZNfuOKo Mama turned seventeen on July 14, 1944, an’ Barney was there to help her celebrate. It didn’t take long before she decided to let this puppy follow her home. By September, she was pregnant. Mama never shared that part of the story with me, though. It would be decades before I thought through the timelines and figured it out for myself. She never wanted me to know she had

Hello everyone, This week Pluto in Aquarius, Mars-Chiron in Aries, transits through Taurus, and Jupiter in Cancer are all in the headlines. In the community chart, Pluto is in our 2nd house of money, values, and possessions. Jupiter is in our 7th house of relationships, and the action in Aries is happening in our 4th house of home and family. On May 6, Pluto in Aquarius stationed retrograde and will remain there until October 15, 2026. This begins a deep period of

They All Live Happily Ever After Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at https://youtu.be/2krhKEYSVcE Kissiah “Kit” Smith was born on January 16, 1817. She entered this world on the wings of grief an’ loss, just a few hours after her father’s passin’. Her name would become a prayer whispered in anguish an’ a curse muttered in dark corners, when at seventeen, she became The Sin-Eater of Mount Pisgah, Kentucky. Not by choice but by necessity. It was a role she inherited whe

It looks a lot like home to me Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/8DJd4F93RrI Summertime, an' the livin' is easy Richard got sick in June of 1942, a few weeks before Mama’s birthday. His symptoms were mild at first an’ because his mother had survived the same disease as a young child, an’ had immunity, he remained at home rather than bein’ isolated in a polio ward. Quarantine signs were placed on each door an’ along the white picket fence that surro

This week, Mercury and Pluto are in a challenging conversation. They’re going back and forth across the room, trying to figure out how they want to work together. That means you might be thinking about something obsessively, going deeper with it to try and make sense of it all. At the same time, Mars is moving fast in Aries so there’s a lot of push behind things this week. It doesn’t take much for something small to turn into something big. And Mercury just moved into Taurus

Read this week's blog post at: https://www.thehealingriver.net/post/part-1-death-divorce-and-disappointment ​ Ask the Spirit Guides Weekly Reading Clear Eyes, Quick Shifts, and Right Moves “At the center of your being, you have the answer…” ​— Lao Tzu ​"But finding that answer is gonna mess up your hair!" — ​Faye This week, it’s full speed ahead with a little bit of “take it easy there, champ” underneath. Uranus in Gemini is pedal to the metal, and Venus helps us find the be

She's got the whole world in her hands, and it starts from the inside out What's happening in the world right now is affecting all of us. So, instead of ignoring it, we’re going to stay grounded and strong as we move through it. That means taking a beat to breathe so we can think clearly and decide what we’re going to do with what’s coming at us. We have sovereign power over our own lives and the choices we make. And my first choice is to stay aware of 3D chaos while stay

It looks a lot like home to me Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/-Iy7PsZ8-qU Summertime, an' the livin' is easy... Mama was the second child an’ only daughter of Herbert an’ Faye Smith, born an’ raised in the cozy little farm town of Grinnell, Iowa, where ever’body really did know your name. All your secrets, too. In 1939 she had a Tale of Two Cities kind of year. One of the best an’ worst she’d ever known. It would portend the rest of her life,

You can read this week's blog post at https://www.thehealingriver.net/post/trauma-terror-and-trepidation Maiden • Mother • Wild-Woman • Crone • • • The Triple Goddess Plus One There’s a lot happening in the world right now, and it’s affecting all of us in very real ways. We feel it at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and in the cost of everyday life. We’re all under pressure to find ways to keep up. We’re not ignoring what’s happening. Instead, we’re looking at how we stay

The unholy trinity of my Daddy’s youth Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/gMPAvJXfz4M I didn’t always understand it. Took me a long time to see it for what it was… ‘cause I’d been lied to my whole life. But if you’re gonna get a true picture of how I’s raised, I gotta tell you ‘bout Mama an’ Daddy. After all, it’s their doin’, an’ you’re gonna need the backstory. My daddy grew up in Madison County, Iowa. That’s right. The one with the bridges. He

Like January 6th kinda messy [The audio version of this story can be found on YouTube at https://youtu.be/iB1gzXgEo7k.] My silent escape from a tangle of lies took years. Terror lives in the hearts of men an’ women who look a whole lot like your next door neighbor. I grew up with ‘em — I went to church with ‘em. Hell, I called ‘em my friends. When they raised their “Jesus Saves” banners in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 — the year that we all hoped would bring us salvatio

This is the beginning of my story — told in my own words, one chapter at a time.