Like Amy Tan herself, her main characters are Americans. They lack any insights into the spiritual world because their land is shiny and new, whitewashed and sometimes superficial. It is only back in the old country that we see spirits come to life, in a land with centuries of custom, tradition and ancestors who watch […]
We arrive in China by way of San Francisco following Olivia and her half-sister Kwan in Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses. Living on a sphere, it is sometimes easier to travel West to arrive in the East; and halfway around the world is a further destination than all-the-way around the world.
East and West are […]
When we left our travels, we were in Northern Mexico, skirting the border to the US. We travel now to New Mexico, where the people live north of the border, but share a culture with their family to the south.
We’ve been here before with Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima. Like Teresa Urrea in The Hummingbird’s […]
The last time I was in New Orleans was three years ago, which was a year before Katrina blew through town. It’s still the city I remember, filled with family I’ve missed. But it’s also gravely wounded.
I’m here in mourning, and my new journal is filled with eulogies. I visited a cousin who’s been rebuilding […]
San Francisco was named after the most beloved of all Catholic saints - St. Francis of Assissi. Now, whenever I think of St. Francis, I think of Bambi and Thumper and all the cartoon birds and butterflies of the forest, because he’s known for his love of nature and all the living creatures of the […]
In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Forest House, mushrooms are the drug of choice. In her poisoned haze, the high priestess can see the past, the future and the present. Like the Druids, San Francisco’s youth are also famed for their appreciation of hallucinogens, even if they do lack the sensibility and spirituality of Avalon’s priestesses.
In […]
San Francisco started out as one of many Catholic missions established in California by Spanish priests. The priests and the natives of the land flourished together with the father, the son and the holy ghost for many generations. Then in 1834, the Mexican government smashed the mission system in an attempt to secularize the country. […]
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon books brought me to world of pagan appreciation for the beauty and power of nature. Churches with walls and roofs are an aberration, for the beauty of god is not inside a man-made structure, but outside with the earth and the sky.
In Lady of Avalon, priestess initiation happens on an ocean […]
In Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins poses the question about San Francisco, why, when mother nature keeps destroying your city do you insist on rebuilding it? I’ll tell you why. It’s because despite the earthquakes, San Francisco is prime real estate. It’s gorgeous, and prosperous.
But what about New Orleans? Mother nature sends the […]
San Francisco is a prime destination spot. In the 1800s, people came for the promise of gold, adventure, prosperity. In Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune, Eliza travels to California in search of love and finds herself among people from all over the world, all in search of fortune. And in this bustling, changing place, she […]