Last night I went to a local poetry reading for the first time in almost twenty years.  I felt wonderfully outclassed and it was so pleasant to have that chance to be swimming in the spoken words and emotional currents of such skillful artists.  An enthusiastic ¡Thank you! to those poets who shared their hearts with us--
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I was also confronted with the reality that while my literary critical sense has grown richer and more nuanced than ever, through my personal reiki and hypnotherapy work I have successfully therapied my internal complexity and tension right out.  I'm still a fun and interesting person, but I have released the layers where the engine that drives powerful poetry is moored.  Along with all those wonderful books I ended up shedding through Marie Kondo, I have no regrets --I'm surprisingly happy being deeply happy-- but I suddenly realize that I am now doomed to sketching out well-crafted but simply pleasant moments in haiku.

Oh, yes, and then expressing my surplus poetics through densely complex prose in these blog posts...  sorry!

​Photo evidence of me smoothly rolling out one of my English haiku just after fumbling through my Japanese tanka version of the same  ...all gracefully wrapped up "saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry" sharing my favorite Robert Hass poem 'Meditation at Lagunitas'

​Long ago, a very dear friend told me over a midnight bottle of red wine that romantics like me always end up as drunken cynics.  She was passing on a piece of wisdom from Joni Mitchell, and she was mostly right.*

So how did I end up with such a ridiculous name as 'joyomancy' to represent my healing work?  Yes, the "joy-" means joy as in joyful and is certainly not a word to ever escape the lips of the cynic without a sneer.  While "-mancy" means divination magic and invites skepticism from just about anyone...

Well, Joni Mitchell ends her song insisting that those inevitable dark days are just a phase before the possibility of transformation.  And there she was right on.  I eventually moved through and past that end.  Because as they so commonly say, "It ain't over till it's over."  And depending on the scale of your outlook there may not even be any point at which it is truly "over."

Let that thought bring you hope.  and yes, eventually joy--

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* 'The Last Time I Saw Richard'  --Joni Mitchell​