Kayla Garnet Rose, Phd

09/04/2026

09/04/2026

"In recent years, I have begun to contemplate the idea of a fourth and final stage of recovery, and that is justice. If trauma is truly a social problem, and indeed it is, then recovery cannot be simply a private, individual matter. The wounds of trauma are not merely those caused by the perpetrators of violence and exploitation; the actions of the bystanders - all those who are complicit in or who prefer not to know about the abuse or who blame the victims - often cause ever deeper wounds."

-Judith Herman, Truth and Repair

Art by Hannah Hofer

09/04/2026

"Medusa was the serpent-goddess of the Libyan Amazon. She represented female wisdom as the destroyer aspect of the Triple Goddess, Virgin-Mother-Crone. She was similar to Kali Ma, the Hindu Triple Goddess of creation, preservation and destruction."

-C. Loran Hills, excerpt from 'Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom'

Art by Zara Alfonso

08/30/2026

"On women's part, after submitting to patriarchal churches for centuries, they have become disgusted with religion and have forgotten to consider their own divine origins. The patriarchy has separated the human from the divine but it has also deprived women of their goddess or their divinity. In the history of women religion is mixed up with the culture of the earth, the body, life, peace. Religion is the op**te of the people only because it is imposed upon us as the religion of the race of men." -Luce Irigaray

Art: "Meditative Mother" by Liz Darling

08/30/2026

I became smaller to fit inside someone else’s love. I silenced instincts, softened boundaries and abandoned parts of myself they refused to hold.

Tonight, I ask the Moon to return them all.

Not as I left them but stronger for having found their own way home. 🗝️🤍

08/30/2026

In The Urban Tarot, card 14 is titled Art ✨

It teaches that you can mix and combine opposing elements, and rather than diminishing both or canceling out their energy, it is possible to create from them something wholly new, with power unique to its elemental parts.

created by Robin Scott 🎨🌇

08/28/2026

When I got together with my loverloo, he was quite willing to discuss having kids, despite our advanced age (I was forty-three at the time, he was fifty-six). My logical mind said no, health risks, etc., my emotional side... Mixed whale noises. Happily, I have both step-children and grandkids, so certainly my world has expanded.

There is a difference between not being able to give birth anymore and choosing not to have children of one's own. I never wanted to have children. In fact, there are only two distinct times in my life when I wanted to get pregnant. Once, when I was in high school, I simply felt so happy in a random moment with my sweetheart. Then, in my late thirties, after getting divorced. I realized pretty quickly it was not that I wanted another child, but wanted a child that I would not have to share custody with. Get a cat, I told myself.

So it came as quite the surprise that when my eggs dried up, I grieved no longer having the option to conceive, even though I never felt the proverbial biological clock ticking, let alone the biological urge to procreate.

I found myself thinking about empty vessels. On my altar is an empty birch bark basket, made by my Nona Linda, my maternal grandmother. It sits on a piece of embroidery from Nona Theresa. Next to that is an empty bowl. Where is there sacredness in the absence of all? I find myself contemplating the black hole in the middle of my uterus, which is not just blank but somehow sucking in all of my life force within. When I succumb to the abyss, I allow myself to wallow in the nothingness. Sometimes this looks like staying in bed for hours on end. Maybe it is this hollow feeling that we try to feed with posting on social media, gloom scrolling (what I like to call doom scrolling), or endless NYT crossword puzzles. I take a moment to imagine being hollow like a drum, still resonant, still beating.

(Excerpt from Laphrodite's Guide to Mindful Menopause or the Adventures of a Baby Crone)

Ramblings on: Mindfulness, holistic healing, hypnotherapy, guided meditations, astrology, reiki, tarot, menopause, Santa Cruz, California, being q***r

08/25/2026

“We find in the Goddess a compelling image of female power, a vision of the deep connection of all beings in the web of life, and a call to create peace on earth.”

~ Carol P. Christ, Rebirth of the Goddess

Art: Scarlett Butters, “Carry Peace”

Note: Poster art designed for , 2024.

08/19/2026