How and why grow a Tale Bone



Hansel and Gretel

A few weeks ago a woman I know through my travels and engagement with astrology online left a comment on a thread we were both chewing (and commenting) on. I suggested it might be helpful to find ways to feed her tale bone. Her reply was hopeful (and probably curious), but, she said she needed some tips about the tale bone because google wasn't being cooperative.

I led her here where she discovered the tale bone was a made up thing; come to think of it I've been making things up all my life. Naming things and giving people nicknames is genetic. My dad did it with everyone. The neighborhood and cousins were named after breakfast cereal and soda (Snap, and Crackle; Squeak and Squawk; Nola Bola CocaCola... ) And perhaps it's no accident, but a destiny-of- pairing thing to be partnered with someone who disassembles and reassembles words to suit his meaning.

Astrologically, the naming of 'the tale bone' is one of those examples of Jupiter (expansive thinking) in the 11th House of friendships, collaborations, hopes, dreams. Add to Jupiter's character the placement of the Sun (my Natal Sun) in the 11th House and what Elizabeth Rose Campbell says about the Sun and Jupiter in the 11th House makes so much sense to me:

In her book Intuitive Astrology Campbell says, "Locate individual planets you have in the eleventh house and consider how they focus your life:

SUN IN THE ELEVENTH HOUSE: How do I plan a purposeful life, contemplate my goals, and watch the ripple effect move out and out, creating probable futures?

JUPITER IN THE ELEVENTH HOUSE: How can I achieve my goals by initiating others into the good ideas that have worked well for me? How do I see myself creating an exponential action, even a movement, that grows good things for the culture?
Over time I believe our innate skills pickup or attract 'venues' to evolve. When you know something used to work for you but the settings or components available today are locked to you or ill-fitting it's creativity that images a future. Contemplating, relaxing into a something. It's the ripple that opens the future, without a word; on the wind the sound of a high mountain bell rings true for you.


"One of the basic functions of myth and folk literature is to provide a landscape of allusion. With the first story a child hears, he or she takes a step toward perceiving a new environment, one that is filled with quests and questers, fated heroes and fetid monsters, intrepid heroines and trepid helpers, even incompetent oafs who achieve competence and wholeness by going out and trying. As the child hears more stories and tales that are linked in both obvious and subtle ways, the landscape is broadened and deepened, and becomes more fully populated with memorable characters. These are the same folk that the child will meet again and again, threading their archetypal ways through the cultural history of our planet..." - Jane Yolen from Touch Magic

It is my fondest wish to 'provide a landscape of allusion' here at Myth For My Tale Bone. Pinning together that space, with this place, a story, situation or poem that is sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle or confusing ... Allusion meant not to 'simply get to the point'. Allusion meant to broaden our skills and imaginations so we navigate challenges in adulthood and elderhood as if we were the children fully and life-long educated in the making of Tale Bone Broth and the capacity to braid story out of anything, and everything. And, if we have been distracted from this education of allusion for whatever reason(s) let it be a known: there is a place at the table. Come. Sit. Lean into the stories you find here. Share a comment. Take the allusion and let it find a metaphor in your life.

The tale bone is the bone that grows like a coral reef on the tendril of your tail in our Back Bone -- which has grown solidly from the story of our heart's core. Imagine a tail growing with stories true and mythic:
  • you and the characters in your real life braiding challenges 
  • and slips on banana peels lead to the valiant and brave unexpected actions of an elder dragon, partial to purple but too shy or afraid of the fire power and then?
Something or someone shares something sweet and you both add to the joy of being more fully alive with a tale uniquely yours.

That's what happened when a bag of sweet white chocolate, and a small bell showed up in my life. The final installment of the myth for my tale bone White Chocolate and a Yama Bell is here. Enjoy!




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