excerpt from Feb/March 2009 Ana Cortez Newsletter
copyright Ana Cortez 2009

Healing and… Chocolate!

Receiving a position at Kakawa Chocolate House in Santa Fe, NM I count as one of my more recent, larger sized gifts from Spirit. Kakawa is owned by a chocolate historian and serves up the past daily in the form of drinkable chocolate elixirs. One could forget where one is - ingesting thick, earthy, Mesoamerican elixirs dating to 1000 B.C. or sipping Marie Antoinette’s favorite orange blossom, chocolate, and cinnamon brew.

Daily I observe as customers are transported by chocolate infusions, stirred by the experience of that magic brown substance.

The people that work here are the priests and priestesses of “the bean” (or Kakawa, the Mayan word for chocolate), not only making all the chocolate served, but consulting with each customer to find just the right blend of soul medicine. It is an intuition building experience, choosing among the myriad of recipes available on any given day: flowers, herbs, chilies, nuts, oils, milks, and nectars…. parallels in history…

As my manager (head priestess) so aptly put it… Kakawa is at the center of the universe. The transformation ensuing for each person who mingles with the energy of Kakawa is truly something to behold… not always comfortable. At times I have felt that here in this little shop we are processing the history and stories for all humanity and that ultimately we will all be carried into a place of new understanding and peace on a river of drinking chocolate.

Chocolate lifts us into a multi-sensual euphoria supported by the love chemicals it arouses in the body - and lures us to remain. I have conceived my role here as healer - reaching across time and blending all with pure brown love. Even The Playing Card Oracles have found a home here on Friday afternoons with readings by Ana Cortez. ©

"Year of Awakening, Transition, and Casting Off"

CLICK HERE
to view the first edition of
The Ana Cortez Newsletter (Jan/09)

Please email me at ana@anacortez.org if you wish to receive future editions of the newsletter.

Prepare for Card Reading Mastery

A lot has been happening since my move to NM. Grooving to a whole new flow. The pace is very different down here and I am experiencing a whole new way of being. So far so good. Kind of like surfing a wave.
On the brink of unveiling a new teaching tool for The Playing Card Oracles (my book) which is called Card Reading Mastery. It is what it says and will include CD's, a video, and small book.
Nothing else like it. There will be announcements so no worries.
The art of card reading is about to jettison to a whole new level. Viva la playing cards!!!
Oh yes, for a personal reading with me go to anacortez.org and then the Readings link. Lately I have found that combining a reading with the healing described on the Healing link page is particularly wonderful for shifting energy and bringing in a new perspective. I can put them both into one half-hour session if you request it.

Angel at Bosque del Apache

angel at bosque del apache

this picture shocks me every time i look at it, think about it, marvel upon it.
taken by me at the bosque del apache bird refuge in southern new mexico.
sun was setting and just snapping photos of birdies in the distance with my camera phone. clouds were amazing, nothing unusual for new mexico. and then, SHE appeared. if you turn this picture 90 degrees clockwise, you will see the angel that came to visit.
several other people on the pier overlooking the water and the birds and sky at this time, but no one seemed to notice HER. She was there for me and my companion alone. as we were walking away from the pier, the many birds in and over the water made an amazing amount of noise as if to say good bye, and as soon as we had reached the gravel SHE was nowhere to be seen, receding back into the ethers.
this photo is not photoshoped in any way nor altered in any way and is, in fact, a crap quality photo direct from my camera phone (good as far as camera phones go).

enchanted

Gotland, Sweden, 400-600 AD, burial site

a most magical journey, to an enchanted land.... women everywhere, unraveling their stories, forging the tools that we carry on our sacred return... colors flying, drums soft thunder, song streaming, tears but watering the dry earth, seeds are sown and ashes honored.
and then, a gift appears... one of many, crawling to me like a serpent, smiling.

back in my familiar hovel once again, i search and aha!! i find. as before.
above is the depiction of parting gift i received so unexpectedly, so perfectly, so enchanted... of course. Thanks Clem.

"THE LOVE THAT YOU WITHHOLD
IS THE PAIN THAT YOU CARRY,
LIFETIME AFTER LIFETIME."

- Alex Collier (from encounter with interplanetary being)

tarot has an older sister

Can you guess what I am???

I am an esoteric treasure chest disguised as an ordinary household object, slipping with the greatest of ease through epochs of time.

I am underneath your very own nose, and indeed, between your very own fingertips.

I transcend the borders of nationality, language and beliefs, too invisible and too insidious to fall prey to those who would control the dissemination of real knowledge.

Have you guessed me yet?

Easily accessed in lavish royal chambers, homes of the poor, the cell of the jailed and the office of the warden, can you guess what I am?

Indeed, divine knowledge is merciful and cannot be shut out. There is truth for the asking – our human right, and have you guessed me yet???

I am the deck of playing cards.

A simple book of paper, pages unbound; absent of words yet intriguingly symbolic: unassuming. Let us step closer and direct our gaze for a moment at this demure muse, this seeming wallflower compared to its’ more flashy city cousin, the tarot.

...(The remainder of this article can be viewed at http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/little-book-secrets) -Jack of Hearts from The Playing Card Oracles deck by my dad, C.J.