Yanaguana volume 1, issue 2 spring/summer 2026 a literary journal from San Antonio, Texas
Poetic Medicine
Poetry by
Barbara Ann Abbott
Robin Gabbert
Lauryl Green
Karen FitzGerald
The Archetype Tarot:
a class with Lisha Adela García
Carl Jung said, “Poetry is the language of the unconscious.” The Archetype Tarot provides images created by Jungian Analyst Kim Krauss that allow us to envision a message from the divine coming through the crown chakra, entering the heart and binding one to the earth through the root chakra. Participants were asked to imagine messages from angels, spirit guides, favorite saints, or the divine, communicating directly to their subconscious via their card selection. Synchronicity is at play in the selection of the cards.
The poems in this issue are from the class, “The Archetype Tarot,” taught by Yanaguana Poetry Editor and Poetic Medicine Practitioner, Lisha Adela García. Participants were asked to draw three cards representing past, present, and future believing that synchronist energies provided what they needed to address. They then crafted poems based on the archetypes selected.
Archetypes and Synchronicities
Barbara Ann Abbott
Vessel of Discontent
There was a time
when I drifted in many directions,
like the colors in a kaleidoscope
constantly turning.
A vessel of discontent,
I searched for meaning.
Distractions glittered like gems
strong enough to pull me away from myself.
I was always searching,
expecting the answers to appear ahead
instead of seeing what lay before me.
Contentment seemed beyond reach.
Something always felt unfinished,
though I could not name it.
Then the storm broke.
Perhaps it had been gathering for years.
Without warning, lightning struck,
the shock of loss and a broken heart─
disappointments I did not expect,
emotions too large to ignore.
I felt I was falling through space.
Arms outstretched,
I tried to hold on
to what was already gone.
Helplessness settled in me
like a cold rain,
drenching every ounce of hope.
Acceptance was my only choice.
Yet even in the chaos,
there were moments of sunlight.
The storm revealed
what mattered most.
I’ve embraced the savvy of The Sustainer.
I try to stay steady.
and trust the unfolding
of what I cannot see.
I sense an evolution within me.
like a quiet revolution.
I mold and reshape my world,
enrich my mind, soothe my soul.
The vessel that once carried discontent
no longer drifts without direction.
It moves with the current now,
guided not by certainty, but by faith.
Though my future remains a mystery,
fear is no longer in charge.
Like a seed beneath winter soil,
hope has taken root.
Each season teaches me something new.
Each storm leaves wisdom in its wake.
And with every step,
I draw closer to contentment,
so long as I remain willing to grow.
Robin Gabbert
I Ponder the Cards
Having my tarot read, I take a deep breath
ponder the three cards I have drawn
from this deck of Archetypes and
Synchronicities.
I. Agape (the past): What Happened
For so long, burning the candle at both ends
but what radiates out, also radiates in.
Meridians of energy find me
until I'm caught in a celestial storm
posing
as a sea of wonder.
Spiritual gravity, light, slowly grows
creating cloud cover. While
searching for my own center
letting the equator be pulled
toward the poles
but
the center cannot hold.
II. Eros (the present) : All I Have is Questions
An unseeing Eye, mottled and marred?
Do these cataracts obscure? Or should
I focus on the Lips, poised to spit out
the poison trapped within?
I sense contamination,
iron filings
pulled by a black hole
into eternal darkness?
Or away, toward a planet not our own?
Is it too late for me?
Uncryable sorrow...
III. The Future (The Vision)
Owls portend wisdom, answers,
caring hands to hover
and support.
A journey to shaman/
other wise one may be
required. A trip
to the mountains
is in my future.
I must travel to a far region
where a changing moon
kisses the midnight sun.
Only there will I find
my answers.
Follow the owls.
Lauryl Green
formology
disasters like to happen in night,
heat sizzles your fragile,
growl of an owl from all
sides, from this great dark
flames erupt, void your world,
you melt to mush, no self
under the starving stare
chrysalis, border between, soft sack
to keep you safe, and there’s dawn
tapping peach fingers to be let in
dew diamonds paths that illume
this all— a vine, choices
open, fringe untwines into
fringe, edge after edge after
into the green of day, globes
of water round a shine-stream
through ash, weak wings don’t
yet know the warm breath of air
a tear to rip you free
a tear to clear the past
cry clean your gum-stuck eyes.
Karen FitzGerald
Take two poems and call me in the morning
Medicinal poetry. Is it really a thing?
Or am I so unyielding in my aim
to cling to reliable sources naturally
doubting the sorceress who offers
a healing? How appealing in its simplicity
to pull cards at random and enter the mystery
of the wild unknown—where one is shown
the answers to questions she never asked
The Past, a bridge and what came to me fast
the question: from where to where? The moment
I asked, a voice was there with the words
from your head to your heart. It gave me a start
for indeed I’d been exploring that path
for years, and tears, with a trail blazing
Shaman whom I sought on a dare—a dare
that forced me to go outside my stubborn
West-centric ways that demand: to see it is
to believe it. That’s all that I knew, anything
else was pure woo-woo, and the wild unknown
held little for me, or was I too blind to see
The sorceress, she, smiling softly to me
says the way out of your head is poetry
“Beware,” though she warns “its power is
known to pierce heart and soul. Beware
And from there I paused considering how
poems might heal the break in my now
broken heart. Do I dare depart the headlands—
journey to heartlands of this continent, me?
Poetic medicine, as defined by John Fox, founder of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, is the creative and therapeutic process of hearing, speaking, and writing poetry to heal the body, mind, and spirit. Fox emphasizes that poetry is a “natural medicine” derived from life experience and providing guidance.
A therapeutic and holistic approach to reading and writing poetry, Poetic Medicine practice harnesses poetry’s unique ability to circumvent the rational, prose-oriented brain, allowing people to write from the heart. Poetry is one of humanity’s oldest art forms and belongs to everyone.
—Lisha Adela García
Lisha Adela García is a poet who has México, the United States and the land above, below and in between in her work. She has an MFA from Vermont College in Writing and currently resides in Texas with her beloved four legged children. Lisha’s chapbook, This Stone Will Speak, is from Pudding House Press. Her book, Blood Rivers, from Blue Light Press of San Francisco was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Lisha’s most recent book is entitled A Rope of Luna. She recently placed nationally in the Bodine-Brodinsky Prize. She most recently won a Tri-centennial poetry prize in San Antonio for her poem, Misión Concepción 1760. She is widely published in various journals including the Boston Review, Crab Orchard Review, Border Senses and Mom Egg Review. She also has a Masters in International Business from Thunderbird for the left side of her brain.