Author: Amber Foxx

Author of Mae Martin psychic mystery series.

Yoga with Cats

I had watered the plants before I did my practice in the sun, and the one-eyed tom cat slipped under the fence and lapped at the puddle where I’d dragged the hose across the flagstones to water the pomegranates. Part of his tail was missing as well as one of his eyes. I was surprised to see him stay so long. Strangely, he wasn’t timid like he used to be. While I did my yoga practice, paying close attention to my alignment, to my breath, to my presence in the moment, he came closer, stood nearby, and meowed relentlessly. I realized that he, like other cats I’ve known, wanted to be part of this.

I once taught at a yoga studio that had resident cats. During my personal practice there, the one named Shakti would participate in any pose in which she could place herself with a gentle leap onto my body. Without ever using her claws, she would get on the thigh of my front leg in warrior one or on my back while I was in child’s pose, a warm breathing sandbag. When I was in a pose in which she couldn’t participate, she would meow pitifully until she could make contact with me again. (She inspired the scene in Death Omen where Gasser joins Jamie in yoga.)

Another cat with whom I did yoga belonged to my landlords next door when I rented a little house out in the country in Bertie County, North Carolina. (For people who like trivia about my books, the place I rented is Yolanda’s house in Shadow Family, the old one-room schoolhouse.) Fluffy, a long-haired calico, used to come to the porch for yoga. I think cats are drawn to the positive energy, to a human who is serene and grounded and stretching.

One-eyed Tom kept looking at me with his one eye. I tried not to look at the other, thinking, what happened? Don’t your people take care of you? The neighbors had been feeding him, but had they taken him to the vet, done anything for him? I wanted so much to pet him, but I’d read about a man in England who got some horrible rare disease from petting an unfamiliar cat on the street, and after that I vowed that I would stop petting the friendly, half-feral cats that roam T or C.

One-eyed Tom stared. He mewed and coiled to jump up on the chair that I was using as a prop. But I moved just enough to discourage him. He stuck around, though. When I finished my practice, he settled down in the cat loaf position in the sun and did his savasana while I did mine.

I looked at him more closely when I sat up. His face didn’t have the big tom cat look anymore, and his injured eye was no longer leaking and oozing. It was just gone. I think he’s been to the vet finally, and that his people who feed him tamed him enough to care of him. I owed him an apology. Should he try again, I’ll let him join more fully in my yoga.

 

Mae Martin Mysteries Sequence and Settings: A Quick Guide to the Series

When reading a long series, it’s helpful to have a list of the titles in order, and reminders of the years and places in which they’re set.

1. The Calling Winter 2009 – Spring 2010 Bertie County, NC and Norfolk and Virginia Beach, VA
2. Shaman’s Blues August 2010 Truth or Consequences and Santa Fe, NM
3. Snake Face December 2010 Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences, NM and a road trip
4. Soul Loss Spring 2011 Elephant Butte, Hatch, Truth or Consequences, and Santa Fe, NM
5. Ghost Sickness Summer 2011 Truth or Consequences and Mescalero, NM
6. Death Omen August – October 2011 Truth or Consequences and Santa Fe, NM and a road trip
7. Shadow Family December 2011 – January 2012 Truth or Consequences and Santa Fe, NM, Bertie County, NC, and a road trip
7.5 Gifts and Thefts Summer 2012 – Spring 2013 Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Truth or Consequences, Mescalero, and Elephant Butte, NM
8. Chloride Canyon June 2013 Las Cruces, Truth or Consequences, and Chloride, NM
9. Smoking Mirror August 2013 Truth or Consequences and Santa Fe, NM and coastal Maine

The Miracle of Reading

When I was recently visiting my friend Bob at the New Mexico Veterans’ Home, we found ourselves talking about reading. Not only about the book I’d brought him and why I thought he’d like it, but about reading itself, how amazing it was when we first learned to read as children. He’s eighty-nine and I’m seventy, but we both remember the experience. We marveled at how the transition took place from puzzling over words to reading so fluidly we instantly visualize the story, unaware of looking at little figures on a page and translating them into meaning something.

He recalled being very young, excited to read, and bothering all the adults and older siblings around him, running around with a book asking “What’s that word? What does that word mean?” And I remembered not being able to read yet, and my sister pretending she could read by turning the pages of one of our favorite books and reciting the story from memory. Because we wanted to read. To pass through the gateway to stories.

And yet so many people don’t read. According to a Washington Post article, 46% of Americans didn’t read even one book last year. What they’re missing! For those of us who do read, it’s a daily miracle. If I couldn’t read, I don’t know what I would do with myself. I rely on books for information, for escape, for experience, for insight. I think of a wonderful poem by Truth or Consequences poet Beverly Manley called Why I Read Fiction, written to explain to a friend who didn’t understand. If you can find or order her book, Seasons of the Soul, I recommend it, not only for that poem, but for all of them. The last two lines:
“I read to open my heart, my eyes, my mind
I read to feel connection with all mankind.”

Book Review: Burro Creek Canyon

Joyce White’s memoir of her life on an Arizona Ranch is sheer delight—her sense of humor, her ability to tell a unique and colorful and anecdote in each chapter, her knack for making the most ordinary aspects of her life and work exciting. Her writing style is not the most polished, but I thoroughly enjoyed every page, starting with her first meeting with her future husband, Bob, a divorced rancher living out in the middle of nowhere. She was also divorced, with a young son. She had never been a cowgirl before, but she was a brave woman. They spent their honeymoon on Bob’s remote ranch, the Loving U, in Burro Creek Canyon. She describes how she first learned to ride, to participate in cattle drives, and to cook out on the trail. This was in the 1950s and 60s. Although the house was a fine, solid house, it didn’t have electricity and was so remote she home schooled her son before homeschooling was a thing.

Every animal has character. Dogs and horses were key members of the ranch team. The social life people managed to have in a place where there weren’t any other people around is impressive. The efforts they had to undertake see friends and family in other parts of the Southwest shows how important human connection is. I can see why she loved the place, and how every day of those eight years was an adventure. In a way, I was sad as she was when they sold the ranch and moved to move to Missouri to start cattle farming in a place with more water and more grass. I highly recommend her story. She also provides recipes that one could cook in a ranch house without electricity or out on the trail feeding the cowboys.

Smoking Mirror, Mae Martin Book Nine, Available for Pre-order

The ninth Mae Martin Psychic Mystery

 Is she a good witch, a bad witch, or not a witch at all?

A house healer arrives in Truth or Consequences, claiming to make houses sell by removing negative energy, but disasters follow her healing efforts. Disaster is also plaguing Mae Martin’s former high school teammate Jen. Mae has a few things in common with her: an ex-husband, a desire to run her own fitness business, and a background in sports. But not much else. Mae’s stepdaughters are visiting for a month, and they’d rather never see Jen again. But Jen asks for Mae’s help with what she thinks is a curse—in Maine.

It’s a terrible time to leave town, and not only because of the kids. Important relationships are fraying. Rumors are spreading about Mae not being a real seer and healer. Compelled to act when there are no good choices, she confronts the most powerful enemy she’s yet encountered—and she’s not even sure she can remove a curse. In trying, Mae risks more than she ever thought she could lose.

The Mae Martin Series

No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all.

*****

The e-book comes out Nov. 1 everywhere but Amazon, where the date is Nov.2. (I’m not sure why.) Place your order now and have the book show up in your e-reader as soon as it’s released. Paperbacks will follow soon for sale online and, of course, at Black Cat Books and Coffee in Truth or Consequences.

If the Barnes and Noble link isn’t working yet on Books2Read, fellow Nook owners, click here.

“A few more breaths.”

The yoga teacher I studied with for over twenty years, the man who taught me most of what I understand about yoga—the skills of teaching, the physical and spiritual practice—died Oct. 21, 2024. He’d been ill for a while, and his wife said he died peacefully.

I honor his life and work by teaching and also by practicing. By remembering not just what he taught but how he taught: with respect, humor, knowledge, and insight, with attention to every person in the room—the real room or the Zoom room—guiding students to be their most conscious selves. I used to commute all the way to Albuquerque to take his classes. The studio where he taught closed in 2020, and I continued to study with him online.

When his cancer was diagnosed, I knew I wouldn’t see him again. He was my teacher, not my social friend, a reserved and private person. I understood not to pressure to see him, not to intrude. I’ve been studying with his wife, also a thoughtful and caring teacher in the same tradition. As he grew more ill in hospice care, she asked me to take over her Zoom class so she could be with him. I wrote to her about his influence on me, and she shared my words with him. He changed my life.Today, I did my yoga practice outdoors, with his teaching in mind as I always do. “Yoga is a manual for being human,” he once said. He challenged us to practice with attention to the moment, deeply awake. Sustaining a difficult asana, he gave clear permission to exit the pose at any time, while inquiring of yourself why you needed to stop. He often ended a long-held pose with “a few more breaths” to get us through it, then saying “And when you’re done, you’re done.”

Namaste, my teacher. My spirit honors your spirit.

New Book Coming in November

That’s my excuse for not blogging at all in September. I was finishing the book.

Smoking Mirror

The ninth Mae Martin Psychic Mystery

 Is she a good witch, a bad witch, or not a witch at all?

A house healer arrives in Truth or Consequences, claiming to make houses sell by removing negative energy, but disasters follow her healing efforts. Disaster is also plaguing Mae Martin’s former high school teammate Jen. Mae has a few things in common with her: an ex-husband, a desire to run her own fitness business, and a background in sports. But not much else. Mae’s stepdaughters are visiting for a month, and they’d rather never see Jen again. But Jen asks for Mae’s help with what she thinks is a curse—in Maine.

It’s a terrible time to leave town, and not only because of the kids. Important relationships are fraying. Rumors are spreading about Mae not being a real seer and healer. Compelled to act when there are no good choices, she confronts the most powerful enemy she’s yet encountered—and she’s not even sure she can remove a curse. In trying, Mae risks more than she ever thought she could lose.

The Mae Martin Series

No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all.

 

 

A New Mexico Mystery Review: The Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillermann

This is Anne Hillerman’s best book yet, a crime novel but also a book about culture, land, and history, set in various parts of the Navajo Nation in both New Mexico and Arizona. As always, her research is thorough and woven naturally into the flow of the story. The character development is deep, and the plot revolves around the inner workings of people— the victims of the crimes, the perpetrators, and the people solving the crimes.

The beginning of the book is a masterpiece in building tension, suspense, setting, plot, and conflict, when there’s only one character present: Jim Chee hiking alone at Lake Powell, discovering a crime as he’s contemplating what to do with his career. Meanwhile, Chee’s wife, Bernie Manuelito, is investigating another crime that she had the misfortune to witness. This second crime is somewhat based on actual events on the Navajo Nation that I’d read about. I immediately recognized the farm that inspired this story, and its misuse of Chinese laborers. The discovery of the full character and life path of the victims of these two different crimes is a fascinating and integral part of the process of solving them.

Bernie’s career development and Chee’s professional decisions and spiritual explorations are inseparable from the plot. Bernie’s younger sister Darleen’s maturation and use of her talents fit perfectly into the mystery. There’s not a single loose thread. Every subplot is tightly woven into the main plots.

This book kept me awake. When Bernie is coming to the end of her undercover assignment, the pace is intense and full of surprises—surprises that fit.  I like when a mystery hits me this way: Oh wow! I never saw this coming! But yes, of course that’s what happens.

Everything’s wrapped up and yet the book also ends in a way that makes me want to read the next one. Starting immediately.

The Heist

 I don’t know that it technically was a heist, but it felt like one. Is it illegal to rescue a rare plant from city property if the city is considering selling that land for development? The open space has been torn up by all-terrain vehicles that created rutted gullies, much rougher than the official marked hiking trail that runs along the edge of the bluff above the Rio Grande. The city wouldn’t sell the hiking trail, but they might sell the rest of the mesa. Despite the damage, it’s a cactus garden.

In the spring a few years back, I took to running in the gullies created by ATVs to escape the wind. As a result, I discovered an unusual, stubby little cactus with hot pink flowers and starry- patterned thorns. They were unobtrusive the rest of the year, and I could hardly find them when they weren’t in bloom.

Once the city decided they might sell the land. I worried about the little cacti. I put their picture on a New Mexico native plants website’s discussion board, and the unanimous reaction was “Save them!” Though not endangered, they’re rare and special. An expert in desert plants volunteered to rehome them to the arboretum she manages.

She drove all the way to T or C. We met on a road near the trail, I escorted her in, and she dug them up. I’d worried about how to do that, afraid I would hurt them or myself. She didn’t even use gloves, just stuck the shovel in the ground as if she could see through the soil to the exact span of the first plant’s roots, picked it up by those roots, and put it in a paper bag. Then she dug up the next one and laid it on its side on top of the first one’s bag in a plastic bucket with another bag on top. The third one was bigger, so I held a large tote bag open, and with flawless shovel management she slid the stoutest of the little cacti in.

As we returned to her car, the cactus I carried poked and scratched at my left leg through the plastic side of the tote bag, as if to say, what are you doing to me? I’ve lived here for years. We’ve been friends. You’ve admired me every spring, even brought me water once. What’s going on? How do you explain to a cactus that you’re trying to save its life in case its habitat gets razed for houses?

Anyway, off they went in bags and a bucket in the back of her car, and now they have a new home where rare desert plants are cared for and where visitors can admire them. I’m happy for these little cacti, even though I won’t see them on a regular basis anymore. I plan to visit them in the spring when they flower in their new home. And I will say no more about exactly where that is, in case this rescue really was a heist.

 

Never Tired of Miracles

Yes, I’m writing about rain again. Rain in the desert. I never tire of miracles.

I ran, despite the thunder, despite the lightning, daring the storm to get closer to me. The air was so soft, so cool, barely drizzling, not really a storm yet. Above, there was a blue hole in the clouds. The birds seemed excited, a pair of desert cardinals chattering and flying from bush to bush. Something in another bush made a loud ticking sound like someone running a stick across the slats of a wooden fence. I stopped in surprise, trying to see the source, but all I got was another noisy round of clicks. The temperature dropped down from the 80s to the 70s. I ran until the thunder moved in, and the sheer wall of gray across the lake became dark and solid, rain driving straight down from the sky as the gloriously cold wind grew stronger.

I finished my run a little sooner than I would have liked. I wanted to stay out on the trail, but the last time I’d lingered thinking, “Oh, that cloud sliding across the lake is just mist,” it turned into a storm that suddenly whipped through and drenched me. So this time, I left a little early, and the storm got stuck just behind the turtle on Turtleback Mountain. Still beautiful. Still a miracle.