Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

First Time, Old Time Witchery

The backroom's become an epicenter of first time (but old time) witchery. On every surface - the tiled coffee table, the secondhand speakers, the turn table's glass lid, the tv's flat pack cabinet, the robust 70s tinged carpet - there's a half-finished project sitting in limbo. (Living, breathing in damp soil and plastic containers, not yet spent but close to the end, and the dead and gone, lost and loved, drying on old newspapers and kitsch ceramic trays.)

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Delicate sheets of tobacco leaves sit in Papa's (Ghede) skull planter, waiting to be ground down into autumnal flakes of gold. Open jars of dried elderflowers and black currants tremble on glass whenever I walk past, the jingling spice jars warning me of future catastrophe. (YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO LEAVE OPEN JARS ON THE EDGE OF A SURFACE!) Colored tissue paper from a belated birthday gift shivers in the stirred air like a origami bird, its wings gently fluttering against the ceramic planter filled with brittle amber leaves.

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Up until yesterday a bucket of blood gingerly peered from beneath the coffee table, my soaking menstrual rags lost beneath an opaque ocean of red whose still and stagnant waters began exhaling the scent of fetid Woman with every passing day. (After the rags were wrung the blood water was funneled into an empty plastic water bottle to feed the wheat outside and the two plants in the closet.) Up until two or three days ago a scuffed plastic bowl - more gray than black now - sat, offering the nearly dried necromancy contents to the air. (After the first grinding I saturated the incense blend with (my) blood and whiskey, and then, once dry, I ground the mixture a second time until a pinch fell like granulated sand.)

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Pot leaves and bird wings dry together on a 60s ceramic tray, the curling leaves and black feathers hiding the grotesque, textured pattern of celery. (HEY, IT'S 60S KITCHEN WEAR, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?) Charcoal and candle wax from Midsummer still sit in a cast iron pan next to the consecrated spiral from the Yule log, but now they're joined by a new spiral found at the edges of our property around Midsummer. Papa's chilies, proud and strong, create a living barrier of green with flashes of ever ripening red that sections off the indoor garden that grows next to the patio doors.

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Nestled between an underdeveloped pot plant, recently repotted succulents and a baby chili I'm drying graveyard dirt from the Nun's grave. (A few days ago I finally made good on a promise and planted some lavender next to her headstone creating a miniature altar with two plants, a small slab of rock, a partially broken snail shell and an angel statue that had drifted off its resting place. Displaced dirt was gingerly pocketed in a ziploc bag and brought home to add to my growing collection (one from a farmer, one from a druggist, one from a nun and earth from an unfilled grave).) The branches of my jade plant dip into the plastic tub like chlorophyll powered tentacles, curiously investigating the new addition to the room.

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Everywhere I look there's magic, but in two days it'll all be gone - potted up, put away, tidied up...hidden away like a deep, dark secret. (Because, in two days, the in-laws return home, and, in this house, leaving //anything// out //anywhere// is an invitation for my father-in-law to touch, play with, ruin, kill and/or throw out without asking. In this house everything belongs to him, and if you don't want it appropriated, confiscated or tossed out you need to keep it out of reach and sight.)