Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Aug. 16th Walk

When all four of us are in the house I'm a ghost - unseen, unheard, quietly slipping from one closed room to another, hiding and waiting for the time I can become a person instead of a shadow. When my father-in-law leaves for the weekend the anti-social creature of darkness costume gets slipped off and the three of us (Italics, his mother and I) fall into a happy communal harmony where there isn't any real stress or anxiety because the one person who causes the bulk of both isn't in the house.

On those glorious weekends I can sometimes be found sitting with my mother-in-law at the kitchen table having long talks (this past weekend the hot topic was comparing the textures of various body hair over a pot of tea), and I'm almost definitely found in the kitchen, at some point, concocting a cliched Sunday meal from scratch for the three of us to enjoy with a glass or two of wine (I'm not much of a drinker but a half glass of red wine after several hours in the kitchen does sort've hit the spot in a satisfying, social drinker sort've way).

When there's four of us Italics and I primarily exist in the office (or computer room) and skulk around, waiting for people to exit a room so we can slip in just after to avoid contact and/or conversation. When there's three of us an unseen switch gets flipped and suddenly, as if by magic, this segregated house becomes a proper home. We eat together, we talk to one another, we don't avoid rooms (or eating) because the space is occupied by someone else; we just spend time together which isn't done AT ALL when Mr. Awesome is home. (I wonder if there's still a split personality view to the change, or if by this point my mother-in-law finally understands that we deliberately remove ourselves from socializing with them to limit the possibility of an "incident" which is bound to happen after prolonged exposure.)

When my mother-in-law mentioned she wanted some fresh air on Sunday evening I dropped the non-work I was engaged in because, DUDE, "fresh air" equals "walk in the country" and since SHE HAS A CAR AND CAN DRIVE that meant new scenery for me. (Don't get me wrong - I love the long, rambling walks Italics and I take to the cemetery, but that route is out of necessity and it never changes. We've grown accustomed to that view, to that "country". And now that they've bulldozed most of the wild fields leading to the cemetery - FOR FUCKING HOUSES, FOR MORE FUCKING HOUSES, GODDAMMIT - I'm heartbroken since it was the only piece of "country" we could access by foot.)

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With wild heather still in flower I suggested a local piece of wooded area, near a castle we frequent and just a short distance from one of my favorite cairns. So with my Easter basket in hand (and a bottle of water, my ritual scissors, my camera and a plastic bag "JUST IN CASE") we set out across the country passing crumbling stone walls, standing stones and quaint half-modern and half-ancient cottages. Setting out for the walk I expected a bundle of heather, maybe locating a few edible mushrooms and finding unripened patches of wild blackberry. What I DIDN'T expect was a hawk to drop a freshly killed rabbit (practically) at my feet.

The woods are divided into a quartered circle. You can walk the entire circumference or you can cut through the woods using one of four shortcuts. Just as we started our walk we caught sight of a doe, graceful and still, poised cautiously in the middle of the path leading into the center of the woods. She looked over her shoulder at us before bounding away, and we watched, captivated, as the beautiful creature slipped into a sea of green, disappearing almost instantly.

I paused for a second, wondering if the encounter was some sort of nudge. (I work with the indigenous - and very local - winter/storm/death/magic hag and goddess, the Cailleach. Deer are HELLA sacred to her and there's evidence to suggest that long, long ago She and Her deer were revered and venerated by the people here through deer cults headed by deer priestesses.) In my experience when I see a deer - WHICH ISN'T AS COMMON AS YOU'D THINK IN SCOTLAND, OKAY? I GREW UP IN THE MID-FUCKING-WEST WHERE WHITE TAILED DEER WERE ALL LIKE "WHAT THE FUCK EVER, DUDE" AND GRAZED ON ABANDONED GRASSY LOTS NEXT TO O'HARE AIRPORT - some serious shit is about to go down.

Sometimes animals lead, and sometimes they're there to give you a jolt so you're paying better attention. (Crows are good for leading, in a pinch I've asked them for directions and they've pointed me straight every effing time.) When you have one of those moments, though, it takes a second to get your bearings, and if you think too long - or too hard - you find yourself faffing around in the same spot, not doing anything. ("SHOULD I FOLLOW? SHOULD I STAY ON COURSE?")

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We stayed on course, and after that hushed moment of communion my wooden Easter basket was swinging again as we veered around rocks and roots, gently prodding moist mushroom caps as we passed hoping that every fungi poked would have sponge instead of gills. (You can't misidentify boletus, baby!) Within minutes there was a wild explosion of air, feathers and fur as a predator bird - a hawk - took flight, its giant wings slicing through the air as it cut across our path before settling on a nearby pine tree.

Not having my glasses (I need them for distance, but they're so fucking cumbersome thanks to the fucking frames being bent out of shape that I usually just leave them at home if I'm going to be bending over a lot when out) I used the camera's zoom function - as far as it'd go - and managed one picture of the bird before it took off with a single, sharp cry. (In the picture you can see that it's looking over its shoulder at us, and I didn't completely understand why it was so interested in our presence until a few minutes later.)

A freshly killed rabbit surrounded by a tufted halo of fur lay strewn across our path. It was a fresh kill; an immediate kill. It was nearly decapitated, sprawled over uneven mounds of thick, dense moss and red cap mushrooms. When I stroked its body it was HOT (not "warm" but "HOT"; THE ALL CAPS IS V. IMPORTANT TO ACCURATELY DESCRIBE THE LEVEL OF BODY HEAT STILL EMANATING FROM THE BODY) and I suddenly understood the dirty look the hawk had given both of us in the one picture I got of it.

What's harder than deciding whether to follow one of your spiritually significant animals or stay on course despite the unexpected run-in? DECIDING WHETHER TO TAKE AN ANIMAL'S MEAL. (On one hand She was there, as a deer, signaling for me to PAY ATTENTION, STUPID. And both the rabbit and hawk are significant to me (the rabbit is another one of my personal animals, and the hawk was my mother's). On the OTHER hand if I took the rabbit then I'd be depriving an animal of sustenance, maybe even a nest filled with fledglings.)

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In the end I felt like it was a test. Not, you know, about stealing food out of the mouth of wildlife, but a personal test to see if I had what it takes to continue my interest in preserving animals. (I have HUGE interest in becoming a taxidermist, but also harvesting fur, organs, bones and other body parts of roadkill for witchcraft purposes. OH HONEY, YES, I'M //THAT// SORT'VE OF WITCH!)

I had it easy with the Lammas fox I found and scooped up from the roadside; its stomach cavity exploded on impact and everything - AND I MEAN EVERYTHING - was gone except for the heart (which I was most interested in, along with tongue and eyes). There was no gutting involved whatsoever since all of the internal organs weren't present, which totally wasn't the case with the rabbit. The fox was all about skinning and scraping liquefied brains and skull from the pelt, the rabbit? The rabbit was ALL THE WAY, BABY.

I apologized to the hawk, but it wasn't there to accept (or revoke) my attempt at making amends for the appropriation. So I talked to her (or him; I didn't find any nuts but I also couldn't find a uterus or ovaries - practice makes perfect, eventually?) and stroked its downy coat, lifting the hot-blooded animal into my arms like a pet as its nearly separated head rolled and gurgled, emitting familiar clicking noises from its torn throat.

(We euthanize our own rats and we know that there's no turning back when they begin "clicking"; it's the sound of their lungs shutting down as they slowly begin to suffocate. When we hear that we know it's time to use nitrous - laughing gas - to gently and painless put them to sleep.)

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At first I carried the rabbit like a burping baby, a third of its body over my shoulder, its bleeding neck thumping against my shoulder leaving a swatch of fresh blood on my white t-shirt. I ran my free hand down its back, stroking, whispering, petting; loving it like it was my own, loving it like I knew it from the second of birth. When the lactic burn began eating away at my arm I cradled it against my chest like a sleeping infant, its head nestled into the crook of my elbow, its legs, soft and pliable, extending against my forearms as it seemed to sink into a peaceful sleep, the position perfectly hiding the neck trauma and giving an illusion of contented life.

All the while my mother-in-law interjected with "ARE YOU SURE YOU WOULDN'T JUST RATHER PUT IT IN THE BASKET?" and "OH, BUT YOU'RE GETTING BLOOD ALL OVER YOUR SHIRT!" not understanding that the residual discomfort that came from holding the rabbit as we walked on was a necessary part of the game. I tried to explain to her that I was establishing a link - a connection - with it, but I think even my dumbed down explanation went over her head and my reluctance to part with my find was written off as another one of my weird quirks.

(By treating it like a beloved pet I was creating a bond so it knew me. I was creating an emotional resonance with it so, later on, when I needed it it would work with me because what animal, especially wild, would do anything for you if it wasn't acquainted with you somehow? I know ultimately it's a very simple way of thinking, but that's my magic - almost stupidly simple to the point of ridiculousness. (WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE COMPLEX, ANYWAY? ISN'T MAGIC AT ITS VERY HEART NATURAL, PRIMITIVE AND INTUITIVE?))

The rest of the walk was terrifically unremarkable. As we pottered along my mother-in-law found a weather beaten bone (deer, due to the size, probably from the pelvic/haunch region due to the sockets and shape) hanging from a branch (something I should've easily see myself but without my glasses I had given up looking up and over my surroundings and simply focused concentration on the rabbit and the occasional outcropping of mushrooms along the beaten path).

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At the very last leg of our walk we passed a lane of towering rowans where wild bee balm grew, the purple hassocks covered with wild bumblebees drunkenly ambling from one nectar filled stem to another, none of them particularly bothered with the fact that I was shoving a camera directly in their face as they gathered food. (The BEST picture I got has my mother-in-law in the corner ("I'LL MOVE OUT OF THE WAY SO I DON'T RUIN THE PICTURE BY BEING IN IT!", prophetic or what?), so much for submitting it to the bumblebee conservation newsletter (SIGH).)

PS: Rabbit butchery tomorrow; way, way too tired to talk through another 17 pictures. (<- CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED, FAINT OF HEART!)