Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Cleaning Under a Witch's Bed

Late September we hauled everything out of our bedroom in anticipation of THE GREAT BEDROOM CLEANING OF 2009. (<- SEE CLEANING UP AFTER THE BRIDE.) And thanks to committing ourselves to one too many things we still haven't managed to clean anything, so we've been living in a hollowed out room for over a month now.

Due to living with a nosy father-in-law who flat out doesn't give a shit about other people's personal property (or their feelings) I have to keep the majority of my witchcraft projects hidden in the bedroom. (Mr. Awesome? Loves to throw things out and "fix" things. Unfortunately, they're usually OTHER people's things, and he never asks if it's cool beforehand so you don't know that something's gone or ruined until you notice that it's gone (or ruined) and by that time it's way, way too late to save it.)

Our bedroom? The third smallest room in the house, not counting the hall closet. We have enough space to fit two small nightstands, a double bed and one tiny wardrobe. Things WERE kept in the wardrobe until we began our homegrown operation, but once the lights, fan and seedlings moved in everything had to move out. And when that happened there was only one place for refugee witch items to go - under the bed.

I have wet dreams about those flat, elongated storage boxes with wheels. They're my fantasy storage solution; frictionless movement, clean, sterile compartments and a tetris-like ability for stacking on top of one another. In reality, though, I have the gutted frame of the futon that we once slept on (see link above). Dragging the fucking thing out from under the bed - with the insane amount of shit packed away within - is a Herculean task and something I completely avoid unless absolutely necessary.

Unloading it requires an entire room due to my autistic talent at packing. (<- I SWEAR TO GOD I MUST BE THE ONLY EMPLOYEE IN THE HISTORY OF WAL-MART WHO BECAME FAMOUS FOR HER GROCERY PACKING. PEOPLE ACTUALLY TOLD //OTHER PEOPLE// ABOUT ME AND THEY WOULD ALL MAKE A PILGRIMAGE TO MY CASH REGISTER, OFFERING PRAYERS AND SUPPLICATIONS OF APPEASEMENT ("HONEY, YOU'RE JUST ABOUT THE BEST BAG PACKER THIS WORLD'S EVER SEEN!") AS I CREATED AN INVINCIBLE PLASTIC GROCERY BAG BY USING TWO CEREAL BOXES FOR MY NON-PERISHABLE FOOD MASONRY STRUCTURE.)

A tiny path cuts through the stacks of boxes, books and jars from the backroom's door to the opposite side of the room, the patio door. On either side hidden curses, brittle bones and empty bottles of booze sit silently, collecting dust, waiting to be reunited with the calm darkness beneath our double bed. We have the new wallpaper (AN ABANDONED GRAVEYARD BACKING INTO A HAUNTED FOREST), now we just need to be up at the right time to strip the old wallpaper down, thoroughly wash the walls, room and furniture, hoist up the new wallpaper and put the jigsaw puzzle of our bedroom back together.

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So sometime last year (or the year before?) I glanced away from my computer monitor and went "BABY, DO YOU WANT AN ANTIQUE CEREMONIAL INDIAN SWORD?" to Italics. Normally I don't bother asking - especially if I'm considering getting the item in question as a gift - but "swords" and "daggers" hang on a very precarious line of AWESOME and HOLY SHIT, LAME.

(Antique knives - especially ones specifically created for butchering - garner an automatic "YES, PLZ!" from me (don't EVEN get me started if the handle's made of bone, horn or antler), but due to overexposure to horrifically shit fantasy swords, daggers and axes my inclination to collect anything longer than a plain knife (or a pair of scissors) is practically non-existent.)

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It was listed with its original scabboard, came with a price tag of £10.00 (I think?) and had two beautifully engraved Islamic-like floral patterns stretching across the length of the blade. I saw it and thought "IT'S A SWORD, WHICH IS KIND'VE GAY AND LAME, BUT IT'S A CEREMONIAL SWORD AND IT COMES WITH A SHEATH AND THE ENGRAVED DESIGNS ARE KIND'VE SORT'VE NICE AND IT'S NOT LIKE THERE ARE MALFORMED HUMAN SKULLS OR A HOWLING WOLF STUCK TO THE HANDLE..." but I couldn't reach a final decision, so I asked Italics what he thought.

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Finding it perfectly acceptable - which was my original hunch - we snagged it for its opening bid. (<- MUST'VE NOT BEEN FANTASY/GOTH ENOUGH FOR OTHER SWORD COLLECTORS. "WHAT, NO SCREAMING DEMON SKULL? NO THANKS.")

To the left of the sword and gutted futon are my retired Black Goddess heels. They were my very first stilettos - black satin with golden Asian dragons - bought at a vintage shop for $15.00 when I was a pre-med student at the University of Arkansas.

One of the straps snapped during a particularly debauched New Year's Eve celebration (which was TOTALLY unplanned; who seriously eats a 4-5 course Chinese meal and then pops a bunch of ecstasy immediately after and listens to Sigue Sigue Sputnik while partying their way into the new year? US, NATURALLY) rendering them completely useless, but the witch in me insists that they're still useful for SOMETHING so they've been living under the bed since.

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I have a retarded thing for boxes. Little boxes that preferably fit into larger boxes; a weird sort of forgotten drawer archeology. When I clean I usually rediscover one or two, and opening them up is like stumbling across an entirely new world perfectly contained in a tiny space no larger than three or four inches.

The contents always look magic; an unspoken spell, a quiet blessing. It's okay to paw through the collection of seemingly random objects, to turn them in your hands and remember their origins, but it seems almost...sacrilegious...to remove something. Even though I don't entirely see it, everything is there for a reason - it makes sense to the Universe - and by fucking with it I ultimately fuck with something in perfect harmony and balance.

(This Ace of Spades box contains pink ribbon from an antique table linen purchase (for altar use), an Ebay business card which has a part of my infected tonsil I coughed up (taped to the card; a gift for Italics - "I FOUGHT THIS WAR, YOU DON'T HAVE TO") after coming home from the hospital, a handmade cloth bone from a friend, a piece of sea glass, a toy truck that came out of a Christmas cracker, a ceramic chili charm bought for Papa {Ghede}, some UK change, a snail shell, a hoop earring found when walking in town (there was a period, a few years back, where I ran into "broken circles" daily), a bee charm sitting onto of a Pazuzu pendant (bought from the seller whose business card now contains a portion of my tonsil), an Asian dragon from a friend, a sea shell from the North Sea, a communist propaganda looking button and a set of plastic tires from a non-existent toy.)

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OH, GOD, IF I ONLY LABELED EVERYTHING THE SECOND IT CAME INTO THIS GODDAMN HOUSE. I think - THINK! - the pair of dirty ass rocks forced into the first glass jar on the left might be from the "grave" outside. (Last year around this time they dug up the road - smack dab in the middle of the crossroads we're perched on - and just before they sealed up the hole I threw in a homemade witch bottle, but also stole some earth and rocks for future witchcraft.)

I'm not really a rocks'n'feathers sort've witch, but both still manage to find their way into this house. Behind the pair of crossroads rocks are a collection of feathers (crows, rooks, magpies, wood pigeon) found when walking to and from the cemetery, and behind the feathers are my collection of OUTSIDE BONES.

("Outside bones" = the weathered, whitened remains of offerings I made from the previous year. Throughout the year the bones get kicked around by visiting wildlife until it's time for a YARD CLEANUP. When a yard cleanup happens I round up all the bones I can find and add them to my growing collection. Eventually I'll clean them and use them for divination; they were offered to the spirits and ancestors as gifts, consecrated by nature and the weather, stirred, moved and chewed on by wildlife and, after all of that, still managed to return to the hand that gave them away - SOUNDS PRETTY MAGIC TO ME, YO.)

Behind my OUTSIDE BONES (I DON'T KNOW WHY IT REQUIRES CAPS, BUT IT DOES) is Bee's jar of honey. (We associate Bee, our pet ray who passed away last year, with bumblebees and honeybees so more than ever there's a loving focus on the local nectar gatherers. Last year we became members of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and spent the warmer months learning and identifying visiting bumblebees, and researching what plants, flowers and trees we should be growing to encourage Bee to come back home.)

That bone sitting by itself? I can't remember what it is, specifically, but I know it's a half-completed gift for a friend. (It was one of Chippy's bones which he decided to give away. <- DEMONS ALSO GET A WARM FUZZY GLOW OF HAPPINESS BY SHARING.) I bought the sunflower egg cup for myself since it looked like the PERFECT vessel to soak seeds in (I submerge my seeds in water and then cover them with something larger so they sit in darkness for a day or two; it results in a better germination rate) and I'm drawing a COMPLETE blank where the two rocks behind the egg cup came from, or what the fuck I was planning to do with them.

(WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I NEED TO //LABEL EVERY-FUCKING-THING THAT COMES INTO THIS GODDAMN HOUSE//.)

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Holy shit, where do I START? In the mess of bottles, jars, containers, tins, mugs and tupperware are:

Graveyard dirt from a grave in the St. Nicholas Kirkyard (ALEX FULLERTON, DRUGGIST), a jar of preserved baby octopuses given to Tentacle Monster as a Christmas gift (I haven't exactly figured out what to do with these yet), a ceramic jar filled with a shea salve, a coffee mug which I still need to fill and bury at Papa's grave in the local cemetery (when pinching some dirt off his grave I unearthed an old flower container which I took with the promise of reburying something in return), what's left of this year's bridal honey (made during Spring / Great Rite / Sacred Marriage / Easter / Hieros Gamos celebrations), dog beer (an offering for Chippy), an empty metal canister for paska/babka baking (paska/babka are traditionally more pannetone-like; more tall than round, and to get that shape you need to bake them in cylinder containers - OH, WAIT, I HAVE A PICTURE (I FORGOT!)), an empty Grand Marnier bottle (kept so I can make a proper witch bottle), an unopened jar of "BONE SUCKIN' BBQ SAUCE" bought for Papa, a bottle of hot sauce given to me by a friend, an empty rum bottle I'm supposed to fill with graveyard dirt and keep under the bed (I DON'T BOTHER ASKING; I JUST DO WHAT I'M TOLD), a coffee jar filled with medicinal bath salts I'm curing for Italics (clove and mint oils with olive oil and rose petals), an empty Amaretto bottle which I've since decanted the curing bath salts into (in preparation of giving as a Christmas gift), a bottle of plant fertilizer, a treasured jar of the sweetest, most syrup-y balsamic vinegar, ever, sent by a friend who lives in Italy, Papa's bottle of Hennessy (PAPA GETS RUM //AND// HENNESSY!) and a sealed container of some homemade incense specifically made for Papa (oh, God, don't ask because I SERIOUSLY can't remember what I put in it other than dried chilies, graveyard dirt, rum, a drop of urine, sexual fluids, coffee and whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time).

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A pair of feet from a male blackbird, and the remains of a crow.

I remember finding both; the blackbird was lying flattened in the middle of the road on the way to the cemetery (I clipped the feet off and carefully placed the malformed body in the ivy hedge (my Native American grandfather's a holy man, and he taught us to leave dead birds in trees and bushes)), and the crow had already begun decomposing in a cow field we were cutting through.

Since it was too far gone to carry to the cemetery and back home I left it hidden beneath a discarded ottoman in the ruined church adjacent to the pasture we were cutting through. (The property which owns the church - an old manor, complete with an abandoned walled garden - is currently being used as a nursing home, and, for whatever reason, they dump old furniture and garbage in what used to be a small chapel.)

A year later my crow was reduced to a pile of bones, and year after THAT someone finally made the effort to clean up the church and the area surrounding it. So now I have two jars filled with one crow - including a perfectly immaculate skull - and a clean ruined church to have outside sex in.

(YAY FOR NO LONGER RUNNING THE RISK OF CONTRACTING TETANUS FROM RUSTY ASS WHEELCHAIRS, BOO FOR GETTING A URINARY TRACT INFECTION AFTER HAVING SEX ON A SKANKY MATTRESS RIGHT NEXT TO THE CHURCH. <- OKAY, OKAY IT WASN'T THE MATTRESS; IT WAS HAVING THE START OF A UTI BUT, DESPITE IT, HAVING SEX ANYWAY, AND THEN NOT MOPPING UP THE JIZZ IMMEDIATELY AFTER.)

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Way in the back (to the left) are Papa's bottles of "Bone Suckin' BBQ Sauce" and hot sauce. To the right - in the three jam jars - are the remains of a black bird (feet) and crow (the skull was so large it needed a jar for itself). In the "DO NOT EAT, DO NOT SMOKE, POISON" container is shredded datura, sent to me by a friend in Finland.

There's an empty bottle of Strega behind the datura (ritually consumed during that debauched New Year's Eve party where my Black Goddess stilettos broke), and an empty bottle of Hennessy. (I CAN'T GET RID OF TINY LIQUOR BOTTLES, THEY'RE LIKE A MAGIC PROJECT JUST WAITING TO HAPPEN. IT'S SO EASY TO PICTURE THEM FILLED WITH SOMETHING - DIRT, INCENSE, HERBAL SALT - AND DECORATED WITH CHARMS AND PIECES OF BONE.)

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Antique "witch" hairpins won on Ebay. I don't know anything about the magical workings of hairpins, but my gut feeling is any mundane object you can twist, bend, break or distort is good for SOMETHING (whether hexing, healing, bonding or separating) - especially if it has WITCH stamped across it. I used a few of the pins when I created an impromptu witch bottle last year to throw into the "grave" created when workers dug up the crossroads in front of the house to fix a broken water pipe.