Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Days of the Dead

Click thumbnail for larger image.

Man, this writing shit is some hard motherfucking work. I've been circling my dinky little laptop for days, eyeing the case warily while half-pretending that house chores are infinitely more important than resuming my cardinal fire-fueled campaign to take over the effin' internet. (<- I start with a ram and end with a pair of fish; fear me and my Alpha & Omega astrological bookends!) And there's nothing I can do - or have done - that's managed to distract me from one unavoidable real world truth: my ass is seriously out of practice.

It's not just the lack of practice reeking saturnalian havoc in my journal life (could havoc be anything OTHER than saturnalian in this house?); nothing's familiar. I mean, at all. My carefully crafted decade-old Rainman routine bit the fucking dust the second Peck-Man became a permanent member of this household to the extent that, for the first time in 10 motherfucking years, I'm working on an unfamiliar computer (dinky little laptop) in an unfamiliar room (the kitchen).

Click thumbnail for larger image.

For someone who's got revolution running in her veins I'm autistically incompatible with change. Any disruption to routine kick starts a butterfly effect that tsunamis its way through every fucking aspect of life. There's room for spontaneity in autism's habitual nature, but it's structured and fragmented into neat little Tetris compartments carefully arranged around great expanses of familiarity. (In other words, I'm totally capable of running a wild card round, but only because I found a way to view the element of randomness as a fixed feature in a fixed routine.)

This groove, this rhythm, this life I'm leading right effin' now is so fucking foreign and alien to me that I'm a half-heartbeat away from an Oscar-winning FOUR MINUTES TO WAPNER! freak out.

Click thumbnail for larger image.

I guess what I'm trying to say as I blow through all of these older Fet Ghede pictures without addressing what's being depicted is that if I sound sorta off, or only make a quarter of sense (instead of my usual half, although I'm willing to make 100% sense if your ass is paying for that secret pleasure) it's because I'm caught in a tide pool of motherfucking rabbits...and because I'm probably high.

(It's a little known fact that if I wasn't high all the goddamn time natural disasters of cataclysmic proportions would occur leading to the extinction of the world as we fucking know it.)(<- See? Beneath my cloven hooves and forked tongue there's an honest-to-fucking-God humanitarian; look upon the bleeding heart of your ovarian Christ, world, for She smokes AND inhales because of Her love for you.)

Click thumbnail for larger image.

While it's been all kinds of swell wading through rabbit-populated shorelines, it's time to decisively navigate towards terra-fucking-firma to get my work on before next year's serpent-tinged onslaught. (Hello and welcome, year of the motherfucking dragon! <- It could either be a really good fucking year for St. George in this house, or it could be absolutely disastrous. 2012, you're a giant fucking question mark only slightly overshadowed by the fat-assed reptilian monster hovering above you.)

Getting my work on, though, is easier said then done when I'm hella fucking rusty and writing in an entirely new environment on an unfamiliar computer. (FOURMINUTESTOWAPNER!) I mean, how the fuck do I go back to baring some of the most intimate parts of myself when I've been hiding behind photos for most of the year?

Click thumbnail for larger image.

Out of necessity I allowed Graveyard Dirt to slip into a formulaic existence (i.e., image, two or three mostly on-topic sentences, image, two or three mostly on-topic sentences...) because it was the easiest fucking way to provide consistent content throughout Harvest. Six months later that journal-saving device has become an automatic routine, and my Taurus midheaven is more than reluctant to let that productive formula go.

As much as I hate the thought, fear the thought and down-fucking-right loathe the thought, I'm going to have to sacrifice that detrimental familiarity on the high altar of Asperger's otherwise my ass ain't progressing no-effin'-where. Cause let me tell you, I've spent a third of my fucking life chasing after spectral perfection to no avail, and it's taken me this effin' long to realize that you're not moving the fuck forward if the scenery around you never fucking changes. (<- Look at me making those motherlovin' rabbits proud!)

Click thumbnail for larger image.

But now's not the time to be radical. In fact, now's the time to be uber-radical but not being radical at all. (<- Hey now, this is some seriously gutsy shit coming from an autistic Aries animal.) Up until now all of my changes have been volatile fucking processes, obliterating everything - and, occasionally, everyone - in their path. What if, just for once, I took a deliberate step back from my natural inclinations to find a new method of creation from change? What if this time I didn't push over the mothereffin' Tower in one monstrous go to create something new? What if I continuously changed one small aspect of it until it eventually became something new through measured means?

So maybe the answer to serious journal writing isn't balls-fucking-out blocks of text in the vain hope that I'll somehow net myself some older entry sparkle. Maybe the real fucking answer is building on something successfully preexisting that accommodates change (much like our old Christian friends!). It's not about dropping pictures (yeah, I considered), Godzilla-ing metaphorical towers (although it's tempting), or Lady Godiva-ing some of the most intimate parts of myself prematurely - if I'm really effin' serious about returning focus to the diary aspect of Graveyard Dirt then I just gotta write more. (Novel, right?)

Fuck! Guess who just pissed away six Fet Ghede photos from 2009 on a blog-gazin' tangent. (<- Guilty as mothereffin' charged!) Now any attempts to steer this journal entry in the right fucking direction will seem like a bolted-the-fuck-on addendum...

Click thumbnail for larger image.

I work the dead. No, sugar, you didn't read that wrong, and I didn't accidentally forget to jam a "with" between "the" and "dead"; I work the motherfucking dead. As far as I'm concerned, if you wanna be on this team you better be willing to pick up an effin' shovel and get your sweat on. (<- Ain't nothin' free in this life, or in the after.)

Almost every effin' facet of my feral witchcraft has roots in traditions and experiences that both our ancestors - Ukrainian (me), Native American (me) and Scottish (him) - would've been familiar with (i.e., hunting, gathering and growing), so the biggest contribution the dead make to this house is providing the reassuring knowledge that I'm not the first fucking one in the line to personally encounter the trials and tribulations, agonies and ecstasies of living with - and off - the land. (Admittedly not to the same extent they were forced to.)

As retarded as it might sound, I actually feel closest to my predecessors when I'm crying about and/or freaking out over shit that I know they experienced and dealt with in their own lifetime(s).

Click thumbnail for larger image.

November is winter's spring, and it's really fucking hard not to have a slight bounce of joy in your step when your ass works the dead because the last and final harvest of the agricultural year is celebrated as a sort of necro-homecoming. Over here in NE Scotland hard frost signals when it's time to haul the dubious Ms. Dirty & Co. carnival indoors for five to six mothereffin' months of hardcore merrymaking. (<- The ancestor gig? Has its perks.)

Halloween, in all of its John Carpenter glory (I was born in 1980 and was lucky to have experienced the vintage crepe paper'n'cardboard version of the holiday before it went all decals'n'plastic in the 90s), is the opening ceremony of our necro-homecoming that ignites winter's indoor revelry. Our observance of All Hallows' Eve is a tribute to everything childish and sinister wrapped up in a nostalgically creepy death-themed bow.

Gaping skulls and whitewashed bones then psychopompically lead the skeletal trail to Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), when we thank, honour and remember those who've already taken the big fucking leap into the unknown. Fet Ghede - Papa's super-special feast day on November 2nd - has a different spin in this house since my relationship with The Old Man is a double shot of unorthodox. (Despite their tough guy appearances even spiritual sugar daddies need an annual Father's Day to feel appreciated.)

Pictured above: 2009's Full Moon of the Dead Día de Muertos/Fet Ghede kitchen altar. For more Ghede-centric adventures, altars and stories simply plug "Fet Ghede" into Graveyard Dirt's search engine, and be sure to hit up my Fet Ghede Flickr tag for pictures. Similarly, you'll find all of my Halloween shit the same way: through my Flickr altar set, my Flickr Halloween tag and by combing through older entries using the search engine.

Click thumbnail for larger image.

There's no effin' way I can succinctly address wheat's significant role in our lives and religious practices in several paragraphs, so I'm just gonna gloss over the finer details of its importance and save my mental bullet points for a different journal entry. What I can probably cram in this tight space is that wheat represents two major aspects of my spiritual beliefs: the body of God (which is ground down into meal as a form of sustenance - you know, flour), and my ancestral heritage (Ukraine's known as "the breadbasket of Europe" thanks to its famously fertile steppes).

So baking bread, for me, isn't just a kitchen witch role-play of domestication, it's an ancient, ritualized art that involves growing, nurturing and inevitably "killing" one of God's tangible forms before physically manipulating it into something that's then consumed. We view the act of consumption as a sort of holy communion, which is why I hold all of God's forms - whether flesh (meat) or blood (hooch) - as sacred; they were all derived from one of His once-living manifestations.

The act of baking bread is one of sacrifice and compassion. One of my metaphysical obligations is to create and destroy; with one hand I hold His body upright (I plant and care for His seed), and with the other I ceremonially cut Him down (I reap, protect and distribute His seed). Wheat, as I've defined in my Choose Your Own Adventure spirituality, is my husband, my lover, my king and God, and His death - by the hand of His wife, His lover, His queen and God(dess) - ensures that others (including myself) live. So it only makes sense that the first offering I ply our collective ancestors with during the Days of the Dead is a loaf of homemade bread reverently made from the body of my beloved.

Pictured above: One of 2009's Pan de Muertos. While I don't have a drop of Hispanic blood in me, I do have fond memories of my Ukrainian grandparents feeding me quarters of fresh oranges in their retro-as-fuck prefab kitchen. Those experiences established a significant connection between me, the dead and orange-flavored bread, so it's no effin' surprise I eventually created a tradition of baking Pan de Muertos for All Souls' Day (aka as Fet Ghede, and day number two of Día de Muertos) to commemorate the lives of those we love who've passed the fuck on.