Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Wild Blackberries

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I read in a foraging book that the biggest, sweetest, most desirable blackberry is the one growing at the very tip of the branch, and it's always the first to ripen while the others behind it are a week or so behind. And the further up (down?) you go along the branch the more bitter and less desirable the berries become. (Less desirable in the sense of raw eating, the ones in the way back are still tres excellent for baking, jamming and preserving.)

Social Networking

I'VE RESPONDED TO AN EMAIL! (THAT'S ONE DOWN AND 51 MORE TO GO! WOO!) EXCUSE ME WHILE I POP OPEN A BOTTLE OF ELDERFLOWER AND LIME CIDER TO CELEBRATE.

(I'm conveniently "forgetting"/not mentioning all of the Livejournal comments I need to respond to. And all of the Flickr comments AND emails I need to reply to. And all of the Twitter and Tumblr nudges I've gotten recently. AND, ALSO, LIVEJOURNAL'S INSTANT MESSAGES AND, ALSO TIMES TWO, ALL THE BUILT UP CORRESPONDENCE ON MYHOODOOSPACE. <- OH MY GOD SOMEONE PLEASE PRY "SOCIAL NETWORKING" OUT OF MY DIRTY LITTLE WITCH HANDS BECAUSE I'M CLEARLY NOT RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS.)

V SRS Thinking

When I wrote 180 from Convention I got my hands satisfyingly dirty (in a figurative, purging words and thoughts sort've way). And after the first hit of gratification I wanted more. (MORE THOUGHTS! MORE FEELINGS! MORE SPECULATION! MORE V. SRS THINKING!) As you'd expect - if you also lived in this LOL UNIVERSE of mine - circumstances immediately thought otherwise.

Within minutes of me writing and posting the journal entry one of our rats waddled over to the phone jack in the wall and CHEWED ANOTHER FUCKING MICROFILTER. (<- With an exception of perfume - FUCKING PERFUME! - the other delicacy favored by all of our rodent roommates has been computer cables, particularly the all important INTERNET ONES.)

It took two fucking days to get our hands on a fucking replacement. ("THAT'S OKAY, I NEED TO LEARN PATIENCE ANYWAY. AND NOW THAT I'VE BEEN PATIENT AND LEARNED MY LESSON ABOUT THE VALUE OF PATIENCE I CAN GO BACK TO BEING A V. SRS THINKER AND HAMMER OUT MY V. SRS THINKER THOUGHTS ONCE AGAIN.") But then - OH, THAT'S RIGHT, I BEGAN THIS SENTENCE WITH "BUT THEN" INFERRING AND HINTING TOWARDS SOME SORT OF CONFLICT - Italics began waking up with me, effectively wiping out my "computer time".

(We have bizarre schedules that aren't bizarre in the least once you get a handle of our monthly and daily cycles and routines. We aren't completely nocturnal, but we are in tune with our circadian rhythms. Half the month we'll be up at night, the other half we'll be up during the day. Our sleeping patterns slowly creep forward every day so every day we're going to bed a little bit later than the day before which means we're waking up a bit later than the previous day. Slowly, but surely, we work through the hours of the day, so some weeks we wake up early morning, the next week we're waking up mid-morning, the week after we're getting up early afternoon and the cycle goes on, repeating itself indefinitely.)

(Italics does the majority of his computer work during his "night" when I'm in bed which means he's up anywhere 2-4 hours later than me. I do the majority of my computer work during my "morning" when he's still in bed catching up on those 2-4 hours. Our slightly staggered sleeping schedule means we both have a portion of our day where we can work without distraction. <- I AM TOTALLY //AWESOME// WHEN IT COMES TO PROVIDING DISTRACTIONS, BTW.)

(When Italics wakes up the beginning of my real day starts and unless I'm heavily involved in something on-line (or on the computer) I don't have a chance to work on anything again until the next "morning" since the house(demon)wife switch gets flipped to "on". <- Which really isn't HIS fault; once he's up I know it's time to get breakfast started (usually I haven't eaten for my 2-4 hours of computer time) and with my first thought of cooking an avalanche of domestic thoughts comes crashing down and I get way too distracted with superficial shit to be able to concentrate on writing.)

SO! So the rats chewed the damn cable which meant we were without internet connection for a few days, and THEN, when it returned, Italics began waking up with me and by the time we comfortably fell back into our staggered sleeping schedule I totally missed the V. SRS THINKING train by a few days. (Oops! And I had more I wanted to say and explain and clarify and LOL about. It seriously feels like I got interrupted in the middle of a presentation and NEVER GOT TO WRAP IT UP WITH A GRAND FINALE OF "AND IN CONCLUSION...", does that mean I fail or get an incomplete?)

Oh, well, I'll have all winter to engage in V. SRS THINKING (<- BOTH A WARNING AND TEXTUAL TEASE OF THINGS TO COME!).

Bacchus Cherry Beer

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YES, THAT'S //EXACTLY// WHAT WE NEED IN THIS HOUSE AFTER A SOLID WEEK OF CONTINUOUS SEX AND BLOWJOBS - BEER NAMED AFTER BACCHUS. (<- Stick an entire bag of hard cherry candy into a bottle of beer and you've got BACCHUS CHERRY BEER; it's like being a kid and an adult ALL AT ONCE.)

Glass Bottle Cemetery

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I have a crazy huge thing about glass bottles; I can't get rid of them. From blocky garlic salt bottles to impossibly narrow hot sauce bottles they all, eventually, get run through the dishwasher and committed to a semi-final resting place. And they late in state for a week, a month, sometimes a half-year collecting dust until I finally need one for something.

There are two places empty glass bottles go to die - the detached outside room (which is currently being used as storage, but we're planning to clean it out and renovate it so we have a much larger - and much more private! - bedroom), and the top of the bedroom dresser (which kind've sort've serves as an altar space when not cluttered up with bottles and bones and feathers and plants and half-started projects and gifts for others).

With fall barreling down upon us I'm starting to get a nesting itch, but I've been trying to hold off on scratching it until the end of the harvest (the blackberries are just about to ripen and then, not long after, the elderberries and rowan berries should be ready). As the house tempts me with forgotten, dusty corners I'm beginning to find partially finished projects and gifts strewn across various altar spaces that quicken that sense of cleaning'n'organizing urgency. ("OH, GOD, I PROMISED I'D GET THIS THING OUT //LAST FUCKING YEAR//! I'LL PUT THIS GIFT RIGHT HERE AND TRY TO GET TO IT NEXT WEEK FOR REALZ.")

I haven't planned it, but in the next few weeks we'll be dismantling the bedroom piece by piece for winter cleaning (in Spring we welcome the Bride, in Winter we welcome the Hag). The room will be completely emptied except for the dresser (too heavy to move so it gets pushed into the center of the room to open up the space it normally occupies) and the bed frame which'll get turned on its side to make vacuuming the entire room a billion times easier.

Following the skirting boards I'll outline the perimeter of the room with salt, and then create my MAGIC CLEANING MIX (natural cleaning solution (Ecover, usually) + sea salt + rosemary, lemon balm and lemon essential oils + hot, crazy hot, water). Then, using an ordinary scouring pad for dishes, I wash everything*, leaving no corner or side or panel untouched.

(* The skirting boards, the walls, the ceiling, the ceiling fan, the outside of the dresser, the inside of the dresser, the two nightstands, the three drawers that reside in each nightstand, the bed frame, the thresholds of the room (window and door), the radiator and every fucking thing that resides in the room - whether it's a statue sitting on top of one of the nightstands or a tarot deck usually kept within a drawer. Nothing - not even a book thrown into a corner - is allowed back into the room without being thoroughly cleaned.)

While I'm cleaning - because it's usually a one day, if not two, event - the bedsheets get washed with a sprinkle of salt and sometimes a drop of ritual oil in the detergent. Slowly, but surely, the room beings to reknit. After washing and drying everything with my MAGIC CLEANING MIX I vacuum the room picking up debris and salt, right the frame and return the dresser to its corner.

The nightstands, empty, get moved back into place revealing the skeletal foundation of our bedroom. The mattress returns, febreezed and flipped, the various altars get reassembled and drawers are carefully filled once again. By the time the last laundered sheet is fitted the room's perfumed with the scent of cleansing, living green (the essential oils) followed shortly by purifying smoke (a mix of pure frankincense - in resin form - burned with dried rosemary and sage).

And after an exhausting day of hard, manual labor I pass out - sore, but satisfied - on bedsheets that feel like new, in an ossuary that smells like an herbal garden knowing that for the rest of the season we're secure and protected* in the magical fortress built by sweat and intention by an anally retentive matriarch who feels that cleaning isn't just a social necessity, but a fine fucking art.

(* HONEY, WHEN YOU'VE SPENT 12-24 HOURS CLEANING THE FUCKING SCREWS THAT KEEP YOUR NIGHTSTAND DRAWERS TOGETHER THERE'S NO NEED TO CAST A CIRCLE FOR "PROTECTION"; I BLEACH THE TOILET WITH MY BARE HANDS, I SCRUB THE PADDING ON THE FEET OF THE BED - NOTHING, AND I MEAN //NOTHING//, CROSSES THE LINE OF A WOMAN WHO SCRUBS URINE STAINS FROM THE BASE OF THE TOILET WILLINGLY.)

How do I know winter cleaning's going to happen in the next few weeks without even planning or scheduling it? Because I've already begun shifting empty glass bottles from their makeshift cemetery, gradually but methodically freeing up the space on top of the closet. (<- That's the instability that creates the avalanche. When my neurotic attention is drawn to one mess, it's not long before I compulsively attack the others and everything, like the Tower, comes tumbling town.)

Cemetery Beeches

I meant to write a proper entry today, but a few circumstances stood in the way. (i.e., the rats eating ANOTHER EFFING MICROFILTER (we've been off-line a few days while waiting for the replacement), Italics throwing up a couple of times first thing this morning, residual "stomach flu" fatigue, homemade hash browns followed by homemade cookies (an Italian cornmeal recipe flavored with marsala) and, finally, an unexpected - BUT DESPERATELY NEEDED - walk for fresh air.)

The video above is of some blustery Scottish wind tearing through the beeches that tower over the local cemetery. You can make out the ancient, sun-bleached headstones and, later in the video, beechnuts dangling from branches. (Beeches here only produce nuts every three or four years, so I'm determined to do something with them before they disappear for another several years.)

Hanging Out Windows

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OHHEYLOOK! You can see my whole ONE sunflower through the bedroom window!

(Left to right: halloween bats from 2006 (HOW COULD I TAKE THEM DOWN WHEN THEY COMPLIMENT OUR OSSUARY THEME SO DAMN WELL?), the skeletal frame of our woefully unloved hammock ("NO, NO SUMMER WILL HAPPEN AGAIN! I CAN'T PUT IT AWAY JUST YET!" <- IN COMPLETE AND UTTER DENIAL), blue-purple borage growing along the maroon fence and one of Chippy's outside offering dishes way in the bottom corner.)

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"OH, GOD, I GUESS SINCE I'M ALREADY TAKING A PICTURE OF THE DAMNED FLOWER THROUGH THE WINDOW I MIGHT AS WELL OPEN IT AND GET A BETTER SHOT."

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These seeds? Claim to be "early maturing", LOL! (LOL = "IT'S AUGUST FUCKING 27TH AND ONLY ONE OF MY FUCKING "EARLY MATURING" SUNFLOWERS HAS EVEN BLOOMED!")

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"OH, GOD, I GUESS SINCE I'M ALREADY HANGING OUT OF THE EFFING WINDOW TAKING A PICTURE OF THE DAMNED FLOWER I MIGHT AS WELL FLOP OVER EVEN MORE AND TAKE A PICTURE OF WHAT'S BENEATH THE BEDROOM WINDOW."

(Left to right: a peach tree to the left with tobacco in the center, a baby pumpkin smack dab between the two, cucumbers growing up bamboo sticks in the middle and an apple tree (grown from seed), some baby corn and parsley in the bottom right corner.)

180 from Convention

If it wasn't enough that I'm part of a dying breed of witch on the verge of extinction (MUD PIT, IRON TEETH CANNIBALISTIC CRONES UNITE! <- living and operating out of a hut on fowl legs is completely optional!) I'm also painfully solitary to the point of unwelcoming; I work alone, learn alone, experience alone and sit on my secrets like a golden hoard, hissing at anyone who gets too close, asks too many questions or attempts to follow by partially obscured example.

(There's a reason why bone crunching, entrail reading fairytale hags don't have Facebook fan clubs. Then again, this bone crunching, entrail reading fairytale hag isn't even on Facebook, so that's pure speculation on my part on the sisterhood of anti-social crones.)

Even on the faceless, nameless internet I stick out like a sore thumb. (COULD IT BE THE CAPS? THE DOUBLE NARRATIVE? THE INABILITY TO REIGN IN JOKES THAT ONLY MAKE SENSE TO ME?) No matter how hard I try to be the inconspicuous wallflower pretending to be completely engrossed in studying wallpaper patterns in a social situation (forums, communities, mailing lists) I can't help but feel like I'm exuding the giveaway scent of "anomaly".

I'm simple, unsophisticated. My instinct is primitive and animal-like. I work with what I have - what's given to me - and spend my days high and schizophrenically connecting dots to find the repeating patterns hiding in my daily life. My hands are soiled from blood and earth and urine and death, my fingers are scared with white lines of accidental offerings. (TYPICAL ACCIDENT PRONE ARIES; EITHER BRUISED ON THE LIMBS OR BLEEDING FROM THE HANDS.)

I'm a witch, but I'm not pagan. I worship, I pray, I ask for intervention, for understanding, for results, but when I wring my hands and kneel in agony or ecstasy, I bow my head and beseech my subconscious. I'm Divine yet human, God but mortal. I laugh inexplicably, I cry inexplicably; my emotions crash through me like ceremony, like ritual. Everything - all that I am, all that I want, all that I will become, all that I'm capable of - comes from me.

The more I meet witches and pagans and magicians and conjurers and eavesdrop on preexisting conversations (or spectacularly crash them, more often than not killing the topic or thread with several caps locked words) the more I feel myself shrinking back with a silent "oh"; alienation and ostracization comes easy when you're naturally paranoid and living in a world that (seemingly) is a 180 from convention, even by witchcraft/occult standards.

I'm not saying that I'm solely unique in my beliefs and actions. There are other witches who aren't pagans, there are other workers who believe in Nature but not "Gaia", there are other people who don't worship gods and goddesses but identify them as aspects or archetypes of self (to be venerated and absorbed). I just feel that I inadvertently tick a few more of the "LOL, WTF?" boxes than the average "witch", inevitably shuffling me into a descriptively gray limbo (i.e., "ARROGANT", "CHILD-LIKE" and "SIMPLE").

I suppose what I'm trying to say - BADLY, VERY, VERY BADLY (<- headache from not drinking enough water and also still skirting the fringes of "sick") - is that I don't feel I have a lot of common ground with what are, ostensibly, my peers. When someone poses a question encouraging interaction I get stupidly excited and spend several days arranging and rearranging mental lists and by the time I've scribbled a rough outline of what I want to say, of what I want to contribute, the conversation's evolved to "...BUT OF COURSE ANYONE WHO DOES XXX IS FOOLISH OR NAIVE OR PLAYING A VERY DANGEROUS GAME NOT FULLY UNDERSTANDING THE CONSEQUENCES."

The problem is, my hyperactive contributions always seem to fall under the categories above - "foolish", "naive" and "playing a very dangerous game not fully understanding the consequences." And when the overwhelming majority is already against you before you even have a chance to launch into your demonstration it creates an awkwardly introspective (and ultimately silent) atmosphere - at least for the person who's not playing the game by the standard rules.

When someone recently asked what the "horned god" meant to others I found myself blindly groping behind myself to find a fissure in the wall to disappear in. (Thankfully I'm an unseen, unheard presence on the mailing list, so my lack of involvement wasn't even noticed.) Horned god? Fuck, how do I explain THAT one? (It's me; I'm the horned god(dess), ovaries instead of testes. I'm the fertility goat, the sacrificial ram, the divine lactating cow who suckles gods and kings.)

(YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN? I CAN'T EVEN DO AN EASY, ACCEPTABLE WITCH/OCCULT/PAGAN CONCEPT RIGHT. I EVEN MESS UP SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS "THE HORNED GOD".)

It's shit like this that makes me feel like I'll forever be some sort of retarded pariah amongst my peers, even if I'm a retarded pariah LOLing to myself like some crazy ass bag lady. (OH, UNIVERSE, YOU DO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, AND AS LONG AS WE'RE LAUGHING TOGETHER I GUESS IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER IF NO ONE ELSE GETS THE JOKE.)

One of my strengths and weaknesses (due to being autistic) is my instinctual ability to act and then think. I've always said I hated thinking, it infringes on action, on doing. But every once in awhile I find myself with my chin resting on the knuckles of my fist wondering:

If I sincerely, genuinely don't enjoy or favor contact, companionship and interaction why do I join forums, lists and communities? And in the rare instances when I find someone who doesn't immediately make my skin crawl in irritation, why can't I keep it together enough to form some semblance of a relationship? Why join or listen to conversations when, at best, they'll make me laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and, at worst, they'll frustrate and infuriate me (reminding me why I don't talk or speak or interact with others in the first place)? Why am I doing this? Inspiration? Motivation? The need to feel surging emotions? Why am I writing this? How does this help? What do I ultimately take away from all of these experiences?

(Why are you reading me?)

Down the Rabbit Hole

I've been sick for a week. It started with - well, it probably started with the rabbit, but I'm not going that far just yet - flashes, hot and cold ones. Flu fluctuations; one second I was ice cold and the next I was uncomfortably sweating buckets beneath a thin bed sheet. I couldn't get warm so I had a bath, I couldn't get cold so I slept naked. When Italics brushed up next to me in bed we both could feel my body burning up as I became weaker.

It was two days before my period; way, way too early to begin feeling the affects of the monthly routine. (Now a days I'm a "hot body, upset stomach and occasionally crampy" sort've woman, and these suspiciously flu-like symptoms seemed like amped up period symptoms.) I lost a lot of fluid the first day, in fact I've lost count how many times I performed THAT one person ballet in the bathroom.

(Tensely posed on the toilet, toes digging into the decorative rug beneath, calves flexing and straining as sweat ran down my naked, shivering body as my bowels peristaltically contracted again and again. I had red welts where blunt nails scratched and groped, desperately holding onto the fleshy anchor of my stomach with every undulating wave of internal movement.)

The show went on for almost a week. Encores lasted throughout the night, so when I slept it was for one, maybe two hours before repeating the performance. Some nights there were black kelp-like strings and I thought "OH, GOD, PLEASE DON'T LET THIS BE BLOOD" (black blood in your stools, V. bad, red blood in your stools, not so bad) because I had nothing better to do than be pessimistic while sitting by myself for 20 minutes on end in the bathroom being sick. (I can't even remember a time that either equaled or trumped this bowel related episode.)

Eventually my period arrived so blood - fresh, red, beautiful blood - was added to the mess. And then, after a day or two, I began suspecting that my cunt wasn't the only thing staining white porcelain red, but it took my period ending before I realized that the kelp-strings had been replaced by something less worrying (and more decorative!). As of today, a week after the first stomach flu symptoms appeared, there's no blood (from any orifice, thank you very much) and, further more, semi-solid stools.

I quietly suspected the rabbit all along, but didn't want to say anything.

(After finding the rabbit I pocketed a weathered deer bone. Being the retard I am I forgot I jammed the fucking thing in one of my pockets so when I reached around to scratch my ass the bone got me - first across my wrist and then across the back of my hand. One of the scratches drew blood and I thought "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEED, AN OPEN FUCKING WOUND WHILE CARRYING A DEAD ANIMAL" - the last time something significant scratched me and created an open wound (on my tonsil) I was hospitalized for nearly 48 hours.)

(Keeping "CARRYING DEAD ANIMAL NEAR OPEN WOUND" and "BLEEDING SCRATCH CREATED BY FOUND BONE OF DEAD WILD ANIMAL" in mind the first thing I did when I got home - OTHER THAN STUFF THE DEAD RABBIT IN AN OPAQUE GROCERY BAG AND SHOVE IT NEXT TO THE OLIVE OIL SPREAD AND PITA BREAD IN THE FRIDGE - was wash the area thoroughly and apply an antibacterial cream.)

My mother-in-law saw me the morning after the first round of fireworks. "IT'S THAT RABBIT!" she insisted, but it seem far-fetched. I ate something bad, or caught the stomach flu. (Although no one else in the house displayed the symptoms I did, and we had all eaten the same thing(s). Not to mention that one instance when I succumbed to the maenad need for period sex and despite exchanging body fluids with Italics he never - and still hasn't - shown any signs of a delicate stomach.)

Unlike my toxic tonsil which turned green and swelled to the size of a well-fed golf ball I didn't have an obvious infection. The two scratches from the deer bone never became irritated or swollen, they never wept any body fluid. "It's just a bad period, or you've eaten something," Italics said, but by day 5 (or 6?) he was asking if I thought I should see a doctor. And then, immediately after, "I THINK IT WAS THAT RABBIT."

Sigh.

It was a storm I knew was coming. It was the deer in the middle of the beaten down track that ran perpendicular to the trail we were on creating a wooded crossroads. It was the freshly killed rabbit practically dropped at my feet by a hawk. It was the hawk, it was the deer bone, the scratch. (ESPECIALLY the scratch. Drawing blood always leads to some sort of fight or battle.) It was knowing that in order to use blood you have to know blood, because if you haven't fought the battle and experienced the pain, suffering and war how are you supposed to inflict it upon someone else?

To draw blood, you need to know blood. (Simple. Primitive. Intuitive. Don't make it any more complex than it needs to be. It's perfect as it is; childishly uncomplicated, but fiercely testing. Victory leaves you bloodied and weak, but stronger, smarter...experienced. Pain, She said, is the absence of death. You hurt, you live; be grateful for pain, it means you're still alive. Harsh words of compassion, but We aren't Mothers, We're fighters.)

So a week was lost, and the weather went wild. (That's the problem with Sovereignty - when you're divinely connected to the land the weather sometimes becomes a reflection of your state of being or mind.) For two or three days straight inexplicable fronts came crashing in - one second the house shuddered beneath driving rain that threatened to flood out the streets outside, the next second featured the sun gloriously shining down on deep puddles of rainwater.

On the second day I woke up from a delirious sleep and shambled to the patio door to watch a Fox's Wedding through the heavy glass partition, the sun blearily glowed behind a translucent veil of mist and rain. A winter wind howled when I threw back the door, warm air and cold air collided as the stillness of the backroom sucked in the volatile weather outside, pelting me with rain and frantically tearing at my nightshirt.

"OH, SO IT'S THIS GAME," I thought, half-amused and half-weary, smearing rainwater across my forehead when trying to dry my face with an equally wet forearm. Wind blasted through trees, shaking and whipping the hedge into a frenzy, breaking limbs and stealing my summer fruit. I watched for as long as my stomach cramps would let me, taking in the bizarre contradiction of Winter in Summer; Death and Sleep grappling Life and Growth in my beloved little garden.

Little rabbit, I followed you down the black rabbit hole, first cradling your body like a child, a pet, a silent, beloved companion, then dismembering you like a surgeon, a hunter, a chef, an opportunistic witch. Every step loving, every step careful. Every step with a hand on your back, petting, stroking, whispering you and I, my beautiful gem, we're one - I see what you see, I hear what you see, I feel your life and death in my veins.

After pain, discomfort, suffering, sickness, illness, death, dismemberment, butchering, mutilation, nightmares, sweat, darkness, dreams, rain, sun, wind and hail what did I walk away with? THIS. (And God fucking help you if your name ever gets etched on any one of those organs cause, baby, I know blood.)

...and, also, I should probably use a face mask when pawing through the intestines of a day old dead wild animal. (I REMEMBERED THE LATEX GLOVES - TO KEEP MY SCRATCHES COVERED - BUT CLEARLY IT WASN'T ENOUGH.) Live and learn, right?

Made, Not Born

Mr. Awesome considers me to be an unreasonable (maybe even intolerably) crazy bitch. What he HASN'T considered is that unreasonable (maybe even intolerably) crazy bitches aren't BORN, they're MADE and then easily PROVOKED. (LOOK UPON ME, FATHER-IN-LAW, AND LET YOUR EYES REST UPON THE UNHOLY CREATION //YOU// MADE.)

Tonight's "crazy bitch" trigger: being a seventy year old man who spills carbonated lemonade on the floor and through ineffective means of cleaning it spreads the mess over 1/3 of the kitchen thus leaving the mess for his daughter-in-law to clean, on her hands and knees, when she's bleeding like a stuck pig AND suffering from the stomach flu and then feigning absolute and total ignorance of the spill despite the daughter-in-law hearing the fucking bottle of soda of drop earlier in the evening.

DON'T MAKE ME OUT TO BE A CRAZY ASS BITCH WHEN YOU'RE LEAVING ME YOUR FUCKING MESSES TO CLEAN UP WHEN I CAN'T EVEN FUCKING SIT UP FOR LONGER THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES AT A TIME.

Woman Sick

When your house trained Sumerian demon of plague, pestilence and famine tells you "UH OH, WOMAN SICK" you know you're in for some serious shit. (I SHOULD'VE EFFING KNOWN! WHENEVER A FEMALE DEER CROSSES MY PATH I ALWAYS GET EFFING SICK, //ALWAYS//.) Rabbit butchery, unfortunately, is going to have to wait until I've replenished my fluid levels and I kickoff the last of these flu-like symptoms (which could be a couple of days since I've just started my period and I'm currently recovering from throwing myself back into the exercise game).

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!)

Eyes Like a Wild Rabbit

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I've always been disappointed with the color of my eyes. Everyone's got great stories or similes or WHATEVER about their irises and I've only got "OH, YEAH, THEY'RE JUST SORT'VE…HAZEL" and "A LITTLE LIKE RINGS IN THE TRUNK OF A TREE".

But now I've got one better - I've got eyes like a wild rabbit.

Another "TO DO" Job

OH, GOD, AS IF I DON'T ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH TO DO I'VE GOT A WHOLE RABBIT TO BUTCHER TOMORROW. (<- A HAWK PRACTICALLY DROPPED IT AT MY FEET WHEN I WAS OUT WALKING WITH MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, JUST AFTER WE SAW A FEMALE DEER STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF A PATH).

...JUST DON'T TELL HER THE RABBIT'S IN THE FRIDGE NEXT TO THE PITA BREAD, OLIVE OIL SPREAD AND BEEF DRIPPINGS, OKAY?

August 13th Gardening

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Finally there are some MOTHEREFFING FLOWERS IN THE HOUSE. (And when I say "HOUSE" I actually mean "IN MY CONTAINER GARDEN OUT BACK ON THE PATIO".) The majority of what makes up the mess you see are fruit trees and vegetables, and most of those didn't flower this year. (The trees are seedlings and a lot of the vegetables are shit like artichokes grown from seed. It'll be a few years before I'm able to harvest ANYTHING from them, but I'm determined to grow (almost) everything by seed, so it's an exercise in patience.)

Yesterday the gray clouds parted just long enough for me to patter around outside for a few minutes leaf checking and picture taking before another wave of rolling, thunderous clouds blanketed out the sun. The big, leafy yellow-green leaves between the sweet peas and dutch irises are tobacco which has grown EXCEPTIONALLY well compared to last year. (Last year? Last year my tomatoes didn't even reach knee height. Seriously. The weather was that bad.) I asked Papa (Ghede) for some help this year since I'm technically growing the tobacco for him and he was all "BABY GIRL, DON'T YOU WORRY ABOUT A THING" and, sure enough, he's kept true to his word.

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I love irises. (LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE!) I'd be hard pressed to choose between LILIES or IRISES as my favorite flower, but I'm more compelled to grow irises due to golden memories of my childhood. (My Ukrainian grandparents grew a thick line of bearded irises along their south facing wall near the plum trees.) While other flowers were okay to pick there was something about the majesty commanded by the double-bearded irises that deterred me from collecting the monster sized blooms. I think one of the first plants I ever wanted to cultivate were irises, and it's taken me THIS LONG to get my hands on a pack of bulbs.

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I had a HELLUVA time germinating squashes and gourds this year. (I think I planted five of each - or more - and only one of each actually made it to the seedling stage.) This is the one honey bear squash that managed to escape death's clutches - two times over! (Last month we had a terrific wind storm - something totally unseasonal - and when I assessed the damages I saw that my poor squash had been nearly decapitated at the base of the root. Overcome with grief - I WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO HOMEGROWN SQUASH! - I couldn't bear snapping the plant off completely and just left it to see what it'd do. And, dude, I'm so glad I did because YOU CAN SEE FOR YOURSELF WHAT IT DECIDED TO DO.) I think I have three healthy balls swelling beneath chanterelle blossoms with a billion little buds forming into pursed flowers.

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DILLLLLLLLL! If you're Ukrainian and you're NOT growing garlic, tomatoes, cucumbers (or pickles) and dill YOU ARE NOT UKRAINIAN, SO STOP LYING. (<- "Onions" should be in that mix but since both Italics and I are allergic to them my Ukrainian gardening has had to make some exceptions.) I have a crazy holy reverence for the herb - it goes into my favorite bread (Swedish dill bread with cream cheese), my favorite potatoes (boiled potatoes with butter, pancetta, garlic, cabbage, white wine and fresh herbs) and my favorite main course (Ukrainian dill chicken, created by yours truly). I'm not sure how well it burns as incense, but I thinking about experimenting (with either dried leaf or dried seed) to incorporate it in a "cleansing" blend. (< Sort've like, you know, invoking my ancestors for help by the use of their favorite herb.)

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My bag'o'dutch irises arrived on Beltane with three sorry looking dwarf fruit trees (two apples and one pear, the pear dead and all covered with powdery mildew). I wanted to plant the bulbs beneath our computer room/office window, but that narrow stretch of land (where I grew my witch's garlic, remember?) doesn't get a lot of light. So, instead, at least for the time being, I planted them around my brand new peach tree. (I originally wanted to plant lilies of the valley around the base of the tree, but that project will have to wait until the irises have been evacuated.) This was one of the better pictures of the flowers, but it doesn't include the male red-tailed bumblebee that was hopping from iris to iris as I took photos.

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My sunflowers? Haven't even flowered yet. Seriously. And it's NOT because I planted them late in the season - they were all up by Easter this year! (April 12th, dude.) I'm having the same problem with my tomatoes - not one is even remotely close to being sunblushed in anyway. This year has been A LOT better for sun (two years ago it biblically rained and there were crazy severe floods further down south, last year it didn't rain nearly as much but we didn't get any sun AT ALL), but still not enough to make certain plants flourish without the aid of a greenhouse. Sigh.

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I had basil growing around the base of the sunflowers (since the soil got so much light due to the leggy stalks) but they've practically withered away to nothing. Basil, for whatever reason, refuses to tolerate the climate here. I've only ever had ONE year where I was able to grow it successfully, and I lost the entire crop because A CAT PULLED ALL OF MY PLANTS OUT OF THE TUB. (<- What my father-in-law told me when I discovered something had pulled out all of my basil and left it in a neat, heaped pile next to the container. It's funny how the "cat" selectively chose my basil to weed exclusively leaving all other vegetation without so much as a broken leaf; THAT'S ONE SMART CAT, YO.)

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When I ran out of bamboo garden stakes I had to get creative to provide support for some of my climbing plants so I dove into a drying pile of recently pruned hedge cuttings (lilac, butterfly bush and honeysuckle vine) and created a frame. (It, uh, looked a lot more...rustic and charming...before the leaves withered and dried.) You can totally make out some of my baby sweetcorn growing in front (another vegetable not doing so well in this Scottish climate; I'm either going to need a greenhouse or I'm going to have to buy arctic strains of shit in the hopes they'll do better).

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Two things about being an April baby that I've never really come to terms with - diamonds being my gem stone and sweet peas being my flower. (I seriously must be one of the few ladies you'll ever meet who makes a "EWW, WTF, WHY?" face at the thought of diamonds.) I'm slowly coming around to sweet peas with the help of heritage seeds and the deep, dark gothic bruise flowers they produce. Last year my sweet peas never flowered due to Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, chucking my container of plants into a dark and dank area of the yard where they never got any light. (Some sort of "sacrifice" has to be made every year, whether it's my basil that a "cat" pulled out, having some of my sun-loving plants condemned to a darken corner of the yard or having my tobacco butchered and left out, exposed, to winter weather.)

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I mean, in addition to the bleeding-under-the-skin colors they do smell heavenly - maybe I'm just not a pastel hued sweet pea April baby? (Does that mean I might like black diamonds? Hmm...)

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In winter food offerings and table scrapes are committed to the dead crow dirt bucket (the birds - crows, magpies, blackbirds, starlings and all of the tiny little cheap-cheap birds that flit around our hedge - know that's the place to go and get a good meal), and what doesn't get eaten breaks down and creates a beautiful soil enriched with nutrients from the ancestral offerings. During summer food offerings and table scrapes are committed to Chippy's dish (what dog owner doesn't lovingly slip a morsel or two of dinner to their beloved companion?), and with the influx of wildlife (birds, mice, hedgehogs, neighborhood cats and even, last year, a pair of foxes) there's usually nothing left the next day. (In this house we're ALL well fed here, even the portly wild animals that meander up the patio steps for a free meal.)

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Earlier in the growing season I began finding an epidemic of seedlings I didn't plant, but were very obviously something NOT weed-like. (Once germinated the plants had a very cucumber/gourd/squash look to them, but I didn't carelessly spill a packet of vegetable seeds into my bucket of compost so they were, FOR SURE, not cucumber/gourd/squash.) I plucked out the foreign occupants from my tubs and containers, but let them set root in any "waste ground". As it turns out they're borage, something I planted ONCE nearly five years ago. (HOLY SHIT, DUDE, THEY'RE HELLA SERIOUS WHEN THEY SAY IF YOU INTRODUCE BORAGE INTO YOUR GARDEN YOU'LL NEVER GET RID OF IT!) Borage is TRES good for bumblebees (on average most flours require approximately four hours to refill their nectar reserves, borage, however, only requires about two hours) so I think I'll be deliberately introducing it to the backyard next year. (Besides, the flowers have a lovely fuzzy, sweet cucumber taste and I'd love to be able to incorporate the edible blossoms in next year's cooking.)

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I use peat pots. I know a lot of gardeners don't like them, but goddamn if it doesn't stress the plant out when it comes time to pot them on. (And some vegetables - cucumbers and squashes, I think - hate having their roots fucked with.) This year I was in a serious pinch for soil when creating my PHALLIC WORSHIP RAISED GARDEN BED ALTAR beneath the Shango Tree (no longer "the Shango Bone Tree" since he broke free from his confinement to the fence during that wind storm and has shaken most of the bones out of his branches) so I recycled compost from peat pots whose seeds never germinated. Within days several curious seedlings sprung and I was thoroughly convinced they were NOT tomatoes. (But, like, that would be CRAZY because those seeds - pot seeds - need so much goddamn babying that there's only a 50% success rate. This time around we planted six, but only four germinated. Apparently the other two just needed a touch of tough love?)

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So, two days ago I'm pottering around in the backyard checking on various bits of waste ground (CARROTS AND BEETS ARE UP, YAY! BASIL'S DISAPPEARED FROM AROUND THE POND AND WOODEN BEAMS, BOO!) and while weeding the raised garden bed I finally re-notice the two very peculiar seedlings that are definitely, 100%, not tomatoes. (Pot and tomatoes are somewhat similar during their first stage of growth.) I mean, I KNEW they weren't tomatoes, really, when they first appeared about a month back - they looked EXACTLY like the sprouts that popped up way earlier in the year in the backroom down to the pinkish hue to the stems. But I didn't want to get crazy hopeful so I just resigned the unexpected germination as loose tomato seeds that finally got the right conditions. Now? Now there's absolutely NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER. Italics and I marveled at the unexpected gift given by the Shango Tree - all six pot seeds we sowed in the beginning of this year have grown, with two of the "lost" seeds sprouting on my phallic altar.

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I'm scheming again, which is always a dangerous thing for other people (and their things). After harvesting my witch's garlic after Midsummer the narrow stretch of land running adjacent to the side of the house looked pathetically barren. I decided I was going to sow a second batch of early maturing peas for a late harvest to fill up the empty space. Before I embarked on a day of planting I thought OH, HEY, I DISCOVERED MR. AWESOME'S INDUSTRIAL SIZED SIFTER SO I CAN SIEVE THE DIRT AND GET RID OF DEBRIS AND ROCKS AND SHIT TO HAVE "CLEAN" SOIL TO WORK WITH. Me, being me, thought it'd take a day or two of work. (LOLOLOLOL!) Two weeks later I was finally done sifting dirt. (I worked down the line emptying buckets of earth into the sifter sitting on top of a beer barrel sized growing container until it was free from junk and then dumped it back in the hole created. Hard labor, but satisfying labor.) Shortly after completing the task I decided AFTER ALL OF THAT GODDAMN WORK I'M NOT GIVING BACK THAT NEGLECTED AND ABANDONED STRETCH OF DIRT, I'M KEEPING IT FOR MYSELF AND PLANTING A MOTHEREFFING FLYING OINTMENT GARDEN, SO THERE, MR. AWESOME, SO THERE. To sort've hold my "place" on the strip of waste ground I immediately planted carrots (above) and beets (below) to ensure that the area looked suitably occupied.

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These babies were up in under a week! I mixed magic ashes (<- since I can't compost our magically/ritually grown plants we burn them during ceremonial bonfires and then add the ashes to compost for the second generation of magically/ritually grown plants) and worm casting soil into the "clean" dirt and then immediately sowed my carrot and beets the day before Lammas (July 31st).

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I mean, I know Lammas is all about HARVESTING and shit, but with our mild climate I thought there was a good chance there'd be just enough time to allow baby sized carrots and beets to develop. That way I had something homegrown as the basis for this year's pot of borsht (a Ukrainian beet soup, since making it is a two day affair I normally make a giant batch at the beginning of December in preparation for Christmas festivities). Besides, even if I don't manage to harvest any viable vegetables the seedlings are still performing the most important task of all - making it HELLA clear that THIS SPACE IS OCCUPIED AND WITHIN USE, THANK YOU.

Fall Already?

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Fuck, fall already?

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I guess so. (Sigh.)

A Bit of Cheesecake

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Lammas Bread

Despite not being pagan (<- IF YOU'RE GOING TO WORRY ABOUT WITCHES, THIS IS THE SORT'VE WITCH YOU'VE GOT TO BE MOST WARY OF!) I still observe the majority of neo-pagan festivals that celebrate the shifting of the seasons (from the super big solstices to the smaller, quieter dates in between).

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At the heart of it I know the REAL reason (WHO DOESN'T WANT AN EXCUSE TO GET INTOXICATED, CELEBRATE AND HAVE MAD SEX WITH THE ONE(S) YOU LOVE?) but the older I get the more my foot eases off the gas pedal in a deliberate attempt to appreciate and understand the subtle changes throughout the year and how they, in turn, affect not only me but my relationship with my husband, the world, Universe and all that's Divine.

(That, and there's also the ANYTHING GOES element to grocery shopping when it comes time to creating the sabbat menu. "BUT, BABY, IT'S THE FIRST OF THE HARVEST FESTIVALS! HOW CAN WE //NOT// GET A VENISON HAUNCH AND SEVERAL BOTTLES OF ELDERFLOWER CHAMPAGNE?! IT IS OUR SEMI-DIVINE DUTY TO CELEBRATE TO ENSURE HAPPINESS, GOOD LUCK AND HEALTH IN THE FOLLOWING SEASON!")

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I bake homemade bread for every sabbat - regardless of my state of health (WOE BE UNTO THIS HOUSE WHEN THE WOMAN IS TOO SICK TO GIVE THANKS FOR THE GRAIN THAT SHE USES TO FEED HER FAMILY!) - certain breads and dates set in stone (for Christmas/Yule I bake a kolach and at Easter/Hieros Gamos I bake paska - two ancient, traditional Ukrainian breads baked for ritual use to either give thanks or feed the dead) but I freestyle with other celebrations provided they reflect the season/event we're observing in our own off-roading way.

Thanks to Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, being away for the majority of June and July my container garden was spared of the dreaded BLACK SPOTTED POX which, up until this summer, plagued my plants every fucking year. (<- Long story short? He has a stagnant partial pond that's sat unfinished for nearly twenty years. Instead of letting me water my own plants (which I've politely requested NUMEROUS TIMES for SEVERAL YEARS) he splashes them with the fetid, diseased water and, within a few weeks, black patches of blight would appear on everything rendering it unfit for consumption.)

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My favorite parts of the day during (this past) summer vacation? My early mornings (whenever they happened; we tend to be nocturnal for half the month and then have a more normal sleeping schedule for the rest of the month) and late evenings when I'd make my first (or final) check of the day, naked, pattering around the warm concrete of the patio while stroking and whispering to my trees, bushes, vegetables, flowers and herbs.

Sometimes Italics would come out with me, trailing behind in his blue bathrobe as I cooed and loved, pointing out the small changes to my beloved garden. "LOOK HOW HEALTHY AND HAPPY MY HERBS ARE!" I'd proclaim, satisfied and proud, my hands on my naked hips (perfumed with Moroccan mint or golden marjoram or lavender or oregano or...) as I surveyed the miniature orchard, berry patch, vegetable, flower and herb garden, the twice daily activity never getting boring or old.

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To capitalize this year's blemish free bounty I thought it was only fitting to include the herbs I've otherwise been unable to use (or even harvest for any purpose) up until this point, specifically my oregano and marjoram which sat happy and lush on the patio steps without even a trace of a black, damning speck ("OH MY GOD HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THEM LOOK SO AWESOME BEFORE?!").

Serendipity said YES, IT WOULD BE FITTING, WOULDN'T IT? as I gingerly flipped through my The Herb & Spice Book looking for raspberry, blackberry and elderberry recipes and stumbled across a recipe for Oregano Salt Sticks (which called for both fresh oregano and marjoram). And with THAT decision made for (and by) me the recipe got earmarked for the upcoming Lammas celebration.

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With the in-laws away for the weekend I had a blissful Lammas morning in the kitchen - high and partially naked, apron on and music playing, drifting in and out of the culinary trace of restful, content meditation as the sun streamed through the window and gently rested on ritually harvested produce on my makeshift window altar.

I bled, very slightly, despite not expecting my period so when time came to add a little of myself to the bread I dipped my fingers in warm full milk and ran my moistened fingers along my cunt, gently grazing between my labia to collect traces of (sort've) menstrual blood before submerging my wet fingers into the dough and kneading.

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And when time came to knead in the fresh herbs and grated Parmesan I carefully plucked one of my Virgin Hag Hairs (<- two dark hairs grow just beneath my chin, and they take FOREVER to regrow so I use them sparingly since there's a bit of magic when using hair from "the beard of a virgin") and dropped it in amongst the other ingredients so a bit of the Virgin and a bit of the Hag were both represented (since the scale is slowly tipping from one to the other; one still in play, the other getting ready for Her turn).

This recipe turned out to be THE PERFECT recipe for the day. I originally liked it because it starred and celebrated the fresh herbs I had growing in the back, but I liked it even more when I realized the short time needed to create a batch from scratch meaning we could spend the entire day in town at the local farmer's market.

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(Only 30 minutes of resting time? With another 10 before baking? HOLY SHIT, DUDE! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG PASKA TAKES TO MAKE? Try THREE FUCKING SEPARATE RISES in addition to BAKING SEVERAL DIFFERENT BATCHES BECAUSE ALL OF THE LOAVES WON'T FIT IN THE OVEN AT ONCE. This was totally - TOTALLY! - the fast food version of bread making, but still homemade!)

Extroverted Wallflower Anomaly

Ever get the feeling that you don't belong anywhere? Even when you're surrounded by (sort've) like minded people you still feel so incredibly different to the point of uncomfortable awkwardness? I can never seem to fit in just enough; my speaking, acting, believing straddles the threshold of convention and leans over the hard drawn lines into territory most people distance themselves from. I'm either foolish or retarded, naive or playing a dangerous game - a bizarre extroverted wallflower anomaly who, occasionally, expresses herself in double narrative. People don't get me and I'm not lonely being Alone, so why do I bother, really?

I, Being Myself

So, like, yesterday Italics and I went on a sort've date. (SORT'VE DATE = CASTLE/FOREST WALK COMPLETE WITH A HOMEMADE MEZE PICNIC IN OUR SPECIAL LITTLE SECRET SPOT AMONGST THE OAKS.) I wore my best pair of ASS JEANS (<- SHOWS OFF MY HIP TO WAIST RATIO AND SNUGLY FITS IN A PERFECT DIPPING SORT'VE WAY TO REVEAL MY LOWER BACK AND SHIT) because I knew there'd be many-a ASS PICTURE OPPORTUNITY.

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(It's a relationship/in-joke thing - he likes my ass, I like putting my ass on stuff and letting him take pictures. "OKAY! NOW TAKE A PICTURE OF ME SITTING NAKED ON THIS ROCK! OKAY! NOW TAKE A PICTURE OF ME SQUATTING OVER THIS RUSTY OLD BUCKET WE JUST FOUND IN THE WOODS SO IT LOOKS LIKE A BUCKET'O'ASS! OKAY! NOW TAKE A PICTURE OF...")

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Less than 10 minutes into our afternoon foray I slid - belly first - down a huge ass moss-encrusted rock overlooking a babbling brook, and when I fished around to button my jeans THERE WAS NO BUTTON TO BE FOUND. (LOL!) I, being myself, wasn't wearing any underwear. (LOL!) I, being myself yet again, wasn't wearing any sort of belt. (LOL!) I, being myself but 10-15 pounds heavier since my stomach valve fucking broken two years ago, was completely relying on said button to keep my pants zipped. (LOL!) I, being my stubborn Aries self, refused to end our date on grounds of indecency and simply threaded the sleeves of my zip-up hoodie through the front belt loops of my jeans and clumsily tied them together until my pants weren't falling off.

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And then? And then I commenced in LOLOLOLOLing for the rest of the day, artfully dodging suspicious glances from parents and children with my version of censorship (i.e., pulling my t-shirt down over my stomach, pulling my jeans up over it and then tying the sleeves of my hoodie together to hide bare flesh behind several layers of clothing, hands and a bottle of large water held just in front of my pubic mound) and lamenting all of the wonderful, atmospheric scenes that would've benefited from the addition of a bare ass.
Ah, well, next time.

(These are the whole three pictures we actually manged to get, minus one blurred photo of an out of focus European robin.)

I See You Looking

I love seeing variants of Ms. Graveyard Dirt turn up in my stats; I know you're looking for me, and I can see you. (Although I can't be held responsible for the repercussions of typing out my name three times in front of your computer monitor in a darkened room.)

A Taste of Fall

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Even with the brambles still flowering you can see fall creeping in around the small, ruined church next to the abandoned walled garden (just a hop, skip and jump from the cemetery). Sometimes I pinch myself and think HOLY FUCK, I LIVE //HERE//; on days like these it totally blows my fucking mind.

Lammas 2009

This year's Lammas celebration in 54 pictures. (<- WITH EXPLANATIONS TO FOLLOW!)

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Lammas Cheesecake

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Homemade Lammas gooseberry cheesecake decorated with fresh gooseberries, hyacinth and borage flowers.

Taxidermist in the Making

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I just spent the afternoon cleaning and processing the carcass of a fox road kill.

(The worst part of butchering a dead fox whose chest and stomach exploded leaving only its heart, windpipe and esophagus intact? Not popping joints, tearing muscle from skin, snapping cartilage, dismembering whole haunches, getting covered with several layers of gore'n'blood or scraping liquefied brains and skull remains off the inside of the pelt - it's smelling of wet fucking dog, everywhere.)

Lammas Gooseberries

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600g of organically grown gooseberries from containers outside. (Just enough for a celebratory Lammas cheesecake and a granola bar recipe.)

Nothing Else's Acceptable

So I say to Italics "I NEED CORIANDER SEED. PLEASE EXPLAIN TO YOUR MOM - IF SHE'S THE ONE GOING GROCERY SHOPPING - THAT I NEED CORIANDER //SEED//, NOT GROUND CORIANDER OR POWDERED CORIANDER, BUT THE SEED BECAUSE I NEED SIX SEEDS TO PUT IN THE RASPBERRY BRANDY ALONG WITH THE VANILLA POD AND NOTHING ELSE WILL DO. AT ALL. MAKE SURE SHE UNDERSTANDS I NEED CORIANDER IN SEED FORM AND NOTHING ELSE IS ACCEPTABLE."

This morning? I wake up to find a jar of CILANTRO IN SUNFLOWER OIL sitting on the counter for me next to vanilla pods.

...oi vey.