Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Dessert

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Italics and I baked an Italian hazelnut cake (gluten-free! only five ingredients!) to follow tonight's Sunday dinner (chicken roasted over root vegetables, garlic mashed potatoes and skirlie (savory oatcakes toasted in fat, butter and seasonings)). (It's a kind've sort've belated birthday cake for his mother/my mother-in-law who celebrated hers early last week.)

Shakey Bear

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One of our pet rats is sick. She's been acting off for a week now, but there weren't many symptoms past "she looks sort've stiff", "she looks a little dopey" and "she just doesn't seem /right/". I was hoping it was just a sore back leg, or a lingering cold, but she seems weaker every day. It's Sunday today which means it'll be another whole day before we can even take her to the vet. (The very thought makes me want to throw up.)

I spent most of my morning sitting on the floor with her wedged between my thigh and flannel (we've never had any lap rats - we've had shoulder rats and head rats and cradling-in-the arm rats and rats who love snuggling in the small space between pants and overlapping shirts), too worried to leave her in case she's uncomfortable.

I hate these moments that potentially spell out the beginning of the end. Shakey's nearly three, for a rat bought at a garden centre that's already a long life. (Especially since the majority of them are infected with a fatal lung condition.) I've already cried once this morning with Shakey pressed against my chest. She seemed confused when I told her that I loved her V. much, and that I'd do everything humanly possible to -

Scratch this shit. I'm not going to start grieving for a pet that isn't dead. (The LAST thing Shakey needs is for be to be sobbing every fucking time I pick her up or check on her.) I need to yank my morbid panties off and worry about the inevitable when it's impending. If pot and leftover fajitas for breakfast doesn't help me shrug off unnecessary worry, then nothing will.

Cailleach Stalking the Bride

It began snowing when I started brining Bride's brisket (to make corn beef for Imbolc/Bride's Day), and it hasn't stopped since. (Pictured above: a sandwich and whiskey offering to the Cailleach; I always set out a meal and a shot for the Old Woman whenever She comes to visit.)

Yesterday, between butchering the pheasant and pining its feathers to cardboard, I paused for a second to watch a cloud of snow pass the sun. Sol glowed like a luminous orb in a dust storm, a soft, round disc of glowing white emanating heat through disintegrating cobwebs. I tried to get a video, but it didn't pickup the contrast that the naked eye saw. I did kind've sort've manage a picture, but it pales in comparison:

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January 29th, 2010

January 29th, 2010 - the day I read my very first entrails. (It was so beautiful I cried.)

Jan. 27th Pheasant

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This past Wednesday I threw my arms open and said "NATURE, I'M BACK! DID YOU MISS ME?". Evidently Nature DID, because it threw a freshly clipped pheasant at me. (Nature's ALWAYS doing that. Last time? Seven rabbits, no joke.) I guess It heard me say I wanted one last gigantic cock before the season's over...

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The only noticeable flaws of the roadkill were two friction burns - one along the crest of a wing, another just above ear. With an exception of those two frazzled and featherless patches the bird was in otherwise immaculate condition. (We were EXCEPTIONALLY lucky to find him so perfectly intact.)

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My first pheasant was a juvenile cock who hadn't yet molted to his darker hood. This guy? Just by sizing up his tail feathers and the spurs on the back of his feet (which are rose thorn shaped) you can tell he's at least two years old. As morbidly retarded as this sounds...I don't feel that his death is a tragedy. He's spent two full years shacking up with hens and living it all free-range style, how many chickens sold at the grocery store have a remotely similar history? (<- THERE'S the real tragedy.)

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There were tiny twigs still woven into his breast when I pulled him out of the trash bag. After a rinse or two of tap water I managed to get the few splatters of blood out of his feathers. (I didn't save ANY feathers from the last pheasant, so one of my top priorities was to harvest as many as I could from this cock. <- I LOVE SAYING THAT SHIT WITH A STRAIGHT (WELL, SEMI-STRAIGHT) INTERNET FACE.)

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They're so over-the-top dragon scaly it verges on unreal. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with them yet, but I know it's going to be something /special/.

No Joke

After I accidentally blew the windshield wiper fuse I sort've got use to not leaving the house. (WE TRIED, but every fucking time - EVERY FUCKING TIME, NO JOKE - I went out to start the car it'd either start snowing, sleeting or raining. On a few LOLtastic occasions various winter elements colluded creating an assault of sleet AND rain making it impossible to see. REMEMBER?)

For a few weeks it was cool since our asses were snowed in, anyway, but after several weeks of recluse living (combined with overtly nocturnal habits) I began feeling unhinged - especially once the blanket of month long snow finally melted. (Talk about a total mindfuck; I hadn't seen THE GROUND or EARTH or SOIL or DIRT for over a month. When the snow disappeared it felt like April in January and I was disappointed that there wasn't a snowdrop or crocus in sight to celebrate the event.)

The car - now fixed - and I got reacquainted on the 27th when we were forced out of the house and into a grocery store out of sheer desperation. ("Sheer desperation" = no pasta, less than a cup of organic rice and two shrunken potatoes growing yellow-white tentacles in the house.) I was apprehensive about crawling into the car (SO MANY BAD MEMORIES), but continued survival eventually won.

Despite a pricey bill (it was one of those "OH, GOD, WE NEED TO STOCK UP ON //EVERYTHING// SINCE WE WENT THROUGH OUR RESERVES" trips, and, also, I bought a whole free-range chicken to roast, 600g of sirloin steak (homemade Beef Stroganoff), a smoked ham joint and a handful of various REDUCED-TO-CLEAR packages of meat - not to mention the 6lb brisket we bought at the butchers for Bride's Day/Imbolc) the trip, for once, was relatively stress free and we left the store with a bounce in our steps.

The excursion was SO GOOD, in fact, that after we took the LONG WAY back (down the country road with the three standing stones; I love seeing the stones, but the lane's also good for roadkill since it has several open fields that attract game birds and people are constantly using it as a shortcut) we sat at an intersection for a second because there was something unappealing with the prospect of returning home.

Instead of going straight on we turned left for a lazy drive around the local loch (since everything in the trunk was either fresh or non-perishable). Within minutes our impromptu decision was rewarded - a freshly hit, mature cock pheasant was sitting yards away from our usual loch turnoff. (I believe "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!" were my exact words while excitedly punching the steering wheel.)

It's a weird mixture of emotions you feel when stumbling across a dead animal. As someone who's more naturally empathic towards them than people (it's an autistic thing) I feel ANGER and DESPAIR and GRIEF and VENGEFUL when I come across roadkill of any kind. Simultaneously, though, I feel excitement and enormous gratitude when I'm cradling a dead animal in my arms because finding viable roadkill is a //gift// - a gift of food, supplies, spirit work and a chance to continue practicing old skool butchery.

("Old skool" in the sense that I - the cook - process the animal myself. I do the skinning. I do the gutting. I do the cleaning. I do the cooking. And, once I get off my fucking ass and find a resource I like, I do the preserving. (Cleaning skulls, bones and teeth. Tanning skins to make them soft and pliable.) I take something covered in feathers (or fur) and filled with organs and transform it into something modern man would recognize. There is no middleman - there's just me, the animal and death.)

ANYWAY. He was-is-was gorgeous. Italics ran out with a garbage bag (WHEN YOU'RE A SCAVENGER LIKE ME YOU KNOW YOU //ALWAYS NEED TO BE PREPARED// WITH TRASH BAGS, TOWELS AND HAND SANITIZER) while I waited at the car, performing my own personal rendition of the sugar plum fairy dance. I didn't get a proper look at him until we were home, but Italics said the pheasant was in PERFECT condition and was still crazy warm to the touch (a car ahead must've JUST clipped the him).

As retarded and fantasy as it sounds, wind from nowhere immediately descended upon us the second Italics picked the bird up off the road. One minute we were having a warm and mild day, but the next? An arctic rush of howling wind that nearly bowled Italics over as he made his way back to the car. (Little did I know that the unexpected force was a less than subtle hint towards the weather's changing mood.)

That was two days ago. Yesterday? The first day we went out into the country for the sake of going out into the country. (Working car? Check. Up at the right time? Check. No snow? Check.) After making a quick pit stop to stock up on locally produced beef jerky, cookies and a bottle of apple'n'elderflower juice (and some yogurt covered peanuts for the rats, a jar of sticky toffee sauce for us and a bottle of sparkling elderberry juice for "later") we went exploring and wound up in Kincardine O'Neil "the oldest village in Deeside".

Bad day for being a tourist (it LOOKED like it was going to clear, but then it started raining and as we ascended the hills the rain became snow), but an AWESOME day for unexpected antique-ing. One of the very first things we saw turning into the village? An antique shop going out of business. (BE STILL, MY SECOND HAND LOVING HEART.) But it wasn't any old antique shop going out of business, it was-is-was an antique shop going out of business situated in the original smiddy (smithy) of "the oldest village of Deeside".

(I would've been WAY, WAY more excited had I not been so fucking mind-numbingly cold. The former forge was SO COLD that we could see our breath and were constantly blowing on our frozen fingers just to be able to FEEL the items we were picking up. Two gigantic hearths dominated the backroom, although their presence wasn't exactly awe inspiring due to being partially hidden by antique dressers. I would've taken pictures, but I stupidly forgot the camera in the car.)

The threat of frostbite paid off. Thanks to Christmas money I cleverly "hid" in my wallet (I never use my wallet because I never have any money) we managed to walk away with a pair of ornate Victorian corner shelves (£20.00, I think they were MORE than half off), two pieces of vintage horse brass (which the shop owner gave to us for free) and a spectacular set of 5-6 miniature horse brasses mounted on a sturdy leather "collar" (£3.00, I nearly pissed myself, I kid you not).

I was stupidly ecstatic getting back in the car. And then, if such a thing was even possible, I was even MORE ECSTATIC when we slowly drifted down Kincardine O'Neil's main street. We passed not one, not two but THREE old time churches, two cemeteries and one ancient well. The only thing that kept my ass planted behind the steering wheel was the fact that it had begun raining/snowing again, and exploring ruined churches isn't as exciting when you're getting sleeted on.

Elated with our discoveries and purchases we decided to head home since the weather was turning and I had promised everyone ("everyone" now equals my mother-in-law, Italics and I since Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, is gone for a month) Beef Stroganoff for dinner. (WE ONLY LEFT AFTER MAKING THE PROMISE OF "WE NEED TO COME BACK IN A FEW DAYS"; TOO MUCH THAT NEEDS TO BE EXPLORED, PLUS THE SHOP HAD THIS SUPER AWESOME COOL SILVER STAG BOWL AND WE'RE HOPING IN A FEW DAYS IT MIGHT STILL BE THERE WITH A CHEAPER PRICE TAG.)

The ride home was spent marveling at the spectacular scenery and pausing to talk to miniature ponies. Even though it was wet and miserable it was the sort of afternoon I had been pining for for nearly a month. Yesterday was the sort of experience that cemented the idea that IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SUPER NICE AND AWESOME OUTSIDE TO GO OUT INTO THE COUNTRY.

(It's not that I shun rural Scotland in winter, it's just...I don't know. It's sort've like visiting memory that's scorched. I see FREEDOM in the color green, but there's no green to be found right now. Everything's broken down and sleeping, hunched over itself and limp. It's just not inspiring like it would be if it was green, or at least covered in sheet of flawless snow.)

I went to bed exhausted, although thoroughly excited over the prospect of FREEDOM. (Holy shit, you mean I can still enjoy "outside" without it being warm and green? DUDE...DUDE!) And after a month of being imprisoned by the snow (and night) I am seriously looking forward to just getting in the car and DRIVING to reconnect with the land (even if "green" is still just a whisper of a promise).

Last night I went to bed insanely stoked with the knowledge that TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY THAT WE CAN GET IN THE CAR AND FEEL //FREE//. And then? And then I woke up this morning to a fucking blizzard.

We're snowed in.

Again. (No joke.)

Ukrainian Apple and Rice Pudding

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I try to make my Christmas kitchen table centerpiece as edible as possible since I offer it - all of it (the decorations, food and greenery used) - to local wildlife/the wild. This year's pièce de résistance was a pyramid of fruits (apples, pomegranates, lemons, tangerines & pears), fresh bay leaves, baked goods (a donut & cookie) and an assortment of nuts carefully layered in a wooden bowl. (I seriously DID NOT BREATHE when executing the final touch - studding all empty spaces with tiny hazelnuts.)

Due to a mixture of bad weather and our sleep schedule (sleeping days, up at nights) we weren't able to leave the food at the foot of a local standing stone (like our Harvest Home offering), so I stayed local - backyard local! - and left it at the base of the Shango Tree/phallic worship altar.

When carefully unloading the overly ripe goods I noticed that the four Empire apples still had their just picked! gleam (which couldn't be said about some of their associates). Like Eve I was faced with a dilemma of epic proportions. And then, like Eve, I eventually succumbed to temptation (BECAUSE LET'S FACE IT - OVARIES WILL BE OVARIES). Although UNLIKE Eve I was a repeat offender. (WHAT CAN I SAY? SOME OF US ARE BETTER AT THIS GAME THAN OTHERS.)

(First of all - no, it's NOT called "stealing". Secondly, when everyone shares the same food amongst one another it's called "communion". Verdict? NOT GUILTY.)

Coming from a family who never really ate rice pudding I was somewhat hesitant about treading unknown territory (last memory? gelatinous custard-like pudding with over boiled rice), but I had the right amount of apples, some homemade Ukie rice in the fridge (butter boiled, just a touch of salt) and, after a day or two, curiosity of what a "dry" rice pudding would taste like eventually got the better of me.

Italics wouldn't touch it (he's not really into fruit, especially fruit paired with rice), but I had two hot bowls of it for breakfast. (Serving suggestion: add just a touch of cream.) Ukrainian apple and rice pudding - it's the new oatmeal of winter mornings. Seriously.

In fact, I'm off to heat up leftovers...

Clock It

January 27th, approximately 2PM: paused on the way back from leaving an offering at the base of the Shango Tree/phallic worship altar and nipped several weeds out of spring bulb containers. (<- IT'S OFFICIAL, INTERNET, 2010 GARDENING HAS //BEGUN//.)

Two Cocks

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Now I have two cocks in my life. (And both, inevitably, will wind up in the same place - my mouth.)

Bride's Brisket

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I have six days to magically transform a 6lb brisket into homemade corn beef for Bride's Day (Imbolc). I have significantly more time to magically transform the smoked ham hocks into a Turkish haricot bean casserole, and even more time than that to decide what I'm going to do with the bottle of locally produced lemon-infused rapeseed oil.

On the First Day of...

On the first day of Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, being gone I:

spent the morning sifting through old photographs of nearby locations (<- I'M CREATING MY LIST OF LOCAL ATTRACTIONS I WANT TO SEE), made homemade Monte Cristo sandwiches for breakfast (< BACON, NATURALLY, ON THE SIDE), caught up on American Idol (<- WE'RE STONERS, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?), spent the afternoon drifting between two worlds while cleaning the backroom (<- HOLY SHIT, I HAVE NOT SEEN THIS LEVEL OF CLEAN IN NEARLY A YEAR), burned grape juice scented dragon blood incense while Russian Orthodox Christmas music played in the background (<- INCENSE + GLORIOUSLY HIGH + SLAVIC CHURCH SINGING = ONE ZEN MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT), crawled onto the counter top to polish and shine my kitchen window (<- ALWAYS BUFF WITH A DRY PIECE OF PAPER TOWEL), decided to keep my star lights up (<- THEY AREN'T OVERTLY CHRISTMAS, OKAY?), placed one potted basil plant, four shiny red apples and one dried chili pepper on my gleaming kitchen altar (<- THERE IS BLISS IN KNOWING THAT NOTHING WILL BE TOUCHED, BROKEN, RUINED, EATEN OR THROWN OUT FOR A MONTH), covered two chicken breasts with white wine, Italian herbs, and garlic pepper and then smeared on a package of locally produced garlic cream cheese and topped the mess with toasted breadcrumbs and parsley for dinner (<- MY VERSION OF "OH, FUCK, THERE'S NOTHING IN THE HOUSE - WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE?"), took the longest, hottest shower I've had in years (<- ONE OF MY PATENTED "25 MINUTE LONG" SHOWERS), unwrapped and set out the nicest bar of soap in the house (<- I'VE BEEN KEEPING IT HIDDEN FOR A TIME I COULD ENJOY IT WITHOUT THE THOUGHT THAT MY FATHER-IN-LAW'S USED IT ON HIS SACK) and drew Italics a bath while discreetly buying and paying for two bottles of perfume (< VALENTINE'S GIFT - ONE FOR HIM, ONE FOR MYSELF).

In short? Perfection. (And this is only day number one.)

Mountains

You know how dogs will circle a spot before they lay down? They pick out the exact location within seconds, but minutes later they're still running tiny laps around it? (Usually until you finally shout "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, SIT DOWN ALREADY!" and then they give you a dejected, reproachful look like THEY THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD THEM, BUT OBVIOUSLY YOU DON'T.) I've been internally circling for a week now, and it's beginning to make me feel a little unhinged.

I don't know what it is, but it's something. I feel overwhelmed and anxious. There's an uncomfortable giddiness in my stomach that churns. I wake up feeling nervous, take a long look at the folders of pictures I'm trying to get through and within minutes resign myself to the fact that I feel way too fucking jittery to sit in an empty journal interface pretending I'm going to write an entry.

It's been like this for a week. I likened it to standing at the crossroads. One foot's ahead, one foot's behind leaving me straddling the cusp of transition. It's hard to concentrate where I'm standing NOW because I'm fixated on the future. The second great wave of spiritual obligations/duties is about to hit, and rather than visualize everything as individual fragments that make a whole (spread out over the next three months) I see the whole and I find myself (figuratively) gasping for breath.

My concentration has been divided for almost a month. I almost feel slightly out of touch. Normally I live my life walking a fine line between mundane and divine. Performing my daily tasks was a form of meditation. The actions were automatic - almost involuntary - allowing me to tune out what was routine and zone in on the little, subtle magic things that thinly hide beneath the veneer of ordinary life.

I've been blaming the full moon for two weeks now, but that celestial event doesn't happen until this weekend. (OI FUCKING VEY.) I've been blaming being up at night and being sun lonely, but I didn't go to bed until after one in the afternoon yesterday. (It's easy to miss seeing the sun for a few days when you're nocturnal in Scotland during winter.) I've been blaming my in-laws, blaming the shit that needs to get done (but hasn't) and blaming what's looming ahead of me in the not-so-distant future for trying to derail me before I even start.

All I need to do to get my rhythm realigned is move the other foot forward, but the thought of moving out of this infuriating impasse is still too daunting to consider. (Mountains are so fucking easy to create, but next to impossible to cross.)

Breakfast of Champions

I woke up with a burning hole in my stomach, and then the Old Woman decided to visit - before breakfast - which meant the first thing that went into the internal blaze was a shot of Scottish whisky. (Oi fucking vey.) It hasn't snowed in weeks; how did She know we were taking down the Christmas tree and all of the "winter" decorations today?

Bad Witch

It might come as a shock (especially if you manage to catch me on the phone) but for all the fucking talking I do, my natural instinct is to shy away from most social interaction. It's not because I'm an introvert (I'm obnoxiously extrovert; I swear that even my silence screams), it's just because I'm not interested.

(THAT'S PAINFULLY BLUNT, I KNOW, BUT IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT MUCH OF A SURPRISE SINCE I DON'T THINK I'VE BEEN GIVING THE IMPRESSION THAT I'D BE HOLDING ANYONE'S HAND WITH THIS SHIT.)

I'm impatient, short tempered, moody and it doesn't take much to piss me off and send me into grouchy cunt mood. I'm the awesome production of AUTISM, ARIES TYPE-A PERSONALITY and ECSTATIC WAR. I'm actively trying to tone it down, but, at the moment, it's mostly YOU EITHER LIVE WITH IT or YOU DON'T. (Thankfully, Italics has a high threshold - at least when it comes to me - and after twelve years of work there's been some improvement in my retard rage.)

A huge majority of witches - real witches, proper witches, witches that I'd give two gigantic thumbs up to - are friendly, helpful and altruistic. They selflessly devote their work and their time to friends, relatives and strangers. They welcome questions, take part in discussions and remain easily accessible to the public to paint a clearer, most positive picture of witches and witchcraft. The thing is...I'm not one of them.

I'm the one who hates everything, hates everybody, screams at people through her monitor ("WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING CALLING YOURSELF A FUCKING WITCH IF YOU CAN'T EVEN FUCKING STOMACH HANDLING MEAT YOU BUY FROM THE FUCKING GROCERY STORE?"), spits in the path of anyone who even momentarily crosses her, threatens certain death to neighbor cats who kill her garden's wild birds and could find some sort of ungrateful complaint when stumbling across buried treasure.

Me? I'm undoing all of their work with one cliched generalization after another. I'm what gives "witch" a bad name; I live up to every negative stereotype in the book. I'm unsocial, I'm angry, I'm ill-tempered and I'm always riding some level of foul mood. (Any wonder why I feel spiritually closest to the sorceress hags in fairy tales?) And the worst part? I //LIKE// IT.

I'm not a fan of comments; once you give people a forum to interact with you it inevitably becomes open season on your life. And what I'm doing here, with Graveyard Dirt, isn't open for debate - IT'S A DIARY OF MY LIFE. I'm not interested in what people think I should be doing, or how I'm doing it wrongly or differently. I'm doing it - I'm LIVING IT - and I'm simply letting people watch from a distance.

(When in doubt treat Ms. Graveyard Dirt like a wild animal doing her thing in her natural environment. If you wouldn't poke, taunt, harass or draw unwanted attention from an elephant or rhino in the untamed open, then please just stay in your internet safari car and enjoy Ms. GD from a safe distance.)

ANYWAY, ANYWAY, ANYWAY. I'm not trying to frighten, intimidate or paint some sort of on-line badass persona of myself, I'm just attempting to better explain why I decided to opt out of using any sort of comment system here in GD (which, reading back, comes across as unintentionally severe, although I wasn't exaggerating in the least about my volatile personality, it's both my greatest strength and my biggest weakness as a person).

It's not that I don't appreciate comments or emails (I totally LOVE getting emails), I just know criticism, arguments and "suggestions" would inevitably follow and seriously, guys, I already have enough shit to deal with here. GD is meant to be a sort of refuge, and I dread to think there might ever be a time when I find myself avoiding it because other people ruined it for me.

(SORRY, READING AUDIENCE, THE POSITION OF "PERSON WHO RUINS THINGS FOR MS. GD" HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY FILLED BY MR. AWESOME, MY FATHER-IN-LAW, AND DESPITE HIS AGE HE SEEMS PRETTY FUCKING HEALTHY SO IT MIGHT BE SOME TIME BEFORE THE POSITION OPENS FOR NEW APPLICATIONS.)

PHEW, ALRIGHT! Now that I've got GUYS, I'M A BAD PERSON THAT YOU DON'T REALLY WANT TO KNOW, REALLY and DON'T EVER MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ME WHEN OUT ON SAFARI out of the way I can finally address what this entry's about. (CIRCUITOUS AND UNNECESSARILY COMPLICATED? ...ME?)

Sometimes, when the stars are in the right alignment, I crawl out of my cranky cunt shell and mingle with the population. (It's rare, I admit it. Your chances of finding a four leaf clover is way more likely.) Tumblr has this feature which allows other users to ask you questions, and since we've been up at night (and haven't left the house in practically a month) I've been crawling up the wall for stimulation.

Out of curiosity, I flipped the switch to "on" to see what people would ask (CONFESSION: to see if people would even ask anything at all, I almost always work under the assumption that people haven't noticed me and have no fucking clue as to who I am) and I was pleasantly surprised. The majority of questions I received focused on my beliefs and practices, so I thought I'd copy and paste some of the on-topic Q & A here.

I remember seeing your entry about tarot cards earlier, and I reblogged, noting that I have a hard time meditating and centering my energy. Hell, I have a hard time relaxing and calming down in general. I'd love to learn more about tarot and read cards in general, but I get the impression centering one's energy and being calm and collected is a pretty important element in order to read cards well. Is there any hope that a high-strung mind like mine can relax and interpret the cards?

Man, I'm probably the WORST person to get tarot advice from. Seriously. Along with being able to sympathize with your overactive mind I've also built this mental block because learning a system I didn't create is counterintuitive to the way I work.

I need to be at least marginally familiar with something before I can develop any psychological attachment to it. As of now I've got an okay handle on some of the major arcana cards, but the minor ones? Pfft. Trying to use a tarot deck properly right now would feel like I was playing a board game whose rules I needed to check with every fucking move.

Before embarking on getting in touch with my subconscious, I need to feel like my subconscious is vaguely familiar with the tools I'm using. That's why using things I've made (i.e., bones, runes, whatever) or simply "reading" shit like coffee foam, tea sediment, blood clots and scrambled raw eggs works so well, it's direct interpretation without any prior knowledge needed.

I get the impression centering one's energy and being calm and collected is a pretty important element in order to read cards well.

I think it hugely depends on the person. Me? I do my best work when I'm in ecstatic mode. I don't know if it's the autism, my type-A Aries personality or if I'm just supremely fucked in the head but I can't meditate AT ALL. (I've tried. Honestly. But within five minutes of relaxation and breathing Papa {aka Baron Samedi} pops up and begins talking about his big black cock or Chippy wants to go and play ball. It's like being still and centering myself turns all the channels up to 11 leaving me in the exact OPPOSITE state of mind.)

If you're finding it difficult (or even uncomfortable) to do the shit "quietly" (<- not necessary volume related), then do it loudly. Do something that energizes you, or moves a part of you. (I also recommend getting high, or working under the influence of an entheogen but drug taking, despite its ancient roots in witchcraft and religious worship/work, seems to be irritatingly taboo in many modern witchcraft/paganism circles. If you're totally up to smoking (which I don't think you are since you can't burn incense in the house) or consuming (usually in form of teas and tinctures) something there are organic "visionary" blends you can buy that'll help the reading/connecting process without you having to experience the hardcore "drug" effect things like pot or mushrooms will produce.)

For instance, with Papa I'll put on lingerie, pour us both a drink, get high, share a cigar with him, play something like Dr. John's Gris-Gris and by the time I'm heady, withering around and dancing to the music with careless abandon I know it's time to begin laying cards. But that's for super special occasions, most of the time it's a lot more low key and I rely on something like BEING HIGH and/or MASTURBATING (with a deck in hand) to help unblock access to my subconscious.

Is there any hope that a high-strung mind like mine can relax and interpret the cards?

Yes! Make "being comfortable reading shit" your priority. Find a system that's totally reliant on your interpretations so you can concentrate on feeling confident with your subconscious connection. At the same time (if you're really interested in using tarot), begin familiarizing yourself with the major arcana and then the minor arcana. (That's what I'm doing, anyway, and it's working well enough for me, although these things ARE highly personal...)

My suggestion? Find two divination-themed decks. One should be a tarot deck that appeals to you, and the other should be some sort of card set without prewritten significance. (In other words, a set of cards that requires you to "read" based on intuition rather than referring to the rules book included.) It PAINS ME TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS, but...despite SOUL CARDS being nauseatingly "new age" they're amazingly accurate. (I took my deceased mother's set for sentimental and "LOL @ THIS NEW AGE BULLSHIT, LOLOLOL!" reasons, and I've been recommending them ever since - EMBARRASSING.)

isnt there someplace you can do a perma altar or is this due to your obviously annoying inlaws...?

I have a billion tiny, inconspicuous altars spread throughout the house (mainly the kitchen, our office/computer room, our bedroom and the backroom which kind've sort've acts as our living room when in-laws are in the TV room), but the majority of them are behind closed doors due to my father-in-law's OCD-like tendencies.

(He can't help but move or touch things which sometimes involves him "fixing" things that aren't broken (without asking), throwing away shit that isn't his (without checking first) and/or simply appropriating other people's things for himself (without asking if it's cool). If you leave something out - no matter what it is - it's only a matter of time before he breaks it, ruins it, kills it, takes it or trashes it.)

Unfortunately, we just don't have the space in our super personal rooms (the office and bedroom) for a permanent altar, so I have to wait until the in-laws are gone on their two week vacations to create something seasonally elaborate in the communal lounge. The problem with THAT is reverting everything to its otherwise mundane setting before they get back home.

(Last Christmas? My father-in-law threw garbage on my altar rather than carrying the shit to the kitchen to throw out in a fucking trash can. "Livid" doesn't even remotely describe my initial reaction. I've since learned a valuable lesson - if you don't want a dick to act like a dick, don't give him a chance to be one.)

Did you have a favourite myth/story when you were just a wee wild young thing? What is it?

Man, I was so fucking self-absorbed as a child that this question's stumped me FOR DAYS. You'd think that I would've been under the influence of THE OLD COUNTRY folklore with the way I go on about being Ukrainian, but in reality that aspect of my heritage is completely non-existent. I was told my grandfather thought that the shit was "nonsense" so he didn't allow my grandmother to tell them to my mother, who, in turn, never got exposed to the mythic/mystical side of Ukie life so she had nothing to pass onto me.

(INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: I apparently come from a long line of recognized "witches" on my maternal side - the Hutsul branch; mountain cowboy mystic folk. My female ancestors were supposedly hella proficient in reading signs and exceptionally knowledgeable in herbal lore. The lineage stopped with my grandmother (who was 1/2 Native American despite being Ukrainian, but that's an entirely different story...) who left Ukraine to find a better life. I think our ancient "job" came back with my mother, but she got too caught up in religion and twisted whatever she had to make it fit the Native American thing she was doing. I feel like a stronger, better version of her, unhampered by the feeling that to be a witch/special/magic you have to had adhere to certain religious beliefs.)

I've always been attracted to chthonic themes, although I've only just realized that in the past few years. At the end of the day everything boils down to "under". As a kid I had a natural affinity towards water. (The first time I made it to the ocean? I tried committing suicide. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't confused - it just felt like /home/. Filled with an utter sense of longing drowning myself, at age 12 or 13, seemed like an *awesome* idea. Although, LOL!, deliberate drowning yourself after making the most spontaneous decision, ever, wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be, heh!) But the "water" thing can easily be broken down - the womb, infancy, the security of suspension in fluid. (I haven't worked out "earth" yet, unless this phase is deliberately shining on my fear of mortality and the question of "IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE AFTER THIS?".)

So...selkies. (And mermaids. LITTLE KNOWN FACT: I still collect mermaid shit, although I'm not into the "pretty" aspect. I prefer my divine water women a little more REAL, a little more monster since I see them as a symbol of a woman's darker self. You know, the supernatural Medusa character that strikes fear into the heart of men.) Yeah, definitely, selkies. I practically OWNED the library's copy of FAERIES by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. I don't know why the notion of seal women captivated me, but even as a kid I was enthralled with the idea. I swore that one day I'd visit Scotland and spend Midsummer night with the seals on the coast, waiting to see if I could catch any of them shedding their animal fur for human skin.

But that really isn't a myth or story, is it? HAVE I COMPLETELY FAILED AT ANSWERING THE QUESTION CORRECTLY? (GAH!)

ALSO, will you make out with me in the woods or something? For... uh, magic's sake?

ADMIT IT, YOU JUST WANT TO STEAL MAGIC PUBES. (AND IF THAT'S THE CASE YOUR ASS BETTER GET HERE BEFORE JUNE, OTHERWISE THERE'LL BE NO MAGIC PUBES TO STEAL! (<- INDIGENOUS WISDOM TEACHES FARMERS THAT IT'S SAFE TO SHEAR THEIR SHEEP WHEN ELDERFLOWERS GO IN BLOOM, SO WHEN THE LOCAL SHEEP LOSE THEIR WOOL, THIS SHEEP JOINS THE BODY HAIR REMOVAL PARTY.))

What was the altar to? Do you follow any systems?

You mean the altar that my father-in-law used as a fucking trash can? It was 2008's Winter altar. He apparently failed to see that THIS SPREAD was somehow significant or serving a purpose. (I MEAN, SRSLY? WHEN HE LOOKED AT THE SYMMETRICAL LAYOUT WITH CANDLESTICKS, RITUAL MASKS, OFFERING PLATES AND SEASONAL SPECIFIC DECORATIONS - ALL CENTERED AROUND A HEARTH-LIKE STRUCTURE - IT DIDN'T OCCUR TO HIM IN THE SLIGHTEST THAT IT WAS SOMEHOW /SPECIAL/ AND FOR A REASON?)

I probably would've gone over-the-top mental if it had been the Spring/Easter altar, or the Fall/Halloween. I take the Easter and Halloween shit I do V. SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU since they're part of my spiritual duties (so fucking with THAT shit is like fucking with MY JOB). The Winter and Summer spreads are more celebratory than ceremonial, but I'd still warn against throwing fucking trash on Papa's (aka Baron Samedi) or Tentacle Monster's (aka Cthulhu, although not really - it's easier to say "Cthulhu" because it immediately invokes the tentacle monster image people are familiar with) offering plate.

(Once? Once my father-in-law even stole half of a fucking Burger King bacon cheeseburger out of Chippy's (aka Pazuzu) offering dish. Sometimes I think the man's the dumbest motherfucker in the world.)

Do you follow any systems?

As in magical systems? No, no, not my thing. In fact, I try really fucking hard to stay willfully ignorant about what's out there and what other people are doing. Almost everything I do is based on gut instinct, but that's my sort've witchcraft; I'm redefining things that make sense to me using personal experiences and incorporating my "translations" into my practices.

I differ from your average witch because I don't consider myself pagan. The shit I do? Comes from me. I've deified my subconscious so instead of worshiping or working through an outside source (i.e., gods and/or goddesses) I stay completely internal. I still use deities and idols, but they represent aspects of myself that I either want to work on, or need to access. (The Virgin Mary is a good example. I'm martial all the way, so to encourage traits I don't naturally have - compassion, forgiveness, maternal nurturing - I pray to the Blessed Mother, although I'm really knocking on my subconscious going "HEY, YOU, I KNOW WE'RE CAPABLE OF THIS SHIT, FUCKING HELP ME OUT HERE, OKAY?".)

I'm interested in voodoo, but I feel that as a system it's too structured for the way I practice. (Besides, I have a unique relationship with Papa. He's never asked me to drop what I'm doing to adopt the practices that bore the Baron Samedi image I'm familiar with. If something's not broken, why the fuck fix it?) I'm REALLY interested in rootworking and hoodoo since they're a lot more open ended and it SEEMS like you're given some room for personal interpretation.

I know that as I grow older my practices and beliefs will evolve, but at this point in my life - right now - I kind've sort've follow my own interpretation of the agricultural cycle. For the "Light" half of the year I'm Spring's Virgin Bride, married to the resurrected, divine King. For the "Dark" half of the year I'm Winter's Whore, widowed when the King is sacrificed at Harvest.

(We've actually performed a "reaping" ritual a few years back in a local field where I cut the King's throat and spilled His blood on the land after some wild outside sex. I brought the bundle of wheat I cut home, ritually decorated and displayed it (it's called "Didukh" in Ukrainian) during Winter and then planted the divine King's seeds the following Spring. The Didukh pictured in this year's Winter altar was created from the wheat from those seeds. (<- It's our first "homegrown" Harvest!))

I'm playing my own version of the sovereignty game, but instead of sticking with one straight "myth" I'm incorporating some middle eastern flavor (Inanna/Ishtar/Anat), some Greek flavor (Cybele), some local indigenous flavor (the Cailleach; my Whore/subconscious self) with a huge helping of Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Catholicism for gaudy asceticism.

Despite the mishmash of cultures and beliefs, everything works amazingly well beneath a Ukrainian/Slav veneer. I was hugely influenced by the ritual/ceremonial aspect of Eastern Orthodox Catholicism even though my family weren't hardcore Catholics. The Ukies were a lot like Celts when it came to conversion - they kept their old shit and just accepted a new name for it. Almost all of the annual traditions I now perform by myself are so laughably "pagan" in nature that you can tell Catholicism just didn't want the hassle of stripping the culture down to rebuild it.

ANYWAY. I'm all over the place with this shit today, sorry. Hopefully I've managed to kind've sort've answer your question. (Which, admittedly, probably could've been summed up with "SYSTEM? NONE. NEXT QUESTION!" to spare everyone. I'm not social, but I talk a lot once you get me started.)

"I differ from your average witch because I don’t consider myself pagan. The shit I do? Comes from me. I’ve deified my subconscious so instead of worshiping or working through an outside source (i.e., gods and/or goddesses) I stay completely internal. I still use deities and idols, but they represent aspects of myself that I either want to work on, or need to access. (The Virgin Mary is a good example. I’m martial all the way, so to encourage traits I don’t naturally have - compassion, forgiveness, maternal nurturing - I pray to the Blessed Mother, although I’m really knocking on my subconscious going “HEY, YOU, I KNOW WE’RE CAPABLE OF THIS SHIT, FUCKING HELP ME OUT HERE, OKAY?”.)"

This is exactly the sort of ideology I've had in mind for the sort of "witchcraft" I'm interested in! I just never thought it was something I could actually do for the fact that it may not have been considered "true witchcraft" nor have I wanted to offend any religion and practices involved; this definitely reassures me!! Thanks for sharing the information. :] If you have any more info on different practices you do, please let me know!! Much love, dear.

I'm going to delicately step over "true witchcraft" because that's one topic you don't want to get me started on (unless you want to wade through an expletive-laced tsunami of text). I don't think there are many witches practicing "true witchcraft"; it's primitive, nasty work that requires a strong stomach, a deep understanding of Self and an ability to ignore all of the modern bullshit that's distorted what it really is.

As a practice witchcraft can stand alone. It's a system, much like hoodoo or rootworking. Religion can flavor witchcraft, but you don't necessary need it. For some people it's a necessity since they need something to subconsciously bolster their work, but since I'm already approaching things from a psychological aspect I don't feel like I need to work through an overly religious filter.

If you have any more info on different practices you do, please let me know!! Much love, dear.

That's what the search function on my diary's for. *winks* (A lot of shit doesn't actually make it to Tumblr since I try to keep focus here on the visual aspect of my life. Unless there's a picture accompanying a journal excerpt I don't normally copy and paste my diary entries here. If you plug in keywords like subconscious and black rabbit it should pull up quite a few entries; the most recent ones (I think one entry might actually be called "Black Rabbit" or "Black Rabbit Altar") have the sort've information you're looking for.)

*Not a question so don't stress yo'self!* Your answer to me was totally perfect, thank you for putting such thought into it!! I AM PLEASED. And also, OMG, it was always always mermaids for me too!! Except I thought I was one, and always tried to find them in the ocean. I even bathed in salt water, go figure. xoxoxo

*Not a question so don't stress yo'self!*

BUT THAT'S MY FAVORITE HOBBY THAT I'M (SUPER)NATURALLY TALENTED IN!

Your answer to me was totally perfect, thank you for putting such thought into it!! I AM PLEASED. And also, OMG, it was always always mermaids for me too!!

OMGOMGOMG. SISTERS-IN-MERMAIDISM, AHOY!

After thinking about it I've always been attracted to duel nature water-based concepts. Undines, Rusalky, Kelpies, Mermaids. Anything that had the ability to bless or kill. That sort of...I dunno...terrifyingly beautiful aspect of Woman's nature.

I really liked the story of what's her name, uh, the fairy wifey from under the lake who gets wooed by a human with bread. (YOU KNOW THE STORY, RIGHT? FIRST HE GIVES HER BAKED BREAD, BUT SHE SAYS IT'S TOO HARD, THEN HE GIVES HER UNBAKED BREAD, BUT SHE SAYS IT'S TOO SOFT, THEN HE GIVES HER PARTIALLY BAKED BREAD AND APPARENTLY THAT WAS AWESOME BECAUSE SHE CAME OUT OF THE WATER AND MARRIED HIM. ALTHOUGH IT DIDN'T END WELL. <- LOL, IT NEVER DOES, LOL!)

GWRAGEDD ANNWN! (THANK YOU, GOOGLE, I WAS TOO DAMN LAZY TO GET UP AND PULL OUT MY FAERIES BOOK BY BRIAN FROUD AND ALAN LEE!)

Except I thought I was one, and always tried to find them in the ocean. I even bathed in salt water, go figure. xoxoxo

SDLFHBNGKDSKFG. YES. YES. YES. Although I was the lame retard who was TOO AFRAID TO ADD SALT TO HER BATH because I didn't think I could handle the smallest possible chance that I wouldn't transform into a mermaid. (I BLAME SPLASH, WHICH I'VE BEEN MEANING TO WATCH AGAIN, BUT I WAS TOO CAUGHT UP RUNNING THROUGH ALL OF THE NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SHIT AND NOW WE'RE WORKING ON PHANTASM AND WARLOCK SIMULTANEOUSLY.)

Deja Vu

THAT MOTHERFUCKER ACTUALLY THREW GARBAGE ON MY WINTER ALTAR, //AGAIN//.

(HOLY SHIT, WHAT PART OF "I FUCKING PRAY HERE; THIS IS A VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MY BELIEFS. IF YOU WOULDN'T THROW TRASH ON A CHURCH'S ALTAR, THEN DON'T FUCKING THROW IT ON MINE. LEAVE THIS SHIT THE FUCK ALONE AND RESPECTS SOMEONE ELSE'S HOLY SPACE." DIDN'T HE UNDERSTAND LAST YEAR?)

(UNIVERSE, ARE YOU FUCKING //JOKING//? BECAUSE IF YOU ARE, I'M SO TOTALLY NOT LAUGHING. AT ALL.)

"Christmas Day"

So...Christmas. (I'M ALMOST SORT'VE DONE WITH THE HOLIDAY, BEAR WITH ME.) On normal, non-cursed years we traditionally get dressed up on Christmas Eve and go out for a fancy pants meal. Christmas Day then entails visiting the cemetery to make an offering, coming home to a special breakfast, exchanging gifts and closing the day with a roast goose dinner.

This past Christmas? We had to cancel celebrations for the first time, ever. We picked up a cold when we were out on Yule, which manifested on the 23rd while grocery shopping. And then? And then we got hit by a blizzard. Our annual Christmas Eve tradition was canceled for the first time since instigating it, and we were so sick and miserable (and grouchy) on the 25th we didn't do anything celebratory.

But that was OKAY because I had AN AWESOME IDEA. The Eastern Orthodox church still uses the old calender system (Julian) which is 12 days behind our current calender system (Gregorian). Because of that a HUGE percentage of Ukrainians would be celebrating Christmas and Sviata Vechera in early January (the 6th for the Eve and the 7th for the Day) which meant, OH MY GOD, we could TRY AGAIN and go out on Jan. 6th for Christmas Eve dinner and then celebrate Christmas the day after.

(AWESOME, RIGHT? BECAUSE IT'D GIVE US NEARLY A FORTNIGHT TO RECOUP AND KICK OUR COLDS TO THE CURB. AND - AND! - WE'D HAVE AN ADDITIONAL WEEK OR SO OF SHOPPING GIVING US THE PERFECT EXCUSE TO FATTEN THE SPREAD BENEATH THE TREE. AND, DUDE, THE WEATHER WOULD HAVE NEARLY TWO WHOLE FUCKING WEEKS TO GET IN CHECK TO ALLOW US OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND INTO THE NEARBY CITY.)

(AND BECAUSE THE IN-LAWS WOULD BE RETURNING HOME ON JANUARY 4TH (THEY SPENT THEIR CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN LEAVING US TO OUR OWN DEVICES) THAT MEANT THAT WE COULD GET A LIFT INTO TOWN FOR DINNER (MAN, THERE WAS A TIME WHERE THE TAXI RIDE HOME COST NEARLY $40.00 USD, NO JOKE). THE ICING ON THE BELATED CHRISTMAS CAKE? THE IN-LAWS WOULD BE AWAY FOR BOTH THE 6TH AND 7TH DUE TO A WORK ENGAGEMENT SO WE COULD OBSERVE ALL OF OUR CHRISTMAS RITUALS WITHOUT DISTURBANCE.)

(YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE PSYCHIC TO SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING, RIGHT?)

Both Italics and I woke up on January 6th with new colds that his parents had brought back with them from Spain. Even better? Our entire area was beginning to buckle down for the brand new blizzard that was about to hit us. Christmas Eve dinner take two? Canceled. Again. For the very same reasons as the first.

...but I didn't cry. Not once, not one tear. Salvation came in the form of a free Holiday Inn room in town that needed to be used on January 9th. Since the 9th is a significant date to us anyway (we officially "got together" on May 9th, 1997) we decided to postpone dinner for a THIRD time and observe it on the 9th, that way we'd celebrate both Christmas Eve and our anniversary. (One of my very few resolutions this year? Make time, every 9th, for date night/day. <- Some things deserve to be celebrated monthly instead of annually.)

The in-laws left early on "Christmas Eve" (the 6th of January) to get ahead of the blizzard since being away was a work related obligation. Even though we weren't going out for dinner we still had "Christmas Day" to look forward to - the walk to the cemetery in a winter wonderland, making our ancestral offerings together at the graveyard, coming home and having homemade crepes with better than jizz sauce, exchanging gifts beneath the tree and then, deviating a little from our normal routine, having a friend over later in the evening for a special meal.

On "Christmas morning" we got a call from the in-laws while we were still in bed - they were coming straight home; the work related obligation had been canceled due to the bad weather. We hadn't had our walk, we hadn't made our offerings, we hadn't had our special breakfast, we hadn't exchanged gifts. Fuck, WE HADN'T EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO GET OUT OF FUCKING BED BEFORE FINDING OUT THAT CHRISTMAS DAY, TAKE TWO, HAD ALSO BEEN CANCELED.

I cried before I got out of bed. Then I cried in the bathroom during my first piss of the day. And then I sobbed like the sorriest motherfucker you've ever seen when I opened the door to the computer room/office to see that "Santa" had left me something special. It was like God, who was solely responsible for all of the cancellations, misfortunes, ill health and bad fucking luck, was sitting on my fucking computer chair LAUGHING AT HOW HE MANAGED TO RUIN NOT //ONE// BUT //TWO// CHRISTMASES FOR ME.

(Want to feel awesomely super special and downright chosen? Have annual hardcore traditions which you REALLY FUCKING LOOK FORWARD TO get canceled on you TWICE (and in some instances THREE FUCKING TIMES since we were TOO FUCKING SICK to leave the house on Jan. 9th so Christmas Eve dinner TAKE THREE was canceled along with the very idea of leaving the house for any sort of make up meal) for the very same motherfucking reasons. It'll feel like heaven enjoys watching YOUR LIFE the most.)

I returned to the bedroom to wallow in self-pity, but that didn't last long. I knew what the SPECIAL gift from "Santa" was, and I had been waiting for that large cat print 70s lounge dress FOR-EV-ER. So, in the end, my insatiable curiosity and Peg Bundy love for leopard, tiger and cheetah print shook me out of my "BUT WHY MEEEEEEEEEEEEE?" mind frame and got "Christmas morning" - no matter how aborted - started.

We didn't manage a walk, or offerings at the graveyard, or a super special Christmas morning breakfast, but we did manage a small meal before settling down to exchange gifts (peppered with the occasional sneeze, nose blow and mutual complaints about nasal drips). The in-laws were exceptionally cool and sympathetic and stayed out THE ENTIRE DAY, even going as far as having a meal out together to give Italics and I enough space to have something that loosely resembled "Christmas".

Winter Altar, 09

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It's taken me an embarrassingly long time to take pictures of an altar that went up nearly a month ago. (December 23rd; I was tired, sick and getting my ass kicked by a racing pulse that refused to go away but I REALLY wanted to get everything up for Christmas Eve.) Since it - and everything else Yuletide related - has to come down this weekend I finally broke out the tripod last night and took some photographs.

If it were just Italics and I living our Choose You Own Adventure life I'd seriously consider keeping the majority of our Christmas decorations up all year round. Unfortunately (for us), we don't, and by mid-January the in-laws begin resenting the decked out eight foot tree that's still glowing every night.

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(IT MAKES ME HAPPY, OKAY? BESIDES, IF YOU REMOVED THE OVERTLY "CHRISTMAS" ELEMENT - I.E., SEASONAL RED AND GOLD TREE DECORATIONS - THEN YOU'RE JUST LEFT WITH CLEAR FAIRY LIGHTS AND FAKE EVERGREEN. HOW EASY WOULD IT BE TO CREATE A SUMMER/SPRING TREE WITH FAKE WOODLAND ANIMALS MADE OF TWIGS AND RUSTIC, NATURAL MATERIALS, FEATHERED BIRD DECORATIONS, LITTLE STYROFOAMESQUE MUSHROOMS AND GARLANDS OF FLOWERS?)

Unseasonal decorations aside, it's never a good idea to leave anything you want, need, are working on or is personally significant to you out for an extended period of time because it's inevitable (NO, REALLY, IT IS, I'M WORKING ON NEARLY A DECADE OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, OKAY?) that Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, will eventually ruin, break, kill, throw out or execute a similar action that's so amazingly stupid and inconsiderate that the "situation" will leave you itching for your blunt machete. (<- DON'T EXPECT MERCY FROM AN AUTISTIC ARIES WITCH, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'VE FUCKED WITH HER SHIT.)

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Last year? He used my Winter altar as a trashcan. Seriously. I was first SUPER CRAZY INSANE PISSED. (See?) And then I was SUPER ANGRY PISSED. (See?) The difference between SUPER CRAZY INSANE PISSED and SUPER ANGRY PISSED? When I'm S.C.I.P. I try my fucking hardest to NOT think about crushing my antagonizer's bloody heart in my fist (translation: HEART ATTACK, BITCH!). When I'm S.A.P. I just have to restrain myself from getting in someone's face with an exasperated "DUDE, SERIOUSLY, WTF?".

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(I know it probably sounds amazingly fantasy magic novel, but...sometimes I manage to scare myself when I'm super crazy insane pissed. Retard rage is like a divine bolt of lightening - I can feel SOMETHING doubling up on itself within me, waiting for a direction to be pointed in. When I get upset - I mean, SRSLY UPSET - it feels like someone broke the last seal and Armageddon's at-the-fucking-doorstep eminent.)

(Suffice to say, "temperamental" and "moody" are way too fucking gracious to describe my notoriously short fuse. But this entry isn't about my short bursts of embodying War during moments of barely controlled rage, so I'll save the topic for another day.)

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As of now Italics's father has somehow managed to NOT fuck with, ruin, break or throw out any of my altar shit which means my time of grace is running out. Prolong exposure is a recipe for disaster, so while he's away this weekend I'll be deconstructing our Winter altar and reverting the communal lounge into its former boring self. (I RESENT HAVING TO TAKE EVERYTHING DOWN AS MUCH AS MY IN-LAWS RESENT MY HAPHAZARD ATTITUDE TOWARDS SEASONAL DECORATIONS.)

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Because I have an exciting day of WRAPPING PACKAGES, CLEANING OUT THE RAT CAGE, DECONSTRUCTING THE WINTER ALTAR and REMOVING CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS I'm going to skip out on breaking the spread down object by object. (Sorry!) If you have a question about anything in particular you can leave a comment via my Flickr photostream.

PS: Had I known that cables were jutting out EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE making the lounge look a bona fide crackhouse I would've totally corrected the visual imperfection. (YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I HATE CREATING OR PRODUCING SOMETHING THAT ISN'T PERFECT. SERIOUSLY. MY FEAR OF IMPERFECTION HAS KEPT ME FROM LEARNING A LOT OF FUCKING FOLK ART AND STARTING NEW HOBBIES.)

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Yule/2009 Log

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Because I'm TOTALLY incapable of doing anything on time we didn't get around to creating our Yule Log until December 31st. (It was eventually christened "2009 Log" with only three hours left in the year. Fuck, at least it got DONE, right?)

High and stuffed up with head colds, Italics and I spent the remaining minutes of the fading year parked on the sofa playing video games and downing shots of homemade raspberry vodka. I think constructing the log was the most "magic" thing we did on the full moon, blue moon and lunar eclipse of the 31st.

(I was SO prepared to become the Whore of Babylon that night, but infectious illnesses thought otherwise. (FINE THEN, UNIVERSE, FINE. BUT DON'T THINK THIS SACRED WHORE WILL BE AT YOUR BECK AND CALL THE SECOND YOU FINALLY DECIDE YOU NEED ME TO PLAY THE GREAT WHORE.))

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Our Yule Logs tell stories. They're like a diary entry, or an old photograph that jogs your memories. Each log is constructed out of things we've picked up during our adventures throughout the year, and each component used, no matter how mundane seeming, has some sort of significance.

This year the log itself came from a semi-local kirkyard (churchyard) and cemetery. It was one of our FIRST official outings in the new car by ourselves, and to celebrate our freedom we simply took off into the country, hoping to find ancient monuments, standing stones, decrepit churches and forgotten graveyards along the way.

The yard was undergoing some landscaping so when we arrived there was a small pile of perfectly cut wood from surrounding trees. We eventually left with two pieces - one large, proper log (above) and one smaller, sapling sized log (which was given as a gift to a friend). I'm 98% sure that they were/are yew (since we picked them up at the base of a row of yew trees), which in itself is quite special and fitting for their intended purpose.

We cut the greenery - cedar and ivy - from our own garden (I only managed to slip TWICE in the snow when waving my wildcrafting basket and cutting pliers around like a stoned, sick lunatic), and what wasn't used for the log eventually was placed on my kitchen altar. The green embroidery thread used to bind the branches to the wood was given to me by my mother-in-law (who, in turn, was given the thread by HER mother long ago).

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After initially laying down the foundation of the log (i.e., the evergreen) I panicked, suddenly realizing that we hadn't picked up anything remotely centerpiece-y. (Last year? Last year when we found our log we ALSO found a black metal spiral, and a golden plastic star - INSTANT FOCAL POINT!)

My salvation came in the form of a tongue-and-cheek "witch bottle" I had completely forgotten about that I threw together this past fall. Remember back in October when I was all "I FUCKED THE HORNED GOD OF THE FOREST AND ALL I GOT WERE THESE SEVEN LOUSY RABBITS!"? (No? You probably need to hit up RABBITS OUT OF THIN AIR.)

What prompted me to joke with the hunters was my miserable luck mushroom hunting. We originally went to the woods to hunt down fly agaric, but only managed to find two unremarkable boletes, a pine cone (that something threw at us from above) and part of a broken egg. When it become evident that the woods didn't want to share their red toadstools with me I gave up and funneled exasperation into outside forest sex. And the rest? The rest is history.

(Actually the rest is seven dead rabbits which were then skinned, decapitated and defooted for magical purposes (DUDE, WTF WOULD //YOU// DO WHEN THE HORNED GOD GIVES //YOU// SEVEN DEAD RABBITS AS A GIFT? THROW THEM TO THE CURB?) but you can read all about that in the journal entry mentioned above.)

Using delicate floral wire Italics carefully bound the two boletes and pine cone, and once an erect cock was formed (the two mushroom heads fell perfectly at the base of the cone) we added the ONE fly agaric we managed to find this past autumn and the discarded egg shell. By the time we wiggled in a cluster of dried rowan berries (from our tree out front that sits on the crossroads) we had the centerpiece I originally hyperventilated over.

The absolute BEST part of this log? (Other than it being the nicest one we've ever created?) When I accidentally bumped into it and knocked it off its crab pedestal (crabs are a big juju animal for Italics, which is why it's carrying his St. George and the Dragon ritual fire poker and the log itself) about twenty seeds spilled out of the pine cone. Come Spring I'll be planting seeds that came from our Yule/2009 Log, how awesomely magic is that?

(I know this picture is hella blurry, but it's the only close up of the focal point I have. If you look at a larger version of the image you can easily make out the flecks of white on the dehydrated toadstool.)

Below are two images of 2008's Yule Log, but I'm not going to bother going into detail about them since there's an entire entry dedicated to their story. If you're interested in learning about potato thievery and seeing frosted Scottish landscape you can check out the entry YULE LOG '08.

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Christmas Wrapping

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I spent Christmas Eve (Dec. 24th version) crying. I can't remember the last time in my life I cried on Christmas fucking Eve. (1999? When mom abandoned us* and left my younger sister and I to dish out a traditional Ukrainian Christmas without any prior experience? I think I was probably too damn busy to cry; this seriously might've been the first year.)

(* Towards the last few years of cohabitation with my parents holidays were always a tense affair. One year mom threw the Thanksgiving turkey onto the stovetop ("HERE'S YOUR DAMN TURKEY!") without any provocation and simply left. She grabbed the car keys and just went, it was totally new and foreign to us. We were teenagers, old enough to take care of ourselves in most respects, but it still shocked us, it still //frightened// us because that sort've behavior was so radically new and unprecedented we had no idea what to fucking think.)

Christmas Eve was bad even before it was Christmas Eve. To keep the 24th special (the 24th is when my Ukrainian family celebrated/observed Sviata Vechera ("Holy Supper"), so the majority of my very fond Christmas memories all took place on the Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day) Italics takes me out for a four course Turkish dinner. (It's my once a year chance to dust off my white rabbit fur coat and wear it OUT of the house.)

It was an annual tradition that's been going strong for nearly ten years and we've NEVER missed or canceled our reservation until this fucking year. Long story short? We decided to celebrate Yule in town and caught a cold. By Christmas Eve we were both sick, miserable and snowed in. Dinner at the Turkish restaurant was axed, for the first time ever, due to bad health and bad weather.

I didn't cry when he canceled our reservation, but I was HELLA disappointed and HELLA pissed. (I had my outfit picked out FOR OVER A FUCKING MONTH! My one chance to wear my effing rabbit coat in public was GONE, and I never got to show off the gold ram head necklace Italics gave me on Yule to wear on Christmas Eve. "SDFHODFGOHGDFGSDBFGDF" pretty much sums it up.)

In a feeble attempt to balance the negative with a little positive the Universe ensured that my new (well, my new USED) computer arrived on the 24th. YAY! Although, we were promised a 24 hour courier service and it took OVER A FUCKING WEEK for the fucking computer to arrive. BOO!

Then we discovered that the new used computer wouldn't take ANY old keyboard, it had to be a very specific type which we didn't have in the house. BOO! But Italics remembered that the local grocery store carried the kind we needed, and I had a small shopping list of things so there was justification in a quick outing. YAY!

Although it was Christmas Eve (any store on the 24th - especially the grocery kind - is a nightmare and a half to be in) and the weather looked iffy (I, uh, accidentally broke the windshield wipers so we had a working car for Christmas, but not one that could be used when experiencing any sort of precipitation). BOO!

The first time I cried on Christmas Eve I was punching the steering wheel of the car and shouting "THIS ALWAYS FUCKING HAPPENS, THIS ALWAYS FUCKING HAPPENS EVERY FUCKING YEAR" as a line of cars began riding my ass because I was going slow due to NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE A GODDAMN THING BECAUSE IT HAD BEGUN SLEETING THE SECOND WE GOT IN THE FUCKING CAR AND I HAD NO FUCKING WIPERS TO TURN ON TO CLEAR THE WINDSHIELD. (It was SO BAD that I had to ROLL DOWN MY FUCKING WINDOW and literally STICK MY HEAD OUT JUST TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE ROAD AS CARS HONKED THEIR FUCKING EXHAUSTS OFF AT ME.)

I cried as cold, Scottish snow pelted my face, the disintegrating sleet mingling with the warmth of my tears as a row of headlights lined up behind me like a candlelit vigil. It was beautifully poetic, but I wasn't in the mood. I totally wasn't in the mood when standing in the housewares section, either, but I saw Italics was making THE FACE ("OH, GOD, I HAVE TO TELL HER SOMETHING SHE DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR. HOW DO I TACTFULLY HANDLE THIS SO SHE DOESN'T GO ALL GOZER?") and I had to know why.

The grocery store didn't have the keyboard. (It was December fucking 24th in a fucking grocery store in a middle class neighborhood, but you still could've heard a pin drop the second THE FACE was explained. I have vague recollections of people instantly clearing the aisle, leaving the chick who was clearly about to lose it and the guy who was clearly desperate for the chick to NOT lose it.)

I began sniffling, feeling utterly hopeless and retarded for having gone through the PUNCHING THE STEERING WHEEL AND CRYING OUT THE OPENED WINDOW WHILE DRIVING JUST TO BE ABLE TO SEE episode for nothing. Then I realized I left my fucking grocery list ON THE FUCKING KITCHEN TABLE and I had nothing with me to remind my ass what the fuck I needed (beside the keyboard the store didn't fucking have). (<- WHEN IN DOUBT, IT CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE.)

My eyes began filling up with tears, threatening to burst over the threshold of lashes. I maybe could've possibly been okay if that Waitress's song, Christmas Wrapping (you know, the "MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY CHRISTMAS, BUT I THINK I'LL MISS THIS ONE THIS YEAR" song), hadn't come on, but it did because the Universe likes to remind me that my life's a fucking reality TV show that never gets old.

(ADMITTEDLY, THERE'S SOMETHING WONDERFULLY LOLTASTIC ABOUT A WOMAN HAVING A MELT DOWN IN A CROWDED GROCERY STORE ON CHRISTMAS EVE AS THAT PARTICULAR CHRISTMAS SONG PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND. <- PSST! HOLLYWOOD! CALL ME! I HAVE NEARLY THIRTY EFFING YEARS OF ANECDOTES I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING WITH! WE'LL BE BATHING IN A SWIMMING POOL FILLED WITH GOLD (AND GHOSTS OF PAST TEARS AND DESOLATE DESPAIR, BUT STILL...GOLD!).)

The second time I cried on Christmas Eve was in the housewares aisle of Tesco as people tried not to notice. No keyboard, no computer. No shopping list, no Christmas. No dinner reservation, no sexy gown, no gold ram necklace or white rabbit fur coat. No windshield wipers. Miraculously, I remembered every fucking thing on the list except one thing we needed most - deicer. (Since we didn't have working wipers we had to spray the windshield with deicer before squeegeeing the excess moisture off.)

Italics was absolutely certain that this other store, just an intersection or two away, had the sort've keyboard we needed. And since the chance of SOMETHING was better than the absolute of NOTHING I decided - tears and all - to make the tiny track across to the other shopping center. He left me in the tiny housewares section and found me (with the keyboard we needed tucked under an arm) in the housewares section, stroking enamel coated casserole pots covetously.

"OH, WOW," I cooed, caressing the silky smooth exterior of the lid, "LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL THEY ARE! THEY'RE JUST BIG ENOUGH TO FIT A SMALL ROAST OR A SMALL CHICKEN IN! I COULD BROWN SHIT IN THE POT, AND THEN JUST PUT THE FUCKING LID ON AND THROW IT STRAIGHT IN THE OVEN!"

(My only stovetop and oven safe cookware's this gigantic coffin shaped vessel that easily fits a huge fucking chicken split in two. To slow cook anything meant browning something in a frying pan and transferring the food to a oven friendly pot. That meant messing up more pots and pans than necessary, transferring partially cooked, warm food into a cold dish and losing whatever caramelized brown bits I couldn't completely scrape from the frying pan. But the enamel set? It meant I could brown food in it and then simply chuck it in the oven. No excess dishes, no warm food being transferred to something cold and no loss of caramelized flavor. It was instant love (and, admittedly, pathetic desire).)

We went in for a keyboard, we came out with a keyboard and a piece of enamel cookware. "ARE YOU SURE IT'S OKAY?" I badgered him as he carried the box through the store to the checkout, and then as he was paying for things, and then in the car and then once again at home. He assured me it was, as if that wasn't, you know, already evident thanks to the picture above. I vowed that I'd properly christen it with something special, something I wouldn't have otherwise been able to pull off with just one pot.

I was originally going to make Chicken Margeno in my gift (I mean, it WAS a gift - part unwrapped Christmas gift, part unwrapped pity gift), but there was no way in hell I was going to fit an entire chicken (cut up in eight pieces) in one layer in the pot. The idea was scraped, and I've spent almost every day since racking my brain (and excavating the freezer) to find something suitable until IT finally appeared in the form of a frozen piece of lamb shank with a side of shoulder two days ago.

"I'M GOING TO BROWN THE LAMB IN SMOKED BACON GREASE, AND THEN GENTLY POACH THE JOINT IN A HOMEMADE WHITE WINE-BASED TOMATO SAUCE IN A VERY LOW OVEN FOR A VERY LONG TIME IN THAT ENAMEL POT YOU GOT ME FOR CHRISTMAS," I matter-of-factly informed Italics, because all cooking ventures are V. SRS BUSINESS and are addressed at least several times when we're taking a bong break together (whether he's interested or not).

And that's exactly what I did. After lovingly washing the pot and lid with warm soapy water I dried it and slowly warmed the vessel on the stovetop. (WHICH TOTALLY GOES AGAINST MY "HURRY, HURRY, NOW, NOW!" ATTITUDE WITH EVERYTHING. UNFORTUNATELY, FOR ME, IF YOU RUSH HEATING UP THIS SORT'VE COOKING POT YOU RISK CHIPPING THE ENAMEL COATING. OWNING, USING AND TAKING CARE OF THIS KIND'VE COOKWARE WILL BE A LESSON IN MUCH NEEDED PATIENCE.)

Once it warmed my beloved bacon grease went in (THERE IS NO LOVE LIKE A UKRAINIAN WOMAN'S LOVE FOR ANYTHING BACON RELATED, SERIOUSLY) I browned the small piece of lamb on all sides until colored and then, without having to transfer ANYTHING, I simply poured in the still hot tomato sauce. And that was it. (Well, sort've. I covered the food with a piece of greaseproof paper and then lidded the mofo before chucking it in the oven and cooked it for several hours, but with an exception of all of THAT it was totally IT.)

It was GORGEOUS. So gorgeous, in fact, that without even thinking I picked at the leg and ruined the picture perfect quality that I meant to photograph. (Papa's always chastising me for digging into food too soon. HOLY SHIT, DUDE, IT'S //HARD// WHEN YOU'RE THE FUCKING COOK, OKAY?)

To give the flavors a chance to marry I deliberately left the meal in the fridge for the past couple of days. I'll be warming it up later tonight for dinner although I haven't entirely decided how to serve it. (Pasta? Rice? Polenta? Potatoes?) Christeningwise, I think I might've delivered two thumbs up, but I won't know for sure until we sit down for our evening meal tonight.

(The third and final time I cried on Christmas Eve? As I was falling asleep. I thought about all of the Sviata Vecheras from my youth and my heart broke. I thought about everything that makes or ever made Dec. 24th special, and how by bad luck not ONE thing that was recognizably "Christmas Eve" even happened or took place.)

(Everything I had planned never happened, everything I desperately wanted never materialized. I fell asleep crying, knowing that it was inordinately ungracious of me for allowing myself to wallow in abysmal despair because "I DIDN'T GET CHRISTMAS! WHY DIDN'T I GET CHRISTMAS?" when there were people, that night, also crying because they just lost someone, or because they hadn't eaten that day, or because they didn't have a roof over their head.)

(But even thinking about how lucky I am didn't help; that's the awesome thing about being so good at personal tragedy, you can't even reason with yourself because it'll just get in the way of theatrics.)

Living Nightmare

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So I'm grilling marinaded chicken breasts to make chicken fajita nachos when Italics wanders in and goes "OH, HEY, LOOK! THAT PIECE OF CHICKEN LOOKS LIKE A DOLPHIN!" drawing my attention to the grilled fillet that IS suspiciously dolphin shaped and that's seriously all it took to make me feel like it was unethical to chop it up and make nachos out of it.

(That's why, nearly two weeks later, it's still sitting on the same fucking plate on top of the bedroom's dresser, completely out of sight. You want scary? Imagine what it must look like by now and that, eventually, it'll have to be disposed of. <- IT'S A NIGHTMARE FOR YOU, BUT //REALITY// FOR ME. I CAN'T WAKE UP SCREAMING BECAUSE //I'M ALREADY AWAKE//.)

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

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Italics has been growing his hair out for some years now, and while he occasionally gets it trimmed (a biannual event in this house - Spring/Easter, Fall/Halloween), he's never properly cut off any significant length. He missed his Halloween appointment and by Midwinter a clear divide between healthy and damaged appeared.

Without considering the consequences I was given full blessings to brandish my ritual scissors and cut off the weak and split-ended hair. (I'M ALREADY PUTTING MENSTRUAL CLOTS IN HIS FOOD, URINE IN HIS BATH AND PUBIC HAIR IN HIS BUFFALO WINGS HOT SAUCE, WTF DOES IT MATTER IF I'M CUTTING AND KEEPING HIS HAIR, RIGHT? THAT SHIT'S //CHUMP CHANGE// IN THIS RELATIONSHIP.)

At the time I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I knew I wanted to create something - a braided love charm, or something at least knotted or plaited - so I banded the thick length of hair together with a rubber band and placed the wet, curling lock at the base of Wadjet's statue so it could dry and I could take some pictures the following day.

The problem with "consecrating" anything on an altar - at least for me - is that if you leave it too long you forget about it. Because, at some point, the individuality of the item disappears and when that happens it allows the object to seamlessly merge with its setting. After two weeks I stopped seeing "project that needs to get worked on" and simply saw "office window's altar" and as if by MAGIC the bundled lock of hair became invisible and I simply forgot about it.

...forgot about it until Italics picked up a mangy, tatted clump of hair from beneath his computer desk on one despair filled Christmas vacation morning. I was already crying about something - JUST PICK ONE REASON OUT OF A HUNDRED (EXCEPT FOR "GREY HAIRS" BECAUSE, JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME, I THINK THE SILVERY STREAKS IN MY OTHERWISE BABY FINE WAIST LENGTH HAIR IS KIND'VE SORT'VE SEXY - SHHH!) - and when Italics held up an aborted felted sculpture that could've been featured on Regretsy and asked "WHAT'S THIS?" and I saw that his hair was missing from the altar I had no other choice but to file the tragedy under "WHATEVER, FUCK IT" (because I had already cried enough that fucking day, thank you very much).

(A FILE THAT'S GAINED A FEW POUNDS DURING THIS PAST YULETIDE SEASON, BY THE WAY. WHATEVER, FUCK IT, AT LEAST I'M NOT SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS AND PUNCHING HOLES THROUGH WALLS (WHICH I WAS DOING SEVERAL YEARS BACK). I REALLY SHOULD BE CELEBRATING MY GRADUATION INTO ADULTHOOD, BUT I THINK THE SHOTS OF HOMEMADE VODKA I'M DOING THAT PREFACES MY RESOLUTION OF "WHATEVER, FUCK IT" IS PROBABLY CELEBRATION ENOUGH.)

I must've unknowingly brushed the rubberbanded lock of hair off the altar when I was feeding the birds (I put Rice Krispies on the office's outside window ledge) and one of the rats found it, dragged it halfway across the room and commenced playing with for God knows how long before Italics made the fateful discovery. (WHATEVER, FUCK IT.) (AT THE SAME TIME, THOUGH, WTF, UNIVERSE? I WAS DOING SOMETHING NICE AND THIS IS HOW MY ASS GETS REPAID? SERIOUSLY, WTF?)

So much for braided love trinkets, right?

(The only "picture" I got of the ponytail in its full glory is in THIS VIDEO posted within the entry SIX MONTHS. What have I learned about this experience? NOT TO BE NICE. EVER. <- LESSON LEARNED!)

Spirits of the Snow

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...because a witch who doesn't read can never have enough books. (Yeah, you read that right.)

Medicine and Vice

When the whiskey stopped tasting like medicine, I stopped doing shots. (It's been snowing significantly less now. Not that it's like, you know, coincidental or anything...)

Yuletide Phallic Worship

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On December 22nd - three days before Gregorian Christmas (as opposed to Julian Christmas which was January 7th (it's an Eastern Orthodox Catholic thing)) - I discovered that a stand of 100 lights had blown on our fully decorated eight fucking foot Christmas tree making it impossible to either remove the broken strand or sneakily add a brand new set of lights. (I felt complete and utter despair, and after ten minutes of silent despondency I got up and poured myself a shot of homemade raspberry vodka and filed the crisis under "WHATEVER, FUCK IT".)

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The garish spread beneath the tree includes gifts from friends, gifts Italics and I exchanged, recently purchased stuffed animals (I'm SO not embarrassed to admit that I'll be turning thirty in three months and I still collect toys), "fun food" (i.e., candy, chocolate, non-perishable cakes) bought especially for Christmas, ornaments bought this past Yuletide season (a lot of rustic birds made from feathers and animals made from sticks this year) and various "special" items that are usually hidden away from prying eyes (aka "in-laws").

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My head Black Rabbit is to the left (unlike the others She's been sprayed with a gold glitter finish and wears one of my Santa Muerte pendants and a skull prayer bracelet), there's a brand new nutcracker ornament peeking from behind a table leg, Pot Bunny's up front (we bought Pot Bunny and Pot Bunny's pot on the same day and for easier transportation we popped the rabbit into the lidded vessel and he never came back out), Christmas Pig's to the right (it grunts/oinks when you squeeze it) and there's a now finished box of chocolate covered gooseberries beneath the felt reindeer ornament.

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I love the goofy fucking pheasant sitting on the Christmas pudding so goddamn much that I've decided he won't get packed away with everything else. Way in the back you can see Christmas Polar Bear peeking over a mound of presents (guarding the presents is his annual job, you'll //always// find Christmas Polar Bear beneath our tree), and one of four plain Black Rabbits sits stoicly in front of a scorpion crucible filled with toffee and red and gold drum ornaments.

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Normally we have a hexenhaus (gingerbread house) beneath our tree, but this year thanks to COLDS and BROKEN COMPUTERS and BROKEN CARS and PETS WITH WEIRD LUMPS GROWING IN THEIR SIDES and BLOWN STRANDS OF CHRISTMAS LIGHTS and a myriad of other things we never managed to create one. Papa stepped up, though, and provided the "centerpiece" with His skull planter.

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Resting on a pile of books and a board game (FROGGER! NO JOKE! THEY MADE A FROGGER BOARD GAME BACK IN 1981!) is Papa's skull planter surrounded by booze (white chocolate flavored vodka, a homemade bottle of sloe and almond gin (from a friend), a bottle of dry Marsala (bought so I could make Chicken Marengo), and a bottle of Famous Grouse that belongs to the Old Woman/Cailleach), and candy (chocolate in the shape of a cigar, a truffle bar and a nougat log).

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More booze, more food, more presents and more ornaments. (The penguins are new, so's the snowman and the papier mache dove.)

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The other plain Black Rabbit and other scorpion crucible plus the Midwinter gifts we exchanged on Yule. (I gave him the antique Halloween lantern in the shape of an owl, he gave me a gold goat/ram's head necklace.)

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Everything pictured above is brand new save the freeloading crocodile riding the hippo's back (He's been waiting for Her for a helluva time) - if you get the "joke" you get a gold star. The cobra shakes and hisses when you press the head, although it seemed friendly enough to let our new owl ornament perch on its coils.

My Burning Ankles of Fire

Overzealously shaved legs for Sviata Vechera. Didn't use enough olive oil; razor burns around ankles feel like sunburn. Six months from now = just after Midsummer. (An early weather prediction for summer 2010? Will I be tanned (or burned) in early July?)

Sviata Vechera's First Star

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Sviata Vechera ("Holy Supper") is a ritualized dinner that Ukrainians observe on Christmas Eve. (More often than not it's the Eve that's the bigger deal in a lot of European cultures.) Traditionally nothing's eaten during the day as you get on with your chores (special attention goes into cleaning the house and taking care of any domesticated animals), but the fast breaks (and work stops) when the first star (symbolizing the star of Bethlehem) appears in the night sky, signaling the start of a twelve dish supper.

Christmas has come and gone for all you on the Gregorian calendar, but it's only just here for us Julian folks. (<- ONE OF THE AWESOME THINGS ABOUT BEING BAPTIZED AS AN EASTERN ORTHODOX CATHOLIC; I GET THE OPTION OF TWELVE EXTRA "CHRISTMAS" DAYS!) So a belated MERRY CHRISTMAS! to you Gregorians, from us Julians, and blessings for a happy and prosperous new year.

(Pssst! We got a white Christmas too!)

Christmas Goose Day

At this moment in time Christmas and I aren't on speaking terms. I've exiled it - along with all of Yule's misfortunes, Midwinter's bad luck and every fucking festive-themed "coincidence" so LOLerific in nature that even though they have me crying NOW I'll be laughing about them by Midsummer - to the quiet corner. (Just between you and me? I'm thinking about forgetting about it and letting it slowly rot from memory. <- How's THAT for a five minute timeout?)

There's another entry up my proverbial sleeve about THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE, so I won't bother going into the history behind the dark meat revelry. Suffice to say that it's an institution. (To celebrate the Yuletide season my family roasted a goose. Italics's family roasted a turkey. It only took one Christmas for Italics to defect and join my side (and not just because of blowjobs and teenage sex) - such is the power of the goose.)

A normal, perfect, uneventful Christmas sees us getting the goose on either the 23rd or 24th from the butcher. On the day I remove the giblets and excess fat, clip off the wing tips, separate the thighs/legs from the body to make confit, brine both pieces with a mix of salt, garlic and fresh herbs and pour boiling water over the bird's breast before setting the body to dry, overnight, in the garage. On Christmas day I make stock (which eventually turns into gravy) from the giblets, pieces of the broken back and wing tips and roast the goose crown.

This year? We ate our Christmas goose on December 28th...and that wasn't by choice. (LESS SAID, THE BETTER.) I only JUST managed to melt down the mounds of fat and "marinade" the leg/thighs of the goose a day or two ago. (We still haven't opened presents. Seriously. They're all still sitting under the tree, waiting for a magical moment to indicate NOW IS THE TIME! which ISN'T GOING TO FUCKING COME BECAUSE IT'S JANUARY THE FUCKING FIFTH AND CHRISTMAS WAS ELEVEN FUCKING DAYS AGO.)

To try and lighten the abysmal atmosphere Italics suggested we go out on Christmas Goose Day since it was projected to be the nicest day of the week (I, uh, sort've blew the windshield wiper motor BY ACCIDENT which means we have a car with NO WINDSHIELD WIPING ABILITIES and it's been SNOWING, SLEETING and RAINING FOR NEARLY THREE WEEKS) and because the 29th was THE FIRST FUCKING DAY THE MAIL SERVICE DECIDED TO FUCKING RESUME SINCE THE 24TH which meant an avalanche of mail was expected the very next day.

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I was knee deep in clearance Christmas decorations when I caught Italics taking a picture of something halfway across the store. Somehow, I managed to miss "pussy pyramid" when we walked through the pet care section of the garden center (blame my hormonal anxiety over discounted wreath stock).

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The shifty-eyed giant donkey overlord appears to have rewritten the nativity and is directing the production house left.

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It only takes me five minutes of being in the car for me to go OH MY FUCKING GOD SCOTLAND IS SO FUCKING AWESOME I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE I LIVE HERE AND THIS SHIT IS ONLY SEVERAL ROWS OF HOUSES AWAY (the row of houses at the foot of our backyard block otherwise impressive views of not-so-distance hills). Whenever I'm out in the country I feel blessed to live here, and to live so close to ancient secrets (standing stones, cairns, ancient graveyards and stone circles).

The scenery on the 28th was mind-blowingly spectacular. It's been snowing, off and on, for nearly three weeks. At night the temperature drops suddenly, keeping the snow in pristine condition (nearly a month on and this shit still looks FRESH). Pockets of country situated between hills remain outlined in hoarfrost despite the blazing winter sun, while rays of light angle through barren trees highlighting the age of ruined walls and farmhouses.

One of the unfortunate drawbacks of mind-blowingly spectacular scenery is that the best view points are often the ones that have no safe shoulder to straddle. Add treacherous snowbanks, narrow, icy country lanes and SUVS haphazardly plowing down said narrow, icy country lanes with treacherous snowbanks and you have an accident waiting to happen. This is the only picture we got of our country outing.

(In the photo there's a particularly high, snow-capped mountain-like hill in the distance. That's Bennachie, the source of Winter. The Old Woman - better known as the Cailleach - is often associated with the highest point in the region. Here in this region of Scotland the highest point is Bennachie, which holds evidence of bronze age goddess worship at the peak.)

(Note to self: Saw three deer (two babies?) along standing stone road, and then three male pheasants further near the stones. Laughed hysterically when we drove past a predator bird tearing into a freshly killed rabbit in a snow covered field as a single crow stood awkwardly near the hawk (?) pretending that the shared space was a complete and total coincidence and it wasn't waiting for an opportunistic moment to shotgun the remains. "DOE, DEE, DOE, JUST WAITING FOR THE BUS..." Oh, corvids, somehow you find a way to make me laugh daily, <3!)

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The kitchen Christmas altar, pre-stars (my dangling star lights arrived the day after). Normally I create an elaborate center piece altar for the kitchen table using evergreen, ivy, bay, nuts, apples, pears, citrus fruits and candy, all centered around a large loaf of ritual Ukrainian Christmas bread (Kolach, sort've like a communion bread) set with candles.

Due to a million and two reasons - WHICH I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT BECAUSE CHRISTMAS IS STILL IN THE TIME-OUT CORNER - that yearly tradition didn't happen. Instead, I opted for something minimal, but despite the somewhat sparse look I still managed to retain some significance in the otherwise mundane looking setting.

Between the two pillars of candles are a tumbler glass filled with bay cuttings (from our small bay tree out back), a small gold colored oak leaf shaped offering dish holding my TREE NUTS (a pair of English walnuts, joined at the stem), a bottle of late harvest/sweet dessert wine and a bottle of sparkling elderberry (non-alcoholic).

(I bought the Beerenauslese last year and completely forgot about it. It was rediscovered, on Christmas Goose Day, when thumbing through various foil-wrapped bottles looking for my Martini Rossi Asti Spumante (to make the BETTER THAN JIZZ sauce for the Yule Log). The elderberry drink was bought when we were out shopping; I had a feeling the berries would go well with the goose's dark meat (it did, V. well, in fact).)

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Normally we eat off the coffee table in front of the TV (in the communal lounge) to spare us from constant disturbances (aka in-laws). When there aren't any "disturbances" to be had we like to play grown-up and eat at the kitchen table.

Since it was Christmas Goose Day I had no choice but to bring out seasonal table linens (I attempted to create The Saltire, Scotland's flag, using white and red cloth settings), fine china and crystal glasses.

(I was already on my second glass of Beerenauslese by this point, which is evident in the table setting - none of the glasses are full except the designated wine glasses.)

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After the altar candles were lit, the ancestors invited/invoked and ushered into the house (I open the backroom's patio door and call out in Ukrainian to all of our ancestors to beckon them indoors to celebrate the festivities with us), the elderberry bottle uncorked and the water poured (since the wine had already been poured by that point, heh) it was time to sit down and give thanks for the annual tradition that is known as Christmas goose.

In addition to the roasted crown of goose (the thighs and legs, as mentioned above, were taken off to make confit) we had homemade German sweet and sour red cabbage, homemade gluten-free bread dumplings smothered with bacon grease and bacon, pyrohy (aka "pierogies", Slavic potato dumplings) smothered with bacon grease and bacon, new potatoes roasted in goose fat, sour cream (to be eaten with the pyrohy), homemade cranberry sauce and homemade plum sauce.

The dinner ended with Italics laughing at me as I gnawed happily on the one goose wing I was allowed (the wing was my mother's favorite part of any bird, so I make the ultimate sacrifice with every roasted bird and offer one of the two wings to the Mother (who is also the Old Woman/Cailleach; IT'S COMPLICATED, I KNOW, BUT IT MAKES SENSE TO MY BRAIN, OKAY?)); he said I sounded like a wild animal eating.

(Wild animals? Loudest fucking eaters in the world. Seriously. You haven't heard euphoric grunting, panting and gnawing until you catch a hedgehog eating sweet potato pancakes or the remains of buffalo wings.<- DON'T TELL ANYONE OFFICIAL THAT I GIVE VISITING WILDLIFE PANCAKES AND BUFFALO WINGS AND CHEESECAKE AND PIZZA, THEY JUST WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND.)

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I'm beginning to frost our EDIBLE Yule Log*, which was almost as late as our BURNING Yule Log (we finally managed to finish it on December 31st; we renamed it "the 2009 Log"). I can't remember when the tradition started, but every year I make a Yule Log for Midwinter (a dessert so rich and filling it sees us through Yule, Christmas and, typically, New Year) and even though this year's was hella late, it was still made.

* A gluten-free chocolate sponge rolled up and stuffed/frosted with a heavy cream, shaved chocolate, Frangelico and sweetened chestnut filling. I always serve the Log with a homemade dessert wine/cream sauce (aka BETTER THAN JIZZ SAUCE), which is so fucking good you can catch me, at least once a day, eating the sauce straight out of the fridge with a spoon.

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Every fucking year I go I'M TOTALLY GOING TO COOK ONE OF THOSE TEENY TINY LITTLE BABY CHICKEN BIRDS FOR THE RATS FOR CHRISTMAS and every fucking year I forget...except for this year.

While we tucked into our Christmas goose dinner, the rats tucked into their roasted poussin (basted in homemade herbal butter and covered with bay leaves and bacon) and there was a serene peace in the house as living people, deceased people, living rats, deceased rats and everything else incorporeal visiting and celebrating with us that night joined in the yearly tradition known as Christmas goose day.

Stag Horse Brass

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Chicken Marengo, Take II

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New Year calls for something special. Normally we splash out and secure ourselves a mother of a rib roast (the highlight of this carnivore's year), although this year I wanted to buck tradition and do something different.

I initially wanted a haunch of wild boar, but I couldn't find anything particularly local. While searching for an on-line supplier we stumbled across an alternative meat site supplying exotics like crocodile, kangaroo, wild boar, kobe/wagyu beef, happy veal and several different types of buffalo (including American bison, something this 1/8th Lakhota hasn't had in a few years).

My flesh eating heart skipped a beat. (<- That's TOTALLY not true. It skipped at least several, and palpitations echoed the staccato whisper of "osso buco".) "EFF A HAUNCH OF FUCKING BOAR! LET'S GET STEAKS OF SEVERAL DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANIMAL AND GRILL ON NEW YEAR'S DAY!" Italics, tempted by bison burgers (something the 8/8th Scotsman hasn't had in a few years), gave me thumbs up provided we waited until the VISA switched before making the order (roughly around the 21st of December).

Without any sort of warning or indication the site closed for the holidays just before the 21st. On Midwinter I sat, mouth agape, credit card in hand staring at the monitor in disbelief. (Oh, it's been ONE OF //THOSE// YEARS (which 2009 distinctly wasn't, at least not until the last three remaining weeks).) My fantasized visions of buffalo burgers and kobe steaks danced straight out of my head into IT AIN'T FUCKING HAPPENIN' land, leaving me with a question mark stamped void.

When the smoke cleared leaving me and the giant abyss I was staring into I realized that I had one option (one option I've been secretly kicking around for a few months that needed the most flimsy, superficial excuse to coax me into finally acting upon it), recreate the first meal I ever made to impress Italics when we were 17 (we're both 29 now) - Napoleon's favorite, Chicken Marengo.

(I'll let you know how it goes, unless it's a complete and utter disaster. And if THAT'S the case, we'll just pretend I never even mentioned it, okay?)

78 Pretty Pictures

Regardless of what my tarot deck collection might say, I don't do tarot. (I also don't do reading, but every room in the house seems to have several towers of books in various corners.) I like it as a concept, but as a divination system it doesn't mesh well with my Choose Your Own Adventure style of life. In some ways, it even goes against my natural instincts as a witch.

As far as witchcraft goes I'm an innie, not an outie. Meaning that everything I do comes internally; I don't outsource shit, and my ability/talents as a witch are products of my subconscious rather than spirits, gods or celestial tentacle overlords bestowing divine blessings upon me. The sun, in my world, revolves around me.

The very heart and foundation of my beliefs? My experiences - which are solely unique to me - trump everything. My reality's been created by the things I've witnessed and lived through first hand, not something broken down - culture by culture - in a reference book. By examining my relationship with the world around me I create my own definition of things based on one-to-one contact.

Tarot falls in an awkward space between FASCINATING and UTTERLY USELESS (for me). I have no personal connection with it. I didn't create the concepts, I didn't create the art, I didn't create the story and I didn't decide how many cards make a fucking deck. There's nothing inherently "me" there. When I sit down and work with it it's like trying to sit comfortably in a chair specifically made to fit the contours of someone else's ass.

Scrying? Tea leaves, coffee foam, broken eggs and entrails? Second nature. Hand me a joint and a bag of chicken bones and I'll show you old skool divination. It's primitive, it's basic and it's the oldest game around. There's no limitations, no restraints. There isn't a filter to make sense of shit. It's a direct link without the need of translation. But that's my "magic" - consciously accessing the subconscious with as little props as possible (props, I should mention, that I've made and have a personal resonance and history with).

I WANT to like tarot, and I'd REALLY LIKE to be a skilled reader, but my natural reaction to it goes against what the tarot's all about. (The thing about "reading" egg yolks and splattered sexual fluids? I don't need to cross reference shit. It's a split second understanding that reaches deep into your psyche. The problem with tarot? When I look at a card and the images displayed my split second understanding that reaches deep into my psyche greatly differs from the artist's interpretation of the card. And that's what using the deck's all about - the artist's definition, not yours/mine.)

It's a love-hate relationship. Seriously. At least this tumultuous affair occasionally provides 78 pretty pictures and the occasional collector's item bought for an absolute steal (see below for one example).

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New Year's Day, 2010. I wasn't planning on laying out a spread, but once it became dark and began snowing I thought I'd ask the Old Woman (aka Cailleach, the Whore, my "darker"/subconscious self) to show me three things from my past, present and future (since She had already come around for Her daily shot of whiskey).

Normally when I play around with any sort of card I sit down with Chippy on the lounge floor and spread the cards in front of us. This time around, though, I decided the kitchen was more appropriate for some reason (a first for me) and set everything up at the base of my kitchen altar.

I first placed a white cloth on the sink, and then overlapped it with a Ukrainian table linen that I cover the ancestral feeding plate with (when it's not in use). Since it was snowing I fixed the Old Woman a plate of food and poured us both a shot of whiskey (Famous Grouse, very Scottish). Mine was left next to the tarot deck I used, Hers was taken outside.

I got high (but not high enough), slipped into a pair of flip-flops, offered the Cailleach Her food and drink (left on a patio pillar outside), invited Her in, promptly fell in the snow when wading towards the clothes line (She laughed) to untie my wedding dress (a Scottish apron) from the line (I hung it up on New Year's Eve, while snowing, beneath the blue moon, partial lunar eclipse and last full moon of 2009) and returned to the house a colder, wetter, more sober witch.

After donning the damp apron I downed my shot of whiskey and took the deck between both hands and invoked Her/myself while chanting and fire gazing (at the lit candle before me). Once I felt suitably tapped in I opened the box, removed the cards and while shuffling began chanting "three for past, three for present, three for future".

(Just before shuffling I thought "OH, WAIT! THIS DECK DOESN'T HAVE BLANK NON-TAROT CARDS, DOES IT?" but I was so caught up in the moment I was all "LOLOLOL, WHATEVER, WHAT'S THE CHANCES ONE BLANK CARD AMONGST SEVENTY-EIGHT OTHERS WILL SHOW UP IN MY NINE CARD READING?". <- True story.)

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The cards that fell from my hands were the cards that were laid. First the past (top, first), then the present (middle, second) and, lastly, the future (bottom, third).

PAST: Woman of Soul (chalice suit, queen), Man of Soul (chalice suit, king), the Fool/0 (R)

PRESENT: 3 of Jewels (pentacles suit), 2 of Jewels (pentacles suit), Child of Soul (chalice suit, page)

FUTURE: Blank, Blank, the Shaman/V (Hierophant) (R)

Remember "WHAT'S THE CHANCES ONE BLANK CARD AMONGST SEVENTY-EIGHT OTHERS WILL SHOW UP IN MY NINE CARD READING?" and "LOLOLOLOL, WHATEVER"? Yeah, well, the Universe remembered, too. I got not one, but TWO "blank" cards in my future row. I'm still rolling my eyes over it. (LOOK WHO'S LOLOLOLOLING NOW! <- Not me.)

Personal dilemmas and mini-crises ignite and overwhelm the second cards are turned over:

Do I "read" the cards blindly? Do I use the artist's booklet? FUCK, THERE ISN'T ANY INFORMATION FOR REVERSED CARDS! Wait, are these cards even meant to be used reversed? If there's no mirrored pattern on the back, and the artist - who changed the deck enough to make it highly personal and different from your standard Rider-Waite copy - didn't provide definitions or interpretations of reversed cards (and incorporated negative aspects within the overall card rather than separating the card into a clear cut positive and negative) surely that negates reversed cards, right?

HOW THE FUCK DID I MANAGE TO GET TWO FUCKING BLANK CARDS IN MY FUTURE ROW? *PEEKS AT DECK'S BOOKLET* HOLY SHIT, //WHAT//? I'M SORRY, SERGIO TOPPI, BUT MY FIRST IMPRESSION WASN'T "CHILD DROWNING" IN THE CHILD OF SOUL CARD. OH, GOD, SHOULD I EVEN BOTHER USING THE ARTIST'S BOOK? I TOTALLY DIDN'T SEE A CHILD DROWNING, //AT ALL//. IS IT WORTH "READING" THESE REVERSED CARDS, OR SHOULD I TURN THEM STRAIGHT? THAT'S NOT A FUCKING OLD MAN, THAT'S THE CAILLEACH! EFF YOU TAROT, I HATE YOU AND NEVER WANT TO TALK TO YOU EVER AGAIN.

...is the precise reason why tarot and I don't get along. I need to take a fucking Valium just to deal with looking at nine effing cards. My ass is sticking to blood, mud and spit.

New Year Resolutions

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January 1st, 2010: Pizza (bacon, mushroom and green pepper), kebabs (grilled chicken, onions, peppers and lettuce shoved in pita bread and smothered with sour cream), chicken nuggets, potato skins and fries (delivered to the door). Nightmare on Elm Street V and Smokey and the Bandit. Homemade chocolate egg nog, sour bubblegum-flavored gummi worms, strawberry beer, selection of cookie'n'chocolate truffles, selection of regional Italian cookies, cappuccino meringues, Turrón de Chocolate and SECRET sour strawberries.

...new year resowhat? (<- Obviously not in our dictionary.)