Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Deemed Worthy

Filed under: Asphalt & Entrails

Outside of this rural subdivision, past the dental practice, old berry farm and butcher stands a tiny little hamlet of a forest on a busy country road surrounded by wheat fields, industrial complexes and new housing. It's recognized woodland, protected and cared for by the government (official trails tricked out with wooden walkways, painted sign posts indicating various routes, sections actively cleared for conservation purposes) and a favorite haunt for nature-lovin' locals.

(Walking and being in the wild? Super huge big here in Scotland. I've never encountered people so passionate about land and their inherent RIGHT to access it. <- Like I said before, Scotland doesn't have any trespassing laws. You go where you want, when you want, provided it's done respectfully and within reason.)

The most active corvid rookery I know about - at least "just out the door" locally - is located there. In a tiny stretch of peninsula-shaped land between the parking lot and wheat field exists a cluster of long-needled pine trees, and those coniferous trees have provided nesting grounds for countless generations of crows.

I've always avoided this particular patch of woodland; too popular, too busy (especially being situated on a narrow country lane way too fucking small to accommodate the full-blown trucks barreling down the broken asphalt), too noisy and too fucking messy. (<- Some Scots love nature so fucking much they'll wheel their McDonald's all the way to the fucking woods to have an idyllic backdrop for lunch, but then they'll follow up their appreciation by tossing their garbage out the car window and into the grass, or parking lot, or the very fringes of the forest.)

I didn't want to get attached to it because people, over the years, have transformed the first section of the forest into a litter-specked wasteland and it's only gotten worse thanks to all of the new houses backing straight up to the woods. I didn't want to be privy to people's love-hate relationship with nature, so I went elsewhere. I spent the last several years exploring the countryside's secret places - far away from people, parking lots and padded trails - which still managed to stay hidden behind crumbling stone walls and overgrown hedges. We haunted the places where you had to slip beneath barbed wire, wade through knee-high grass and scale ancient drystane dykes.

Not this past Saturday, but the weekend before Italics and I visited the rookery in the woods. I knew from previous visits that it wasn't too uncommon to find dead crows there, and seeing how they hadn't moved to a new location it seemed like a prime spot to find the remains of expired birds who died a more natural death (as opposed to being hit by a fucking car). My hunch was right; within minutes of scouting we found one. (A black crow with two white toenails - how's that for auspicious?)

The next morning I projectile vomited all over the fucking bathroom. Italics almost immediately copycatted my ass, although his execution was a lot less spectacular than mine. Our response was so violent, so fucking immediate that there were only the crows to blame. (After finding the one at the rookery we came across a second further down the road with its head partially bashed in, so we actually came home that Saturday with TWO dead crows.) But that's a story for a different entry (because I've already tangented off my original intent).

So we got sick. "Wretchedly sick", if you remember. We couldn't eat for a whole 24 hours (I was deathly afraid to even drink water in case it set me off for a third time), and when the most extreme aspect of our illness passed our appetites only allowed us the occasional bowl of soup, or piece of plain toast. (Not that I didn't try. Italics watched in horror as I voraciously gobbled down steak, tortilla chips, vanilla ice cream and frozen Reeses Pieces. I spent the next two days regretting the binge, but, hey, the homemade DIY Blizzard was a-fucking-mazing after an entire day of not eating jack shit.)

I had several huge meals planned - homemade buffalo wings with hot sauce, gingered duck stir-fry with fresh vegetables and a hearty steak dinner complete with slow-baked potatoes - none of which either of us could stomach. I managed grilling the steak, but I couldn't save the poultry. The defrosted portions of chicken and duck pathetically sat in their protective vacuum sealed bags until I decided to haul them out as offerings for the crows (a lame "thank you for only making us sick and not killing us" gesture).

When we were finally well enough to leave the house for an extended period one of the very first things we did was make a pilgrimage to the rookery to express our gratitude for the bodies and experience they gave us. (Initiation, dear and gentle readers, has its price. In this game you rarely get shit for free; if it's worthwhile having, then it's worthwhile suffering for. Admittedly, I regret that Italics had to bear the same discomfort, but I suppose that's the ultimate price he pays for trying to tame and domesticate a half-feral witch who brings dead things into the house.)

A gift was waiting for us. (Two, actually, if you count the crow we scooped up all Navy Seal-like on the busy, narrow country road.) Beneath the towering pines a lone fledgling laid dead, still soaking wet from the torrential rain that had hammered the countryside a day before. A tiny thing, a wee thing, drenched to the bone and wide-eyed. (It's never pleasant discovering a dead animal, there's always a part of you that wishes you had come earlier as if you somehow stood the chance of saving it if you had only been motivated to go the same route an hour, a day, a week before.)

We tore open plastic bags of rotting meat and neatly piled the offerings into a stinking pyramid of poultry. While I swaddled the baby crow in Ziploc bags Italics poured out a libation of elderflower cider over the meat (which was a particularly nice touch since several bushy elder shrubs grow beneath the collection of nests) as new housing owners jumping on a trampoline with their kids suspiciously looked on. (IT'S CALLED WITCHCRAFT. LET ME SPELL THAT OUT FOR YOU, W-I-T-C-H-C-R-A-F-T. DID YOU GET THAT?)

Our original intent was to stay for a few hours to get acquainted with the place, but after a short amble on a hella easy path we found our energy reserves declining and decided it was better not to push ourselves after being so goddamn sick. I managed to find the first raspberries of the season, but only two berries (all of the others were still tight green buds despite the two having reached perfect ripeness) and on the way home we managed to pull of a roadkill retrieval stunt that surely deserved a round of applause.

(The road? The narrow, crazily busy country lane flanking the woods? The one with enormous semis tearing down patchy asphalt? Even busier than usual. They closed a major intersection that the public uses to access the only grocery store in town, and the diverted traffic is now being funneled ("funneled" because the route is bordered on either side by two massive stone walls) down that tight, dangerously claustrophobic track. Even without the pressure of added commuters the stretch of road is known for recklessly fast driving despite the twists, bends and blind spots.)

(A crow - a huge ass motherfucker of a crow - was nestled against one of the walls, seemingly unsmashed due to the protectively solid nature of the dyke it was leaning against. Italics and I had to time our actions just right, in perfect sync. We couldn't get out of the car, let alone really stop it. Like Falkor snatching Atreyu just as Gmork was closing in Italics partially opened the car door as we coasted past, never moving from his seated position in the car, and lifted the dead bird from the side of the road and into his lap. One, two, three. It was over before it began.)

July 22nd was a long ass day. It was our first full non-Saturn Return day (Saturn left Virgo on the 21st and entered Libra; as far as old man Saturn goes he's someone else's problem for the next 30 years) and, I think, the day the sun entered Leo (which is my ascent, I'm part ram, part fish and part lion). Despite just getting over a serious bout of sickness we both found ourselves pottering around outside even after our forest walk and a spot of grocery shopping. I harvested thistle and feverfew growing outside in the front yard, and then let Italics loose with the lawn mower to take down the meadow my in-laws don't want to see (they come home in two days, SIGH) while I ritually dismembered my fridge full of dead crows.

There was something special about the larger crow we picked up that day. It was a lot of things, the absolute desperation to rescue it despite its awkward (and damn near impossible) positioning, how perfectly preserved and utterly flawless it remained despite having spent several long hours at the very edges of the busiest road in town, it's eerily life-like, frozen appearance. When Italics successfully lifted it from the road I enthusiastically cheered and told him, half-joking, that for all of his effort he could keep it.

It spooked me with its beady, glossy eyes still coal black and sharp (as a roadkill scavenger I'm more used to the frosty, glassy eyes of death). Stiff, but warm, it groggily glared through half-open eyes at its surroundings, dead but very much alive, caught in a bizarre "DON'T ASK ME HOW MY FUCKING DAY'S BEEN" limbo. It must've been hit while walking, and in death it retained its fatal gait. The only obvious trauma it suffered - at least in a superficial appearance - were a few partially twisted toes, and because it wasn't mangled or broken it needed almost no coaxing to stand.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I was hesitant to dismember the crow. It was dead, it was OBVIOUSLY fucking dead, but something was there. Half-aware. Dazed. Alive. I knew it was dead, but a part of me was terrified that it'd awaken mid-decapitation and I'd only realize, after it was too late, that it had only been stunned for the 3-5 hours it remained perfectly still, perfectly stiff. I processed the oldest two first, and then the baby as the large black crow blearily looked on from its container garden roost.

When I finally severed its head from its body fresh, uncoagulated blood trickled from the decapitated bird and thickly pooled at the tips of my toes as if its heart had only just stopped beating. A gift. A truce. Acknowledgement that I had walked through fire and stayed on course, that even if I didn't follow them into death I sacrificed enough as I accompanied and comforted them as best as I could on the long, painful walk to the other side. Through sickness I was tested, they were satisfied and the blood that trickled from the beheaded crow was my initiation.

I anointed myself and wore the bloody cross with pride; I was deemed worthy.

Obsolete

Filed under: Asphalt & Entrails

When you don't rely on a handbook and compass it's sometimes hard to know if you're on the right track. No one's left a reference book for you at the crossroads, so when you wander down the perpendicular lane to the eternal line cutting through your path it's just you, wilderness and your gut. Guidance and confirmation comes from hours-days-weeks of patiently watching out for signs while schizophrenically dismantling secret codes found in every day (seemingly mundane) experiences. Sometimes you're rewarded with an immediate response that borders on divine intervention, sometimes you have to spend a month sifting through 28-31 days of shit just to find two ("n", "o") or three ("y", "e" & "s") simple letters.

Because my beliefs haven't been built on a foundation based on external sources I don't have a definitive book of answers I can refer to. I don't have any commandments, I don't observe any rede. There are times when I have questions - moral questions, ethical questions - and I find myself wondering BUT, IS IT //TOO// MUCH? because a very small part of me is suddenly aware that I'm towing a delicate, practically invisible line. (<- When Ms. Graveyard Dirt - who's normally oblivious to societal constraints and what third parties view as acceptable practices - worries about pushing the envelope then she knows she's probably pushing the motherfucking envelope.)

This game I'm playing isn't easy and doesn't come with a set of rules, but I'd be fucking lying if I didn't admit there are occasions when the other player (the Universe) deliberately shows me its cards to further my ass along. There are occasions when I don't even get the luxury of contemplating the fork in the road; I unceremoniously get shoved in one direction. There's no enticement, no temptation, no snake oil sales pitch. Fuck, there are times when I'm not extended the courtesy of being allowed to make my own "enlightened" choice. Sometimes it seems that the Universe is so fucking paranoid about keeping me on the right path it panic hits auto pilot to ensure there's zero percent chance I'll accidentally detour from destiny.

I inherently know what's right for me. I know, ultimately, that I do what I do because it makes sense, and if it makes fucking sense then I've reached a logical conclusion (to me, I mean) that justifies my actions. Things, however, get a lot more fucking sketchy when I involve someone else because the actions are no longer personal. To me, there isn't anything questionable about skinning roadkill rabbits for their fur (to create a ritual blanket) or eviscerating a dead crow to extract vital organs because I'm doing it for myself for my own use, but if someone pays me for that sort of service does that make me your friendly middleman witch, or a morally repugnant butcher of wildlife?

I know it might not always seem the case, but I take my shit seriously. Crazy fucking seriously. Just because I have an obnoxious ability to see humor in almost all things doesn't mean there isn't a spectrum of depth beneath the superficiality of continuous laughter. I don't worry about what people don't see (fuck, Momma Fortuna had to put a fake horn on a real fucking unicorn so people could "see" her), I worry about what the Universe doesn't see. In fact, I'm even more worried that it sees really fucking well, but unlike the Universe I'm totally oblivious to the truth because I haven't been completely honest with myself about my own motives.

Just incase it isn't entirely clear: I've been agonizing over the entire fairytale hag-witch roadkill thing. A-fucking-lot. Why I should do it, why I shouldn't do it, if people will understand why I'm offering to do it. In many respects I feel like an archaic, mythical figure thrust into a modern, real world. I'm a fear, a nightmare. I work with blood, entrails and bones, my hands are scarred and stained with death. I'm obsolete, a horrific caricature that tightrope walks between the worlds of fact and fiction. I'm not supposed to exist, but I do, and I'm here (for better or for worse) living amongst you.

Only July 22nd I got my resounding YES! from the Universe (no loitering around the crossroads this time), but I don't know if that emphatic confirmation is enough. I don't know if it's enough for the world whose very fringes I live at. When witchcraft has moved onto glitter, gossamer fairy wings and Vogue photo shoots who the fuck is even going to want (or need) crow eyes, rabbit hearts or fox tongues? Maybe my kind is better off contained in stories, and the best possible outcome for us is having our extinction forever immortalized in fairy tales.

Anointed

Filed under: Asphalt & Entrails

"...and thou shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony..." - Exodus 30:26 (King James Version)

Wiping Winter Clean

Filed under: Rituals

What has Ms. Graveyard Dirt learned in seven months that 29 previous years didn't teach her? Two things:

01.) Death, good ole #13, strikes a cosmic balance with Spring's seemingly "new life" monopoly, but in order to appreciate the constant tug and pull you need to witness the body count first hand.

02.) If you inform the Universe how it's supposed to work ("OKAY, OKAY, SO I DO //THIS//, AND IF I DO THAT IT MEANS YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO //THIS//, OKAY?"), you're a fucking moron if you expect it to hold up its end of the deal if you do jack fucking shit yourself.

I've already publicly flagellated myself multiple times for the entire changing of the guard thing. (Long short? Every equinox I'm supposed to thoroughly clean our office/computer room window altar and change the centerpiece (Cobweb Spider for Fall/Winter and Chile Bird for Spring/Summer) to herald in the new "year" (i.e., Dark and Light). This year I was lazy in welcoming Spring; coincidentally, this year was the first year in fucking ages where we got motherfucking snow in May.) I finally admitted my secret Spring-Lent-Easter-Hieros Gamos shame, so what else is there?

On the first day of Summer (aka May Day, Beltane) I, uh, kind've sort've didn't take Stone Cock outside like I was supposed to. Or tie the consecrated ribbons onto the plum trees. Or retire our coffin cover - which we use as a secondary blanket/bed covering when it's Winter - for the Light part of the year. I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW - BAD WITCH. VERY BAD WITCH, NO UNBAPTIZED BABIES FOR A FUCKING MONTH.

It's just...it was never the right time, you know? The stars weren't in alignment, the in-laws were being distracting, I wasn't feeling it, the atmosphere wasn't right, we weren't up at the right time, the weather wasn't being cooperative. I think the immortal words of the king of Siam sums it up best - ET CETERA, ET CETERA, ET CETERA. (<- The problem with et cetera is that it multiples hella quick if you allow a pair to reproduce. DO YOURSELF A HUGE FUCKING FAVOR - NEUTER YOUR EXCUSES OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF A POPULATION BOOM.)

It got done. Eventually. (Four months late, but who's counting?) The blessed ribbons somehow found their way onto the plum trees, Stone Cock was paraded out on Midsummer to join my beloved peach tree (THE MIGHTY PHOENIX RISES FROM HER ASHES! Or, well, leaf curl, in actuality, but "RISES FROM HER ASHES!" sounded marginally more impressive) on the Summer altar, and despite belatedly executing the activities by a half a fucking season it still felt like my spastic tardiness was grudgingly acceptable.

(Hey, I'm fucking trying here, okay? As much as I'd like my PERFECT FANTASY WORLD and my REAL, NON-FANTASY WORLD to merge in divine union it's not going to happen; too many IN REAL LIFE factors, too many clauses resting heavily on other fictional clauses.)

Yeah, so, wiping winter clean - where do I even start?

Normally I don't browse Ebay USA because, inevitably, I'll fall in love with something crazy cheap that I simply can't live without only to find that shipping the cheap ass item overseas to Scotland is the equivalent of sending your first born to university. For financial reasons I usually limit myself to Ebay UK, but, once in a while - when I'm REALLY fucking bored - I'll casually thumb through a few favorite USA-based categories (the mortuary/funeral section, ethnic clothes'n'jewelry and antique holiday decorations).

Several years ago I stumbled across a vintage coffin cover - the real deal - and snagged the motherfucker for the opening bid of $14.95 USD. After a slight kerfuffle (the seller WAY underestimated shipping it internationally and demanded more than double of the postage we already paid, thankfully the in-laws were in Florida at the time so we were able to send it over to them and they brought it home with them via their luggage) the black brocade beauty came home to me.

It only took unfolding the goddamn thing to fall in love with it; despite one or two pinprick holes in the glossy, partially flocked paschal lamb design it was immaculate. Everything about it - the material used, the overlapping gold trim, the handmade cross embellished with embroidery - was lovingly made, giving it the appearance of a serious work of art.

And it is. Serious, I mean (and a work of art, heh). It's a seriously heavy piece of magic that I consider myself lucky and privileged to own. It was created for a specific purpose, and then used repeatedly in a ceremonial setting infusing and defining the object with the passing of countless lives. This ornate, glorified blanket knows its purpose and the biography of its existence is woven into every stitch and crease.

So what did I do with a genuine coffin cover that was used for god knows how many funerals, covering god knows how many dead bodies? What would you do? Wrap it up like the holy fucking grail and stuff it in a locked safe, never to be invoked, but, maybe, occasionally seen once or twice a year when sorting your personal inventory? Keep it eternally folded and on display in a prominent position? Treat it with so much reverence and respect that the only thing it does is gather dust?

Fuck that shit, I tossed it over our fucking bed and used it as a secondary blanket during the colder months (because there's nothing more cosy than the dead keeping you warm as you sleep!). My majestic shroud of death is something I have intimate contact with on a daily basis during the Dark Year: I dream beneath the comforting, lulling weight (you feel them - all of them - the first few weeks, pulling and drawing you down to them, and you go willingly, unafraid, because the pressure pushing down on you is so overwhelming unmalicious and promising), I fuck on the shiny brocade surface (the stains eventually fade away leaving unmarked lambs in their wake), take pictures of newly acquired treasures on the photogenic pattern and every fucking morning, after Italics rises, I pick the crumbled cover up off the floor (it almost always slides off while we sleep), dust it off and fling it back over our bed.

Some things are inherently special, but they're never so special that you have to exclude them from your life and practices. I COULD'VE shelved the cover and only unfolded the motherfucker for V. SRS NECROMANCY/UNDERGROUND TRAVELING but then how would've it been potent? The blanket wouldn't have known me. Fuck, the fucking dead who briefly rested beneath the enveloping material wouldn't have known me. By using it and incorporating it into day-to-day life I made a stronger connection and foraged a personal relationship with it and with everything attached to it. When it's time for me to walk in Darkness I know I won't walk alone.

Because it has such a hardcore link to DEATH, THE OTHER SIDE and SPIRITS it's aired on the first day of Winter (aka Halloween, Samhain) and remains a constant feature until the first day of Summer (aka May Day, Beltane) when it's folded up, ritually cleansed, carefully covered in one of our old bed sheets and retired until the start of the Dark Year. (<- I mean, in my PERFECT FANTASY WORLD. In REAL, NON-FANTASY WORLD it gets done when it gets done, although it normally doesn't take as long as it did this year.)

It's hard to say what requires more effort (i.e., pulling out or putting away). Our bedroom goes through an annual deep clean (all magic-style) in the weeks leading up to the first day of Winter. (See Cleaning Up After the Bride, Cleaning Day I, and Cleaning Day II.) Draping the coffin cover over a just purified bed is the last step in welcoming the Whore, but the activities and events leading up to that moment can take days (and, in some cases, even weeks). Retiring the cover simply requires me to "wipe Winter clean", although I need to be IN THE ZONE which demands a little more effort than physically cleaning a room and washing bed linens.

After folding the coffin cover - with excruciatingly amounts of care - I run it through three types of incense smoke (I start with frankincense, move to rosemary and finish with sage*) before tightly wrapping it up in one of our old bed sheets and placing it beneath our bed for the duration of the Light Year. And beneath our living bodies the dead sleep, for half a year, resting and waiting until Winter's great Whore calls out them to keep us safe and warm throughout the Dark Year.

* This year I found myself petitioning my dead mother while fumigating the cover with sage. Which isn't SO strange because I associate sage with my mom (thanks to being part Native American I was raised following the traditions of my great-grandfather; sage is used to purify ("smudging") and because I was raised using it for that specific purpose I still use it today even though I no longer follow any Lakhota practices), but it is kind've sort've strange because I've never formerly involved her in anything I've ever done (magically and spiritually, I mean).

Conjuring the Dead

Filed under: #13

How do I spend my first morning of utter freedom? I drive myself up the fucking wall trying to track down a copy of Harry Belafonte's Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora) (in record form) for future necromancy rites*.

* This shit? Is precisely why other witches and magic orientated folk don't give me the time of day. (CAN I HELP IT THAT MY BIGGEST NECROMANTIC INFLUENCE (AND STRONGEST MENTAL ASSOCIATION FOR RAISING THE DEAD) INVOLVES CALYPSO MUSIC AND A LINE OF DECEASED FOOTBALLERS DANCING? IF GOD DIDN'T WANT ME PLAYING HARRY BELAFONTE WHILE CONJURING THE DEAD THEN HE WOULDN'T HAVE CREATED CALYPSO, BEETLEJUICE AND ME.)

A Slippery Fish

Filed under: Life

I'm staring dumbly at the blank (well, not SO blank now) "CREATE A NEW ENTRY" interface because I have no fucking idea what I want to say.

(I want to say something, right? I mean, why settle your ass down to write a journal entry when you've got fuck all to say AND you've got a manila envelope stuffed full of seeds waiting to be planted on this glorious Saturday afternoon? Oh, wait. That's why - Saturday; one of TWO days I have to share the house with both in-laws simultaneously.)

("Weekend" doesn't exist when you cohabit with your in-laws and you work at home. There's no point in working because within 10 minutes someone'll start making noise you can't fucking ignore, there's no point in cleaning because within 10 minutes they'll trash the room, there's no point in engaging in a hobby because within 10 minutes they'll find a reason to bug your fucking ass.)

(Saturday and Sunday are write-off days here where I get NOTHING accomplished (SORRY, BUT FEELING FRUSTRATED DOESN'T COUNT AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT) and chant my way ("IT'S ONLY FOR TWO DAYS, THEN IT'S MONDAY, IT'S ONLY FOR TWO DAYS, THEN IT'S MONDAY, IT'S ONLY FOR..") throughout the 48 hours to help me retain any semblance of sanity.)

(Pot, as you'd imagine, helps, but that's a tricky game that needs to be played carefully. <- See "GOOD LORD, WHY ARE YOUR EYES SO RED?" and "YOU TWO LOOK AWFULLY SLEEPY TODAY!".)

We've been so busy that it's thrown me out of whack. House busy I can handle, house busy is usual busy which I've categorized, compartmentalized and refined over the course of several years. I'm a motherfucking PRO when it comes to house busy. It's the non-house shit - appointments, interacting with people, living life to a schedule - that always rocks the fucking boat and leaves me feeling unsettled.

(Is it noticeable? I feel like it is. The past few weeks it feels like I've been wrangling with a floundering fish covered in extra slippery lube. I haven't dropped it, but restraining the goddamn thing has required some exquisite fucking acrobatics and I'm beginning to wonder what's the fucking point. <- PERHAPS "PUT THE FISH IN THE FUCKING WATER WHERE IT FUCKING BELONGS AND LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE, I MEAN, JESUS, YOU DON'T EVEN //LIKE// FISH IN THE FIRST PLACE!".)

I keep saying shit like IT'S BECAUSE IT'S SPRING and IT'S BECAUSE SHAKEY/WUZZA'S DIED and IT'S BECAUSE THERE'S A LOT OF FUCKING SHIT GOING DOWN but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm already sort've unconsciously panicking at the thought of what was routine, for nearly 10 years, soon coming to an end.

When Choney leaves us we'll be ratless/petless for the first time in nearly a decade. A decade. A fucking decade. That's a fucking 10 year old bringing home their math homework asking for help in fields of geometry you don't fucking remember. Ten years is a way of life; it's a significant fraction of a person's existence.

I know superficially it'll be the same - I'll still cook, still clean, I'll still hammer away in this little space of mine, I'll still masturbate before falling asleep and I'll still get stoned and watch nature programs just before bed to cut dreaded thoughts of mortality off at the pass. The motions will be the same, but it'll be emptier without that feeling of companionship.

We took Chooch to the vet the other day for surgery consultation and I got slapped in the face with an option that I didn't even bother considering: it would kill Choney to remove the massive mammary tumors clustered behind one of her front legs. They're too large to be operable, and they're growing in an awkward position (just behind the armpit) that'd open her up to serious infection.

I went in for a miracle (that I thought was a sure thing), and instead I got handed a death sentence. I had a hormonal moment in the consultation room and cried. It was HELLA embarrassing; the vet had to tear off a handful of paper towels for me. Italics went quiet and held onto my forearm. In our silence we thought the same thing: we're going to lose her because of those fucking tumors.

We just lost Denny's because of mammary tumors (which are totally benign, believe it or not, it's just that they inevitably get in the way of living after a certain point of growth) and I'm plagued with horrendous, soul crushing guilt because if we could've afforded it and had them removed early on she'd still be with us. How many months did those fucking tumors steal from Wuzza? How many months will Choo-Choo's tumors steal from her?

All I've heard from the vet, friends and in-laws is "BUT YOU GUYS DO YOUR VERY BEST AND IT'S OBVIOUS THAT YOU GUYS REALLY, REALLY CARE FOR YOUR RATS" and I want to scream "THAT'S BULLSHIT, BECAUSE IF THAT WAS THE CASE I WOULD'VE BEEN SELLING BLOWJOBS LEFT AND RIGHT TO AFFORD SURGICALLY REMOVING THEIR MAMMARY TUMORS" but I politely thank them, offer a weak, forced smile and shuffle away to quietly spend time with my morbid thoughts.

Anyway. So.

A slippery fish. An end of things; some major Death, some minor Death. A semi-recent passing of a pet, a very recent passing of a pet and an eventual passing of a pet. Possibly a friendship (I'm a shit friend, anyway), possibly a husband (although I've been quietly working on that one), possibly a way of life. So many changes, so much upheaval, it's no fucking wonder why I feel unsettled and antsy.

Slippery fish that I've desperately been clinging onto, if I let you go will you be Boadicea's hare for me?

Denny's Dumpster

Filed under: Rituals

When we first saw her - when she was an impossibly small baby - Italics said "she looks like a rat who'd live in a dumpster behind a Denny's" and the name just sort've suck. To celebrate her life with us we built Wuzza her very own Denny's dumpster to rest in during last night's wake.

The Last Clean

Filed under: Burn the Witch

Since I don't have the entire house to myself, I steal pieces of it whenever I can. Last year I appropriated the kitchen's windowsill (most subtle Ms. Graveyard Dirt altar ever? probably), but before that I staked my claim to a patch of carpet next to the backroom's patio door. In Spring it serves as a greenhouse for my germinating plants, in Summer it provides the heat needed for Papa's chili plants to fruit, in Fall I spread our harvest out on the ground to dry and in Winter, if I have my shit together (obviously this year I didn't), it's where we proudly display our stoner Christmas tree.

As retarded as it sounds, one of the huge highlights of my day is walking into the backroom and staring down at all of my little "projects". (Satisfaction is surveying all that you own - every piece with its own story - on mismatched vintage plates and trays.) Despite the familiarity I still somehow manage to get excited when soaking in the scene.

I suppose it reminds me that I don't need to wear a label, or know the "technical" name for what I'm doing or what I'm engaging in. I don't NEED to know what everyone else calls it, or what everyone else is doing, or how everyone else is doing it. I'm already doing "it", and I've been doing it for years without anyone's help or without referring to a book. If you took the scarlet word "witch" away from me I'd still live it, I'd still breathe it. It's always been there, regardless of what I or other people call it (as if that wasn't already evident enough).

My father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, returns home on the 26th. It's been a blissful month of a certain sort of serenity. In the past several weeks I know that no one's touched my shit, thrown my shit out, broke my shit, stolen my shit or ruined my shit. That peaceful certainty ends soon, which is precisely why I'm executing THE LAST CLEAN. Everything you see above? The very last of 2009 that needs to be bagged, tagged and put away. I need to sort as much as I can - as quick as I can - so I don't experience the all to familiar "misunderstandings" and "accidents" that seem to dog my father-in-law's existence.

My foraging isn't limited to indigenous plant life. I'm routinely picking up discarded or lost articles. Stupid things, little things - broken pieces of jewelry, old playing cards, parts fallen off cars or equipment. If it's in my path it's significant, so it gets picked up, cleaned off, bagged, tagged (including the date, where I found it and the circumstances behind the outing) and stored away for future use.

I found the aborted Pac-man coin on a cemetery excursion, and it's nestled in a bag with two black plastic pieces - one rectangular (it reminded me of a blank domino) and one circular (it reminded me of a blank poker chip). There's also fingernail clippings (mine), a pair of diaper pins (the white plastic heads slide over the tucked in needles so they can't spring open), Wadjet's key and Tawaret's steering wheel (we've been trying to get a car for several years now, but it wasn't until I put the toy steering wheel at the foot of my Tawaret statue and a key I found at the foot of Wadjet's statue that the wish actually materialized) which all sits on a white envelope filled with some of my hair clippings.

I WANT to say these are the very last pieces of dried animal I need to deal with, but that'd be a lie. (If I remember right there's several roadkill hedgehog skins in the outside room (and when I say "skins" I really mean the bristly spines attached to a piece of leathery hide), four sets of feathers (off the most recent pheasant roadkill I scavenged) and I think there's one or two inside-out poached rabbit pelts I found when walking in the woods.)

Buried beneath the two wishbones (the larger, more robust looking one is from our Christmas goose, the smaller, fragile looking one is from a chicken) is Italics' fajita dolphin; we're planning on setting him free the next time we make it to the ocean. The snakeskin looking mess at the back of the dish? One of the Christmas goose's toes. For whatever reason they forgot to remove one of the appendages which meant one very special Yuletide gift from the Universe this year: a goose claw.

(I have pictures of all of this shit uploaded on Flickr, I just haven't had the time to tell the stories yet. If you promise not to appear openly bored when I tell unseasonal Ms. Graveyard Dirt stories, I promise to eventually get around to telling unseasonal Ms. Graveyard Dirt stories.)

The very last of our offerings to various spirits, entities, helpers and ancestors that need to be disposed of. (The chocolate cigar was given to Papa during Christmas, the chocolate heart is my Aries Valentine's Day chocolate, the toffee candies were placed in offering bowls at the foot of the Christmas tree and the gingerbread man, who totally was Italics' idea, dubiously sat amongst other Yuletide treasures.)

I'm planning to leave the cigar at Papa's grave, and I'm going to leave the toffees for the kids at the disturbed children's home (which we pass when walking to the graveyard). I haven't really decided where I'm going to lay the rest, but when I do it'll either be the cemetery, the cairn at the cemetery, the outside "oven", or the local standing stones.

Miniature brandy snifters that sat on the Winter altar. The one on the left is filled with Fet Ghede dirt (for a more detailed explanation of WTF Fet Ghede dirt is click through to the journal entry CLEANING DAY 1) and the one on the right is filled with salt (the salt water evaporated leaving crystals behind).

The homemade dirt mix correlates with Papa, who's my chthonic earth representative (Papa's one of the major aspects of the divine male/king that I work with, live with and fuck), the salt water correlates with Tentacle Monster, who's my chthonic water representative (TM represents my spiritual and emotional house). The unpopped popcorn seed in the empty salt water glass? Representative of the garbage my father-in-law dumped on my Winter altar when he was too fucking lazy to throw in the kitchen's trash can. (He got seriously told off for doing it in 2008, so what did he do in 2009? The same fucking thing.)

The Fet Ghede has been funneled back into its jar, but I'll be adding a pinch into the ash mixture and homemade salt scrub I'll soon be making to anoint and purify our bodies and bed frame. (I haven't had a chance to address how I observe Ash Wednesday and Lent, so just pretend you know what the fuck I'm talking about.) I've already rehydrated the salt glass with a mixture of freshly fallen snow (scooped off the top of sprouting spring bulbs) and some icicle water (I collected the most impressive icicles off the house this year and poured their melted forms into a plastic bottle for various witchery) so I can add the moistened mixture to my ash paste and cleansing scrub.

I'm keeping the popcorn kernel, though, because there are some things you shouldn't have to be told twice, Mr. Awesome. (DOES THAT SOUND OMINOUS? GOOD, IT SHOULD.)

I went outside to make an offering, and when I opened the patio door my stone cock - THE stone cock from my outside Phallic Worship altar at the base of the Shango Tree - hurdled itself to the floor without ANY provocation, smashing one of my ritual plates below. Three days later I still have no fucking clue what "pushed" the heavy ass rock off the center of the table.

Remember? From the journal entry 96 HOURS? Thankfully the tray wasn't one of my super awesome beloved FOR REALS ritual plates (in other words, the little Italian number I picked up last year). I was pretty fucking resentful over the loss, so I left the mess untouched for days.

The dried leaves on the broken dish are off my indoor lemon rose geranium. There's some rosemary, too, underneath the mess (which I swept into the homemade chicken stock I made last night for Shakey Bear). (<- Dying pets are fed homemade soup made with homegrown ingredients, and freshly boiled potatoes mashed with sour cream and cream cheese.)

This ramekin of dirt has been the bane of my existence for not one, not two, but at least three years. (Long story short? Several years back a water pipe broke in the street adjacent to our property. The event was significant for several reasons, so before they closed the coffin-sized hole I threw in a homemade witch bottle (filled with urine, pins, magic mushrooms, nails, hair and other things) and scooped out some dirt for myself. I mean, it's not every day the crossroads YOU LIVE ON are dug up for your benefit, right?)

Soon, crossroads dirt, I'm going to pry you out of your ramekin tomb, batter you into a fine powder and funnel your ass into an appropriately labeled baby food jar.

Leaves from the bay tree on the patio. This past "Dark Year" (what I call the time between Harvest and Easter) I incorporated a lot of evergreen growing in our yard into various altars (Harvest Home, for example, and the kitchen's ever-changing Yule spread). I'm an unapologetic bay whore; it goes in EVERYTHING. (Probably because my signature dishes - which I cook often during winter - are peasant-y soups, stews and casseroles.)

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/?

Last night I carefully tapped 2009's Yule Log seeds out of their ceramic dish into a plastic baggie and tucked the packet into my seed box. I have no fucking clue what I'm going to do with pine trees, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. (<- I ALWAYS DO.)

Wheat from the crop of the most recent roadkill pheasant we picked up. When I butchered and cleaned the bird I saved all of it so I could plant the seeds in Spring. I also added a token amount of the pheasant (i.e., small bits of skin and tiny feathers) so when I did sow the kernels they'd grow from the remains of the bird. (<- Life, death and rebirth.)

Hardneck garlic that was SUPPOSED to be planted back in October of last year. (I was busy, okay?) When the month old (and THEN some) blanket of snow finally melted I raced outside to plant the motherfuckers, only to find that my father-in-law had BURIED LEAVES HE WAS INSTRUCTED TO THROW AWAY AT A LOCAL COMPOSTING SITE IN THE SAME SPOT I HAD PREPPED TO GROW GARLIC.

(It's even more involved than that, but I keeping that particular WTF? story for later. Suffice to say - I raked those leaves in November to finish the job he started (and walked away from), packed them in bags for him to cart away only to discover he BURIED A PORTION OF THE GARDEN WASTE in a spot that I OBVIOUSLY HAD PREPARED TO PLANT SOMETHING IN so instead of sowing late, late garlic I actually spent the day RERAKING LEAVES I HAD ALREADY RAKED UP ONCE AND REPACKING THE SAME BAGS WITH THE SAME FUCKING LEAVES.)

The most upsetting part? I mean, other than having to redo the work that I did over three fucking months ago because someone decided they were too fucking lazy to do the easier job (i.e, simply throwing out prepackged waste)? It snowed the day after, and it's been snowing since. I never actually got my garlic in the ground because I had to spend the ONE DAY it was conducive to plant cleaning up Mr. Awesome's mess (which I originally had to do in November as well).

"Pissed" doesn't even cover it. Seriously.

Some of the shots I managed to pull out of the SEVEN LOUSY RABBITS that the Universe gave me last Fall. (It's long, involved and complicated. My suggestion? Read the journal entry.) These are shots that killed; they're worth their weight in magic gold. (If you don't understand why, then you're probably not cut out for my personal brand of witchcraft.)

Unshelled nuts that I incorporated into the kitchen table's Christmas centerpiece and dried rowan berries from our tree out front. We're going to split open the nuts and scatter the broken pieces as an offering to the local wildlife, and I'm currently picking through the rowan clusters to finally jar up the dried berries.

(I was supposed to string the motherfuckers, but we were stupid busy this past Fall so they all dried before I could thread one effing berry. NEXT YEAR, DAMMIT, NEXT YEAR. <- Especially since I now have A CAR which means I can gather rowan berries from all of our special places further afield (i.e., near standing stones, cairns and stone circles).)

Because I chose to refrain from (most) contact with (most of) my family, they didn't bother notifying me when my grandfather died. I got a letter, several months after the fact, requesting that I stop sending my grandfather cards and gifts because he had died earlier in the year. Since I wasn't even given the chance to send flowers to his funeral I spent all of the next year - 2009 - incorporating Didi into my practices and our celebrations.

When I heard he had passed on one of the very first things I did was pick him up a bottle of Heineken (his favorite beer) and I left it - for almost an entire year - hidden behind Papa's headstone. (I removed it when Winter came, so the glass wouldn't break.) The bottle was displayed on several altars throughout the Dark Year to keep my grandfather close to me during his first year of death.

Soon I'll be taking the beer back to the graveyard to pour the contents out as an offering. (HE'S WAITED LONG ENOUGH FOR HIS BEER, RIGHT?) I've decided to keep the emptied bottle, though. I'm planning on refilling it with regular ole water and asking Didi to bless it so I can anoint/water my fruit trees with his expertise and wisdom.

(For those of you who don't know, my grandparents recreated THE OLD COUNTRY (aka Ukraine) in southeastern Wisconsin. I grew up running around barefoot on two acres filled with vegetable gardens, ancient oaks, fruit bushes, manicured flower beds and an orchard. I'm MOSTLY growing fruit trees and bushes because I FUCKING LOVE FRUIT AND I LOVE HARVESTING FRUIT, but also because it's my ancestral link to THE OLD COUNTRY and, in a weird way, I'm sort've paying homage and respect to the memory of the Eden I grew up in.)

The bottle of water? Melted icicles. I harvested the most impressive specimens that grew off the roof this past December and funneled their unfrozen forms into a plastic water bottle. (Sometimes you need Winter in Summer so I store snow and ice in the freezer for various forms of witchery (ranging from weather magic to purification rites).)

I'm almost afraid to freeze the contents of the bottle because I was planning on using an ice cube tray (so I wouldn't have to defrost the entire container every time I needed some Winter), and I know EVEN IF I say DON'T TOUCH THIS SHIT and go as far as STICK A NOTE ON THE TRAY SAYING "DON'T TOUCH THIS SHIT" my father-in-law will still use the cubes in his daily nightcap. (You wouldn't believe how many supplies and bottles I've cleaned that he's thrown out even though I taped a neon sticky note to it (reading "I NEED THIS, PLEASE DON'T THROW IT OUT").)

That Sort've Witch

Filed under: Tea Leaves & Entrails

One of these days (most likely after I finish up with my Bride’s Day/Imbolc shit) I’ll sit down and tell you all about my first foray into haruspicy (entrails reading).

(OH, HONEY, I’M //THAT// SORT'VE WITCH.)

January 29th, 2010

Filed under: Tea Leaves & Entrails

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

Jan. 27th Pheasant

Filed under: Asphalt & Entrails

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...

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.)

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.)

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.)

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/.

Six Months

Filed under: Cailleach

Six months ago I was standing outside on the patio, jar of Bride's Honey in hand, smiling, silent and serene beneath the radiant Midsummer sun. The backyard was singing with life - bumblebees, birds and insects, flitting, buzzing and pollinating. I was standing in the center of Life, enveloped by the certainty of growth and harvest.

"Can you believe in six months it'll almost be Christmas and all of this will be covered in snow?"* I turned and said to Italics. We laughed like it was private joke (immortality laughing at mortality), standing side by side as the honey became warm and slick by the summer sun. Winter - death and darkness and frozen cold - felt like something out of a fairytale, something exotic and too alien to even consider when surrounded by a multitude of green.

The Old Woman (aka Cailleach) has been visiting daily for almost a week. The temperature drops, the snow becomes crisp and everything sits in deafening silence until the scratching, whirling sounds of flurries disturbs the hushed cathedral-like atmosphere. I visit Her every day in my wedding dress (a Scottish apron), collecting the snow in the folds of the material, spiritually bagging away the wind, the cold, the frozen, stinging water for future use.

"OLD WOMAN, TEACH ME YOUR MAGIC," I demanded, and She broke my body. "OLD WOMAN, TEACH ME HOW TO CONTROL THE WIND." With Her rattling, decrepit lungs She blew Winter's wind into my mouth as we kissed and the Breath of God ran through me. (It made me sick; bedridden, for over a year. After 28 years of living my body suddenly forgot how to breathe. After 29 years of living I suddenly realized why.)

"BABA, TI-BEH YEAST-TEH," I call out to Her whenever it snows. (Loosely translated to "GRANDMOTHER, FOR YOU TO EAT".) We always share a shot of Famous Grouse (Scottish whiskey) and now, more than ever, the amber liquid slides down like medicine (instead of poison; neither Italics or I are drinkers, pot's 100% our "vice" and anything that remotely tastes like spirits is likely to garner a serious puke face from us).

I make Her a half sandwich because She likes bread and meat (and bones and booze), and both offerings - the shot of whiskey and sandwich - are always set out on one of the patio's pillars. She shares Her offerings with the birds, She shares Her secrets with me. I occasionally wonder if anyone else feeds Her when She visits, if anyone else goes out to greet Her as She hobbles along. Maybe that's why She visits more frequently than She did before - someone puts a light in a window for Her.

Six months ago I was newlywed, standing barefoot on the sun-warmed patio with a jar of spiced honey in my hands. Six months later the last traces of the Virgin Bride's gone, buried beneath the flawless cover of an awe-inspiring wedding veil - a ghostly apparition, a memory, but also a premonition and promise of what's to come.

(* I knew we'd have snow like I knew Spring would come early. On Midsummer I saw snow covering the yard - the fallen rowan blossoms in the front, the shriveled cow parsley flowers (<- worn in my hair when we performed the sacred marriage rite in a local wheat field) on the window ledge (my kitchen altar). Where ever I looked - even indoors - I saw a delicate blanket of fragile white. "We're going to have a white Yule," I informed Italics, but no one else, because it's embarrassing to get this shit wrong in public (even though I've never been wrong).)

She Washes Her Plaid

Filed under: Cailleach

ETA: I love how this turned out to be journal entry #365. OH, UNIVERSE, <3!

Last night the Old Woman washed Her plaid in Corryvreckan, stripping the bold colors from Her tartan as She plunged it into the ocean's churning spiral, using the whirlpool as Her cauldron as She transformed Her traditional dress into the white shroud of winter. (They say that the snow's the Cailleach's bleached plaid, thrown across the land, blanketing the earth as it dries beneath the sky.)

I'm not unfamiliar with raging, temperamental goddesses. I understand the fire and the ice, I understand the volatility and how a breath of air can either inflame or extinguish. There's a fine line between creation and destruction; one hand lowered, one hand raised, both extended parts of the same body. It's a cosmic balancing act, a tightrope performance as old as time itself.

When the Old Woman called I didn't know about Her, but I knew Her. "We're blue skinned, you know," the Black Rabbit told me when I was Underground. HOLY SHIT, I thought, EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT US. Blue is, if you think about it, universal. The blue skinned are the creators and destroyers, the raging ones, the fighting ones, the dead and risen ones, the ones who scream, fuck and storm. They tear, they claw, they lash out, but within the whirlwind of passionate action and movement, there's hidden compassion, hidden love and a greater purpose to the maelstrom of violence.

(Of course We're complex and contradictory, We're Woman. That's the beautiful, awe and fear inspiring thing about Us. We storm, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because it gets away from us. The trick is controlling the air flow. INFLAMING (too much air) and EXTINGUISHING (not enough air) aren't the answers, they're primitive - and very powerful, in a primal, animalistic way - extremes.)

(All of Us have extended hands, one lowered, one raised, but not enough of Us work on equalizing the extension. Instead of pointing at the ground and sky (creation, destruction) We should be reaching out with both hands, because, honey, that's the ONLY way you can grab and control something (unless you're thoroughly convinced that Jesus is going to take the fucking wheel, good luck with that, BTW).)

(My stomach valve had to break in order for me to appreciate this shit. Hopefully one of your body's involuntary functions doesn't have to suddenly STOP WORKING so you can have your own personal epiphany. But that's my magic; to know blood you need to know blood. I had to learn the importance of a breath of air, and in doing so it's begun solving two problems (one physical and one spiritual).)

(Now I'm REALLY tangenting from the original point of this entry, sorry.)

The Cailleach called me down to Her whirlpool, where I was stripped clean in the divine washerwoman's "cauldron". There was more than that, though. There was jumping into the tumultuous water of the whirlpool to save people from being swept down into the vortex. ("MOTHERFUCKING RETARDS," I shouted from rocky craigs overlooking the swirling mass of water, having to jump into the dangerous waves again and again to save drowning lemmings.)

The spiral that twisted the sea was feminine. Ancient. Feral. Terrifying. If the burning bush was the face of God, then the whirlpool was the vaginal canal leading to the great Creatrix's womb. I could only look at the roaring waters from the corner of my eyes, partially out of fear, but mostly due to the overwhelming feeling of absolute sacredness. It was the Ark, and even though I wasn't a Nazi I was still at least PRETTY SURE looking directly at the whirlpool would melt my face.

I also dreamt about a terrifying monster of a bull appearing in a field we were cutting through. He charged; there was no place to go. His body blocked the sun as he barreled towards me, and instead of escaping, instead of racing from the inevitable I stood my ground, lacking every survival instinct I otherwise should've had. I was prepared to die, an unseen, silent sacrifice.

Petrified but certain I closed my eyes when I felt his hot breath blast over my skin, not wanting to see my own death...but it never came. Humid heat from the panting bull rolled over me, but not through me. When I opened my eyes - still alive - the sun broke over the bull's back, partially blinding me with fierce light and outlining the massive beast that was kneeling in front of me.

The Great Bull submitted to me as sun spilled over our bodies, his giant, curved horns pointed down in submission and supplication. Breathless I reached out and placed my palm flat against his sweaty brow, reeling in shock that I was still alive and what surely had to be a divine creature was kneeling - BOWING - to me.

I was sick that night almost three (four?) years ago. I had a cold that wormed its way into my chest and was threatening to become a V. serious case of bronchitis. It was also the beginning of the last great depressive episode in my life. When I woke up from the lucid dreams I was shaking and unnerved. I retold both to Italics, and during a moment of curiosity I typed in "goddess" and "whirlpool" into Google and was rewarded with the Cailleach of Corryvreckan.

The Corryvreckan is the world's third largest whirlpool and, unknown to me at the time, is located in Scotland. Attached to the oceanic feature is the ancient figure of the Cailleach, the winter hag, the storm bringer, the divine washerwoman. She's presumed to be old. So old, in fact, that She's believed to have once been considered one of the greatest of goddesses (the goddess of the goddesses, the mother of all), but time's weathered Her image and She's now remembered as an elemental (temperamental, heh!) deity of folklore.

When I realized there was a whirlpool in Scotland I didn't even know about I began crying. When I realized there was a whirlpool in Scotland I didn't even know about AND a very primitive, elemental goddess (at the time I had expressed interest in controlling the weather - bringing the snow, stopping the rain, making the winds blow) was attached to it I began crying even harder. I was bawling by the time I realized every image of Her I came across depicted Her with blue skin.

(I, uh, cry a lot. Language is frustrating, a lot of things don't translate right (or well) when filtered through an autistic brain. Emotions, however, don't need to be explained, so they're naturally expressed through tears. Happy tears. Sad tears. Tears of pain, tears of joy. Ecstatic tears, despondent tears. Freya's golden tears of living, loving and losing.)

A lot people drop the "I WAS CALLED" bomb in paganism and witchcraft. I try not to use popular vernacular (primarily because I don't consider myself your normal, run-of-the-mill witch and don't want to be confused with - or lumped together - with a scene I'm trying my hardest to avoid), but if dreaming about a very specific natural feature (and the primordial goddess attached to it) despite not knowing about it and then finding out that the same natural feature - goddess included - is only SEVERAL FUCKING HOURS AWAY then, fine, yeah, "I was called".

ANYWAY...!

(If you've been reading my journal for any length of time you'll find that it's absolutely impossible for me to tell a story without wandering off the path to tell several stories to better explain the original story. I talk. A lot. But I also want people to UNDERSTAND where I'm coming from, which is the entire point of keeping a diary that's open and accessible to others.)

(The thing is, I don't want people to mimic or copy, I want people to GET ME and GET HOW I THINK so they understand why I do the things I do. And in that understanding I hope that people will BEGIN THINKING FOR THEMSELVES instead of relying on the same book that's been kicked around for years.)

(Not that books are V. V. BAD, but they can become a crutch. Someone who relies on books is someone who isn't working on instinct (or displaying any signs of innate creativity) and, more often than not, simply consuming and regurgitating someone ELSE'S experiences and beliefs.)

This entry was only supposed to be several paragraphs long (re: last night's first snow and how I celebrated the Old Woman returning home and doing Her laundry) but I got a LEETLE sidetracked. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to sink my teeth into how I "work" with the Cailleach, but that'll have to wait for another time. Seeing how winter's officially fallen onto Scotland I'm sure the topic will get kicked around a few times before the (Virginal Spring) Bride returns.

Dreading Mortality

Filed under: The Black Arts

Last night I woke up from a nightmare where Italics died (supposedly, it never got confirmed) in a freak accident walking to the local shopping center. One of his childhood friends who still lives across the street (whom I never met, but heard plenty of stories about) witnessed the event, and it triggered some sort of psychotic episode and the guy committed suicide, citing Italics's death in his note.

My brother-in-law was with me when news of the neighbor's death surfaced. I was beyond consolable; I was a crazed animal - clawing, screaming, thrashing. Italics's older brother tried to tame the beast, but I fought back in desolation and despair. ("WHO THE FUCK LIES ABOUT SEEING THE DEATH OF A CHILDHOOD FRIEND IN A SUICIDE NOTE?" and "WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT IT'S TRUE? IT'S SO RANDOM, SO BIZARRE IT HAS TO BE TRUE! NO ONE MAKES THAT SORT'VE SHIT UP FOR NO REASON!")

The dream never resolved itself. I woke up with the weight of mortality around my shoulders, and no matter what I did I couldn't shift the burdening yoke. There were fears within fears, and an increasing sense of futility and pointlessness (the kind that makes it easy to accept that there isn't anything after this and we're moving through an one act play that will eventually be swallowed by oblivion).

When Italics stumbled out of bed he found me despondent at the computer. Despite being up several hours I couldn't fall into my normal routine (<- HENCE NO ENTRY YESTERDAY), and by the time he woke up I was wallowing in existential melancholy sprawled over my ancient keyboard (which predates Italics even KNOWING me).

He listened to my dream and let me cry. He patted my head when I confessed I felt guilty spending any "non-work" time on the computer because if this IS all we get, I'm systematically flushing very precious moments of time I could be spending with HIM down the cosmic toilet. He reminded me that even if I felt that way, we still spend more time together than the average married couple (we both work at home so we're never apart) and, despite co-inhabiting with his parents, we live a fairly intimate, woven life together.

So, to distract myself from the inevitably of death (and whatever DOES - or doesn't - follow), I tried to lose myself in cooking. Lunch was prepared, eaten and digested, followed quickly by the creation of a Ukrainian apple cake and while that was baking I prepared ANOTHER reduced-to-clear lamb treasure (this time a whole shoulder weighing nearly 6lb for only £6.00!) for dinner.

(I heavily seasoned the joint with several types of peppers and salts and massaged in a fresh rosemary-garlic-smoked bacon grease-butter unguent just before roasting. Then, once the skin developed a beautiful golden color, I poured over a mixture of stock, bay leaves and red wine and basted the shoulder with the liquid every twenty minutes. Total cooking time? Two hours and thirty minutes. <- THAT'S A LOT OF EFFING BASTING, YO.)

Despite all of the effort and babying of the roast we never managed to eat our lamb supper. An hour before the joint was ready - between PAPERBOY and BUBBLES (because nothing quelches the uncertainties surrounding death better than early 80s video games) - we got hella hungry and raided the kitchen. Dinner ended up being crusty bread, olive oil spread and a platter of mixed cured meats (two types of ham, two types of salami, and chorizo). I did, however, have room for cake. (WHO DOESN'T, RIGHT?)

My grandparents (and mother) crossed the immigrant ocean in 1951 and settled in Chicago, but when my grandfather retired he and my grandmother relocated to two acres of land in southeastern Wisconsin. There they recreated the Ukraine of their youth - fruit orchards, vineyards, vegetable and flower gardens, it was a veritable paradise of memories brought to life.

The majority of the fruit they planted was apple (more than an entire acre of their property was dedicated to growing various species, my favorite (for both climbing AND eating) was McIntosh), but there were cherries, plums and pears, too (not to mention grapes, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, currants and gooseberries).

When picking season began you knew, at some point, my grandmother would bake this impossibly dense brick of an apple cake. (Which makes out like it was hard as fuck, which it totally wasn't. It was, literally, the size of a brick, with no less than four to five inches of rich, moist-yet-dense almost bread-like sponge with an additional inch or two of sugary, spicy baked apples topping it. You struggled to fit just one bite of the tall order in your mouth. Seriously.)

My dad? Loved the cake. He loved it so damn much that I swore, as a child, I'd one day recreate it for him. Unfortunately (for me), my grandmother passed away before I could get the recipe. Unfortunately (for my father), I grew up, met Italics, got married and decided I'd rather devote time blowing my husband than baking cakes for a man I don't even feel close to. (TRUE STORY!)

ANYWAY, ANYWAY, ANYWAY.

Anyway, this cake wasn't for my father. Or Italics. Or my grandmother. It was for me, and my hazy memories of shoving countless pieces of towering blocks of homemade apple cake into my very small mouth without fear of retribution.

(My grandparents, much like Italics, never criticized me for my ignorance regarding appropriate proportion sizes ("LOLOLOLOLOL, "SUGGESTED SERVING SIZE", LOLOLOLOLOLOL!") or my fundamental inability to appreciate the concept of "moderation". <- HOW SHOCKED WAS I WHEN I LEARNED THE PIG WAS ONE OF MY SPECIAL ANIMALS? NOT VERY.)

Stechishin's recipe for Yabluchnyk (Ukrainian Apple Cake) structured the cake exactly like my grandmother's. (<- A thick layer of cake sponge on the bottom, with a thinner layer of sliced apples covered in sugar and spices on top.) Although, UNLIKE my grandmother's I could actually fit a whole piece of Stechishin's apple cake in my mouth - smaller layer of sponge, larger (and a more //experienced//) mouth.

The apples were spot on - soft, but firm, keeping their shape perfectly beneath a sugary glaze of spices and butter. While cooking, the excess moisture bubbled up around the slices like caramel sauce, but once the liquid cooled it seeped down into the sponge beneath. It hit all the marks - something light and crumbly (bottom of sponge), something denser, richer and more moist (top of sponge/bottom of apples where spices, butter, apples, sugar and cake collide) and something fresh, with a giving (yet solid) structure (top of apples).

It's not 100% spot on (of baba's version), but it's close enough.

Full Moon of the Dead

Filed under: Rituals

A full moon rising over my El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) kitchen altar.

Happy Halloween

Filed under: Rituals

Dearest Witches and Imps,

Rock that thinning veil, baby.

Happy Halloween,
Ms. Graveyard Dirt, XOXO

Black Rabbit Altar

Filed under: The Black Rabbit

When we celebrate the Dark year we welcome back the return of the Black Goddess. To me the Black Goddess is a very specific archetype - a concept found universally - more of an idea, an understanding than actual person-woman-deity locked inside an accepted image. She's THE SOURCE, She's THE IDEA, She's OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HER, She's WHAT WE WITCHES ASPIRE TO BE.

The Black Rabbit is both the living incarnation of the Black Goddess and Her representative. And unlike the Black Goddess the Black Rabbit has a first name (fuck, She even has an ethnicity and an entire biography). She's mortal. She's modern. She's Divine made flesh, and in being born again She suffers like us, She feels like us - She understands what it's like to be human because She is.

In very personal terms the Black Rabbit is my subconscious. When I went Underground for the first time and followed Her around like an awe-struck puppy (THERE WAS NO WAY TO HIDE HOW OVERWHELMED I WAS; I WAS FIVE ALL OVER AGAIN, BREATHLESS AND MARVELING OVER AN OLDER, LIVING WOMAN-GODDESS WHO EPITOMIZED EVERYTHING AWESOME AND COOL IN THE UNIVERSE, EVER) I had an anvil dropped on me when She let me in on a secret - She was me.

(OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD.)

The Black Rabbit is the very best of me; She's ALL of me - my conscious and subconscious balanced - Baphomet, the sacred goat (or, uh, "rabbit" in this case). The exercise in this lifetime? To be as much of Her as I can be before death. Going Underground the Universe showed me a picture of myself - a future template - and said "THIS. YOU NEED TO BECOME //THIS//. THIS IS YOUR JOB. NOW, GO TO WORK." before letting me loose on the world, aware and knowing, but splintered and fragmented.

All of this sounds magnificently crazy, I know. (BLACK GODDESS? WHAT? BLACK RABBIT? WHAT? SUBCONSCIOUS? WHAT? MESSIAH COMPLEX? WHAT?) But when you break it down and translate it non-magic terms it's a lot less mystical and more psychological - the brain controls every function of our biological lives, and despite being the most important organ it's the one as we, human beings, aren't using to full capability. I simply created a bridge - an anchor, a link - from my conscious self to my subconscious self, and rather than outsourcing the job (to gods, goddesses, demons, etc.) I went inwards and created my own guide - me.

((IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE? THAT'S OKAY, IT'S A ROUGH DRAFT. HALF THE TIME I MANAGE TO CONFUSE MYSELF AND NEED TO WALK AWAY FROM THE TANGLE OF STRING BEFORE I BLOW A GASKET. IT'S HARD TO TRANSLATE (AND CONDENSE) EMOTIONS AND AN INNATE UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR BEING INTO A PERFECTLY COHERENT EXPLANATION FOR OTHERS. IN FACT THIS ENTIRE GRAVEYARD DIRT THING - PRACTICING, LIVING, WRITING, RECORDING - IS ALL BEING EXECUTED FOR A SINGLE REASON - TO ONE DAY EXPLAIN IT AS SUCCINCTLY AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE A COMPLETE CRACKWHORE.))

The communal lounge is symmetrically structured, which makes my autism BIG HEAP HAPPY. (THERE MUST ALWAYS BE MIRRORED BALANCE; ALWAYS.) Even though you can't see it in this image, there are four five wooden units against the wall. In both corners are a two cabinet blocks, and in the center there's a "floating" table (where the main altar sits).

Because the two speaker units closest to the centered table are identical I often use them as altar bookends. For Easter (The Great Rite / The Sacred Marriage / Hieros Gamos) and Halloween I create identical miniature altars for the Black Rabbit, and during the Yuletide season I fill in the spaces with a festive evergreen display (cedar, ivy and yew).

After creating this Halloween's altar(s) I turned to Italics and asked "YOU DON'T THINK I'M //OVER// BONING THE ALTAR, DO YOU?"; he refrained from comment, but snorted/laughed. (<- IT TOOK ME A SECOND, BUT IT GOT IT...EVENTUALLY.)

This particular altar? Almost entirely courtesy of ASDA (the UK's Wal-Mart). We bought five teal rabbits from their gardening aisle years ago and spray painted them black for ritual/altar use. The fake bones, skeletal candle holder and skull candles were all scavenged from the Halloween aisle. (WHILE I DO LOVE ANTIQUES AND PRICEY SHIT SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE AND/OR CAN AFFORD. But that's the entire point of witchcraft, right?)

The skull figure is the only altar decoration NOT bought at ASDA, but was still bought at a discount store. (<- A LOLTASTIC HEADSHOP WHERE WE ALSO BOUGHT OUR RITUAL BLACK GODDESS BONG.) I have two skull figures like this, one's a skull/iron cross/naked woman which is situated on Papa's side of the room (left), and the other is the skull/iron cross/snake/tentacle figure above which is situated on Tentacle Monster's side of the room (right).

This particular altar? Almost entirely courtesy of ASDA (the UK's Wal-Mart). We bought five teal rabbits from their gardening aisle years ago and spray painted them black for ritual/altar use. The fake bones, skeletal candle holder and skull candles were all scavenged from the Halloween aisle. (WHILE I DO LOVE ANTIQUES AND PRICEY SHIT SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE AND/OR CAN AFFORD. But that's the entire point of witchcraft, right?)

Halloween Altar Building

Filed under: Rituals

Yesterday was THE DAY. Yesterday I plucked the fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers off our Harvest Home altar (pictures forthcoming!) and began piecing together our Halloween altar. (The Spring Bride / Return of Light / Easter / Great Rite / Hieros Gamos altar is more minimal and elegant, while the Winter Whore / Return of Darkness / Black Goddess / Chthonic altar's a little more fun and over the top.)

It's MOSTLY done now (I still need to string a strand of skull lights on the other side of the ladder, fill the brandy glasses with their correlating element (graveyard dirt for Papa's side, and salt water for Tentacle Monster's side), replace the red votive candles with white, glue the skeletons to their ribbons and maybe - MAYBE - replace the triad of bones behind the candle holders with vases filled with yew branches) but not done enough to warrant a second picture.

(THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GET //1// "PARTIALLY DRESSED ALTAR" PICTURE ONLY!)

Rabbits Out of Thin Air

Filed under: Burn the Witch

I have an innate talent for attracting adventures. (Or, maybe, I have an innate talent for turning everything into a story which retrospectively MAKES everything an adventure. Which then lengthens every experience and LOL! into several thousand words when a few sentences would usually suffice.) Today's epic adventure (that could otherwise be summed up in a simple paragraph)? How I recently transformed a basket of three pitiful boletes into seven dead rabbits.

If you somehow missed the memo, the majority of my ethnic heritage hails from Eastern Europe (Ukraine, to be exact, where, crazily enough, I ALSO get my Native American genes, but that's another story for another day...). As a kid the highlight of my year was mushroom picking with my grandmother; it was-is-was THE European family activity to do (eff Monopoly when there's an entire forest filled with edible fungi!).

Foraging was instilled at a very young age by my grandmother, who didn't see fruits and nuts and mushrooms as PROPERTY, but as useful, free commodities just waiting to be picked. (<- Much to the dismay of allotment owners adjacent to my grandparents' house which were frequently raided for blueberries and raspberries and gooseberries and currants and rhubarb and anything else I could get my young hands on.)

While I don't brazenly forage in other people's backyards anymore (STEALING AN APPLE AND SOME SWEET CORN FROM A CASTLE'S WALLED GARDEN DOESN'T COUNT, DOES IT?) I still experience the driving urge to get out in the forest once the weather becomes damp and cold in the hopes of unearthing some fungal treasures. (Primarily boletes, but I'm happy to harvest puff balls, purple amethyst deceivers, shaggy caps, morels, chicken of the woods, and chanterelles.)

It was a difficult passion to maintain when we weren't independent. In order to get to ANY woods we'd have to enlist the help of an in-law, and because ONE SPECIFIC IN-LAW (the only one who was ever available) has a hard time remembering to CARRY HIS FUCKING PHONE WITH HIM SO WE CAN CONTACT HIM WHEN WE'RE READY TO BE PICKED UP the foraging party always had to expand to three. Two's an adventure (a picnic, pot, sex, forest exploring and mushroom picking adventure), three's a crowd and involvement of my father-in-law warrants an entirely new category.

A car was dropped on my lap at the brink of Harvest this year, but because I had been - and still am - insanely busy with other things we haven't had a chance to mushroom hunt properly. (I used "next year will be different, next year will be different" as an optimistic mantra while watching seasons change. After eight years of chanting, next year WILL finally be different and the disappointment I've experienced for nearly a decade will soon be nothing more than old memories.)

Because Italics has been feeling under the weather (when we don't have pot in the house we smoke a synthesized version so his lungs are okay, but the second a shipment of weed arrives so does his ongoing struggle with bronchitis) we decided to stay local which gave us the ability to hunt for mushrooms AND hunt for this year's stoner tree. (<- WE HAVE TWO CHRISTMAS TREES DURING THE YULETIDE SEASON - THE ONE IN THE COMMUNAL LOUNGE WHICH HAS A STRICT COLOR THEME, AND THE STONER TREE IN THE BACKROOM THAT'S NO HOLDS BARRED.)

We arrived just in time to watch a hunting party emerge from the forest's parking lot with several people, dogs and guns in tow. "IT'S GOING TO BE SAFE TO BE IN THE WOODS, RIGHT?" I asked Italics while eying up the hunters warily. (<- I GREW UP IN THE MIDWEST, AND AS A FERAL MIDWESTERN CHILD MY PARENTS DID EVERYTHING BUT DRESS ME ENTIRELY IN NEON ORANGE WHEN ALLOWING ME OUT IN THE WILDERNESS DURING HUNTING SEASON TO ENSURE I WOULDN'T GET SHOT BY DRUNKEN DEER HUNTERS.)

Since there was no resemblance to the deer hunters of my Midwestern/American youth I assumed they were after different game - birds. So, surely, it should be safer if they were hunting something that needed to be flushed into the air by dogs first, right? Right. Fine. Okay. We should be safe, then. (The hunters, in turn, eyed us warily as we inched past the party and into the semi-full parking lot. <- SUSPICION ON BOTH SIDES!)

We've recently had a glorious glut of weather, and despite the drop in temperature (I AM //NOT// PULLING OUT MY WINTER COAT, DAMMIT! AS LONG AS I DON'T HAVE TO PUT ON MY WINTER COAT IT CAN'T BE WINTER (THAT'S HOW IT WORKS)! Therefore I've been wearing FOUR LAYERS OF LONG-SLEEVE SHIRTS AND A FLANNEL like some sort of socially maladjusted, unfeminine lumberjack woman - SO THERE, WINTER, SO THERE!) we've attempted to enjoy every minute.

The unfortunate drawback to this glorious glut of weather? No rain. As in, not a proper drop for weeks - not exactly awesome or ideal growing conditions for mushrooms. (The dirt? Looks like sand. Seriously.) The foray started off promising; just a few feet off the beaten track we managed to excavate two lovely little boletes. The discovery gave me hope that by the end of our fungal expedition I'd have a choice array of boletes and the treasure-prize I was really after - homegrown fly agaric.

Within minutes of stepping over broken boughs and rotting wood we heard the first of the gunshots. While we didn't witness an exodus of terrified Disney animals - all stampeding in our direction - the quiet serenity of the forest was broken. (BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING MORE ATMOSPHERIC THAN GETTING HIGH AND APPRECIATING THE SILENT, CALMING BEAUTY OF THE FOREST WHILE MUSHROOM PICKING WITH YOUR LOVED ONE AS UNSEEN, UNHEARD HUNTERS UNEXPECTEDLY BREAK THE TRANQUIL MOOD WITH SPORADIC GUNFIRE.)

Our fungal adventure peaked with those two boletes. What started off as promising finds became our ONLY finds. We sifted through different terrains and mini-ecosystems, trampled over beaten paths, gently prodded moss encrusted bumps, stood in the golden rain of the Fox's Wedding, waded through bright meadow grasses and briskly parted seas of purple-brown heather beneath disrobing birches and prickly gorse. Nothing. (Well, SOMETHING - another bolete beneath a birch, but a flabby, larger one that wasn't nearly as firm as the two smaller ones we initially found when starting our walk.)

That sad ass looking mushroom was the last nail in the coffin. (It was at that point when our SUPER GREAT AND AWESOME MUSHROOM HUNTING ADVENTURE reinvented itself as our SUPER GREAT AND AWESOME FOREST SEX AND STONER TREE ADVENTURE.) Disappointed, but with a new goal in mind (MUST. FIND. PERFECT. SPOT. TO. HAVE. FOREST. SEX. MUST. FIND. PERFECT. TREE. FOR. STONER. TREE.), we continued to trail the edge of newish growth in the hopes of finding a crevice large enough between the trees to allow us to (AHEM) penetrate the coniferous grove.

There were dark, shadow filled clusters of spiraling pine trees reaching towards the ceiling of the sky. There were slivers of meadows with tufted grass and dry heather, fluff and insects lazily floating through the air, all illuminated by shafts of bright autumn sun. There were great living mounds; the remnants of ancient trees now gone, tucked in by a a thick blanket of all-consuming damp moss. There were small granite boulders, paths partially blocked by swinging branches and partings so tight that all you could do was close your eyes and push forward into the darkness towards the warmth of light as you felt dead and broken twigs snap beneath the driving force of your blind body.

There was all of that, but none of it caught on camera. (ACTUALLY, THAT'S A KIND'VE SORT'VE LIE. THERE ARE //A LOT// OF PICTURES, IN FACT, OF A NEARLY THIRTY YEAR OLD WOMAN WITH WAIST LENGTH HAIR AND A HUGE ASS RUNNING AROUND A MEADOWY CLEARING WEARING NOTHING BUT HER SHOES AND A PAIR OF KNEE LENGTH STRIPED (BLACK AND RAINBOW, BABY!) SOCKS IN THE OCTOBER SUNSHINE.) But you know how it is - those special moments, those special places and special images never like getting photographed, anyway.

It was arched against a moss padded rock at the foot of a natural heather and pine altar where I fucked the horned god of the forest*. With hair spilling into dying grass and body bridged up to meet his I watched the pointed tips of coniferous trees tremble in the unfelt breeze. Between thrusts and long seconds of eyes-closed-and-face-turned-to-the-sun there was a moment when everything froze and the only certainty in the world was that the sky was endlessly blue and the towering, cathedral pines would always be as they were then - fierce and beautiful, a protective fortress forever separating modern man from nature.

(* OH, GOD, HOW DO I MAKE THIS QUICK, EASY AND TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE? I'm not your average run-of-the-mill witch - I'm not pagan, I don't worship deities and the concept of "horned god" has been replaced by the "horned goddess" in this house. (I'm the fertility goat, the sacrificial ram, the divine nursemaid and deer priestess.) In other words, I don't do Cernunnos.)

(But what I DO do is the Old Woman, the Cailleach, the divine deer keeper. As the Old Woman I have vested interest in Our deer stock, so what better way to assess the virility and power of Our herd than by "mating" with the alpha buck? Cernunnos? Doesn't click. Coupling with the mythical MASTER OF THE FOREST (aka MY DIVINE ALPHA MALE COUNTERPART) in deer form? OH, HEY, THAT MAKES SENSE!)

Three boletes, two pot breaks and one MAGIC FOREST SEX session later I was fully dressed and complaining about our shitty lucky. An entire afternoon of searching and for what? Three mushrooms, a good selection of possible stoner trees and a helluva lot of jizz mopped off my tits - AWESOME. Being myself, I bitched all the way back to the parking lot, bemoaning my relatively empty basket and nature's inherent hatred of me and all of my nature-based adventures.

By the time we made it back to the car park the hunting party had returned. "I HOPE YOU GUYS SHOT MORE PHEASANTS THAN I FOUND MUSHROOMS," I joke-shouted over my shoulder at them while shoving my (nearly) empty basket into the trunk of the car. One of the older gentlemen said something to me which I didn't completely understand. Eventually my brain partially translated the mishmash of English, Doric (a local dialect) and heavy Scottish accent and I caught the gist of what he had said.

"OHMYGODREALLY?!" I squealed, processing that HE HAD OFFERED A PORTION OF THEIR KILL TO ME. "SERIOUSLY?!" It wasn't pheasants, it was something better - rabbits. (A mind-boggling mountain of wild rabbits.) He asked me how many I wanted, I laughed and said "ALL!" but negotiated down to "AS MANY AS YOU CAN SPARE!". (<- IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY NOTICED, MY SIDE OF THE CONVERSATION ENDED ENTIRELY IN EXCLAMATION POINTS. I WAS V. EXCITED BY THE PROSPECT OF FREE GAME.)

(You don't know "heavy" until you lug a reusable, eco-friendly grocery bag filled with rabbits (SEVEN! 7! THAT'S A SUPER MAGIC NUMBER!) across a gravel parking lot and hoist the bag'n'contents into your car's trunk.)

And that, dear readers, is how this witch magically transformed a basket of three pitiful boletes into seven dead rabbits. (<- THE HORNED GOD OF THE FOREST? PAYS //REALLY// WELL FOR SEX.)

Harvest Home Altar (Dark)

Filed under: Rituals

The picture above is my ancestral altar where I'll be plying my recently - and not so recently - deceased ancestors and relatives with food and drink throughout our harvest celebration. (Because I'm somewhat estranged from my family I don't have any pictures of anyone except for my mother, and even THAT image is the only one I have of her.)

Tonight's menu? Leftover yogurt soup (I made fresh stock using frozen bones from last year's Christmas goose and dumped in carrots, baby corn, potatoes, rice, roast duck and grilled sirloin steak marinated in miso soup), cubes of cornmeal spoonbread (it's a Ukrainian thing) and homemade garlic bread.

The bowl to the right contains Mabon's first meal - an oatmeal breakfast using PROPER pinhead oats, whole milk, a shredded apple, nuts, plums from outside, whole milk and honey. (Everyone in the house - including the rats - had a bowl before we began harvesting on the equinox.) On top of it is an offering of a glazed donut (REDUCED TO CLEAR GLAZED DONUTS? YES PLZ!) and an Italian cookie. (<- I continuously add whatever we're eating to their altar so they don't miss out on anything.)

Below are a few blurry candlelit shots of our main harvest home altar, thanks to baking bread all day (FOUR RISES? WHY DOES UKIE BREAD ALWAYS NEED EXCESSIVE RISING?!) I'm dead tired so I'll skip out on explaining shit until I have better quality pictures. (There are A LOT of skulls and A LOT of food and A LOT of Slavic kitsch.)(It'll look a billion times more impressive with some light. Honest for real.)

Last Job

Filed under: #13

Death follows me so closely that it occasionally trips me up like a dog underfoot. And I don't mean that in a extraordinarily supernatural way where everyone and everything I know and love dies suddenly or inexplicably and I leave a blazing trail of lifelessness and despair in my wake (although that has, on one or two occasions, happened). It's more subtle than that, more LULzy than that.

When I was born I was dealt #13, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally accepted the category I had been filed under - mostly out of reluctance to admit that I got branded with THE COOLEST, MOST AWESOMEST CARD/CONCEPT OF THEM ALL, THANK YOU. (I mean, everyone wants the bestest one, right? And without even trying - without even hoping - I got issued the coveted badass one - death. Which in itself is worth a billion and two LOLs since I'm absolutely petrified of my own mortality. Death, fittingly enough, is afraid of dying.)

I didn't have one big, defining moment when the heavens split open and granted me divine enlightenment. I have small moments, small LOLS, small serving sizes of understanding and acceptance. Instead of one lightening bolt I have daily electric shocks that form a themed pattern that stretch back to as far as I can remember. Instead of being told once, I get reminded every day.

(Which makes up for the fact that I don't have an impressive or cool story of my birth (boringly average, no storms, no complications, although I WAS born at Resurrection hospital, and the joke's punchline had to sit for nearly thirty years before I finally got it), or a pivotal death defying moment that shaped the rest of my life (I nearly suffocated in gym class - rolled up in a gym mat with no air as classmates sat on top to stop me from "escaping" until I eventually blacked out - but the only significant thing that came from that experience was developing a touch of claustrophobia).)

I had no definite career plans until advanced anatomy and microbiology (university level classes offer to the "gifted" seniors to bulk up their GPAs and academic records). Two weeks into anatomy and suddenly my Rainman savant talent was switched on - I was made to dissect and wield a scalpel. The teacher marveled at my innate ability and I was satisfied, finally, that I could do SOMETHING remotely "artistic" with my hands - other than apply liquid eyeliner.

(My mother? A famous Native American potter. I felt cheated by life that I didn't inherit her natural talent for drawing. I desperately wanted to do something creative with my hands, but sketching and painting and drawing were SO out of the question because even though I could apply liquid eyeliner flawlessly, I couldn't draw a fucking circle without it looking misshapen.)

Advanced anatomy showed me I had natural surgeon hands - accurate, confident, quick. When cutting through the connective tissue loosely binding the small intestine (of my fetal pig) together in condensed ruffles my teacher watched through her fingers occasionally squeaking "SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN, YOU'LL CUT THE INTESTINE IN HALF!" but without result. (NEWSFLASH: STUBBORN ARIES IS STUBBORN.)

In seconds I spread the intestine out like an organic boa, smiling as proudly as Edward Scissorhands with his garland of paper dolls in front of a stunned classroom. (The object of the exercise was to extract the small intestine, unblemished, so we could measure who had the biggest and smallest - if you accidentally damaged yours you were immediately disqualified).

DOCTOR, I thought. SURGERY, I thought. But then, at the end of the semester, we visited a morgue at a semi-local medical school to watch an "autopsy" of a mummified woman. AUTOPSIES, I decided, surrounded by cadavers and drawn sheets, holding the cold hands of a corpses. When everyone else had gathered at the vestibule of the cold storage chamber I was still lost in a maze of gurneys and silence, touching, listening and sitting with the dead.

I cried the entire bus ride home. Quietly, silently. I remember staring at the barren landscape of the Midwest's winter, everything saturated in rain and gray. I don't know if "hollow" or "empty" covered it, but I wasn't "full" either. I just was, I guess, and even to this day I don't completely understand the reaction. (Guilty for leaving? Grieving for people who were never claimed so their bodies were donated to medical research and study? My first taste - my first introduction - to the concept of mortality?)

When I graduated later that academic year I had already been accepted into a pre-med program with a major of microbiology to become a forensic pathologist*. (HAPPINESS IS HANDLING ORGANS AND, ALSO, GROWING BACTERIA IN BEEF CONSOMME AGAR.) Unfortunately, higher education and I didn't mesh. My first stab saw me dropping out after a semester due to contracting glandular fever (infectious mononucleosis), my second stab saw me almost stabbing my lab partner (LOL!) thanks to my unnatural levels of aggression being goaded on by an anti-depressant I shouldn't have been on.

(* I feel the need to point out, just in case eyes are being rolled, my decision to go into that specific medical field predates all of those godawful CSI and BONES shows that are directly responsible for "forensic pathology" being one of the most popular areas of medical science now. I graduated from high school in 1998 and was a university student the same year.)

(PHEW, OKAY, GOOD, WE GOT THAT UNCOMFORTABLE EXPLANATION OUT OF THE WAY AND NOW WE ALL KNOW THAT I'M NOT PART OF THE CRINGINGLY LAME POPULATION INSPIRED TO MAKE MAJOR DECISIONS REGARDING MY LIFE AND CAREER DUE TO MINDNUMBINGLY FADDISH TV SHOWS.)

Despite my love of anatomy, of microbiology and all things sharp, slippery and begging to be cut open and removed I never returned to university or pre-med. I regret not returning in my own way, but I know, now, I don't have the temperament for it. I hate rules, I hate schedules, I hate the bullshit game you have to play pretending to be interested in people and things. I hate school and its lack of freedom and I'm not patient or tolerant or a team player, so I can't imagine spending an additional decade (or more) of school while putting myself into debt just for the ability to perform autopsies.

Italics eventually made the point that I didn't really want to become a doctor, I just wanted to get paid for being a skilled butcher. (LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MY HUSBAND, WHO KNOWS ME BETTER THAN I KNOW MYSELF.) That burst of clarification most certainly saved me from a third failed attempt. I have the stomach and heart for the work, just not the patience or motivation to jump through the overly complicated (and costly) hoops. (Sigh.)

(I mean, there is embalming and becoming a mortician, but I famously hate people and interacting with them. I'm anti-social, solitary and any social interaction I make is always half-fueled by autism. I lack the inherent empathy and sympathy needed to deal with people, let alone emotionally fragile and grieving people. I suppose Italics and I could become a husband and wife team, but I'd hate to saddle him up with the position of "PERSON DEALER" because Christ knows I don't fucking want to do it.)

The prospect of becoming a certified butcher never seriously crossed my mind until I relocated to Scotland. (BUTCHER? WHAT? YOU MEAN YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO GET YOUR MEAT FROM THE GROCERY STORE? WOW.) Even though I had helped process and portion up several deers when spending my childhood summers with my family on the reservation (I'm part Native American; plains folk, Lakhota) it never occurred to me that it could be an occupation.

Those experiences made a lasting impression on me - skinning a deer with my bare hands (literally, after making the incision using your fingers to break up the bubbly layer of adipose between skin and muscle to pull back the pelt), carefully stripping whole haunches of meat into neat piles of muscles, cupping gelatinous, warm organs in the palms of my hands as blood raced down my arms and stained my clothing.

If it wasn't for the fact that that I had - and still have - a huge reverence and empathy for animals (more so than people, but that's not entirely uncommon with autistic people) I suppose "ENJOYMENT FROM DISMEMBERING ANIMALS AND BEING COVERED IN BLOOD" would be a hint at something darker and more disturbing that needed to be addressed.

(I don't want to kill, I want to give a second life. Every animal feels like a pet and when I find a dead one - either freshly killed and perfectly intact, or rotting and unsalvageable - a part of me cries, sometimes holding the more intact ones and apologizing for the car that hit it, feeling somehow personally responsible that I wasn't there to save it and feeling angry and vengeful that something was taken away from me.)

I don't know what came first - butcher or taxidermist. My only experience with butchering is of the deer mentioned above, my only experience with taxidermy is thanks to a jar of Vick's VapoRub.

(My Mom, for reasons I'll never know, took up taxidermy when I was crazy young. When I was two I was left to my own devices long enough to rub an entire jar of VapoRub in my hair, and no matter what she did she couldn't get the oil out. Supposedly she washed my hair until my scalp was irritated, she tried rubbing alcohol - she even called my pediatrician for advice, but nothing. It wasn't until she remembered that she dusted fur with cornstarch to absorb excess grease that the crisis was finally averted, and I was introduced to the art of taxidermy as a sort've kind've subject/study.)

I think butchering came first. Taxidermy came after, once I became interested in ritual slaughter and preserving the otherwise unfavored offal and organs. (There's a purpose for everything, from hearts to eyes to tongues to wind pipes.) My first love was meat and how layers of muscles were seamless sewn together with ligaments and cartilage, my second love was taxidermy - immortalizing and celebrating not only a lost life but creating a corporeal marker of my BLACK MAGIC work.

When I REALLY got into cooking I REALLY got into the food I was working with. Meat became a seductive, sensual things to touch and handle which appealed to my (legitimately) retarded tactile self. (Old walls arouse me. Touching them, rubbing them, brushing my skin against old mortar and bricks and stones. Fur, mud, blood, water and meat. They all evoke a desire - a need, a want - to strip off and run my naked body over the texture, to feel it slip across my bare skin and scratch and cover and blanket me until I'm enveloped in sensory ecstasy.)

So it started with cooking. But then I wanted to know more. I wanted to cut my own pieces of meat, I wanted to carve distinct portions recognized by butchers and cooks. I wanted a slab of an animal to reduce to piles of workable pieces. But I also wanted to know where the animal came from, how it lived, how it died. And then, ultimately, I wanted to be the hand of death knowing that the life I was going to take lived to its fullest and died with respect and reverence it deserved.

I wanted everything - the experience, the meat, the fur, the bones, the organs, the hooves. Nothing wasted, everything used from testicles (or ovaries) to mountains of fat and skeletal frames. I wanted to be the slaughterer, the butcher, the bone cleaner, the hide tanner, the taxidermist, the organ preserver and the feared witch of the woods from ancient fairytales. (The last one, admittedly, came a little bit more naturally.)

For the ability to take life I wanted to be able to restore the balance and give that sacrificed life (whether by my own hands or by an unfortunate circumstance) a second chance. That, and, I love our pets too much to commit them to the ground, even though "chthonic" seems to be encoded in my spiritual DNA. As morbid as it might seem, I'd rather have the things I loved the most in my life with me for the remainder of my life (and I'm not just taking about "golden, happy memories").

So when I say "death follows me so closely that it occasionally trips me up like a dog underfoot" it's not that I embody the concept of the grim reaper, but, instead, I'm a conduit. (I mourn, I offer relief, I give second life.) It's around me, it's always here. My life is a memento mori; dying animals find peace in my arms and I grieve their loss and my inability to be Life instead of Death. (I want to SAVE and HEAL, but all I've ever been able to do is COMFORT and PREPARE.)

I'm the last thing they know before they succumb to the mystery of death. I'm a gateway, the middleman. I'm the other side of the coin, but I'm flesh and blood. My job is the Last Job, and by writing this entry I finally understand why I wasn't programed to be the type of person who has the patience or tolerance to commit to something as all-encompassing as medical school and a career in forensic pathology - while Death is part of me, and I'm a part of Death, working as the bridge isn't what I was destined for (regardless of having the heart and stomach for it) and any career which involved me playing the role of Preparer would ultimately detract and detour me from the reason why I'm here.

(Sometimes understanding and enlightenment is bittersweet, isn't it?)

Down the Rabbit Hole

Filed under: Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aug. 16th Walk

Filed under: Trespassing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Taste of Fall

Filed under: One A Day

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

Lammas 2009

Filed under: Life

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

Taxidermist in the Making

Filed under: One A Day

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

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

Wild Raspberries & Blackbirds

Filed under: Menagerie

Hiking to the wild raspberries I found her on the gray asphalt, her body still warm and fluid. I held her limp form next to my heart, against my dead mother's flannel and stroked her downy head.

Construction workers paused to glance out car windows at the woman in the plaid flannel holding an empty wooden basket and a dead female blackbird against her chest, wandering down a slightly misty country lane by herself at six in the morning.

Cemetery Currants

Filed under: One A Day

Currants harvested from the local cemetery.

(What does a witch do with fruits harvested from a graveyard? I dunno. What does a witch do with fruits harvested from a graveyard knowing that they'll be useful for something even if she really fucking hates the way they taste so they'll in no way EVER be used for anything culinary? She cleans them, dries them and bottles them in a clean spice jar for future witchery.)

Incense Making In Progress

Filed under: One A Day

I'm dissolving a dehydrated blood clot (<- I PICK BLOOD CLOTS OFF MY MENSTRUAL RAGS WITH A PAIR OF TWEEZERS AND THEN DRY THEM ON GREASEPROOF PAPER FOR LATER USE) in some whiskey to add to a personalized necromancy incense blend I'm working on. (To the left are the first two WITCH'S GARLIC bulbs I've harvested this year.)

Cycle of the Sycamore

Filed under: Menagerie

It's official, we're parents! Well, okay, maybe adopted parents, or, uh, legal guardians, or something. ("Or something" = "suckers who fill up three separate bird feeders every other day providing an all-you-can-eat 24/7 buffet for pint-sized cheep-cheep birds"; yeah, we're pushovers - even the crows know how to get table scraps out of me.)

Just as I was getting ready for bed (I'm currently up at night and going to sleep around eight in the morning) I saw it - all puffed up with baby fluff and giving every bird that passed it a narrowed look of MAJOR CRANKYPANTS. ("Are you my Mommy? No? Are you going to feed me, anyway? No? FUCK YOU, THEN! Are you my...")

A baby! A round ball of feathers and fat! A BABY! A teeny tiny beak that cranked open whenever another bird - regardless of species, although they were all small since it was breakfast time for the little cheep-cheeps - came in close proximity. (OUR baby! Fed and nurtured with food we've provided all year long.) I nearly melted into a sleepy pool of "awwww!" (so much for my title of QUEEN BITCH DESTROYER, right?).

There's a sycamore outside our office window which I've been fighting to keep. (When Mr. Awesome gets bored with something he chops it down; there isn't any REAL reason why he wants to kill the tree outside our office/computer room window other than sheer boredom, and I'm not about to let someone who's otherwise abandoned and ignored the garden for 10+ years make major decisions that'll affect me and the local wildlife I've worked on attracting. IT AIN'T HAPPENING, YO, THE CRAZY BITCH DAUGHTER-IN-LAW HAS SPOKEN.)

In Fall I listen to the howl of The Old Woman as her breath tears through dozing branches and rips withered leaves from stems. In Fall I watch the whirlwind of crackling leaves sweep off the ground and into the air, tumbling across asphalt and concrete and covering the ground below; a forecast, a premonition of what's to come.

(Sparrows and Wren flutter on the ground like animated leaves, partially camouflaged in the new layer of wizened foliage from the sycamore, looking, hunting and finding the last of the insects before easy, free food disappears for a season and a half.)

In Winter I stand breathless at the window altar in the middle of the night, watching a black sky turn violet as the first reflective flakes of frozen lace drift aimlessly in the sharp air. In Winter I kneel at the holy altar of Death and Sleep, the sycamore barren and bony, fiberglass snow tracing branches and stems outlining a skeletal mirage on the living and sleeping.

(Robins, with their red breasts, flutter from branch to branch, singing and calling on still mornings, when the only sound beside their territorial calls is the steady, static crunch of snow falling.)

In Spring I celebrate the tight buds of growth - crowns of leaves shrink wrapped into tight, little bullets, waiting for the trigger pull and explosion of cordite. In Spring the world celebrates as the warming breeze rustles through waking branches, rain and wind stimulating tiny, oval clitoral buds as crocuses and snowdrops blanket the ground in a living, breathing carpet of wedding flowers as The Old Woman regresses and becomes The Virgin Bride.

(Blackbirds, with their dipping tails, jump from branch to branch excitedly, replacing the Robin's fragile hope of Spring with a robust and optimistic promise of Spring as they race along the tender shoots of my witch's garlic looking for moss to pad their nests-in-progress.)

In Summer...well, in Summer I take the season off because, Jesus, I've already spent three quarters of the year celebrating something. (A GIRL NEEDS SOME TIME OFF, ESPECIALLY WHEN "DEATH" AND "WINTER" IS SORT'VE HER THING.) In Summer the sycamore opens like an umbrella, obscuring everything within behind a thick cloak of green and I forget about the bird feeder hidden behind the downy cover of leaves but rediscover it, later on, when the leaves begin to thin and curl, exposing, once again, the endless cycle of the sycamore - a home, an altar, a church, a symbol.

(...HE IS SO TOTALLY NOT CUTTING IT DOWN. EVER.)

Baby Book

Filed under: Life

I don't know what to say anymore, that's why I take pictures. Things, ideas, events and memories have been wiped off the blackboard of my mind so any motivation I feel is pressure to remain active, to keep running because if I stop for a breath at this point it'll all unravel.

(Keep moving, keep pushing, keep taking pictures to record it all. Winter'll be the time to introspect and retrospect, but now - right now - is the time to plant the seeds for those long, dark nights. Now's the time to run, bare feet to the earth, heart screaming in your chest, and concentrate on making it TO the end, not the end itself.)

This diary thing is like needles and pins. I know where I want to go with it, I know what I want to do, how it should look, how I should present it. I've spent a year braiding different parts of my life into one single plait, but the harder I work on it, the more I see I'm forcing things and the end result is starting to look sloppy.

I want to write. I want to record dreams and stupid MAGIC LOL! happenings. I want to share what I'm cooking, sharpen my food photography. I want to crack open all of these goddamn desktop folders labeled with past events (i.e., "LENT RITUAL", "EASTER BASKET", "WEDDING ALTAR", ETC.) and share the images, explaining every little article and object tucked away in the background.

I want to show you MY LIFE and how I'M DOING THIS MAGIC THANG; but the grit of it, the dirt, the very substance that creates a foundation of belief. I want to showing the beginning and the end, and have the transition from one to the other felt and experienced by others. I want to show, because it's so goddamn easy, so much easier than any other person, book, or site makes it seem.

But I don't have time to write, or show, or share. I did before, when it was cold. That schedule was perfected, flawless. (It's easy to be a housewife and witch when you're confined to six rooms in a single level "bungalow". When it's freezing outside and everything's covered with ice there's time to think and plan and scheme and mull over the year's previous events while doing the laundry and making dinner and cleaning the house.)

I never anticipated being this knee-deep in Spring. I connected with Winter a few years back; the first winter after my longest, most intense period of depression. (OH, GOD, I HATE USING THE "D" WORD BECAUSE EVERYONE'S FUCKING DEPRESSED NOW, AND I REALLY FUCKING HATE GETTING LUMPED UNDER THE "CLINICALLY DEPRESSED" CATEGORY BECAUSE THE LAST THING I WANT PEOPLE TO THINK IS THAT I'M, OH MY GOD, JUST LIKE YOU, OR HER, OR THEM. I'M NOT.)

I was anxious in November, not knowing what December or January or February or even March had in store. Daylight receded, darkness prevailed; the cycle didn't stop just because I was apprehensive about my reaction towards the change of the season. And then? And then, one night, the blackened heavens opened up, turning the sky violet as snow began to fall for the first time that winter.

Snow's breathtaking, especially at night. I don't know what it is about frozen flakes of water that still manages to captivate me (STILL MANAGES TO CAPTIVATE ME = I'M 30 BUT STILL ACT LIKE I'M 7 THE SECOND I SEE SNOW), but when it's present, so am I, my face pressed up against the window fogging the glass with my breath as I watch the white noise rustle and settle on a dead world. Sometimes I think it's just me being my autistic self, having my own Rainman moment, staring transfixed for hours at the living, swirling static outside.

(ALTHOUGH DON'T DROP A BOX OF TOOTHPICKS IN FRONT OF ME BECAUSE I'M A -HIGH FUNCTIONING- RETARD WHICH MEANS MY NATURAL RESPONSE TO PEOPLE MAKING A MESS AROUND ME IS TO BE PISSED OFF. I'M CURRENTLY A SELF-EMPLOYED HOUSEWIFE, NOT A HUMAN CALCULATOR, THANKS.)

I did the most obviously stupid, simple thing - I went outside, in the middle of the night, high off my ass while wearing my wedding dress (which hadn't been become my wedding dress yet; that wouldn't happen until April 2008) and welcomed The Old Woman for the first time. (During the cold, lifeless months we're The Crone, The Old Woman, The Whore. During the warmer, life-filled months we're The Virgin, The Bride. Our year is from extreme to the other, and We experience the transformation gradually as the spectrum of the seasons slowly slide back and forth.)

(I suspect that's why death terrifies me so much; We don't die. We're always here, present, in some form. There isn't a time when We aren't here watching, existing and being. In my mythology He dies, We remain. When there's no end, the concept of "the end" is petrifying; the only thing Death fears is death.)

That's how I cured my depression, I welcomed Winter. (OKAY, AND I ASKED FOR GUIDANCE AND THE ABILITY TO FIND STRENGTH AND RESOLVE IN MYSELF WHEN I MOST NEEDED STRENGTH AND RESOLVE. (WHY OUTSOURCE AND BEG FOR A ONE-TIME MAGIC WISH OF "COURAGE AND STRENGTH" WHEN THERE'S AN UNLIMITED RESERVOIR WITHIN THAT YOU JUST NEED TO LEARN HOW TO TAP?) OH, AND, ALSO, I ASKED FOR CONTROL OF THE WEATHER. BUT THAT'S ALL, THOUGH, CONTROL OF THE WEATHER, INTERNAL STRENGTH AND RESOLVE. I DON'T ASK FOR MUCH. <- LOL!)

That was, Jesus, three years ago, or something. And it hasn't come back, not once. I accepted the inevitable I couldn't pause or change and requested - from myself - to be able to adapt to what I couldn't control, and control what I could. OH, AND ALSO ALL OF THAT WEATHER MAGIC STUFF WHICH I DIDN'T ENTIRELY BELIEVE IN BEFORE (OH, HONEY, IN MY GAME I DON'T HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE EVERYONE ELSE'S GAME. I'VE GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN FAKE INTEREST, SYMPATHY OR BELIEF IN OTHER PEOPLE'S "PSYCHIC ATTACKS" AND THEIR MAGICAL ATTRIBUTES AND/OR SPECIAL POWERS THAT READ STRAIGHT OFF A ROLE-PLAYING CHARACTER SHEET.) BUT I DO NOW.

I didn't expect to connect with Spring like I have. For the past few years I've felt the burden of death on my shoulders and I've accepted the job, sometimes hating it, sometimes loving it (almost always, though, feeling complete). I never anticipated that I could get such a spiritual and emotional high off something like PLANTING and BEING OUT WITH NATURE and NURTURING DEFENSELESS SEEDLINGS; that's all, you know, LIFE STUFF, and We're DEATH STUFF.

Once I caught Papa standing in the middle of his chili peppers, hunched over and "gardening" amongst the potted, in-door vegetables. "HOLY SHIT," I balked, "DEATH ENJOYS GARDENING?!" And suddenly IT MADE SENSE - of COURSE DEATH ENJOYS FUCKING GARDENING. It's completion, you know? It's the other half We don't have, it's submerging yourself in the radical newness of THE OPPOSITE.

But it's a strong, addictive drug. When my mind wanders, it wanders to gardening. When my eyes wander, they wander to a window, the patio door, whatever transparent sheet of glass that's present in the room with me. When the weather is dealing me shitty hands (I ONLY TRY AND GIVE WEATHER SYSTEMS A PUSH WHEN I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY NEED TO) I bemoan my inability to go outside and finish my trench digging and I pace around the house, unsatisfied with the day, waiting for the next one in the hopes that I can return to the self-appointed manual labor sitting outside.

Spring's entirely consumed me, and thanks to that consumption I'm finding it increasingly harder to sit down and THINK when all I feel racing through my veins is "BE ACTIVE, BE ACTIVE, BE ACTIVE, BE ACTIVE". (It's a bizarre compulsion, an insane 180 from any other Spring in any other year.)

So I take pictures hoping that, one day, the images will be able to convey what I was thinking, feeling and hoping when snapping the photo. So I take pictures because they're my baby book for this year, and at the year's closing when everything's covered and asleep I can go back - The Old Woman - and relive those fleeting green moments, when a young woman made the transition from Virginal Spring Bride to the new matriarch of the house to The Old Winter Hag Whore.

2009 Pysanky

Filed under: Rituals

Easter ain't Easter without two things - Paska and Pysanky. WAIT, NO! I TAKE IT BACK! Easter ain't Easter without THREE things - Paska, Pysanky and paschal lamb butter. (BREAD WITHOUT BUTTER? WUT? IN WHAT AWFUL, NIGHTMARISH ALTERNATIVE REALITY? <- Called "Event Horizon", I believe!) If you don't have the holy trinity, you don't have Easter, period.

Paska? Pysanky? WTF? Let's focus on the second and I'll get around to the first later. (HEY, IT'LL HAPPEN! I EVEN PREPPED THE IMAGE FOLDER YESTERDAY!) Pysanky are those crazy colorful, sometimes awe-inspiring geometrically designed Easter eggs made by an ancient dye and wax method.

(I'm not sure if "pysanky" is a blanketing term that most Eastern Europeans use, or if it's strictly the Ukrainian translation for the art. Seeing that I'm Ukrainian myself, I can only go by what was evident to me growing up.)

If you're Ukie and know it (i.e., practicing certain traditions from THE OLD COUNTRY), you most definitely either HAVE pysanky or, if you don't, you're only one person removed from someone who does (your ma, for example, or your elderly aunt).

Some folks only bust out the decorated eggs around Easter (they help to fill out the Easter basket which gets blessed on Holy Saturday and give an injection of color to baskets ladened with bread, butter, salt and smoked pork products - HOW DO YOU JAZZ UP A SIDE OF BACON? BATIK EGGS, OBVIOUSLY!) and others, like my grandparents, keep them on proud display throughout the year along with horrendous, cheap ass homages to the delicate and fragile art.

(THERE ARE WOODEN VERSIONS OF PYSANKY WITH TASSELS. SERIOUSLY. WOODEN EGGS SITTING IN WOODEN CUTS WITH WOODEN TASSELS. I CAN STILL SEE HEAVILY LACQUERED EGGS SITTING NEXT TO THE DUSTY SAMOVAR ON THE DINING ROOM'S BUFFET AND THE WOODEN BEADS THAT'D SWING BACK AND FORTH, WOOD RATTLING AGAINST WOOD, AS WE RAN PAST PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK IN THE PREFAB HOUSE AS KIDS.)

My family were particularly close to their roots since they were forcibly uprooted themselves thanks to the second world war. My grandfather was forced into serving the Russian army after they swept through his village at the foot of the Carpathian mountains. They killed a sibling (an infant brother), institutionalized another (a sister who spoke out against Russia, collective farming and Communism) and enslaved every able man and older boy to fight the war.

(HELL, IF AN ARMY CAME INTO YOUR LITTLE VILLAGE AND KILLED PART OF YOUR FAMILY, STOLE OTHER MEMBERS AND THEN NON-NEGOTIABLY MARCHED ANYTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING MALE TO FIGHT A WAR ONLY TO KILL ANYONE WHO SO MUCH AS ATTEMPTED TO DESERT THE CAUSE I THINK YOU - OR, UH, "I", I MEAN - ARE SOMEWHAT JUSTIFIED AND ENTITLED USING THE WORD "ENSLAVED")

My grandfather deserted despite knowing the repercussions if he was ever found. (So much so that he was terrified to to go back home, even after the USSR was disbanded. He died never being able to return home for one last time.) He walked from Manchuria - WALKED! DUDE, HE FUCKING //WALKED//! - to Germany where he was given sanctuary at a refugee came.

There he met my grandmother and married having my mother in 1947. They eventually left for the USA in 1951, crossing the Atlantic ocean in the last great wave of immigration. My uncle was born in the States, but I'm the first generation of female born in America, and I didn't join the LIVING BEING scene until 1980.

Sometimes I feel like I got such a tight hold on my roots that there's dirt from the homeland caked beneath my nails. Growing up in an immigrant household all my grandparents had, in the very beginning, were their memories and traditions, and while they adapted and joined the American culture they dearly held onto their heritage.

My mother, at some point, began making pysanky. I don't know where the interest came from, or who she learned from (I'D ASK, BUT SHE UNEXPECTEDLY DIED A FEW YEARS BACK SO THERE'S A LOT I DON'T KNOW AND THERE'S A LOT I WISH I HAD LEARNED) because I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of my grandmother having even a passing interest in drawing a straight line.

(WEARING LIME GREEN POLYESTER 70S SHORTS WITH NOTHING ELSE BUT A GIANT GRANDMA BRA AND A BEEHIVE DURING SUMMER? BABA HAD THAT COVERED, YO.)

My mother did amazing, amazing work. (I'd show you if MY ESTRANGED FAMILY ACTUALLY ALLOWED ME TO TAKE A FEW OF HER THINGS, BUT THEY DIDN'T. AT LEAST NOT THE VERY IMPORTANT STUFF I WAS PROMISED LIKE HER UKIE CROSS-STITCHING, HER EGGS, AND ALL OF THE THINGS NEEDED TO CREATE BOTH.) She made the leap from late-night squinting at eggs to late-night squinting at pottery and, by the time of her death, she had become so accomplished as a Native American potter that some of her pieces were inducted into museums.

(We have a mixed heritage - my grandmother's father was Lakhota (IT'S A VERY LONG STORY THAT INVOLVES AN INDIAN TRAVELING ACROSS THE OCEAN IN A WILD WEST SHOW AND GETTING HELLSA SEA SICK AND NEVER WANTING TO GO ON A BOAT AGAIN) which made my mother a 1/4th and me a laughable 1/8th.)

OKAY, MAYBE THAT'S A LITTLE TOO MUCH FAMILY HISTORY, BUT I JUST WANT TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEPTH SOMETHING AS STUPID AS A DECORATED EASTER EGG HAS FOR ME.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the skill required to create these terrific gems. And the older I get, the more I fucking kick myself for not having expressed interest in learning the art before my mother passed. (LOOK, I WASN'T EXPECTING HER TO DIE FROM A FRACTURED ANKLE IN HER LATE 50S. HAD I KNOW THAT, I WOULD'VE ADJUSTED MY LIFE SCHEDULE ACCORDINGLY.) This year was the tipping point for me when it became increasingly clear that, OH, HEY, MAYBE I CAN DO THIS AFTER ALL! but the inherent skill I felt wasn't translated/expressed through a dull-tipped Sharpie marker.

(THE PENCILING IN OF SHIT? EASY. TRYING TO CREATE FINE, THIN BLACK LINES WITH BLUNT PERMANENT MARKERS AND SCENTED CHILDREN'S MARKERS? (<- LIGHT BLUE/MANGO IS MY FAVORITE!) NOT SO EASY, EVEN WHEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF METH. <- WOW, WAS IT EASY TO CONCENTRATE ON DIVIDING EGGS IN PENCILED SECTIONS WITH RUBBER BANDS WHEN STIMULATED OUT.)

Ever since Italics and I were able to import smoked kielbasa from Wales (OKAY, TECHNICALLY IT WAS DOMESTIC, BUT WALES, LIKE SCOTLAND, IS DOING ITS OWN THANG WITHIN THE UNITED KINGDOM) we've been observing Easter the traditional Eastern Orthodox way. (You can check out the journal entry EASTER SUNDAY for more information if your interest is suitably peaked.) Friends in the States take pity on us and every few years we receive a giant box of USA Easter paraphernalia (PAAS dying kits, Peeps, etc) to replenish diminishing stock.

(YES, VIRGINIA, YOU CANNAE GET PEEPS IN SCOTLAND FOR EASTER. OR EGG COLORING KITS, FOR THAT MATTER. ALTHOUGH I'VE BECOME INCREASINGLY FRUSTRATED WITH THE TABLET-AND-VINEGAR METHOD AND AM PLANNING TO USE NATURAL PLANT-BASED DYES NEXT YEAR FOR BETTER AND MORE EVEN COLOR.)

Despite neither of us being skilled in creating proper pysanky (I'M WORKING ON THAT, THOUGH) we still derive great stoner joy in sitting down together as a couple with a dozen dyed eggs, a box of non-toxic markers, weed and a movie (which can be partially ignored as we do our own late-night squinting).

The annual activity's become even more special thanks to last year when we began the tradition of decorating an egg for people, relative, friends and pets that've passed on since last Easter. Once our highly personalized eggs are done, we leave them as offerings at the base of an ancient tree in the local cemetery's cairn.

When I relocated to Scotland (Italics is Scottish and we decided that we'd rather have an entire ocean separating us from MY family rather than his) my favorite Easter tradition - Swieconka - was a thing of the past. In fact, it took me several years to even FIND a deli that carried smoked polish meat so I could have some shipped up to northeast Scotland for Easter brunch.

Eastern Europeans, especially the Polish, have begun immigrating to the UK in a major way. Last year, due to the huge influx of Poles, a Polish deli opened in town. (DEAR AND GENTLE READERS, YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE MY REACTION.) This year? This year, due to the huge influx of Poles, a single Swieconka service was held at the Catholic cathedral I occasionally pop into to pray at the feet of the Blessed Virgin.

(FIRST OF ALL, I'M NOT GOING TO APOLOGIZE FOR APPROPRIATING AN ALREADY ESTABLISHED ARCHETYPE - I.E., THE VIRGIN MOTHER. SECONDLY, THERE'S A FUCKING STARBUCKS AND TWO LINGERIE SHOPS ON THE SAME STREET - CASE CLOSED, THE JURY FINDS MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT INNOCENT!)

And? AND IT HAPPENED ON MY BIRTHDAY! So on top of preparing the house and ourselves for THE GREAT RITE / SACRED MARRIAGE / HIEROS GAMOS I also had to get my first Easter basket - MY FIRST ONE! MY FIRST, ALL-BY-MYSELF, I AM THE MATRIARCH OF THIS HOUSEHOLD BASKET! - prepared for the single service.

We only managed to dye the eggs, but at least I was able to take my grandfather's egg - along with a few plain eggs wrapped up in those decorated plastic shrinking sleeves - to church and get it blessed by a priest before sitting down and dedicating it him with pencil and Sharpie.

(I TAKE THAT BACK! AFTER THUMBING THROUGH PICTURES NOT YET UPLOADED TO FLICKR I CAN SEE I TOOK ONE PLASTIC WRAPPED EGG (THE ONE WE ENDED UP EATING), MY GRANDFATHER'S RED EGG AND BEH'S YELLOW BUMBLEBEE EGG. NOW THAT THAT'S CLARIFIED...)

This year's pysanky event began on the day we unexpectedly got married after the long (VERY LONG) observation of celibacy during Lent. (I was raised orthodox Catholic, but I consider myself a witch. Since being exposed to the terrific Byzantine opulence of Eastern orthodoxy - which, needless to say, made helluva impression on me - I cherry pick the best of both worlds, or anything that moves and speaks to me. While not being Catholic I observe Lent as a period of spiritual, mental and, most importantly, physical purification as I undergo the process of becoming THE VIRGIN SPRING BRIDE after reigning as THE WINTER HAG WHORE. <- OH, I GET TO BE THE CAILLEACH //AND// THE BRIDE! THE WINNER IS...ME!)

I use the term "UNEXPECTEDLY" because "HAVING ANAL SEX WHILE SUPER INTOXICATED AND SCREAMING "I DO! I DO!" WHEN CLIMAXING" wasn't exactly on the agenda. (SEX SHOWERS = GATEWAY ACTIVITIES. WE WERE SO DAMN GOOD UP UNTIL WE CLIMBED INTO THE TUB AND BROKE OUT THE WAFFLE CONE SCENTED SHOWER GEL!) So we were unexpectedly wed on Easter Sunday, and our reception was the BBC's Easter service followed by the Pope's address from the Vatican.

After a long day of SEX and TURNING THE EARTH (<- literally, we spent some of the glorious day outside planting vegetables together) we retired to the couch with blank, dyed eggs in our lap and, with a Ukrainian Easter brunch spread before us for dinner, our first real act as newly joined husband and wife was honoring and remembering loved ones that've passed by selecting and dedicating Easter eggs as THE TEN COMMANDMENTS played in the background.

(LOOK, I HAVE //NO IDEA// WHY MY FAMILY MADE THE TEN FUCKING COMMANDMENTS AN EASTER TRADITION, BUT THEY DID. ALTHOUGH, SEEING HOW I'M A WITCH INCORPORATING CATHOLIC TRADITIONS INTO HER CRAFT I CAN'T REALLY CRITICIZE MY CRACKHEAD FAMILY FOR MAKING AN OLD TESTAMENT STORY MANDATORY WHEN CELEBRATING A NEW TESTAMENT EVENT. DOING YOUR THING REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE MAINSTREAM'S DOING MUST BE GENETIC, OR SOMETHING.)

As I bring this entry to a close I wish I could offer more folklore regarding Ukrainian Easter eggs, but I wasn't taught the folkish, symbolic side of pysanky. Everything I've learned so far (but haven't mentioned because this entry is already hella, hella long) is due to Google search and the few Ukie cookbooks in my possession. In my family they were viewed as a cultural art form, something done and admired because THAT'S JUST WHAT UKIES DO.

Although doesn't take a lot of imagination to get the feeling of what my ancestors must've thought or felt when undertaking this exquisitely complicated ancient art. Because, as we all know (whether pagan or Catholic), almost everything starts with a blessed egg...

Alex Fullerton, Druggist Egg (no picture)

A week before staying in town overnight a friend sent me an email requesting some graveyard dirt (the hotel we stay in is directly opposite of the St. Nicholas kirkyard, perfect timing!). Since she wanted something specifically to help her in her new career field (she's a health worker) I knew exactly where to go - The Late Alex Fullerton, Druggist. In return for the dirt I left behind a gold foiled wrapped chocolate coin and one of the (blank) red eggs.

Beh's Bumblebee Egg (above)

After her roommate died partially blind Beh Beh quickly succumbed to her "BRAIN THING" (the very scientific diagnosis by the vet; she had some sort of brain tumor) and passed away just over a month after Crazy Rat (aka Hezbollah). We've never lost two rats so quickly in succession; it was utterly heartbreaking.

JB was my Beh Beh, my busy little Beh and my sexy Bumblebeh. So when it came time to select Beh's egg we immediately knew that the yellowest, most golden egg had to be hers. We spent ZERO TIME deciding on the design since it was so obviously obvious and her bumblebee egg will be buried in the same container where her Bee Balm will be planted.

Didi's Egg (above)

My grandfather ("Dido" is Ukie for grandfather, but we never stopped calling him "Didi" even though it was the incorrect baby pronunciation) recreated the orchards from his youth in southern Wisconsin. My grandparents' two acres were filled with ancient oaks, gigantic lilac bushes, a vegetable garden almost two acres long, a patio vineyard and an orchard filled with nearly 50 plum, pear and apple trees.

When I think of my grandfather, I think of the Red Delicious trees that grew in straight lines buzzing with honeybees; I think of the two McIntoshes that were easy to climb and had the best tasting apples. I think of blood - from war, from loss, from life, from beets (heh) - and I see his hands stained red, the imagined sight forever haunting him despite the happiness that his displaced Eden brought him.

Dido was the only grandfather I ever knew and he was a very important (and active) figure in my life. He passed away in September of last year, but none of my estranged family decided to contact me. I only found out about his passing after Christmas when my uncle finally sent me a "HE'S DEAD, STOP SENDING HIM STUFF" letter.

It was just before this past Easter season when I learned, long, long ago Ukrainians left red eggs on the graves of relatives, friends and ancestors to celebrate the concepts of reincarnation and resurrection (reincarnation eventually replaced by the Christian resurrection) - something we've already been doing for a few years now.

So I gave my grandfather the brightest, most deepest, most perfect red egg we had and decorated it with Eastern Orthodox tinted art. Not knowing when he was born I could only Sharpie in the year he died. The other side of the egg features the phrase "CHRIST HAS RISEN" and a folkish pussy willow branch (since palms weren't indigenous to Ukraine they use/d branches of budding pussy willows as a substitute) paying tribute to the tree that grew in front of my grandparents' house and provided us with branches for the Easter season.

Dido's egg will be buried next to the roots of my new Red Spur apple tree since he, apples and the color red go hand-in-hand.

Egg-tagon Egg (no picture)

The Egg-tagon egg's life started out as a blank, teal-colored Easter egg until I began outlining the penciled cross sections I created with a rubber band. (OH NO, I'VE GIVEN AWAY THE PYSANKY SECRET - RUBBER BANDS!) For whatever reason, the second the black Sharpie touched eggshell the damn thing began to leak.

I abandoned it, frustrated, and gave it a few days to see if it'd dry. (It did. Well, mostly...) Not entirely sure what to do with the quartered egg I turned it over to Italics who immediately said he'd make it into an EGG-TAGON (you know, octagon, like the MMA CAGE OF WAR) and he'd bury it in the backyard since that's the new part of the house that we're currently fighting for control over. (MY HUSBAND, HE IS ACE AT THE MAGIC, YOU KNOW.)

Haduka Egg (above)

The haduka design is a very old, very ancient design. (WOW, WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT A DESIGN FEATURING A SPIRAL HAD THAT SORT OF PROVENANCE, RIGHT?) Because I'm difficult and Ms. Opposite I decided to 180 the standard depiction and feature the head of the snake as the starting point of the coil. (I wanted the picture to reflect something internal, something going within itself.) This baby's being taken to water - the North Sea - so I can leave it as an offering to my tentacled water correspondent.

(Papa, otherwise known as Baron Samedi, is my chthonic earth, Chippy, otherwise known as Pazuzu, is my chthonic air and the Tentacle Ones, otherwise known as, well, you can take a wild guess, is/are my chthonic water. Everything that's arrived in a big way, uninvited, unexpected has an underlying theme of "deep" and "underground". When I met the Black Rabbit for the first time I had to go Underground, where the Queen of Heaven's cathedral blazed Byzantine blue deep in the belly of the earth.)

Hail Ukraine! Egg (above)

I'm annoyingly nationalistic for someone who identifies herself with a country and heritage, but can't speak her native tongue. (It's so native, in fact, that it was my first language. For the first several years of my life I spoke Ukrainian exclusively, but when it came time to enter public school I had to have a crash course in English and during that frantic pace of learning I forgot my mother tongue. I still understand it, though, but only if people are speaking a westernized version of it. <- EASTERN UKRAINIAN IS MORE RUSSIAN, WESTERN IS MORE ROMANIAN. IN FACT, I HAVE AN EASIER TIME UNDERSTANDING SOME ROMANIANS THAN I DO SOME UKRAINIANS DUE TO MY FAMILY'S DIALECT.)

When the Ukrainian soccer team's playing I pull out my Ukie soccer jersey, Orange Revolution scarf and my mother's golden tryzub pendant and run around the house like a maniac when goals are scored. (PRETENDING, ALL THE WHILE, THAT THE ENTIRE CORRUPTION / SCANDAL / BAN THING NEVER HAPPENED.) It was Italics, though, who suggested I take one of the yellow eggs and paint half of it blue - the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

(The blue symbolizes the sky, and the yellow represents wheat fields - Ukraine is known as the "breadbasket of Europe". According to Wiki the two colors also correlate with fire and water and the pair of colors have been used together way, way before Christianity, OH, WIKI, YOU NEVER CEASE TEACHING ME ABOUT MY OWN CULTURE! <3!)

I'm not sure where I'm going to bury this one. I recently purchased three dwarf fruit trees (two apples and a pear) to start my own orchard, albeit in containers. (You got to start somewhere, right?) When the trio arrived they were all battered and bruised due to the shit packaging; the two apple trees survived, but the pear, disappointingly, perished. I was originally going to join the Hail Ukraine! egg with the pear tree, but I'm not sure if I should take the unfortunate pear death as a sign to match the egg up with the Golden Spur apple.

Hezbollah's Hitman Egg (above)

Hezbollah was our Arab rat from Lebanon who lead a secret life as Hitman while disguised as a gardener, talent agent and occasional cracker salesman. Rats, in this house, never get called by their "vet names". (i.e., the normal names, non-nickname names that we don't have to explain to anyone else - Hezbollah, for instance, started out as "Rhonda" from the Beach Boys' song "Help Me Rhonda" and Beh was "JB" from "Sloop John B" and Jigga was "Barbara Ann"...)

Crazy Rat (aka Rhoda / Hezbollah) arrived on the scene during the 2006 Hezbollah war, and while Italics and I racked our brains for a nickname the only thing we heard in the background was HEZBOLLAH, HEZBOLLAH, HEZBOLLAH (for our daily dose of LULZ we keep FOX NEWS on in the background); the name/word stuck. And that, dear and gentle readers, is how you accidentally name your pet after "a Shi'a Islamist political and paramilitary organisation based in Lebanon", TRUFAX.

Italics carefully sketched and filled in the Hitman suit on Crazy Rat's egg, and even marked in a bar code at the base of the egg's "neck". This is another egg we haven't got a clue what to do with so it's currently lying in state until a decision's made. (Something related to gardening is my guess.)

Leprechaun Egg (no picture)

You know how they say a picture can tell a thousand words? Well, a YouTube video can tell a million more. If you've seen LEPRECHAUN IN ALABAMA then you can guess what our sole green Easter egg looked like (someone's profile sketch of it - THAT'S AN HONEST TO GOD FOR REAL NON-HOAXED SKETCH OF WHAT ONE EYE-WITNESS INSISTED THEY SAW), and where it's going to go (IN A TREE, NATURALLY, WHERE LEPRECHAUNS AND CRACKHEADS LIVE).

Mask's Egg (above)

This is another one of Italics's patient creations. A few months before Easter someone involved in the MMA scene died after crashing his car. He was known for his 24/7 face paint and outrageous clothing. I can't remember who suggested it first, but Italics took the wheel and drew an approximation of his war paint and even created a hat for the egg. (To give you a rough idea, here's a picture of the semi-recently deceased before he became semi-recently deceased: CLICK!)

Pac-man Ghost Egg (no picture)

The very last egg left sitting by itself was blue. And it sat, and sat, and sat while all the others were selected and scribbled upon. Every day I'd spend a few minutes frowning at it, all pysanky-ed out, trying to figure out what we should do with the final blank Easter egg. (I mean, we had to do SOMETHING since blue - especially dark blue - is a tremendously huge MAGIC color for me.) PACMAN GHOST, I suggested, since it was about the right color. And Pacman ghost it became, although neither of us know where Inky's going to haunt...

Pysanka w/Folk Designs (above)

Every year I make one or two eggs that reflect the simple folk art of my ancestors. (OH, THEY LOVED SPIRALS AND LADDERS AND HAMMERS AND SHARP, ANGULAR ANIMALS.) With my tiny Ukie cookbook on my lap and meth helping me concentrate I carefully freehanded designs from a book onto a quartered egg as the Ten Commandments played in the background. (AS CHILDISH AS THEY LOOK, THEY'RE PRETTY SPOT ON. I WASN'T JOKING WHEN I SAID "SIMPLE" BEFORE "FOLK ART".)

One panel reflects a stylized rooster, another a sheath of wheat. The other side's decorated with a bee, and the final quarter is a jumble of images - a growing leaf, a ladder, a rake and the symbol for "maiden" (which doubles as Aries; my sun sign).

YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH I LOVE THE FACT THAT MY ANCESTORS PAINTED LADDERS AND RAKES ON EGGS THAT SYMBOLIZED THE CIRCLE OF LIFE AND REINCARNATION. (<- Ladders, strangely enough, became spiritually significant to me a few years back, so it's a double LOL! to find out that even my ancestors had a religious and spiritual reverence for them.)

Striped Pysanka (above)

This is about the closest I got to a proper pysanka from my youth. Normally I just freestyle shit, but with this one I wanted to reflect a simplified version of a symmetrical pattern running all across the egg. Italics, for some reason, was impressed. (And me? I was frustrated that the lines couldn't be finer, but when you're working with a blunt Sharpie marker you've got to throw any notions of "finely detailed" out the window.)

This is also the Easter egg that finally made me go - OKAY, SO YOU CAN DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE WITH LIQUID EYELINER, AND HAVE A HAND STEADY ENOUGH TO GO INTO MEDICINE - WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE FOR NOT GETTING A BEGINNERS KIT TO START MAKING PROPER PYSANKY?

Once we snag a vacuum sealer (OUR FROZEN RATS ARE GETTING FREEZER BURNED! GAH!) I'm totally getting my first pysanky kit and giving up my dependency on Sharpie markers. (BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE THE SCENTED MARKERS AWAY FROM ME. LIGHT BLUE / MANGO AND I WERE MEANT TO BE!)

Wheat Egg (Laid) (no picture)

You so don't want to know what happened to this egg, but since this is MY ENTRY and this is MY DIARY you're going to find out what happened to this particular egg, regardless. (SO THERE.) I'll give you a hint - CHICKENS AREN'T THE ONLY THINGS THAT LAY EGGS. (Ahem.)

Spanking Day was observed twice this year, both on the Julian and the Gregorian calender. Italics's first egg was the shell of a real egg filled with hazelnut praline (it's still sitting on his beside altar / nightstand space), the second was a bright yellow duck egg laid straight into his hand.

We never got a proper picture of it, but you can see the Wheat Egg in two Flickr images as we performed a quick wheat planting ritual before going way for the night. Wheat Ritual III has the egg sitting with seeds, and Wheat Ritual IV shows the egg and a golden coin being buried deep in the dead crow dirt container.

(I'm not delving into too much detail about the laying and planting since I intend to record the ritual properly in its own journal entry.)

Wrapped w/Plastic Sleeve X 3 (no picture)

EVERY GODDAMN YEAR I FORGET THAT OUR STANDARD "MEDIUM" SIZED EGGS WON'T FUCKING FIT THOSE DECORATIVE PLASTIC SLEEVES THAT SHRINK OVER EGGS ONCE SUBMERGED IN BOILING WATER. Thankfully, this year, we managed to squeeze one perfectly within its PAAS jacket; the other two needed a slight nip in the side to fit more properly.

The smallest of the three was taken with my grandfather's red egg and Beh's yellow egg and blessed at a special Holy Saturday church service. We ritually ate the smallest one, and then left the other two in the cemetery as Easter offerings. (Muriel - this being her first Easter deceased - got one, and I left the other one at the foot of a homemade cross on the nun's grave which can be seen in the picture Sisters of St. Mary.)

STICK A FORK IN ME; I'M DONE. (If that wasn't already apparent a few pictures back when the information regarding each egg became less enthusiastic and wordy.) If you aren't done, though, and can't get enough of my pysanky pictures and/or stories you're in luck because there's a few more pictures that show some HOT PYSANKY ACTION: Altar Set, Tribute to the Deceased, Witch's Workspace I, and Witch's Workspace II.

(If you've read this far you totally deserve a pysanka of your own.)

April 29th Walk

Filed under: Life

When my mother-in-law mentioned she had a work related appointment at Balmedie and offered Italics and I a chance to roam the shoreline there was a mad scramble for showers and clean clothes.

(HOLY SHIT, DUDE, IT'S BEEN AT LEAST //2 YEARS// SINCE I LAST VISITED A FOR REAL BEACH EVEN THOUGH IT'S LESS THAN A HALF AN HOUR AWAY. <- When you depend on others for a ride, spontaneous trips to the beach become an elusive thing of the past.)

There was a bit of back and forth between Italics and I because Balmedie has a reputation for being one of the very few recognized SEX ZONES of the area (everything from swinging to voyeurism), at least during the beach's AFTER hours.

(WHICH, HONESTLY AND TRULY, MUST BE TOTALLY AWESOME FOR THE LULZ, AND I WOULD 100% GO TO INVESTIGATE IF I DIDN'T THINK THAT SHOWING UP DURING THE RUMORED HOURS WAS PARTIAL CONSENT AND/OR GAVE THE APPEARANCE OR IMPRESSION OF GENUINE INTEREST ON MY PART. I MEAN, IT WOULD BE GENUINE INTEREST, BUT IT WOULDN'T BE THE SAME INTEREST SHARED BETWEEN MYSELF AND ANY POSSIBLE EXTRA-MARTIAL PARTNERS, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.)

With us galloping towards the solstice the days are stretching out and claiming territory that used to belong to night. Right now we still have remnants of sunset that hang around in the sky long after the sun's disappeared, so the Scottish gloam period extends further and further into military hours. Around four in the morning Byzantine blue erupts in the east and pushes back the glittering cover of night, by five the first incandescent streaks of light peek over neighboring houses and spills across concrete.

SEX PERVERTS BE DAMNED, I ultimately decided. (LOLOLOL @ SEX PERVERTS BE DAMNED, AS IF THE WOMAN WHO SAT COMPLETELY NAKED ON THE RAW NEW YEAR'S PRIME RIB AND DEMANDED HER HUSBAND TAKE PICTURES COULDN'T POSSIBLE FALL UNDER "SEX PERVERT" HERSELF) In the end we agreed that it wouldn't be dark enough to warrant anything overtly sleazy and dubious so we could fly Chippy's butterfly kit undisturbed and, more importantly, unmolested.

(LOOK, IT'S NOT THAT I'M AFRAID OF SAYING "CHEERS, BUT NO THANKS!" AS POLITELY AS I CAN; IT'S JUST THAT I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO BROKEN RECORD IT THROUGHOUT THE DURATION OF OUR NON-SEXUAL KITE FLYING BEACH TRIP. I TOTALLY GET THAT //I'M// THE ONE NOT USING THE BEACH FOR WHAT IT'S INTENDED FOR, RUMORS AND ALL, SO, IN A WAY, //I'M// THE ONE GIVING OFF THE WRONG MESSAGE.)

Showers were taken, eyebrows were plucked, better-than-nice clothes were crawled into (I WAS GETTING READY TO VISIT MY SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL HOUSE; YOU DON'T GO TO CHURCH WEARING YOUR RAT-CHEWED SWEAT PANTS, DO YOU?), best white push-up bra and favorite crotchless panties were donned, ritual jewelry was adorned, Chippy's butterfly kite (Chippy's my chthonic air correspondent who has a soft spot for little cheap-cheap birds and dainty butterflies) was located and the blue haduka pysanka (an Easter egg dyed blue with a black Sharpie drawing of a coiled serpent; a very old, very ancient Ukrainian design that's thousands of years old) was plucked from the egg carton to leave in the North Sea as an offering to my chthonic water correspondent.

...and after ALL of that effort we never actually went. (FOR SERIOUS.) It mostly boiled down to wind, if you can believe it. (NO, NOT SEX PERVERTS SINCE I FEEL I COULD OUT SEX PERVERT ANY SEX PERVERT YOU PUT IN FRONT OF ME.) It was already hella windy here, about 15-20 miles inland, and, apparently, it was a lot worse on the actual coast. So we folded our kite flying and Easter egg offering cards in favor of going for a walk to the local cemetery to leave some of our overly ripe pysanky at the cairn for the dead (which we meant to do on Easter Sunday).

((This is the point where I'm going to break down our walk through pictures so the V. IMPORTANT SHIT (i.e., the shit that almost always seems to happen when we're in transit to, or from, the local cemetery) gets noted for personal reference. I love being overly enthusiastic with unnecessary words; just not today, especially when photos can easily get the job done.))

Just after we crossed the tiny road trailing up the hill and began passing the first fenced in pasture field (SHEEP! BABY LAMBS! TREMENDOUS "AWWS!" ALL AROUND!) next to the DISTURBED CHILDREN'S HOME (some pictures are HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE) I discovered a bit of fur fluff on the grass next to the wire fence.

Something popped, literally, when I bent over, which made me pause for a split second before I dismissed the sensation in favor of investigating the piece of (wild) rabbit fur. Upon further inspection, it turned out that bit'o'fluff was actually a detached tail, connecting bones (or cartilage) and all. After expressing concern for the now tailless rabbit I tucked my pointed fluff into my breast pocket and we continued on towards the stove and cemetery.

(When I went Underground for the first time and encountered the female deity-entity-person-thing who governs over me She told me that rabbits were sacred to Us and that I wasn't allowed to eat them. (Although I AM allowed to wear them, which means I didn't have to retire my beloved white rabbit fur coat.) As frank as She was, it was Her straight-faced amusement that made me wonder if She was just yanking my chain. OH, BLACK RABBIT, I KNOW THAT WE COMMUNICATE THROUGH LOLS BUT THIS IS ONE MYSTERY I HAVE YET TO UNRAVEL COMPLETELY.)

(I SRSLY THINK SHE'S JUST SNICKERING AT ME BEHIND MY BACK AND SILENTLY NUDGING EVERYONE ELSE WITH HER ELBOWS IN MY DIRECTION SO THEY CAN JOIN IN AND LOL AT ME, MISS HOLY-SHIT-SHE-DIDN'T-GET-THAT-IT-WAS-A-JOKE. "OH, YEAH, SURE, WE DON'T EAT RABBITS, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE WE'RE THE BLACK RABBIT, AND RABBITS REPRESENT SEX AND DEATH...")

The rabbit tail is sitting on the saucer of my Russian divining tea cup set (THE BLACK RABBIT IS RUSSIAN, BTW, WHICH, I GUESS, IS PROBABLY IMPORTANT TO MENTION) but it's going to be dropped in a clean baby jar with lid and packed away with all of my other semi-gruesome witch jars filled with dehydrated animal parts. (OH, HONEY, YES, I'M //THAT// SORT'VE WITCH.)

Since our normal route to the cemetery always involves crossing the beech hedge into a cow pasture we decided to stop at the stove (it resides at the very start of the narrow line of ancient trees) to see if any of the offerings we left about a week ago still remained.

(BEECH HEDGES? COW PASTURES? OUTSIDE STOVE AND OFFERINGS? Sounds like you might need to read the ARCTIC RIVER entry which explains our annual outside stove ritual.)

Everything was gone; they didn't leave a trace. All of THIS had disappeared - without leaving so much as a crumb - except for the two pomegranates which laid discarded amongst the broken stone. I pocketed both, deciding that I'd leave them (secondhand offering, YAY!) at the cairn with the eggs.

Last year we started the tradition of decorating an egg for friends, relatives, pets and people who've passed once since the previous Easter. We dye about a dozen eggs and then carefully designate which egg will represent the deceased and decorate it accordingly.

Once the eggs begin smelling ripe (they have a tendency to get left on the altar a little bit TOO long, YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES) they get carted off to the cemetery where they're left at the roots of the giant tree that grows in the middle of the cairn.

(As it turns out Ukrainians - 7/8th of my genes; the other 1/8th is Lakhota - left red eggs on the graves of their ancestors and friends around Easter long, long ago to celebrate the concepts of resurrection and reincarnation. It's amazing to find the shit you're doing through spontaneous instinct actually has a FOR REAL history with your heritage.)

This year we decided only some of the eggs we decorated would be left at the cemetery. My grandfather's egg, Beh's egg and Hezbollah's egg are still at home with us waiting to be buried in various plant and tree containers along with a few other eggs that were decorated purely for decoration purposes. (You don't throw away pysanky; it's bad luck. You respectfully bury it, burn it or drop it in running water.)

(We've already agreed that Beh's bumblebee egg will be buried beneath the bee balm we planted her this year (bumble bees live underground! they're chthonic, you know!), Didi's red pysanka will be buried beneath the red apple tree that's just arrived, but we aren't entirely sure what to do with Hezbollah's egg...)

Italics made a LOL! pysanky tribute for two guys involved in MMA that've passed recently (Mask and Evan Tanner) and I left behind two slightly more traditional Ukrainian pysanky with folkish designs (done in Sharpie marker - ONE OF THESE YEARS I WILL PICK UP A BEGINNERS KIT TO MAKE FOR REAL PYSANKY, UNTIL THEN NON-TOXIC MARKERS WILL HAVE TO DO).

So the eggs and pair of pomegranates were left, and I took the opportunity to trim some overhanging branches that've made getting to the hidden cairn a bit difficult. It took me shaking off my flannel jacket (so I could have an unencumbered woodland piss) to discover that OH SHIT, THAT POPPING SENSATION FELT EARLIER WHEN PICKING UP THE DETACHED TAIL WAS ACTUALLY THE BRA STRAP OF MY VERY NEW, VERY FAVORITE WHITE PUSH-UP BRA SNAPPING AND SEPARATING FROM THE BACK.

(And I only realized THAT once one of my unleashed boobs came tumbling out of my t-shirt. OH, BABY, EVEN UNINTENTIONALLY I AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT //CLASSY//!)

One of these days I'll tell you guys about how - long, long ago - I desperately wanted to be a nun. (Blame AGNES OF GOD and my mother allowing me, as a fix-six-seven-eight-nine-ten year old, to watch it whenever the fuck I wanted. I was raised on a movie diet of RED SONJA, BARBARELLA, AGNES OF GOD, STAR WARS, and SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE.) I mean, they're just priestesses in uniform, you know?

Whenever I visit the cemetery to leave something for Papa or Muriel (ANOTHER STORY I V. SRSLY NEED TO TELL) I occasionally leave something for my fellow sister, so it only seemed right to leave her a less ostentatious Easter egg. Both Sister MacDonald and Muriel were given undyed eggs and a long drink of bottled water.

(LOLOLOLOL! IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT, IT TOOK ME LOOKING AT THE PICTURE ABOVE TO REALIZE THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH I VISIT IN TOWN TO PRAY AT THE FEET OF MARY'S STATUE ("ZOMG SHE DOES //WUT//?!" DUDE, I'M NOT PICKY WITH MY VIRGIN MOTHER ARCHETYPES, OKAY? BESIDES, A STARBUCKS AND A LINGERIE BOUTIQUE ARE ON THE SAME STREET - SCORE!) HAPPENS TO BE THE SAME ST. MARY'S THAT SISTER MACDONALD WAS FROM. LOL, WHOOPS?)

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT - THAT'S NOT THE AVERAGE LENGTH AND WIDTH OF A GRAVE THEY DIG HERE! (So what the EFF is going on? THE WITCH WHO ADOPTED THIS CEMETERY AS HER GRAVEYARD STOMPING GROUNDS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW.) What I DO know is that it wasn't impressive enough for me to yank off my favorite pair of crotchless panties to drop into the to-be grave (or whatever it is).

(I ACTUALLY HAVE A DRAWER IN THE BEDROOM PARTIALLY FILLED WITH USED PANTIES. ONCE MY THONGS OR WHATEVER GET SHOT THEY GET TRANSFERRED TO THE PANTY OFFERING DRAWER TO BE DONNED FOR THE FINAL TIME BEFORE BEING LEFT AS AN OFFERING.)

(FOR INSTANCE, I CLAIMED MURIEL'S GRAVE BY PISSING IN IT (WHICH IS HARD TO DO WHEN YOU'RE HIGH AND TRYING NOT TO PISS ON YOUR FEET WHILE BALANCING ON WOBBLING PLANKS ONLY PARTIALLY COVERING AN EMPTY HOLE WAITING FOR A CASKET) AND THEN DROPPED IN THE (WHITE) UNDERWEAR I HAD BEEN WEARING. AFTER SHE WAS BURIED AND THE SOD WAS THROWN BACK OVER THE GRAVE I LIFTED A PATCH AND TUCKED A SECOND PAIR OF WHITE PANTIES IN, EFFECTIVELY SANDWICHING HER BETWEEN MY USED UNDERWEAR.)

(YOU DO MAGIC YOUR WAY, I DO MAGIC //MY// WAY.)

OH DEAR, JESUS, LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE'S BEEN BREAKING //A LOT// OF BREAD RECENTLY (PERHAPS IN "ALL YOU CAN EAT" BUFFET FORM?). OR MAYBE YOU'VE SECRETLY FORSAKEN YOUR DIVINE FATHER IN FAVOR OF CAKE? (IT REALLY WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME, WASN'T IT?)

When walking back home from the cemetery we passed an overly friendly couple ambling in the opposite direction. I flashed a polite smile and glanced away, not in the mood for direct contact. As it turned out it was my old doctor - the one who blatantly disregarded everything I said and, in doing so, set back treatment for my several diagnosed digestive disorders - and his wife, and once Italics clued me in I felt saliva burst into my mouth and spat the froth behind my shoulder in my former GP's direction.

(I BAKED HIM A LOAF OF BANANA BREAD, YOU KNOW. MY SECRET INGREDIENT? A PINCH OF MY HOMEMADE FET GHEDE GRAVEYARD DIRT. HE SAID IT WAS INORDINATELY DELICIOUS; HIS WIFE, IN FACT, FINISHED MOST OF IT OFF. NEWS USUALLY TRICKLES DOWN FROM HIS WIFE TO MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, AND THEN FROM MY MOTHER-IN-LAW TO ITALICS. ONE OF THESE DAYS, WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, I'LL HEAR SOMETHING AND KNOW THAT THAT PARTICULAR STORY SOLELY BELONGS TO ME.)

Italics spat too, a few second after me, and I've wondered ever since if that was deliberate, or accidentally coincidental. (It's not like he doesn't have his own personal grievances when it comes to our once shared doctor.)

It was only after the walk that I realized that it was April 29th, which meant it was my mother's birthday. She was born in Hanover; a German refugee camp because her father - my grandfather - was a Russian army deserter (after killing an infant sibling and institutionalizing a sister (for speaking out against the Russians and communism) the red army came and forced my Ukrainian grandfather - and all other able men and boys from his village - to join the army).

She died in one of our two ancestral homelands - the Black Hills, South Dakota. (The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakhota people. She took her quarter of Native American and discarded everything else; I've embraced my 7/8ths of Ukrainian and left her with my eighth of Indian.) If she hadn't died of a pulmonary embolism a few years ago (she fractured her ankle after falling on ice when letting one of the dogs in, a blood clot formed and traveled up to her lungs where it got stuck and effectively caused an artery to blow up) she would've been 62.

After the bra strap, after the tail, after the stove, after the pomegranates, after the eggs, after the mysterious grave, after ALL YOU CAN EAT Jesus, after spitting in the dust of my previous doctor (THEY SO WOULD'VE BURNED MY ASS FOR THAT A FEW HUNDRED YEARS AGO), after receiving two orgasms and reciprocating with a handjob it suddenly dawned on me - as I glanced out the bedroom window to the sickle hanging in the sky - that it was my mother's birthday.

So, after all of it, I stood in silent communion on the cold concrete steps, and took a picture of the blazing crescent moon (IT BLAZED A LOT MORE IMPRESSIVELY TO THE NAKED EYE, BTW) for my mother; the stubborn bull that was the precursor to this stubborn Aries.

Arctic River

Filed under: Life

This Spring's been an arctic river overflowing with winter run-off. Fast moving, non-negotiable waters thunder past my legs pushing, pulling and sweeping me away with the charging current. There's no use fighting the tidal wave of lightening movement, so I haven't tried. (No struggling means freedom, even when lost amongst the tumbling chaos, and with my attention undistracted I can almost catch all of the beautiful, awe inducing gems the season's hidden away just for me.)

(IN OTHER WORDS, I'VE BEEN SO GODDAMN BUSY FOR THE PAST THREE WEEKS DUE TO SPRING RELATED ACTIVITIES THAT I'VE HAD TO RELY ON MY BRAND NEW BIRTHDAY CAMERA AS A DIARY.)

Late last year I stole a narrow stretch of waste ground where I loosened the earth and haphazardly planted over three heads of garlic. (I didn't think it'd work, but it DID.) Very early in February there were suspicious shoots popping up in a semi-neat row, and now, at the very end of April, this is what it looks like. Next year? Next year I'll try even //harder//. (Any more effort than I originally expended would already be an improvement. Srsly.)

No signs of scrapes yet. (Once the garlic is ready to flower it grows out a tentacle - the scrape - which'll eventually blossom. To encourage bulb growth you need to cut the scrape before it flowers so the energy is diverted below.) But, baby, once those fuckers pop up it'll be garlic scrape pesto time...

Sections of Aberdeen were built on a hill, so a part of it slopes down at a slow angle and is only disturbed by stairs and old buildings. Wild city rabbits live in any patch of green (along roadsides, next to towering blocks of apartments and in cemeteries) and as we were cutting through lanes and streets and alleys to get to our dinner reservation, we saw that the rabbits had already beaten us to Sunday dinner.

I always feel stupidly disappointed when wild animals don't respond to my ANIMAL SPEAK. (ANIMAL SPEAK = PURSING LIPS TOGETHER AND SUCKING AIR IN JUST A LITTLE TO MAKE A SQUEAKING SOUND.) Italics and I have spent years developing ANIMAL SPEAK since our first pair of rats, Ann and Nancy (after Heart, although Nancy was the one who got fat out of the pair).

Animal Speak gets used when I want to attract the attention of the rats (they know it's my COME HERE RIGHT NOW or FOOD PEOPLE HAS FOOD or I WANT TO SEE YOUR LITTLE RAT FACES voice), but it'll also work on wild animals - they cock their head, blink and then give you a straight up WHAT THE FUCK? expression.

Last year we celebrated the winter solstice by renting a hotel room and staying in town overnight. (Aberdeen's roughly 15 minutes away from us; we're in a subdivision in the shire where it's mostly rural.) Even though we were running late we took a few minutes in the privacy of the alley to take some pictures.

(AND WHEN I SAY "TAKE SOME PICTURES" I MEAN, "GET HIGH BEFORE EATING A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF CHINESE FOOD AND, ALSO, TAKE SOME PICTURES".)

The above picture was taken mid-April (spring!), and THIS HERE PICTURE was taken mid-December (winter!); both show Marischal College's tower erupting in the background.

In the few instances we've used the stairs as a shortcut we were always on schedule for something. This past trip, however, we were running early so we were able to loiter more leisurely around ancient brick and stone.

While Italics was trying to get our pipe working (JOINTS ARE NICE IN A SUPERFICIAL VISUAL WAY, BUT WASTEFUL - AND, ALSO, I DON'T LIKE MY FINGER SMELLING LIKE CIGARETTES) I noticed, for the first time, that there was writing on the wall.

(I have NO idea what it means, but Aberdeen's known for keeping crazy ass insane records, so it should be easy to find out the history behind the engravings.)

I don't know anything about this church other than it's OLD, OLD, OLD (you can tell by the structure of the buildings attached to it, and the look of the building materials) and IT'S ANOTHER ABERDEEN CHURCH (you guys would not believe how many fucking churches there are in the city). I haven't made my way up to visit it, but I do intend to...eventually. (To see the church at night in winter click on THIS HERE LINK.)

I chose this little Italian cafe place for my belated birthday dinner. Despite being absolutely desperate for a pizza (I'VE TOLD ITALICS V. BLATANTLY AND WITHOUT ANY SUBTLETY THAT I'M WILLING TO PROVIDE SEXUAL FAVORS FOR A REALLY FUCKING GOOD PIZZA; YOU JUST CAN'T GET THE PIZZA I WANT HERE IN SCOTLAND) I saw that they served veal Marsala and my Evil Queen heart (I ALSO WEAR FUR. THAT'S RIGHT - I EAT VEAL AND WEAR FUR AND ADMIT TO BOTH; CRUCIFY OR WORSHIP ME AS YOU PLEASE.) skipped a beat and all notion of pizza was gone.

Italics, either up for the challenge or hoping to fill the pizza void in my Chicago-born heart, ordered a calzone. The picture above does absolutely no justice to the sheer size of the fucking monster; that plate could fit a decapitated head on it easily - EASILY. My veal? A little tough due to being overcooked, but the Marsala sauce was exquisite. Their cured meats (our starter) were terrific, but the Tiramisu was only so-so (they put a layer of jam, or something, through the dessert, but it tasted like apricot-flavored petroleum jelly at best, and apricot-flavored toothpaste gel at worst).

The coffee? To fucking die for. (It was seriously the star of the evening.)

By the time we saw a movie, walked up from the beach, had dinner and returned back to the hotel it was edging just past nine in the evening. I had to keep a straight face while gnawing on a inner cheek when I noticed that our hotel neighbors opposite of us, despite having two trash cans in the room, decided to discard their take-away garbage in the hall.

(LOL, CLASSY! I ESPECIALLY LOVE HOW THEY HUNG THE "DO NOT DISTURB" SIGN. OH, POOR PEOPLE, YOU'RE AN ENDLESS SOURCE OF DISGUSTED AMUSEMENT FOR ME. PS: THIS PICTURE'S BLURRED BECAUSE I FORCED ITALICS TO GO BACK OUTSIDE AND TAKE A PICTURE AND AS HE WAS DOING SO ONE OF THE OCCUPANTS BEGAN OPENING THEIR ROOM DOOR.)

Italics didn't know that I packed away my blond wig, a pair of knee high socks and my cheerleader outfit for fun later that night. I posed, for a second, in his semi-new sort've Indiana Jones BUT NOT REALLY jacket, and the whole cheerleader thing went out the window. (FIGURATIVELY, I MEAN. DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE NICE WIGS ARE? JESUS.)

After dinner entertainment was wearing my husband's jacket and nothing else (WAIT, I TAKE THAT BACK - I WAS STILL WEARING A BRA!) and the "movie" mode on our recently retired digital camera. (I was feeling the affects of the coffee - even though it had been a decaf - so I needed a visit from THE FIREMEN to soothe the affects of GERD. <- LAUGH NOW, BUT WAIT UNTIL YOUR OVERLY ACIDIC STOMACH IS IN DIRE NEED OF A SHOT OF SOMETHING ALKALINE TO CALM IRRITATION.)

This is a shot of Union Street running down into Castlegate (the smaller, secondary looking castle in the middle of the picture) in downtown Aberdeen taken by Italics the morning after our belated birthday celebrations. (IT STARTED WITH HIS JACKET, AND ENDED WITH A CHIPPER AND A BAG OF MALTEASERS IN BED.)

Aberdeen, to the naked eye, appears to have been built around a church (St. Nicholas) and its graveyard. This is a picture of the more formal entrance to the kirkyard which is used as a thoroughfare and public park. (I've never seen people so happily sit on green cemetery grass like they were visiting a botanic garden until St. Nicholas.)

"Marischal College is a building in the Scottish city of Aberdeen belonging to the University of Aberdeen. It was formerly an independent university in its own right. A significant portion of the building is currently leased on a long-term basis to Aberdeen City Council for office space. As well as being the tallest building in Aberdeen, it is also the second largest granite building in the world."

Oh, Wiki, you're a blessing to this lazy shell of a human being! (View right outside the newest Starbucks in town.)

Since the St. Nicholas kirkyard is in the center of the city, it's one of the best semi-private places to have a joint before galloping off to diner. Our preferred spot is near Mr. Alex Fullerton, Druggist, which is wonderfully aged and picturesque on gloriously sunny days. (LOLOLOL, I KNOW. WE ONLY REALIZED THE "DRUGGIST" PART SORT'VE RECENTLY.)

When a friend who's involved in medicine and health care requested some graveyard dirt I immediately knew whose grave the dirt was coming off of. (NOTE TO SELF: In return you left one of the red-dyed Easter eggs (Ukrainians, in the olden days, left red eggs at the graves of ancestors and friends to encourage reincarnation and resurrection) and a gold foiled chocolate coin.)

This is the infamous dirtyard, post-crocus season. (IT HAS SERIOUSLY SAT LIKE THIS FOR OVER THREE YEARS NOW.) I took this picture just before I went to work with a flattened box of cereal and a spade to mark the strip where I intended to plant carrots and beets. Unfortunately, the street extends too far beneath the soil so some of the chthonic vegetables I wanted to grow in the dirtyard (carrots!) will have to be planted elsewhere.

Last year my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, threw away all of my spring bulbs that Italics had given me as a gift. (IN THIS HOUSE, HE GETS TO DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR THINGS.) He never apologized or acknowledged that he had thrown away another gift (or ashes that belonged to my mother, or an anniversary gift I was making for Italics, or...) so Italics stepped in and bought me another round of bulbs.

"Richly coloured tulip of burnt orange-red with petal edges of yellow-gold."

One of my favorite parts of Spring is watching the giant, almost unbelievable changes that seem to happen overnight. One day tulips are tight, pursed buds; the next they've unfurled with a gasp for fresh air. Transformations always seem so immediate during the season of renewal.

Oh, nasty ass Starlings, I love how you don't give a fuck about me even if I'm outside doing gardening work next to your bird food. (Nothing comes between you and the food I put out for you guys, NOTHING.)

When planting out CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE Spring flowers last fall (grape hyacinths, dwarf irises, dwarf tulips, tulips and daffodils) I discovered a handful of mysterious bulbs hidden deep within a dirt filled container. I rescued them (they were buried too deep to properly sprout, Christ only knows how long they've just sat in that plastic bucket) and relocated them to the container with my Finnish poppies. This Spring solved the mystery; they're Narcissus, and they smell like heaven.

Whenever I cook with Italics there's always a fifty percent chance of ass.

(This is our third batch of Cowboy Bread (sort've like a flour tortilla meets pita bread) - THE BEST YET! - after its first rise. Italics is dividing the dough into eight smaller portions so after the second rise we can roll them out and "bake" them in a skillet.)

The Cowboy Bread's risen twice, rolled out and then pan-fried in olive oil until golden spots appear. (We made two super huge ones - the size the recipe suggests - and then halved the other portions so they were more pita than giant, fluffy flour tortillas.)

Once cooked-baked-fried you shove the flat bread(s) into a ziploc bag, or cover them with a damp towel, so the steam keeps them soft and pliable. (We never got around to artfully arranging them on a plate for SRS FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY because all we wanted to do was tear into the fuckers and shovel hummus into our mouths.)

Shango blossoms on the Shango (Bone) Tree. (Technically, Mr. Awesome (my father-in-law) owns the tree, but I adopted it a few years back and have been gradually and systematically exerting control over it.)

Two years ago - the first REAL year I started getting V. serious about all of this magic business - the Shango Tree (a plum tree), bore fruit. Thanks to everyone's complete disinterest in the the garden I was able to secretly reap the reward and ritually consumed the tree-ripened plums without having to share.

I was so swept up in foraging hedonism that I didn't occur to me to KEEP THE FUCKING PITS SO I COULD GROW NEW SHANGO (BONE) TREES FROM SEED. I kicked myself for fucking MONTHS for discarding the pits and anxiously waited for the next growing season to roll around. And what did the tree do last year? NOT FLOWER, OBVIOUSLY. (No flowers = no fruit; no fruit = no seeds; no seeds = no new Shango (Bone) Trees.)

I spent all of last year coaxing it to flower (everything from leaving offerings of food, watering it by hand almost every other day, laying my hands on the tree and giving it some Barry White vocal love) this year, and all of that effort paid off. (Although it would've been A LOT MORE AWESOME if the Shango (Bone) Tree hadn't decided to stick out the ONE FLOWERING BRANCH IT PRODUCED like a fucking flasher with an erection. <- WAY TO ATTRACT MR. AWESOME'S ATTENTION, S(B)T! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SUBTLE MAGIC? JESUS.)

I can't remember a time when Scotland wasn't washed with some sort of green. Even in winter the wild azaleas and mosses and lichen and holly trees retain their vibrant colors. It takes late Spring to alter my perception of "green".

We're on route to the cemetery and stove to leave belated Easter offerings, passing pasture land, green wheat fields and weathered stone walls. With every new walk to the kirkyard the landscape gets more green and alive.

There's a hedge of ancient beeches that outline an entire side of pasture which touches the crumbling wall that runs in front of the ruined church (with the abandoned walled garden in the background) and the back of the local cemetery. Discarded in the line of trees is this old water trough (or at least that's what I //think// it is) which we call "the stove".

Even though the metal's rusted and old the hinge and latch work perfectly, which allowed me to safely hide roadkill (a rabbit, fresh and in near pristine condition) last autumn when we were stealing potatoes out of a local potato field. (I didn't want to bang up the rabbit while we scrambled over walls and frantically dug up potatoes from an agricultural field at six in the morning.)

There comes a point, every year around Spring, where non-perishable food offerings begin taking over the house. When we begin feeling claustrophobic we know it's time to visit "the stove" and leave the offerings to their Fate*; we've been doing that for two or three years now.

(* IN OTHER WORDS - WE LEAVE IT FOR OUR ANCESTORS, BUT KNOW THAT THE INDIGENOUS WILDLIFE WILL ALSO BE ENJOYING THE SPREAD.)

This Easter season, while I was flipping through one of my Ukrainian cookbooks, I stumbled across a passage explaining several ancient customs Ukies observed around Easter. Apparently, long ago, food was deliberately left IN A STOVE as an offering to feed and sustain ancestors, relatives and friends who have passed on. (WE ARE SO ON THE BALL WITH SOME OF THIS SHIT THAT SOMETIMES IT SCARES ME.)

(NOTE TO SELF: This is the first year you put individual Paska/Babka for loved ones who died since last Easter (i.e., Hezbollah, Beh and Didi) in the stove rather than at the cairn in the cemetery.)

It took until LAST FUCKING YEAR for me to even notice there was a wild gooseberry bush growing in the ruins of the church. By the time I realized what the shrub was the berries were the size of quail eggs. (I AM SO NOT JOKING IN THE SLIGHTEST; THIS BUSH HAS GOT SOME SERIOUS JUNK ON IT.)

Unfortunately, I was hella, hella sick last year (bedridden due to symptoms and ailments that's baffled the medical community and put me in the very familiar category of "atypical") so by the time I was well enough to leave the house the animals had enjoyed every ball-sized gooseberry and left none for me, SIGH.

(Behind the bush you can see one of the walls and doors of the abandoned wall garden directly behind the ruins of the small church.)

When I was a kid and running naked through Midwestern waste fields and woodlands I could name almost every flowering plant I ran across. Finding something totally new felt like discovering new species of previously unidentified vegetated life.

That excitement and drive totally disappeared around the time I started high school, but resurfaced recently (just over ten years later) the deeper I got into indigenous folklore. If I haven't misidentified it, this is Green Alkanet (in the same family as good ole Borage) and it grows rampant in the space between the NEW OLD CRUMBLING WALL and the OLD OLD NOT SO CRUMBING WALL.

Until last year it was an absolute mystery where they were burying the majority of the recently deceased. As it turns out, what I thought was a community football pitch was the new section of the cemetery. (There aren't a lot of headstones, and they're way, way in the far corner of the very long stretch of land. Until you're physically in the open space it's difficult to tell there are bodies actually buried there.)

This was post-stove and pre-cairn, just before we hopped over the road and had lunch in an open meadow beneath an oak tree. Two fields and a line of trees over you can see a man-made loch created a very long time ago.

The stone wall neatly bordering the graves in the background is the wall that separates the cemetery from the pasture field which touches the hedge of beech trees and ruined church. This is the new portion of the old cemetery, where Muriel and the nun are buried.

Our visit to the kirkyard had to be quick on this occasion because hired help were mowing the lawn. (HOW AWESOME OF A JOB IS THAT? MOWING THE VELVETY SOFT LAWN OF AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH CEMETERY ON A GLORIOUS SPRING DAY? HOLY SHIT, DUDE, WHERE DO //I// SIGN UP FOR THAT GIG?)

I HAVE NOT HAD "NORMAL" SEX SINCE FUCKING MARDI GRAS. When the GREAT RITE was celebrated it was celebrated IN MY ASS, so since Easter Sunday we've been joking that I'm only half married (OR PERHAPS "ASS MARRIED"?) and that I'll remain only partially married until ACTUAL VAGINAL PENETRATION IS MADE.

Because I'm so good at making things difficult I suggested we wait to have "normal" sex until we can have sex in the same wheat field where we reaped last year for the first time. (IT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT? IF I'M REAPING AND HARVESTING THE FRUIT, I BETTER BE FERTILIZING THE LAND TOO, YO.)

Content with the half he married (THE ASS HALF, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN) he agreed, so we're now just waiting for the right moment (i.e., WHEN WE HAVE POT, WHEN IT'S DRY AND WHEN IT'S DARK ENOUGH) to finish the rite we started on April 12th.

(My idea is to have sex in the space between the two wooden posts, effectively performing Hieros Gamos on and in the threshold of a "door". If not there there's always an unused water trough right next to it...)

The very first local Spring lambs we saw were a pair of black kids. (Ever since Imbolc I've been meaning to leave an offering of oats to the lactating sheep but I never got a chance.) (LAMBS HAVE A PECULIAR AVERSION TO FACTORY PRODUCED STRAWBERRY-FLAVORED MARSHMALLOWS. I, UH, READ THAT SOMEWHERE ON THE NET, OR SOMETHING.)

OH, SKELETON ZOMBIE I WANTED TO TAKE YOU HOME WITH ME, OR AT LEAST TAKE YOU TO SEE A MOVIE. (BUT IT'S PROBABLY GOOD THAT I DIDN'T SINCE MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS, EVEN IN 3-D, WAS SHOCKINGLY SHIT, EVEN WHEN REALLY, REALLY HIGH.)

I think they must've recently painted and decorated the Haunted Mansion because I don't remember it ever looking so fresh and new. (ONE OF THESE DAYS I'LL FORCE ITALICS TO BUY SIX TOKENS SO I CAN SEE WHAT THE HAUNTED MANSION'S ALL ABOUT.)

I wish I could remember more of this day. I know we saw two movies (I Love You Man and Monsters Versus Aliens), I know we went out to eat (Jack Daniel's Monterey Burger at TGI Friday's) and I know we visited the shoreline twice to get high (once before eating and once again before the second movie).

I also know that I realized something, or said something, or Italics said something - THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT SEEMED OBVIOUS - but now I can't remember what IT was. ("Zoe" was scribbled into the sand, which, if I remember right, means "life" in Greek, and seeing the name/word and even being able to translate it somehow felt significant.)

I poured fresh water on wet, salty sand as an offering, and it left the impression of a dick with balls. Cruelly, the camera's battery died just before I was able to secure a picture of my sand cock. (OH, MAGIC, SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED.)

This is my fat little bizza bear, Shoney, who's pretty sure that my camera might be food. (DON'T TELL HER IT ISN'T, OTHERWISE SHE MIGHT NOT BOTHER SITTING STILL THE NEXT TIME I SHOVE IT IN HER FACE.)

OH, BEGGAR RAT SISTERS, LOOKING FOR A FOOD HANDOUT WHILE LOITERING IN MY COMPUTER DESK. (My lap's the bridge between two hollowed out spaces in my desk so there's constant rat traffic streaming back and forth when there's a suspicion of food.)

The trio of rats we have now - Wuzza (Denny's), Choney (Shoney's) and Shakey (Shakey's Pizza) - are damn near impossible to take pictures of. All the other generations of rat roommates we had managed to sit still longer than three seconds which allowed us to build a library of photos. These guys? They've been restricted to "movie" mode on the camera because they're always just a blur of motion in anything remotely resembling a picture.

Within a day of noticing that I turned over earth in the dirtyard to possibly plant some carrots and beets Mr. Awesome drove through the dirt with a car leaving two very distinct tire marks across the strip of land I had marked in the soil.

We've had the dirtyard for years. (AND WHEN I MEAN "YEARS" I MEAN "AT LEAST THREE, PROBABLY FOUR".) After several years of no obvious intent I decided if I can't plant grass I might as well make use of the available dirt and grow some vegetables. After several years of no obvious intent my father-in-law suddenly DROVE OVER THE EXACT SPOT WHERE I HAD BEGUN MAKING A ROW FOR BEETS. (Should I take that as a hint?)

The thing about this NEW DRIVEWAY he's created is that UP UNTIL THIS POINT - THE POINT WHERE I MADE AN OBVIOUS MOVE TO CLAIM SOME UNUSED DIRT - HE'S NEVER, EVER DRIVEN OVER WHAT IS, EFFECTIVELY, THE FRONT YARD.

I don't know what's changed, if he's acting out or if it was a honest necessity when he found he couldn't maneuver any other way out of the driveway. At any rate, it isn't exactly an auspicious start to my adventure into creating a dirtyard vegetable patch.

You know to expect some MAN BEHAVIOR when your husband helps you with the Spring gardening. I was instructed to sit still as Italics ran for the camera to document how perfectly he dropped a Sharpie down my pants on his first try. (OH HEY, I'M WEARING UNDERWEAR FOR ONCE! EVEN IF IT IS A PAIR OF BOXERS.)

Oh, we do horrible, awful things to our Lindt Easter bunnies. This white chocolate one, for instance, graced our Easter basket this year which was blessed at a special church service on Holy Saturday. Even divine intervention couldn't save him (her?) from the melting pot when it came time to make Chex Muddy Buddies. (The giant dark chocolate rabbit? Oh, his (her?) fate's already been determined - dark chocolate brownies.)

My inside outside vegetable garden post-growing closet and pre-bonsai house. (Once the plants get too big in the confined space of the closet they get repotted and moved to the backroom where they'll sit for a few weeks to bulk up before being relocated to the bonsai house to become acclimated to outside temperatures.)

There are two other fruit trees other than the Shango (Bone) Tree trained against a wooden fence in the backyard. One of them is an apple tree, but I can't remember what the other one - the one pictured above - is. It might be another apple, or it might be another plum. Either way, it's getting some extra love this year to encourage the flowers to fruit.

(In the background you can see all of Mr. Awesome's bonsai trees and shrubs that he said would only sit in the backyard for a few weeks. That? That was last year. And on top of that, he killed off all the grass in the backyard - after digging it all up in the front yard - so we literally had NO LAWN to sit on last year during summer.)

WHOOPS, I FORGOT I HAD ALREADY TAKEN A PICTURE OF THE SHANGO BLOSSOMS ON THE SHANGO (BONE) TREE! (This one was taken about a week after the first one. Nearly a week after THAT the petals of the plum blossoms are almost gone, and whatever remains is hidden behind leafy buds that get bigger every day.)

BEAR ME FRUIT, DAMMIT, I'VE MASSAGED YOU LIKE A PAMPERED COW, FED YOU LIKE A HUNGRY HUSBAND AND WATERED YOU LIKE...UHM...A CAR (OR SOMETHING).

The backyard's become a bird sanctuary due to the high ratio of bushes, shrubs and trees to gravel and concrete. (FOR SOME REASON SOME SCOTTISH FOLK LOVE TO TEAR EVERYTHING GREEN OUT OF THEIR YARD, FILL IT WITH GRAVEL AND DUMP A CONTAINER OR TWO OF TULIPS AMONGST THE ROCKS.) It helps that their natural predators - the neighborhood cats - are too busy scarfing down (people) food offerings to be bothered with them.

(That feed container? Yesterday, on May Day, I decided to refill all bird seed containers no matter how full they were in honor of the day. Just before twilight I filled that exact feeder until it was spitting seeds, this afternoon - just after three - it was virtually empty. THESE BIRDS ARE GOING TO PUT ME IN THE POOR HOUSE.)

I first began wedging bones into tree branches as a joke (on my father-in-law, who's forever getting in trouble for TOUCHING THINGS THAT AREN'T HIS), but then the joke grew and before I knew it the Shango Tree had become the Shango Bone Tree. (Winter's a much better time for the S(B)T, with the onset of Spring all of the whitened and weather-stripped decorations get lost behind a canopy of green.)

(I can't believe that A.) that the Christmas goose carcass is still hanging off the truck and B.) Mr. Awesome hasn't touched ANY of the bones dangling off the plum tree I stole from him.)

HOLY HELL OH MY GOD MY ABU HASSAN TULIPS HAVE FINALLY BLOOMED! (OOPS for thinking they were dwarf! WTF gave me //THAT// idea?)

What was it the internet said about the appearance of these tulips? WAIT, HOLD ON, I MENTIONED IT EARLIER IN THIS ENTRY: "Richly coloured tulip of burnt orange-red with petal edges of yellow-gold." OH, NATURE, YOU DO DELIVER, DON'T YOU?

Italics bought these Flava tulips for himself (although I'm taking care of them for him), and they're the very last bulbs to flower from the bags'o'bulbs he bought me on our CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE last year. (I swore they were an early dwarf bloomer, but I also swore that about all of the Abu Hassans I planted.)

The amazing two-headed Bull Heart tomato plant from Ukraine. (OH, GREAT APIS/BA'AL MAY YOU BE EXALTED IN FUTURE TOMATO SAUCES!) I might just keep this one indoors since it refused to grow outside last year. (You can see part of Chippy as he inspects the inside outside garden; he's a very keen gardener, you know.)

What our backroom "lounge" looks like when a witch is hard at work.

(The plastic skull bowl is the ritual bowl I use when I'm doing something a little more heavy duty than baking bread or soaking menstrual rags. The scattered wheat sheaths inside is the last bit of the didukhy that I've systematically picked apart so every wheat kernel from every sheath got saved for growing or ritual use.)

(The eggs are our version of Sharpie pysanky, some especially decorated for pets, relatives, friends and others who've passed on since last Easter. When it's time to leave our Easter offerings at the stove and cairn we leave the decorated eggs amongst the food for the dead.

Beh's bee egg is sitting in a carton as the glue attaching the wings to the egg dries. There's a handmade miniature hat that Italics created for another egg, a bowl of partially shucked wheat (the kernel's still attached to the long, skewer-like spikes), Papa's skull planter with some of his dried tobacco leaves and a Jack Daniels gift set that Italics had given me earlier in the day.

From a tiny, withered peanut to a vibrant, lush plant. Only two of the five peanuts I bought germinated; I can't decide if I want to buy and plant more, or just stick with the two healthy plants I already have. OH, DECISIONS, DECISIONS...

OH, IT'S ALL SUPER CUTE, NOW, WITH ITS BLACK AND WHITE TUXEDO AND LITTLE SMILING BEGGING FACE BUT ONE DAY, DAMMIT, ONE DAY NEAR THE SUMMER SOLSTICE WHEN IT GETS LIGHT HERE AT THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING THAT FUCKER WILL BE ON MY GODDAMN BEDROOM WINDOWSILL SCREAMING THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW FOR BREAKFAST. (HOW THE FUCK DOES A MAGPIE KNOW WHICH ROOM IS OUR BEDROOM? I DON'T KNOW, TRY //MAGIC//.)

That's one of the four (five?) aubergines (eggplants) that I've grown from seed. One of these days I'll have to relocate them outside to the bonsai house, but until then they get a chance to flourish in better-than-green-house conditions.

One of my Sub-Arctic tomatoes which will most definitely be moved outside since they were deliberately bought for their "sub-arctic" nature. (GROWING TOMATOES IN SCOTLAND WITHOUT A PROPER GREEN HOUSE CAN BE HELL. I'M SO DESPERATE I'M GROWING THE EQUIVALENT OF SIBERIAN TOMATOES.)

One of my thriving courgettes (zucchini) on the verge of blossoming. (Which is EXACTLY why I kicked that very nearly flowering plant out of this house - the second I let ONE plant mature, flower and fruit in the house is the second I breakdown and let ALL of the damn plants mature, flower and fruit in the house and we don't have the room for that sort've Eden.)

Easter Sunday

Filed under: Life

My grandparents, Ukrainians who immigrated to the US from a German refugee camp, being from THE OLD COUNTRY half-observed some of the tenants of the Orthodox's mutilated version of Catholicism. (IF YOU CAN'T BEAT THEM, THEN YOU INCORPORATE THEIR ANCIENT PAGAN BELIEFS INTO YOUR SYSTEM, FILTER THE INFLUX OF INDIGENOUS FOLKLORE, SUPERSTITION AND MAGIC BEFORE GIVING IT ALL A NEW NAME AND A FLIMSY DISGUISE. HEY, IT WORKED FOR THE CELTS, RIGHT?)

And when I say "HALF-OBSERVED SOME OF THE TENANTS" I actually mean "THEY TOOK EVERY GOD-FUCKING-GIVEN OPPORTUNITY TO CRITIQUE THE BEHAVIOR AND MANNERISMS OF OTHERS WHO WEREN'T OBSERVING THE TENANTS". My grandparents were the critical wallflowers pretending to be indifferent while clocking every abomination against god (more about bitching, less about condemning) - like working on Sunday!

(No working on Sunday? FOR REALS? Even as a kid I couldn't wrap my head around certain aspects of the idea, and it didn't help that I was getting unclarified, mixed messages from my grandparents. Is gardening considered working? And, if so, when did gardening stop being a hobby and begin to become work? Why was God totally cool with letting my grandmother water the flowerbeds on Sunday evening, but morally offended by me trimming the hedges with a pair of garden shears?)

(GOD, I'VE BEEN WONDERING ABOUT THE GARDENING WORK VERSUS HOBBY THING SINCE THAT SUMMER EVENING LONG, LONG AGO. WHEN IT'S MOST CONVENIENT FOR YOU PLEASE SEND YOUR ANSWERS ON A POSTCARD, BUT PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE A SASE SO I CAN GET BACK TO YOU. <- LOL, BECAUSE I'M SO DAMN GOOD AT GETTING BACK TO PEOPLE'S LETTERS, EMAILS AND NOTES.)

SO, RIGHT, ANYWAY.

So, being that Easter was on a Sunday and we both woke up around five in the morning I made an executive decision to get all of the grunt work around the house done before sunrise. Cause, baby, Easter morning sunrise = celebration of life, renewal and reincarnation. (I don't care if it's Catholicism and I'm doing my witch thing, some ideas out there transcend any one religion and if a bunch of people are celebrating the conquering of death with chocolate and paska (<- it's a traditional Ukrainian egg-rich Easter bread, not unlike brioche) then this biological creature who's petrified of her own mortal demise is more than happy to jump on the ETERNAL LIFE celebration bandwagon.)

When I was a kid Easter was spent at my grandparents' house digging into the blessed Easter baskets. ("DIGGING INTO THE BLESSED EASTER BASKETS" PROBABLY SOUNDS LIKE A HELLA AWESOME WAY TO SPEND THE MORNING, UNTIL YOU FIND OUT THAT UKRAINIAN EASTER BASKETS - BLESSED AT CHURCH ON HOLY SATURDAY - ARE FILLED WITH SALT, BUTTER, CHEESE, BREAD, EGGS AND A VARIETY OF SMOKED PORK PRODUCTS (BASICALLY, ANYTHING YOU INTEND ON EATING FOR EASTER BRUNCH). DUE TO MY GENETIC BIAS I CAN SAFELY SAY I'D RATHER BE GIVEN A UKIE EASTER BASKET OVER A PLASTIC WAL-MART BASKET FILLED WITH FOIL-WRAPPED CHEAP CHOCOLATE ANY DAY. SERIOUSLY.)

(STOP GROANING, HEART. YOU'VE BEEN GENETICALLY ENGINEERED TO HANDLE COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF PURE BUTTER AND PORK FAT!)

While all celebrated holidays at my grandparents' were an event to look forward to, Easter was slightly bittersweet because there wasn't a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (in other words, Christmas Eve meant presents after dinner, Easter meant no presents). Whenever our family congregated around the dining table it was a several hour event. Once adult asses sat in plastic covered chairs (WHAT IS IT WITH OLD UKIE PEOPLE AND THEIR COMPULSION TO COVER EVERYTHING - TABLES, CHAIRS, FLOORS - WITH FUCKING PLASTIC?) they couldn't be budged, not even for a crisis that involved a minute amount of blood.

Two hours into worshiping at the mighty trough the coffee would finally surface, an indication to any child that the celebratory meal was at the beginning of its end. (I MEAN, YOU WOULD THINK THAT, RIGHT? WELL, YOU'RE WRONG.) Coffee was half-time. Coffee was when the adults gradually shook themselves out of the smoked pork stupor realizing that they've been sitting stagnant for the past two hours. Coffee brought on a second realization right after the first - after one hundred and twenty minutes they were hungry, again. The third and final realization? They were sitting around a table still covered with food. (GOD BE PRAISED, GOD HAS RISEN!)

(OH THE AWFUL, TRAUMATIZING HORRORS THAT AN UNFORTUNATE, INNOCENT CHILD SOMETIMES MUST FACE. LIKE SECRETLY PEEPING IN ON THE ADULTS WHILE HOLDING YOUR BREATH SO YOU DON'T GIVE YOURSELF AWAY, ONLY TO SEE THE TERRIFYING SIGHT OF YOUR FATHER REACHING OVER THE SEMI-CLEARED TABLE TOWARDS THE SMOKED BUTT, OR KIELBASA, EFFECTIVELY RESTARTING THE NEFARIOUS CYCLE OF EATING. COFFEE? COFFEE WAS A JOKE, A SICK, TWISTED, PERVERTED JOKE. IN EVERYONE ELSE'S FAMILY COFFEE WAS THE END, THE GRAND FINALE, IN MY DERANGED, DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY IT WAS THE HIT THEY NEEDED TO CLEAR DIGESTIVE SPACE.)

HOLY SHIT, TANGENT MUCH!

So, in the dark, we cleaned and straightened, and I reconstructed the EASTER / GREAT RITE / WEDDING altar. (It had been dissected the day before for Holy Saturday so I could take some of the altar contents in our basket to get blessed at the church service.) We deliberately had a light lunch to ensure we wouldn't feel too weighed down since we had a kind've sort've loose schedule to keep - a walk to the cemetery to make our offerings, back home for Ukrainian crepes, decorating eggs for those who've passed since last Easter, eating out of the basket while watching the 10 Commandments ("HIS GOD, IS GOD") and dragging out the tarot "board game" to work with Muriel.

And the schedule would've TOTALLY WORKED if we hadn't IMMEDIATELY OFF-ROADED FROM IT TO INCLUDE THE SEX SHOWER. (LOL! "THE"! LIKE IT'S ONLY HAPPENED ONCE IN OUR 10+ YEAR RELATIONSHIP.)(HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU GUYS ABOUT THE TIME WE BROKE THE BATHTUB WHILE HAVING ANAL SEX? AND MY IN-LAWS WERE HOME? OI VEY.) I should've known better than to break out our waffle cone scented sex shower exfoliating gel. (Sex showers, as you may already know, are gateway activities.)

I stepped into the shower an untouched woman. Pure, innocent - Spring's virgin bride, not yet knowing a man or a husband. (FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO AREN'T AS UP TO SPEED AS OTHERS: I OBSERVE LENT...SORT'VE. DESPITE BEING LEGALLY MARRIED TO ITALICS, FROM MARDI GRAS TO OUR WEDDING NIGHT (WE CELEBRATE THE GREAT RITE AS AN ANNUAL EVENT IN CONJUNCTION WITH EASTER AND SPRING) I ABSTAIN FROM MASTURBATION, SEX AND SOME SEXUAL CONTACT. IT'S MY PERIOD OF PURIFICATION BEFORE I TAKE ON THE ROLE AS THE VIRGIN BRIDE.) Hours later, having felt the ecstasy of my husband's touch and body, I stepped out of bed a married woman.

(ACTUALLY - I KNOW, I KNOW "OH, HERE WE GO..." - MY ASS STEPPED OUT OF BED - IF ASSES CAN EVEN STEP - A MARRIED WOMAN. OR, I GUESS, A MARRIED ASS. AN ASS THAT HAD BEEN MARRIED //3// TIMES IN QUICK SUCCESSION. <- ITALICS IS TRYING TO NEGOTIATE "2 1/2" SINCE THERE "WASN'T A LOT" THE SECOND TIME AROUND.)

(SWEPT UP IN THE SPIRIT OF CONSUMMATION - IN THE MIDST OF SHUDDERING AND TREMBLING, GROANING AND THRUSTING - I ARCHED MY BACK WITH MY "I DO" AND WHEN ITALICS, MY NEW AND OLD HUSBAND, HEARD MY ACCEPTANCE HE COMMITTED HIMSELF TO ME, IN A SOMEWHAT UNORTHODOX ORIFICE, HIS "I DO" MOVING IN TANDEM WITH HIS OWN ORGASM.)(OR TWO.)(OR THREE.)

It wasn't the sex shower that derailed us, or even that THE GREAT RITE had somewhat unexpectedly taken place (IT WASN'T IN THE SCHEDULE, DAMMIT!), it was my patented LAUGHING WHILST CRYING orgasm. (IT'S EMBARRASSING, BUT I'LL ADMIT IT - WHEN I'M REALLY FUCKED UP ON SOMETHING, OR WHEN MY CLIMAX TURNS OUT TO BE OUT-OF-THIS-FUCKING-WORLD ASTOUNDING I START SOBBING AFTER MY ORGASM. AND THEN, WITHIN A SECOND OR TWO, I START LAUGHING UNTIL BOTH SPECTRUMS OF HYSTERIA MERGE IN AN EXPLOSION OF HORMONES AND SEROTONIN. OH, BRAIN AND BODY CHEMICALS, MAKING ME SEEM LIKE SOME SORT OF CRAZY, EMOTIONALLY UNCHAINED WEEPY-AFTER-SEX WOMAN!)

Wait, no, I take that back - I can partially blame THE GREAT RITE for ritually slaughtering our carefully crafted schedule. Once someone's unloaded three separate deposits of jizz in your ass, you usually want to have a bathroom handy for the rest of the day. (BETWEEN LOOSENED SPHINCTERS THAT'LL SURPRISE YOU WITH THEIR INABILITY TO FLEX AND TIGHTEN TO A SATISFYING DEGREE THERE'S THE ENDLESS STREAM OF SEMEN AND SALIVA ENCOURAGED ON BY GRAVITY. AND WHEN YOU FINALLY THINK THAT YOU'VE GOTTEN RID OF THE LAST OF IT, YOU'RE WRONG.) Look, I'm more than happy to piss in the woods, but draining various body fluids out of my ass behind a crumbling wall or next to a beech tree? Nice landscape, but I'd rather be sitting on white porcelain, thanks.

ANYWAY. By the time we cleaned, had our light lunch, embarked on the sex shower and ensured prosperity and fertility for the upcoming year (YOU NORTHERN HEMISPHERE FOLK CAN THANK US LATER; WE'RE JUST DOING OUR COSMICALLY DIVINE JOB) it was coming up towards ten in the morning and what little remnants of Catholic knowledge I had left warned me about the possibility of a church service at eleven. (It's nine in the morning and eleven on Sundays, right?)

So we ditched the schedule, not wanting to draw too much attention to ourselves since we aren't your standard cemetery visitors and the church was probably going to be occupied for the second Sunday service. (Especially since we cut through the cow field, climb over the electrical wire, scramble up the old wall in the overgrown lane of woods before using the unused side entrance to access the cemetery. AND THAT'S ONLY DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, THAT'S US TOTALLY VANILLA.)

Instead, we got high, and with the BBC's Easter morning church service and the Pope's address from the Vatican playing in the background Italics turned to work. (WORK? ON SUNDAY? ON A SUNDAY THAT'S EASTER? OH DEAR. <- NOT THAT I DIDN'T WANT TO SAY "BUT, BABY, IT'S EASTER AND WE JUST GOT MARRIED! WHAT'S YOUR EMPLOYER GOING TO SAY? YOU'RE FIRED IF YOU DON'T WORK ON EASTER SUNDAY?" BECAUSE I DID. BUT, THANKS TO BEING ALL MATURE AND GROWN UP AND RATIONAL AND LOGICAL NOW (LOLOLOLOLOL!), I UNDERSTOOD THAT THE ONLY REASON WHY ITALICS IS HOME 24/7 WITH ME IN THE FIRST PLACE IS BECAUSE HE HAS FOUR AT HOME JOBS THAT REQUIRE HIS ATTENTION WHETHER IT'S EASTER SUNDAY OR NOT.)

Too tired to walk to the cemetery long after the eleven o'clock mass I decided to stay home and capitalize on the gorgeous weather we were experiencing. (NOTICE MY CHOICE OF PAST TENSE. WE HAD A DAZZLING HOLY SATURDAY, EASTER SUNDAY AND EASTER MONDAY, BUT EASTER TUESDAY IS OVERCAST AND DRAB. SIGH.) Since we were now married - OR AT LEAST HALF MARRIED - I decided on BOTH of our behalves that one of the first things we'd do together as man and wife (other than get high) was garden.

Armed with a battered selection of LPs (Tufty the Road Safety Squirrel, Dire Straits and Clannad) I potted on the courgettes, peppers and tomato plant that were threatening to overtake our closet garden as Italics broke discarded trunks and branches (MR. AWESOME, MY FATHER-IN-LAW, PRUNED THE SHRUBS AND BUSHES OUTLINING THE PERIMETER OF THE YARD LAST YEAR, BUT INSTEAD OF DISPOSING OF THE GARDEN WASTE HE LEFT IT BLOCKING THE OPENING OF THE BACKYARD. WHEN HE OBVIOUSLY WASN'T GOING TO MOVE IT - THREE OR FOUR MONTHS ON - I FINALLY SPENT AN AFTERNOON DRAGGING EVERYTHING TO A BETTER LOCATION, BUT EVEN THEN IT JUST SAT FOR ANOTHER SEVERAL MONTHS.) for our eventual GREAT RITE bonfire. (IT'S LESS EXCITING AND CLASSY WHEN YOU FIND OUT OUR RITUAL BONFIRES ARE MADE AND BURNED IN A METAL TRASHCAN.)

He watered my witch's garlic for me, and I watered my sprouting herbs, budding tulips and bonsai house seedlings. (OH MY EFFING GOD. I HAD NO IDEA THAT MY SUNFLOWERS HAD SPROUTED! AND MY PEAS! AND ALL THREE APPLE TREES - SEEDS I PLANTED LAST YEAR THAT ACTUALLY GERMINATED - SURVIVED THE SCOTTISH WINTER! THE PEACH TREE HAD A BUD! THE STRAWBERRIES LOOKED INSANELY HEALTHY!)

Together we scouted THE PERFECT SPOT for the robin/blackbird nesting box we bought earlier in the year. Together we moved the trash can bulging with kindling to a safer, rain-free location so the can's contents had a chance to dry. Together we sat - me outside on the concrete patio steps, and him inside on the carpet - and planted cucumbers, peanuts and two more chili plants, my hands soil stained, my nails caked with dirt, passing on every lovingly filled peat pot to him so he could nestle each seed in the prepared bed. Together - I think, I hope - we marveled at the feeling of newness of life brought on by seeds, earth and tender Spring shoots. (THAT WAS THE IDEA, ANYWAY.)

(GOD, THIS IS WHERE YOU COULD BE INORDINATELY HELPFUL IN LETTING ME KNOW WHEN GARDENING CEASES BEING A HOBBY AND BECOMES WORK. AT WHAT POINT, EXACTLY, DID US NEWLYWEDS CROSS THE INEXCUSABLE LINE OF "NO WORK ON SUNDAY"? AND HAVE WE TERRIFICALLY SINNED AGAINST YOU AND YOUR SON FOR HAVING THE AUDACITY TO GARDEN/WORK ON //EASTER// SUNDAY?)

(FUCK IT, I'M STICKING WITH A BELIEF SYSTEM THAT ISN'T SO DAMN GREY. I'M STICKING WITH A BELIEF SYSTEM THAT GLORIFIES AND CELEBRATES CAKE. WHEN YOU FEELING LIKE CLARIFYING AND/OR CHANGING YOUR OPINION ON CAKE, GOD, PLEASE DO LET ME KNOW. I HAVE NICE COFFEE IN THE FREEZER AND STILL REMEMBER HOW TO USE THE CAPPUCCINO MACHINE.)

Worn out from excessive fertility we retired to the lounge after toiling under the sun, eating Easter brunch (Ukrainian basket!) for Easter dinner as The King of Siam, dressed as the Prince of Egypt, proclaimed there was no god, except God. (LOOK, I DON'T KNOW WHY IT BECAME FAMILY TRADITION TO WATCH THE 10 COMMANDMENTS ON EASTER - MIXED TESTAMENT MUCH? - BUT I'M NOT ABOUT TO BUCK A LONGSTANDING RITUAL. ESPECIALLY IF IT INVOLVES YUL FUCKING BRYNNER.)

Due to co-inhabiting with my in-laws I can only stretch my creative license so far. ("SO FAR" = NO HOLES, RIPS OR TEARS IN THE WALLPAPER WHICH MEANS NOTHING CAN GET PROPERLY HUNG UP - I.E., BACKDROPS - UNLESS I'M TACKING IT TO THE BACK OF A PICTURE FRAME. <- I SUSPECT IF THEY KNEW I PUT TWO TACK HOLES IN THE BACK OF A CHEAP ASS PICTURE FRAME IN ORDER TO HANG UP SWAG THEY WOULDN'T BE SO HAPPY.)

I REALLY wish I had more space to work with (and a more neutral backdrop), but you work with what you got. This particular spot in the room - the CD cabinet - only gets used ritually three times a year: Halloween (the Santa Muerte shrine goes up), Christmas (where a special setting is placed for our ancestors so they can dine with us) and Easter (for our WEDDING / GREAT RITE / SPRING / EASTER celebration).

The CD cabinet altar is our secondary EASTER / WEDDING / GREAT RITE / SPRING altar. (I'll be taking pictures later today of the primary altar which is just off to the left of the picture.)

I won't go too much into detail about symbolism just yet (the bread, eggs and butter sort've detracts and clutters up the picture, I have better images that don't have our Easter brunch spread on the tabletop), but I wanted our beliefs and my cherished memories of Easter (I was raised orthodox, which greatly influenced my need for ELABORATE OPULENCE) to come through in a mishmash of "old country", orthodox Catholicism and witchcraft (with a heavy leaning towards home, hearth and agriculture - hence the chimney, sickle, wheat bundle, etc.).

Paska - the cylinder loaf of bread (ACTUALLY, I LIED, IT'S BABKA AND NOT PASKA, BUT BABKA IS LIKE PASKA PLUS SO, TECHNICALLY, I GUESS IT IS SORT'VE KIND'VE LIKE PASKA IN THE END) - is an egg-rich yeast bread (12 duck yolks and two whole chicken eggs) with a cake-like consistency that's only baked once a year for Easter. To get the long shape modern Ukrainian women usually use metal coffee cans (I used a decorative cookie container bought from TK Max - YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU'VE GOT, DAMMIT).

It's taken - along with anything you plan on eating on Easter morning - to a special church service on Holy Saturday in a basket to be blessed by a priest. (ALL THIS SHIT IS EXPLAINED ABOVE IN THE TEXT PORTION OF THIS ENTRY.) Pictured on the altar are some of the non-perishable food that graced our basket this year, and my ultra awesome, ultra new ALPHA AND OMEGA candle. (HEY, IF THEY CAN DIP INTO OUR SHIT, WE CAN DIP INTO THEIR SHIT BECAUSE, TECHNICALLY, IT WAS OUR SHIT FIRST.)

My favorite part of Easter? BUTTER. (<- I KID YOU NOT!) Growing up nothing thrilled me as much during the Spring season as seeing all of the lamb-shaped butters on sale. (I HAVE NO IDEA, SO DON'T EVEN BOTHER ASKING.) The paschal butter lamb was a huge staple in every Ukie's Easter basket and, to me, it somehow silently sums up the gastronomic delight of the orthodox celebration of resurrection.

Since you can't get lamb-shaped butter here (do they still sell them in the States, or has that sort've died out?) I scored a vintage kit from the States earlier in the year so we could make our own from now on. (This particular lamb was made by Italics, it was the one that got taken to the Easter basket blessing service on Holy Saturday, which was also my birthday. <- HELLO, 29!)

Last year we embarked on a new tradition of decorating Easter eggs for those who've passed on through the course of the year ("through the course of the year" = since the previous Easter) and leaving them at the cairn in the local cemetery as an offering.

A few months back I stumbled across an off-hand comment about how Ukrainians left red eggs on the graves of their ancestors around Easter to celebrate reincarnation and the resurrection of Christ (that, uh, came later, once the heathens had been partially tamed); the red egg is for my Grandfather, who passed in September of last year (but no one bothered to tell me until around Christmas).

When you haul your Easter basket to the Saturday service to get the contents blessed you take a portion of EVERYTHING you plan on eating on Easter morning - that includes butter, grated horseradish colored with beets (I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT MY HERITAGE EXCEPT FOR GRATED HORSERADISH) and even salt.

(AND HOW DOES THAT CONTAINER OF SALT TRAVEL UNSPILLED? PLASTIC WRAP OVER THE TOP, SECURED BY A RUBBER BAND! <- ALTHOUGH I'M BEING SLIGHTLY MORE CLASSY USING CUT GLASS AS MY CONTAINER, TRADITIONALLY UKIES USE SHOT GLASSES.)

Grape hyacinths from the garden, and the tasseled end of the goat whip / riding crop.

(In some Slavic countries the Monday after Easter is SPANKING DAY where, traditionally, men swatted the asses of women they liked to "bless" them with otherworldly beauty and good health for the coming year. After being spanked the woman offers an egg or some token change to her spanker as a thank you.)

(This is the first year we're observing the ancient ritual. The goat whip / riding crop was a martial gift given to me last year when Italics and I were married. To ensure it was on hand for SPANKING DAY I hung it on my cast iron chimney. What Italics doesn't know is that there's an egg - a real egg, hollowed out and filled with chocolate - in the chimney, behind the whip.)

When you can't afford actual needlework you buy the stamped shit. The good thing about the stamped shit? It's easy to replicate via cross-stitch by graphing the pattern and doing the work yourself. (In other words - I'LL GET AROUND TO IT...EVENTUALLY.)

The three daffodils flanking the babka (usually Ukies make paska for Easter, but I like making babka because it's like the super gourmet version of paska) were picked from my containers outside. (It was a worthy sacrifice, although I miss seeing my blooming daffodils nodding in the spring breeze.)

As a wedding gift I'm giving my husband a jar of homemade bridal honey. (Honey which has been spiced and flavored with black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, rosebuds and a pinch of saffron.) I filled a small glass with the spices I was going to use and topped it with rosebuds so I could get the contents blessed - along with a jar of honey - at the Easter basket blessing service on Holy Saturday.

Another daffodil, the braided leather extension of the goat whip / riding crop, and Beh's egg which still needs to get decorated before being left at the cemetery. (Easter is sort've like Christmas - impossible to fit everything you want to do or celebrate in one day. Italics and I celebrate holidays and sabbats over the course of a long week which takes the pressure off of making the most of one 24 hour period.)

I didn't realize until I was outside and gardening how close to unfurling my dwarf tulips are.

Last year for Chippy's birthday we bought him a strawberry growing kit because my house trained chthonic Sumerian demon is totally into strawberries (and butterflies and lesbians). This year I'll probably separate the plants and repot them into a proper strawberry container.

Russian sunflower seeds sprouting.

Russian sunflower seeds sprouting. (AGAIN BECAUSE IT'S SO DAMN EXCITING.)

Second year apple trees grown from seed. I've heard there's a chance they'll never produce fruit, but the likelihood of them germinating at all was pretty slim so I'll keep my hopes up. (At least I've got three attempts, right?)

I thought I had lost this apple seedling, but I finally noticed unfurling buds yesterday.

I planted two trays of early maturing sweet peas for our rats since their favorite treat involves decimating sweet pea pods to pluck out the tender peas.

I planted two trays of early maturing sweet peas for our rats since their favorite treat involves decimating sweet pea pods to pluck out the tender peas.

Nearly 15 years on I still fantasize about my mother's peach tree that grew next to the side of the house where I grew up. When Aldi's - here in Scotland - was selling fruit trees for a £5.00 in February I snatched up one of the only peach trees they had. Up until yesterday I wasn't sure if it had even survived its long slumber in the bonsai house.

Some of the vegetable plants weren't exactly thrilled about being potted on. Give them a day or two and they'll bounce back better than ever.

One of the two chili types that sprouted (hot chocolate and prairie fire didn't make it for some reason, but I planted two more prairie fires yesterday so, hopefully, things'll even out). I kind've sort've forgot to label the containers once I transplanted them so it'll take flowering for me to identify what chili species they are.

(DUE TO MY AWESOME POWERS OF DEDUCTION I CAN SAFELY CONCLUDE THAT THIS PLANT IS EITHER MY CHERRY BOMB OR MY RING OF FIRE.)

You try and be careful but there's always one or two stem or leaf casualties.

F's chili plant - the one she sent me last year for my birthday - has begun flowering again. Since it survived the Scottish backroom winter, it was transplanted yesterday, on Easter, in a lapis colored ceramic pot and welcomed as a FOREVER houseplant.

Some Say Prayers, I Say Mine

Filed under: Life

Spring happened sometime between borsht and The Sisters of Mercy; before the last of the slanting, sloping rays of the setting sun disappeared behind subdivision roofs, and after the first hissing pop-n-crackle of the turntable's speakers instantly coming to life with the push of one rectangular button.

Or maybe it happened during Lucretia, My Reflection when swimming in the golden light of dark matter - dirt embedded under fingernails, damp earth clinging to jeans, seeds spilling from hand to soil, body dancing, dancing, dancing under the beam of the last light, the final streak of glowing warmth hitting skin and setting flesh alight like an incandescent orthodox icon.

"WE GOT THE KINGDOM, WE GOT THE KEY / WE GOT THE EMPIRE, NOW AS THEN," I sang - I prayed - while planting on the concrete patio steps, the upper half of my body crossing the open threshold from outside to inside for seeds and biodegradable peat cups, only just aware of the significance of the movement - the moment - of mirrored life.

("WE DON'T DOUBT, WE DON'T TAKE REFLECTION...")

Lost in the whirling, tumbling pull of cannabinoids I shed my skin of self-consciousness (whatever thin, transparent, negligible "skin" I have) and freed myself into the rushing current head first, heart open and body willing. It was prayer, it was praise, it was giving thanks while simultaneously grieving, it was the soul speaking directly without words, without thought, without distractions or filters. It was tribute, it was worship, it was exaltation and glorification of being.

("SOME SAY PRAYERS / I SAY MINE...")

Or, perhaps, Spring might've begun the second I dropped the dull needle to vinyl, and, as Dominion began playing, I threw open the patio door and knelt at the concrete pew of nature. (THE PEW OF NATURE, ADMITTEDLY, WOULD'VE BEEN MORE...NATURE-Y...IF THE GROUND HADN'T BEEN SO FUCKING DAMP MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO DO ANY PLANTING ON THE BARE EARTH.) Papa's birds, roused by sound, crept closer to the house, the melodious song of the blackbirds echoing lyrics, joining Chippy (who was sitting on an empty bag of seedling compost) and I in the ancient rite, reveling and paying homage to the beginning of the end.

And when all was said and done, all was celebrated, when the warmth waned, the night breeze cooled, when the seeds were covered, the soil spent, when the remnant of the sun was just a faint haze of fading orange in the obscured horizon I bowed my head in reverence, in thanksgiving, and tenderly held the promise of new life while filling earthen chalices with water, one biodegradable peat pot at a time.

Clannad's Past Present, the closing hymn, gently ironed out the electricity of jangly guitar rock and ecstatic, heady dancing gave way to reserved thankfulness. In the chill of the gloam - with the blue Loch Ness monster watering can in hand - I found myself suddenly chanting "BEE BEE, COME HOME, BEE BEE, COME HOME, BEE BEE, COME HOME..." when watering Beh's only-just-planted container of bee balm.

Maybe Spring began when my eyes welled up with tears that threatened to break the barrier of lashes and spill across my sun-kissed cheeks. Watering, I felt the bitter sting of loss, the ache as sharp as it was almost a year ago when we lost our Bee, and then when I lost her, again, when the honey bee, at the send of the season, crawled through the office window and clung onto the sagging DIY screen and slowly died next to me - less than a foot away - as I cried and stroked it's listless, buzzing body. "BEE BEE, COME HOME," I coaxed my Bee, I coaxed all of my vanishing, dying Bees, so they knew that they haven't been forgotten, so they knew that they were still needed.

God, I don't know, maybe Spring actually began with the decision to bake fresh bread a day before (molasses oatmeal "farmer's bread"). Or to defrost one of the last frozen blocks of borsht and have it - along with the freshly baked bread - for lunch this afternoon. Or when I said "FUCK IT, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE!" to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it was a little TOO late to start Spring planting when the sun was about to set.

Or when I saw the haggard, Old Woman in the sediment of my tea cup, reaching over the deep ravine to the young Bride, becoming and yet letting go. Or after I jokingly scattered pumpkin seeds I cleaned and toasted ("LOL! WE CAN USE THESE FOR DIVINATION! WATCH!") to find a poised scorpion lurking within the contents ("LOL! MR. AWESOME CAN HAVE THESE! LOLOLOL!"). Or the wild, careless dancing I gave into when Children of Bodom's covers of Somebody Put Something in My Drink and Rebel Yell came on while I was cooking dinner.

Or, fuck, maybe Spring officially began when I took two homemade pheasant pot pies out of the oven that Italics and I had made together and we discovered that my set of asterisks had magically transformed - through the power of baking - into a promise of what was to come:

(DUDE, WHEN YOU'RE HIGH //ANYTHING LEAF-LIKE// LOOKS LIKE POT LEAVES, OKAY?)

(PLANTED: aubergines (5), bee balm (approx. 60), courgettes (5), peas (2 trays), Russian sunflowers (11) and sub-arctic tomatoes (5). WATERED: apple trees grown from seed (3, but one hasn't sprouted leaves yet), Russian olives (no signs of life yet) and strawberries (need to separate and plant into strawberry pot). INSIDE: aubergines, courgettes and sub-arctic tomatoes. LEFT OUTSIDE: bee balm, peas and Russian sunflowers.)

(IMPORTANT NOTES: Crumbled up Beh's two-pack of BEBE COOKIES (CRACKERS?) and added the crumbs to the compost before planting Beh's bee balm over it. <- THAT? THAT'S CALLED //MAGIC//, BABY!)

Patience, Grasshopper

Filed under: Life

Due to a serious case of almost-way-too-near-NO-I-AM-NOT-FUCKING-JOKING-GIVE-ME-ONE-REASON-TO-START-SCREAMING-LIKE-A-TODDLER burnout and the newest installment of OVERLY INTELLECTUALIZED IDENTITY CRISIS this journal entry's going to be excruciatingly mundane. (APOLOGIZES IN ADVANCE; I'LL UP THE FUCKING SWEARING IN THE HOPES THAT THE CHRONICALLY RECURRING EXPLETIVES SOMEHOW DISTRACTS YOU FROM THE FACT THAT I'M SERIOUSLY FUCKING LACKING IN THE "FEELING LIKE A REAL HUMAN FUCKING BEING" DEPARTMENT.)

(AND WHEN I MEAN "SWEARING" I MEAN HILARIOUSLY OVERUSING "FUCK" SINCE THAT'S THE ONLY EXPLETIVE THAT'S WORTH SPITTING OUT LIKE A TOURETTE'S STUTTER.)(AND WHEN I MEAN "HILARIOUS" I ACTUALLY MEAN "NOT ACTUALLY AMUSING OR FUNNY IN ANYWAY" LIKE WHEN SOMETHING IS "SICK" OR "FAT" (OR ANY OTHER MODERN INTERPRETATION OF A WORD THAT, LOL, SPINS THE ORIGINAL MEANING INTO //THE EXACT OPPOSITE//! LOLOLOL!) WHEN THE THING IN QUESTION IS, IN FACT, NEITHER LITERALLY "SICK" AND/OR "FAT".)

I'm going to leave the HEAVY shit with Marty "SORRY BOYS, YOU'RE JUST TOO LOUD" McFly and dazzle the internet world with a shocking amount of INNER PERSONAL DEPTH that's SO OVERWHELMINGLY COMPLEX THAT ANY ATTEMPT TO COMPREHEND THE CORE OF MY BEING WOULD SURELY DRIVE THE AVERAGE PERSON TO THE EDGES OF SANITY for another day. (SORRY, INTERNETS, YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO SETTLE FOR ANOTHER EXTRA SPECIAL PERSON TODAY WHO ISN'T ME.)

The wonderful thing about Spring is even when I'm in the throes of despair and beating my flailing fists against my chest in existential crisis I can't help but be taken in by the awe-inspiring beauty and rejuvenation of this season. Waking up at twilight I shuffle around the house and watch - through windows - as darkness begins to blanket my mirror to the outside world. Everything disappears beneath a wave of blackness, all the life, all the brown turning green, all the tender shoots that gently bend beneath the sharp breeze.

When night comes it drapes a curtain over the world I spy on, obscuring everything except the highlighted, glowing outline of neighbors' drawn windows. When night comes the light illuminating my world - the light I live by - is cold and clinical, spilling out of spiral shaped, environmentally friendly florescent light bulbs. When night comes I feel Diana stirring in me, and, like Her, I covet the golden warmth of light, and pine for the feeling of absolute completion that comes with the morning's sunrise.

(OH, DEATH, WITH YOUR IRONY AND ATTRACTION: AFRAID OF WHAT YOU ARE, NEEDING WHAT YOU AREN'T.)

Morning's first pitch black, with twinkling stars that pulse blue-white-red against an endless backdrop frozen in time. In the east the horizon cracks and splits; the fringes of space and sky interweave, slowly painting the domed curvature of a Byzantine cathedral. (AND FROM AN ANCIENT, EARTHEN PASSAGE I EMERGED INTO THE GREATEST CATHEDRAL OF THEM ALL AND THOUGHT MY HEART WOULD BREAK IN DIVINE ECSTASY WHEN I SAW THAT THE HEAVENS WERE UNDERGROUND - THE GOLDEN ORTHODOX STARS BREATHING LIFE INTO THE FLAWLESS, MAJESTIC BLUE THAT CLOAKED THE CONCAVE UNIVERSE IN A UNHEARD, BUT STIRRING, HYMN.)

And from that deep, unconscious blue the hope of light appears, lifting the rolling darkness from the world, drawing up the curtain until black is blue and blue is a lighter blue, a free, exhilarating blue of promise that races at full speed to the very end of the world. (LIGHT FROM DARKNESS, SOMETHING FROM NOTHING.) My world - everything I love, everything that brings me happiness, everything that brings me joy and makes my heart sing - reappears, and I stand on the other side of glass watching a waking world, a living person instead of a forgotten ghost.

(NIGHT, SHE SAID, IS OUR TIME. BUT WITHOUT DAY, WITHOUT LIGHT, WE'RE INCOMPLETE. SO WE KNEEL AT THE HOLY ALTAR OF THE SUN, OUR OPPOSITE, OUR OTHER HALF - WHAT WE INHERENTLY AREN'T, WHAT WE INHERENTLY WANT, WHAT WE INHERENTLY ARE DRAWN TO - FINDING THAT HE'S ALREADY THERE, KNEELING, WAITING AND DESIRING OUR DARKNESS WHICH BRINGS RESPITE AND RENEWAL.)

LOLOLOLOL, WAIT, I SAID I //WASN'T// GOING TO GET ALL HEAVY BECAUSE I DIDN'T THINK I HAD IT IN ME. (I GUESS "HEAVY" IS MY DEFAULT SETTING? WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT, RIGHT?) I'm ditching the waxing poetic tangent from this point on and filling that self-analysis void with THE PREVIOUS PLEDGE OF OVER-THE-FUCKING-TOP SWEARING!

Back in February we were hit with an amount of snow I've never, in the eight or nine years living here in Scotland, seen. It took nearly two fucking weeks for the overlaying quilt (I OFFICIALLY OVERUSED "BLANKET" SO NOW I'M GOING TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL OF MY BED SHEET SYNONYMS!) of white to recede, and when it did I found that Spring had been cozying it up beneath that figurative quilt of ice'n'snow.

I was, if you remember (see Bride's Awakening), inspired to brush off months of dormancy and air my winter gardening sweater. (WINTER GARDENING SWEATER = A HORRENDOUS WINTER SWEATER BOUGHT AT FASHION BUG IN THE LATE 90S AND GIVEN TO ME AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT BY A BEST FRIEND.) Due to my sleeping schedule I didn't have a chance to tackle the few outside jobs I had planned, so the evening was spent planting seeds indoors.

Within days of planting two of the six Voodoo seeds germinated, the dill, basil and tobacco sprouted and all of the vegetable seeds bought to fill my GIANT SEED VOID arrived. The dill and basil were left in the backroom while the rest of the seeds/sprouted plants were moved beneath the light. (OH, I AM TOTALLY ENJOYING HAVING THAT FUCKING GROW LIGHT ON FOR 18 HOURS A MOTHERFUCKING DAY AGAIN.)

I managed to complete some pretty intense gardening over the course of a day or two, shit that //HAD// to get done before my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, returned from his month long sabbatical at the Florida property. (THE DIRTYARD IN THE FRONT AND THE APOCALYPTIC WASTELAND KNOWN AS THE BACKYARD HAS BEEN, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, ABANDONED BY HIS ROYAL GARDENING HIGHNESS AND WE'VE WATCHED THE COMMUNAL SPACE SLIDE QUICKLY INTO RUIN, UNABLE TO DO //ANYTHING// TO PREVENT IT SINCE, TECHNICALLY, THIS ISN'T //OUR// HOUSE SO IT ISN'T //OUR// GARDEN.)

Once I noticed that the bulbs Italics bought me during our 2008 CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE were beginning to bud all six terracotta containers were dragged from their under-the-bedroom-window pad and moved to the concrete patio steps so I could monitor their progress through the patio door. (MONITOR PROGRESS = STAND FOR A SUSPICIOUSLY LONG TIME WITH MY FIRST CUP OF TEA OF THE DAY WHILE SILENTLY ADMIRING THE DWARF BLOSSOMS TREMBLING IN THE CHILLY SPRING AIR.) They were relocated just in time; the day after the first of the irises unfurled beneath the cold February sun displaying their ghetto velvet purple to the world.

The green scrapes of my witch's garlic were covered with buckets of dirt, each pail of damp earth carried (CARRIED = CRUSHED) against my chest from backyard to sideyard, almost every trip back and forth accompanied by the overprotective blackbirds who've nested in the ivy hedge. (THEY'LL GET USE TO ME...EVENTUALLY. IN THE MEAN TIME THEY GO APE SHIT LIKE A FAMILY OF SOCIALLY DISTURBED CRACKHEADS WHEN SOMEONE WALKS PAST THE NEST.)

I weeded what was once the predominant garden feature - the raised rock bed - something I don't think I've ever seen my father-in-law do. (I MEAN, SOME OF THE BRACKEN THAT I REMOVED WAS ON THE VERGE OF BECOMING FOSSIL FUEL, OKAY? THAT'S POSSIBLY DECADES OF NEGLECT!) Unfortunately, I'm currently waking up at a super awful bad time to take pictures to reveal the finished product, so the images below convey the BEFORE rather than the AFTER.

(I USED A HAND HELD BROOM AND ACTUALLY SWEPT THE ROCKS COMPRISING THE EXTERIOR OF THE WALL. I USED A HAND HELD BROOM AND EVEN SWEPT ALL OF THE EFFING STONES MR. AWESOME HAS SITTING ON TOP OF PILES OF ROTTING BEAMS OF WOOD. I USED A HAND HELD BROOM AND EVEN SWEPT THE FUCKING //DIRT//, OKAY?)(DIRT, BTW, CAN ALWAYS USE A ONCE OVER WITH A BROOM - DIRT CAN ALWAYS BE CLEANER, ALWAYS!)

Now that Mr. Awesome's returned from his holy crusade I'm pretending like I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OUTSIDE and if he notices any change, any discrepancy, any difference out back I'M JUST GOING TO PRETEND THAT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK HE'S TALKING ABOUT. (Even if I did leave the pile of weeds and rotted wood just sitting at the foot of the cloth's line...OOPS.)

The problem now? Since I've dug it out of ruin, cleaned and polished it until it gleamed it feels like it recognizes ME as the ALPHA LEADER because, clearly, ALL OF THOSE SPLINTERS, ALL OF THOSE CUTS, ALL OF THOSE RAW WELTS FROM YANKING WEEDS OUT OF AN UNYIELDING GROUND IS INDICATIVE OF NEW OWNERSHIP. (THE ONLY THING I DIDN'T DO WAS PISS ON IT TO MARK IT AS MY TERRITORY.)(PS: DON'T THINK THAT IT'S BENEATH ME TO DO IT, BTW, BECAUSE IT'S NOT. AT ALL. NOT EVEN A FRACTION.)

Patience, grasshopper, for the crazy old man will inevitably get nothing but crazier and older, and in that maze of dementia you will inherit what is rightfully yours. (I HAVE SPLINTERS TO PROVE OWNERSHIP AND RIGHT, OKAY?)

When Death Comes Ripping

Filed under: Oh No, You Di'int!

OH, HEY, MY GRANDFATHER DIED -- THREE FUCKING MONTHS AGO.

MY SIDE OF THE FAMILY? I AM DELIBERATELY ESTRANGED FROM THEM. AND THEY ARE ALL "BUT WHHHHY?" AND "YOU'RE JUST AS CRAZY AS YOUR MOTHER WAS" AND "WE KNOW THAT ITALICS HAS BRAIN WASHED YOU AND TURNED YOU AGAINST US" AND I WILL NOW GIVE AN EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD WHY I HAVE DELIBERATELY ESTRANGED MYSELF FROM THEM:

ON THE 10TH OF THIS MONTH (JANUARY) I GOT A LETTER FROM THE STATES WITH MY GRANDFATHER'S NAME IN THE RETURN ADDRESS, BUT THE ADDRESS LISTED BENEATH WASN'T HIS REAL ADDRESS (<- LIVED WITH MY UNCLE AND HIS WIFE, AND I KNOW THEIR ADDRESS). (I GOOGLED IT AND, AS IT TURNS OUT, IT'S SOME EQUINE LEARNING CENTER, OR SOMETHING.)

APPARENTLY, MY GRANDFATHER DIED IN SEPTEMBER, BUT NO ONE BOTHERED CONTACTING ME. WAIT, NO, I TAKE THAT BACK - APPARENTLY MY UNCLE SENT ME A FUCKING EMAIL...BUT THAT WAS IT. MY UNCLE SENT ME AN EMAIL TO AN ADDRESS HE ADMITTED THAT HE ALREADY KNEW THAT I NO LONGER USED (AND HADN'T USED IN YEARS), AND THOUGHT THAT WAS, YOU KNOW, SUFFICIENT. (I GUESS MY SISTER AND FATHER ALSO THOUGHT IT WAS SUFFICIENT BECAUSE NEITHER OF THEM CONTACTED ME, OR EVEN MENTIONED THE FACT IN THE CHRISTMAS CARD/LETTER THEY SENT ME.)

AND THE ONLY REASON WHY MY UNCLE WAS CONTACTING ME - PRETENDING TO BE MY GRANDFATHER BECAUSE OTHERWISE I GUESS I WOULDN'T HAVE OPENED THE LETTER AND JUST THROWN IT OUT (WTF? I HAVE NO IDEA, SRSLY.) - WAS BECAUSE I HAD SENT A GIFT AND CARD, LIKE I ALWAYS DO, FOR CHRISTMAS. SO, REALLY, HE WAS ONLY TELLING ME -SO I DIDN'T SEND ANY MORE SHIT TO THEIR HOUSE-, NOT BECAUSE HE FELT OBLIGATED TO INFORM HIS NIECE THAT HER GRANDFATHER HAD FUCKING DIED.

AND THE WORST PART? I MEAN, LOL, OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT NO ONE BOTHERED CONTACTING ME THAT MY FUCKING GRANDFATHER - MY ONLY GRANDFATHER THAT I HAVE EVER KNOWN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE - HAD DIED THREE MONTHS AGO, IS THAT IF I CONTACT ANY OF MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY GOING "WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?" I'LL BE TAGGED AS THE CRAZY ONE. (TRUFAX.)

FOR FUCK'S SAKE - YOU SEND AN EMAIL WHEN YOUR FUCKING DOG OR GOLDFISH DIES, NOT WHEN SOMEONE IN YOUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY PASSES AWAY - ESPECIALLY NOT TO AN ADDRESS YOU'VE ALREADY EFFING ADMITTED YOU KNOW -NO LONGER WORKS-. MAYBE I'M JUST OLD-FASHIONED THINKING THAT IT BORDERS ON INAPPROPRIATE TO RELY ON, OSTENSIBLY, ONE FUCKING -TEXT MESSAGE- TO INFORM PEOPLE OF THE DEATH OF AN IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBER. (HOW FUCKING LAZY IS THAT? I MEAN, REALLY? THAT SHIT IS FUCKING INEXCUSABLE, AND I CAN'T BELIEVE AN ADULT DOUBLE MY AGE THINKS HE'S ACTED FAULTLESSLY AND FLAWLESSLY.)

AND THAT IS WHY, WORLD, I HAVE CUT THE STRINGS. THAT IS WHY.

(AND -I'M- THE FUCKING CRAZY ONE. JESUS EFFING CHRIST. DO YOU SEE WHAT I HAVE TO WORK WITH? ON BOTH SIDES? FUCK ME.)

How Many...?

Filed under: Burn the Witch

Q: How many witches wake up at 4:30 in the fucking morning to consecrate a hole that city workers dug up right in front of her house (SYMBOLICALLY IT'S A GRAVE, OKAY?) the day before with blood, urine, magic mushrooms, and antique hair pins?

A: NONE, LOL, THEY HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON BECAUSE IT'S WAY TOO FUCKING EARLY IN THE MORNING AND IT'S RAINING, ANYWAY, AND SLEEP FOR ANOTHER TWO HOURS AND THEN RUSH TO GET EVERYTHING DONE BEFORE EARLY COMMUTERS CAN CATCH THEM IN ACTION. (BURN THE WITCH!)

Last of the Best

Filed under: Remember This Date

Not yet, I guess.

(I had an entire entry written here with realizations I came to early this morning while on mushrooms, but I lost it. All of it. In one gut-crushing MySQL error - that's never happened in all of my years of journaling - all of the words were gone.)

(It's okay, though. The error registered as "#2" which is significant enough for me to understand that IT'S JUST NOT TIME YET.)

(There are no flukes in this game; only unrealized opportunities and unseen messages written on the wall. You don't have to be schizophrenic, but obsessively connecting seemingly fictitious dots helps. Especially if you can do it on a daily basis.)

Bratz Princess

Filed under: Life

I never really understood the practice of cursing a deity for a desired outcome. I mean, I get WHY, but it always seemed counterproductive to me, and I can't imagine that it leads to a very happy home. (Don't even get me started on the fallout that happened after I kicked Papa's ass out of the house when both of our stubborn wills butted - we didn't speak all Spring and Summer long. That was years ago, but it's still fresh in our minds.)

I still do it, though.

Not in that archaic "AND MAY YOU NEVER FIND REST, NEVER FIND SOLACE, NEVER FIND..." way that sounds all OLD AND EPIC and OLD TESTAMENT BIBLICAL, but I swear. And curse. And cry. And, when I feel all justified about it, scream at the top of my lungs in Their face.

(Nothing's safe, nothing's sacred.)

There's little else that makes me feel like I'm a force of nature made flesh when I howl and scratch the faces of the things I love, the things I am. To have that sort of primal audacity, to become the roaring wind that weathers stone faces and lashes out like a caged animal is simultaneously beautiful and terrible - a cursed blessing, destructive yet courageous.

(She said I was a fighter, a "warrior". (YES, I KNOW. NOW IMAGINE HOW I MUST FEEL KNOWING THAT I HAVE TO, SOMEHOW, SPIN THIS "WARRIOR" BUSINESS INTO SOMETHING ALL MODERN AND COOL AND SEXY.) And She anointed me with Her bloody hand during a lunar eclipse, telling me (during the baptism) that "you will know blood".)

It yields results...quickly. (I suppose priorities change when you have a LIVING BANSHEE WOMAN threatening to CLAW OUT THE EYES OF HER IDOLS while she withers, thrashes, and spiritually foams at the mouth.) Not that I recommend this method to anyone, but if you want results - immediate, lightening-from-heaven OH MY GOD NO ONE IS GOING TO BELIEVE ME acknowledgement - you need to be willing to prove it.

This isn't the Halloween vacation I expected. I could go into it - and I probably will, later on - but I don't feel up to the IMMENSE FRUSTRATION that I'd experience while doing so.

(One of the reasons why I don't post here as often as I like is because THERE'S A LOT OF EXCESS BAGGAGE WITH ALMOST EVERYTHING I WANT TO SAY. Almost everything - right now - seems so drive-by, so manic. But there's sense, and there's rhythm to my life; I just haven't found a balance between WHAT I WANT TO SAY and WHAT I NEED TO SAY TO BACK UP WHAT I WANT TO SAY. Because no matter how far back I go, I always realize that it isn't far enough, and there will always be something else I need to add, or explain, or clarify and dragging out those memories to put to words seems too goddamn daunting.)

Due to being chronically sick with a mystery illness (we're banking on a hiatal hernia, I don't know what the NHS is banking since no one from the medical community has contacted me about the testing they said I had to undergo NEARLY 10 FUCKING WEEKS AGO) I knew that I had to take it easy (meaning, no HALLOWEEN WHORE RETURNS HOME parties) and even went as far as outlining several small PERSONAL TIME projects for myself so I couldn't go overboard.

(In addition to decorating the house for Halloween and setting up the altar I wanted to: clean out our bedroom (one of the smallest rooms in the house), make bagels from scratch, plant spring bulbs, clear out vegetable plants, and prepare a SOUTHERN COOKING spread from an old cookbook that once belonged to my mother. <- This is me scaling back crazily, I usually do -a lot- more during two vacation weeks.)

The decorations aren't up. The altar - the focus, the point, the reason; where we pray and fuck and party and connect - never got constructed. Not one room in this house is to my standard of cleanliness, and we're still sleeping in the same sweaty sheets, in the same cluttered bedroom. No bulbs have been planted, no vegetable plants uprooted. No rest, no relaxation, no reflection...no vacation.

We've been sick. I'm sick on an every day basis - but it's a sickness I'm used to by now, even though something's broken inside of me. Being struck down with a chronic mystery illness means that I haven't really left the house this year. In fact, last week was the second time I even left city limits in all of 2008.

Italics took me to see Cyndi Lauper in Glasgow to kick start our Halloween vacation. (The sad part? The sad I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN PUNCHED IN THE GUT part? I haven't even had a chance to go over the concert in my head or with Italics. Something so huge, so meaningful, so monumental to me and us and work and EVERYTHING and it's just hanging in limbo; a visceral memory without any feeling or emotion. A picture without words.)

Even before the concert I was exhausted; at the concert there was a critical point where I almost had to throw in the cards during the support band. Do you know how depressing it is to know that TRAVELING and GOING TO A CONCERT is enough to leave you fucking bedridden for over a week? Do you know how depressing it is knowing you're NOT EVEN FUCKING THIRTY and your body can't handle letting you out of the house for a change of scenery?

We got sick. There was no food in the house. There were no clean clothes. The rats began to smell, and then, as our colds got worse, they didn't smell at all - but not because we cleaned their cages. I was so sick I couldn't unpack our bags. (One is still sitting in the lounge right now.) I couldn't do the laundry. I couldn't feed us (LOL, ON WHAT? THREE FUCKING CARS IN THE FUCKING DRIVEWAY AND I CAN'T FUCKING DRIVE ONE OF THEM). So there was no way I could decorate the house for Halloween, set up the altar, and begin the ancient VIRGIN TO WHORE pageant.

It's October 25th today; we're still sick. Italics's parents come home on the 31st. I don't see celebration, I don't even have a designated place to pray.

This isn't the Halloween vacation I needed.

I've been crying for days. I wish I could explain, but I can't. (SEE "FRUSTRATION", ONCE AGAIN.) I cried to Italics that it felt like They were taking Halloween away from me this year. (I WISH I COULD EXPLAIN, I DO. OTHER THAN BEING MY FAVORITE TIME OF THE YEAR IT'S WHEN ITALICS AND I GOT ENGAGED. IT'S WHEN CHIPPY FIRST MADE CONTACT WITH ME. IT'S WHEN PAPA COMES HOME FOR WINTER. IT'S WHEN I TAKE OFF MY EASTER WEDDING DRESS. IT'S WHEN THE VIRGIN BRIDE BECOMES THE WHORE. IT'S THE FINAL ACT OF REAPING, THE CLOSING OF THE HARVEST AND THE TIME OF THE OLD WOMAN. IT'S WHEN I GO WITHIN MYSELF TO JOIN THE DARKNESS SO I CAN EMERGE FROM MY SECOND SKIN A VIRGIN BRIDE FOR EASTER.)

This was the first year Italics married his Easter Bride. 2008 was the first year that our union represented the responsibility that we agreed to undertake; it was acceptance of the way things were/are, an invitation to the universe to help us expand our efforts and point us in the right direction. Having never really done this before I know that everything, right now, is a learning experience (THIS SHIT? ALL OF THIS SHIT? TRIAL AND ERROR WITH A SIDE OF GUT INSTINCT) but I can't help but feel disappointed and frustrated at the lack of closure and the ability to seamlessly slide from one role into the other.

I know I'm spoiled, but they let me be spoiled. I stamp my foot, I scream, I claw at stony visages in my mind and the world shakes and the trees bend and everything, all around me, holds its breath during that audacious second when the howl that deafens and shakes me crashes through the universe like a burst of white lightening.

...I don't get ignored.

Paint it Black

Filed under: Tea Leaves & Entrails

Black death shroud thrown over Chippy. Got package today, played "dress up" with torn cloth. Chippy eventually moved to floor with Jigga. When watching TV looked over at both and noticed how black cloth became mourning shroud, and how Jigga leaned into Chippy as if both comforting each other while grieving.

(I really wished I hadn't noticed that.)

Stone Fruit Season

Filed under: #13

IMMORTALITY THROUGH WRITING? LOL, ONLY IF YOU'RE THE CHARACTER! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME AROUND, BRAH! (LOL @ THE ATHEISTS WHO WON'T BE SITTING THE RETEST.)

(THE SHEER FABRIC OF TIME AND SPACE AND EVERYTHING THAT IS ANYTHING COULD SPLIT IN HEAVENLY GLORY BEFORE MY EYES AND I'D STILL BE ALL "...BUT I STILL DON'T ACTUALLY -KNOW-, YOU KNOW?". EVEN THEN.)

(I GUESS I WILL SOMEDAY.)

(LOL, "I GUESS"! LIKES IT'S SOME SORT OF VOLUNTARY CHOICE!)

(LOL @ THIS ONE HANDED DISCUSSION TAKING PLACE AS JUICE FROM A HALF-EATEN PLUM RUNS DOWN MY ARM LIKE BLOOD.)

(OH, SYMBOLISM. <3.)

Buy Me Things

Filed under: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

Papa is an opportunistic bastard. When you have your guard down he'll slip in during that second when you're too far past the threshold to go "OH, HEY, HEY NOW! LET'S NOT BE HAVING NONE OF THAT BUSINESS HERE, PLEASE!". He waits until you've crossed the point of no return, and then invites himself over (invites himself in?).

Sometimes he slides in for a partial ride, and sometimes I discover, afterwards, a skull or skeleton inexplicably staring me in the face when there wasn't a skull or skeleton there before. ("WAIT, HOW DID THIS GET HERE AGAIN?") FOR INSTANCE (OH, LORD, YOU KNEW THIS WAS GOING SOMEWHERE DEEP DOWN INSIDE!), FOR EXAMPLE, FOR THIS ONE SITUATION CIRCUMSTANCE I GIVE YOU...TODAY!

Today? Today I pulled my brand new BUY ME THINGS t-shirt over my demi-cupped tits and proudly showed off my newest gift from Italics to Italics. And then, approximately 15 minutes later, we were both on our knees, stoned, and he was fucking me in the ass against my computer chair while the Commodore's song Nightshift was playing in MP3 form. (THE SAD PART OF ALL OF THIS? I WASN'T EVEN TRYING. (COME TO THINK OF IT, THAT'S ALWAYS THE SAD PART.))

(LOL, ACTUALLY, THAT'S A SORT'VE FUNNY STORY WITHIN ITSELF! I WAS ALL "WHAT SONG DO YOU THINK WOULD BE GOOD FOR BUTT SEX?" AND HE WAS ALL "I DON'T KNOW" SO I THUMBED THROUGH MY 80S COLLECTION AND WAS ALL "SOMETHING, YOU KNOW, NOT CRAZY BUT MORE FUNNY" AND KNEW THAT THAT DIDN'T MEAN PURPLE RAIN, OR, UHM, THE OTHER ONE I SUGGESTED WHICH MADE ITALICS LAUGH AND MADE ME GO "OH, RIGHT, THAT PROBABLY FALLS IN THE "CRAZY" CATEGORY, DOESN'T IT?" (DAMN MEMORY) SO I WENT "WHAT ABOUT WE GOT THE BEAT?" AND HE WAS ALL, LIKE, "ISN'T THAT MORE NITROUS MUSIC?" AND I WAS "YES, TOTALLY, 100%! WHAT ABOUT I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW?" AND HE LAUGHED AND I LAUGHED AND WE BOTH LAUGHED AND WHEN SETTING IT UP I NOTICED THAT WINAMP LOADED NIGHTSHIFT AGAIN BUT I DECIDED TO -NOT- REMOVE THE SONG AFTER HITTING "REPEAT" BECAUSE ME KNOWING ME I KNOW HOW QUICKLY I COME DURING ANAL SEX AND I KNOW I AIN'T GOING TO LAST AS LONG AS TIFFANY DOES IN I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW. (OR, LOL, SO I THOUGHT!) SO WE ACTUALLY STARTED ON I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW BUT BECAUSE I TOOK SO GODDAMN LONG WE ENDED UP FINISHING DURING NIGHTSHIFT. ("GONNA BE SOME SWEET SOUNDS, COMING DOWN ON THE NIGHTSHIFT...") SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT HOW I'M NOT REALLY TRYING EVEN THOUGH IT MAY APPEAR THAT WAY? I'M JUST A VICTIM (OF MYSELF, APPARENTLY).)

What's the first thing I see after collapsing into my computer chair? Four top hatted skulls and three crows staring at me (at eye level):

See what I mean about SKULLS and SKELETONS inexplicably appearing? I hadn't planned on having anal sex, let alone against the computer chair next to the window. But the next thing I know I'M BUTT BEEF EXTREME (just think of "butt beef" as a pet name for the act in this house; kind've like how you give your favorite child a cutesy nickname...or something) AND MOVING IN TIME WITH THE COMMODORES IN FRONT OF A BLACK CLOTH ALTAR WITH GREY SKULLS AND WHITE CROWS. (I THINK what must've happened was me thinking that I would quickly pull my new FOUR OF A KIND tee on after sex to see how it fit and slung it, all absently, over my computer chair for safe keeping. AND THE REST HAS BEEN SLOPPY RECORDED IN PREVIOUS PARTS OF THIS PARTIALLY CAPS LOCKED ENTRY.)

Sneaky bastard. (I hope he got my "message". (LOL! "BUY ME THINGS"! LOL!)

About a week back I heard that René Cigler from StrangeMonster.Com passed away. The name stuck with me for a day or two but I couldn't remember why it seemed so familiar until I remembered, long, long, ago, that I had bookmarked (DOG EARED?) a hoodie she had designed.

When poking around Strange Monster I came across FOUR OF A KIND and was immediately sold. I mean, HOW COULD I NOT BE - it was on -SALE-! It was BLACK and had THE ACE OF SPADES and SKULLS and PAPA and CROWS and IT WAS ON SALE! So I ditched the hoodie (it wasn't there, anyway), and wound up with an unexpected, 100% out-of-the-blue purchase.

My FOUR OF A KIND t-shirt arrived the day before my first appointment with the specialist. I felt sad for a second, handling something so obviously death related, knowing that the only reason why I was holding it in the first place was because of René's unexpected death, and then it felt...I don't know...right.

And fall.

It felt like fall had come, and it felt like Papa was letting me know that he's getting ready to come home for winter. (I've missed you, Old Man.)

As #33

Filed under: Tarot

Earlier today, when speaking about/thinking about tomorrow's appointment I pulled #33 from ma's "Soul Cards" deck. (I believe my reaction - and this is a direct quote - was "JESUS, IT'S NOT THAT BAD!".)

There's a slight discrepancy between the on-line version of the image and the printed card version of the image. For some reason all of the blue featured in the glossy card doesn't pop up on the jpg (it looks more sand blasted on-line - WHO KNOWS, MAYBE MY INTERNET EYES ARE BROKEN?).

The first thing I said/thought (not the VERY FIRST THING, mind you, because that was the "OH JESUS WTF IS THIS BLACK HOLE OF DESPAIR?!" reaction above) was "OKAY, DON'T FREAK OUT BECAUSE YOU CAN -CLEARLY SEE- THAT SHE HAS A PROTECTIVE WHITE HALO/AURA AROUND HER BODY (WHITE = GOOD COLOR, DEATH/REBIRTH) WHICH IS A V. V. V. GOOD SIGN". And then "OH, HEY, WE'RE GETTING MORE BLUE!" (in my card version there's a blue smudge streaked across her face making it seem like the indigo is staining her white skin) and that's V. V. GOOD too because BLUE AND WHITE ARE VERY SPECIAL MAGIC COLORS FOR ME and WE SHOULD BE TURNING BLUE BY NOW, ANYWAY, BECAUSE FALL IS COMING ON.

(Time to ditch the Easter bride virgin thing and do a 180. ANCIENT, PERPETUAL CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH AND ALL OF THAT.)

So, yeah, not bad, you just need to look at it a bit harder. (BESIDES, IT'S ONLY A HERNIA, YOU KNOW. SO, THERE'S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT BECAUSE IF IT WAS SOMETHING REALLY BAD, BAD SOMETHING REALLY BAD, BAD WOULD HAVE HAPPENED BY NOW.)

(CAN I PLEASE HAVE ANOTHER RABBIT GRIN? MAYBE ONE MORE JUST BEFORE BED?)

#33 notes:
* Atomic number of arsenic
* This number has the meaning that good will always triumph over evil.
* A significant number in modern numerology, one of the master numbers along with 11 and 22
* A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually
* The double triangle is another word for, "33."

Thirty Minutes After

Filed under: Happily Ever After

I stopped it from raining last night.

(It held for an evening and thirty minutes; it waited for a shower and a beer. I pulled Our apron tight - high above the stars - and We cradled the rain against Our body, against Ourselves, with arms unwavering as the clouds billowed and rolled below Us. The Universe said "YOU DID THIS. YOU DID THIS, YOURSELF." and I laughed and I cried while we watched my rain from the kitchen windows, after a shower, after a beer - thirty minutes after I looked up at the sky and said "NOW IT CAN RAIN!" as the blood and semen and spit and wine sank into the earth where there were roots without sheaves of wheat.)

Aquarius Lunar Eclipse

Filed under: Rituals

Tonight I Reaped.