Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Deemed Worthy

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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.)

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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.)

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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?)

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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.)

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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.)

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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?)

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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.)

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(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.

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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.

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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

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.

Crow Wishbone; Ultimate Wish

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How much would you be willing to pay for the ultimate wish?

Nature's Reclamation

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I'm so far behind on Graveyard Dirt shit my ass ain't even laughing anymore. I've got so many things to show you, so many fucking stories to tell and projects to talk about and jokes to mess up and mad-brilliant-stupid ideas to tentatively explain and photos that perfectly - PERFECTLY! - illustrate all of the above (well, in most cases). And HOW do I decide to tackle this monumental undertaking? By writing about our (previously) overgrown front yard. (<- You want priories? I got them RIGHT HERE, motherfucker.)

I'll try to keep this yarn short (LOLOLOLOL, I KNOW, I KNOW, LET'S PRETEND I CAN BE SUCCINCT, THOUGH, OKAY?), because some of you might've heard various renditions about a billion times already.

Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, was once the custodian of this house and the property it sits on. What maintenance he could manage he performed himself, and he personally took care of the landscaping and maintaining of said landscaping. About 6-8 years ago he dug up (literally) the entire lawn - and what he didn't manage to dig up he deliberately snuffed with plant killer - and transformed our front yard into a giant dirt pit.

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Little did I know that immediately after trashing the front fucking yard (we're talking about an entire fucking yard totally scraped clean of anything green and living) he benched himself. For, like, forever. The destruction of the lawn - and all of the landscaping - was his swan song, and none of us knew it at the time. Because it was early days (in the sense of me assuming a more active, aggressive caretaker role in this house) I didn't intervene, thinking he had some sort of super-big-huge plan I didn't know about (or couldn't see intuitively).

I gave him way too much fucking credit. The front yard - which I eventually renamed "the dirt yard" - sat barren, abandoned and untouched for years. (Okay, okay, that's a half lie; Mr. Awesome, in the first several years of the wasteland's existence, did routinely go outside with plant killer and spray anything green that had managed to seed and germinate itself in his precious dirt lawn.)

Every subdivision has its "crackhouse". Amongst carefully manicured and pedicured pieces of property there's always one fucking house where grass doesn't grow, where garbage (or rusted, partially broken toys and lawn furniture) pops up like prolific fungi and there's usually 1-3 cars, in various states of disrepair, sitting on, or near, the crackhouse. As a kid cycling past on my bike I couldn't help but stare at the community eyesore, wondering what the living fuck the people were on, and how they managed to not give a fuck and bow under silent peer pressure to conform to the subdivision's standards of appearance.

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To answer my own childhood questions (seeing as how I'm an unwilling inhabitant of this subdivision's "crackhouse"):

1.) Pot, most of the time.

2.) Some members of this house, the ones who actually execute the final decision on anything (cough, in-laws, cough), didn't see any problem with having a giant archeological excavation site instead of a lawn, parking two broken cars in front of the house and throwing indoor vegetative waste outdoors on barren land (you want shit to stick out? throw gigantic fucking banana leaves onto a flat expanse of dirt and just leave it there like it's fucking camouflaged amongst soil and rocks).

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Fed the fuck up with seeing the dirt yard year in and year out I finally decided to do something about it last year - plant motherfucking vegetables. (Why the fuck not? There was a surplus of soil readily available, and it had been something like 6-8 years since my in-laws even touched the naked earth out front and surely something - something the entire family would've benefited from - was better than nothing, right?) The fucking second they saw me disturbing the dirt yard's soil they came racing out to inform me that they were TOTALLY going to do something with the yard THAT YEAR but they just hadn't told either of us (Italics and I).

I didn't buy it. Italics didn't buy it. And if you're familiar with the tale of the trash heap/non-existent BBQ you'll know why neither of us bought it. (Not sure what the fuck I'm talking about? Read this (dig deep! the explanation's there!); everything'll make sense.) The fact that they tried to pull the same bullshit again absolutely blew me the fuck away. In fact, Internet, I was downright insulted with the insinuation that suddenly, after 6-8 years of not giving a fuck about the condition of the front yard, they had SUPER-MAJOR-AWESOME PLANS once they saw ME show interest in the wasteland they had created and walked away from.

I got told they had plans for the front yard. I gave them my best "not even MARGINALLY fucking impressed" Clair Huxtable expression and informed THEM that that was great, but I was growing vegetables in the dirt yard this year and they could do whatever the fuck they wanted NEXT year. (Hey, that gave them an entire year to plan, organize and get their act together so they were ready to go the second 2010 hit. It actually gave them a fucking EXCUSE not to do anything for one whole fucking year.)

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Italics' parents wouldn't leave me and my year with the dirt yard alone. I didn't have a moment's fucking peace working outside. Every single fucking time - and I'm not exaggerating here in the slightest - I went outside to clock in one of them would come outside to remind me that they were going to undo everything I did this year. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. It wasn't a matter of IF, it was a matter of WHEN.

("ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PLANT VEGETABLES? WOULDN'T YOU RATHER PLANT {INSERT AN UNSUBTLE ATTEMPT TO GET ME TO PLANT WHAT THEY WANTED, WHERE THEY WANTED}?" and "YOU SEE ALL OF THOSE ROCKS YOU'VE BEEN PULLING OUT OF THE GROUND BY HAND FOR SIX HOURS A DAY? KEEP THEM BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO THROW THEM BACK INTO THE YARD NEXT YEAR.")

While my scraped hands and fingers bled from sifting earth to remove debris and rocks with my bare fucking hands Mr. Awesome would come outside to inform me that every fucking rock I pulled out he was just going to throw "back into the yard" once I was done. And every single fucking time I wanted to shout "MOTHERFUCKER, I'M NOT EVEN DONE PULLING THE FUCKING ROCKS OUT OF THE FUCKING GROUND. AT LEAST LET ME BE DONE WITH THIS FUCKING JOB BEFORE YOU BEGIN TELLING ME YOU'RE GOING TO UNDO EVERYTHING I FUCKING DID. JESUS EFFING CHRIST." but, instead, I got Italics to do it for me (they aren't MY parents).

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After one too many "ARE YOU SURE?", "WOULDN'T YOU RATHER...?" and "NEXT YEAR WE'RE GOING TO..." I walked away. Now, of course, I'm sort've ashamed that I let them wear me down, but I was totally unable to derive any enjoyment from something that's meant to be relaxing. I left them their goddamn dirt yard and walked the fuck away. Ultimately, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle I was getting and turned my focus on expanding my container garden in the back.

Take a wild fucking guess what happened. Go ahead. That's right, nothing. They got their effing dirt yard a fucking year early and they did NOTHING. After all the bullshit I went through, the talk of SUPER-HUGE-BIG PLANS and the power struggle this entire household experienced over a bald front yard they decided they didn't actually want to do anything, but, for some reason, they couldn't reach that conclusion until after I threw my hands up in the air, all exasperated, and finally said "FINE, TAKE IT".

(Just between you and me? I think they finally reached the point where they didn't want to piss me off anymore. I know Italics engaged in a shock and awe campaign on my behalf and pointed out previous situations where I was stopped from doing something that'd benefit the house and family because they had BIG, GRAND PLANS that conflicted with my proposal, and in every instance I backed off they never followed through with those BIG, GRAND PLANS and this was just ANOTHER example of their inability to start, let alone finish, something.)

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They didn't take the dirt yard, I didn't take the dirt yard, but Nature? Nature took the fucking dirt yard. After beating Mr. Awesome back with a proverbial stick, seeds from various indigenous flora, for the first time in years, actually took root. There was enough "growth" last year to warrant the "lawn" being cut for the first time in nearly a decade. From a not-so-distant distance it actually appeared like we had motherfucking grass, just like all of the non-crackhouse houses.

I don't want to be premature, but...it feels like they've backed off. I mean, like, "HOLY SHIT, SHE'S FUCKING CRAZY, JUST LET HER DO WHAT THE FUCK SHE WANTS AND DON'T MAKE FUCKING EYE CONTACT" backed off. That's cool, that's fine, I'm happy to deal with social rabies if it means my pot smoking ass can (figuratively) move out of the crackhouse. Cause, like, I've got plans, baby. Super huge, terrifically awesome plans - but that's another story for a different day.

With an exception of planting garlic, beets and carrots (the later two didn't really perform well; the front yard faces north so they aren't getting as much sun as they need, at least I'll be harvesting a decent garlic crop) I've otherwise "neglected" the front yard. Deliberately, though, just to see what Nature would sow and give me. And, my fucking God, it gave me lots: pansies, feverfew (WTF? I gave up trying to grow feverfew over five fucking years ago because nothing ever fucking germinated - now I have it growing everywhere EXCEPT the containers I sowed it in!), bellflowers, ragwort, violets, thistle, white clover, buttercups and a host of meadow grasses whose names I don't know.

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Much to the chagrin of my in-laws I refused to cut the "lawn". Well, it wasn't an outright refusal, but whenever they complained about the height of the growing grass I'd dismiss their anxieties with a polite "yeah, we're getting to that, we just need to do a couple of things first". I tried REALLY FUCKING HARD not to get pissed whenever my mother-in-law would shake me down with stories about people receiving fines from the council for not taking care of their property, but it was struggle (mostly because she obsessively kept mentioning it).

Holy fuck, dude, if the fucking council didn't fine us when our entire front yard was nothing but fucking dirt and there were two broken cars parked outside next to the exposed dirt I don't think they're going to fine us for some fucking grass that's knee high. I mean, for fuck's sake, how is having an overgrown lawn NOT an improvement of our previous situation? Before we had NOTHING, now we have SOMETHING.

Because I prefer my grass unruly and wild I've allowed it to grow all year long and watched, month by month, as the front yard slowly transformed into a meadow. Eventually the three large rocks dotting the small earthen mound between the rowan and sycamore disappeared beneath a canopy of stalks, leaves and flowers. Eventually the soil was swallowed by green (and yellow and purple and white), and the wildness grew to a height where Summer's breeze rippled through it like a field of shivering wheat.

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It was the meadows of my youth where I'd drape white translucent curtains over the bowing seedheads of wild grasses to create an ethereal canopy. And I'd sink - naked (oh, my preference for "naked" goes back a long, long way) - into a sea of green, lying on my back within my nomadic fairy hut, secluded and perfectly hidden in the rich grasslands that bordered our house. I didn't need to drag out curtains to create my sidhe yurt or throw off all of my clothes and sit in towering grass to appreciate - I mean, REALLY appreciate - the view from outside the kitchen window. Seeing it, everyday, was enough. (At least for now, heh.)

The meadow, unfortunately, had to be tamed. We let it grow for as long as possible, but Italics' folks return from the States in about a week and no amount of storytelling ("BUT I CAN'T CUT THE GRASS BECAUSE IT REMINDS ME OF BEING ALL LORD OF THE FLIES AS A KID!") or excuses ("THE WEATHER'S BEEN BAD EVERY SINGLE DAY SINCE YOU GUYS LEFT!") will fly. A few days ago I finally harvested the thistle and feverfew and gave Italics the green light to take the rest down. He managed part of the yard, but not all of it.

Later on today I'm hoping to step outside and pick the violets and pansies (to dry the flowers for future witchcrafting) and gather some of their seeds before they disappear beneath the blades of the lawnmower. Once the long grass has a chance to dry we'll gather it up and store it for Christmas, where it'll be spread beneath our kitchen table during Sviata Vechera ("Holy Supper", eaten on Christmas Eve) to honor domesticated animals, and then stored away again until Spring (Bride's Day, Imbolc) when we'll offer it to local lactating ewes.

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Goddamn Lucky

Walked down to the cemetery. Ate wild cherries. Watched a raptor hunt. Passed between barbed wire fences. Waded through overgrown pastureland. Had sex in the ruined church. Freed the wild gooseberry bush. Wandered down a shady lane to the local kirkyard. Knocked on A.S.'s "grave". Sat with the graveyard rabbits. Watched Italics take pictures of graveyard rabbits. Watched families of swallows dip above overgrown pastureland. Straightened the nun's grave. Left an offering on Muriel's grave. Left offerings at the cemetery cairn. Poured Didi's ("grandfather") bottle of Heineken over his Midwinter bread at Papa's grave. Left a chocolate cigar for Papa behind his headstone. Left the Leprechaun in the cairn tree. Drank water from the kirkyard's faucet. Waved good-bye to graveyard rabbits and swallows. Walked back home, admiring shimmering wheat fields of green-gold while appreciating how goddamn lucky I am.

Anointed

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

Junkyard Amulet 01: New Beginnings

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"Junkyard Amulets"; one of a kind talismans, charms and amulets resurrecting the lost, found and excavated into unsubtle pieces of magical intent. Description and details of 01: New Beginnings to follow.

Foster Care

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So I opened up my big, fat, scavenging mouth and now everyone wants roadkill. From me. Pronto. I've spent years fantasizing about this sort've situation, but now that it's here a part of me's going WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, EASY COWBOY because I don't have anything ready. Business cards? Nuh uh. Label art? Nope. A store name? LOL, WHATEV. (Just between you and me? I'm so fucking green in this venture that if you pat me on the back you'll smudge the fresh paint.)

I think I might be rushing, but Italics hasn't told me to slow down. (<- That's a good sign, right?) I don't know so many things - how to whiten bones (I mean, I know how, I just haven't had the time to experiment), how to fix feet in specific positions (wings are hella easy, all you need is some soft cardboard, salt and a box of sewing pins), how to preserve organs (other than drying them out into shriveled bits of pemican), how to transform frozen, raw fur into soft, downy pelts (which I REALLY need to learn how to do THIS YEAR since I got more than enough rabbit skins to begin the process of piecing together my proposed wild rabbit ritual blanket) and, ultimately, how to taxidermy like a motherfucking pro.

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The response has been overwhelming. Every effing time I pop open my inbox there's more email. ("HI! YOU DON'T KNOW ME, BUT I'VE BEEN READING YOUR JOURNAL FOR A LONG ASS TIME AND I'D REALLY LOVE TO GET MY HANDS ON...") I've always operated under the assumption that only two or three people - who I'm already sort've associated with - bother visiting this space, and even that's only on a totally uncommitted basis. It blows my mind that people are reading this shit and actually coming back for seconds. (Or, at least, frequently returning to watch what they think is a train wreck in perpetual progress.)

I haven't even sealed one deal yet (BTW, y'all might have to Thunderdome it out amongst yourselves re: corvid skulls, cause, like, I think I might have a whole THREE to offer, and I'm probably saving one for personal use) and I'm already worried. Will people be able to tell how much love, energy and respect (even if filtered through my bizarre sense of humor) I offer every animal that I'm privileged enough to be given? Will they be able to tell I ritualize the dismantling of a physical form to help release the spirit from the burden of flesh? Will they feel the incense? My altered state? The offerings I give and make, the funerals Italics and I hold, the continuation of life that occurs when visiting wildlife finds food and sustenance from the decomposing bodies of their deceased brethren?

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I'm worried my work won't feel "alive" to anyone but myself. I'm deathly terrified that someone'll tear open their box from bonnie old Scotland, eagerly pull out the piece they've been anticipating and the entire experience suddenly flatlines because it - whatever it is - doesn't feel special, doesn't feel magic. And no amount of stories (because there's always a story attached to every animal), no amount of pictures (it's important to know and see where it came from, lived and died), no amount of spiritually feeding, nurturing and sheparding energy will be enough to create a connection between someone else and my animals.

In a bizarre way it almost feels like I'm sending my babies into foster care, and even though I can provide the metaphorical birth certificate and baby photos I can't guarantee that any of the additional information will create a meaningful bond between it and its adoptive parent. Fuck, is it weird that I'm being anxious about shit like this? Is it a GOOD sign? Will prospective buyers think I'm mental, or will they kind've sort've get what I'm doing?

Bottom fucking line? I want to be happy, I want the new caretakers to be happy, but, most importantly, I want my animals to be happy.

PS: I haven't had a chance to write about the crow and wild rabbit skull (which was found in fragments) we found about a week ago. I'm on the fence about selling any part of the crow, but I'll definitely be selling the rabbit skull pictured above (and all of its parts; I'll let the new caretaker glue the teeth back in, it'll be a good bonding exercise).

(Roadkill) Cat Out of the Bag

I just finished posting this to my Tumblr account and thought you guys might be interested:

Tumblr, you never cease to amaze me. I didn't expect a half-drunk OH, BY THE WAY...WHO WANTS TO BUY PRESERVED ANIMAL PARTS FROM YOURS TRULY? comment to get any attention, but, uh, it did. (I actually woke Italics up about an hour ago with "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD - PEOPLE WANT TO BUY MY ROADKILL BABIES*!", no joke!) I'm really glad I did say something, though, because some of these skulls, bones, pelts, feathers, wings and feet desperately need a loving home to go to. (<- I also do eyes, tongues, hearts - if it's internal, gross and still intact I'm happy to retrieve it.)

I have to perform a quick inventory check to see what I have available right now (all roadkill is special to me - it's a gift that I feel very privileged to accept - and I treat everything I pick up with the greatest of respect, but there are a few individual animals that I'm keeping specifically for magic work (a few rabbits, a badger and a fox); I just haven't had a chance to preserve them and their bits properly or get around to consuming body parts**), but I'm totally willing to fill custom requests (I think most people are keen on nabbing corvid skulls?).

I'm ALSO happy to provide specialist ingredients to be used in personal witchcraft. Shells, sand and stones from the North Sea? Graveyard dirt from ancient kirkyards? Dirt or pebbles from cairns or standing stones? Berry seeds from sacred sites (rowans next to cairns, black currants from graveyards, raspberries and gooseberries growing next to - and within - ruined chapels). Wheat heads grown within - and next to - standing stone circles? (<- 100% growable. Out of all of the things I grow for magic, growing wheat from seed is probably the most satisfying.) Dried chilis grown for Papa Ghede in graveyard dirt? I could go on and fucking on (i.e., rusty church nails, small rectangular slates - perfect for burning charcoal tabs on - off abandoned cottages, ruined churches and so on); ask me, I'll probably have something close to what you're looking for (and pictures of the place I'd be gathering - or have gathered - your goods from).

If anything I said strikes your interest please feel free to leave a comment/request in my original entry or, alternatively, contact me directly: graveyarddirt@gmail.com. This is me accidentally letting the (roadkill) cat out of the bag (due to financial reasons - I'm broke, and I want that motherfucking Harry Belafonte record with Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)) - yes, Ms. Graveyard Dirt is actively working behind the scenes to open up her version of a witch's market complete with dead things (and their parts), organic and inorganic "raw" ingredients (supplying individual components rather than a finished product) and, maybe, if they aren't too lame looking, one of a kind junkyard amulets, charms and talismans made from bits and bobs I've collected on my various adventures.

* They are my babies! If an animal's found within a mile radius of the house you can be PRETTY DAMN SURE it frequently visited our house to eat food I specifically put out for it as an offering. We have two major rookeries in close proximity so any corvid I pick up has probably eaten food I've ritually offered.

** Y'all fucked once I get around to eating my fox tongue. (You think I talk pretty now...?)

Wiping Winter Clean

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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.)

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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).

Making Spring Happen

So, Winter 09-10. (Yeah, I'm still riding those coattails.) I knew by Midsummer that we'd have snow for Midwinter. (Long short? The date coincided with our rowan tree flowering, so the front yard was littered with blossoms creating a thin blanket of white. The cow parsley flower I wore in my hair (as we performed ritual sex in a local wheat field just before dawn) immediately began shedding its tiny white flower heads on my kitchen windowsill altar (I dropped it into a small glass of water to proudly display my "wedding bouquet") creating a secondary expanse sown over with individualized flecks of white.)

I knew by Midfall-Winter (<- to keep our asses in line I now break down the year by high points in the seasons rather than focus on the Wiccan/neopagan "Wheel of the Year" names, i.e., Imbolc (Spring), Ostara (Midspring), Beltane (Summer), Litha (Midsummer) and so on) that we were in for a long, hard Winter. The rowan tree, which produced a prolific amount of flowers, inevitably produced a prolific amount of berries. (Which I consider, in my own way, a "winter berry" since rowan berries - at least from a culinary aspect - are more palatable and suited for cooking after getting nipped by a hard frost.)

Never in my near decade of living here have I seen the rowan tree out front so heavily laden with flowers. Even before the berries properly ripened I began wondering the folksy ramifications of a summer tree producing an excessive amount of winter fruit (that wildlife depended on). Was it an indication of a good spring/summer? Or was it a chlorophyll-powered premonition of a hard winter? Despite not coming across any indigenous sayings/near forgotten country wisdom - not that I actively looked, or anything - the assumption sort've felt right.

Holy shit, I was right on BOTH counts. (Weather and projected seasonal predictions? Seriously, Universe? You couldn't have given me something, I dunno...MORE FUCKING MONETARILY BENEFICIAL than "having a hunch" about the forthcoming Winter in Midsummer? That shit might've been useful SEVERAL HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS AGO, but seeing how I'm NOT A FUCKING FARMER IN THE 17TH CENTURY it means jack to a witch who lives in a bungalow in a fucking subdivision in semi-rural Scotland. Thanks. No, really. I always wanted to be magically good at something completely useless.)

Snow came just in time to give us a white Midwinter. Snow then decided to stay a spell. In addition to a white Midwinter we had a white Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Ukrainian Christmas (the Julian calendar - which the Eastern Orthodox church uses - is something like 13 days behind our Gregorian calendar), the anniversary of my mother's death, Spring (Bride's Day, Imbolc), Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and our legal wedding anniversary (which we normally don't celebrate since we're already knee-deep in Lent and preparing ourselves for our annual Hieros Gamos Easter wedding).

I didn't see the ground - you know, the driveway, earth, soil, dirt, dingy grass (even in frozen, sleeping form) - for the better part of three fucking months. We couldn't do anything, we couldn't leave the house and, thanks to several feet of unmoving snow, we couldn't do anything outside in the yard to break our growing cabin fever. It was "THE WORST WINTER IN 30 YEARS!". Nothing melted, and then more snow came. The vicious cycle was left on repeat for days-weeks-months, leaving so much fucking snow that the individual layers of build-up bordered on archeological. ("OH HEY! I JUST HIT THE CHRISTMAS EVE SNOWSTORM! ROCK THE FUCK ON!")

There were intense moments; good and bad. Midwinter was soul achingly magic. I had a MOMENT, all by myself in the wee hours of the morning. Just me, Winter's darkness, the falling, drifting snow, the undisturbed sheet of white enveloping the world outside (hiding every curb, bump and rock, smoothing everything over in a thick layer of flawless snow) and Enya's Gaelic version of "Silent Night" playing on the stereo.

It was, Christ, I don't know...pure? Indescribably pure. As the rest of the subdivision (and house) slept I stood in front of the lounge's window with both hands on the glass, watching, listening and crying. There was love in the silence of Winter, there was compassion, strength and maternal comfort. I cried for the Virgin near birth, I cried for the Sun, I cried for myself, in deeply moved reverence and thanks, for being allowed to experience the communion, for being the person singled out of everyone else to "witness" the event.

...and that MOMENT was special and great and wonderful and soul affirming and crazy fucking moving and I will never in my life forget it, but, dude, once New Year's Day passed? I was totally done with Winter and ready for Spring. Seriously, even more so than usual.

Seasonal holidays during Winter ("Winter", by the way, starts on Halloween / Samhain here) traditionally kept me busy, but after the New Year's Day feast I always felt somewhat lost and aimless until the first tangible signs of Spring. There was no purpose or meaning for the time between Yuletide festivities and Easter celebrations and I just sort've sat around, bored out of my skull, waiting for the seasonal change. Eventually, though, our yearly calendar became more structured and full as our spiritual practices evolved.

It all started with a cosmically euphoric experience on my in-law's brown leather couch one spring vacation ("I THINK...I THINK WE JUST MADE SPRING HAPPEN. THAT'S OUR JOB, EVERY YEAR - MAKE SPRING HAPPEN.") and everything snowballed from there. Now, four or five years on, our Hieros Gamos preparation (aka "making Spring happen") begins with a simple observation on Spring (Bride's Day, Imbolc) and grows increasingly more complex and demanding the closer we get to our wedding date.

BRIDE'S DAY: We observe Spring (Imbolc) simply; a bed is made for the Bride, we invite Her in and we eat a seasonally appropriate meal. Bride's Day is an amber light, a gentle reminder of impending change. I know within three weeks we'll celebrate the season with one last over-the-top night of debauched excess before committing ourselves to a more low key, celibate life.

(I didn't manage this past year, but hopefully NEXT year I'll actually have a chance to feed local pregnant ewes with homegrown grass cut and dried for the specific purpose of honoring teats, lactation, motherhood, femaleness and new life. <- I deliberately let our backyard turn into a motherfucking meadow just so we can harvest something that actually resembles hay.)

MARDI GRAS: Last night of doing, consuming and ingesting anything worthwhile and/or interesting. It's the last full day of the Whoredom, come Ash Wednesday the Whore's reign weakens and She's forced to share the glory with the Bride.

ASH WEDNESDAY: Celibate life begins (for me, anyway - how else do your turn a whore into a virgin?). In addition to refraining from sex (some sexual contact is allowed - for Christ's sake, Italics and I have been together for 13 fucking years, there's no"off" position for an intense relationship that's lasted that fucking long - provided no penetration of any kind occurs), I'm not allowed to masturbate or get myself off in any way and I also give up some sort of worldly love (booze, chocolate, white flour) for the duration of Lent.

LENT: Lent officially starts on Ash Wednesday and lasts, for us, until we're married. The morning after Mardi Gras finds me purifying the bed - stripping the sheets, washing them (with a handful of salt), Febrezing the mattress, flipping the mattress, washing the bed frame with a magic wash and then anointing the frame and our foreheads with an ash mixture made from oils, body fluids and, you guessed it, ash.

Lent is our courtship period, we can't fuck, but we can still touch, grope and explore. We get to know one another, all over again, and throughout the 40ish days we do couple-themed things and focus on being more intimate with one another. Once our martial bed is wiped clean I'm allowed to henna my hair red again (only the Bride's allowed to have red hair) and begin exfoliating six months of hag-crone off my ass (literally, I make a spiritually cleansing salt scrub).

HOLY WEEK: Holy Week is panic week because I know, within two weeks, not only am I going to have to produce a wedding feast to celebrate our union but we'll have to find time to actually perform the Hieros Gamos ritual itself, go to church on Holy Saturday, create a fucking Easter basket for church (which means baking babka or paska, which is an ENTIRE day of babying dough), create several seasonally specific altars and get myself ready to marry a motherfucking resurrected king.

HOLY SATURDAY: The make-or-break Easter day. I'll have spent all of Holy Week in the kitchen preparing for Easter Sunday's ritual feast. In addition to carting along one of my phallic loaves of babka to church I also include other traditional Ukrainian contents: fresh parsley, salt, boiled eggs, pysanky, butter molded into the shape of a lamb (paschal lamb), smoked pork products (sausages, bacon, loin) and some not-so-Ukrainian contents (i.e., honey, homegrown wheat, our Thai fertility pendants). The Easter basket is blessed by a priest during a special ceremony and the food within eaten as brunch on Easter Sunday.

EASTER SUNDAY: We celebrate the resurrection of the Bride's divine bridegroom, who the Whore reaped and killed during Harvest. (Crazy quick: White flour = Ukrainian crack. White flour = wheat. Ukrainian crack = wheat. Wheat = divine bridegroom who is resurrected in Spring and killed at Harvest.) Any worldly loves given up for Lent are welcomed back into our lives, but if we still haven't had a chance to perform the wedding ceremony we still need to abstain from sex or hardcore contact. (NO FINGER BANGING UNTIL "I DO".)

EASTER MONDAY (AKA SPANKING DAY): To ensure a year of good health and otherworldly beauty Italics needs to spank my ass the Monday after Easter. (It's an ancient Slavic thing.) Only women get spanked, though, and in return - since it's meant to be a blessing - we lady folk pay our respects with an egg. (Last year Italics got egged in the face. I, uh, had a spastic moment and laid the duck egg I was cradling in my cunt on Italics' forehead - while he was eating me out - at high velocity. Who knew laying eggs could be so fucking dangerous?)

THE ACTUAL WEDDING: Every year is different. You never really know when it's going to happen, or what it'll be like. Eventually, though, we get around to "making Spring happen" - sometimes it's a spur-of-the-moment act with absolutely no props, sometimes it's a crazy-elaborate seven hour production involving costumes, billowing incense and entheogens.

In something like 4-5 years we went from "there was no purpose or meaning for the time between Yuletide festivities and Easter celebrations and I just sort've sat around, bored out of my skull, waiting for the seasonal change" to "eventually, though, our yearly calendar became more structured and full as our spiritual practices evolved". Through an ongoing process of trial and error, we carved out a time for ourselves using our beliefs and intuition as a compass. Winter, post-Christmas, finally served a purpose (which kept me occupied and gave me a foundation to build an entire year on).

Except, not really, because this past Winter I retreated so far into myself that I entered a bizarre apathetic, amotivated torpor-hibernation state. I got tripped up just after Midwinter and instead of adjusting to the uneven terrain I stomped both feet and screamed "WHY ISN'T THE MOTHERFUCKING GROUND EVEN? HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT ME TO WALK ON THIS SHIT?". The white blossoms of Midsummer and frostbitten rowan berries of Fall had it right - it was going to be a hard fucking Winter, and not just for the indigenous wildlife.

A part of me called a time-out and benched itself because it just didn't give a fuck. At all. I fucking nailed Bride's day (I still need to upload and share those pictures, don't I?), but I couldn't retain the energy and enthusiasm. When Lent rolled around I gave up bread, abstained from sex and masturbation, stripped the bed on Ash Wednesday but I couldn't find the time or effort to engage in the small seasonal rituals that defined that time of year.

There was no Mardi Gras bonfire which meant no ashes for the morning after. No ashes meant no anointing. Fine, I thought, I shouldn't force things, not every year is going to be the same. Sometimes I'll manage to work shit in, and some years I won't. That's just part of the game. Then I began feeling bad about the "no ashes" thing, which made me feel like I couldn't purify myself with my salt scrub because I hadn't been anointed. Despite feeling that way, I never actually got around to creating ashes, so nothing (and no one) got consecrated and I found myself back at square one with everything ("WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF DYING MY FUCKING HAIR WITH HENNA IF I HAVEN'T SCRUBBED MYSELF CLEAN AND BEEN ANOINTED?").

Admittedly, things did pick up around Holy Week (I had a couple really fucking moving moments, but I just haven't had a chance to write about them) but I spent all Midspring and Summer attempting to catch up with Winter and early Spring duties. We just passed Midsummer and I'm STILL ticking off February boxes (scrubbed? check! hennaed? check!), but, fuck, at least shit's getting done, right? And - AND! - I learned a valuable lesson, although the price paid felt like an ounce of (mental and spiritual) flesh.

The absolute worst thing about my semi-recent struggle with SOUL DEPRESSION? I never got a chance to explain anything - what I/we do, what we believe, why we do and believe - during a season that's a big fucking deal to me/us. Just as Graveyard Dirt was really beginning to pick up steam - making me all, you know, excited with the prospect of dissecting everything I do and believe and explaining it all, piece by piece, photo by photo - I fell into a soul slump. All I have to show for it are ten billion folders filled with unedited pictures for unwritten entries.

It's depressing; I feel really fucking lazy and, actually, kind've sort've embarrassed. I have something special. Not, like, mutant powers special, or anything, but I have a belief system that I created brick by metaphorical fucking brick with my bleeding, calloused hands. One thing I hear again and again from people is "OH, GOD, YOU'RE SO...REAL. EVERYTHING YOU DO SEEMS SO REAL".

It's because I am real. My beliefs, my rituals and my daily way of life is real. It's "real" because it was created from the ground up using years of working, testing and experimenting. It's "real" because I'm playing the game, not just watching it from the sidelines. It's "real" because I have a part, an integral role. It's "real" because I made myself someone important and had the fucking audacity to wedge the declaration into the ass crack of the Universe.

And that sort've reality? That sort've fearless, arrogant insolence? Deserves fucking respect and serious fucking commitment. If I call myself a god, I better act like a motherfucking god. If I assign myself spiritual duties, I have a fucking obligation to follow through with them. It's not enough to talk the pretty talk and bomb the fuck out of it with my magic-themed Richard Pryor routine, I've got to live it. Breathe it. Sing it. I've got to fucking bleed it to make it real like the motherfucking Velveteen Rabbit.

I said I was more than worthy of this way of life, now it's time to fucking prove it.

Midsummer 2010, II

Decided to do something "productive": went outside, harvested fresh chives and bay leaves to make flavored olive oil. Made said oil. Cleaned kitchen. Diced 1lb of pork fat. Stopped halfway, CRAMPING PAIN OH MY GOD, switched over to ritual scissors. (<- NEVER USE A KNIFE WHEN FUCKING SCISSORS WILL DO). First rendering pig fat (into lard) foray? A+ successful.

"NOW WHAT? MAYBE I SHOULD DO SOMETHING OUTSIDE? LIKE REARRANGE PLANT CONTAINERS, OR SOMETHING?"

Grey, dull, listless sky. Felt despair at post-apocalyptic patio. ("FUCK ME, WHERE DO I FUCKING START WITH THIS FUCKING MESS?") Decided to focus on hammock corner. (<- MOST IMPORTANT CORNER.) Moved plants off steps. Moved plants off palette. Moved spring bulb containers to bottom of patio. Swept steps, swept palette. Moved REPOT ASAP! vegetables and flowers to steps and palettes. Framed REPOT ASAP! garden with herb containers. Swept steps again.

Visited by familiar female blackbird. "SURE YOU DON'T WANT THESE?" Mentally assured bird not interested in upturned worms and grubs. Mama bird? De-fucking-lighted. Came close, V. close, within two feet. (Lady blackbirds = courageous crazy ass bitches. Female-to-female props.) Cocked head at me. "YOU COOL? YEAH, YOU COOL." Worked around one another. Brave little bird.

Moved strawberry containers and poppy/narcissus box away from palette. Swept area. Squatted and weeded/pruned strawberry plants. Silently acknowledged return of female blackbird. Gently danced around one another. Returned box and strawberry plants next to palette. Reswept. Stepped back with hands on hips; patio looked better already.

"WELL, THERE'S NO FUCKING WAY I CAN DO ALL OF THIS SHIT IN ONE DAY, BUT MAYBE I SHOULD TRY EXTRA SPECIAL FOR REAL HARD IN THIS ONE CORNER AND PICK UP THE WORK TOMORROW OR THE DAY AFTER..."

Swept stone pillars clean. Swept brick patio fence clean. Moved Chippy's offering dishes aside. Moved plastic patio chairs aside. Moved two dehydrated peat cup trays aside. (SORRY, MAGPIES, I KNOW HOW MUCH YOU LOVE FUCKING THAT SHIT UP.) Pulled every effing weed, plant and clump of grass between concrete patio slabs (except for borage). Swept patio, incrementally. (<- LITTLE BIT OF WEEDING, LITTLE BIT OF SWEEPING. REPEAT, DON'T GET BORED, REPEAT.)

Sun struggled. Worked harder, more dedicated. Figured sun would eventually follow suit. ("THIS IS HOW YOU GET SHIT DONE, MOTHERFUCKER!") High; head rush high, floating on air high. Noticed, after time lapse, somehow managed to weed'n'sweep 60% of patio instead of 25%. (Whoops?) "FUCK IT, LET'S SEE HOW FAR I CAN GO WITH THIS SHIT." Grey skies broke. Sun, inspired by work ethic, decided to join Midsummer effort.

Hauled spring bulb containers to wooden beams. Hauled rusty BBQ grill (not ours) into bonsai house. Hauled father-in-law's plastic box of dirt into bonsai house. (<- I DON'T KNOW, AND DON'T FUCKING CARE PROVIDED I CAN'T FUCKING SEE IT.) Stopped, rested and conversed with female blackbird. (<- STEADY MIDSUMMER VISITOR.) Swept patio steps leading down to bonsai house.

Moved foxgloves next to garage door. Moved two boxes of lavender, three apple trees, two dwarf apple trees, one dwarf pear tree, two pussy willows, one unidentified shrub, one unidentified flowering container, box of sorrel and box of peas next to foxgloves next to garage door. (PHEW.) Swept OTHER side of patio. Swept steps leading down to bonsai house (again).

"WAIT, IS THAT AN ICE CREAM TRUCK I HEAR?"

Weeded kitchen sink with bay tree. Weeded barren kitchen sink next to kitchen sink with bay tree. Weeded wheat (first pot). Weeded dill. Weeded gooseberry bush (first pot). Weeded peach tree. (<- SHE LIVES!) Weeded gooseberry bush (second pot). Weeded rowan sapling. Weeded wheat (second pot). Weeded lavender. Weeded several ceramic containers. (<- TECHNICALLY NOT MY TERRITORY, BUT IT'S HARD TO LEAVE A THOROUGH JOB PARTIALLY UNDONE.)

"OH MY GOD, IT //IS// A MOTHERFUCKING ICE CREAM TRUCK PLAYING MUSIC! ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM! ICE CREEEEEEEEAM!"

Weeded, then moved two similarly sized apple trees behind wheat containers. (<- SYMMETRY IS V. IMPORTANT AND SACRED, OKAY?) Weeded, then moved larger apple tree onto barren kitchen sink. Pruned, weeded, then moved unidentified shrub next to apple tree on barren kitchen sink. Opened strawberry beer. Sat down on patio step leading to bonsai house. Drank beer, pruned lavender plants, weeded lavender containers. Ice cream truck played music again.

"OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! OH MY GOD, ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM!"

Raced through the house, raced through the kitchen, picked up loose change left by Italics, raced out of the house ("SHOULDN'T YOU PUT ON SHOES?" <- LAST THING I HEARD ITALICS SAY AS I BOLTED OUT THE KITCHEN DOOR), raced down the driveway, raced down to street. Waited at opening of subdivision.

Waited barefooted, waited wearing traditional African shirt (dashiki), purple shorts and black kitchen apron. (<- FORGOT TO TAKE OFF AFTER MAKING LARD) Oops. Realized not normal clothing combination for grown woman to be wearing standing at side of busy street. Oops. Realized, only after standing on gravel barefooted in not normal clothing combination, how bizarre must've looked. ("I'M JUST WAITING FOR THE ICE CREAM TRUCK, DON'T MIND ME!")

Ice cream truck? Never appeared. Dejected, took barefooted/aproned self and loose change back home. (SIGH.)

Came home to partially drunk strawberry beer, partially cleaned patio and partially pruned/weeded lavender containers. ("FINE! I'LL MAKE UP MY OWN ICE CREAM TREAT! I'LL MASH UP TWO OF THOSE CHOCOLATED COATED VANILLA ICE CREAM BARS WITH SOME FROZEN PEANUT M&Ms AND WHIP CREAM AND MAKE MY OWN GODDAMN SUPER ICE CREAM SPECTACULAR." <- TRUE STORY.)

Moved pruned lavendar containers back to patio. Weeded, then moved foxgloves, two dwarf apple trees, one dwarf pear tree, two pussy willows, one unidentified shrub and one unidentified flowering container back to patio. Meticulously rearranged containers into symmetrical spread. (<- ALTAR CREATING = V. SRS BUSINESS, OKAY?) Swept patio (again), swept patio steps leading to bonsai house (again).

Weeded box of peas. Weeded box of sorrel. Created frame for peas. Moved both peas and sorrel back to patio. Moved plastic chairs back to patio. Returned gardening tools to bonsai house. Cleaned, then moved Chippy's offering dishes back to patio. Swept steps leading from garage to patio. Swept patio steps leading to bonsai house. Swept along concrete corridor passing bonsai house. Weeded as swept, swept as weeded.

Dirt and gravel swept into grass, organic material swept into compost bags. Celebrated inadvertent altar creation/Midsummer by finishing beer. Retired broom at dusk, but couldn't stop. ("MORE, DO MORE! JUST KEEP GOING, JUST DON'T STOP!") Little things, tiny things, finishing touches needed. Wanted cosmic closure; decided to check off all boxes with fine print. (<- ANAL ARIES WITCH REIGNS SUPREME!)

Paraded Stone Cock out onto super magic clean patio. (Stone Cock? V. pleased: loves outdoors, loves attention.) Proudly displayed cock at base of Shango Tree? No. Proudly displayed cock at base of peach tree? Yes. (STONE COCK ("HIM") + SURVIVOR PEACH TREE ("HER") = MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN) Wondered what mother-in-law would think, then wondered what mother-in-law thinks on daily basis. (Same old, same old with Ms. Graveyard Dirt.)

Done? No, not yet. Hung up Walpurgisnacht/Summer (aka Beltane, May Day) ribbons on plum trees. (Immediately fell in love with long blue ribbon rippling above fat, cheerful Buddha. <- GOOD ENERGY. GAY, BUT TRUE.) Filled Chippy's offering bowls with water and food. Searched for hammock swing and frame, couldn't find. (FRUSTRATED.) Done? Almost. ("JUST KEEP GOING, JUST KEEP GOING!")

Washed shit off wooden patio fence. (Sayonara, white streaks!) Got splinter. (Fuck you, white streaks!) Watered. Watered EVERYTHING. Watered container garden/Midsummer altar. Watered REPOT ASAP! garden. Watered herb containers. Watered strawberries. Watered sorrel. Watered peas. Watered sinks. Watered Shango Tree. Watered other plum tree. Watered lupines. Watered bonsai trees in bonsai house. Everything? Watered.

Done? Almost; bird feeders. Unexpected inward groan. Second thought, fuck bird feeders. (Too sore, too achy.) Swore to refill feeders first thing in morning. Felt guilty, but felt more tired than guilty. Line? Drawn. Done? Yes, done - six hours later. Patio? Flawless, immaculate. Mother-in-law V. impressed (mother-in-law also pointed out hammock frame in corner of bonsai house - score! but hammock swing...?), Italics V. impressed. Ms. Graveyard Dirt? Exhausted, but also V. impressed.

Midsummer? Not yet over. Still needed to clean, still needed to cook, still needed to finish last lard step. Washed hands on autopilot. Conscious, but not. Present but gone. Found self moving by instinct. ("DON'T STOP, DON'T SIT, JUST KEEP GOING, JUST KEEP GOING...") Briefly existed in place between worlds. Moved like vessel, like instrument commandeered by God. Throbbing feet only anchor to reality.

Strained cooled fat into glass container. Refrigerated lard. Made boiled rice (full absorption method). Unloaded dishwasher, loaded dishwasher. Cleaned kitchen. Made Korean beef marinade. Sliced rump steak into tiny strings. Tossed steak into marinade. Prepared vegetables (ginger, garlic, mushrooms, broccoli, string beans, baby corn, and carrots). Stir-fried beef. Stir-fried vegetables.

Sat down, gave thanks and consumed non-traditional Midsummer "feast". Followed through with SUPER ICE CREAM SPECTACULAR promise. (AKA, "DIY BLIZZARD") Dishes? Fuck dishes, too tired. Simpsons? Fuck Simpsons, new episode. Italics? Retired, too goddamn full. (LOL @ WIFE BEING ABLE TO OUT EAT HUSBAND.)

Stupid crazy tired. Zero idea why still up. (Stimulated by feelings of deep satisfaction?) Went through "getting ready for bed" motions: straightened up computer room, gave Chooch treat, put Chooch away for night, straightened up living room - bird feeders. One job left undone. Felt less satisfied (also felt like collapsing).

"FUCK IT, I'LL FEED THE GODDAMN BIRDS AND THEN I CAN GO TO FUCKING SLEEP IN FUCKING PEACE."

Padded back outside, walked across clean patio and opened detached room. Filled ceramic Halloween pumpkin mug with seed. Stumbled out of room and into backyard. Filled feeder in non-Shango plum tree. Stumbled back into room, refilled mug, stumbled out of room, crossed backyard, crossed side of house. Filled feeder in sycamore in front of computer room/office window.

Stumbled for third and final time to backroom. Accidentally walked into box pile. Box pile collapsed revealing missing hammock swing. (SCORE SCORE SCORE SCORE SCORE!) Learned valuable Midsummer lesson - haul ass, get rewarded. Thanked God, birds, feet (for still moving). Done? Yes, done. All boxes checked, nothing leftover - Midsummer success.

Came back into quiet house. Turned off computer. Flossed, brushed teeth. Felt sticky. Shower? LOL, whatever - could barely keep eyes open. Shower? Imagined falling asleep 100% clean on cotton sheets. Showered, pumiced aching feet. Got more high. Watched Tribal Wives (Mexico) on laptop in bed. Italics? Passed out. Ms. Graveyard Dirt? Barely conscious.

Maybe too tired to masturbate? Never too tired to masturbate. Masturbated. Stretched out happily, then curled next to Italics. Fell asleep without fearing death or dreading mortality. Fell into gentle Midsummer sleep as entire body hummed with life. (Woke at 5AM thanks to effing magpie tapping on bedroom window begging for food. <- NO JOKE!)

Midsummer 2010, I

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Stone Cock, master of the Midsummer altar. (<- Cleverly disguised as a container garden. Shhh!)

Playing Pretend

Today's super big adventure: rendering pig fat (to make lard) for the very first time. Not an entirely glamorous way to spend Midsummer (and not an entirely sexy fat to work with; you still own my heart, soul and sexual fantasies, goose fat), but I can ~pretend~ it came from an unbaptized child.

Something Real

Cleaning has to be one of my favorite magic acts. (<- I effing hate using the term "magical", it's so...I dunno, Llewellyn. "Magical" is glitter and jasmine and fairies (and not the drowning, flesh-eating kind) and bogus nobility titles followed by compound nouns and adjectives. "Magic" is what Lush USED to be before it became overwhelmed with pink, lavender and candy. "Magic" isn't the apron, it's the stains ON the motherfucking apron. Slapping the letters "a" and "l" onto the end of "magic" draws a certain crowd, but repels another.)

Wait, where was I before I took the early tangent bus to tangent town? Oh, right, cleaning. And magic acts (which sounds more like Vegas than witchcraft, but compared to what "magical" brings to the table I'll fucking take the superficial sleaze, thank you). And how to further alienate yourself from your peers when you're already pretty goddamn alienated (more on that later).

So. Cleaning, one of my favorite magic acts; one of my favorite magic acts that seems suspiciously mundane and totally NOT magic to the casual observer. (Unlike some of my other favorite magic acts like carefully placing a curl of pubic hair on top of Italics' serving of dessert as conspicuously as possible ("HEY, WHAT'S THIS? DAMN YOU WOMAN, AND YOUR WITCHCRAFT!"), or pissing on the concrete steps leading up into the house (to mark my territory with my scent, OBVIOUSLY).)

Yesterday Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, left for an extended vacation of six - 6! - mothereffing weeks. The house? Mine (for six weeks, anyway). Even more so in about two weeks when my mother-in-law also leaves to join my father-in-law at their place in Florida for the entire month of July. Summer, internet, is officially here at Chez Graveyard Dirt and the livin' will be easy.

Take a wild fucking guess what I did immediately after his departure. (I mean, OTHER than "get really fucking high" because that's a given.) You know it, I know it, friends know it and anyone who's even a semi-frequent visitor here knows the answer: I motherfucking cleaned. Hard. Well. Anally. (<- Sounds more like porn than domestication, doesn't it?) Like my neurotic (deceased) mother was going to check with white fucking gloves.

First? The kitchen: the one communal room where I dominate and govern from, the one communal room where I pray-dance-worship-live in on a day-to-day basis. The heart of the house, the hearth of the house and my modern, every day throne room. If this fucking house is seemingly trashed beyond repair I effing guarantee you there will be ONE room in pristine order - the kitchen, MY kitchen.

I removed everything off counters and surfaces, washed the tiles, washed all the counter spaces, washed the cabinets, washed the front faces of the microwave and oven, washed the extractor and its hood, washed the top of the fridge, washed the window, washed the window frame, washed the sink, washed the faucet, washed the windowsill that makes up my subtle kitchen altar, washed everything that was removed off the counters and surfaces and returned them, unloaded the dishwasher, loaded the dishwasher, unloaded the dishwasher, loaded the washing machine, unloaded the washing machine, loaded the washing machine, washed the kitchen table, washed the kitchen chairs and washed the table's linens.

Second? The lounge: less important on a day-to-day basis (especially since my in-laws are often camped there), but still HELLA important. Sort've like how there's that ONE ROOM in the house where your mother won't let you eat, drink or play in because it's the super fancy NICE room reserved for guests and special occasions. But, like, in this case, it's in a ~spiritual~ way.

If the kitchen is my daily throne room/temple then the communal lounge - at least when my in-laws aren't around - is my ballroom throne room/temple reserved for V. special events (i.e., our "black masses", hot'n'heavy ritual celebrations (which, admittedly, probably falls under my tongue-in-cheek version of "black masses") and communing with the higher ups in a more serious, over-the-top setting).

I cook the Hieros Gamos feast in the kitchen (usually for several days leading up to the marriage), but we actually perform the ceremony in the lounge. For every week I get to perform my little secret things in the kitchen I get about a day to perform my BIG secret things in the lounge. Which room is more important? Neither, really, because they both serve very specific purposes that the other one can't.

With all of that being said, I removed everything off surfaces, dusted the track lights, dusted the ceilings, dusted the corners, dusted the hanging pictures, dusted the lampshades, dusted the curtains, dusted the exercise bike, polished the wooden door frame, polished the wooden side tables, polished the wooden legs on the couches, polished the TV unit, polished the floating table, polished the CD unit, polished the coffee table, washed the windows in the wooden door frame, washed the glass tops of the side tables, washed the windows, washed the TV and TV screen, washed the dvd player, washed the playstation, washed the remotes, washed the controllers, washed the CD player, washed the light switches, washed handles and hinges, washed the glass top of the coffee table, washed the radiator, washed the hanging pictures, washed (and changed) the table linens and washed everything that was removed from various surfaces before returning them.

I HAD planned to hit the bathroom - as a grand effing finale - but by the time I finished polishing my last wooden coffee table leg I was ready to throw in the fucking towel. (I only have my friend Carolina to thank - well, her and my above and beyond commitment to completing things as perfectly as possible thanks to my autistic Aries nature - for keeping me going. Just as I was about to start work on the lounge a package arrived from her - expected but completely unexpected because I totally forgot she had mentioned putting one together for me - with a burned CD of traditional Brazilian Kimbanda music "for worship and ritual". This ass? Shook left to right like a motherfucker while dusting the ceiling, no joke.)

I was sore and achy and exhausted and tired and even though my brain totally flatlined (NO DARK AND TROUBLED PAST TO MAKE //ME// FEAR DEATH; THE INEVITABLY OF DEATH IS MORE THAN ENOUGH (TO MAKE ME FEAR IT), THANK YOU) I was stupidly satisfied-happy in the way an overlord must feel surveying all that s/he owns (and exerts control over). In roughly 7-8 hours I had virtually erased my father-in-law's presence - and all of the nasty residual shit that's been hanging around in the atmosphere all stagnant-like - with focus, energy and a lot of hard, physical labor.

I celebrated the GOOD EFFING RIDDANCE (AT LEAST FOR SIX WEEKS) feeling by hitting all of the blogs/journals/diaries I read just before bed (A LIST OF THINGS I DO BEFORE BED: GET HIGH, CATCH UP WITH MY FAVORITE ON-LINE HAUNTS, GET HIGH, WATCH A NATURE PROGRAM TO DISTRACT MYSELF FROM THE INEVITABLY OF DEATH AND MY OVERWHELMING FEAR OF NOTHINGNESS, GET HIGH AND THEN MASTURBATE BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP) and stumbled across this from Charmed, I'm Sure:

THANKS, UNIVERSE. NO, REALLY, I WAS ACTUALLY FOR REAL THINKING "WOW, SELF, YOU KNOW WHAT'D BE AMAZINGLY FUCKING AWESOME AFTER SPENDING THE ENTIRE EFFING DAY MAGIC-CLEANING THE EFFING HOUSE? GETTING FIGURATIVELY PUNCHED IN THE MOTHERFUCKING GUT BEFORE BED, ALL NELSON MUNTZ-STYLE. DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HELP ME OUT?" AND, UNIVERSE, YOU DELIVERED...THANKS (BUT DON'T EXPECT A HALLMARK CARD).

Okay, okay, okay. In all fairness, I really, really like Ms. Drop Out Dilettante (it's really fucking hard finding someone who actually seems REALLY FOR REALLY REAL on-line; I'm not into theory wank, I'm into seeing theory wank being practiced and watching the evolution of said theory wank in day-to-day living) and (LOL) what are the chances that she's really, in secret code, talking about me (LOL AGAIN) when she probably doesn't even know I fucking exist. (Or she does, and as a precaution she's already boarded up her fucking windows and has a shotgun aimed at the door JUST IN CASE I come a-knockin'. If you're smart, you'd do the same.)

I'm totally aboard with the majority of her entry, Cooking Dinner Does Not Make You a Kitchen Witch (subtitled: Making Friends Where Ever I Go), but I have to (politely, and with many charming expletives) disagree with part of the statement above because this entire "cleaning" thing? It's fucking complicated, yo, and probably really objective depending on what circles you do - or don't - travel/commune/interact with.

My magic is weird, basic and simple. So simple, in fact, I can see it being described as "child-like" just before my actions/beliefs get dismissed and filed under "playing pretend". The best thing about "playing pretend", though? You don't need anything except your will because the game you're engaging in isn't being executed by props, it's being executed by you.

I once came across a conversation where one of the parties involved insisted that magic success is 60% dependant on having the right props, several years later I STILL snort-laugh-eye roll to myself whenever that conversational snippet mentally surfaces. Don't get me wrong, I love STUFF, I fucking LIVE FOR stuff. I'm forever buying STUFF and forever experiencing the emotional roller coaster of being able to afford STUFF and NOT being able to afford STUFF.

Stuff, however, makes living; it doesn't make magic.

I'm only saying all of this to cinch my point...well, in a longwinded, roundabout way (heh). It's not that I don't occasionally use STUFF, because I do. It's just STUFF doesn't get shit done, I do. When you strip everything external from a magic act - the incense, the flowers, the music, the oils - does it make the act any less magic? There's something PURE and REAL when it's only you, your energy, your will, your determination and your goal you're working towards.

The absolute best example of that way of thinking is my approach to cleaning and taking care of the house. I don't open (or close) protective circles, I don't create "shields", I don't engage in full-blown rituals which require you to call all of the fucking directions (and all of their corresponding plants and colors and fairies and gemstones and their second removed cousins). I clean - myself, my surroundings, what's important to me - and that's enough.

It's basic, primitive magic. By taking EXTRA SPECIAL CARE into washing and cleaning I'm deliberately removing, discarding and organizing my life and my environment to optimum standards (and in the case of cleaning I'm just not imagining doing it, I'm PHYSICALLY doing it which has IMMEDIATE results) using (seemingly) mundane actions.

I've burned candles and incense for the better part of my life, but I swear to all that's fucking holy that none of those acts have ever made me feel as powerfully magic as spending an entire day laboriously stripping down my surroundings and then, with sweat, tears, will, effort, determination and the occasional, accidental offering of blood reconstructing them in a buzzing atmosphere that's completely saturated with (and by) me.

And, dude, don't even get me started on the entire morning after, when I've slept like a motherfucking log only to wake up stiff as a fucking board thanks to the previous day of excessively exercising control, protection and authority on my terms. How do I know my magic's worked? Because I can't fucking move the next day. Those are successful results you just don't see, you fucking feel.

ANYWAY...so, yeah. Hi, Ms. Drop Out Dilettante! This is me attempting to make friends by arguing one of your viewpoints with you, but not even because I have this bizarre inability to communicate with people via comments. (I DUNNO, INTERNET, LEAVING COMMENTS FEELS LIKE "FOREVER", AND I HATE SEEING MY NAME ATTACHED TO ANYTHING "FOREVER" UNLESS I HAVE ABSOLUTE CONTROL OVER IT (I.E., THE ABILITY TO EDIT AND/OR DELETE). THAT, AND, I ALWAYS FEEL SORT'VE SWARMY LEAVING COMMENTS, LIKE I'M SOME SORT OF DEMONIC KIDDIE SNATCHER ATTEMPTING TO NEFARIOUSLY LURE UNSUSPECTING VICTIMS TO MY SITE FOR MORE TRAFFIC.)

At least I was inspired to get off my fucking ass and write something REAL, you know? And I know "something real" has been woefully absent here as of late with all of the sick and dying pets, unnecessary run-ins with my in-laws and 180ed Winter-to-Spring life. I've been so caught up with completing personal projects that I haven't had the time - or the right frame of mind - to sit down and really dig deep.

(Don't think I haven't noticed you noticing, because I have. I'm also V. disappointed with myself for letting things slide and I'm seriously working on it. I'm a deep person, dammit, the stars just need to be in perfect alignment for me to exude signs of deep personage.)

Spring Leftovers

Holy fucking shit, I blinked and May was fucking gone! (It's not just me, right?) Everything feels a little rushed, a little quickened. Projects that've been stagnant for years-months-days are finishing one by one, but instead of feeling satisfied I feel edgy and flighty; too many appointments, too much "out of the house" busy, too much interaction with strangers, too much unsettled sleep, too much junk food (Italics is blaming my popcorn addiction) and not enough time to regulate our activities into a new routine of life.

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Grief seeds. I spent the first half of May 23rd visiting with a close friend who came up to see me (all the way from Glasgow which is something like three fucking hours by bus, no joke) and spent the remainder of the day sitting on a bag of seedling compost in the backroom planting tray after tray of vegetables, flowers, herbs and other witchcraft-themed plants.

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Making friends with my new "GOOD LUCK SCARAB BEETLE" that I won off Ebay. I'm slowly but surely acquiring pieces for a proposed Khepri and Anubis taxidermy altar.

(Technically, dermestid beetles are used to clean fleshy remains off bones and
not dung beetles. I've always been a bit of a heretic in the sense that I usually ditch the accepted ideas behind a concept and create a new definition that fits into what I'm doing. Even though Khepri is a dung beetle I still feel the connection is close enough, especially since he's associated with rebirth, renewal, and resurrection - things I'm magically attempting to achieve by preserving bodies, bones, pelts and organs.)

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The vegetable garden that never was. There's a few tomatoes, a few (baby) sweet corn, some squash, a courgette and a pepper. I think I planted 93 individual seeds and what you see is what germinated; disastrous with a fucking capital "D".

If it wasn't for the fact that everything I planted outside is doing amazingly well (my white nightshade just popped up! and my motherwort!) I'd be paranoid someone hexed my green thumbs. I haven't had this sort of gardening-based devastation in motherfucking years. I'm disappointed, but I'm trying really fucking hard to file this year's weak vegetable results under "it wasn't meant to be".

This'll be the first year we've had a car in summer, so I don't expect us to be home like previous summers (a complete 180; last year and all of the years before it? we couldn't leave the house so we just sat a home). I think 2010's agricultural year will be spent learning and identifying indigenous flora, locating wild fruits to harvest, exploring land further afield (to find more elusive plants and trees) and starting various perennial container gardens (herb and witch/flying ointment) instead of tending a container vegetable garden.

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Starting from the left: a fawn leg found immediately after offering The Secret Valley's giant some homemade cake (it's a huge, long story - I've been dying to return to a forest walk my in-laws took us on a few years back where I had an encounter with my first Scottish giant (<- this was BEFORE I started smoking pot and taking mushrooms) who wasn't pleased in the least that the four of us were stomping around his grounds. I took cake and bottled water to sweeten him, but it wasn't enough - part of the footpath got wiped out making the track to the waterfalls inaccessible. Frustrated, we had no choice but to turn back. During a brief rest I left the giant his offering and within several steps a broken fawn's leg laid in my path. I know it might seem like I'm reaching, but my entire experience with the place has involved feet - from walking through his grounds to the footpath being washed away. I gave him cake attempting to show my respect for his property, and he gave me a foot in return. We're even, now, and I expect we'll make it to the waterfalls the next time we go.), two mascerating jars of oil made from sycamore tips (one was gently heated for several hours in a water bath before it was bottled up, the other was left to infuse without a water bath so I could compare the differences), the glass vase found in the cemetery's morthouse on the day we went to the souterrain and a bouquet of artificial graveyard flowers I found discarded in the cemetery's hedge when we were picking beech leaves.

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Starting from the left: wild heather we harvested last August, an antique rabbit's foot brooch (a project), my ritual scissors, the fawn's leg and my jars of oils. You can see my one pepper plant just in front of the white box the rabbit foot's sitting on.

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The ruins of an old homestead situated between wheat fields and grazing pastures.

As we walked towards the remains I noticed a lamb frantically pacing near a metal gate in an adjacent field. "HOLY SHIT, THAT LAMB ISN'T OUTSIDE OF THE FIELD, IS IT?" I asked Italics. We both squinted simultaneously and found that the lamb had, in fact, squeezed itself through the gate and was trying desperately to get back in to its mother.

Scotland doesn't have any trespassing laws (which is why I named the category that documents all of our walks and explorations as "Trespassing"), but I'm sure it has some ancient, archaic sheep rustling laws that a panicked farmer would employ when seeing two strangers lifting one of his lambs for no apparent reason. (Well, no apparent reason from a crazy long distance.)

After a few minutes of reciprocal "GAH, WHAT SHOULD WE DO?" we finally decided to nimbly tip toe through the wheat field (the seeds had just begun sprouting; I didn't want us to be branded as sheep stealers AND wheat killers) to see if we could pass the lamb over the gate to set it back into its field.

LOL @ US FOR THINKING IT WAS GOING TO BE AS EASY AS PASSING A SMALL BALE OF HAY OVER A FUCKING FENCE. LOL @ US FOR EVEN THINKING THE LAMB WOULD INSTINCTIVELY CALM THE FUCK DOWN, SETTLE INTO A SUBMISSIVE STATE AND ALLOW US TO VOLLEY IT OVER THE METAL GATE.

The closer we got to the panicked lamb the more demented it appeared until it finally shot off like a bullet, jetting down the wheat field like the devil was after its fucking soul (ASSUMING, OF COURSE, THE LAMB HAD ANY NOTIONS OF MORTALITY AND WAS COMPLETELY SELF-AWARE) straight to the road. I gasped, slapped both hands over my gaping mouth and watched in horror as the white animal became a white speck running further and further away from the field it belonged.

It felt like I had accidentally killed a defenseless animal with my bare hands. As the lamb galloped away I immediately attempted to string some sort of coherent explanation to the farmer who I was SO SURE was going to turn up any second demanding to know why we were fucking with his livestock.

("NO, NO, NO! IT WASN'T LIKE THAT! THE LAMB WAS OUT! AND IT WANTED BACK IN! WE WERE ONLY TRYING TO HELP! I LOVE YOUR SHEEP; WE DRIVE BY EVERY FEW DAYS TO WATCH THEM!" On second thought, it was probably better to NOT mention the multiple trips made just to visit the farmer's birthing sheep so I mentally edited that damning confession out.)

Just as it was reaching the road it took a sharp turn, scrambled up the stone wall separating its field from the wheat field and leapt back in with such fucking ease IT MADE ME FRUSTRATED. ("EFFING LAMB! IT COULD'VE JUST BOUNCED OVER THE FUCKING WALL WHENEVER THE FUCK IT WANTED!") Relieved - even if slightly irritated by the roller coaster of emotions - we left the lamb and explored what remained of the old stone buildings that once stood between farming fields.

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Despite all my searching I've found jack shit about this particular stone ("stane" if you want to be all Scottish). It looks too small to be a cattle rubbing stone, and it didn't appear to have any neighbors. (Although, if you look closely you can see the homestead ruins and how they align PERFECTLY with the stone.)

I don't know if it's the very last remnant of a stone circle (this area of Scotland is supposed to have the highest number of stone-based Neolithic monuments, but a HUGE percentage has been lost - some farmers left the stones in place, others dismantled circles completely and tossed the stones away), or if it's an ancient marker.

Before I forget again: we managed to catch a boxing match between two rabbits (hares?) in the grassy field with the ruined building(s). It's the first time we saw two rabbits have a go at one another in real life (up until that point all territorial/mating disputes we'd seen had been on nature programs). We also caught two pheasants in the act; we tried to give them privacy, but it was practically over before it began. (<- LESSON LEARNED: DON'T EXPECT A MARATHON SESSION WITH A MALE PHEASANT.)

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Another angle of the stone in the hopes that I can eventually identify this motherfucker.

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Third (and final) angle of the stone in the hopes that I can eventually identify this motherfucker.

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One of two ripe Apache chilli peppers that got added to a homemade duck and beef stew I made last week (or the week before?). Normally I lay to rest all of my pepper plants at the end of the growing season, but this particular one was a birthday gift from a friend a few years back so it's become a year round house plant.

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The morning after the seasonal changing of the guard. I was so fucking busy/lazy (YOU CAN BE BOTH; I'M LIVING PROOF) this year that I didn't have a chance to perform my welcoming ritual on the vernal equinox. (<- In Spring Chile Bird migrates back to us, and in Fall he's replaced by Cobweb Spider.)

#1 problem when engaging in weather witchery: if you establish a tit for tat system you better fucking follow through with your end of the bargain. I've learned a valuable lesson this year* - the Universe isn't obligated to honor its contribution to your agreement if you fail to bring your end to the fucking table.

(* This past Winter was "THE WORST WINTER IN 30 YEARS!" which refused to let us go from its (Her, more appropriately) icy grip. For the first time in years Spring was severely belated, and we were still getting snow in fucking May. Once I got up off my fucking ass and performed the seasonal ritual Winter settled down and finally allowed Spring to take the reigns.)

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Step #3 of my four step equinox ritual. I first remove everything from/on the window (#1), deep clean everything (#2), burn incense on the vacant space (#3) and then return everything, making sure to swap to the seasonally appropriate "guardian". (See CHANGING OF THE GUARD (SPRING 2010) for video footage.)

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Without the statues, plants and stone jars the windowsill looks eerily empty. I think I took this picture around three or four PM (on May 10th); it's so damn dark because it had begun snowing-sleeting-hailing which was the last straw that broke this camel's TOO LAZY TO ENGAGE IN WEATHER MAGIC back. (SNOW AND SLEET ON MAY FUCKING 10TH? NO FUCKING THANK YOU.)

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Once in a while I catch Anubis loitering around the premises.

A few years back shadows cast from a plastic chair and backyard shrub created a silhouette of the jackal-headed God - complete with a pitchfork-like weapon with three sharp prongs; not exactly a trident, but sort've close - on the concrete slabs that make the patio.

This year he appeared on my dinky 600x800 computer monitor (I KNOW, I KNOW, IT'S LIKE I'M STILL LIVING IN THE LATE 90s OR SOMETHING) during sunrise. For a few days the sun's (early morning) position aligned with part of our windowsill altar and some of the statues (Anubis and Thoth) created shadows which tracked across my screen.

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Me and my 420 gift from Italics. (It's a pot leaf necklace. Even though it's a little tighter than what I'm use to it sits PERFECTLY around my lower neck. I wore it throughout our belated 420 celebrations. <- CODE FOR "DRUG-FUELED MARATHON SEX".)

I gave Italics the UFO Tarot (ALIENS, TAROT DECKS AND POT CLEARLY GO HAND-IN-HAND), a yew treen marriage chalice with a pair of rings circling the stem and one helluva anniversary blowjob. (Because we've been so goddamn busy for the past few months we couldn't observe 420 on 4/20 so we opted to save the festivities and combine them with our "THIS IS THE DAY WE OFFICIALLY GOT TOGETHER" celebrations. <- May 9th, 1997; we were both 17 at the time. 13 motherfucking years, world! We're practically an institution by this point.)

There are pictures of the tarot deck and yew chalice, but since you guys already silently suffer by being force fed gratuitous pictures of my fat, naked ass sitting on various neolithic monuments I won't further torture you with frontal nudity involving an unshorn Ms. Graveyard Dirt. (<- I only get to shave mine off when the sheep get theirs off and that only happens when the elderflowers go into bloom.)

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I didn't think that Garlogie's cattle rubbing stone was THAT phallic, but opinions obviously differ.

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Garlogie's cattle rubbing stone from a different angle.

We found this one by pure chance (which is how we normally find them); I was set on exploring a small country lane that hugged a powerful brook, when the lane ended I pulled into the opening of a field to turn around and then saw the rubbing stone only several yards away.

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"...AND MAKE SURE YOU GET PICTURES OF THE AFTERBIRTH AND UMBILICAL CORD STILL HANGING OUT OF HER!"

One of many versions of shit Italics needs to put up with on an almost daily basis. (<- He seriously deserves to win some sort of HUSBAND OF THE YEAR award.) It might not be EASY living with an autistic Aries witch, but at least it's not boring.

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The ewe actually gave birth to a pair of lambs. In the previous picture you can see one - still slightly bloody - but the second's hiding behind her back. In this photo you can see the siblings together.

This is the first Spring we've had a car so the majority of the season was spent behind the wheel exploring all of the tiny roads, lanes and tracks close to home. One of our very favorite activities - I mean, OTHER than outside sex on monuments and in the woods - was simply parking in the middle of nowhere to watch the new lambs of the season frolic, play and take their first few wobbly steps.

In fact, this Spring I came to a conclusion that I should've come to a lot fucking earlier - being a vet doesn't automatically obligate you to work with hamsters and dogs in a clinic. I've always wanted to work with animals, but I didn't think I could handle the emotions that went with treating family pets. It never once occurred to me that I could've gone into providing veterinary care for livestock and farm animals.

(And the WORST-BEST part of THAT? There's such a deficit in that specific type of veterinary medicine that both the UK and USA have begun waiving fees and tuition for prospective students going into that particular field. The thing is, I'm 30 fucking years old and already have a career I need to get back to. There's no way I can dedicate a decade of my life to become a qualified sheep midwife and do what I'm actually supposed to be doing.)

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"OH, HEY, LOOK AT THAT SWAN BEING ALL RETARDED IN THAT FIELD NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WATER. HEY, RETARD, WHAT DID YOU DO, DROP YOUR FUCKING KEYS OR SOMETHING?"

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"OH, SHIT, IT HEARD US! DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT! I'M JUST GOING TO SLOWLY DRIVE AWAY..."

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A quilted pillowcase I picked up at a resale shop on Good Saturday for Chippy. (It's a long story involving a dog bed that Chippy doesn't sleep in because he'd rather sleep on the floor next to me than at the foot of the bed in his goddamn bed, a pillow covered with a pillowcase I cross-stitched Italics a few years back that he accidentally bombed with ash ("YOU BETTER TAKE IT AWAY AND PUT IT SOMEPLACE SAFE") and my worry that a plush Shar Pei dog toy that houses an ancient Sumerian demon might be cold sleeping on a cross-stitched pillow next to my side of the bed on the floor.)

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A partial closeup of our office windowsill altar, pre-Spring ritual/cleaning. Wadjet - and her axe - act as the centerpiece in front of a pair of stone carved jars. To the left of her is the female side (Tawaret isn't pictured, neither is Hathor or Serket), to the right is the male side (you can see Sobek, but only slivers of Anubis and Thoth).

Everyone got a peanut M&M offering a few months back, all of which were removed, bagged and tagged for later witchcraft. (Initial idea? Grow one or two plants sacred to the ancient Egyptian gods and add the M&Ms to the potting compost.)

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By early May spiders began weaving their webs around the statues. Combine random gossamer strings with a thick layer of dust, spotty glass and dull wood and you got yourself an altar that desperately needs cleaning.

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In Spring and Fall we're joined by a wave of spiders who live along side of us for the season. Since they're are a non-venomous variety they get two giant thumbs up from me, and the occasional escort to the backroom where there's a better supply of insects.

Unexpected Bridal Bedchamber

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Excerpt from Lost and Found: No obvious passage Underground. No obvious parking lot. Obvious "PRIVATE FUCKING PROPERTY, MOTHERFUCKERS, DON'T PARK ON OUR FUCKING LAND" sign. (Farm directly on other side of grassy knoll.) Sigh. Roll eyes. Reverse, drive, reverse. Tuck into dirt track leading to wheat field. Not on private property, n'yah.

Pretend to be interested in tourist signpost explaining earthen house. Still no obvious passage Underground. See nothing except small patch of green lawn. Land slightly mounded, follow gentle slope down. Suddenly, tiny black crack in hill. A tear, a rip, a hidden gash. Wild pheasant shrieks when discovery is made. Startled, we laugh. Silently wonder if mother goddess hips will fit through minuscule threshold to Underground.

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Excerpt from Lost and Found: Entrance to souterrain tight. Crossed threshold on hands and knees. Crawled like child, like petitioning supplicant. Humble, stripped of grandeur. Began descent into earth like animal, belly touching dusty ground. Further, deeper, darker. Hands outstretched to either side. Can't see stone walls, but can feel assuringly solid structure. Colder, darker, damper. Wooden beams lift up. Crawling becomes crouching, crouching becomes slouching, slouching becomes standing.

Abrupt end of passage. Facing end? Blackness. Facing opening? White pinprick of light. Earth breathing. Air smells like wet graveyard dirt. Water trickles down sides of walls. Silence engulfs hollowed out space. We stand, side by side, as woman and man, as to-be husband and to-be wife in ancient, man-made chamber. We stand in a prison, a womb, an unexpected bridal bedchamber. We stand in a 2000 year old stone and wood lined tunnel where the fruits of Harvest were stored. We stand Underground; our home, our domain, our sacred ground.

Gardening Business

No pictures, no Ghede-inspired string of beautifully crafted expletives. Just Death, and a momentary distraction of the inevitable (which is easy enough beneath an early evening sun as the world buzzes and chirps with life).

PLANTED:
* Broccoli (X 10)
* Cabbage (X 10)
* Cauliflower (X 10)
* Dill (dead crow dirt)
* Motherword (ceramic container)
* White Nightshade (ceramic container)

REPOTTED:
* Thyme

One of my dwarf apples has THREE sets of buds ready to blossom (the other one appears to only have one cluster), there's way too much green in the raspberry container to be errant bird seed (last year I planted a handful of raspberries plucked off bushes growing near a ruined church), the parsley's germinated, there's little pockets of rocket springing up in a tray, one or two blades of green are already popping up in the wheat containers and I SWEAR one of the pumpkin seeds planted in the phallic worship altar at the base of the Shango tree has sprouted.

The flowers that crowned our plum trees on Summer (Beltane / May Day) are nearly gone (hopefully the bees have done their work), sycamore buds have burst into brillant new leaves, the garlic's growing in a prosperous (although cramped) line next to the sidewalk and I caught the first glimpses of beet seedlings peering up from top soil. (And? And there's so many fucking violets in the dirt yard that I'm wondering how much I really need to make a violet based sugar syrup.)

Every day I worry about my beloved peach tree, and every day I remind myself not to get my hopes up. (<- She had a devastating case of leaf curl. It was so bad I had to remove all but 4-6 leaves, and I doubt that's enough to sustain a sapling.) The best of a worst possible situation? She's the perfect shape / height / width for a broom. (Mistakes; productive learning experiences in disguise.)

Let's not talk about my indoor vegetable seedlings. (How bad is it? How about "WHAT VEGETABLE SEEDLINGS?" bad. (Yeah, that bad.))

Death loosened Italics' wallet and he suddenly found himself £23.00 GBP poorer after a seed binge of epic proportions. (HEY, MY PET RAT OF THREE YEARS FUCKING DIED, OKAY? THE GRIEVING PROCESS IS DELICATE, FRAGILE TIME WROUGHT BY TUMULTUOUS EMOTIONS AND A INSATIABLE NEED TO COMPLETE ONE'S PROPOSED FLYING OINTMENT GARDEN.)

In the next few days I get to look forward to planting:

VEGETABLES:
* Courgette, Eight Ball
* Cucumber, Gherkin

HERBS:
* Basil, Christmas
* Basil, Italian Large Leaf
* Borage
* Lemon Balm
* Lovage
* Marjoram, Wild
* Oregano, Greek
* Sage, English
* Sorrel, Large French
* Thyme, Creeping

FLOWERS:
* Sunflower, Henry Wilde
* Sweet Pea

WITCHCRAFT PLANTS:
* Hellebore, Black
* Henbane
* Monkshood
* Mugwort
* Rue
* St. John's Wort
* Tormentil
* Wormwood

Most of them, anyway. Some seeds in my ointment garden require very specific temperatures and conditions for germination. What can get planted now will, anything that needs absolute babying is getting filed away for next year. (SEE HOW ON THE BALL I AM WITH THIS SHIT? YOU TURN 30 AND THEN MOTHERFUCKING //BAM//; YOU'RE ALL GROWN UP AND FUCKING RESPONSIBLE AND PLANNING THINGS IN ADVANCE.)

I'm officially only 7 packets away from completing the rough draft of my witch's flying ointment garden:

STILL NEEDED:
* Baneberry
* Datura
* Enchanter's Nightshade
* Mandrake
* Russian Belladonna
* Sweet Flag
* Wolfsbane

I haven't even had a chance to consider a badger, rabbit and hedgehog garden. I also haven't had a chance to do any proper research into gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry and currant propagation (I've heard it's as easy as shoving healthy clippings into some soil) which I TOTALLY need to learn since all of the above has a tendency of growing near/on some very special places (i.e., ancient cemeteries, ruined cottages, ruined churches, standing stones and other neolithic monuments) and I HELLA want to take clippings and grow them at home.

And I STILL haven't had a chance to even sit down and look at ANY-FUCKING-THING potato related. (<- We really, really, really want to grow some new / baby potatoes in containers in the back.) So that, too, needs to get rectified pronto.

All I can say is: holy shit, dude, this gardening business, holy shit. (<- GARDENERS'N'WITCHES, CAN I GET AN A-FUCKING-MEN?)

7 Down 86 To Go

Overnight three baby corn seeds sprouted, and all it took was smoking meth, decorating the "maypole" and engaging in ritual sex on the sheepskin rug for five hours. (If the other 86 plants require this sort've attention I'm going to be one fucking tired fertility goat by the end of this agricultural year).

Walpurgisnacht Altar, Dark

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I need to get off my Walpurgisnacht groggy ass and bake a double chocolate espresso cake, so I'll leave uploading non-atmospheric photos and writing up detailed explanations of everything for tomorrow.

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Walpurgisnacht 2010

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Just a quick, blurry shot before bed. Hope everyone's Walpurgisnacht was as eventful as ours. (Did YOU ride the Goat? I DID.)

2010 Vegetables, Round 1

Writing, internet, has been hard. Actually, I take that back. Writing hasn't been hard; feeling motivated to plant my ass down in this fucking computer chair and hammer out something that isn't one or two sentences mostly composed of "MOTHERFUCKER", "SHIT" and "GOD" has been hard.

Ever since (Chef) Shakey's death I've felt flighty; I think it's Spring, and how amazingly stupidly insanely far behind I am on things. (Don't EVEN get me started on all of the shit I haven't done because my list will make you weep with exquisite hopelessness.) I spent a quarter of a year off our perfected routine, and I still don't entirely feel like I'm back on my mojo axis.

It feels like I've taken a partial step forward, but despite the hesitant move I'm still hanging in limbo because my other foot's firmly planted in its original position. I think I'm waiting for something, specifically one of the remaining rats suddenly getting sick (i.e., Wuzza and her mammary tumors), which would require me to retract that partial step and revisit territory I lived in for nearly four fucking months.

In a way it feels like I'm reluctant to move the fuck on because I'm not sure if the Universe has officially closed that particular chapter of my life. So instead of plunging head first into new projects (and completing old ones) in my brash Aries style I'm straddling the threshold of change going "DUDE, ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU, LIKE, FOR REALLY REAL SURE, OR ONLY KIND'VE SURE, UNIVERSE?" and not getting a lot done.

ANYWAY.

It's raining, which means I can indulge myself with journal writing without experiencing an ounce of guilt. (<- YOU KNOW HOW IN SPRING EVERY NICE DAY FEELS LIKE THE LAST NICE DAY, EVER, SO YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ABSOLUTE MOST OF IT? YES, WELL...THAT.) But because I'm hella rusty I'll leave the V. SRS shit alone and focus on something that isn't inordinately taxing: gardening.

The madness started with Gothel's Garden being reopened after a day of intensive cleaning. I wish I could be someone who could overlook a mess and get on with her shit, but despite my chaotic personality my need for cleanliness borders on divinely anal. (Isn't that contradiction cosmic poetry? Even chaos requires a certain amount of organization to function properly.)

So before anything - before compost buying, peat pot separating, seed buying and seed sowing - I had to strip, straighten and clean the yard. (I view our property - especially the backyard where I'm often found high as a fucking kite gardening in the nude - as an outside altar during the Light year. Most summers I don't even bother with indoor altars since all of my time, energy and effort is spent on our fruits, vegetables, herbs and plants growing directly beneath our bedroom window.)

The front yard - or "dirt yard", if you're a longtime reader - was taken care of in February. Thanks to my father-in-law burying garden waste in my prepared vegetable bed I had to spend the entire day excavating rocks, weeds, roots and frozen leaves out of my sidewalk strip in order to plant my garlic (which, LOLtastically enough, never got planted because I had to spend the entire day cleaning up after him, but that's story for another day).

I took care of the MAIN PATIO next, and then, yesterday, I tackled the mess that formerly inhabited the OPEN VESTIBULE in front of the outside room. All I have left to do is clean the walkway that runs adjacent to the garage door / bonsai house / outside room, weed Mr. Awesome's ABANDONED ROCK GARDEN, and prune back the hedge that's started to smother the fruit trees.

So, before I forget (because I like to keep this shit noted), yesterday I: watered the garlic in the dirt yard to prep it for seed sowing, planted both beets and carrots behind the garlic, hauled about 10 fucking buckets of earth from the backyard to cover the seeds and sprouted garlic with more soil, buried a reduced to clear 1/2 shoulder of lamb directly beneath our computer room / office window (a badger offering! not the lamb itself, but the insects that'll inevitably break down the decomposing meat which'll - hopefully! - attract Badger Beh), moved the circle of rabbit bones onto the Shango Tree phallic worship altar and cleaned the outside vestibule*.

(* "cleaned the outside vestibule" = moving EVERYTHING out of the space, sweeping the ceiling, walls, frames, doors and corners, digging out the weeds between the concrete slab cracks (I'm hoping that my in-laws will be okay with me planting creeping thyme in those earthen spaces), sweeping the patio thoroughly, moving large wind fallen branches and wooden signs I want to keep for various magical projects behind the old grill to ensure Mr. Awesome understands "THESE ARE MINE AND I WANT/NEED THEM", emptying the old grill of garbage (WHY THE FUCK WERE THERE BENT PIECES OF METAL FRAMES IN MY BONFIRE WOOD?), refilling the old grill with wood for Beltane fires, cleaning the ceramic container that holds my support canes, bundling up errant bamboo canes into the cleaned ceramic container, throwing out all non-burning junk (including metal frames and broken pottery) and dumping the contents of the containers filled with garden waste into sacks for future disposal.)

That? That's all OUTSIDE STUFF which doesn't even hint at all of the INSIDE STUFF going on. Vegetablewise, I grow everything from seed. And because we have such a short growing season here in Scotland (short to my Midwest American ass, anyway) I get everything started indoors and acclimate whatever germinates and grows around early June (believe it or not, I've actually experienced motherfucking frost in early June).

I planted our first round of vegetables - 93 effing plants! - on April 20th (which was 100% unintentional; I didn't even know it was earth day - or a good day to sow seeds - until after I dusted seedling compost off my hands). Making up those 93 plants are: 36 X sub-arctics (tomatoes), 20 X baby corns, 10 X artichokes, 06 X cherry bombs (chili), 06 X red peppers, 05 X beef hearts (tomatoes), 05 X green bushes (courgette), 04 X rings of fire (chili) and 01 X voodoo (weed).

As of now I still need plant gourds, lettuce, peas, squash and wheat. I'm on the fence on whether I want to start Russian-olives from seed (which I have), or purchase immature seedlings. I'm also tempted to plant more carrots and beets where I grew garlic last year, but that side of the house doesn't get a lot of light when the sycamore's in leaf and I may need the space for my 20 corn seedlings. (I HILARIOUSLY FAILED TO FORESEE THE PROBLEM IN FINDING ROOM FOR 20 CORN AND 36 TOMATO PLANTS.)

I'm short a few vegetables I had my heart set on growing (i.e., bean, broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, marrow and potato), but that'll be easily rectified once I get my shit together and draw up my herb list for this year. (You don't even want to see my fruit, flying ointment and baneful herb "to buy" list. Let's just say that I'm V. lucky that my husband and Papa are EXCEPTIONALLY good gamblers.)

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93 motherfucking plants sown, baby! The two spiky plants on the other side of my skull incense burner are Dragon's Blood trees (the seeds were given to me by my friend, Carolina). The bushy shrub next to them is my gardenia (which looks like it could do with a prune) and you can JUST make out my Stone Cock on the wooden table (a sprouted yam is sitting on His balls).

I'm drying various Spring flowers (crocuses, quills and grape hyacinths) on the plate beneath the metal side table that visiting bumblebees favor to create a bee-themed incense. The glass vessel is the vase I took from the morthouse (remember? instead of taking the ladder I took the discarded vase?), the two plastic packages are lady's mantle and goldenrod (which I still need to plant) and beneath the pewter church goblet was parsley submerged in water (which I've already planted).

The day after my vegetable seed planting extravaganza the sun was shining crazy bright, like God him-fucking-self was smiling down upon my late night work. Hours of unjamming peat pots, ruining markers, packing containers with compost and planting seeds were sanctified by Spring's glorious sunshine.

...and then within ten fucking minutes of taking the picture above IT STARTS MOTHERFUCKING SNOWING. (VERY FUNNY, UNIVERSE, VERY EFFING FUNNY.) I was horrified, but not surprised. Everything's been out of whack for so goddamn long that I haven't even had a chance to change the guard and welcome Chile Bird back home.

As far as the weather in northeast Scotland's concerned it isn't Spring until Ms. Sovereignty 2K gets off her just married ass and updates the Egyptian / computer room / office altar accordingly.

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Normally I start my vegetables way too fucking early, and by May the backroom's a humid, sweat house of a jungle. This year, though, I got an unusually late start which meant, for once, I was actually sowing seeds when you're supposed to.

(Great for not appearing like a unfashionably early spastic, not so great for not appearing like a hyperventilating spastic when it turns out almost nothing germinated and you're way too late in the season to begin an emergency round.)

I'm use to quick germination because we usually start shit in the closet beneath a grow light and I wrap every pot with cling film to create miniature greenhouse conditions. In my experience certain plants - cucumbers, squash and pumpkins - sprout within three days of sowing. Tomatoes generally come next, followed by the rest of the vegetables with some chili and pot seeds trailing behind at the very end.

Our closet is currently packed with ritual/ceremonial objects that are otherwise homeless, so our only options were to either keep them housed in our growing closet (until we can afford buying proper storage containers), or chuck everything out in the backroom (and pray to God that my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, doesn't touch, ruin, break, appropriate or throw anything anyway).

Take a wild fucking guess which option we went with (or, alternatively, simply study the images above). And because there were ninety-fucking-three plants there was no way I was going to sit down and cut out a circular covering out of fucking cling film/saran wrap for every single pot. My vegetables seeds, for the first time ever, were thrown out into the world without a blanket of plastic or any artificial light blazing down upon them.

Yesterday was day six without so much as a tiny crack or disturbance within ANY of the pots. ("Desperate" and "panicked" didn't even cover it.) Anxious I might miss out on vegetable growing this year due to unresponsive seeds I dragged myself over to Papa for help from his black ass. (I don't really consider him a gardener, but he is Underground which means at least he could give the seeds a push in the right direction.)

I'll spare you from the super explicit details, but suffice to say masturbation magic (especially when Papa's along for the ride) has never let me the fuck down. Yesterday there was nothing; today there were tomatoes, and all it took was assuming a birthing position in bed while coaxing stubborn seeds to sprout and grow up into the warmth of my awaiting uterus.

(ADMITTEDLY BIZARRE, BUT ~MAGIC~, READERS, ~MAGIC~. SO MAGIC, IN FACT, I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO MAKE MYSELF ONE BILLION PERCENT CLEAR TO EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING THAT DESPITE MY MASTURBATORY VISUALIZATIONS (WHERE A COCK'S A SEED AND THE WOMB'S THE SUN) I HAVE ZERO INTEREST - AT THIS PARTICULAR TIME, AT LEAST - TO BECOME WEBSTER'S DEFINITION OF "MOTHER". COMPRENDE, UNIVERSE? PERVERSE SEXUAL FANTASIES INVOLVING MOTHERHOOD NEED TO STAY OUT OF MY REALITY UNTIL OTHERWISE NOTED.)

Essence #1

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Essence #1: Spring, New Growth smells like fresh artichokes and earthy nuts (and looks like nearly formed larvae suspended in translucent pupation).

Macerating All Night Long

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I'm dedicating an entire evening to perfecting my macerating technique. (BABY, I'LL BE MACERATING IN THE FUCKING KITCHEN //ALL MOTHERFUCKING NIGHT LONG//.)

ETA: Wow. So, like, my 500th entry on Graveyard Dirt amounts to a cheap masturbating joke. (How amazingly fitting, right?)

Gothel's Garden Reopens

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My (very dry) collection of spring flowers, strawberries and the saddest fucking pots of herbs you'll ever see. The empty space in the corner? Where my six passionflower vines and three artichokes once sat. (<- They unfortunately didn't survive the worst winter in 30 years.)

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Several days ago the weather was so fucking amazing that I jumped straight into the first serious round of gardening this year without taking any "before" pictures. The patio was a post-apocalyptic world filled with dead leaves, mud stacks, empty trays and pots, scattered bones and discarded bamboo canes.

I spent the afternoon weeding my containers, deadheading old stalks, removing leaves past their prime, turning over the soil, potting on perennials, rearranging containers, pulling weeds out from cracks and crevices, sweeping the entire patio, dusting off the patio's pillars, washing the bird shit off the patio's wooden fence, cleaning Chippy's offering bowls, rounding up bones, stacking empty pots, bundling support canes together, excavating rabbit skulls from the Shango tree/phallic worship altar, burying the remains of old offerings that hadn't fully decomposed and packing fresh earth in the altar bed to prepare it for Beltane/Walpurgisnacht. (<- Stone Cock returns home to his outside altar for the length of the agricultural year!)

I secretly wondered if my in-laws would notice the difference; I //think// they did. (<- They spent the next day sunning themselves on the plastic chairs pictured above for the first time this year.)

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The Shango Tree/phallic worship altar - untouched, unblemished and perfectly clean...at least until our resident badger, Bee, returns. (When one of our pet rats die we find a plush animal toy that best represents them/their personality. Bee, our carpet destroying rat ("BEE! STOP DIGGING UP THE FUCKING CARPET!"), took the form of a badger. Just over a year (or two?) after her death a badger began visiting our property and promptly began digging up my outside altar bed ("BEE! STOP DIGGING UP THE FUCKING GARDEN!"). <- HAH HAH, UNIVERSE, HAH HAH.)

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Poppies from my friend in Finland (second year of growth! I wonder if they'll produce flowers this year?), narcissus and Chippy's homegrown strawberries.

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I honestly don't even remember planting a row of narcissus bulbs in with the poppies, but since I combined various dwarf species (tulips, daffodils, irises) in the OTHER containers I know the arrangement must've been my doing.

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Who would've thought that the Sumerian demon of famine, plagues and winds would enjoy gardening? (APPARENTLY NO ONE.) Chippy, for whatever reason, absolutely LOVES strawberries. (And kites and butterflies and the band Chicago...) So as a birthday gift a few years ago we bought him a kiddie strawberry growing kit from the local grocery store.

I *think* this'll be their third year of growth. I spent all of last year pinching off any flowers that managed to bud/blossom to give the roots a chance to establish. After a quick haircut (to remove dead/faded leaves) the plants are looking better than ever. Strawberries? This year? Hopefully. (Probably none more hopeful than Chippy, who takes his gardening V. SRS, okay?)

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Last year I received a packet of forget-me-nots as a free gift with a seed order and even though it was pretty late in the year I sowed them anyway. This spring I spotted the forget-me-nots amongst the growth and transplanted the clumps from their seed tray into a proper pot.

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Terracotta containers, rings of grape hyacinths and budding dwarf tulips in the background. Thanks to the worst winter in 30 years (100 years, in some places) we're about a month behind growthwise. Last year I was able to decorate our Spring and Easter altars with homegrown tulips, daffodils and grape hyacinths. This year? Only crocuses were available.

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OH, DAFFODILS, YOU MAKE ME RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY. I SHOULD REALLY PLANT A LOT MORE OF YOU.

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Saddest motherfucking group of potted herbs, or what? My golden marjoram and Moroccan mint are slowly pushing through, but my oregano (to the right of the rosemary) looks dismally deceased. My rosemary's definitely seen better days, but I remember it looking this dire other years so I'm not in panic mode (yet).

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Mr. Awesome's bay tree which he planted in a sink (NO JOKE! IT'S A PORCELAIN BASIN!) years and years ago. When I first came over to bonnie ole Scotland (over a decade ago) it was nothing more than a scrawny stick, and a it remained a scrawny stick until I began pruning it, using the leaves, watering it and feeding it menstrual blood water. (<- I soak my period rags in water, and then use the blood rich mixture to water plants.)

Since adoption/intervention it's blossomed into the hardiest fucking shrub, ever, and remains a constant source of culinary happiness even in the depths of winter. (NOTE: If you're ever (un)lucky enough to receive a package from me and amongst the bones, rusty nails and dirt you find a handful of bay leaves you now know their origin.)

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When I first moved here I asked for a patch of waste ground that Italics' parents were using as an outside trash heap to grow flowers, vegetables and plants. I was denied the space because they said they were going to build a BBQ pit in the exact spot. Instead, though, they offered to let me use the patio; I could grow anything I wanted in containers.

That trash heap? Still there, 10 years later. (<- I AM A COOL, CALM OCEAN. I AM NOT GRITTING MY TEETH IN DISBELIEF AND FRUSTRATION. I DO NOT WANT TO GRAB EITHER OF MY IN-LAWS BY THE NAPE OF THEIR NECKS, DRAG THEM OUTSIDE AND POINT TO THE MOUND OF JUNK AND SCREAM "IS THAT WHAT A FUCKING BBQ PIT LOOKS LIKE?". DEEP BREATH. HOLD IT. EXHALE. I AM A RAY OF GOLDEN WELL-BEING...)

I began gardening more seriously several years back, and every year I add something new to the already overcrowded space. (Last year? Fruit trees (five apples, one pear and one peach) and fruit bushes (two gooseberries) in pots.) This year I plan to get grape vines, blueberries, a cherry tree and take cuttings from wild raspberries and blackberries that grow locally to grow at home. Within a year or two there won't be a patio. Revenge, dear internet, will literally be sweet (and organic).

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Gooseberries! In flower! Already! I had absolutely no fucking idea how early gooseberry budded or bloomed until this year. We bought two bushes last year from a local garden center and the pair produced enough fruit for me to make a cheesecake and a batch of honey/hazelnut/oat cereal bars. This year I'm toying with the idea of making jam and some homemade gooseberry vodka. Wasps - HOLY SHIT, ALREADY? SERIOUSLY? - seem to love the flowers, the first day they opened there was a swarm crawling over the bushes.

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My immortality tree, my peach tree. We bought her last year (YES, "HER", FOR OBVIOUS (OR MAYBE NOT SO OBVIOUS?) REASONS) at a discount grocery store, and she sat torpid for several months until I was able to plant her into a huge ass container.

I think the late planting affected her natural cycle; she didn't produce full, mature leaves until late summer/early fall and she didn't shed ANY of them until mid-January. (ONLY IN A WITCH'S GARDEN WOULD A TEMPERAMENTAL DECIDUOUS FRUIT TREE KEEP ITS LEAVES INTO THE DEAD OF SCOTTISH WINTER.)

I was hella worried about her throughout the Dark year because I didn't know how well she'd react to THE WORST WINTER IN 30 YEARS! (since peaches aren't very cold-hardy). Throughout the deep freeze I fed her homemade chicken stock, menstrual blood water and water from our bong/rocket bucket. Whenever I went outside to feed the Old Woman I always made a point of visiting my peach tree before returning indoors, occasionally laying a hand (or two) on her trunk in reassurance.

You could easily imagine how relieved I was when I saw the first green buds push past their scaly covering into the light of day. My immortality tree? Survived the deep freeze. Now to gently coax her into flowering and bearing fruit...

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Foxgloves - grown from seed last year - post "haircut". In the past few years there's been a rapid decline in wild foxgloves (at least locally) as housing developments encroach further and further into the country, hedgerows and grazing fields. Missing their elegant presence when walking into the country I decided they'd be the very first homegrown installment of my witch's flying ointment/baneful herb garden.

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Growing lavender, as you can see, isn't my strong suit. I can trace back the spindly, totally unlush appearance to my fear of pruning. After successfully cutting back several of my favorite shrubs and herbs last year (for the first time), I'm totally prepared to take the pruning plunge this year to restart my poor dwarf lavender plants.

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Because palms aren't indigenous to Ukraine the eastern orthodox church accepts a substitute for religious/ritual use: pussy willows. But even before Catholicism adopted pussy willows the tree was considered sacred and spiritually significant to my ancestors. (<- You'll find single, stylized branches decorating a lot of folk art from pysanky (Ukrainian decorated eggs) to traditional embroidery designs.)

Before we had a car we scoured the local countryside (anywhere and everywhere within reasonable walking distance) in the hopes of finding pussy willows (also known as "goat willow" here in the UK). Nothing, nada, not ONE. Desperate for pollen-y catkin goodness I broke down and bought a pair of seedlings last year on Ebay.

Just a few days ago we accidentally stumbled across a towering pussy willow while exploring the countryside. I really, really, really wanted to jump out of the car and hack off a branch to take home, but there was a farmer poking around in an adjacent field and a car riding my ass. I heard they grow at the base of Bennachie - a range of hills religiously important to the ancient inhabitants of this area - so I'm hoping to make it out there within the next week to locate and harvest catkin laden branches.

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One of three apple trees I germinated from seed two or three years ago. (I THINK this is their third year, just like Chippy's strawberries.) I've read that trees started from seed don't normally produce fruit, but I've also read (somewhere) that even getting an apple seed to sprout is-was-is pretty tricky (although that sounds like some dodgy misinformation). Fruit producing or not, I'll find some use for my three trees.

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A bucket of death created in Fall, finally exposed to light and air in Spring. Last year - just after I decided to fashion myself a fur blanket made entirely out of roadkill rabbits - I was given a gift of seven dead rabbits by hunters after engaging in some HOT MAGIC FOREST SEX with my divine male counterpart.

I skinned and froze their pelts, decapitated their heads and buried them within the dirt bed of my Shango tree/phallic worship altar and decided to share everything else - the bones, meat and organs - with my fellow scavengers. The bucket of headless (and footless) rabbits, however, had different plans.

No matter how fucking hard I tried to discreetly dispose of the remains the multiple attempts always fell through. After two weeks I finally had to admit defeat (especially after the car battery died, which REALLY put the last nail in the coffin) and the bucket was carefully turned over to keep the rotting remains contained (within the upturned vessel), but allow the blood and fermented body juices to sink into the earth.

About a month ago I released the carcasses from their prison, but found everything still moist and not entirely decomposed. They got covered again for about two weeks, although this time by a bucket with large vent holes. After "airing" the pile for a fortnight I removed the container and left the contents exposed to the elements to dry (and clean).

My natural instinct is to pick through the debris and collect the bones, but they displayed such an unmistakable preference to stay with me that I'm not sure if I should harvest the remains and treat them as untradable goods or bury the remains somewhere on our property and create a small rabbit-themed garden on top of them.

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Yet more outside bones* that'll need to be cleaned up for divination use. (Although the t-bone, lamb shoulder blade and goose back might be a little too big for bone spillin' work.)

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

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The Shango Tree's been special for several years now, but on a balmy July evening last year it became even more special after I created a raised garden bed using discarded stones and bricks. (When hunting for appropriately sized sheets of rock I unearthed my Stone Cock, which transformed the "Shango Tree altar" into "the phallic worship altar at the base of the Shango Tree".)

Last year I grew parsley on the earthen altar space, and harvested the herbs - roots and all - on the Autumn Equinox. I buried eight rabbit heads over winter, to allow the essence of SEX'N'DEATH sink into the space, and finally dug up the remains after I was done reorganizing the patio.

The raised bed's been turned over, sifted (with my bare hands because, dude, rabbit bones are SMALL motherfuckers!), added to (fresh compost and soil) and now sits and waits for Walpurgisnacht weekend. (<- I'll be ritually parading Stone Cock - my miniature may pole - down to His outside home where He'll preside over the Light year until Winter's first snowfall.)

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The very happy looking green shoots? Lilies of the Valley, at least what remained after the GREAT GARDEN HOLOCAUST OF 2008. (Long story short? They plentifully grew in the backyard until Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, dug 90% of them up and simply threw them away. Only a tiny colony was spared and I'm HELLA protective of it.)

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The backyard - where projects go to die. With an exception of the pile of rabbit bones and the empty plastic pots everything pictured within this photo is one of my father-in-law's abandoned projects. From the rotting, wooden balancing beams, to the unfinished pond (which is really a glorified kiddie pool sunk into the ground), to the unkept rock garden, to the slabs of concrete (with no definitive purpose), to the neglected fruit trees, to the potted shrubs that've taken up a significant portion of the already tiny yard (which we were promised were only going to be there "this year" - that? that was over four fucking years ago).

The absolutely worst thing about these forgotten projects? He doesn't want you touching anything, rearranging anything, cleaning anything, or organizing anything even though some of this shit's been sitting around FOR TWENTY YEARS (with ZERO attention from him). I've repeatedly asked for space to grow things to benefit the family, but I've been flat out refused because outside trash heaps, decaying wood and concrete slabs have a higher status in this house than me.

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This is the abandoned rock garden (and the pile of rotting wooden beams) I just mentioned above. He doesn't even bother weeding the space any more, but gets territorial when he sees me cleaning out dead grass and weeds. I know it looks HELLA messy, but it's a HUGE improvement from last year. (Last year? When he was gone for a month? I spent a week seriously weeding and removed debris that was YEARS old. What you see above is what managed to grow within a space of a year.)

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It's amazingly fucking hard to tell this story without my blood pressure rising. So I don't blow a gasket this is totally going to be the Cliff Notes version of the story:

When I first moved in, ten years ago, I noticed an unwanted section of the garden filled with dead wood, broken pots, plastic trays and other forms of garbage. Even though it wasn't the BEST place to grow shit I asked if I could clean it and use the patch to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables.

That request was shot down in a panic. I was told they were going to build a BBQ pit in that EXACT place THAT YEAR. So, naturally, I backed off. The thing was, though, it was never built. I asked the following year if I could use the area since they didn't do anything with it the previous summer, but the second request was shot down with the same response.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn't built. It also wasn't built the third, forth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or tenth year. In fact, they completely stopped mentioning building the BBQ pit after the third year. The trash heap just sat, growing bigger with every fucking year.

In 2008 the backyard experienced the GREAT GARDEN HOLOCAUST OF 2008 when Mr. Awesome went on a gardening rampage and killed hacked down and destroyed the vegetation that made the space. I lost A LOT of my container garden because he threw EVERYTHING away (without even bothering to consult me about MY plants), and he even went as far as using WEED KILLER ON THE GRASS and DELIBERATELY KILLED THE MAJORITY OF THE LAWN for no apparent reason.

(BLOOD PRESSURE, MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT, BLOOD PRESSURE.)

What could've been the ONLY silver lining to that situation turned out to be my worst possible nightmare. I watched, with baited breath, as Mr. Awesome thoroughly cleaned the trash heap and got rid of almost EVERYTHING. (Finally! After nearly ten fucking years of waiting (and watching the landfill get larger and larger), I was going to get the small patch of yard I requested!) I then watched, horrified, as he PROMPTLY FILLED THE CLEAN SPACE WITH NEW TRASH, RIGHT BEFORE MY FUCKING EYES.

Imagine requesting a piece of waste ground that people didn't give a fuck about. Imagine being denied what was ostensibly a trash heap because people who WEREN'T interested in the space were suddenly VERY INTERESTED in it because YOU WANTED TO DO SOMETHING TO IT. Imagine watching, for ten fucking years, that patch of yard sit - only changing by becoming bigger and more of an eyesore - knowing they were never actually going do anything with it other than not let you use it for something productive. Imagine seeing, a decade later, the waste ground emptied and cleaned ONLY TO BE RE-FUCKING-FILLED WITH TRASH, GARBAGE, DEAD WOOD, BROKEN POTS, WOODEN CHAIR FRAMES AND TORN-UP SEED TRAYS.

My father-in-law? Seriously, genuinely FOR REAL doesn't understand why I seem perpetually pissed off at him. DUDE, TAKE YOUR FUCKING PICK OF TEN YEARS WORTH OF THIS SORT'VE BULLSHIT AND YOU'VE GOT MORE THAN ONE FUCKING ANSWER.

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The one thing I learned from the waste ground/non-existent BBQ pit fiasco? Don't involve the in-laws by asking; just fucking do it. Last year I sneakily appropriated a narrow stretch of land adjacent to the side of the house (just beneath our computer room/office window). I grew garlic there, which did okay, but the area's far too shaded during summer due to the sycamore.

Last year was also the year I got so fucking sick of the fucking dirtyard (Mr. Awesome deliberately killed the front lawn, so for the past 5-7 years we've literally lived with a giant dirt fucking pit as our front yard) that I decided to grow some vegetables in a neat line hugging the side walk. As you'd expect, the second my in-laws saw me sifting dirt to remove stones they came racing out to inform me THEY WERE PLANNING TO PLANT THINGS IN THE FRONT YARD THAT SUMMER/YEAR.

Yeah, I didn't buy it either. Italics invoked HEY, REMEMBER HOW YOU GUYS WERE GOING TO BUILD A BBQ PIT...TEN YEARS AGO? and they sort've backed off, but after one too many "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PLANT VEGETABLES? WOULDN'T SHRUBS BE NICER?" and "YOU KNOW AFTER THIS YEAR WE'RE GOING TO LANDSCAPE THE ENTIRE FRONT YARD" I walked away from several months worth of effort and simply focused on my container garden on the patio.

This may come as a shock, but...my in-laws never actually did anything with the front yard last year despite all of the hassle I got for trying to improve the crackhouse appearance of our property. Without asking for permission I planted a long line of garlic in last year's prepared bed. In the next day or two I'll be planting beets behind the garlic, and parsley, dill and maybe basil in front of the bulbs. There's another small stretch of dirt that hugs the driveway's curve, and I really, really want to sift the earth there so I can plant a row of carrots.

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There's only one insanely short season when a portion of the dirtyard becomes a proper front yard - early-to-mid spring. Once the snowdrops and crocuses disappear there's only a smattering of squill, and once they're gone their leaves remain green for a month or two before dying back to expose the lack of a lawn beneath.

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Squill, close up and reflecting April's bright afternoon sun.

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This is that "narrow stretch of land" I quietly appropriated last year to grow garlic. I had originally planned to turn the space into a witch's flying ointment garden of baneful herbs, but the lack of full sun might affect some plants so until I do proper hardcore research (into preferred planting positions) the prepared space is in limbo. I'll probably grow a few herbs that don't mind partial shade this year (to keep the patch visibly occupied so Mr. Awesome isn't tempted to reclaim it) while figuring out what'll thrive (long term) in the garden bed.

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Under the Bed Badger's final resting place (of his physical remains, I mean). Near Bride's Day (aka Imbolc) we came across our first ever roadkill badger, which we sadly took home. (<- Just because I pick up and butcher roadkill doesn't mean I don't feel inherently ANGRY, RESENTFUL, PISSED OFF, and SAD when I come across a dead animal on the side of the road.)

I fed, bonded and then skinned the animal, froze his pelt (to preserve and tan myself) and buried his earthly remains in the yard. I intended to go back for the bones within a few weeks (once they were mostly clean), but both Italics and I sort've like the idea of allowing the first set of badger bones to remain buried beneath our office window.

I read somewhere that they're HELLA into bluebell bulbs, so I'm seriously considering creating a tiny badger-themed garden above UtBB's decomposed body to help strengthen our bond with him.

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You harvest garlic relatively early (plant on the shortest day of the year, harvest on the longest day of the year - or so the saying goes), so when I dug up my last bulb the garden bed looked incredibly empty. So empty, in fact, that I was hella worried it'd attract my father-in-law's attention.

Within days of lifting the last garlic plant I sowed beets and carrots to give the impression that the land was still in use, but in reality it was an exercise in marking my place because it was too late in the season - at least for Scotland - to expect any sort of fruitful harvest.

Some of the seedlings survived the winter - mostly carrots - but a single beet somehow managed to live despite direct exposure to the elements. If it continues to grow I'll probably let it bolt to gather seeds since this is a V. special little beet plant.

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An exceptionally tiny row of carrots that, like the single beet plant previously mentioned, somehow managed to survive THE WORST WINTER IN 30 YEARS! without any sort of covering.

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Sycamore buds. The tree just outside our office window has really wormed its way into magic life, so much so that one of the first things I do, ever fucking day, is open the computer room's blinds to glance outside at the sycamore. For over a year now we've been leaving offerings at the base of the tree, and last year we loped off one of the budding branches - together - for a spring-themed broom for myself.

Even though it isn't traditional (at least I don't think it is, but I deliberately stay ignorant of what people do (and don't do) so there's a good chance that somewhere someone's using sycamore buds for something) I'm going to harvest the buds and macerate them. I want to start with buds, move to flowers, continue with leaves and end with seeds to encompasses the tree's yearly growth in one bottle of oil.

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Where the driveway ends and the side walk begins. Last year on Lammas we came across two dead animals along the side of the road - a fox and an elephant-sized (<- APPROXIMATION) hedgehog. I skinned, butchered and processed the fox, but the hedgehog was a little too far gone for any sort of organ extraction so I buried his huge ass directly beneath the rock.

I'm on the fence about digging up his remains. I did bury him with the intent of going back for his bones, but after awarding several other "firsts" with permanent burial status I'd hate for him to feel left out. So, I think Mr. Hedgehog will stay buried in the hopes he'll continue blessing our property with his foraging presence.

(We had a soul crushing epidemic of mutant snails that decimated my vegetables year in and year out until Chippy called the hedgehogs. Before our nocturnal insect eaters arrived you couldn't even go outside at night because the patio was always swarming with snails and slugs. Within months of putting Chippy's offering dishes outside - the contents of which he shared with the hedgehogs - the number of gastropods plummeted. Now all it takes to deter snails and slugs from eating my vegetable plants are a few strategically placed lettuce leaves and the occasional buffalo wing (or two) for the hedgehogs.)

Aries Lambs, Aries Witch

Someone asked me, months ago, how I knew I was a witch. I haven't replied because every day I come up with a new answer. Today's irrefutable (and downright damning) evidence:

After excitedly realizing that the ewe in the above video had just given birth to the twin lambs the first thing I wanted to do was SNEAK INTO THE FIELD AND STEAL AS MUCH AFTERBIRTH, UMBILICAL CORDS and EXPELLED SACS I could get my fucking hands on. (<- "Holy shit! Imagine - IMAGINE! - binding shit up with motherfucking UMBILICAL CORDS! OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! I NEED AN UMBILICAL CORD!")

How the fuck do I know I'm a witch? Because upon coming across a birthing field of sheep my natural instinct was to SNEAK INTO A FARMER'S FIELD TO STEAL AMNIOTIC FLOTSAM AND JETSAM FROM HIS LABORING HERD OF EWES TO SPECIFICALLY USE IN WITCHCRAFT. (That? That isn't even me trying.)

My ass? Wouldn't have survived ten fucking minutes in this place three hundred years ago.

Lost and Found

Yesterday, in fragmented notes, thoughts, sentences and LOLs:

Ventured forth to find 2000 year old souterrain to see if suitable for magic sex. (Executing hieros gamos / sacred marriage Underground in ancient grain storage passage? A+ IDEA!) Accidentally mistook Torphins for Tarland; extra 15 minutes (approx.) added to journey. Road closed 6 miles from Tarland, not awesome. Ms. Graveyard Dirt? NOT amused.

"OH LOOK! A TANNERY! THEY SELL SHEEP SKINS, RUGS AND COATS! OH MY GOD!"

Bump down small country lane towards tannery. Stumble over ruined castle. Recognize walled up windows and doorway. "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD THESE ARE THOSE RUINS I FOUND ON THAT ALFORD PHOTO ALBUM SITE!"

Preen after accidentally finding local site of personal interest. (Grudging feelings towards closed road lessened.) Decide against tannery visit, decide for finding alternative route to Tarland (and 2000 year old earthen passage). See familiar mound. (<- ANOTHER LOCAL SITE OF PERSONAL INTEREST.) See headstone way in distance. Can't believe luck; self-congratulatory preening overload.

Alternative route found via microscopic rural roads. Frequent "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! JUST LOOK AT THOSE WEE BABY LAMBS! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE ON EARTH AS CUTE AS JUST BORN LAMBS?" cries made. Red sports car not as impressed with new life; allowed misplaced vehicle to pass. Roll eyes at unnecessarily fast car, continue to enjoy scenery at own pace.

Reconnect with main road to Tarland. Cost of unexpected diversion? Found: babbling brook, old castle, tannery, ruined church, miniature graveyard. Acceptable price to pay for detour. Road? Quiet. Scenery? Breathtaking. Never felt as connected with land. America? Too new. Scotland? Steeped in "ancient". Hills call, water beckons, forests tempt. Scotland speaks; USA still needs to find voice. (<- Treasonous talk? Always good at being black sheep.)

See summit of snow capped mountain optically wedged between two hills. "HOLY FUCKING SHIT, LOOK AT ALL OF THE SNOW!" Balk at distance - V. distant - blanket of white. Can't believe visible amounts of snow. Follow road to Tarland. Burst over hill crest, slam on brakes despite acceptable speed. Hill drops to green, fertile valley backing into famous mountain range.

Can't find words, can't find thoughts. Park in road shoulder. Cry. Sit, quietly, staring out over majestic landscape. Think "MY HOME; THIS IS MY HOME", know Old Woman is talking; Old Woman is feeling. Entrance to another world - to another land - through purple and white barrier cradling rich farm fields and forests. Few days ago asked Italics "HOW CLOSE ARE THE CAIRNGORMS TO US?". Yesterday Universe answered. (<- Approximately 30 minutes.)

V. near Tarland. Mighty internet: "EARTHEN HOUSE JUST ONE MILE OUT OF TARLAND!" No obvious indication, squint at anything resembling sign. Try to ignore commanding scenery (mostly fail). "A FEW SITES DID MAKE OUT THAT THERE'S A SIGN POINTING TO THE-" didn't finish sentence, tiny - almost non-existent - street sign to souterrain on left side of road. (Eureka!)

No obvious passage Underground. No obvious parking lot. Obvious "PRIVATE FUCKING PROPERTY, MOTHERFUCKERS, DON'T PARK ON OUR FUCKING LAND" sign. (Farm directly on other side of grassy knoll.) Sigh. Roll eyes. Reverse, drive, reverse. Tuck into dirt track leading to wheat field. Not on private property, n'yah.

Pretend to be interested in tourist signpost explaining earthen house. Still no obvious passage Underground. See nothing except small patch of green lawn. Land slightly mounded, follow gentle slope down. Suddenly, tiny black crack in hill. A tear, a rip, a hidden gash. Wild pheasant shrieks when discovery is made. Startled, we laugh. Silently wonder if mother goddess hips will fit through minuscule threshold to Underground.

Mighty internet: "...AND DON'T FORGET TO BRING A FLASHLIGHT!" Torch? Remembered. Check torch to make sure working properly? Not remembered. (<- Oops!) Congratulations on almost dead flashlight, Ms. Graveyard Dirt. Prepared to Helen Keller dark tunnel (came too far to turn back). Faint illuminated glow from flashlight, battery weak - almost spent - but good enough.

Entrance to souterrain tight. Crossed threshold on hands and knees. Crawled like child, like petitioning supplicant. Humble, stripped of grandeur. Began descent into earth like animal, belly touching dusty ground. Further, deeper, darker. Hands outstretched to either side. Can't see stone walls, but can feel assuringly solid structure. Colder, darker, damper. Wooden beams lift up. Crawling becomes crouching, crouching becomes slouching, slouching becomes standing.

Abrupt end of passage. Facing end? Blackness. Facing opening? White pinprick of light. Earth breathing. Air smells like wet graveyard dirt. Water trickles down sides of walls. Silence engulfs hollowed out space. We stand, side by side, as woman and man, as to-be husband and to-be wife in ancient, man-made chamber. We stand in a prison, a womb, an unexpected bridal bedchamber. We stand in a 2000 year old stone and wood lined tunnel where the fruits of Harvest were stored. We stand Underground; our home, our domain, our sacred ground.

Flashlight reveals tealights dotting unseen ground. (Ritually used? Practically used?) Candles won't burn, not enough wax and/or cheap make. Amused, nonetheless. Touch Italics' cock through pants in enveloping darkness. Span fingers over bump and knead flesh and material encouragingly. Joking grope leads to kissing, kissing leads to serious groping, serious groping leads to blowjob, blowjob leads to unplanned martial sex against wet walls of earthen house.

Had planned for overtly ceremonial rite at home, settled for on-the-fly passion in underground passage two millennia old. (Can't ritualize everything.) Marriage, finally. Sex, finally. (57 days of celibacy? OVER.) Physical and spiritual union of man and woman, god and goddess, groom and bride, king and sovereignty personified.

(Unwittingly swallowed live bug during first penetration; tried not to ruin moment by choking. Pretended accidental consumption of living thing during sacred marriage part of never ending life/death cycle. (Hah fucking hah.) Still would have preferred NOT inhaling insect, thnx.)

Painful. (Amazing.) Uncomfortable. (Wonderful.) Tight. (Perfect fit.) Bride. (Wife.) One orgasm, together, almost two. Stone walls, lengths of wood and earth's darkness beared witness. Sealed union by pressing messy cunt against precipitation covered dead end wall. Married, for one year. Exited Underground with husband-prize in tow. (<- UNINTENTIONAL, BUT FITTING.)

Mutant buff-tailed bumblebee welcomed newlyweds emerging from Underground marital chamber. Air? Fresher, lighter. Sun? Warmer, brighter. Entered earthen passage one season, departed earthen passage to another. Exchanged "HAPPY MARRIAGE!" in front of quivering daffodils. Kissed, cleaned up remnants of sacred marriage still coating inner thighs.

Go home? Why? Just married! Celebrate sacred union exploring countryside? OH, WHY NOT! Stopped at "Queen's View" scenic overlook. Heard bumblebee. Studied tourist plaque. Crossed road, marveled at Alp-like landscape unfolding on other side of valley. Poked commemorative sundial. Crossed road, studied tourist plaque again. Made executive decision - find local kirkyard (V. close, tourist plaque map said). Heard bumblebee.

New country lane, new adventure. Down tree studded hill into fertile, greening valley. Stupid number of pheasants. (Count? Lost count after 10. <- "Stupid number of pheasants" 100% accurate.) "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! JUST LOOK AT THOSE WEE BABY LAMBS! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE ON EARTH AS CUTE AS JUST BORN LAMBS?" New baby lambs? Never get old. Ms. Graveyard Dirt and Italics testament to bold claim.

Found old church. Found old graveyard. Found old morthouse. Found handy tourist signpost with old church, old graveyard and old morthouse information. Learned morthouse = corpse safe in olden times (to deter would-be body snatchers). Suddenly more interested in morthouse (surprise, surprise).

Return to dank interior of antique morthouse. "THIS TOTALLY FEELS LIKE AN ORDINARY SHED." (Ordinary shed partially buried underground, anyway.) Had to piss. Saw headstone fragments casually tossed into shadowy corners. Wanted them. (Still had to piss.) Saw small wooden ladder resting against stone wall. Wanted it. (Really had to piss.) Saw discarded dusty vase filled with rocks. Wanted it. (Really for real serious had to piss.)

Had piss at base of ladder. (Ladder? Super big Ukrainian ju-ju, FYI.) Groped ladder. Caressed ladder. Fantasized about abducting rickety old morthouse ladder for personal/ritual use. Considered leaving monetary note beneath rock where ladder stood. Too risky, left it. Took vase, though (not entirely stupid, mkay?).

"WAIT FOR ME, I'LL COME BACK FOR YOU!" Ladder seemed to understand.

Found (in total): babbling brook, old castle, tannery, ruined church, miniature graveyard, Cairngorms, 2000 year old souterrain, husband (and king), commemorative sundial, old church, older morthouse, super old cemetery, unloved glass vase & unrequited love for one ladder

Lost (in total): "virginity" & 1/3 of Blessed Virgin trio

Spring Wedding, Winter Setting

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"JESUS, WHY IS IT SO FUCKING COLD?" I asked Italics (who didn't have an answer). To cut off the draft I yanked the computer room's blind down, which put an end to the frigid air that had been rolling into our office. Within minutes of my complaint it began snowing, and it didn't stop for a day and a night.

The snow remained flawless - completely untouched - for over six hours. I watched through water droplet splattered windows as the wind moved and sculpted each fresh wave of precipitation, burying the first fragile signs of Spring beneath a heavy blanket of white. The world was eerily quiet. There were no people, no traffic, no citrine houselights - absolutely nothing except for us and the blizzard swallowing us whole.

What do you do when it feels like you're one of the last people left living on earth? You get naked in front of the huge ass lounge windows and press your tits and ass against the glass you just finished polishing for absolutely no one to see. (<- YOU WOULD IF YOU WERE ME, OKAY?)

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It began snowing just as I began the process of preparing the lounge for our Easter / Spring / Hieros Gamos / Sacred Marriage / Great Rite altars. (<- Spring wedding, Winter Setting!) And even though I've had enough of the Old Woman (SRSLY, INTERNET, I DIDN'T EVEN SCRATCH THE SURFACE OF HOW MUCH FUCKING SNOW WE GOT THIS PAST WINTER - THEY WERE HAULING THE SHIT AWAY IN MOTHERFUCKING //DUMP TRUCKS//) I went out, one last time, to feed Her, welcome Her and invite Her grumpy old ass to the wedding.

As an afterthought I tied Bride's apron and wedding dress to my budding peach tree, hoping to capture the wisdom of age within immortality's sacred fruit. It trembled against the naked tree - a white flag of resurrection and renewal - for a night and a day, sanctified and consecrated by Winter's last and final snow.

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Here in northeast Scotland we always receive one last snowfall on the cusp of deep Spring, and it arrives just in time for our Easter wedding. The Old Woman - tired and worn - eventually admits defeat, deciding it's better to be young and stupid than old and bitter. She abdicates Her reign as Winter Queen, and accepts the counterpart position - virginal Spring Bride. (But only after 40 days of spiritual, mental and physical purification.)

This past Winter the Old Woman's ruled for an inordinate amount of time. For the first time, ever, I felt a drawn out reluctance to abandon Her divine throne. My ass is partially to blame - I didn't get my shit done in time. (And the ONE TIME I didn't get my shit done in time is the one fucking time Spring didn't appear on schedule, NATURALLY.)

I managed the "sacrifice" part of Lent (this year I gave up white flour-based bread, which is nothing short of CRACK to a crack addict (especially a crack addict whose god is the crack she's giving up)), and maintained celibacy throughout the 40 days but I didn't have time to build a Lenten fire (to create ashes), whip up a batch of sacred ashes, anoint our bodies and our bed with the sacred ash mix, dye my hair henna red (I'm only allowed to have red hair during the Light part of the year) and tie up loose spiritual ends (i.e., non-perishable offerings that still need to be given).

Hopefully NEXT year I'll have my fat ass in gear which'll mean an early Spring for northeast Scotland.

Paska Invocation

Before I bake any ritual bread I always start the process by invoking my ancestors (WHEN YOUR ANCESTORS ARE FAMOUS THE WORLD OVER FOR THEIR BREAD BAKING ABILITIES, IT ALWAYS PAYS TO HAVE THEM ON YOUR SIDE - EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO CONTEND WITH BACKSEAT BAKING FROM YOUR GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER), and once they've been invited over for their expertise I sanctify the bread making bowl by fumigating it with sacred incense.

PS: If you live in northeast Scotland and woke up hearing Jesus Christ Superstar blaring from some house at 4:30 AM on April 1st I deeply, sincerely apologize (even if it's the BEST MUSICAL EVER and remains THE PERFECT SOUNDTRACK FOR HOLY WEEK). I was really, really high and accidentally smoked out the house with pinon incense to the point that I had to throw open the kitchen door to let the room air so I could continue with Paska baking. (April Fools?)

PPS: In hindsight, starting the video at 25 seconds into taping (I cropped it to make the file shorter) was probably not the best choice. Just in case you were wondering, that wasn't an out-of-tune banjo string breaking at the very start of the embedded video, it was my shitty editing skills.

February, 2009

When I'm not overloaded with stressful real life stuff I'm almost always taking pictures. I think I manage writing about 75% of the photos I take, but a small percent almost always slips through my fingers and sits untitled, undescribed and untagged in my Flickr stream.

My original idea was to scoop up those motherfuckers - one year later, month by month - and finally give them the journal entry they deserve (even if "the journal entry they deserve" involves being part of a picture dump). January (when I came up with and incepted the plan) was on time, but due to House and Shakey and Mr. Awesome I kind've sort've lost my way.

This is February 2009's catchup, almost two months late. (WHOOPS.) After reading through the entire month I feel slightly resentful that last year's Feb. was such a piece of fucking cake (at least when compared to this year). In fact, the obvious contrast between 2009 and 2010 borders on fucking comedy, although my ass ain't laughing.

You don't have to take my word for it, you can READ FOR YOURSELF. And I recommend you do, because I did a decent job in explaining - or at least emoting - my take on the entire Spring/Winter, Bride/Whore dynamic that I engage in.

Everything I should've said and shown you this year? Got said and shown last year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that next year I'll in the right mental place and have less peripheral distractions which'll allow me to reexperience the awakening I did in 2009. (<- SPRING 2009? ABSOLUTELY //MAGIC//; IT WAS THE SORT'VE SHIT THAT BECOMES THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR BELIEFS.)

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It's been virtually impossible to get a decent picture of our current rat brigade. The last trio we had (Jigga, Hezbollah and Beh) were lazy ass, docile lap rats which made photo taking a piece of cake. The current triad of terror (Denny's, Shakey's and Shoney's) are so hyperactive that almost every fucking picture we've taken of them has come out blurred in the (near) three years we've owned them.

(Pictured just above my hand is Choo-Choo (aka Shoney, who's also called Choney), and off to the side is most of Wuzza (aka Denny's).)

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Choney doing what she does best: theatrically waiting for attention.

(The triad of terror have successfully ruined a huge percentage of our books. You don't even want to know what they've done to some of our OUT OF PRINT and STUPID EXPENSIVE erotic fantasy art books. No, seriously. Jesus himself would fucking weep.)

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Who was more excited by an unexpected package (date filled cookies and a bottle of sandalwood perfume) from my good friend F? Hezbollah, by the looks of it. (One day I promise to explain the entire Crazy Rat/Hezbollah thing, but until then just PRETEND like you totally get what's going on. <- I HAVE A FEELING THAT ANYONE WHO READS MY JOURNAL IS PROBABLY USE TO THAT.)

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2009's love cake for Valentine's Day. (ME? CANDY? HA! I GOT A //CAKE//!) Just for him I ate it like a little piggy with my nose buried deep in the sponge and filling. (<- It's easy to keep your relationship interesting when activities involve chocolate, sugar, frosting and cake.)

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Sunlight streaming down on the dead crow dirt. (You can't see the layer of gray, gelatinous mess beneath the surface layer of new food. Eventually all of the fat, grease and food sinks into the earth and creates a rich compost which I use around planting time.)

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My container of dead crow dirt sunbathing in February sunshine. (I know what you're thinking - WTF IS "DEAD CROW DIRT"? One of these years I'll sit down and tell the story.)

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I love how it looks like early morning (I think this was taken around 11 or noon) and how the damp earth is full of promise.

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My spring bulbs woke up beneath a blanket of snow that lasted about two weeks.

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An important ingredient for weather magic? Bottled snow.

This is snow gathered from February 2009's winter storms. I stuffed an empty plastic water bottle with freshly fallen snow, allowed it to melt at room temperature on my office altar (OH, HEY, LOOK, ANAT'S STILL IN ONE PIECE IN THIS PICTURE! <- HER WAR HAND GOT CAUGHT ON MY BRA AND SHE WAS ACCIDENTALLY SWEPT OFF THE ALTAR AND FELL TO THE FLOOR WHERE SHE BROKE INTO SEVERAL PIECES; SHE'S SINCE BEEN REPLACED BY WADJET) and then tossed the vessel in the freezer for future witchery.

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The remains of Snow Jigga. (<- A GIANT SNOWMAN MODELED AFTER JIGGA. I ACTUALLY HAVE PICTURES OF IT, BUT THEY'RE HIDDEN IN A FOLDER WITHIN A FOLDER WITHIN A FOLDER SO IT'LL REQUIRE A LITTLE BIT OF EXCAVATION ON MY PART TO FIND THEM.) It took two - maybe even three - weeks to fully melt and disappear.

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HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THEY WEREN'T THERE A DAY OR TWO AGO!

The unfolding purple flowers are Purple Gems (a dwarf iris), the lone yellow shoot is probably Danfordiae (a dwarf iris, I think) and the curling green leaves with raindrops are probably one of my two dwarf tulips.

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A streak of yellow against gray and gray.

House of Cards

I just want to wake up from this Groundhog Day nightmare and get the next day started, but I've been stuck on the same day - the same routine - for nearly two months. Some days it doesn't feel like there's any meaning or purpose (so there's nothing worth fighting for), other days I wake up screaming like a Valkyrie, ready to crawl across a cosmic minefield if it means victory.

I feel the boot bearing down on me, but I'm throwing both shoulders into it and pushing against what feels like a brick wall because I know, eventually, it'll collapse like a house of cards.

(2010, I WILL BREAK YOU. I WILL CRUSH YOU BENEATH MY CALLOUSED, BARE FEET. I WILL STRETCH OUT MY SCARRED FINGERS AND BRING DOWN BIBLICAL SHIT YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SINCE FUCKING MOSES AND HIS PLAGUES. I MIGHT BE BLOODIED AND BROKEN, BUT BY DECEMBER FUCKING 31ST I'LL BE WEARING YOUR FUCKING BATTERED SKIN LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING FUR COAT GIVEN TO ME BY GOD HIM-FUCKING-SELF.)

(AND YOU KNOW THAT AIN'T AN IDLE THREAT BECAUSE A WOMAN DOESN'T DISH THAT SORT'VE SHIT OUT LIGHTLY.)

Hair Cuttin'

And in other noteworthy Ms. Graveyard Dirt news: for the first time, ever, I cut Italics' hair today*. (<- "First time" even includes the use of clippers! Holy shit, my God, if I can solidly clean up the nape of his neck I can surely shear some fucking sheep, right? ...RIGHT?)

* SO Y'ALL TRASHY, HAIR SNATCHIN' GHETTO ASS WITCHES BEST BE FINDING A NEW WAY TO STEAL MY MAN. CAUSE NOW? NOW //I// BE DOIN' THE HAIR CUTTIN' IN THIS MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE.

And Then, Spring

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...and then, Spring.

Scary minimal for me, but the in-laws are home and after the recent "NO I DIDN'T, YOU'RE FUCKING CRAZY!" debacle (<- my father-in-law denied a bunch of shit ranging from throwing away ashes that belonged to my mother to throwing garbage on my Winter altars (yes, plural; it's happened twice) earlier this week in an absolutely stunning display of audacious lying and insistent memory loss (the later of which, admittedly, is less "stunning" and more "worrying")) I've deliberately tried to scale back what gets left out in communal living areas.

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Last year Italics and I made a set of paschal lambs out of butter for our Easter marriage celebrations. (A block of butter is a must have in any traditional Ukrainian Easter basket, a block of butter moulded into the shape of a little lamb is a must have in any Ms. Graveyard Dirt Easter basket. <- You think I'm joking? I had to fucking IMPORT a fucking VINTAGE BUTTER MOULDING KIT from the fucking United States in order to live up to my Easter expectations.)

One lamb was taken to church (to be blessed*), placed on Easter Sunday's altar and consumed during a ritualized Ukrainian brunch. The other was slung in the freezer for "something special". With Easter only a few weeks away I figured it was time to use up our last paschal lamb before creating a new pair to mark the start of the agricultural season.

(I'm totally making an herbal butter with fresh sage, thyme and rosemary and coating a lamb shoulder roast with the mixture. <- OUR OSTARA/SPRING MEAL; LAMB BASTED WITH SYMBOLIC LAMB, MORBID OR WHAT?)

(* Basically? Basically you haul all of the shit you're going to eat on Easter Sunday brunch - paska (that's a traditional Ukrainian Easter bread), boiled eggs, salt, butter, horseradish (sometimes tinted magenta with beets) and insane amounts of smoked pork (sausages, bacon, ham, loin) - to church on Holy Saturday to get it all blessed by the priest for Easter Sunday.)

The crocuses are from our dirtyard; these three mark the beginning of my crocus and snowdrop harvest to create a bee incense. (Last year I kept a close eye on all of the flowering plants, shrubs and trees on our property to see which ones the bees favored. This year I'll be collecting those blossoms throughout the growing season as the major ingredient in my homemade incense blend.)

I always bake something extra special for our Easter wedding. I mean, a marriage requires some sort of cake or dessert, right? (CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THAT AN ABSENCE OF PURE, REFINED SUGAR AT A WEDDING CELEBRATION IS GROUNDS FOR AN ANNULMENT.) This year Italics and I decided we wanted some Easter tat in the form of little chenille baby chicks decorating our high sugar content celebratory dessert, now all I have to do is figure out what the fuck to make. (But, hey! At least we've got the dessert decorations, right? Snort.)

(Italics says the baby chicks look like they're singing in the picture above. Ever since he brought it up to my attention THAT'S ALL I FUCKING SEE. WHAT ARE THEY SINGING? WHY ARE THEY SINGING? CLEARLY, THIS IS A SPRING MYSTERY.)

Everything is gingerly sitting on a rectangular offering dish that I regularly use to create "spirit plates" (what my mom called them) for visiting relatives, friends and ancestors that have passed on. (Not spectacularly significant, but since I explained away everything else...)

Making Hawthorn Syrup

Cooling recently boiled hawthorn berries (to make hawthorn syrup) while a cover of Purple Rain plays in the background.

Love Magic, Ms. GD-Style

Defrosting a raw lamb heart for some love magic. (3 HEARTS IN TOTAL; 1 FOR HEXIN', ONE FOR LOVIN' AND ONE FOR OFFERIN'.)

Seashells and Rowan Berries

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Yesterday I sat in front of the backroom's patio door while working on unfinished projects, soaking up the early Spring sun as middle eastern music and cheap ass lemongrass scented incense filled the warm, comfortable silence. (I don't meditate; I'm too high strung. I can appreciate the calming loss of reality, though, through repetitive movements like popping dried rowan berries off their stems and into a crystal vase.)

My geranium pile? Sorted. (I separated the stems from the leaf heads, and bundled the tiny sticks together. Both dried parts ended up in the same jar because it seemed like a shame to throw out the stems since they're as fragrant as the lemon rose scented leaves.)

Dried clusters of rowan berries? Sorted. (I snapped off every fucking viable berry into a vase - only accidentally knocking it over once (see the picture above) - and transferred the lot into another jar. The remains - unsightly berries and brittle, empty stems - were added to our burning pile.)

(Since we can't compost we ritually burn things and I incorporate the ash into our spiritual lives - sometimes we scatter the remains at sacred sites as offerings, other times I use it as fertilizer for our plants and around this time of year I use it to create a paste to anoint our bodies and bed frame for purification as late Winter turns into early Spring.)

The limpet shells? Next in line to get sorted. (We collected them two days ago when beachcombing a little cove next to Dunnottar castle. That story? Requires an entirely new entry; stay tuned.)

The Last Clean

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.)

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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.)

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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.

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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.)

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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.)

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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.)

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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.

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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.)

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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).)

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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").)

Tiger's Metal Tiger Ribeye

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After several years filled with empty promises, Tiger finally got his steak. (Ancestors, friends, relatives and Papa get fed at their own place setting, anything remotely animal-like gets fed on the floor.) I coincidentally made the offering on the eve of the Chinese New Year (2010 is the year of metal tiger) which was TOTALLY unplanned or premeditated. (<- My mother-in-law bought a steak she didn't eat, and when it began emanating interesting odors I tactfully intervened for spiritual profit.)

My proper Tiger fetish is in our bedroom - a faux tiger skin throw (with head). When we first got him he adorned the bed while we slept (one of his front paws always managed to migrate to my cunt, covering it protectively (<- I've had "spirit sex" problems so I employ Tiger and Chippy - and even Papa to some extent - to keep unwanted nocturnal visitors at bay)), but straightening out five levels of sheets and coverings (fitted sheet, duvet, loose sheet, coffin cover and tiger) every fucking day got old, quick, and Tiger was moved to the top of our closet altar.

When retiring last night I had to remove the steak from the top of the closet because the scent was absolutely noxious. WOW, HE LOOKS PISSED, I thought as I held the ceramic tray with the rotting ribeye, unsure if I should take it away, but sure that I wouldn't be able to sleep in a room that carried the stench of putrefying meat. Then Italics appeared and suddenly said "WOW, HE LOOKS PISSED THAT YOU TOOK THE STEAK" to me I could only roll my eyes.

To placate my irritated large feline (Tiger's more aggressive and pissy, Shango Man (a jaguar) is more confused and laid back) I unearthed his statue and created a mini-altar on the ground in the backroom, returning the wrapped steak and giving him an offering of fresh whipping cream. After I publish this entry I'm going to bust open his energy drink (appropriately named "Tiger") and add it to his spread to ensure he's sufficiently buzzed for his reigning year.

HAPPY YEAR OF METAL TIGER, TIGER!

Workin' Her Glamour

There's an egg yolk whipped with olive oil and lemon essential oil in my hair, a garlic and oat mask plastered all over my face and a silver-plated last rites anointment vessel sitting on the edge of the tub filled with extra virgin olive oil (my preferred shaving lubricant) - can I get a "OH SHIT, THE WITCH IS WORKIN' HER GLAMOUR!"?

(Italics is taking me out for Valentine's Day, so I'm getting the physical grunt work (i.e., shaving, conditioning and shaping my eyebrows) done this evening in order to focus solely on hair and make-up tomorrow (I take these things V. SERIOUS, THANK YOU). <- HE MAY OR MAY NOT LIVE TO REGRET IT; I'M PULLING OUT MY SILK STOCKINGS //AND// MY GOLD FERTILITY GOAT JEWELRY. IF IT'S A WITCH HE WANTS FOR THE 14TH, IT'S A WITCH HE GETS.)

That Sort've Witch

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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, 2009

I usually manage to upload and write about 70% of the photos I take, but occasionally an adventure or two manages to slip through my fingers. To give the forgotten images and stories their chance to shine I decided I'd gather all of the loose ends and consolidate them in a monthly entry.

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Smooth, creamy and melt-in-your mouth golden.

(Pssst! It's goose fat, you know.)

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First full moon of the new year (Cold Moon) welcomed by THE NOTHING. (I love the tiny star way above the expanding darkness.)

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I appropriated an otherwise abandoned plum tree in the backyard and named it THE SHANGO TREE. To freak out the natives (aka MY IN-LAWS) I've begun wedging oversized bones in the branches so they'll get white and weather beaten. (WE'LL SEE HOW LONG IT LASTS UNTIL MY FATHER-IN-LAW DECIDES TO UNDECORATE MY BONE TREE.)

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When Beh was alive she's sit and stare blankly for hours at a time and neither Italics nor I knew what the fuck she was up to. It wasn't until recently - very, very recently - that Italics discovered that "fixed staring" was a symptom of a brain tumor. (Beh was diagnosed with "a brain thing" around May and passed quite suddenly in early June.)

We found this incense burning frog in the local health food store when Christmas shopping on Winter Solstice and couldn't resist its Bok Chek stare.

(BEH WAS ALWAYS CHEWING UP THE FUCKING CARPET, HENCE ALL OF THE CHEWED UP FUCKING CARPET.)

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Chark Park eating part of a buttermilk oatmeal muffin.

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How I spent sick day number three. (I MEAN, SERIOUSLY, HOW DOES THIS SHIT HAPPEN IN A HOUSEHOLD OF FOUR ADULTS AND GO TOTALLY UNNOTICED AND UNCLEANED UNTIL I DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?)

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Shakey Bear testing every pea to ensure they're all top quality.

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Shakey and Shoney looking like pea gremlins.

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It's an hour of back and forth, and constantly changing positions.

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Sun rising through the trees leading to the disturbed children's home.

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Hezbollah contemplates the garden.

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Graffiti on the door of the disturbed children's home. (I'M GOING BACK WITH A RED MARKER AND TEACHING THOSE ASBO KIDS A LESSON. <- LOL, IN GRAMMAR AND SPELLING, ANYWAY.)

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It was originally used as a home for disturbed children, but also had a stint of being an orphanage, I'm told.

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"Wank" has been scribbled on the lower left window, and "wanker" on the lower right.

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Through the trees you can see how the windows and doors have been boarded up.

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When we amble down to the semi-local cemetery (it's about a miles walk, or so) we pass a now abandoned (but still kept) home for disturbed children.

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Pac-Burger at T.G.I. Friday's (in Scotland).

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A piece of streusel topped summer fruits buttermilk coffeecake (with orange flower water!) discreetly drizzled with a Cointreau & summer fruits happy ending (LOLOLOLOL) made for my mother-in-law's birthday.

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A piece of streusel topped summer fruits buttermilk coffeecake (with orange flower water!) made for my mother-in-law's birthday.

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An impromptu dinner:

A thick cut, boneless pork chop stuffed with a feta cheese, cream cheese, sundried tomato, fresh basil and black pepper filling. Flavored with generic Italian seasoning before wrapping up in three slices of Oscar Meyer bacon. Pan fried, and then quickly roasted in the oven with a bit of white wine, mushrooms and vine-ripe tomatoes.

Verdict? Worth remembering.

(Picture snapped after dinner. (No time for arty photographs!))

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We started off the weekend on the right foot.

(And he even rolled up his Oscar Meyer bacon in a pancake.) (Maybe in another 10 years I'll be able to convince him to drench it all with maple syrup.)

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...even classier? I went to the movies the day after wearing a ripped Punisher t-shirt and a wrench necklace. (SO...DAMN...CLASSY.)

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A cock to ride in T.G.I. Friday's (in Scotland).

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Fuck, what a nightmare. This is a photo of the manometry monitor that I had to carry around last year for twenty-four hours when I was undergoing a battery of medical tests to figure out what was wrong with my stomach. (The short version? Hiatal hernia, weak stomach muscles, GERD, acid reflux and a broken stomach valve. They don't know how it happened, or how to fix it.)

It's not pictured in this photo, but a spaghetti-sized tube/wire had been fed up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so the monitor could record my gut's activity. (I had to eat, sleep, bathe and live with the chord for an entire day - every fucking time I swallowed the wire yanked like a motherfucker causing the tube to jerk, jump and tighten in my body.)

LOL SIDE NOTE: They had to postpone this particular test because I admitted to the doctor that I was partially stoned. (She claimed the data would be "inconclusive" since I was under the influence of a relaxing drug. Pfft.) Thankfully, she thought I was cute and/or funny and simply rescheduled the monitor insertion without any sort of lecture. (Thank fucking God I didn't mention I was high to the medical stuff who performed my endoscopy because that's SERIOUSLY an experience I can totally live without undergoing again.)

Imbolc's Oatmeal Soda Bread

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Here's how well you can know someone, but not know them at all: after 13 years of being together (Italics and I hooked up when we were both 16, we're 29 now) it's only been in the last several months that either of us realized that Italics' body can't handle gluten.

For a Ukrainian homemaker whose favorite past time is baking bread from scratch the revelation came with a mixed bag of emotions (notably relief (Italics has been a lot less depressed, physically sick and has more energy than he's had in years), and then exquisite despair - my husband, the UNTIL DEATH DO US PART guy, the partner who I said "YES, FOREVER!" to can't touch the one thing Ukrainian women are internationally known for working with, and what makes food even worth eating - gluten).

Even worse than a Ukie woman's husband not being able to eat wheat or anything gluten laced? A Ukie woman whose autistic reaction to things lessened once she partially adopted a gluten-free diet. (Apparently gluten, dairy and I think something else - excessive sugar? - can exacerbate autism, and once I stopped eating REAL bread and REAL pasta and REAL COOKIES Italics noticed a drastic improvement in my mood.)

As much as I want to run around the house screaming "NO! NO! NO!" to the thought of a mostly gluten-free diet (I MEAN, HAVE YOU HAD ANY GLUTEN-FREE BREAD? 98% OF THE SHIT OUT THERE TASTES LIKE //IT DOESN'T HAVE A SOUL//) I've had to suck it up for the sake of Italics' health (both physical and mental). Within the past few weeks it's become pretty official - there's a bag of plain gluten-free flour where the plain white flour once sat, and that bag's been replaced several times.

The only limitation I've really found is making bread - PROPER YEAST BREAD - with gluten-free flour. (It was a Thanksgiving disaster. Well, "disaster" for a gluten junkie who really, really wanted fluffy buttermilk blue ribbon rolls for dinner.) Even the blends for making yeast bread leave A-FUCKING-LOT to be desired; we attempted a batch of gluten-free white bread using the recipe ON THE BACK OF THE FUCKING BAG OF FLOUR and we ended up with a homemade brick in a red silicon loaf pan.

After two failed attempts at "yeast" breads I took a step back from baking loaves to work on simple basics/staples of everyday cooking to get a feel of what gluten-free flour will and won't do. Will: thicken sauces, make pancakes, make Yorkshire pudding, make cookies, make crepes, make brownies, make cakes, make dumplings, make potato pancakes and make "quick" breads. Won't: make yeast based breads. (<- Despite the seeming ability to do almost everything else, the one "won't" still manages to inflame some ire.)

For me, sitting down and breaking bread at a celebratory meal is hella important. Regardless of my health I always bake something fitting for the sabbat/festival out of respect for my ancestors whose livelihood depended on wheat.

(Fuck, I've even started ritually GROWING MY OWN WHEAT for veneration purposes, which is CRAZY FUCKED UP when you consider that I'm effectively "worshiping" the one thing my husband's body can't process. Although, in terms of MAGIC and WITCHCRAFT, it's CRAZY FUCKED UP FITTING since the divine king is wheat and the agricultural year - resurrected/reborn at Spring, harvested/killed in Fall. I can't eat rabbit for spiritual reasons, but Italics was MADE to not be able to eat wheat.)

To ensure that Italics and I could break bread together we baked two different kinds for Bride's Day/Imbolc - Bride's Braid (gluten-rich) and an oatmeal soda bread (gluten-free, sort've, since oats can be a bit "iffy" to some, but Italics seems to be able to process it along with spelt). The soda bread came out beautifully, although it turned out to be a little too sweet to be eaten with a corned beef dinner (it's gorgeous toasted with melted butter and jam, though).

Frangelico Crème Brûlée

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Whenever I prepare a festive meal that celebrates a phase of the agricultural year I try and keep two things in mind when planning the menu: what we're observing (and why), and how I can stay "on topic" by using seasonal food. (I know it might SEEM trivial, but our actions on the day - including what we consume and give thanks for - is supposed to reflect a very specific time in the year, and if you aren't focusing (or even incorporating) what was traditionally on-hand during the celebration, then you really aren't connecting with what the festivities were/are all about.)

Bride's Day - Imbolc, to most - is the first whisper of Spring during the Dark year. In a way, to me, it's Winter's first Harvest. Here in northeast Scotland the only evidence of the warmth to come are the pregnant ewes out in frosty fields. Right now the cloven-footed mothers-to-be have begun lactating, and soon they'll disappear from their brown and gray pastures to give birth to the next generation indoors. (<- Which, HOLY FUCK, I actually GOT TO SEE, but I'll save my pre-Imbolc pheasant entrails reading story for later.)

Imbolc, perhaps more so than any of the other sabbats in the Wheel of the Year, is white here. It's the pristine, crispy white of the Cailleach's bleached plaid that still blankets the earth. It's the dingy, ivory white of the sheeps' gnarled wool, and the color of the nutritious milk they've begun to weep. It's the unblemished white wedding dress of the Virgin Bride who, after spending Winter as a widow, whore and hag, has slowly begun to shake off age and death in preparation to become a young maiden again. (And, in more southernly extremes of the UK, I'm sure it's the awe-inspiring, living white of the very first snowdrops of the season - Spring's first flowers for the sacred marriage between Bride and the divine king.)

Milk, and all things creamy, thick and white (<- ME ATTEMPTING TO BE SUBTLE, ALTHOUGH PROBABLY FAILING MISERABLY) dominate my Imbolc landscape, so it's only fitting to finish our celebratory meal with a dessert that venerates the secreted life force. After a filling dinner of homemade corned beef, potatoes, root vegetables, fried oatcakes (skirlie) and bread we always finish off our Bride's Day ritual meal with an alcoholic-infused happy ending (<- HEE!): crème brûlée. (Do I know how to celebrate lactation, or what?)

Burn Her, Kill Her

REASON #78,437 WHY THE NEIGHBORS THINK I'M A FUCKING WEIRDO: I JUST SPENT SEVERAL MINUTES STANDING IN FRONT OF THE KITCHEN WINDOW HUFFING THE SCENT OF THE SMOKED HAM HOCK I WAS GETTING READY TO THROW IN A CASSEROLE. ("AND ONCE I SAW HER THROUGH THEIR KITCHEN WINDOW AND SHE WAS //SMELLING// A PIECE OF MEAT, BUT NOT TO DETERMINE WHETHER IT WAS SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION...WITCH! WITCH! SHE'S A WITCH! BURN HER, KILL HER, SHE'S A WITCH!")

Caught Up w/the Bride

With an exception of providing links to a few journal entries (SPRING W/RANDOM INTERVALS OF WINTER and HELLO, OLD LADY) I think that's me caught up with Bride's Day (Imbolc) 2009.

In the next few days I'll be posting this year's pictures, accompanying recipes and break the celebration down into profanity riddled chunks of partially caps lock text, but if you can't wait that long to get your fix you can always plunder the CAILLEACH and BRIDE sections of my archive for past entries regarding the Bride and the Old Woman.

Bride's Brined Brisket, 2009

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Brining beef to make corned beef for Bride's Day (Imbolc) coincided with some medical testing. Since I had a tube up my nose and down my throat into my stomach monitoring the tension, pressure and pH of my stomach I passed on the metaphorical reigns to Italics.

Pictured above is a spice mix comprised of cracked peppercorns, ground allspice, dried thyme, smoked paprika and bay leaves. Italics first massaged the spices into the brisket log, and then followed it with about 1/4 cup of table salt.

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Italics rubbing the brining mixture into the brisket.

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Italics punching the brining mixture into the brisket.

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Italics shakaing the brining mixture into the brisket. (At the very bottom of this picture you can see part of the monitor I was wearing resting on the counter top.)

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Anointed, massaged and ready for the brining bucket.

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The recipe said to use two pots and some bricks. We used a skank ass garage bucket primarily used to clean the cars, some towels, a plastic bag, a cooking pot worth shit and a huge ass stone I stole from the front yard. (HEY, IT //WANTED// TO COME INTO THE HOUSE, OKAY? OTHERWISE IT WOULDN'T HAVE ROLLED OUT OF THE DIRT MOUND IT PREVIOUSLY LIVED IN FOR NEARLY 20 YEARS.)

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Clearly our culinary sophistication is off the fucking charts.

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I was going to indulge in some CHILDHOOD HYMN PARODY ("AWAY IN THE MANGER, NO CRIB FOR ITS BED, THE SIX POUND BEEF BRISKET, LAID DOWN ITS SWEET HEAD...") but I'm just too damn tired. (Knock yourselves out, though.)

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The brine's been rinsed off, the brisket's been patted dry and now all we need to do is boil it for about three hours.

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Not glaringly corned beef pink, but the taste made up for the lack of ruby red grapefruit color.

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There's no point in hiding it - this is clearly just a gratuitous fat shot taken for, and by, a fat enthusiast.

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Seven days of flipping, seven days of darting out in the cold and wet to turn over a six pound piece of meat sitting in a brine solution in the detached garage.

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There's the pink I was looking for...

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Seven days worth of brining, three hours worth of boiling and nearly two weeks worth of planning.

...it was worth every second.

Bride's Day Sex, 2009

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I wish I could remember more details about the pair of pictures, but all I can vaguely remember is BRIDE'S DAY and BREAD MAKING SEX. (I even remember being stoned out of my mind and laughing "NOW THAT WAS SOME /REAL/ WITCHCRAFT!" over something, but I can't recall anything beyond the punchline.)

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Bride's Sabbat Cakes, 2009

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Sabbat cakes started on the solar eclipse (Jan. 26, 2009) and finished on Imbolc (Feb. 2, 2009). "Solar" additions: dried grated pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, gingersnap crumbs, toasted pecans, Hennessy and various bodily fluids (menstrual blood, semen, and vaginal secretions).

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Lunar crescent? TOO MUCH EFFORT.

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Cut out, sprinkled with vanilla sugar and ready to bake.

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Cut out, sprinkled with vanilla sugar and ready to bake.

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A week worth of effort.

PS: This entry is kind've sort've related to ON SCHEDULE which is buried deep in Graveyard Dirt's archive.

Bride's Braid, 2009

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Three different types of bread which will be halved - once risen - and each half will be braided together to form two separate loaves. Starting from left: cornmeal, white flour and whole wheat and molasses.

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Three different types of bread which will be halved - once risen - and each half will be braided together to form two separate loaves. Starting from left: whole wheat and molasses, white flour and cornmeal.

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Risen once, deflated, rolled out, braided, shaped, risen again and now ready to bake.

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Risen once, deflated, rolled out, braided, shaped, risen again and now ready to bake.

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Risen once, deflated, rolled out, braided, shaped, risen again and now ready to bake.

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One of the fucking fuses has gone which means I CAN'T TAKE MY SEMI-ARTY FOOD PICTURES. Until I get better natural light (OR UNTIL I GET SO FUCKING DESPERATE I ARRANGE THE LOAVES IN THE EFFING BATHTUB) this picture of the finished bread will have to do.

(YES, IT IS, IN FACT, AS GOOD AS IT LOOKS. DARE I SAY EVEN //TRIPLE// BETTER THAN IT LOOKS SINCE THERE ARE THREE DIFFERENT BREADS PRESENT IN THAT ONE LOAF.)

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Sliced and ready to serve.

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Fluorescent light doesn't lend any sort of kindness to photography, but when you're nocturnal in Scotland (especially during winter) you either suck it up, or get off your lazy ass and create some sort of lightbox. (Guess which option I've been engaging in for nearly two years?)

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Fluorescent light doesn't lend any sort of kindness to photography, but when you're nocturnal in Scotland (especially during winter) you either suck it up, or get off your lazy ass and create some sort of lightbox. (Guess which option I've been engaging in for nearly two years?)

Bride's Day, 2010

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Bride, return to Us and lift the Cailleach's white plaid from the earth so We may be young again.

Bride's Day Eve

It's Bride's Day (Imbolc) Eve. Tomorrow I'll be welcoming the Bride into our home for a homecooked meal (see menu list within), we'll weather predict together and later in the evening I'll turn down a bed for Her so She can stay the night. Since the majority of my Imbolc will be spent in the kitchen (although I'm hoping to sneak out of the house for a snow laced walk to see the local lactating ewes) I did the housecleaning today to get it straight out of the way.

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I honestly for real can't remember the last time the room was //this// clean. (Because it's a secondary room it's the default dumping room.) I'll be making Bride's bed on the leather couch, and decorating the coffee table with some of my ritual linens. (<- It'll be a pretty basic altar: my miniature cast iron pot belly chimney, and a fancy lady-like table setting with Her meal laid out for Her).

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I love this room and already rue the day Italics' parents will "rediscover" it. It's south facing so it's gorgeously balmy in summer and cozily warm during winter. I've lost count how many days I've spent lying naked on a sheepskin rug, high, sunbathing in the light while listening to old The Sisters of Mercy records. (I get excited when I see the room this clean. When I see any open, clean space I feel motivated to do shit, and get shit /done/.)

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The backroom's entertainment unit. Because we're desperate for space the record player has to play witch's closet as the last batch of 2009's wildcrafted goods finish drying.

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The very last of my organic/wildcrafted projects I need to wrap up. The red berries are dried rowan berries from our tree outside, the long tray's filled with almost dried rose-lemon scented geranium leaves (off my indoor plant), the small trinket dish of seeds are the wheat kernels pulled out of the pheasant's crop when I butchered him (there's bits of his feathers, skin and fat mixed in with the seeds so when I plant them in the Spring the wheat plants will emerge from his remains), the small white bowl is filled with crossroad dirt that's so fucking concrete I need to moisten it to break it down more easily and the large wooden bowl is full of the nuts used on/within our kitchen table Christmas centerpiece that we're going to split open and offer to the local wildlife.

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Once I brought my Stone Cock to life I promised him that he'd spend summers outdoors on his phallic worship altar, but during winter he'd be brought in from the cold until Spring had returned. He came indoors the first day it snowed this Winter, and then I bathed him, dried him and glorified him on my succulent altar. (Stone Cock and Harvest Home yam are TOTALLY BFF.)

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Part of Harvest neatly bottled and jared up. Let me see if I can actually make any of this shit out...

I see black currants from the graveyard, 2008's tobacco, dried pot leaves, dried pot flowers and pollen, various chili peppers, lavender buds, wheat collected from local fields, green acorns, Muriel's necromancy incense, outside backyard bones, strips of sycamore bark (off what'll eventually become my Spring broom), plum pits from last year's plum harvest, gun shots out of dead rabbits and a bottle of homemade raspberry vinegar.

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Bride's Day dinner: corned beef, vegetables boiled in corned beef liquid, dill potatoes, skirlie, oatmeal soda bread, Bride's braid bread and, for dessert, homemade creme brulee. (I loathe my handwriting, isn't it awful and totally unspectacular?)

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I was tremendously lucky to find this in tact. (Wishbones are BIG juju for me. Normally they're destroyed due to various forms of cooking (see below), so when I manage to find a wishbone in one piece I extract it VERY carefully and dry the motherfucker out for an emergency.) I spatchcocked our chicken yesterday and popped its chest to break the breast bone so the bone should've snapped along with the ribs and sternum, but it didn't. (SCORE!)

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Candle wax reading.

Jan 23-30

When you spend a huge chunk of your year being nocturnal in Scotland you develop a REALLY intimate relationship with on-line shopping. Some people might've noticed I'm forever buying shit - I'm forever buying shit because we almost never leave the house (no, seriously; I've gone for 4-5 months without even crossing the threshold of the door) which means I never get a chance to buy completely trivial things like novelty ankle socks and bottles of glitter nail polish.

Packages arrive on an almost daily basis. Sometimes I get cards, postcards and surprise parcels from friends. Sometimes the small boxes and padded envelopes are items I bought from Ebay or Etsy or Amazon (as either gifts for myself, or gifts for Italics I then hide away for later). I know that in the end everything - no matter how cheap it is/was/is - still adds up. But! But at least my pocket money's going to something solid and long lasting (i.e., the vintage and antique pieces I pick up for ritual or magic work) rather than a plastic bag from Wal-Mart or Target full of diet soda, potato chips and candy.

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Metal cookie cutters from Ukraine! There are 10 shapes in all - pine tree, horse, mushroom, hedgehog, fish, heart, butterfly, squirrel, owl and rabbit - but the one that sold the lot to me was the cep (porcini mushroom). (Being from the old country my grandparents continued their mushroom hunting habits in the new country. I spent my autumns with my grandmother hunting down the elusive ceps growing beneath local pines. <- An activity that I can properly initiate Italics into since we now have a car.)

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More reading material for a witch who doesn't read! The cooking magazine's a birthday subscription from my friend, F. (I haven't had a chance to even look at the December or February issue, so the first thing I did with the March edition was tear open the plastic covering and flip through the pages. <- I'VE ALREADY MENTALLY CIRCLED SOME OF THE RECIPES!)

The Lent and Easter pamphlet is this year's Aid to the Church in Need catalog. Last year I bought a gorgeous Blessed Mother/Holy Virgin icon candle from them, and two Alpha and Omega Easter vigil candles. (Both eventually made it into 2009's Spring / Hieros Gamos / Easter / Great Rite / Sacred Marriage altar. The icon candle was set on top of our skull mug, and the Alpha and Omega candle decorated one of our Easter babka.)

I'm hella embarrassed to admit that despite all of my magical exploits I don't have any experience or working knowledge in some witchcraft basics, like making your own effing candles. 2010 is the year I officially have to get over my reluctance to start/learn anything new in the off chance that the first item I produce isn't mindblowingly amazing spectacular. (My need for things being perfect outweighs my desire to learn. Seriously.)

The Candlemaker's Companion is the most highly rated/reviewed candle making book on Amazon UK, and when Italics caught me sizing it up and THEN saw the price (I think it was something like £1.47) he encouraged me to nab it. So, candle making book down, now to find a good book on creating lotions, tinctures and salves and get a pysanky (batik-like decorated Ukrainian eggs) kit to begin learning (and practicing) the ancient art of my ancestors.

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At the beginning of the mail week Italics handed over a small package from Amazon Germany. "WTF? I SWEAR NEITHER OF THE BOOKS I BOUGHT WERE COMING FROM FUCKING GERMANY!" (<- In addition to the candle making book I also grabbed Into the World of the Dead: Astonishing Adventures in the Underworld - I KNOW, I KNOW, IT LOOKS LIKE CHTHONIC CHEESE, BUT THERE WAS A COPY FOR ONLY //£0.49//!)

It was neither of my books, it was a Winter/Christmas/New Year/Yule present - a sterling silver scent locket (I love the centralized tiny heart in a completely humiliating girlish sort've way) - from my beloved friend, F. (I've already told her that if she can't find a suitable husband I'll get Italics to convert to Islam so she can marry him. <- THE JOKE'S ON //HER//, BECAUSE I'M PLANNING TO BE THE DOMESTICATED HOUSE ONE, WHICH MEANS SHE WOULD HAVE TO CONTINUE HER PROFESSIONAL CAREER TO SUPPORT THE FAMILY. HAH!)

(Thanks to my strict code of collecting I never kept any perfume that I liked but didn't work on me. I might have a few stashed away, somewhere, but it seems like I'm going to have to revisit some old territory in order to refind scents that broke my heart.)

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A few years ago I bought Italics a one-legged demon/imp/devil brass toasting fork, and it turned out to be gateway cutlery (of the toasting kind!). We've used it for a few years now as our fire poker during ritualized fires, but it spends most of its time either in my witch's work bucket (a middle eastern cauldron that fits my broom, goat whip/riding crop, and covered machete) in the bedroom, or resting in the clutches of Italics' wooden fire crab (we rest our blessed logs and fire pokers on him).

Last year I presented Italics a St. George slaying the Dragon toasting fork (to us the icon's a visual representation of Italics' constant struggle with with my autism/monster self; I kind've sort've made St. George his patron saint to give him courage, strength and, most importantly, hope) as a gift, and this year we jointly added the Devil's Bridge toasting fork (pictured above) to our collection.

(I was all "OH, HEY, THIS SORT'VE LOOKS LIKE AN OLD TIMEY SOUVENIR WHERE THEY STAMP THE NAME OF THE PLACE ON THE ITEM" on the day it arrived. As it turns out, it's an old timey souvenir from Devil's Bridge, Ceredigion.)

(Why DEVIL'S bridge? Legend says that the bridge was built by the Devil as it was too difficult for mortal people to build. The Devil built the bridge in return for the soul of the first life to cross the bridge, but the Devil was tricked by an old woman who threw bread onto the bridge and her dog followed, thus becoming the first life to cross the new bridge. Oh, Wikipedia, <3!)

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Even though I should be focused on Bride's Day (Imbolc) and the Spring Equinox, I'm already looking ahead towards our wedding. (Outfit? Decided. Maenad, complete with a (fake) tiger skin pelt, white tunic, greco spirals and a crown made of ivy, cedar and whatever other greenery I can find during the time of year. <- I can't tell if it's a REALLY GOOD idea, or REALLY BAD idea since my proposed wedding dress sets a theme to the year, which we normally don't do.)

I grabbed this Holy Land set from a seller in Israel. It comes with a bundle of 33 candles (wrapped in an image of the Resurrected Christ, which is hella fitting since the divine king is, essentially, resurrected himself for another agricultural year), a handmade olive wood crucifix, an icon (I requested an icon of the Blessed Mother/Virgin Mary but they wrote back saying they didn't have any, although, weirdly enough, when my set arrived She was there; I'm PRETTY sure that this is Annunciation (when an angel informed Her that She was knocked up), and it's STUPIDLY fitting since it came just in time for Imbolc (which I consider the time of mothers, milk and new life).)

There's also vials containing olive oil from Bethlehem (lubricant to be used when we consummate our marriage), holy earth from the hills of Jerusalem (I haven't decided how I'll use this, I might mix it into the soil of my two dragon's blood trees), holy water from the Jordan River (add it to bath water? add it to the intoxicant punch I'll be making? offer it as a gift to the tentacle monster?) and frankincense from Jerusalem (to be burned during the wedding/consummating ceremony).

The candles are laughable smaller than I anticipated (barely double the size of your standard set of single colored birthday candles), but the store sells a bundle of 33 separate, so I'm hoping that these in the set are the scaled down versions. (I really, really wanted to burn the same candles during our wedding ceremony that people would be using in the Holy Land for Easter. Right now, by the looks of it, it seems more likely I'll be lighting my future birthday cake up with the Resurrected Christ candles instead of illuminating the "temple" for our marriage.)

Cailleach Stalking the Bride

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

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

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January 29th, 2010

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

Jan. 27th Pheasant

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

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

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

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

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

Bad Witch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you follow any systems?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OMGOMGOMG. SISTERS-IN-MERMAIDISM, AHOY!

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

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

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

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

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

Winter Altar, 09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Yule/2009 Log

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So much for braided love trinkets, right?

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

Medicine and Vice

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

Yuletide Phallic Worship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Burning Ankles of Fire

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

Sviata Vechera's First Star

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

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

(Pssst! We got a white Christmas too!)

Christmas Goose Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stag Horse Brass

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78 Pretty Pictures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas Goose Exorcism

"I CAST YOU OUT, SALMONELLA! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" <- Another unapproved exorcism by yours truly (the Vatican's going to send my ass a nasty fucking letter, heh).

Six Months

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).)

Winter Wash

Never trust a woman who hangs up her washing in the snow.

LONG STORY SHORT?

I have ritual clothes (which never seem to stay on that long, but that's the entire point of lingerie, right?), and I have pre-ritual clothes. Pre-ritual clothes (i.e., the robe above, and a long African dress) are worn as we're "coming up" (when you begin feeling the effects of the entheogen consumed) to keep my ass warm while we wade through the feelings of hyper-stimulation.

When we first began practicing our whimsical black mass rites (it's not a choice, it's a //lifestyle//) something told me to not wash my robe. Which, admittedly, was a super huge challenge since I'm notoriously (verging on anally) clean. I straighten up the house seven days a week, I wash daily and clothing - especially of the stained variety - is laundered immediately.

Without asking "why?" I did.

Years worth of sweat, perfume oils and incense. Years worth of massage oils, ecstatic sex and body fluids. Years worth of fragrant prayers, carnal pleasures and spiritual epiphanies transformed into ribbons of scent woven into the fabric of the robe. When you pressed your face into the perfumed material you could smell Mass; it was a witch's diary, a blank-but-full book of shadows.

Sometimes ritual (and pre-ritual) clothes aren't exclusively kept for ceremony. Like when you wake up in the middle of the day (because you're sleeping at night) and realize that everyone's home which means you can't saunter to the bathroom half-naked (and you're half-naked instead of 100% naked because you have ringworm speckled across your hips, armpits and beneath your tits forcing you to wear a t-shirt to bed) for a piss, but you REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO GO except you forgot to toss a pair of boxers next to the side of your bed so you could emerge from the bedroom "decent" which means your only options are:

1.) Celebrating the beauty of a grown woman's recently shaven cunt by non-chalantly parading to the bathroom, in-laws be damned.

2.) Ritual robe aged to olfactory perfection conveniently hanging on the bedroom door, ringworm be damned.

TAKE A WILD FUCKING GUESS WHICH OPTION I WENT WITH.

Fuck it, it was time to reset the motherfucking thing, anyway. (One word to describe 2009? "RESET".) After washing the robe I purified it in this year's first proper snowfall, hanging it up as it snowed and leaving it all day and night until winter's bitter cold managed to dry it. Unscented and unworn it hangs on the bedroom door again, waiting until New Year's Eve when I'll breath life back into it as we celebrate the full moon, blue moon, lunar eclipse and the new year.

Witchcraft is...

...running around naked, post-sex, with inner thighs firmly locked into place while chanting "KEEP IT IN, KEEP IT IN, KEEP IT IN!" as you frantically search for your AWOL Yule Log so you can release all of the combined sexual fluids from you and your partner out of your clenched cunt directly onto the log. (And if anyone tells you differently, they're lying.)

She Washes Her Plaid

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.

Cleaning Day II

The original CLEANING DAY entry became so stupidly long that it had to be halved. The first half was uploaded nearly a week ago (see CLEANING DAY I) and this is the second and final half. (If you haven't read the the first part I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT since it explains - and goes into greater detail - what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it.)

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Washing an entire room yields some nasty results. So nasty that halfway through you realize that maybe the gray-black-gritty water you're using to physically and spiritually clean an area isn't as effective as it was in the very beginning. That's where the "starter" jug (above) steps in.

Once my bucket's full of super hot (and super fragrant) wash I decant a jug's worth of pristine cleaning water so, half-way through cleaning, I can recreate the magic washing mix without all of the original effort. (<- TOSS DIRTY MAGIC WASH OUT THE DOOR (<- V. IMPORTANT STEP, TO PHYSICALLY "THROW OUT" EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOTTEN RID OF), RINSE BUCKET OUT, POUR IN ECOVER, POUR IN CONTENTS OF JUG, ADD HOT WATER AND RETURN TO WORK - EASY!)

When I heavy duty magic clean the bedroom a lot of effort (and attention) goes into the bed and the thresholds of the room (i.e., window, door). The bed's completely stripped (the sheets, mattress cover, pillow cases and duvet are washed while I'm cleaning), and all of the pillows and mattress are crazily Febreezed and moved out of the room. The frame of the bed is cleaned using my washing mix, down to every cheap wooden slate, joint and screw head.

Nothing gets missed, nothing gets overlooked. I don't cast circles for protection; I clean and anoint the room (and all of the furniture within) with intent, sweat and my wash. It's labor intensive, but that's my magic - overt action. Chanting and invoking various directions mean jack shit if you aren't demonstrating (and exercising) complete and total control of the area.

Cleaning, for me, marks my area - especially when my sweat, urine and blood mingles with my bucket of wash, infusing it with my scent. It's primitive and simple, but at least you can FEEL it (especially the day after!).

The tiny cup next to the jug of wash is Papa's coffee cup (it has a matching saucer, but since I wasn't serving the Old Man a cup of coffee I didn't bother busting it out). While cleaning the bedroom I simultaneously wash the bed linens and with every load I add a cupful of clean, decanted wash from the jug into the laundry. (No point in cleaning the screws of the bed frame if you aren't going to put the same amount of attention into the sheets you'll be sleeping on.)

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Years ago I got some jazz for mentioning I formally invoked Chippy for a healing ritual. One of the much learn-ed pagan/witch moderators (of the forum) couldn't fathom why I'd beseech an entity associated with plagues and sickness for the purpose of recovery. Suddenly realizing the level of retardation I was dealing with, I simply walked off without answering the question and never returned.

(I MEAN, I KNOW I'M ALL AUTISTIC AND SPASTIC AND SIMPLE, BUT...I DON'T FEEL IT TAKES BEING A GENIUS AND/OR HAVING A MASTERS DEGREE IN ARCHEOLOGY OR ANTHROPOLOGY TO UNDERSTAND WHY SOMEONE WOULD INVOKE AND PETITION AN ENTITY KNOWN FOR SICKNESS AND DISEASES TO //LIFT// SICKNESS OR A DISEASE. THAT'S PRETTY BASIC SHIT, YO, AND IF IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE YOU'RE EITHER A.) REALLY DUMB OR B.) PRETENDING TO BE REALLY DUMB.)

I rarely "invoke" Chippy in a ritual or ceremonial way. He's a permanent member of the family preferring to sit in front of the TV (<- HIS FAVORITE THING TO WATCH IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD? CHRISTMAS MUSIC VIDEOS. SERIOUSLY.) than run wild outside. (I can't even remember the last time he asked to be let "out". I DO remember it was winter and I DO remember hearing "WANT IN, WANT IN! WOMAN, WANT IN! TOO COLD, WANT IN!" within seconds of closing the patio door.) It took several years of extensive hands on work, but he's integrated himself smoothly into daily life.

Chippy is, essentially, the guard dog who lives inside of the house. He eats scraps from our plates (he has his own stainless steel doggie bowls engraved with his name), he sleeps next to my side of the bed and, when he's been super extra awesome good, he occasionally gets taken out to the movies and Burger King. Like most devoted canine companions (not having any experience with breaking a demon I fell back to the one thing I knew how to do - house train a dog) Chippy lives to please and understands the importance of family unity.

In addition to healing, divination (not exactly his cup of tea, but the few times I've used him he's been V. terrific in conjunction with tarot and soul cards), companionship and cursing (I HAVE AN ANCIENT DEMON THAT WAS FEARED BY ALL OTHER DEMONS AS A PET, DO YOU REALLY THINK I'D LET THAT ASPECT OF HIM SLIDE? LULZ.) I use Chippy for banishment purposes. When I spiritually fumigate the house he's at my heels - growling and bearing his teeth - ensuring nothing sneaks past while I flush out uninvited guests from room to room.

The picture above is as close as I get to ritually invoking anything. (Unless I'm heavily under the influence of drugs, and in THAT case I'm a laughing, contorting naked banshee throwing fistfuls of incense onto glowing charcoal while hissing-whispering-groaning names like a maenad possessed. <- I KIND'VE SORT'VE GET SWEPT UP IN THE MOMENT. MIND ALTERING, CLASS "A" NARCOTICS HAVE A TENDENCY TO DO THAT TO YOU.)

In the forefront is Chippy's Sassanian amber bead (I HOPE I LOOK //THAT DAMN GOOD// WHEN I'M 2,409 YEARS OLD!) hanging from an unseen (and upturned) leg of our bed. (Looking a WEE BIT cleaner since I dunked it in my bucket'o'magic wash just a few minutes prior to taking the picture. <- GOOD-BYE CAKED ON VAGINAL SECRETIONS, SWEAT AND MENSTRUAL BLOOD, HELLO ANCIENT BEAD THAT PROBABLY COULD DO WITHOUT BEING INSERTED INTO A WOMAN'S CUNT WHILE SHE MASTURBATES!)

In the background, on the windowsill, I'm burning two types of incense. I started my "invocation" (LOL @ "INVOCATION" SOUNDING SO...PLAYING PRETEND, OR SOMETHING) by burning a blend I specifically created for Chippy. (I can't tell you exactly what went in it since it was created way back in 2006 using homegrown plant material (tomatoes, carrots, lavender - CHIPPY ENJOYS GARDENING, HENCE THE ADDITION OF VEGETABLES AND EDIBLE FLOWERS), blood, probably honey, urine (DEFINITELY URINE, THAT WAS THE FIRST THING I COULD SMELL WHEN THE INCENSE HIT THE CHARCOAL BLOCK) and whatever else was appropriate (and made sense) at the time.)

To partially cover the bizarre scent of charred vegetables and body fluids I burned an elemental specific (Air) incense blend from one of my favorite resin retailers, Soma Luna. (Chippy's my "air" correspondent (while Papa is my "earth" and Tentacle Monster is my "water"), although I haven't entirely decided if he fits in the "chthonic" theme that plays so heavily in my spiritual life.)

Once Chippy was formally called I slipped the bead around my neck, and with the tiny piece of antiquity pinballing itself between my tits I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

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So what exactly gets cleaned on MAGIC CLEANING DAY? (Oh, Christ, where do I start...) Everything, down to handles, hinges and screws. My banishing/exoricising arsenal contains four basic "tools": homemade wash, Chippy's presence, salt and whatever incense feels appropriate for the cleansing.

(AND A TOOL CD FOR THE LULZ. <- "LULZ" ARE V. IMPORTANT IN MAGIC, YOU KNOW. DEEP, HEARTY "OH, WOW, A SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR WORK FOCUSES ON CHRISTIANITY BEING A "FALSE RELIGION", HOW 16TH CENTURY OF YOU" LULZ.)

I started with creating the wash and hauling the mother of a fucking bucket of lemon-scented foamy water into the barren bedroom. Once Chippy was invoked and his incense was burning I outlined the entire room with an unbreaking line of salt (on the floor) ensuring that every threshold was "sealed" (i.e., the door and the window, hence the grains of salt swept across the windowsill in the picture above).

Once boxed in there was nothing else to do other than engage in some good, old-fashioned physical labor. The ceiling was dusted several times over, and then the walls, corners, window, vent and dresser. When the surfaces were debris-free it was time to bust out a sponge and commit myself to some serious cleaning. (<- I THINK, IN TOTAL, IT TOOK ME ABOUT 6 HOURS.)

I started with the ceiling fan (the blades, the light, the body and the dangling switches), moved to the dresser (all four walls - both exterior and interior, the handles, the hinges, the doors and the top) and then focused on the bed (all four legs, entire frame, screws, headboard - you name it, I washed it, including feeding a wash soaked towel between every wooden slate of the headboard).

Phase two of washing focused on the room itself (while phase one was primarily furniture based).

Once done with the bed I moved to smaller fixtures that I might've otherwise forgotten to do (if I had left them as the last things to clean) - dresser electrical socket, light switch, vent, the wooden door frame (both inside, outside and middle (<- physically IN the threshold)), the door's hinges and handles (both inside, outside and middle), the door itself (both inside, outside and middle), robe hooks on the back of the door, the slender floorboard that the door sits on, the draw-down blind and the electrical socket on my side of the room.

(I ONLY GOT A SHOCK //ONCE//. OKAY, MAYBE //TWICE//.)

By this point my bucket'o'magic wash was demonically dirty (<- THAT'S A JOKE...MOSTLY) and needed to be refreshed, so I tossed the contents out of the house onto the patio and refueled myself (COFFEE! GRANOLA BAR!) while the second batch of wash was being created. (Normally I do everything in one go, but this time around I decided to physically wash the walls and I didn't want to scrub glaringly white walls with dingy, blackened water.)

The last and final phase of cleaning (at least for the day) meant tackling the four walls (including their floor sideboards), radiator and every part of the window (the frame, the sill, the ledge outside and the glass).

I began with the walls, dipping a tea towel into the new batch of wash, wringing it out and sliding the sopping wet cloth over the great expanse of white. From ceiling to floor - with the help of a chair - I waxed on and waxed off, starting where the last swatch of dampness ended so there weren't any broken links or dry patches.

(Even with the window open it became a sauna; the window steamed up until it was completely opaque, and the humidity became a heavy weight bearing down on my arms and shoulders as I continually slapped the wall with a new coating of magic wash. <- BY SMOKE, BY STEAM, BY SALT AND WILL. AND, ALSO, BY THIS TIME - BY RAMMSTEIN.)

By the time I finished the last wall I was absolutely gassed, but still had the radiator and window to clean. Radiator? Piece of cake. Window? A helluva lot more effort. (Just like the door //everything// gets anally cleaned. The inside, outside and middle of the wooden frame gets washed. Then the handles and hinges, the vent above, the sill below, the ledge outside and both sides (inside, outside) of the glass.)

(Despite being on a diet (I KNOW, I KNOW, BUT I //ACTUALLY LOSE WEIGHT AND KEEPING IT OFF// UNLIKE A LOT OF OTHER VOCAL DIETERS) I felt justified in enjoying a British chipper that night. (<- CHICKEN FILLET SUPPER = AMBROSIA OF THE GODS. EFF YOUR APPLES, IDUN!))

Italics, bless his I AM MARRIED TO AN INSANE FUCKING WITCH heart, took pity on me and my aching body and performed the last important song'n'dance of my cleaning ritual that night - vacuuming the floor (to pick up the dusted debris, flaking white paint and trail of salt that outlined the perimeter of our bedroom).

And that, ladies and gentlemen (and everyone in between), is how this witch "protects" one of the most important rooms in the house - the bedroom. (<- LOL @ MY "THE FUCKING END" STATEMENT, BECAUSE I HAVEN'T EVEN COVERED RITUALLY WASHING ALL OF THE FURNITURE AND ITEMS THAT COME BACK INTO THE ROOM, OR HOW I FUMIGATE IT FOR A SECOND TIME WITH INSANE AMOUNT OF INCENSE AND HERBS TO LOCK AND SEAL THE SPACE.)

Cleaning Day I

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Ritually cleaning (see CLEANING UP AFTER THE BRIDE) and decorating the bedroom has taken over my life (and - seeing as how four other rooms in the house are currently shouldering the weight of our bedroom furniture and things - house). It's been this way ever since we emptied the room in mid-to-late September.

Currently Italics and I have no where to eat, relax, or watch TV since the backroom was transformed into serious storage space (which also means no new witch projects have been started or, gah, finished) and as the Yuletide season creeps steadily closer I've begun having legit fears that this bedroom shit wasn't going to be done in time for Christmas.

With Thanksgiving bearing down on me (I know I'm not obligated to observe an American holiday in Scotland (even if I was born and raised in the States), but since we traditionally eat goose on Christmas Thanksgiving's the only time my ass gets to (justifiably) brine a mother of a turkey) and Christmas not too far away I had to do something drastic. And I did...just a day later than I originally intended.

(HOLY SHIT IT WAS SUPER NICE OUT ON WEDNESDAY! HOW COULD I NOT PLAY HOOKY AND TAKE THE CAR INTO THE COUNTRY AND EXPLORE A NEW GRAVEYARD AND KIND'VE SORT'VE BUT NOT REALLY CHEAT ON MY DIET (HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT IT WAS A FOOD TASTING DAY AT A LOCAL DELI/GOURMET GROCERY STORE? AND CAN IT REALLY BE CHEATING IF YOU SAY NO TO HOMEMADE ICE CREAM, BUT YES TO LITTLE CHUNKS OF BREAD DIPPED IN FLAVORED VINEGARS AND OILS?) BUT MORE ON THAT //LATER//. <- I HAVE PICTURES! UNFORTUNATELY, NONE SHOWCASING MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT'S WINTER ASS OF 2009 PROPPED ON AN ANCIENT HEADSTONE, BUT THERE'S STILL TIME TO SQUEEZE THAT PHOTO SHOOT IN.)

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Not yesterday, or the day before yesterday, but the yesterday of the second yesterday I stepped into the bedroom armed with two things - a flat butter knife, and a plastic skull stein. (THREE things if you count the speakers and the MP3 player. Actually, those are two separate things rather than one so, technically, I stepped into the bedroom armed with FOUR things; five if you want to be super anal and count the bottle of water.)

A Bat for Lashes album later I was standing in the middle of a barren bedroom display. Not a hint of my beloved ossuary remained (unless you take into account the millions of pin holes created by the tacks securing the plastic "scene setter" to the wall); I MISS IT ALREADY AND AM BEGINNING TO REGRET THE DECISION TO "REDECORATE".

The colors were PERFECT. The walls matched the draw-down curtain which matched the bedsheets. For several years we've been cocooned in varying shades of blue (an intensely spiritual color for me) and I've enjoyed the subconscious link to sleep, dreams, death and self. When the final plastic panel was torn from the wall I stood back, horrified, realizing that my bedroom had turned into a Tracey Emin exhibit (albeit one that carried a non-existent risk of contracting an STD).

Neither of us have seen white walls since October 2006 (when we originally hung up the wallpaper and window bats). Stumbling around in the stark emptiness of the bedroom (when not swatting away streaks of bright rainbow colored lights <- MY EYES TOTALLY, TOTALLY REFUSED TO ADJUST TO THE NEW LEVEL OF REFLECTIVE LIGHT IN THE ROOM) I looked for something familiar, but even the bed's frame and sheets were entirely different.

I can't believe there was a point, long ago, when it was white. Pure white. Always white. The white of nothing. A white I can't even remember. When I thumb through memories, skull pillars with a blue veneer are always there smiling at me, no matter how far back I go. "IT'S LIKE...IT'S LIKE A TINY, SOULLESS CHICAGO APARTMENT," I said to Italics as we shielded our eyes, standing next to each other in a room that we've loved in, fought in, fucked in and lived in but no longer recognized.

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Even before I was practicing magic I was practicing magic. When cleaning - WHEN HEAVY DUTY "WE'RE MOVING EVERY SINGLE THING OUT OF THIS ROOM AND I'M WASHING THE WALLS, THE CEILING, THE WINDOW, THE DOOR, THE SIDEBOARDS, THE CEILING FAN, VACUUMING THE CARPET UNTIL IT'S SPARKLING AND THEN WASHING EVERYTHING THAT COMES BACK IN" CLEANING - I've always created a special "wash"; it's just gotten MORE (DELIBERATELY) MAGIC as the years have gone by.

My washes are a haphazard mix of serious and whimsy, three ingredients are the key foundation (a natural cleaner, sea salt, and rosemary) and everything else added is totally spur-of-the-moment (but with personal significance and purpose). Sometimes I add extra herbs or essential oils, sometimes I dribble in a tiny amount of my own urine and sometimes I'll drop in a dried blood clot or two. (<- I pick them off my menstrual rags and dry them out before adding them to my collection; it saves you from having to nick a finger for a drop of blood.)

This year I decided to enlist the help of Papa (he's my chthonic earth and represents the hardcore "masculine" energy I work with) and Tentacle Monster (he's my chthonic water and represents my spirituality, emotions and subconscious self) by using the contents of their offering glasses from this year's Halloween altar (filled with corresponding substances - my Fet Ghede graveyard dirt* for Papa, and salt water for Tentacle Monster).

(* Don't bother googling "Fet Ghede graveyard dirt" because it doesn't exist in voodoo or hoodoo. I created an extra special batch of graveyard dirt for Papa a few years back on Fet Ghede (hence the name). In addition to graveyard dirt it also has remnants of cigars and cigarettes we've smoked together, urine and sexual fluids, ground up chilies (grown specifically for Papa), the ash and unburned remains of incense burned for him, a few drops of rum, shavings of chocolate, pan de muerto (Day of the Dead bread) crumbs and just enough perfume to give the ashy-earthy scent some fragrance.)

The creation of this year's wash began by picking a handful of rosemary from my plant outside, adding it to my orange bucket (ORANGE BUCKET = MAGIC BUCKET, I'VE PISSED, THROWN-UP, COOKED, BRINED, MADE ELDERFLOWER CHAMPAGNE, CLEANED AND CHRIST KNOWS WHAT ELSE WITH THIS BUCKET) and pouring boiling water over the stalks (to make a fresh herb infusion).

Once the hot water was scented I threw in a handful of sea salt, a few drops of lemon balm and lemon essential oil (both are good for cleaning, but they're ALSO good for lifting one's mood), a pinch of Fet Ghede graveyard dirt, half of what remained of the salt water and stirred everything with one of my wooden cooking spoons until the salt dissolved.

To aid with the non-spiritual aspect of cleaning I used Ecover's lemon scented All Purpose Cleaner. The only other thing I added (OTHER THAN HOT WATER) was Chippy's Sassanian amber bead which was briefly dipped in the hot, sudsy wash for PROTECTION'N'BANISHMENT purposes.

(Chippy's our incorporeal guard dog so I routinely include his presence when I'm chasing things out of the house. <- SOMETIMES YOU NEED MORE THAN A GROUCHY WITCH SWINGING A BROOM AROUND, SOMETIMES YOU NEED THE LORD OF THE FLIES HIMSELF TO UNDERLINE THE POINT. <- THAT'S ACTUALLY A JOKE. WHEN I LOOK AT CHIPPY I SEE "CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG" AND NOT THE DEMON PRINCE OF FAMINES, PLAGUES AND STRIFE.)

(NOT THAT I RECOMMEND APPROACHING HIM AS A LOVABLE AND FRIENDLY GIANT DOG; I'VE GOT FIVE (SIX?) YEARS FILLED WITH SEX, KITE FLYING, BURGER KING EATING AND BOARD GAME PLAYING ON MY SIDE. THAT, AND, //HE// WAS THE ONE PAWING AT //MY DOOR// AND NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. AS WITH ANY STANDARD ATTEMPTS AT PICK UP THE BEST POSITION TO BE IN IS THE OBJECT OF AFFECTION/ATTENTION, MORESO WHEN THE DEMON OF DEMONS COMES A-KNOCKIN'.)

Invocation & Banishment

The "invocation" and "banishment" ritual of someone who can't take this shit as seriously as everyone else. (EXTRA "LOOOOOOOOOOOL!" POINTS FOR BACKGROUND MUSIC.)

Cleaning Under a Witch's Bed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday Morning's Frost

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Is that upturned black plastic bucket familiar? IT SHOULD BE. No matter how hard I tried to dispose of the eight headless, footless and skinless rabbits I found myself back to square one. (WITH SQUARE ONE BEING "A BUCKET OF PUTRID, DECAYING CARCASSES SWIMMING IN THEIR OWN OUTRAGEOUSLY RANK DECOMPOSITION JUICES".)

First the weather wasn't right. For an entire week. (No, really!) So the rabbits festered in their plastic grave, sitting, breaking down, occasionally getting chewed on by neighbor cats. (CATS! THIS HOUSE IS NOT THE FOLLOWING: YOUR BATHROOM, YOUR HUNTING GROUND AND YOUR PERSONAL ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT WILDLIFE BUFFET.) The stench was incredible.

After an entire week of non-stop rain I threw my hands up into the air and admitted defeat. "FINE! FINE! WE'LL GO OUT IN THE COLD AND RAIN AND GET WET. FINE! YOU'VE WON, NATURE, YOU'VE WON. CONGRATULATIONS." In the unforgiving Scottish rain - just before eight in the evening - I hoisted a container filled with the liquefied remains of eight dead rabbits in the trunk of the car, carefully wedging it between several buckets containing rocks.

It was freezing. (I was wet.) It was pitch black. (I was wet.) The car absolutely fucking //REEKED// and I wondered how far I could drive while holding my breath for as long as humanly possible. (Did I already mention that I was wet?) Italics, just as unenthusiastic about the situation, crawled into the car. (He was wet, too.) "OKAY, FINE, LET'S GET THIS OVER WITH," I grumbled. The car - which sat in the cold, rain and damp, unstarted, unused and unloved for a week - refused to turn its engine.

Sitting in the dark soaking wet, miserable, cold and TRYING NOT TO BREATHE, NOT EVEN A LITTLE my less than spectacular mood flat-lined. "YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT?" I asked the car, the world, the Universe. It wasn't joking (which was good because I TOTALLY wasn't in the mood). After 10 minutes of grinding the engine I called it quits and hauled the effing bucket of dissolving rabbits back OUT from the trunk, back INTO the rain and returned it to the outside "greenhouse" (bonsai house).

By the time the weather evened out and stopped giving my temperamental car excuses for not starting the eight headless, footless and skinless bodies had reduced to a toxic soup with a mouthwatering aroma of raw, rotting sewage. When I yanked on the rickety metal handle the contents of the bucket swished, slooshed and splashed - way too much action for hauling, hoisting and transporting.

"FINE, YOU DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE? FINE. I TRIED TO BE NICE, I TRIED TO SHARE IN THE SPOILS, BUT, CLEARLY, YOU HAVE NO DESIRE TO LEAVE THIS PROPERTY."

And with that I quickly flipped the bucket'o'rabbits upside down, trapping the broken bodies between the earth and the container. The blood and fetid body juices ran off the animals and were drawn into the ground at the exact spot where Italics and I, earlier in the year, had outside summer sex. To ensure none of the opportunistic neighborhood cats could get to the jumble of carcasses I chucked a heavy brick onto the upturned bottom which should keep them deterred until Spring. (<- When I plan to go back for the bones.)

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Bright, November morning sunshine filtering through the bare butterfly and lilac bushes.

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The water's begun freezing in Mr. Awesome's abandoned (TWENTY YEARS AND COUNTING!) "pond" project.

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The Shango Tree altar remains yet unscathed, but its only a matter of time before our visiting badger returns and leaves another horrific scene of senseless gardening violence and altar desecration.

Full Moon of the Dead

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

Fet Ghede, 2008

My problem's always been with moderation (and not even in (anti)socially accepted "cool" ways). Drugs and alcohol aren't my weakness; going OVERBOARD by expending more energy and effort than necessary is. "Simple", "easy" and "quick" aren't in the forefront of my vocabulary until I'm stressed out, strung out and on the verge of an autistic breakdown. (<- USUALLY INVOLVES FRUSTRATED TEARS, NOT UNLIKE THE TERRIBLE TWOS.)

When two sabbats and/or holidays back into one another I know - despite planning for BOTH - that it's only a matter of time before one leaves the Thunderdome victorious. (TWO SABBATS ENTER, ONE SABBAT LEAVES.) In other words, out of the two religious dates I plan to simultaneously observe, one will eventually garner major emphasis and the other becomes discreetly assimilated into the first (although it's still reflected in ritual and celebration to some degree).

Halloween and Fet Ghede are perfect examples of two major festivals riding each others nuts. Both are crazy important for me (with Halloween welcoming back the Divine Female/Black Goddess, and Fet Ghede welcoming home the (now dead) Divine Male/Papa), but both require exceptional amounts of effort and due to THAT fact I've never managed to celebrate both to my idealized standards.

Samhain requires nearly a month of planning. The Halloween boxes need to be unearthed, and the various altars created. Pumpkins need to be purchased and carved. Music playlists need to be created, ceremonial outfits need to be planned and all of the intoxicants and entheogens need to be sorted. The entire house has to be cleaned (including the bedroom; washing away the Bride to welcome the Whore), certain rituals need to be performed (the changing of the guard, our biannual haircuts) and a magic supper (usually homemade soup and bread) needs to be made.

On the day itself I need to prepare myself, the house, the ritual room and Italics. I brush, floss and choke on mouthwash until my teeth gleam. In a steam bath I massage extra virgin olive oil into my skin and shave my legs, underarms and bikini area. I rub myself down with a homemade sugar and honey scrub to a ridiculous degree (behind ears, the soles of my feet and between my fingers and toes) before turning on the shower to thoroughly wash myself and my hair.

Eyebrows get plucked, my hair gets dried (and set in curlers) and I then spend over an hour in the bathroom - with a glass carving board sitting on top of the sink to create a square ledge for my brushes and jars - applying make-up. Later on in the day/night - just before taking our first MDMA pill (<- A PURER FORM OF ECSTASY) - I'll get dressed in my ritual outfit, take the curlers out and style my hair.

That? That's just me getting ready; one thing out of thousands that need to be accomplished that day. (I'll spare you from what I do to the house, the room and to Italics before the ceremony begins.) Preparing for the Samhain/Halloween ritual requires a tremendous amount of planning, effort and energy - all of which doesn't even take into account the tremendous amounts of effort and energy needed to actually PERFORM the ritual (or put yourself in the right frame of mind to undertake such a serious role).

The problem with celebrating Halloween the way we want to - taking copious amounts of drugs (<- MDMA, POT, MUSHROOMS, POT, ALCOHOL, POT, NITROUS AND, YOU GUESSED IT, EVEN MORE POT) and having ecstatic, debauched sex all night into early morning (<- WE'VE EASILY GONE FOR NINE HOURS) - leaves us pretty wrung out for Fet Ghede.

When you spend the entire night of the 31st pissing in ritual bowls, sexually taunting and teasing your familiars and helpers, having anal, oral and vaginal sex, anointing each other in oils (and alcohol) and assuming the role of the Black Goddess you're going to wake up to three things the morning after:

1.) A stiff jaw which refuses to open for anything wider than a straw.
2.) A happy, but thoroughly exhausted body.
3.) The unholy mess you managed to create the night before.

November 1st, then, is spent laughing about the night before while cleaning the mess up, occasionally complaining about any stiffness and/or soreness experienced. Not much gets done due to the innate need to "keep it easy" so the house gets straightened up and the rest of the waking day/night is spent having more sex or relaxing in front of the TV.

Rather than being better, November 2nd (Fet Ghede) is actually worse - the happy MDMA buzz that was still influencing you on November 1st has finally worn off and you're suddenly aware of how physically (and mentally) exhausted you are. Thanks to the serotonin floodgates of Halloween you suddenly find yourself with a serotonin deficit leaving you irritable, cranky, moody and unmotivated (<- DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH MDMA YOU TOOK) - not exactly an awesome frame of mind to be in while attempting to celebrate the resurrected spirit of the Divine Male. (OR, LOL, RATHER FITTING IF YOU'RE A WOMAN CELEBRATING THE DIVINE MALE. <- HA HA!)

The problem with Samhain is that it requires all of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual attention. Fet Ghede - at least for me - demands physical and mental exertion more than anything else. (The festival is the first meal of thanksgiving we have during the Dark year, it's the WELCOME HOME, PAPA! feast. I set up an altar for him and create - from scratch - a three course "southern" dinner and we get terrifically stoned (and drunk) while eating and watching God-fucking-awful movies that only Papa could like (i.e., White Chicks).)

If you've never created a multiple course meal solely by yourself for a crowd of folk let me assure you - without my typical Aries exaggeration - IT'S A LOT OF HARD FUCKING WORK. Between planning the meal, shopping for it, creating it and executing everything perfectly so there's no scorched food or delays between courses requires a stupid amount of concentration, motivation and good mood - three things I typically DON'T have two days after a heavy night of exalting the Black Goddess.

Last year we were struck down by a debilitating case of influenza mid-October. Thanks to our ability to only celebrate Halloween/Samhain during a very specific time frame (<- WHEN THE IN-LAWS GO ON VACATION FOR TWO WEEKS LEAVING US ALONE IN THE HOUSE) we never managed to haul out the boxes to create our seasonal altars. For the first time since we began exercising our own unique brand of spirituality and beliefs, the Black Goddess wasn't welcomed home and I was devastated.

(OH, THERE WERE LOTS AND LOTS OF TEARS, LOTS OF FLU-TINGED TANTRUMS AND UNEARTHLY HOWLS OF INCONSOLABLE DESPAIR...OR SOMETHING.)

The ONLY positive from all of that negative? Fet Ghede finally had its (his?) day out of Halloween's shadow. Despite the presence of the in-laws (I normally don't leave any sort of altar when my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, is home since the last time I left an altar out he threw garbage onto one of my offering plates) I brazenly created a quick'n'simple altar in the communal lounge for Papa due to the special circumstances (2008 election year, Papa had some V. SRS investment) and it sat - for all the members in the house to see - from Halloween to November 5th (the day after the election).

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2008's Fet Ghede altar was EXCEPTIONALLY low-key for me. (THIS IS ABOUT AS BASIC AS IT GETS, FOLKS.)

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Papa's altar (and doll) was in perfect position to "watch" TV during election night as we ate our celebratory Fet Ghede feast.

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Despite the lack of complexity I'm sure the Fet Ghede altar spread was more than enough voodoo for my in-laws.

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Some of Papa's favorite things sitting on top of my ballot envelope. (<- I TRADED MY VOTE FOR A PROVERBIAL "GET OUT OF JAIL FOR FREE" CARD. PAPA GOT TO VOTE, I GOT A GOLDEN TICKET.)

On Fet Ghede we bake Pan de Muerto for our ancestors and loved ones recently departed. Unlike the previous year (2006), our skull sculpting wasn't up to scratch (I'M BLAMING THE FLU) so you'll have to excuse our embarrassing foray into bread shaping (something we're usually A LOT better at).

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Last year we lost our Busy Bee (one of our pet rats). It was particularly hard to lose Bee since it was immediately after Hezbollah's death. (Bee always acted strangely - "OH, BEE'S JUST BEING BEE!" - but she began exhibiting even stranger behavior after her roommate, Crazy Rat (aka Hezbollah), passed away. It turned out that our Bee had "a brain thing" (tumor) and quickly succumbed to the disease within weeks of Hezbollah passing.)

Bee's FOR REAL name was Sloop John B (Hezbollah was Rhonda and Jigga was Barbara Ann). Due to being introduced into the family in the later stages of Hezbollah and Jigga's life she often got referred to as "the Baby", which eventually shortened to "Bee".

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Hezbollah got sick out of nowhere (which is typical of rats due to their high metabolism rate). Despite knowing it was her time to go I flexed my magic muscles and attempted my first ever stab at healing. Despite all odds, she lived, but only just. After several weeks of unexpected ups and gut wrenching downs we finally lost her, and I'm 100% sure the only reason why she lasted as long as she did was because of our little magic sessions.

Crazy Rat's favorite movie was Hitman (IT'S A HUGE LONG STORY THAT, ONE DAY, I MAY TELL), so it was only fitting that her individual pan de muerto reflected her taste in cinema.

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I remember being EXCEPTIONALLY frustrated with the ancestral loaf of pan de muerto because, going into the oven, it was PERFECTLY skull shaped. Unfortunately, it entered looking one way, but left looking entirely different. The cloves originally gave it a cutesy jack-o-lantern appearance, but once baked the clove studs lost their Halloween charm. (SIGH.) It tasted fantastic, though - I added a little bit of rum to the orange-sugar glaze before brushing it over the bread, and added just a wee taste of the marmalade glaze made for the ham.

Last year we feasted like we had never feasted before. Dinner was a three course meal spread throughout election night. (Instead of celebrating on the 2nd we postponed the festival until the 4th.) We started with a traditional southern soup - Brunswick stew - and carried on to an eight dish dinner (marmalade glazed ham, roast potatoes, roast squash, crabcakes, hoppin' John, pan de muerto, buttermilk rolls and homemade lemon butter dip (for the crabcakes)) and finished with a homemade pumpkin pie.

Despite wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving (in 2008) I never got a chance to, so Fet Ghede stepped in - unbeknownst to me at the time - and provided us with our thanksgiving meal, albeit earlier in the month than I'm accustomed to. (<- TRADITIONALLY, IN THE USA, THANKSGIVING IS CELEBRATED THE LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER. AND TYPICALLY IT'S TURKEY, NOT HAM, HEH.)

I won't even want go into detail how much food I managed to pack away that night because it just might make me sick to even consider. (NORMALLY I CAN EASILY EAT FOR TWO, BUT, THAT NIGHT, I WAS EATING FOR PAPA, CHIPPY AND ALL OF OUR ANCESTORS.)

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The marmalade glazed ham in all of its glory.

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The marmalade glazed ham in all of its glory.

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Left to right: roasted acorn squash, carved ham and homemade crabcakes.

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Homemade crabcakes.

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More marmalade ham and crabcakes.

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Roasted squash and ham. (<- THE DAMN SPICES - CINNAMON AND NUTMEG - GOT EFFING SCORCHED IN THE OVEN, BUT THE SQUASH DIDN'T TASTE BURNED, THANKFULLY.)

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Hoppin' John. (A traditional beans and rice dish.)

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Roasted potatoes and roasted squash (again).

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Our place settings with the pan de muerto to the left, the homemade buttermilk rolls to the right and the lemon butter dip (for the crabcakes) in the center.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

This year we DID manage to celebrate the return of the Black Goddess Ms. Graveyard Dirt style (with a LITTLE less intoxicants than usual since it's been A VERY LONG TIME (<- NEARLY TWO YEARS!) since we "partied" due to my broken stomach valve) which left us out of commission for Fet Ghede.

Although considering last year's effort - flu and all - I'm sure Papa doesn't mind TOO much for this year's laidback atmosphere. (<- ESPECIALLY SINCE I PROMISED EVERYONE THAT I'D DO THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR //FOR SURE//. <- I AM TOTALLY, TOTALLY READY FOR SWEET POTATO CHEESECAKE WITH A MAPLE PECAN GLAZE.)

Happy Halloween

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Dearest Witches and Imps,

Rock that thinning veil, baby.

Happy Halloween,
Ms. Graveyard Dirt, XOXO

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Black Rabbit Altar

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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.))

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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.)

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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?)

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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).

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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?)

Cleaning Up After the Bride

At this point in my life The Bride and The Whore have a symbiotic relationship (even though they're technically one in the same - The Whore becomes the Spring Bride, and as the Light year progresses She "ages" until the cycle comes full circle transforming the virginal Bride into The Sacred Harlot who reigns over winter and the Dark year).

The Bride creates and makes the martial bed, the Whore sleeps (and stains) the martial bed. The Bride sows the ritual wheat in Spring, the Whore reaps the ritual wheat in Fall. The Bride grows and gathers, the Whore harvests and uses. It's all about enlightenment gained from experience, celebrating the fruition of uninitiated ignorance to initiated wisdom and Venus's placement in my natal chart (<- GEMINI; TALK ABOUT A VIRGIN/WHORE DYNAMIC!).

Despite my fantastically anal attitude towards cleanliness The Bride's been exquisitely messy and unorganized this year. I've decided to point the finger of blame on one thing - all the new shit I've "tested" and created this year. For the first time in my life I worked on a billion things simultaneously which meant overlapping projects sitting in various states of doneness. (Me? I finish EVERYTHING, although not always on the deadline I've assigned myself...)

Since a lot of this year's activities have been strongly influenced by witchcraft I couldn't leave the majority sitting out for anyone to snoop and touch. (AHEM, MR. AWESOME, AHEM.) I think any seasoned witch will probably agree that in order to be a witch YOU NEED FULL USE OF EVERY GODDAMN ROOM IN THE HOUSE WITHOUT FEAR THAT PEOPLE WILL BE FUCKING WITH YOUR SHIT BEHIND YOUR BACK.

Thanks to living in a communal situation with someone who frequently "forgets" to NOT TOUCH, THROW OUT, RUIN, BREAK, OR KILL MY THINGS, EVER (despite nearly 10 years of asking in varying degrees of politeness) all of my activities, projects, gifts and work has no choice but to be allocated to the third smallest room in the house (behind my in-law's en suite bathroom and the house's main bathroom) - our bedroom.

I observe the shift from Light to Dark (and vice versa) with three rituals: the changing of the guard (JOURNAL ENTRY HERE!), stripping our bedroom down and cleaning everything (JOURNAL ENTRY HERE!) and celebrating the return of the Bride/Whore through an ecstatic, entheogen-fueled bout of ceremonial sex with my husband/consort, Italics. (THE LONGEST RUNNING "BOUT"? NINE FUCKING HOURS. SERIOUSLY.)

The changing of the guard took place last Saturday, Italics has already taken his "mistress" out (<- HE TOOK ME TO SEE BAT FOR LASHES IN GLASGOW, PAID FOR A HOTEL ROOM SO WE COULD SPEND THE NIGHT IN TOWN (IT'S A THREE EFFING HOUR BUS RIDE TO GET THERE!), PAID FOR ME TO GET MY MAKE-UP AND EYEBROWS PROFESSIONALLY DONE, TOOK ME OUT FOR DINNER AND THEN BESTOWED GIFTS AND OFFERINGS (AKA SHOPPING, SHOPPING, SHOPPING!) UPON ME), the Black Goddess altar is finally done and Halloween's only a week away.

The only thing left? "Washing" away the very last vestiges of the Bride from the bedroom to fully welcome the Whore.

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The bedroom in its ossuary glory. We hung up the plastic/vinyl wallpaper for 2006's Halloween (normally ritual sex happens in the lounge but we decided to celebrate the return of The Whore that year in the bedroom) and liked it so much we never took it down.

Just last week we bought a new "scene" to rewallpaper the bedroom - a cemetery backing into a haunted forest. (I have this horrible feeling that I'm REALLY going to miss my blue-tinged skulls and pillars...)

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My side of the bedroom.

It's a well-known fact that I fucking HATE reading, but despite that hatred I still buy and collect books. (<- I CAN CHOKE DOWN NON-FICTION, JUST DON'T ASK ME TO READ ANYTHING REMOTELY FICTION, EVER.) In fact, we have so many goddamn books that you'll find a pillar of print in almost every room of the house. The bedroom? Has two.

PS: Despite the appearance I don't usually leave laundry lying around - those are my BEDROOM MONSTER SOCKS. (MONSTER SOCKS = SOCKS MADE OF MUPPET-LIKE MATERIAL. IT FEELS LIKE YOU'RE SHOVING YOUR FOOT INTO THE MOUTH OF ONE OF THOSE SESAME STREET YIP-YIP ALIENS.) I have god-fucking-awful circulation in my hands which means I wear socks to bed during winter AND summer.

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His side of the bedroom. (Note how much cleaner it is (on the floor) next to his side. Although I win for having a slightly more organized nightstand top.)

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When we celebrated in the bedroom in 2006 the entire room got decked out - ossuary wallpaper, cobweb drapes, skeletons hanging like garland from the window, glowing pumpkins in the corners of the room and a glow-in-the-dark night scene featuring the moon, stars and bats stuck on the window. We got so attached to the wallpaper AND the night scene we decided to just leave them, and they've been hanging up - undisturbed - since.<