Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Jan 23-30

Filed under: Good Mail Week

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.

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.)

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.

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.)

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!)

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.)