Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Cleaning for the Bride

Click thumbnail for larger image.

Holy shit, whoa, we aren't actually inching nearer the winter-spring threshold, are we? A part of me can't fucking believe that it's that time again, yet I found my sick fucking ass in the backroom yesterday engaged in the yearly tradition of cleaning up for the Bride. (I made a dent. Sort've. I don't have any "after" pictures yet, but I promise you that it'll look like I achieved a lot fucking more once I move the exercise bike and Rock Band drum kit out've the room.)

Click thumbnail for larger image.

Everywhere you fucking turned there was a project-in-progress to be found.

In this photo I'm macerating two organic, free-range chicken wishbones for a couple of Junkyard Amulets, and drying off a few pieces of Beech Hedgerow Crow (the two shriveled, jerky looking bits are his breast meat, and the feathered boa is actually his skin and feathers which I washed, dried and preserved in one piece). Just beneath the wooden table - to the right of the picture - you can see part of a cardboard box that, until last night, contained a pheasant's head buried in a mixture of cornmeal, salt and rosemary.

Click thumbnail for larger image.

Here's Beech Hedgerow Crow macerating in one of my old cooking pots set within my bean nighe bowl. (The seaweed fridge block and cheesecloth rubberbanded across the top of the pot help keep the smell down while bacteria does its thang.)

To its left is one of my homegrown dragon's blood trees (well, "plant", anyway - I think my friend Carolina said they need about 15 years before you can harvest any resin from them), and in front of it is B.H.C.'s offerings of food (coarsely ground local oatmeal, popcorn and wheat I personally grew) and water. To its right is my Victorian (I think?) fox trivet, and sitting on top of it is a miniature enamel casserole pot that I use for incense burning.

Before the flu snatched away my health I made a point of spending time with B.H.C. every other day by burning incense (yesterday I burned kyphi for both him and Egypt), speaking to it, playing records (by this point there's no way it WON'T respond to classic Neil Diamond) and generally living my life around it to help it become accustomed to the daily noises and actions of human beings. (What, you think all it takes to create a spectral companion is finding a dead animal? I'm afraid it's not that simple when dealing with undomesticated wildlife.)

Even though it doesn't have anything to do with B.H.C., I should probably mention the preserved sycamore leaf buds in the butterscotch-colored ceramic dish. Last spring - before they sprung open - I harvested a small basket of buds and covered the motherfuckers in organic grapeseed oil. Just a few days ago I finally strained the two jars of oil, and the physical remains were then added to our ritual bonfire trash can for this year's Lent fire. (<- To make ashes for Ash Wednesday. Yeah, I'm on the verge of getting all Russian Orthodox Catholic on your asses again.)

Click thumbnail for larger image.

It's not even fucking February, and I've already busted out one of my wooden foraging baskets. Just before I got sick I went into the country to leave a major offering to my fellow scavengers, but the usual place where I piss and leave food (so my scent's associated with a free meal) was blocked off. I parked elsewhere, and trampled out to a lone rowan tree growing between a wheat field and the gradual opening of a boggy woodland.

The tree's significant because that's where I laid 1/2 of #4's (the lactating doe) remains. Last year I totally wasn't expecting the good (bad?) fortune of working with roadkill deer, so I had to make some hefty sacrifices. Because we live in a small house in a subdivision I had no fucking room to bury the bodies of six fucking deer, so I took what was most important - the head, and, in one case, the entire skin - and then hauled the bodily remains to various forests and woodlands to give back to nature what I didn't have room to work with.

When I went back 5 months later she was still there, but in scattered pieces. As Italics waited in the car with the flu I plucked bones from the frozen ground and filled my basket for the first time this year, happy to see how much of #4 was coming back home with me.

Click thumbnail for larger image.

What became of last year's didukhy (decorated wheat bundle) when this year's didukhy was made. The straw was scattered beneath our Sviata Vechera table, and all of the heads - containing the untreated wheat kernels - carefully sealed in a bag until spring planting. (I'm, uh, working on getting something a little more ceremonial than a Ziploc bag. These things take time, okay?)

Beneath the bag'o'wheat are my Midwinter greens, which LOL, weren't actually harvested on Midwinter for Midwinter celebrations (aka Sviata Vechera) because there was too much goddamn snow. This is all the evergreen that graced my 2010 altar (cedar, ivy and yew), dried and ready to be bottled up for 2011 uses. (Anything brought in from outside to decorate any altar is normally dried and stored for future witchcrafting since it carries with it an essence of season and purpose.)

PS: The rubber handle of the plastic basin? Chewed to fucking bits by some very bad, very rubber-crazed rats. (Shakey Bear was eventually redubbed "Rubber Robber" and held the title for several long weeks before succumbing to mammary tumor complications. RIP, our little rubber robbing bear.)

Click thumbnail for larger image.

After I gave thanks and purified the two roadkill pheasants we recently found I spent an afternoon ritually breaking down the birds into usable parts. I literally skinned the hen and kept her in (mostly) one piece, but I clipped the tail feathers and wings off Jan. 14th Pheasant because he was a motherfucking beauty.

While she dries au naturale for crafting purposes (everything's in tact - all her feathers, feet, wings and head), I carefully pinned the cock's tail feathers and wings to cardboard to dry in a spread position. We braised his body in red wine, herbs and wild mushrooms and after three hours in a low oven he became our first homemade post-flu meal after four days of serious discomfort. The rest of him - feet, head, skin and body feathers - is sitting in the freezer, waiting for a final decision.

To the left of the wings you can make out Sviata Vechera's kolach peeking from beneath the table. In a day or two - once our strength properly returns - our asses will be pilgrimaging their way to the local graveyard to leave Midwinter offerings for the dead. (In other words: racing against fucking time to get all of the winter shit taken care of by the first day of spring, no matter how seasonal (or unseasonal) it may look like.)

Junkyard Amulet 01: New Beginnings

Click thumbnail for larger image.

"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.