Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Wild American Roses

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At 12 I picked pale pink petals from wild shrubs growing where the fox roamed, took the flowers home and made a dog rose sugar syrup (which I ate with frozen waffles).

At 17 I took a 17-year-old Scottish boy to the wild roses, showed him how they towered beneath rustling cottonwood trees and told him, after zippering up my pants, how, at age 12, I had made a pancake syrup out of the delicate petals.

At 30 I stood, just yesterday, at the mouth of a golden grain field, a roadkill pheasant in one hand, a basket of ripe wild rose hips in another, remembering the 12-year-old girl and 17-year-old girl that eventually made this 30-year-old woman (now married to that Scottish boy who was especially interested in wild American roses 13 years ago).

Barrel of Laughs

Waking up in the morning when you know you have a sick and/or dying pet on your hands is an ordeal and a half. Your urge is to rush the room to ensure they're still with you, but you don't want to leave the bed. (Because if something DID happen while you were sleeping you don't want to know about it.) If you're me then every morning is an "OH, GOD, I'M GOING TO THROW UP" morning.

Last night, just before bed, I masturbated for Shakey Bear. Although, it wasn't the USUAL "nightcap" I'm accustomed to just before sleep (directing energy requires a little more effort than the lazy affair I engage in almost nightly). Instead of lying I sit up (practically straight up), keep my eyes open throughout the duration of the "work", chant a simple phrase that sums up my intentions and, most importantly, I don't allow myself to daydream, fantasize or visual anything OTHER than what I'm focused on achieving (in last night's case, healing vibes for our little Rubber Robber (she LOVES chewing on anything remotely rubber-like)).

This morning I didn't go straight through to the computer room/office. Bracing myself for the worst I first went to the bathroom, then turned on the kettle to boil water, then lazily wandered into the backroom to admire the full moon casting light across freshly fallen snow. I then returned to the kitchen to make my first cup of the day (Earl Grey), grabbed several spoons and a jar of baby food (when rats lose control over their hands they have a hard time eating since they can't grip food anymore; that's where baby food steps in) and it was only when I was armed with Shakey's breakfast did I tentatively venture into the room.

That goofy animal had her ass parked in the bottom of the wire cage so she was facing the door when I opened it this morning. Shakey Bear, looking the brightest I've seen her in days, was the only one who bothered to crawl out of bed this morning to greet me when I came through. (I'm not going to celebrate just yet. Hezbollah reacted the same towards my masturbation trick, and rather than going down in flames within a 48 hour period her illness/death was drawn out for weeks with exhausting ups and downs.)

Anyway, on-and-off blizzard conditions be damned, we have a sick rat to haul to the vet today. (A sick and THE MOST ANXIOUS AND NERVOUS RAT WE EVER HAD who's NEVER BEEN SEPARATED FROM HER SISTER OR OTHER RAT ROOMMATE or BEEN INEXPLICABLY FORCED INTO A TINY TRAVELING CAGE FOR AN UNDETERMINED TIME.)

Today's going to be a barrel of laughs.

Baby Book

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Academic Exodus

When I first got up this morning I slowly began piecing together an entry to record our Beltane festivities (I always resize, sharpen and upload pictures to Flickr first, then prep the images with all of the necessary coding within a drafted entry before HI-LAR-R-IOUS commentary is even added), but the closer I got to writing the more I began glancing out the window.

("THE SUN, IT'S STILL THERE, RIGHT? RIGHT? IT'S NOT GETTING TOO OVERCAST, IS IT? NO, PHEW, I GOT SOME MORE TIME. I'LL HAVE ANOTHER CUP OF TEA AND TRY TO GET INTO THE MINDSET OF WRITING SOMETHING. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, LET ME CHECK TO MAKE SURE THE SUN'S STILL UNOBSTRUCTED AGAIN...")

There's no point in fighting the inevitable; I'm forgoing writing, again, so I can work outside in the dirtyard. (I've been allowed a narrow stretch of land hugging the edge of the sidewalk which I've been digging up to loosen the earth, mix in manure and sift out any rocks, pebbles and debris.) Christ only knows how long this decent patch of weather is going to last, so I'm going to make the most of it and resunburn my already sunburned ass. (LITERALLY, I HAVE A BELLY UP RED CRESCENT JUST ABOVE MY ASS STRETCHING FROM HIP TO HIP.)

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Yesterday the majority of garden work happened in the backyard, but I'll cover that later since I still need to take pictures of the progress. (OH, WE PLANTED THREE THREES, CREATED A PEA POLE TEPEE, RE-POTTED A GIFTED PLANT, PLANTED SOME VEGETABLES AND WATERED, WATERED, WATERED.) Just before work began I took a few minutes to snap pictures of my favorite clump of lilies of the valley that still grace the garden in the back.

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Growing up my best friend was N who lived on the OTHER side of the border. (Our final move away from Chicago was to a tiny village in IL just a mile off the WI border. N and her family lived on a small farm in WI just a mile off the IL border. If the state line hadn't divided us we would've gone to the same elementary and high school; that's how short the distance was between our respective homes.)

As boring as it must've been for her we always played at her house. (DUDE, SHE LIVED ON A //FARM// THAT BACKED INTO CORN FIELDS AND MIDWESTERN HEDGEROWS.) And "playing" usually involved the great outdoors, long walks across tilled fields (we adhered to the strict "WE CAN GO WHEREVER WE WANT PROVIDED WE NEVER, EVER CROSS AN ASPHALT ROAD" code of rural children) and an insane amount of mud. (I'M NOT A SEX PIG FOR NOTHING.)

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As a child you live in two alternate realities simultaneously - the academic year and the natural, seasonal year. When you're young the two move in synch, allowing you to coexist in separate realities. With one foot in each world you're able to see, when combined, how the parallel existences compliment one another. When the natural world was in transition, something was happening in school. Significant dates in school usually marked a period of metamorphosis in the cycle of the seasons.

When the first lilies of the valley appeared beneath the rolling, hunched branches of old trees (where sunlight dappled instead of shined) we knew that soon - very soon - school would be over and we'd be released into the freedom the budding Midwestern summer. When the first of the bramble berries were ripe we weren't captives of the academic year; we were ruled by the law and order of the natural world bursting with life around us. (Until the last week of August when, once again, we relearned how to straddle both worlds; just like riding a bike, but you begin to resent and loathe the bike more and more the older you get.)

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I'm almost thirty now (LORD JESUS IN HEAVEN, THAT HAPPENS NEXT YEAR) and Sunday evenings still make me moody; Friday afternoons still elate me. And the sight of lilies of the valley? They still look like the promise of freedom.

Now, though, I don't need a fistful of white, silent bells as a reminder of the exodus to come. (This ass sauntered out of Egypt long, long ago.) When you're no longer ruled by the academic year you don't need to pick flowers to celebrate the death of another school year. You can enjoy them, sitting back, remembering how they were foraged long ago as a primitive ritual of prayer and hope for the end that was so near.

(Can you still remember what the last day(s) of elementary school felt like? As long as there are lilies of the valley growing in shaded seclusion I'll never forget.)

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Last summer Mr. Awesome (my father-in-law, just in case you two haven't been formally introduced) "cleaned out" the backyard. In doing so he chopped down the majority of the foliage that provided a natural backdrop of privacy between the backyard/garden and the street (when healthy and thick it provides amble cover for me to float around the tiny space nude), killed off whatever grass remained (a backyard with no lawn to match the front which is nothing but dirt), filled in almost every empty space with trees and shrugs in plastic bags, threw out Spring bulbs that Italics had bought me as a gift (I managed to enjoy them for one season before he raided my containers and pots, throwing away plants, bulbs and trees without notifying or asking me) and dug up and discarded the majority of the lilies of the valley that were planted nearly twenty years ago.

The clump of the lilies of the valley above are the only ones that survived the GREAT GARDEN HOLOCAUST OF 2008. My heart broke, as stupid as it sounds, to see everything ripped out, torn up and, without even a thought of saving to replant later, unceremoniously thrown out. But, technically, it isn't my garden, so decisions aren't made democratically amongst the four adults who live and, supposedly, share communal areas.

(Christ, I didn't even have the right to SAVE MY OWN PLANTS - SOME OF WHICH WERE GIFTS ITALICS BOUGHT ME - LET ALONE PUT MY FOOT DOWN AND SAY "NO, YOU CAN'T USE WEED KILLER TO KILL THE LAST OF THE GRASS IN THE BACKYARD". Sometimes I get the feeling that all my in-laws ever want to hear from me is "I MADE YOU GUYS DINNER" and "I JUST FINISHED CLEANING XXX" and if I only stayed in those two areas - cooking and cleaning for everyone - we wouldn't have any problems. Unfortunately, this isn't a fairytale and I ain't no fucking Cinderella.)

2009 Pysanky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alex Fullerton, Druggist Egg (no picture)

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

  
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Beh's Bumblebee Egg (above)

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

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

  
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Didi's Egg (above)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Egg-tagon Egg (no picture)

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

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

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Haduka Egg (above)

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

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

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Hail Ukraine! Egg (above)

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

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

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

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

  
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Hezbollah's Hitman Egg (above)

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

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

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

Leprechaun Egg (no picture)

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

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Mask's Egg (above)

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

Pac-man Ghost Egg (no picture)

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

  
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Pysanka w/Folk Designs (above)

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

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

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

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Striped Pysanka (above)

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

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

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

Wheat Egg (Laid) (no picture)

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

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

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

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

Wrapped w/Plastic Sleeve X 3 (no picture)

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

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

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

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

Easter Sunday

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

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

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

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

SO, RIGHT, ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOLY SHIT, TANGENT MUCH!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Russian sunflower seeds sprouting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gold Star

Shoney Bear, our obese, bowling pin shaped (I BELIEVE THIS MAKES HER A "PEAR" IN WOMAN SPEAK) rat chewed a hole in my wedding dress last October. (I WAS NOT AMUSED IN THE SLIGHTEST, CHONEY CHARK PARK, BUT I THINK WE CAN AGREE, ALL AROUND, THAT I TOOK THE WEDDING DRESS MUTILATION PRETTY WELL SEEING HOW YOU'RE STILL ALIVE AND NONE OF YOUR FUR WAS USED TO PATCH UP THE CHARK PARK PUNCTURE.)

And, I admit, there was a LOL! worthy element to the unexpected event, which is often the case when something DISASTROUS or STUPID or INFURIATING or ANNOYING happens in this house. (LOOK, WHEN YOU OUTLINE TO THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS WITHIN THAT YOUR PRIMARY LANGUAGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION SHOULD ADHERE TO A STRICT "LOL!" CONTEXT ALMOST ALL OF YOUR DISASTROUS OR STUPID OR INFURIATING OR ANNOYING INSTANCES AND OCCASIONS CAN BE REDUCED DOWN TO SOME SORT OF "LOL!" ELEMENT MAKING THE DISASTROUS OR STUPID OR INFURIATING OR ANNOYING INSTANCES AND OCCASIONS JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE BEARABLE.)

(IT'S A SYSTEM THAT //WORKS//, YO.)

(FOR THE RECORD, AGAIN, I WOULD LIKE TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT I, THE BRIDE WHOSE WEDDING DRESS WAS JUST RUINED, TOOK THE MASTICATION MISHAP WELL. EXCEPTIONALLY WELL. ALMOST, YOU COULD SAY, SUPERNATURALLY-DIVINELY-I-AM-ENLIGHTENED-NOW-FUCKERS! WELL.)

Despite being an EMOTIONALLY VIOLATE, HORMONALLY CHARGED AUTISTIC WOMAN WITH A REALLY FUCKING SHORT FUSE I was COOL WITH IT. (YOU NOTICED THAT, UNIVERSE, RIGHT? ...RIGHT? SURELY I GOT A GOLD STAR NEXT TO THE EVENT IN SOME SORT OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS REPORT, RIGHT?)

Things break. They fall apart, they wear down, they succumb to use, abuse and life. Things evolve WITH YOU, and during that time you learn THE THING, ITSELF, WHILE V. V. V. SPECIAL, IS STILL, REALLY, JUST A THING and one of the most important lessons you can learn - at least if you're a shallow, superficial materialistic person like me WHO REALLY, REALLY LOVES //STUFF// AND REALLY, REALLY LOVES //HER STUFF// - is that IT'S NOT ABOUT THE THING, IT'S WHAT THE THING //REPRESENTS// that counts. (GOLD STAR, PLZ!)

(SOMEONE ONCE ATTRIBUTED SUCCESS IN RITUAL TO THE ITEMS USED. (LOL, SERIOUSLY.) THAT THE INTENT, ITSELF, WASN'T AS IMPORTANT AS THE SPECIFIED PROPS. (LOL, SERIOUSLY TIMES TWO.) THAT SUCCESS IN RITUAL WAS 60% DEPENDENT ON HAVING THE //EXACT// ITEMS CALLED FOR. (LOL, SERIOUSLY FOR SERIOUS SERIOUSNESS!)

So I was COOL WITH IT. (OKAY, MAYBE NOT "COOL WITH IT" IN A NONCHALANT SORT'VE WAY, BUT I MOST DEFINITELY ROLLED WITH THAT PARTICULAR PUNCH, EVEN IF A FUSSY FACE OR TWO WAS MADE IN THE PROCESS.) 2008's Wedding Dress Massacre was the final HARVEST NAIL in the HARVEST COFFIN and thanks to the previous HARVEST NAILS (our first reaping (1 & 2), giving Italics HARVEST HOME as a gift, finding an antique sickle, celebrating the season with locally grown produce) the schizophrenic pattern I'm always looking for was, for once, more than totally obvious.

The perfume I had randomly chosen to test? Kincardine Maiden? It was-is-was based on the concept of Scottish corn dollies, an indigenous harvest idol and symbol. By October 28th we had already reaped, gifted, sickled and feasted on the fruits of the year so the Kincardine Maiden hole was just a representation of completion - three days before the Old Woman's reign began on Halloween (Samhain).

Five Easiest Words

Blinded by the depths of despair I threw myself at the feet of the Universe - a lost person, a confused animal, a star struggling to burn - and screamed into the empty vacuum of my soul, purging the darkness, the discontent, the feverish, hounding feelings of mislaid human being until they sank, buried in the quiet of the ground, anchoring me to the prevailing silence of a contemplating awareness.

"Be something worthy of worship," It - She, He, They, Us - whispered; a parent comforting a child, a hand across the aisle uncovering the answer to question number four. So amazingly perfect, so amazingly concise - so amazingly obvious and clear and apparent and visible to the naked eye.

(Why didn't I see before? Understand before? Come to the same conclusion myself, when it was there, staring at me, this entire time?)

I followed the ruminating mantra like the yellow brick road, leaving behind my frozen, lifeless shell kissing the ground. (Lips to dirt, mouth to soil, soul to earth.) Naive, complete, overflowing with enlightenment and possibilities; never thinking for a second that the yellow-gold would tarnish and age, never thinking for a second that the gleaming ribbon would discolor and disappear, reclaimed by old habits and forgetfulness.

Caught up in the moment of renewal I never thought that the sprawling compass I was given could disappear. It never occurred to me that the risen, self-made track cutting through those desolate hills could be so easily forgotten, could be so easily abandoned once celebration aged to apathy. But even in overgrown neglect the road still exists, waiting to be remembered, waiting to be exhumed, waiting to be rediscovered when - in my darkest, most lonely hour - my screams are deafened by the ground once again.

And then, like a pig, my open, screaming mouth will fill with grit as I desperately search, desperately look, desperately dig deep into the blackness of the earth to find the yellow brick road that I know exists beneath layers of obfuscating dirt, hiding the most (in)valuable archaeological truffle of them all:

BE SOMETHING WORTHY OF WORSHIP; the five easiest words to remember, the five easiest words to forget.

Oh, Letter "A"!

I haven't listened to or heard Atari Baby since that one (YES, THAT ONE) New Year's Eve. Going alphabetically through my 80s MP3s I faltered over A Victory of Love but somehow managed to stay resolute and push forward. (No going back once you've opened the Alphaville Pandora's box...)

Fuck, has it really been over two years since that night? (YES, THAT NIGHT.) Has it really been THAT long since I last blinded the world with screaming white light? (OH, LORD, //THAT// NIGHT.)

A second into the song I felt myself coming up and in an electro(heart)beat all the hairs on my body stood on end as everything went static electric when the surging tidal movement pushed the rising intensity from the pit of my stomach into my trembling diaphragm. (Fuck, it's really been that long.)

(LOLOLOLOL, APPARENTLY "ATMOSPHERE" FOLLOWS "ATARI BABY" ALPHABETICALLY IN MY 80S FOLDER.)(AND THEN "AXEL F" FOLLOWS "ATMOSPHERE".)(OH, LETTER "A"!)

This ain't a scene

So two days ago Italics tells me I'll never be able to leave Livejournal because I'm from Chicago and was born in the 80s and I just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and became really fucking nostalgic for Shed's mausoleum in Rosehill, that one Thai place on the corner of Clark and Belmont (YOU GOT TO SIT ON PILLOWS ON THE FLOOR, OKAY?), and the free admission day of the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue.

JESUS, I AM EMO'S BITCHY (AND WAY, WAY COOLER) OLDER SISTER.

(CHRIST.)

Kybele: Anatolion Collection

I've been on a Cybele kick recently (see WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND), mostly because I found (and eventually won!) this beauty on Ebay (£2.99, approximately $5.44!):

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From the seller:
"THIS IS BRAND NEW STILL IN IT ORIGINAL BOX FROM THE "VITRA ANATOLIAN COLLECTION" RANGE THIS IS A LIMITED ADDITION NUMBER 612 of 1000 A REPLICA OF A CARVING OF KYBELE, WITH IT COMES A SMALL BOOK TELLING YOU A LITTLE OF THE CARVING ALSO A STAND TO DISPLAY IT."

I have absolutely no fucking clue where She'll go (other than somewhere). I came across this when looking up information on the Vitra Anatolian Collection:

Prudentius: The Taurobolion of Magna Mater
The high priestess who is to be consecrated is brought down under ground in a pit dug deep, marvellously adorned with a fillet, binding her festive temples with chaplets, her hair combed back under a golden crown, and wearing a silken toga caught up with Gabine girding. Over this they make a wooden floor with wide spaces, woven of planks with an open mesh; they then divide or bore the area and repeatedly pierce the wood with a pointed tool that it may appear full of small holes. Here a huge bull, fierce and shaggy in appearance, is led, bound with flowery garlands about its flanks, and with its horns sheathed---its forehead sparkles with gold, and the flash of metal plates colors its hair. Here, as is ordained, they pierce its breast with a sacred spear; the gaping wound emits a wave of hot blood, and the smoking river flows into the woven structure beneath it and surges wide. Then by the many paths of the thousand openings in the lattice the falling shower rains down a foul dew, which the priestess buried within catches, putting her head under all the drops. She throws back her face, she puts her cheeks in the way of the blood, she puts under it her ears and lips, she interposes her nostrils, she washes her very eyes with the fluid, nor does she even spare her throat but moistens her tongue, until she actually drinks the dark gore. Afterwards, the corpse, stiffening now that the blood has gone forth, is hauled off the lattice, and the priestess, horrible in appearance, comes forth, and shows her wet head, her hair heavy with blood, and her garments sodden with it. This woman, all hail and worship at a distance, because the ox's blood has washed her, and she is born again for eternity.

That? That's my sort of magic, 100%.

(SO THERE WAS THIS ONE TIME THAT ITALICS CAUGHT ME LAUGHING WHEN WE WERE REALLY, REALLY HIGH AND HE ASKED WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT AND I WAS ALL "STUFF. OTHER PEOPLE. THE WAY I AM." BECAUSE I WAS THINKING ABOUT MAGIC AND MY ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT AND OTHER PEOPLE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT AND IT REMINDED ME HOW THE LAST REAL MEMORY I HAVE OF MY OLDEST FRIEND'S HOME (WE MET IN THE 3RD GRADE AND WERE PRACTICALLY INSEPARABLE FOR MOST OF OUR GRADE SCHOOL LIFE, EVEN THOUGH A STATE BORDER RAN BETWEEN OUR HOMES WHICH MEANT WE WENT TO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS DESPITE LIVING ONLY 10-15 MINUTES AWAY FROM ONE ANOTHER) WAS THE AFTERNOON WE SPENT ON THE FARM PLAYING IN MUD (LOL, AS NAKED TEENAGERS, LOL!).)

(INSTEAD OF SWIMMING IN THE HOMEMADE WATERING HOLE WE PASSED TIME WALLOWING NAKED IN A MUD PIT TOGETHER, SLAPPING EACH OTHER WITH BALLS OF OOZING DIRT, AND LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY AS WE BECAME PLASTERED WITH LAYERS OF CLAY AND MUD. THAT MEMORY - THAT SORT'VE GOLDEN MOMENT OF (ALMOST) ADULT LIFE GONE ALL DEVOLUTION - MADE ME LAUGH AND APPRECIATE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE WHO PRACTICE MAGIC.)

((IN THE END, REALLY, I'M THE ONE PLAYING IN THE MUD.))

Wing and a Prayer

Thinking back, now, it seemed so obvious, it seemed so perfect – being instructed to bury an egg beneath the window on nothing more than a wing and a prayer (oh, that time was tragic and epic and the whole “wing and a prayer” sentiment played beautifully in that near final act and is no part, in anyway, an artistic exaggeration or embellishment for my previous bohemian sadness), hoping that, one day, it’d all make sense. Back then, though, the egg sat (Christ, did that fucking egg sit!).

That hard boiled egg sat, nestled in a purple shot glass, from near Fet Ghede (2006) until Ostara (2007) with only a trio of succulents and a handful of Ukrainian newspapers to keep it company. Every fucking day I’d see the damn thing staring blankly at me, making me frustrated that I hadn’t found the fucking time to bury one single goddamn egg like Papa told me to all those weeks and months and days before.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN EASY FUCKING JOB, YOU KNOW? ALL I HAD TO DO WAS BURY ONE GODDAMN HARD BOILED EGG IN SOME DIRT JUST BELOW MY COMPUTER ROOM WINDOW. It was never the right time, or conditions, or I was too busy, or I’d forget, or I just couldn’t be bothered (which, really, is just an accumulation of everything previously listed) and before I knew it March had come on and the egg Papa traded for back in November had become a permanent resident on my intricately carved, yet almost unusable £5.00 middle eastern wooden table.

(“ONLY A FIVER? FOR SERIOUS? ONLY BECAUSE THE TABLE TOP IS COMPLETELY WARPED AND STARTING TO SLIGHTLY ROLL INTO ITSELF? AND BECAUSE THE LEGS ARE UNSTABLE AND SLIGHTLY MISSHAPEN DUE TO “ONE OF A KIND ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP”? OH, AND BECAUSE THE LEGS THAT ARE UNSTABLE AND SLIGHTLY MISSHAPEN DUE TO “ONE OF A KIND ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP” DON’T ACTUALLY FIT INTO THE TABLE TOP THAT IS COMPLETELY WARPED AND STARTING TO SLIGHTLY ROLL INTO ITSELF MAKING EVERYTHING UNBALANCED AND LACKING IN ANY STRUCTURAL CAPABILITY? HELL, WE’RE TAKING THAT FUCKER HOME!”)

After four months it started to smell. Not, like, full on, or very in-your-face noticeable, but something was slightly off. By the time I realized where the very organic scent was coming from a small puddle of liquid had appeared at the very bottom of the shot glass. (I don’t know, I didn’t want to know, I didn’t even bother to look.) I was disgusted, but that statement, surely, could not be fully appreciated unless you knew me completely.

(Long short – way before all of this CSI business became popular I had entered pre-med with the intention of becoming a forensic pathologist; anatomy, dissection, microbiology – loved it, loved it, loved it and excelled in it all savant-style. I’ve butchered animals, fed pets menstrual blood clots, picked apart putrefying road kill, scrubbed the remnants of a friend’s father off a wall, and regularly clean the house toilet without so much as a complaint. I DO GROSS AND SICK, AND I DO IT GOOD BECAUSE, MOSTLY FOR THE MOST PART, IT’S FASCINATING AND WONDERFUL AND TERRIFIC AND MAKES ME FEEL ALIVE AND TALENTED...EXCEPT FOR THE TOILET. I FEEL THAT I COULD REMAIN LIVING AT THIS LEVEL OF ALIVE AND TALENTED WITHOUT HAVING TO CLEAN THE TOILET. (I have surgery hands whose goodness is now only known to liquid eyeliners. LOLOLOLOL, MAYBE SHE’S BORN WITH IT?) With that sort’ve in mind – imagine what would really disgust me. In fact, I don’t even want to think about it...ew.)

But that was when I was depressed. I was Underground, waiting in hopeless limbo for a resurrection that was only supposed to take a few days but took a few months. (It’s easy to get lost down there, and even easier to not find your way back. I GUESS THAT’S WHERE THE BALL OF STRING COMES IN HANDY.) By spring of 2007 I was tired of the whirlpool (which made it even worse since I was the one who originally decided to jump into it, thinking I was one billion percent ready of the consequences because, GEE, I HAD COME ALONG WAY, YOU KNOW? HOW HARD CAN THE ROAD TO A BETTER, MORE COMPLETE PERSON BE?), and in that fed up restlessness I finally did something and broke out of that hollow mould I had been living in – I buried the petrified egg.

“Cailleach Beara, goddess of the changing seasons, renewed her own youth whenever she was tired of being a hunchbacked old woman.” – Goddesses, A World of Myth and Magic

64 Degrees and Cloudy

My grandfather said I was a healer because I kept dried plants in jars in my bedroom. I’d run naked in the woods and wade through Midwestern swamps wrapped in transparent curtains I found in a box in the basement. When I came home I smelled like Horsemint and mud, and my mother swore one day I’d be raped and I wouldn’t have anyone to blame other than myself. It never sank in. I eventually retired the curtains and purged my bedroom closet; years worth of collecting and drying gone in an instant of puberty. It wasn’t my thing, I resigned, it was my mother’s thing.

I saw my grandfather again at my mother’s funeral. I brought him coffee and listened to him reminisce, in that slightly senile veteran sort’ve way. He always had the same three or four stories he’d tell continuously though the day. Every day the stories would change, but he’d relive them the same way, so there was a familiarity to all of his stories, even the ones not yet told.

Sometimes a concept would stick out and he’d repeat the same idea, worded slightly differently every time, like he was working something out with each new variation. Like he was clicking the Rubik’s Cube up one to see if it got him any closer to the overall picture he was seeing in his mind. It’s a haunting, exciting thing to be in the presence of someone who has something, and despite the age, despite the milky cataracts, despite the touch of dementia it’s still there, bright as ever, attracting people like moths to light.

He looked at me and said that I knew. One word was worth a million. You look outward for validation or confirmation, but it was never there for me. It was never me; it was always someone else. (It’s funny, now, looking back, to see how BIG this thing is-was-is, and how it was so influential that it crept into other people’s lives, and shone through them while I stood on the outskirts, just at the edge of their “illumination”.)

Strength can be so fragile when it’s sitting on a cusp of doubt. He looked at me and said that I knew, and I nodded, and my entire life changed. It’s funny how even in silence you can hear the transformation of a curse turn into a blessing, and despite how catastrophic the fall is (how the dust rises from the remnants of the Tower, how you breathe it all in and experience the almost biblical moment in a burst of agonizing emotion (i.e., realization, grief, despair, gratitude, humility, exhalation)) it leaves a promising foundation for the future.

I finally felt set apart for not being obvious. And, three years later, the jars are back, filled with ash, bones and graveyard dirt. It’s funny how these things come full circle, leaving just enough for you to rebuild on.