Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Bethlehem Gives Tidings

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"V vyfleyemi novya, (Bethlehem gives tidings,)
Diva Syna porody la (A Son is born to a maiden)
Porodyla v blahodati, (Overshadowed with God's graces,)
Neporochna, Diva Maty, (The pure Virgin, Mother of God,)
Mariya. (Mary.)"

Sviata Vechera Headquarters

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To-effin'-do list(s)? Check. Ukrainian cookery books? Check. One mug of calming tea? Check. Ukrainian music fusing the modern and traditional? Check. First of the best table linens set for Sviata Vechera? Check. 2011's rising Kolach beneath a secondhand Rushnychok? Check.

Longest Night

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"Na rukakh trymaye (In her arms, she holds Him)
I Yemu spivaye (And she sings to Him)
Vsemohuchym Stvorytelem (The Supreme Creation)
Yoho nazyvaye. (She names Him.)" - Dyvnaya Novyna

Regardless of the light that illuminates your path, may you find peace, happiness and understanding at the end of your longest night.

Pictured above: The kolach is lit for Sviata Vechera ("Holy Supper") acting like an invitational beacon for our ancestors, relatives and deceased friends to join us in holiday festivities. See also 2008 Kolach.

Holiday-Fucked

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When your ass is clearing out Halloween pumpkins to get ready for Midwinter's Sviata Vechera? You are so totally holiday-fucked.

The Fuck(ed) Shop

It's true; I've been fucked at the fuck shop. I'm so fucking talented at being fucked that I've been granted two extra fucks this holiday season: body-fucked and Christmas-fucked. (<- I can only assume that the Universe thought my personal rendition of being time-fucked was so spectacularly good it demanded multiple encores.) So, if your ass has been wondering where my ass has been; it's been getting fucked...repeatedly.

And as much as I'd love to share the sordid tales of metaphorical fuckery, I'm still currently involved in an extended time-fucking session. What I can share, though, is a gem of an ancient Greek Fuck Shop saga: my time-fucked, body-fucked and Christmas-fucked self is returning to the exact point-of-motherfucking-origin of my first fucked-fucking tomorrow: Edinburgh. (<- Good one, Universe. I so did not see that shit coming at-fucking-all.)

Mushroom giveaway? Still the fuck on. Holy Supper challenge (and giveaway)? Still the fuck on. Right now I need to chase up some museum tickets, pack for our one night getaway, bake a mucho belated Christmas cake, prepare gluten-free food to travel with and sort Peck-Man out for the next 48 hours. When we return from the "Athens of the North" I'll be sure to explain how I went from cervix-banging hotel sex to nearly getting my ass hospitalized in just a few Fuck(ed) Shop weeks.

By Spit, Blood and Smoke

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Consecration; two parts Old Testament, one part Ms. Dirty.

Salve Regina (Hail Queen)

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"All hail, O holy Queen, Mother exceeding merciful;
Life's spring, sweet comfort, our Hope-bearer, all hail."

Hexenhaus

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Magna Mater

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Ms. Graveyard Dirt: one lion away from a motherfucking throne.

Pampered Psychopomp

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An already pampered psychopomp being deviously plied with offerings of homemade pecan pie, pot-infused rum cocktails, homegrown chilli peppers, miniature bottles of hot sauce (both Italics and Papa thank you, Cosy!) and two carefully selected Ms. Dirty pubes for a very personal - very pussycraft - touch.

Winter

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With one mighty blow of Her world-shaping hammer the Old Woman strikes my chains of servitude*, freeing me from the demanding bonds of Harvest at the cost of my once green and fertile kingdom.

* Sovereignty, unsurprisingly, comes at a price: to be ruled by what you rule, and to serve those that sustain you.

Amen

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Pray for us, O Holy and Blessed Lady of Halloween Consumerism, that we may be made worthy of the promises of cheap Halloween decorations made in China.

All Souls' Day

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Fet Ghede

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Happy Halloween

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Here's to all you hellbound souls rocking that thin motherfucking veil tonight! May your mischievous merrymaking light the path for your beloved dead (and leave an easily spied trail back to your waiting bed).

Jack-o'-Lanterns To Be

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He says he's really looking forward to carving pumpkins this year.

Snakes and Ladders

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Kirsten B. (unknownbinaries)

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Kirsten B. (unknownbinaries): artist, creator, writer and friend. Her portfolio is a treasure trove of esoteric nightmares and wet dreams for the abyssbound soul.

PS: Very affordable prints of Kirsten's work can be found here; be sure to check out Carrion Love if you have soft spot for corvids.

Evisceration (Revisited)

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The dehydrated remains of TTC (aka Tourist Trap Crow), and the eyes'n'ears from Love and Sorrow's mature rabbit. All of the ritually eviscerated organs* were naturally sun-dried, and what I wasn't able to use of the rescued wildlife was immediately returned to the earth.

* How the fuck have I managed to ritualize the process of roadkill reduction, rot and resurrection? Start with the journal entry Tourist Trap Crow, and then sink your teeth into the Asphalt & Entrails archive.

Necro-Gooseberry Ratafia

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August's gooseberry ratafia - made from seven motherfucking pounds of hand-fucking-squeezed necro-gooseberry juice - waiting to be siphoned, sweetened and aged.

One Down

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One down, twenty more fuckers to go. (<- Doesn't include Halloween, Fet Ghede or post-Harvest menus and duties.)

Harvest Home Hoochery

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How I spent my autumnal equinox: knee-fucking-deep in rum, brandy, gin and vodka-preserved sweetheart cherries (aka hoocher's delight). What I don't remember, though, is how the evening ended; that, my Darlings, remains a hazy, fruit-flavored mystery.

Mother

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The Blessed Mother hears the prayers of anyone who calls Her divine name.

Chilli Chocolate Espresso Cake (Gluten-Free)

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A devil of a cake for an angel of a friend.

PS: Thanks for traveling 6+ hours today just to see my sorry ass, Purple Wife. I hope Allah approved of my cleaning job; please tell Him that I tried really fucking hard to find all of the stray pubes on the bathroom floor.

PPS: I totally promise to get the you-know-what so I can legally you-know-what whenever you come up for a little you-know-what. XO.

Blood Moon Rising

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October's full moon rising over an ancient Scottish cairn (burial mounds where cremated human remains were once interred), a threadbare rowan tree and a single toadstool (Amanita muscaria).

Another Effin' Toadstool

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Trade-Off

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This year my Lammas fox didn't arrive until Harvest Home. The trade-off? An unshattered skull instead of a shattered body.

A Mid-Harvest Offering

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I'm currently piecing together a mother of an effin' entry explaining where my feral ass has been, but until that shit gets posted I'll leave you with a not-so-tiny pre-history taster: a mid-Harvest offering of welfare-assured guineafowl, fresh cherries and homemade Kentucky Butter Cake to a "lost" standing stone.

Bluebell Funeral for a Blackbird

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All Effin' Fronts

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The angelic hosts would weep in divine despair if they had an inkling of how motherfucking behind my earthly ass is right now. We're talking on all effin' fronts: journal writing, photo editing, replying to emails, responding to comments, answering direct messages, sending snail mail, fulfilling promises, working on trades, finishing projects, decorating gifts, bone working, gardening, performing funerary rites, baking homemade offerings and observing my personal Harvest festivities'n'rites.

Fuck, I'm even behind on foraging despite putting in full-time hours every effin' day of every effin' week since mid-July. It's not that shit isn't getting done, because I've never been so goddamn productive in all my motherlovin' life. It's that I'm attempting to give a billion things my undivided attention, and anyone with a rudimentary understanding of mathematics will see that my attempts to force division and fractions to ignore basic Universal rules just isn't working. (Ah, well, back to my areas of expertise: sex, death and perfectly boiled rice.)

Usually when one aspect of work slips I throw more fuel on the fire to help raise an extra dose of energy. It's a panic move, but it shocks my ass to the next level and I find I can close the distance between myself and the belated deadlines that are tormenting me. There's a cost for that expedition, though. Dipping into emergency reserves usually means I experience a burnout period that lasts anywhere from two or three days to two or three weeks. It's a tradeoff I'm more than willing to make (and often do), but one I can't afford to exercise during Harvest since my priorities are solely focused on my sovereign duties.

Normally I don't labor this shit, but recently quite a few folks have dropped my ass a friendly email and most haven't gotten a reply (yet). And because I'm of the pessimistic persuasion I've convinced myself that every-effin'-one of them has come to the very wrong conclusion that I'm deliberately ignoring them. (I'm not. Honest to all that is motherfucking holy, I'm not.) So I'm taking a quick second - er, eight paragraphs - to assure anyone who's still waiting for a reply that 1.) I'm totally not avoiding you, 2.) I'm really sorry I haven't been able to find time to respond to your email and 3.) I really fucking appreciate that you took the time to contact me because receiving a friendly email is like getting a giant fucking internet hug whenever I feel down and unmotivated.

I knew that 2011 was going to be a challenging year because it was the year that we decided to finally go pro. ("We" because I couldn't do this shit entirely by myself. Italics has funded all of my projects, kept me company during foraging sessions/roadkill sweeps, helped pick, process and prepare the majority of the non-gross shit I do, acted like a 24/7 springboard for all of my half-baked ideas and, most importantly, kept me going with regular offerings of support, serenity-inducing shots of sativa and cup after motherfucking cup of freshly prepared calming tea.) What I didn't know, though, was how those challenges would manifest because neither of us have any experience with opening a business.

We're aiming for our first post-Harvest/pre-Midwinter sale in November (save those pennies, guys, and be sure to join the announcement-only mailing list so you don't miss the event!), and I'm on the verge of being able to provide private roadkill services for people interested in adopting one of my resurrected animals. I try to promptly answer any questions regarding my work (i.e., rescued roadkill, Hedgerow Hooch, wild Scottish mushrooms and/or any items featured in Second Hand Sundays), but, right now, I can't afford investing time into journal entry-sized responses, so don't take it personally if my reply lacks its usual epicness.

So, in conclusion: it's totally cool to email my ass and say hi, I absolutely love getting email and I'm sincerely fucking sorry I'm so work-focused right now that I can't find the time to reply to personal correspondence (I'm working on that, though).

Pictured above: fresh toadstools (Amanita muscaria), a partially eaten pomegranate surrounded by more fresh toadstools, dried toadstools just out of the dehydrator, a homemade oil made from edible plants (chives and a single dandelion) growing out of #01's buried remains, two bottles containing the recently strained Simple Strawberry Wine and, lurking to the very right of the picture, the dehydrator that's dried more than 100 toadstools just this year alone (and that's only the agarics; I'm still weighing all of our dried boletes and chanterelles to get an idea of how much we've managed to find and preserve.)

A Blessing? A Curse?

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A sudden shock of early morning light blasted through tumultuous clouds and briefly illuminated the dubious contents of my magic wooden basket when I presented my homemade toadstool oil to the local stone-circled bronze age cairn this morning. (<- A blessing? A curse? Fuck if I know, but at least my ass got noticed.)

A Life Once Lived

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Calcified relics of a life once lived.

Patiently Waiting

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A critter-nibbled birch bolete (Leccinum scabrum) patiently waiting for one of my magic wooden baskets.

Waiting to Be Cleaned

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Naturally shed corvid feathers waiting to be cleaned.

Toadstool Woods

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Hunting in the Scottish gloam for scarlet-capped fairy tale mushrooms.

Crowhawk

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Crowhawk; it's what all the stylish carrion crows are wearing this season while decomposing at triple cemetery crossroads.

From Dawn Till Dusk

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#11

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Today my toadstool hot spot revealed one of its partially buried secrets: #11, a juvenile roe deer. (How my ass managed to miss a skeleton worth of bones beneath the long line of firs I've been foraging at for two fucking years is beyond me.)

A Growing Collection

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2011's collection of Hedgerow Hooch continues growing as new fruits come into season.

Starting with the largest Kilner jar while moving counterclockwise: strawberry & geranium vodka, wild necro-raspberry gin, a different batch of wild necro-raspberry gin, wild necro-raspberry vodka, cherry vodka, wild necro-raspberry liqueur (vodka-based with vanilla bean and spices), two jars of Simple Strawberry Wine and a wild necro-raspberry ratafia (brandy-based with vanilla bean and spices).

Cracklin' Rosie

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Nothing but me, 4 ½ lbs of necromantic wild raspberries*, a bottle of brandy, a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, the blessings of Papa's hard fucking cock and Neil Diamond's greatest motherfucking hits. (Oh, we gonna ride till there ain't no more to go...)

* These fuckers? Were picked at an old Scottish graveyard situated near a pair of effin' cairns. Necrotastic, or what?

Same Old Magic

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New (used) wooden basket; same old magic.

Pictured above: chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius), fly agarics (Amanita muscaria), birch boletes (Leccinum scabrum), penny buns (Boletus edulis), miscellaneous bones found in my toadstool hot spot and two halves of discarded wild bird eggs (wood pigeon, I think).

The Grind

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Yesterday's office cubicle.

The Devil's Hat

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Monday's Nightmare

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Say hello to the motherfucking nightmare my fucking ass has to tackle early tomorrow morning. (My first outdoor day off in weeks? Is going to be spent cleaning in-fucking-doors. <- Who wants to wear the Ms. Dirty dress now?)

The Ring

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Before you die, you see…the ring.

One Last Treat

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On the menu today: cream of cep soup made from recently picked wild mushrooms, homegrown garlic and local produce. Normally I dry every goddamn penny bun that comes into the house, but I figured one last treat was in order since the in-laws return home tomorrow afternoon. (<- Summer vacation? Officially over. Not that we had much of a vacation...)

Cold Winter Nights

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Homemade strawberry & geranium vodka, cherry vodka, simple strawberry wine and, seductively stretched out before the lot, a bottle of recently strained pineapple vodka to help warm the body'n'soul on those cold winter nights.

Late Night Hooching

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Preserving the heart of summer for the heart of winter.

Personal Experience

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"Wisdom becomes knowledge when it becomes your personal experience."

Blessed By the Dead

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Shed by the living, blessed by the dead.

Almost There

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Tourist Trap Crow's almost there.

The Forest Provides

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Touché, Universe

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On July 14th this fridge drawer was finally emptied of grossly belated Hieros Gamos offerings (beer, phallic resurrection bread, homemade Peking duck, organic beef mince and Peeps), overly ripe roadkill birds (one carrion crow, one European blackbird) and - PSA: y'all with junk might want to grab your vomit bag right about now; ready? - a bottle of duct-taped* menstrual blood-infused water that's been rolling around since June 7th (I'll explain later).

For the first time since motherfucking Easter this space was vacant, clean and totally sanitized, and it managed to remain in that pristine fucking state for two goddamn hours before it was unexpectedly filled with brand fucking new roadkill (a pheasant hen).

* I didn't want anyone mistaking it for iced tea, although it would've made one holy fucking hell of a story.

When Inclined

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It seems that our friend Tourist Trap Crow is more than capable of feeding itself.

Another Morning After

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Honik Lekach

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Today's One A Day? A cherry-topped teaser.

Hail Mary

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Pussycraft

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Motherfucker's getting a very personal - very homemade - dose of hot'n'heavy pussycraft* tonight. (My Ukrainian ancestors? Rolling in their motherfucking graves. But, like, proudly.)

* Pussycraft; the Ghede's favorite sort of witchcraft.

Medusa

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A Year Since

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Has it really almost been a year? A year since I last wove a trail through the long grasses that grow between the mottled birches and brittle shrubs with my magic wooden baskets in hand? A year since I last crawled on my belly beneath majestic boughs of larch and fir in the search for gold (fungi gold), a year since a multitude of tequila sunrises were seen blazing Tropicana orange-yellow against Scotland's purple-tinged heather, a year since we rolled over musty leaves, arched against crumbling bark and lost ourselves in that seemingly eternal September?

Here's to replacing really fucking good memories with even greater ones, two-party entheogen-blessed mushroom hunting expeditions and the endless bitching that inevitably comes with pulling ticks out of my motherfucking ass after woodland fucking.

Moulting

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Taste of Summer

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Remember the locally grown strawberries bought on our June 4th excursion? Those insanely sweet motherfuckers were ritually offered to Chippy on his birthday (strawberries are one of his favorite foods), and then they were washed, quartered and thrown into a giant Kilner jar with a fistful of scented geranium leaves, a mound of granulated sugar and two bottles of gluten-free vodka*. This strawberry liqueur - the first homemade hooch we've made this year! - should be ready by Midwinter, which means by Christmas we'll be able to drive away the bitter cold with an intoxicating taste of summer.

* Most vodkas use grains in the fermentation process, but Smirnoff uses maize (corn) making it safe for people who need to exclude wheat from their diet.

Easter Ancestor Altar

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Gone to Flowers

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Where have all the graveyards gone? Gone to flowers, everyone.

By Ribbon and Thread

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Learn more about TTC (Tourist Trap Crow) here.

The Black Arts

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Taste of Grampian

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Once a year in early June a one-day food and drink festival is held close to home that showcases the natural talents and products of regional farmers, craftsmen, bakers, butchers, fishmongers, distilleries and other culinary-themed businesses. Despite our restrictive diets (we need to eat gluten/wheat-free, and - if not reduced-to-clear - our meat has to be locally sourced with absolute satisfaction of the animal's welfare) we still came home with a ridiculous amount of locally produced food made by folks with a sincere interest in working harmoniously with nature, life and the environment.

Pictured: a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling elderberry drink, a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling elderflower drink, a balsamic, honey and rapeseed oil-based salad dressing, a bar of homemade lemongrass and rapeseed oil soap, two punnets of fresh strawberries, two containers of organic crowdie (it makes a terrific European cheesecake), one organic clava round, a tiny, snack-sized venison pie (stashed in the back of the freezer for when the Old Woman visits later this year), a traditionally dry-cured ham shank, two packs of half-price rose veal mince, a huge ass beef and lamb boerewors, one beautifully colored venison tenderloin, a half-price pack of rose veal cutlets, a pack of dry-cured streaky bacon and a pair of half-price rose veal rib-eyes.

5:30 AM

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At 5:30 in the morning there was only me, the dead and the early summer sun.

Garden Funeral

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Panikhida

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One of May 31st's carrion crows (the more mature one that was hit by a car): Tourist Trap Crow. Over the next few weeks I'll be updating Graveyard Dirt with pictures of TTC's progression from cold, wet roadkill to naturally cleaned, project-ready parts (bones, feet, blood, organs, skin and feathers). Once I perform the last and final panikhida all of this white-bearded carrion crow will be offered for sale.

Scarecrow

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At first I thought NO FUCKING WAY, IT COULDN'T BE, but by the third body it was undeniable - some barbaric cunt actually made real life scarecrows out of dead fucking birds. And the worst fucking part? IT WASN'T EVEN EFFECTIVE.

The one goddamn thing it succeeded in doing? Bringing down a hardcore case of agricultural blight straight out've the 16th fucking century. In fact, I'm ready to Janet Horne this motherfucker and ride his bridled ass across country until nothing's left except ashes like I'm some mothereffing Wendigo.

Just Go Along with It

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Fresh leaves from my scented geranium houseplant, organic rhubarb from the grocery store (no car means no access to the rhubarb growing near the local stone circle) and one enamel coated casserole pot blessed by a celebrity chef rat with a comically debilitating anxiety disorder. (<- If I were you, I'd just go along with it.)

Birthday Cake-To-Be

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A birthday cake-to-be for the birthday girl-to-be. (<- I get to eat homemade German chocolate cake as he eats my ass; how the fuck could my birthday not be happy?)

Rosemary's Bedroom

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Spoiled Psychopomp

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Offerings of homegrown tobacco, lemongrass beer and ostentatious bling for one spoiled ass psychopomp. (<- Motherfucker transcends "spoiled" in this house.)

Maybe Tomorrow

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Mardi Gras Debauchery

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An empty bottle of beer, and one of my lapis belts hastily cast aside during Mardi Gras debauchery.

Forgotten Altar

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Resale Shopping

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We love resale shopping, but due to our crazy fucking schedules we can't often indulge the shared interest. While running errands in town last Friday we had just enough time to quickly stop in our favorite haunt for previously owned goods and came out with an armful of new - but used - treasure.

Spring Cleaning

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10 fucking hours of spring fucking cleaning and only half of our goddamn office is organized. (<- Spring equinox 2011: more dusty than sexy.)

Supermoon Eve

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An almost-but-not-quite-yet full supermoon peers through juniper branches as it rises over the pyramid-shaped roof of Murder House.

Witchcraft

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What's Ms. Graveyard Dirt's witchcraft made of? The lost, the found, the harvested and foraged. The chipped, the dusty, the once buried and rusty. The splintered, the broken, the discarded and forgotten. That's what Ms. Graveyard Dirt's witchcraft is made of.

Superbowl Sunday

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When the Superbowl, gambling and voodoo-flavored witchcraft collide.

Pot Belly Love

...fuck I love my little pot-bellied chimenea. God bless its miniature cast iron existence.

The Witch is Working

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Silver'n'lapis bull on my finger, Scottish wheat seeds scattered across the floor, red thread dangling from my lips; the witch is working.

Winter Drive

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"Longer still, and longer yet," I thought as I crossed my sleeping kingdom for the first time since late October. And in its winter deep dream my land exhaled, shrouding us in a translucent, steaming haze as we crossed forest to field, field to hedge and hedge to hill on a late January morning.

Stigmata

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"From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." ~ Galatians 6:17

Farewell Sendoff

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A monu-fucking-mental year deserves a farewell sendoff in style: homemade vodka* created earlier this year with locally foraged wild berries and backyard-grown fruits, a dab (or two) of my fly agaric oil that's been infusing since Halloween, a bag of imported pot with a hallucinatory slant and sweaty, friction burn sex on a sheepskin rug that Italics once lay on as a baby.

Pictured Above: plum liqueur, wild blackberry brandy, wild blackberry vodka, gooseberry & cinnamon vodka, wild raspberry vodka and strawberry & geranium vodka.

Christmas Centerpiece

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Last year we tried to repeat 2008's Midwinter magic by celebrating the Winter Solstice in the city. The overnight excursion cost us the entire fucking Yuletide season: Sviata Vechera, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We both picked up colds while in town, which came crashing down on us as we were shopping for food on the 23rd.

(Words can't even describe the soul-crushing despair I felt when I realized that I - the supreme holidaymaker of this household - was getting sick 48 hours before Christmas in the middle of a motherfucking grocery store as rabid, middle-aged women repeatedly rammed my ass with their fucking trolleys while fighting over the last of the fucking double cream.)

Too sick to bake our annual kolach, I built an edible tower of fruits (tangerines, apples, pears and lemons), nuts (brazil nuts, pecans, hazelnuts and walnuts), herbs (fresh bay leaves) and baked goods to fill the empty space. I later cooked with the leaves, but everything else - the fruits, nuts and baked goods - was eventually moved outside as a food offering for local wildlife. (<- What I normally do with our kolach.)

#27

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From December's Golden Ticket:

In this house, Christmas Eve is the new Palm Sunday. (The only fucking thing in the world whose imminent arrival was more heralded and rejoiced? Jesus, sashaying into Jerusalem on an ass.) I wait with frankincense and expletive-tinged hosannas at home as Italics lumbers back from the butcher's, on foot, carrying our Yuletide dinner like a personified deity.

Italics said he could smell the burning frankincense all the way down the street. (Which is nice of him to say, since I deliberately opened the window to help draw out the scent to "welcome" him home.)

#10

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Ms. Graveyard Dirt; the Santa's reindeer you never hear about.

Between Morning and Night

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I never felt more privileged than standing in the snow in Italics' flip-flops and my reversible Chinese robe at 6:30 in the morning watching an awe-inspiring astronomical event that hasn't transpired in over four hundred motherfucking years. (<- "30" has been such an amazing goddamn year that I'll shed a tear when April and "31" rolls around.)

Midwinter Deer Priestess

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Midwinter; when even does are stags.

Reason for the Season

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...the reason for the season?

Warmer Days, Redder Hair

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When the days were warmer, and the hair redder...

Winter Window Bird

It's been snowing for a fucking week (and when I mean "it's been snowing for a fucking week" I mean "it's been motherfucking snowing non-fucking-stop for a goddamn week, and there are fucking cars abandoned along the sides of non-existent roads and motorways - including my in-laws' - and it isn't even fucking December yet"), and there's no fucking indication that it's going to cease anytime soon.

This is our first serious freeze of the year, and there's no doubt about it: winter's come hella, hella early. To help give visiting wildlife a boost we've been scattering handfuls of food where birds normally expect it (the patio's offering pillar, underneath the sycamore tree, at the roadkill altar and across the snow-blanketed dirt yard), but late this afternoon we broke from standard routine and added a new location to our feeding repertoire - the office's windowsill.

(Well, semi-new. I started leaving dry cat food on our bedroom windowsill for the magpies, and those smart ass, motherfucking birds learned that if they banged on the fucking window with their beaks after eating it all one of us would eventually stumble out of bed, half-asleep, to throw more food outside to shut them the fuck up. As you'd expect, that particular routine didn't last long. Especially once the magpies discovered my tiny inflatable wading pool...)

The European robins, sparrows and finches are daring little cheaps, but it's the female blackbirds that have the biggest fucking balls of the bird kingdom. Fearless, predatory and astute, they live on the fringes of your movements, reacting to your actions, but never running away. Once the smaller songbirds catch wind of you - your voice, your movement, your presence - they're gone in a flash, but the lady blackbirds just cock their heads, study you with their reflective, black eyes and double check that it's cool for them to eat your shit.

A Slight Case of Saltbombing

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Up until this cleaning my shock'n'awe campaign of seriously purging and blocking off a room utilized a complicated formula wholly comprised of...salt. (Well, sea salt flakes, if you want to be anal.) When I salt bombed our bedroom a few days ago I added ingredients that would absorb, expel, protect and mark our territory: salt (table, sea salt and sea salt blessed by a priest on Holy Saturday), fine cornmeal, garlic powder, hair clippings and eggshells filled with dried remnants of combined sexual fluids.

After blessing the blend over incense smoke and petitioning Papa and Chippy for help I sealed the bedroom by outlining the perimeter with the mixture in a clean, unbroken line. (Special attention was paid to the thresholds of the room - the door and window - to ensure a tight motherfucking lock.) Once I washed and cleaned everything within the room (walls, ceilings, window, door - it's all explained in Building a Fortress) Italics came and personally vacuumed up the mess (it's a "king of the castle" thing), and immediately disposed the collected debris (because you seriously don't want that sort've shit lingering in your fucking house).

Reliving Youth

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November 15th, 2010: the day the first goth CD I've bought in nearly 12 fucking years arrives courtesy of Amazon.

At age 30, this doesn't qualify as "attempting to relive my fucking youth", does it? If it does, rusty motherfucking nails dipped in entrails will be jammed into Jason's poppet for prematurely aging me through his musical podcast, A Darker Shade of Pagan. (<- Last Midwinter I found my first grey hairs; don't think I won't act drastically.)

Fairy Tale Friends

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I already miss my fairy tale friends.

Sharpie Voodoo

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Drawing Papa's veve on glass vodka bottles with a Sharpie marker? Much harder than you'd think. (But not as hard as Americanizing a British Christmas tree. <- The UK doesn't have affordable strands of lights that plug into one another, so our 6 fucking foot tree has something like 8-12 separate plugs hanging off of it every fucking year.)

Each cap sports some sort've doodled skull, and the bottle on the left has its coffin drawn onto the base. Later tonight I'll be funneling the vanilla bean-flavored coffee liqueur (I used rum instead of vodka) I made on Fet Ghede to age in these consecrated vessels. Once they've matured I'll bury them at Papa's grave, exhume them and decant the homemade Ghede hooch into smaller decorated bottles.

Pheasant Season

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Spilling from the forests, the fields, the heather, the hedges, the roads, the rocks and straight into my motherfucking oven.

Used G-String Offering

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Never one to miss a party, I relocated Papa's skull to the lounge's coffee table, and the mouthy ass motherfucker started even before I could properly set the Halloween prop down. ("Baby-girl, why don't you plant that sweet pussy on this face?")

Hello (and welcome!) to the next six months of my life.

A Miracle

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It's October fucking nineteenth and I still don't have my Halloween altar up. Knowing it'd take a miracle to get my ass motivated I turned to the Universe last night and said "LOOK, IF YOU DON'T MAKE IT RAIN TOMORROW THEN I'M GOING TO BE OUTSIDE PICKING MOTHERFUCKING MUSHROOMS AND THAT EFFING ALTAR WILL NEVER GET FUCKING DONE".

It's been raining all goddamn day. Not even grey, dreary Scottish drizzle, but multiple Fox's Weddings that gloriously burst in the streaming sunlight keeping everything just wet enough from being workable. So no mushrooms, or berries, or roadkill, or planting garlic for me. I'm indoors building a momentary shrine to Our Lady Underground as She readies Herself for Her imminent reign.

Cupping Wicker Nuts

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Today's achievement: forcing Italics to take a picture of me cupping a Wicker Man's non-existent nuts at the "prehistory park". (<- I wonder if he'll remember the red-headed witch who exalted his balls when they burn him on Halloween night?)

Giving Thanks

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...for all that grows, for all that lives, for all that gives.

Pictured: a roadkill pheasant I personally butchered and cleaned, organic celery and carrots grown in Scotland, porcini mushrooms Italics and I gathered from local castle grounds, fresh herbs from my container garden and garlic that I grew this year in the front yard.

Graveyard Work

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One of my various "offices" spread out through the Scottish countryside. (I need to get a coffee mug that says "YOU DON'T NEED TO BE DEAD TO WORK HERE, BUT IT HELPS".)

This past Saturday Italics and I spent 5-6 hours foraging in old graveyards, ancient oak woodlands and stunning castle grounds collecting bones, taking plant clippings and harvesting wild mushrooms. I have a stupid amount of pictures to share with you guys, but I haven't finished sorting through all of them. This photo's just a teaser of what's to come.

Pictured: my foraging/wildharvesting basket that also serves as our Easter basket for Holy Saturday (Ukrainians traditionally take their Easter Sunday brunch to church on Holy Saturday to have it blessed by a priest in a special ceremony), the remains of a rabbit (graveyard rabbit feet are supposed to be hella magic) and clippings of currant bushes that grow around the cemetery (to plant at home in my container garden).

Everything's sitting on a mortsafe, which was once used to guard the bodies of the dead as they decomposed during the infamous Burke and Hare epidemic. (How morbidly appropriate that I eventually settled in the body snatching capital of the world.)

All Over Again

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Just when I think the season's over, I find a new patch and the magic starts all over again.

Magic G-String

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...because it's a ~magic~ g-string. (Obviously.)

Magic Mushroom

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Just between you and me? They're all magic mushrooms, but some are just a teensy tiny touch more magic.

August, 2010

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The Shango Tree (once the outside phallic worship altar, now the outside roadkill altar), decked with ripening plums and "maypole" ribbons.

Phallic Agaric, Dried

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My Phallic Agaric? Beautifully dried (you can still easily make out the impression that created its balls and cock head), and, as of this afternoon, carefully stored away for my witch's sale. (This magic cock? Totally going to the highest bidder.)

A Witch's Harvest

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A witch's harvest: ripe grain ritually reaped from an ancient Scottish field (the one that grows next to the local crow rookery where I get my feathers and the occasional dead bird), and fly agaric mushrooms picked near the banks of a loch named after a black arts practicing Laird who met his death over the not-so-frozen waters while in the company of the Devil himself one Hogmanay night.

Phallic Agaric

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Mushrooms don't have a gender? Bull-fucking-shit.

In Praise of Ladder

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Okay, I admit it. I got as far as "jelly bag", but not AS FAR as "something to hang the fucking jelly bag on".

Fiery, Red-Headed Witch

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I'm sneaking in one or two more henna sessions before the Whore takes throne. (<- The Whore has dark hair, but the Bride is fairer. I dye my hair a henna red during Spring and Summer (Papa calls me his "fiery, red-headed witch"), but during Winter - when I embody the Whore - the red gets hidden beneath layers and layers of black henna.)

Grouse Witch

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If you follow my Tumblr blog (it's my not-so-daily-but-almost laid back personal space, but with even more swearing (if you can believe it)) you'll know I've begun buying jewelry pieces to alter, deconstruct and resell.

A few weeks back I won a vintage kilt pin in the shape of a grouse's claw with the intention of modifying it, but when it arrived I found myself smitten. (<- A frequent occurrence. I suppose that's what happens when you limit yourself to buying things you'd actually wear yourself.)

Today was our first big day out in MONTHS (I'm deep in the country every fucking day, but we only make it into town once every 3-4 months) so the brooch got strung up with a few of my crystals (lapis, quartz), a wrench pendant, my new teardrop moonstone and a yoni-shaped Virgin Mary medal and immediately looked at home amongst the waterfall of charms and amulets.

Local Haul

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Today's local haul which will be turned into personal projects, gifts for friends (the ones who trust my mushroom knowledge, anyway) and homemade risotto.

Rabbit Magic

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Today in a forgotten beech hedge the rabbits came out to play, and in the sun-dappled groves of cliff-growing trees they shared their secret magic with me.

Nature's Whitewash

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Professional Dropout

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If I hadn't dropped out of pre-med twice (when I do things I burn my name into the motherfucking asphalt so it ain't forgotten) I might've had my medical degree by now.

Amanita Muscaria

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Fly agaric (amanita muscaria) for the Old Woman's (rein)deer.

New Season, New Vodka

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Wild raspberry vodka; graveyard edition.

Phew!

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"The soap is formed in such a way that it keeps a balance in skin types of all Zodiac signs pertaining to both the sexes."

Find Your Heaven

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They say rooks "escort the souls of the virtuous dead to heaven". I wonder who - or what - escorts the escorts when their time comes. (Fly off, tiny thing, and find your heaven.)

Midsummer 2010, I

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

69 Days

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69 days of "I DON'T EVEN GIVE A RAT'S ASS".

The line to fuck me starts behind Italics (who probably won't even be getting any since I'm so goddamn tired from marathon shaving). (<- 30 MINUTES, NO JOKE.)

Version 2.0

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Shakey Bear lives on.

(Lives on and LIVES IT LARGE! How many other pet rats reincarnated as a plush armadillo get to visit castle grounds AND a garden center IN THE SAME FUCKING DAY? Answer: not many. Chef Shakey, you're a goddamn ~star~.)

(PS: Chef Shakey's memorial culinary-themed garden is complete: lemon thyme, marjoram, oregano and rosemary. <- I'm planning on planting her egg and daffodil in the center of the planter that'll hold the perennial herbs. Now to figure out how to decorate the container to make it Shakey Beartastic...)

V. Blessed or V. Cursed

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Universe, you're seriously fucking telling me that no one else - EFFING NO EFFING ONE EFFING ELSE! - in this fucking house even notices this shit (other than me)?

I'm either V. blessed or V. cursed.

You'd BUTTER Believe It!

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I don't even know where to begin. Seriously.

Anal Aries Witch

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Yeah, I don't think "anal" entirely covers it, either.

Out of Control

How do I know I'm a witch? Because even the crows - and persistent magpie who obviously worked any fucking angle to get a piece of the soup leftovers - can't resist my cooking; it's like something out of a Slavic fairytale. (I think they need one more year of buffalo wings, cheesecake, nachos and pizza before they're charmed enough to do my evil bidding.)

Morthouse Vase

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

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

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

Chippy and Timmy

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Chippy and Timmy, Beh (badger) and Shakey Bear (armadillo) and Tentacle Monster by his lonesome hanging on the bedroom wall.

Idols'R'Us I

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The house just got more crowded.

(Khnum and Renenutet will be joining the other Egyptian gods and goddess on our computer room/office window altar. Broken Baal will be attended by his equally broken consorts Kadesh and Anat. (<- It's only a matter of time before Astarte joins them in their broken emo parade.) And I have not a fucking clue as to where Wepwawet's gonna go.)

Works-in-Progress

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Artificial life. Beginnings. Endings. Gifts. Hopes. Incense. Magic. New life. Oils. Old life. Phantom feet. Potions. Prayers. Preserved life. Remembrance. Trades. Treasures. Wishes.

...works-in-progress.

Today

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Today:

Woke up blue. Worked on CSS coding. (<- FIRST TIME IN 5-6 YEARS!) Cursed CSS coding. (<- ALSO FIRST TIME IN 5-6 YEARS!) Grief seeds arrived. Pot - sativa - arrived. JWH arrived. Got high. Showered. Got high again.

Looked like thunder; didn't say. Felt stupid when it did. Thundered, little rain. Humid, sticky. Scent, sound, color, mood ticked every box. Perfect; paint-by-number masterpiece. Felt like summer storm back in Midwest, when time'n'air heavily hung under grey clouds. Childhood summers, sans mosquitos.

(Tapped into lucid memory of youth; momentarily felt immortal.)

(Cleaned: countertops, units, overhead extractor, tiles, toaster, window, kettle, altar, stars and sink.)

Listened to Florence and the Machine. Thundered. Made homemade macaroni and cheese (gluten-free brown rice elbow noodles). Served with store bought ribs. Listened to Monster Magnet. Thundered even more. Made homemade Greek tomato sauce. Made homemade brown duck stock. Listened/watched Top of the Pops 80s special. Baked homemade chewy peanut butter brownies. Listened to Goldfrapp. Thundered, thundered. (Lighting flashed.) Browned lamb shanks in goose fat, poured over tomato sauce and roasted in low oven. (<- Dinner. Maybe served with pesto and pinon nut risotto?)

Made offering to Shango Man. Called out in Ukrainian. ("HOO-DAY YEAST-TEH, SHANGO MAN, HOO-DAY, HOO-DAY!" ) Set bowl of milk and roast duck on patio. Within half hour lightening struck. Close. Too close. White flash; ducked, gasped, slapped computer off (old habits). Air electrified. Hairs stood, skin prickled. Everything hissed, everything vibrated. Powerful. Auspicious. Unsubtle contact.

(I listened; I'm listening.)

Good day? GREAT day. Today.

Lunch Break

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Today we ate lunch sitting between two giant pillars of rock flanking a neolithic recumbent stone. (Where did you eat lunch?)

More Than Just Ass

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Ms. Graveyard Dirt: more than just ass.

Bennachie Stream

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Saturday morning found us at the base of Bennachie (a hill - the highest point in this region - with ancient religious significance and evidence of goddess worship) at 8AM thanks to my incessant need to locate pussy willow (which they call "goat willow" here) for next year's Hieros Gamos / Easter celebrations. (I have a whole folder of images, but I'm set on typing up that Chocolate Espresso Cake recipe so our foray into the woods will have to wait until later.)

Walpurgisnacht 2010

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

Flora Britannica: Book of Wild Herbs

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Amazon: Derived from the author's "Flora Britannica", this book takes a broad definition of herbs and includes 100 wild plants of England, Scotland and Wales. As well as describing them, the author gives an account of the role of wild herbs in social life, arts, custom and landscape.

The Universe knows I'm a sucker for cheap ass books listed on my Amazon wishlist. (<- If it's £1.50 or cheaper it's fair game.)

Essence #1

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

Macerating All Night Long

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

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

Birthday Offerings

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The first round of birthday offerings to the GREAT AND TERRIBLE creatrix/destructrix who turns 30 today. (<- DO YOU HEAR THAT, INTERNET? MOTHERFUCKING //30//. I AM OFFICIALLY OLD ENOUGH TO BE A ~ROLE MODEL~; LOCK UP THE EASILY INFLUENCED BECAUSE I HAVE GREY HAIRS (A WHOLE SEVERAL, OR SOMETHING) AND I KNOW HOW TO USE THEM!)

Resurrection Bread

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Traditional Ukrainian Cookery: People greet one another with the traditional Easter greeting "Khrystos Voskres!" (Christ is risen!), to which the reply is "Voistyno Voskres!! (He is risen indeed!).

Khrystos Voskres, readers, visitors and friends. May the blessed power of resurrection bring you and your loved ones comfort and hope. (Eat a Peep - or several - on my behalf, okay? <- You can't get the motherfuckers in Scotland. SIGH.)

Great and Holy Thursday

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With one hand I sacrificed my Bridegroom, with two hands I pray for forgiveness.

Spoilt Pig

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Did you know that this week is Bacon Connoisseurs' Week? No? (Just between you and me? Neither did I.)

Happiness Is...

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Happiness is having essential oils, herbs, spices and beeswax delivered to your door in 2-5 working days.

Waiting for Spring

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Waiting for the balance of dark and light.

(Pictured: a box of chenille baby chicks (to top our Easter wedding cake), teardrops of frankincense piled on the window ledge, Winter's Kolach (a traditional Ukrainian bread religiously baked at Christmas, although the Aries/ass/sprouting seed design isn't traditional, heh) and velvety ribbons of incense smoke.)

Daydreaming

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Daydreaming of warmer days (and less clothes).

Mother's Day, 2010

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Mothering Sunday breakfast: homemade drop scones, raspberry jam, fresh strawberries and pineapple guava juice.

Same Old Joke

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Further proof why you can't take me //ANYWHERE// (especially old historic sites of national importance).

Magic Thread

BEHOLD, MY ENCHANTED, MAGIC THREAD! (NOW WHO AMONGST YOU DARES QUESTION MY DIVINE, GOD-LIKE POWER?)

Nature's Fridge

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Nature's undomesticated refrigeration unit = outside Scotland in winter. (Pictured above: leftover creme brulee in a Tupperware box sitting outside on the patio steps because the fifteen foot walk to the detached garage was too fucking long. <- I EXCEL AT BEING LAZY IN WAYS YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE.)

Merry Lactating!

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How do you know when you've become a boring ass grown-up? When you realize you're just too fucking full for dessert. (Poor homemade Frangelico creme brulee, you'll have to wait until tomorrow!)

Living Nightmare

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So I'm grilling marinaded chicken breasts to make chicken fajita nachos when Italics wanders in and goes "OH, HEY, LOOK! THAT PIECE OF CHICKEN LOOKS LIKE A DOLPHIN!" drawing my attention to the grilled fillet that IS suspiciously dolphin shaped and that's seriously all it took to make me feel like it was unethical to chop it up and make nachos out of it.

(That's why, nearly two weeks later, it's still sitting on the same fucking plate on top of the bedroom's dresser, completely out of sight. You want scary? Imagine what it must look like by now and that, eventually, it'll have to be disposed of. <- IT'S A NIGHTMARE FOR YOU, BUT //REALITY// FOR ME. I CAN'T WAKE UP SCREAMING BECAUSE //I'M ALREADY AWAKE//.)

Spirits of the Snow

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...because a witch who doesn't read can never have enough books. (Yeah, you read that right.)

Sviata Vechera's First Star

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

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

(Pssst! We got a white Christmas too!)

Stag Horse Brass

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New Year Resolutions

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January 1st, 2010: Pizza (bacon, mushroom and green pepper), kebabs (grilled chicken, onions, peppers and lettuce shoved in pita bread and smothered with sour cream), chicken nuggets, potato skins and fries (delivered to the door). Nightmare on Elm Street V and Smokey and the Bandit. Homemade chocolate egg nog, sour bubblegum-flavored gummi worms, strawberry beer, selection of cookie'n'chocolate truffles, selection of regional Italian cookies, cappuccino meringues, Turrón de Chocolate and SECRET sour strawberries.

...new year resowhat? (<- Obviously not in our dictionary.)

Last Sunset

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The last sunset of 2009.

Christmas Goose Exorcism

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

And He Brought Her the Stars

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...and He brought Her the stars.

Not My Week

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This is totally not my week. (KEEP BRINGING IT, UNIVERSE, BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN THIS TO BREAK ME AT MOTHERFUCKING CHRISTMASTIME.)

Stumped

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So, like, if one drawer's dedicated to tarot decks and divination tools, the second drawer's full of oils, unguents and salves and the third and last drawer contains everyday misc. magic articles (ritual scissors, incense, spoons, salts, sugars and Chippy's doggie treats) where the fuck do I put the insertable remote control vibrating bullet and bondage tape?

Temporary Limbo

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Normally Papa's mask hangs just above my nightstand in the bedroom, but when time came to strip down the old wallpaper his ass got relocated to the computer room/office (at least until the redecoration's complete). A few days ago I caught him grinning like a fool, looking way too comfortable with the recent change in scenery.

"AIN'T //NO// WAY, NEGRO," I warned before the twinkle in his eye (socket) got any more glittery and flirty, "BLACK MAN? BEDROOM. WHITE MAN? OFFICE. OTHERWISE I'M NEVER GOING TO GET ANY SHIT DONE." He laughed, but I so totally wasn't joking in the slightest. Men (especially the incorporeal, voodoo-flavored subconscious skeletal link to the divine masculine)...pffffft.

Forest in a Day

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Haunted forest? Done. Gated abandoned cemetery? About to start. (Wish me luck!)

Outside Inside

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There's a haunted forest growing in our bedroom...

(OH MY GOD AND ALL THAT'S FUCKING DIVINE AND HEAVENLY, I'VE FINALLY BEGUN TO WALLPAPER THE FUCKING BEDROOM! <- The top half's a haunted forest scene and the bottom half is going to be a gated cemetery).

"I'M DRESSING UP!" Mess

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Italics said I should dress up more often, but I'm not sure if the house can take it.

Altar Building Gremlins

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Altar building gremlins? Still here. (I've learned if you just close the door to the backroom you can keep them restrained and give the superficial impression that you've exorcised the last room.)

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Catch and Release

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They stealthily creep into the house late at night through open windows around this time of year. We watch them spin their webs in corners of room in the warmth of modern living, and eventually, after days weeks and months, the perfect gossamer threads become heavy with dust and debris and sag like old Halloween decorations turning our office/computer room into a Hammer horror movie.

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Shango Tree Plums

The Tree of Life ribbons were first wrapped around my human maypole on May Day (<- BELTANE BJ!), and then hung up on the only fruiting branch of the Shango (Bone) Tree on Midsummer. I'm seriously considering boozing these plums up to create a super swanky, super special ritual/ceremonial plum liqueur. (<- To be consumed during my favorite sort of rites - nudge, nudge, wink, wink...ahem.)

Fall Harvest

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Walled gardens at Drum in mid-September.

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Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)

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Red Admiral Butterfly (Vanessa atalanta)

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European Peacock Butterfly (Nymphalis io)

Rewards of Freedom

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Today's two things of note:

1.) Drove to a local castle with my mother-in-law in tow to prove to her that yes, in fact, I can drive. (PLEASE, GOD, LET THIS COUNTRY JAUNT FINALLY LAY TO REST THE NOTION THAT I'M A "LEARNING DRIVER"; I'VE BEEN DRIVING SINCE 15, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. <- JUST BECAUSE I HAVEN'T BEEN BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A CAR FOR FOUR YEARS DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE. JESUS.) In fact, her manual riding self seemed relieved when I offered to drive back home.

2.) Meandered down a minefield of game bird roadkill (the Gask/Spring Hill standing stone country lane) and eventually succumbed to temptation when passing a non-flattened female pheasant. Unfortunately, her intestines were ruptured and there were patches of fly eggs so I had to ditch any hope for roast pheasant and settle for a pair of feet and an immaculate head which now reside in the outside freezer. (We didn't have pins to tack the one good wing against a wooden board so it - along with the rest of the headless, footless bird - will get committed to a ritual fire tomorrow evening.)

Skinless, Eyeless

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Blame Bacchus

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Back arched, bodies locked. Computer room love, quiet and carnal, in the silence of early morning. (If two bodies were ever made for one another...)

Sterilizing Bottles, Round 1

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Bottles = 1, Ms. Graveyard Dirt = 0

(If you can believe it (OH, I KNOW YOU CAN; SHARP KNIVES + CAVALIER ARIES = CUTS FATED TO HAPPEN) within two minutes of peeling labels off glass bottles I managed to nick my left* thumb with a knife and drew blood. <- Which means this project is EXTRA magic now, naturally, of course, witchy nudge-nudge wink-wink.)

(* It's "magic" when it's the left hand, it's "a motherfucking inconvenience and a deliberate bane to my existence sent by fucking God himself" when it's the right one (aka, the masturbating hand).)

Wild Blackberries

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I read in a foraging book that the biggest, sweetest, most desirable blackberry is the one growing at the very tip of the branch, and it's always the first to ripen while the others behind it are a week or so behind. And the further up (down?) you go along the branch the more bitter and less desirable the berries become. (Less desirable in the sense of raw eating, the ones in the way back are still tres excellent for baking, jamming and preserving.)

Bacchus Cherry Beer

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YES, THAT'S //EXACTLY// WHAT WE NEED IN THIS HOUSE AFTER A SOLID WEEK OF CONTINUOUS SEX AND BLOWJOBS - BEER NAMED AFTER BACCHUS. (<- Stick an entire bag of hard cherry candy into a bottle of beer and you've got BACCHUS CHERRY BEER; it's like being a kid and an adult ALL AT ONCE.)

Cemetery Beeches

I meant to write a proper entry today, but a few circumstances stood in the way. (i.e., the rats eating ANOTHER EFFING MICROFILTER (we've been off-line a few days while waiting for the replacement), Italics throwing up a couple of times first thing this morning, residual "stomach flu" fatigue, homemade hash browns followed by homemade cookies (an Italian cornmeal recipe flavored with marsala) and, finally, an unexpected - BUT DESPERATELY NEEDED - walk for fresh air.)

The video above is of some blustery Scottish wind tearing through the beeches that tower over the local cemetery. You can make out the ancient, sun-bleached headstones and, later in the video, beechnuts dangling from branches. (Beeches here only produce nuts every three or four years, so I'm determined to do something with them before they disappear for another several years.)

Eyes Like a Wild Rabbit

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I've always been disappointed with the color of my eyes. Everyone's got great stories or similes or WHATEVER about their irises and I've only got "OH, YEAH, THEY'RE JUST SORT'VE…HAZEL" and "A LITTLE LIKE RINGS IN THE TRUNK OF A TREE".

But now I've got one better - I've got eyes like a wild rabbit.

Fall Already?

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Fuck, fall already?

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I guess so. (Sigh.)

A Taste of Fall

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

Lammas Cheesecake

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Homemade Lammas gooseberry cheesecake decorated with fresh gooseberries, hyacinth and borage flowers.

Taxidermist in the Making

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

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

Lammas Gooseberries

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600g of organically grown gooseberries from containers outside. (Just enough for a celebratory Lammas cheesecake and a granola bar recipe.)

Cemetery Lost-N-Found

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Whenever we walk to the local cemetery there's always something waiting to be discovered.

Sometimes it's fresh roadkill, just missing eyes. Sometimes it's a nurse's blue and white top (hanging inexplicably from a wooden post). Sometimes it's a black currant bush exploding between four graves. Sometimes it's a wheel off a toy, a broken piece of statue, a polished rock, shards of antique pottery or a discarded Jurassic Park 3-D coloring book.

(HELLO AND WELCOME TO MY JUNKYARD WITCHCRAFT WHERE EVERY RUSTY, WATERLOGGED PIECE OF TRASH THAT CROSSES MY PATH IS A PROPHETIC OMEN OF A FUTURE WAITING TO HAPPEN.)

On a recent graveyard trip - not the last visit, but the one before (an unintentional visit; we were out photographing the sunrise over the hills and lakes of dissipating mists and decided, all spur of the moment like, to pop round for a visit) - we found a black currant bush nestled between two sets of graves.

While considering the possibilities (while considering the NON-CULINARY possibilities of black currants since I HATE AND LOATHE THE TASTE OF BLACK CURRANTS DOWN TO THE VERY PIT OF MY (IM)MORTAL SOUL) we ambled around the cemetery until we were at the edges of the cremation section where I found a dusty, dirtied black bottle half sunk in Scottish summer mud.

Too far removed from the memorial plaques there was no way to connect it to its proper owner so it was gingerly tucked into my basket (I originally intended to harvest the last of the elderflowers but I got distracted, hence the rural chic basket outing) along with a broken penny we found en route to the graveyard.

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(But what should I do with it? Clean it up and give it as a gift (filled with graveyard dirt or some other witchery)? Clean it up and keep it for myself (peacocks are kind've sort've a significant spiritual animal thing for me)? Christ only knows. For now it's sitting on my nightstand altar behind my Apis Bull statue, holding the dry spray of flowers I wore in my hair on Midsummer.)

What does an American witch in Scotland carry in her Easter basket on an unplanned graveyard walk at five in the morning? The camera's tripod, a bottle of still water, an unearthed cemetery treasure, a mongoloid Pacman created out of a copper coin, her ritual shears wrapped up in their still bloody covering (I keep the kitchen scissors wrapped up in the unwashed towel I used to staunch the bleeding after I stabbed myself with the shears) and a dying buff-tailed bumblebee, quivering and shaking in its dampness as it slowly crawls off its yarrow deathbed and curls into the folds of her blood stained kitchen towel.

(It's magic, baby.)

Cemetery Currants

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Currants harvested from the local cemetery.

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

Bedside Altar, July 09

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My bedside altar's getting crowded and it ain't from Papa's doings (for once).

(Sort've left to right: Kadesh statue holding my gold Czarina earrings, my birthday peacock (Inanna's consort, Tammuz, is symbolically linked with the peacock) and my Hathor statue. Behind the peacock you can almost see Chippy's Sassanian amber bead (circa 400 BC) sitting in its display box and behind THAT sits our gratuitously graphic ritual bong (SORRY, THE INTERESTING BITS INADVERTENTLY WERE CENSORED). The dry sprig of flowers towering above Hathor are the flowers I wore in my hair this year when we performed Hieros Gamos in a local wheat field on Midsummer.)

Buff-Tailed Bumblebee

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A (worker) Buff-Tailed bumblebee visits my courgette flowers.

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Nocturnal Teddy Bear

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"OH, JESUS, SHE'S DRAGGING ME INTO THE HOUSE AGAIN." (<- You can tell he's male by his outie "belly button".)

Incense Making In Progress

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

Summer Reading

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I don't read. I mean, at ALL. (Which is terrifically LOLERIFIC if you knew what I did for a living.) And the only thing I hate MORE than reading is READING ON-LINE so READING A BOOK PURCHASED FOR A LAUGHABLE AMOUNT ON AMAZON MARKETPLACE WHILE SWINGING NAKED IN THE HAMMOCK is the lesser of two evils.

Thunder Moon Gardenia

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A single gardenia flowered in time for July's full moon.

Shango (Bone) Tree Altar

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Constructed within a half an hour using locally sourced materials. (<- "LOCALLY SOURCED MATERIALS" = THE PILE OF FUCKING BRICKS AND ROCK THAT HAVE BEEN SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO THE TREE FOR YEARS. THANK YOU, MR. AWESOME, FOR YOUR FORGOTTEN PILES OF "TRASH" DEPOSITS HIDDEN AWAY IN THE RECESSES OF THE BACK GARDEN.)

Midsummer Fire

2008's Yule Log burning in 2009's Midsummer fire.

Be(d)side Papa

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Midsummer, 2009

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Morning after altar.

OMG WAR

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Civil unrest + internet speak = juxtaposition mindfuck

Questions Asked

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How the fuck did I not hear this break? (Our bedroom overlooks the patio, where both Italics and I were sleeping with the window open. ONCE AGAIN, UNIVERSE, I MUST ASK THE QUESTION: HOW THE FUCK DID I NOT HEAR THIS BREAK?)

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Thankfully I haven't had a chance to plant the gooseberry bush in the container (it was just squatting looking pretty), so the only thing that I lost was a pretty ceramic pot. (HOW THE FUCK DIDN'T WE HEAR THAT THING SHATTER?)

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Eating Well Tonight

What's more awesome than getting a perfectly wonderful terrific gorgeous reduced to clear duck? When the perfectly wonderful terrific gorgeous reduced to clear duck comes with some of its innards.

  
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We weren't the only ones who ate well tonight. (Go on, baby, you deserve it.)