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.)"

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.

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."

Midwinter Magic

I'm going to try writing this shit without reaching for a brown paper bag, because, holy fuck, there's less than a fucking month until Midwinter and I already feel like I'm behind on every-effin'-thing. In 29 days Italics and I will be celebrating the loudest motherfucking dumb supper your hellbound ears will ever hear: Sviata Vechera. And, this year, your effin' ass is joining in on the ancestral Yuletide revelry.

Sviata Vechera (literally "Holy Supper") is a time of intense merrymaking, rocking it hardcore with your dearest (both living and dead), giving thanks for all of your blessings and celebrating the return of the sun. The roots of the ritualized Ukrainian feast is hella ancient, but it got a weak facelift when Christianity rolled through Eastern Europe. The reborn sun was eventually personified as Jesus Christ, and the once pagan celebration evolved into a still pagan celebration with a laughably thin Christian veneer.

(That's right! You take what you fucking get, Eastern Orthodox Church!)(<- That includes venerating our ancestors through wheat, engaging in idolatry relationships with our icons and, most importantly, choking down our Easter cock bread.)

Unsurprisingly, the Midwinter observance got jostled around when Catholicism took over and the supper eventually settled on December 24 (the eve of Christ's birth). Ukraine isn't alone in making Christmas Eve a big effin' deal (way bigger than Christmas Day, which is a much more low-key affair), though. The majority of Europe blow their wad on the 24th, and each country and ethnicity seems to have very specific traditions, rituals and foods that are made, executed and enjoyed on the special day. (See: Christmas worldwide at Wikipedia.)

When Italics and I became masters of our own holiday observances we bumped Sviata Vechera to the winter solstice (known as Yule and Midwinter) to reclaim the original feast. We still celebrate the 24th and 25th, but in recent years our Holy Supper partying has totally eclipsed the more mainstream Christmas holidays to the point that we normally don't open our presents until New Year's Day. (It's an amphetamine and lingerie fueled Yuletide-themed Black Mass! <- Talk about getting the new year started on the right motherfucking foot!)

Last year's Sviata Vechera was our first attempt to be as traditional as fuck, and it was one of the most incredible Yuletide seasons we ever experienced. It was so effin' great that I swore on our kolach that I'd emotionally blackmail friends, readers and on-line acquaintances to join in on the loudest motherfucking dumb supper they'll ever hold. I want to read/hear/see unapologetic, balls-fucking-out hedonism filling up the longest night of your year, and I want it to be truly effin' special. So this year, my impish pampusky, I'm formally extending an invitation out to you to join us in your first loud-mouthed, rockin'-till-dawn dumb supper.

The first important thing you should know is that Midwinter falls on December 22nd this year - just in case you want to align your shit up with the solstice. Many of us, though, won't be able to perform our dumb supper on that day. And that's totally cool; what really effin' counts are your actions (although to qualify for the giveaway the deadline's Orthodox Epiphany: January 19th). Before you do anything else find and fix a date, and be sure to scribble "HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SUPPER" on the appropriate day in your calendar(s).

The second important thing you should know is that just because you're dipping your toes in Holy Supper territory doesn't mean you have to do it all Sviata Vechera-style. In other words, unless you're Ukrainian - or of some Slavic heritage - your ancestors probably won't recognize the shit I'm doing. But that's what Holy Supper's all about; merry-fucking-making with your friends, family, loved ones and ancestors. Your celebration should be tailored to suit your past, present and future.

Now it's time to get your research the fuck on. Most of us can trace our lineage back an ethnicity or two; for instance, I'm Ukrainian and Native American. On top of that, I live in northeast Scotland, and my religious persuasion - if you can even call it that - is hugely influenced by the Byzantine opulence of my youth (I was raised in the Eastern Orthodox Church, although I pledged my body to the Devil before the Church could confirm me). Therefore, my Holy Supper celebration incorporates themes from my ancient ancestors (pagan Sviata Vechera), my more modern ancestors (Orthodox Sviata Vechera) and the winter-themed practices of the indigenous people of Scotland (Italics's ancient and modern ancestors, not to mention the folk who previously worked this land).

Your story will obviously be different, so you'll need to spend a little time Googling the winter traditions, feasts, practices and rituals of your ancestors, the indigenous people of your land and/or your religion. If you're of European descent you'll have some rich fucking pickins' - you get to choose from ancient and modern Yuletide practices and menus! The idea is to find a few things that speak out to you, things that can easily be adapted using your own personal flavor, but an interpretation that's still somewhat recognizable to the people who you're entertaining.

It's important to keep in mind that Holy Supper's about inviting your ancestral line into your home for a special event, so you don't want to come off as a dickface by serving food that's completely fucking foreign to them. Even if you don't cook I emphatically urge the fuck outta you to take the time to recreate one traditional dish your ancestors, your congregation/coven or the indigenous people of your land would recognize as food (even better if it's food traditionally associated with Midwinter feastin'). Make your predecessors proud and pass on the peanut butter smoothies for once, okay?

And while I'm on your case about being treating your spectral folk decent-like it's important to note that most cultures reserve the very best for their visiting dead. Since it's your ass inviting them around for a good ole party make sure you treat them like guests: set a place for them at your table (in addition to that we Ukrainians normally leave our Holy Supper spread out all night long to give our relatives a chance to eat at their leisure), use your very best linens, dishes and decorations, and always - ALWAYS! - serve your dead first. (<- Fixin' your plate first is the equivalent of taking the first slice of birthday cake when it isn't your motherfucking birthday; bad effin' manners, dude.)

Now that I've broken down the Holy Supper concept into bite-sized pieces, AND managed to briefly lose your attention while sternly lecturing you about right-proper necro-conduct it's time to cinch this shit together in five simple steps to assure everyone who's thinking about joining me that this isn't an epic undertaking:

1. Write down your supper date (deadline: Jan. 19th)
2. Get your research on
3. Circle a few celebratory traditions
4. Make one traditional dish
5. Create an ancestor setting

...and that's it! No, seriously! Joining in on - and making some - Midwinter magic is that effin' easy, all you really gotta do is research your shit for ideas and then use those mofos as a springboard to make your Holy Supper as spectacular as you want. Better yet, you've got twenty-effin'-nine days to make that magic a reality, which is more than enough time to do one extra special thing this holiday season. (<- Who knows? You just might invent a practice this year that becomes an ancestral tradition.)

Holy Supper Participants (how to get added**):
* Alex @ http://spectralradiance.tumblr.com/
* Aubs Satsekhem Tea @ http://satsekhem.wordpress.com/
* Cody @ http://cosmicowlchild.tumblr.com/
* Deb @ http://dropoutdilettante.blogspot.com/
* Erin Nightwalker @ http://nightwalkinghedgehog.wordpress.com/
* Fox Dreams @ http://foxdreams.wordpress.com/
* Haloquin @ http://haloquin.tumblr.com/
* Harley @ http://voluspo.tumblr.com/
* Hermit Witch @ http://hermitwitch.blogspot.com
* Hieronyma Jerome @ http://www.hieronyma.org/
* Jow @ http://jow-amagesblog.blogspot.com/
* Maris Pái @ http://witchofthenorth.tumblr.com/
* Mrs. Oddly @ http://somethingoddly.blogspot.com/
* Ms. Graveyard Dirt @ http://www.graveyarddirt.com/
* Morag @ http://expellingthevenom.tumblr.com/
* Nefaeria @ http://nefaeriaofetsy.blogspot.com/
* November Witch @ http://novemberwitch.tumblr.com/
* Nyktipolos @ http://nyktipolos.wordpress.com/
* Old Kitchen Witch @ http://www.stepawayfromthecauldron.blogspot.com/
* Oya's Daughter @ http://oyasdaughter.wordpress.com/
* Primal Heart @ http://theprimalheart.wordpress.com/
* Rabbit Viola @ http://thebefuddledwitch.blogspot.com/
* Random Proxy @ http://randomproxy.deviantart.com/
* Sara @ http://www.lobeliarama.com
* Scylla @ http://rootandrock.blogspot.com/
* Shelby Lou @ http://shelbylou.tumblr.com/
* Southern Witch @ http://jane-the-southern-witch.blogspot.com/
* Sunny @ http://sunnyamongothers.wordpress.com/
* Talas Pái @ http://talaspai.huginnpress.com/blog/
* Temple Witch @ http://smokefromthetemple.wordpress.com/
* Thora @ http://tadrakos.wordpress.com/

** Planning on taking part in the Holy Supper Challenge? Fan-fucking-tastic! Please email me at graveyarddirt@gmail.com with your blog address, and what name you'd like me to use when listing you as a participant.

Days of the Dead

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Man, this writing shit is some hard motherfucking work. I've been circling my dinky little laptop for days, eyeing the case warily while half-pretending that house chores are infinitely more important than resuming my cardinal fire-fueled campaign to take over the effin' internet. (<- I start with a ram and end with a pair of fish; fear me and my Alpha & Omega astrological bookends!) And there's nothing I can do - or have done - that's managed to distract me from one unavoidable real world truth: my ass is seriously out of practice.

It's not just the lack of practice reeking saturnalian havoc in my journal life (could havoc be anything OTHER than saturnalian in this house?); nothing's familiar. I mean, at all. My carefully crafted decade-old Rainman routine bit the fucking dust the second Peck-Man became a permanent member of this household to the extent that, for the first time in 10 motherfucking years, I'm working on an unfamiliar computer (dinky little laptop) in an unfamiliar room (the kitchen).

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For someone who's got revolution running in her veins I'm autistically incompatible with change. Any disruption to routine kick starts a butterfly effect that tsunamis its way through every fucking aspect of life. There's room for spontaneity in autism's habitual nature, but it's structured and fragmented into neat little Tetris compartments carefully arranged around great expanses of familiarity. (In other words, I'm totally capable of running a wild card round, but only because I found a way to view the element of randomness as a fixed feature in a fixed routine.)

This groove, this rhythm, this life I'm leading right effin' now is so fucking foreign and alien to me that I'm a half-heartbeat away from an Oscar-winning FOUR MINUTES TO WAPNER! freak out.

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I guess what I'm trying to say as I blow through all of these older Fet Ghede pictures without addressing what's being depicted is that if I sound sorta off, or only make a quarter of sense (instead of my usual half, although I'm willing to make 100% sense if your ass is paying for that secret pleasure) it's because I'm caught in a tide pool of motherfucking rabbits...and because I'm probably high.

(It's a little known fact that if I wasn't high all the goddamn time natural disasters of cataclysmic proportions would occur leading to the extinction of the world as we fucking know it.)(<- See? Beneath my cloven hooves and forked tongue there's an honest-to-fucking-God humanitarian; look upon the bleeding heart of your ovarian Christ, world, for She smokes AND inhales because of Her love for you.)

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While it's been all kinds of swell wading through rabbit-populated shorelines, it's time to decisively navigate towards terra-fucking-firma to get my work on before next year's serpent-tinged onslaught. (Hello and welcome, year of the motherfucking dragon! <- It could either be a really good fucking year for St. George in this house, or it could be absolutely disastrous. 2012, you're a giant fucking question mark only slightly overshadowed by the fat-assed reptilian monster hovering above you.)

Getting my work on, though, is easier said then done when I'm hella fucking rusty and writing in an entirely new environment on an unfamiliar computer. (FOURMINUTESTOWAPNER!) I mean, how the fuck do I go back to baring some of the most intimate parts of myself when I've been hiding behind photos for most of the year?

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Out of necessity I allowed Graveyard Dirt to slip into a formulaic existence (i.e., image, two or three mostly on-topic sentences, image, two or three mostly on-topic sentences...) because it was the easiest fucking way to provide consistent content throughout Harvest. Six months later that journal-saving device has become an automatic routine, and my Taurus midheaven is more than reluctant to let that productive formula go.

As much as I hate the thought, fear the thought and down-fucking-right loathe the thought, I'm going to have to sacrifice that detrimental familiarity on the high altar of Asperger's otherwise my ass ain't progressing no-effin'-where. Cause let me tell you, I've spent a third of my fucking life chasing after spectral perfection to no avail, and it's taken me this effin' long to realize that you're not moving the fuck forward if the scenery around you never fucking changes. (<- Look at me making those motherlovin' rabbits proud!)

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But now's not the time to be radical. In fact, now's the time to be uber-radical but not being radical at all. (<- Hey now, this is some seriously gutsy shit coming from an autistic Aries animal.) Up until now all of my changes have been volatile fucking processes, obliterating everything - and, occasionally, everyone - in their path. What if, just for once, I took a deliberate step back from my natural inclinations to find a new method of creation from change? What if this time I didn't push over the mothereffin' Tower in one monstrous go to create something new? What if I continuously changed one small aspect of it until it eventually became something new through measured means?

So maybe the answer to serious journal writing isn't balls-fucking-out blocks of text in the vain hope that I'll somehow net myself some older entry sparkle. Maybe the real fucking answer is building on something successfully preexisting that accommodates change (much like our old Christian friends!). It's not about dropping pictures (yeah, I considered), Godzilla-ing metaphorical towers (although it's tempting), or Lady Godiva-ing some of the most intimate parts of myself prematurely - if I'm really effin' serious about returning focus to the diary aspect of Graveyard Dirt then I just gotta write more. (Novel, right?)

Fuck! Guess who just pissed away six Fet Ghede photos from 2009 on a blog-gazin' tangent. (<- Guilty as mothereffin' charged!) Now any attempts to steer this journal entry in the right fucking direction will seem like a bolted-the-fuck-on addendum...

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I work the dead. No, sugar, you didn't read that wrong, and I didn't accidentally forget to jam a "with" between "the" and "dead"; I work the motherfucking dead. As far as I'm concerned, if you wanna be on this team you better be willing to pick up an effin' shovel and get your sweat on. (<- Ain't nothin' free in this life, or in the after.)

Almost every effin' facet of my feral witchcraft has roots in traditions and experiences that both our ancestors - Ukrainian (me), Native American (me) and Scottish (him) - would've been familiar with (i.e., hunting, gathering and growing), so the biggest contribution the dead make to this house is providing the reassuring knowledge that I'm not the first fucking one in the line to personally encounter the trials and tribulations, agonies and ecstasies of living with - and off - the land. (Admittedly not to the same extent they were forced to.)

As retarded as it might sound, I actually feel closest to my predecessors when I'm crying about and/or freaking out over shit that I know they experienced and dealt with in their own lifetime(s).

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November is winter's spring, and it's really fucking hard not to have a slight bounce of joy in your step when your ass works the dead because the last and final harvest of the agricultural year is celebrated as a sort of necro-homecoming. Over here in NE Scotland hard frost signals when it's time to haul the dubious Ms. Dirty & Co. carnival indoors for five to six mothereffin' months of hardcore merrymaking. (<- The ancestor gig? Has its perks.)

Halloween, in all of its John Carpenter glory (I was born in 1980 and was lucky to have experienced the vintage crepe paper'n'cardboard version of the holiday before it went all decals'n'plastic in the 90s), is the opening ceremony of our necro-homecoming that ignites winter's indoor revelry. Our observance of All Hallows' Eve is a tribute to everything childish and sinister wrapped up in a nostalgically creepy death-themed bow.

Gaping skulls and whitewashed bones then psychopompically lead the skeletal trail to Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), when we thank, honour and remember those who've already taken the big fucking leap into the unknown. Fet Ghede - Papa's super-special feast day on November 2nd - has a different spin in this house since my relationship with The Old Man is a double shot of unorthodox. (Despite their tough guy appearances even spiritual sugar daddies need an annual Father's Day to feel appreciated.)

Pictured above: 2009's Full Moon of the Dead Día de Muertos/Fet Ghede kitchen altar. For more Ghede-centric adventures, altars and stories simply plug "Fet Ghede" into Graveyard Dirt's search engine, and be sure to hit up my Fet Ghede Flickr tag for pictures. Similarly, you'll find all of my Halloween shit the same way: through my Flickr altar set, my Flickr Halloween tag and by combing through older entries using the search engine.

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There's no effin' way I can succinctly address wheat's significant role in our lives and religious practices in several paragraphs, so I'm just gonna gloss over the finer details of its importance and save my mental bullet points for a different journal entry. What I can probably cram in this tight space is that wheat represents two major aspects of my spiritual beliefs: the body of God (which is ground down into meal as a form of sustenance - you know, flour), and my ancestral heritage (Ukraine's known as "the breadbasket of Europe" thanks to its famously fertile steppes).

So baking bread, for me, isn't just a kitchen witch role-play of domestication, it's an ancient, ritualized art that involves growing, nurturing and inevitably "killing" one of God's tangible forms before physically manipulating it into something that's then consumed. We view the act of consumption as a sort of holy communion, which is why I hold all of God's forms - whether flesh (meat) or blood (hooch) - as sacred; they were all derived from one of His once-living manifestations.

The act of baking bread is one of sacrifice and compassion. One of my metaphysical obligations is to create and destroy; with one hand I hold His body upright (I plant and care for His seed), and with the other I ceremonially cut Him down (I reap, protect and distribute His seed). Wheat, as I've defined in my Choose Your Own Adventure spirituality, is my husband, my lover, my king and God, and His death - by the hand of His wife, His lover, His queen and God(dess) - ensures that others (including myself) live. So it only makes sense that the first offering I ply our collective ancestors with during the Days of the Dead is a loaf of homemade bread reverently made from the body of my beloved.

Pictured above: One of 2009's Pan de Muertos. While I don't have a drop of Hispanic blood in me, I do have fond memories of my Ukrainian grandparents feeding me quarters of fresh oranges in their retro-as-fuck prefab kitchen. Those experiences established a significant connection between me, the dead and orange-flavored bread, so it's no effin' surprise I eventually created a tradition of baking Pan de Muertos for All Souls' Day (aka as Fet Ghede, and day number two of Día de Muertos) to commemorate the lives of those we love who've passed the fuck on.

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).

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.

Exhuming the Dead

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My first crow - my first death, my first rescue, my first funeral, my first tears - freshly exhumed from a ritual growing container (some years wheat, some years dill) after five long years of earthbound sleep.

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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Processing #01

#01's mummified body was a mystery to me. I was use to fresh; fresh fractures, fresh decapitations, fresh trauma. My scavenging teeth had been cut on the grisly and grotesque to ensure my ass had the necessary fortitude to work with pungent, unsavory remains*. (<- 2009's Lammas fox is a good example.) After a year of rescuing roadkill I was familiar with new death, and all of the sordid sights'n'stenches that inevitably accompanied it. Old death, though, was completely foreign to me, so everything about #01 and his dehydrated carcass was greeted with autistic curiosity.

* Just incase you're wondering: old death has its own unique, musty scent, unlike fresh death which has a tendency to smell like sauerkraut that even Ukrainians wouldn't eat.

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To free #01 I had to break him. He was lost to some forgotten phantom zone, and it was my job to find'n'drag his spectral ass back to act as my woodland king, forest guide and otherworldly mediator between me and my land. So with bare hands and feet I broke his twisted body - joint by joint, bone by bone - to release him from the fatal mid-leap he had been trapped in since his death.

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This is all of #01's body broken down into smaller, more workable segments. Some of his teeth, jaw bones, toes and the one ear I managed to salvage are sitting in a small glass dish on the bottom left corner of the tarp, and above it you can see his skull, legs and an assortment of his other skeletal remains. I was able to save most of his dehydrated golden retriever coat for personal use (bottom right corner of tarp), but what couldn't be used was ritually buried in my container garden to return some of his physical remains back to the earth.

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#01's skull freshly exhumed from its mummified cocoon. (<- Is he fucking gorgeous, or what? Over a year later my cunt still skips a beat whenever I see his pictures. Goddamn if that motherfucker doesn't have some in-your-fucking-face presence!)

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Future #01 fetishes: an ear to hear, toes to run and teeth to bite and grind.

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I managed to strip off most of the dehydrated flesh'n'fur from #01, but an infuriatingly tiny piece of skin just beneath the right antler remained steadfastly glued to the skull.

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Rather than risk damaging #01's fragile remains (even though it isn't entirely obvious, the skull suffers from several internal fractures; I mean, his dead ass is roadkill, after all) I left the flap of skin attached to his forehead knowing that it'd eventually fall off during cold water maceration. (<- My favorite bone cleaning method.)

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A gratuitous close-up of #01's skull to make gluing in his teeth a little easier.

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A second gratuitous close-up of #01's skull to make gluing in his teeth a little easier.

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The third and last gratuitous close-up of #01's skull to make gluing in his teeth a little easier.

The two teeth missing are the only calcified relics unaccounted for. Within a day or two of discovering #01 I returned to his death site in the hopes of finding the fuckers, but I left empty handed. (Well, sort've. #01 is still the only roadkill stag I've found whose antlers weren't obliterated despite his unfortunate hit'n'run end.)

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The fatal damage #01 received reverberated through his skull, shattering the mandible (lower jaw) and weakening some of his cranium's sutures. Due to the trauma I'll never be able to piece his skull fully together, but at least I have all of the fractured components in my witchcraftin' arsenal.

PS: For obvious reasons none of #01's remains will be offered for sale. But, if you're serious about becoming a caretaker of one of my roadkill rescues I can help make that a dream a reality.

Ablutions for the Dead

I never got the chance to bathe my dead mother's body. Sometimes I think all of this - i.e., the entire rescuing dead animals thing - can be traced back to the fact that I never got to say my silent good-byes to the person who had birthed, loved and raised me.

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Even in the muddy haze of grief I dimly appreciated the gut feeling of wrongness when encountering the distance put between the living and the newly dead. Not bathing the body that had once bathed me felt wrong, not dressing the body that had once dressed me felt wrong, not sitting in wake with the body that had once lulled me to sleep felt wrong.

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My mother unexpectedly died, had an autopsy performed, was cremated and had her life commemorated with a small memorial service at a funeral home; but, at no point was I allowed to see, touch, or say good-bye to her lifeless body. Our modern attitude towards death created a wall that I just couldn't scale, and six years on I still grieve for the intimate closure I never got.

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So it's with a sense of loving duty that I do what I do, and why the quiet act of embracing every broken body that passes through my resurrectionist hands allows me to observe the one meaningful rite that I never got to perform.

Pictured above: the newly exposed skeletal remains of Tourist Trap Crow and Love and Sorrow's mature rabbit.

A Life Once Lived

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Calcified relics of a life once lived.

August 27th, 2011

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Last year's fallen king has risen.

One Goddamn Picture

Two days ago I: made an edible anointing oil from herbs growing out of the garden container with #01's remains, used one of my in-laws' crystal vases to macerate some pheasant bones (if you don't tell them they'll never notice), finally pulled out all the motherfucking fireweed and ragwort that's been driving Italics's allergies in-fucking-sane, made an executive decision to prune all the effing patio shrubs Mr. Awesome's been ignoring, tackled five years worth of invasive ivy that's slowly destroyed our fucking fence, seriously contemplated the possibility of pulling Mr. Awesome's non-hedge hedge out and planting something actually useful (i.e., elder), recklessly bounced way too enthusiastically for far too long on an epic mountain of garden debris (to compact the shit into a bag...well, mostly to compact the shit into a bag), freed one of the plum trees from being completely swallowed by a neighbor's tall line of monster fucking cedars and then watched the setting sun illuminate portions of the backyard for the first time in fucking years.

And I didn't take one goddamn picture.

Yesterday I: dragged my sore fucking ass outside to examine and flesh the heads of #08, #09 and #10, shallowly buried the decomposing remains I removed from their skulls so our fox(es) have access to a quick meal, packed the three flayed deer heads into my upgraded roadkill altar to begin the process of rot, checked on the assorted pieces of #01, #02, #03, #04 and #05 macerating in one of the outside rooms, potted on some home-fucking-grown comfrey seedlings, excavated the skeletal remains of Love & Sorrow's mature rabbit from one of my gardening pots, transplanted one of my container lavenders using some of the decayed rabbit dirt, dressed my sage, bay tree and tiny little gooseberry plant with leftover rabbit dirt, paid a visit to the roadkill graveyard situated beneath our office window (where fleshy remains are buried until they become bone), clipped small coniferous tufts from huge motherfucking juniper branches (pruning casualty; why let good magic shit go to waste?) and spent the next eight motherfucking hours in the fucking kitchen rubbing my hands raw by squeezing juice out of seven motherfucking pounds of wild necro-gooseberries - by fucking hand - to make four different motherfucking types of Hedgerow Hooch.

And I didn't take one goddamn picture.

Today I: swore my supremely sore fucking ass that I'd take the day off until I remembered the last time I performed any sort of mushroom sweep was last Friday (work is work, Internet), cackled madly - and even paused to call Italics mid-picking - at the completely unexpected porcini harvest, stumbled across a new bolete-tastic hot spot situated between two other bolete-tastic hot spots, indulgently savored the first mothereffin' brambles of the season, paused to admire the late evening sun reflecting across the ripe blackberries' latex shine, briefly returned home for Italics so we could toadstool hunt together near the banks of the Black Laird's loch, crawled through low-hanging boughs of birch and pine, and scrambled over crumbling, lichen-encrusted walls filling a second magic wooden basket with cherry-red agarics, a birch bolete explosion of massive fucking proportions and the incomplete remains of a carrion crow, single-handledly cleaned - and processed! - 1085 grams of porcini, 1194 grams of mixed boletes and 8 effing toadstools for dehydration, stirred every fucking 2011 Hedgerow Hooch (all (lucky) 13 of them), made a helluva meal which included homemade holubsti (Ukrainian stuffed cabbage) inexcusably smothered with leftover Poulet Marengo sauce and a quick chorizo-smoked pancetta-homegrown sage chicken thing, prepped #11's body for its future funeral and watery interment, and preened vainly in the mirror all evil sorceress-style when I caught the secondhand stains of midnight sex smeared garishly across my lower face.

And I didn't take one goddamn picture.

Herd in a Handbasket

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#08, and March's twitterpated couple (#09 & #10) are getting ready to follow the rest of the 2010-2011 herd (#02, #03, #04 & #05) into macerating buckets.

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?

Evisceration

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The still-moist 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 (the entrails, primarily) 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.

Rabbits Out of Fat Air

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Excerpt from Rabbits Out of Thin Air:

There were dark, shadow filled clusters of spiraling pine trees reaching towards the ceiling of the sky. There were slivers of meadows with tufted grass and dry heather, fluff and insects lazily floating through the air, all illuminated by shafts of bright autumn sun. There were great living mounds; the remnants of ancient trees now gone, tucked in by a a thick blanket of all-consuming damp moss. There were small granite boulders, paths partially blocked by swinging branches and partings so tight that all you could do was close your eyes and push forward into the darkness towards the warmth of light as you felt dead and broken twigs snap beneath the driving force of your blind body.

There was all of that, but none of it caught on camera. (ACTUALLY, THAT'S A KIND'VE SORT'VE LIE. THERE ARE //A LOT// OF PICTURES, IN FACT, OF A NEARLY THIRTY YEAR OLD WOMAN WITH WAIST LENGTH HAIR AND A HUGE ASS RUNNING AROUND A MEADOWY CLEARING WEARING NOTHING BUT HER SHOES AND A PAIR OF KNEE LENGTH STRIPED (BLACK AND RAINBOW, BABY!) SOCKS IN THE OCTOBER SUNSHINE.) But you know how it is - those special moments, those special places and special images never like getting photographed, anyway.

It was arched against a moss padded rock at the foot of a natural heather and pine altar where I fucked the horned god of the forest*. With hair spilling into dying grass and body bridged up to meet his I watched the pointed tips of coniferous trees tremble in the unfelt breeze. Between thrusts and long seconds of eyes-closed-and-face-turned-to-the-sun there was a moment when everything froze and the only certainty in the world was that the sky was endlessly blue and the towering, cathedral pines would always be as they were then - fierce and beautiful, a protective fortress forever separating modern man from nature.

A new picture from an old story.

Stone Throne Pheasant

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Last week's Stone Throne pheasant was a gift from the land after I finally executed the very last of my spring-flavored obligations. "Harvest's come early this year," I kept telling Italics, and the Universe promptly confirmed all of my seasonal suspicions in one unexpected roadkill find.

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Normally we don't find pheasants until the local gaming estate releases their new stock in September. The first few birds we bring home always turn out to be inexperienced juveniles totally unsavvy to the dangers of the outside world. It's a brutal massacre; most of the dead aren't fit for human consumption, so I spend a lot of time moving mangled remains to ensure hungry scavengers don't share a similar fate.

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This pheasant, however, wasn't an inexperienced juvenile (they haven't even been released yet); she was a mature hen. I very rarely find an old gal like this (the majority of the roadkill pheasants I bring home are either newly released hens or unlucky cocks), and I've never found one this early in the year. She was a fucking treasure, and when it came time to ritually reduce her body into usable parts I gave my heartfelt thanks while stroking her feathery chest.

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A broken wing with mostly undamaged feathers.

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Feathers overlapping feathers.

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One of her thighs sustained superficial damage.

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The injury to one of her wings was bone-shatteringly traumatic.

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The pheasant's crop contained remnants of her last meal (bilberries; a kind've sort've wild cousin of the blueberry), which was set aside for planting. The berries - along with a portion of the bird's body - will be sown in the hopes that they'll germinate into fruit-bearing shrubs; a living legacy of the pheasant's life (and death).

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A pheasant first: underdeveloped eggs! They - along with the heart, gizzard and liver - were extracted from the body, cleaned and frozen for future witchcrafting. The salvaged organs were appreciated more immediately by our black magic cat, Mr. Mistoffelees.

What we couldn't use of the roadkill pheasant - the entrails and bruised meat - was left outside for the newest generation of corvids (certain families have been using our property as a fledging playpen for years since it's safely situated on a quiet dead end - admittedly, the rich pickings are a huge incentive to visit daily). Everything else - the feathers, feet, bones, meat and head - was saved, and will eventually be used for something, or serve some sort of purpose.

PS: I realize that the entire roadkill thing is a niche interest, and that not every visitor to Graveyard Dirt is going to understand or accept my practices. That's cool, I totally get that. But if you ARE interested in learning about how I incorporate roadkill into my feral version of witchcraft (what I do, why I do it, etc.) two good places to start are my roadkill Flickr set and my Asphalt & Entrails journal category. More pheasant stories - just in case you're interested - can be found here and here. Happy scavenging!

July 14th & 15th

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July 14th saw us racing out the fucking door to make a mucho belated offering at the Stone Throne as storm clouds loomed ominously over the heather-covered hills in the not-so-distant distance. Most of the oblations? Stretched all the way back to Easter (when we perform the Great Rite/Hieros Gamos), and had spent the past several months occupying the lower vegetable shelf without paying rent (what can I say? it's just been that sort've year). With Harvest quickly approaching I knew I needed to get the belated offerings to my seat'o'sovereignty, and I had to do it quick.

Pictured above: a bottle of menstrual blood-infused water (to "wash" my throne; the blood's significant because it came from my first REAL period in over two years), a bottle of beer, a loaf of Ukrainian ritual bread traditionally baked at Easter (paska), a row of motherfucking Peeps (how can you celebrate the blessed union without chick-shaped marshmallows covered in granulated sugar?), half of a homemade Peking duck (an offering to the local kites and raptors who suspiciously watch us when we're outdoors) and some microwave popcorn (popped before being offered, obviously) and organic beef mince for the crows at the Pine Hedge Rookery (where TC's from).

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Despite taking a beer it never occurred to me to take a fucking bottle opener, so I convinced Italics to use the side of a rock. The bottle promptly exploded, embedding tiny bits of fucking glass in his hand while soaking the one person who absolutely can't eat gluten with a wheat-based beer. (Sorry about that, baby.) There was no mojo in the air, just a teeth-grinding sense of utter failure and frustration. I blamed myself for not getting shit done on time, but accommodating the Universe's every whim and tangent makes it hard to keep a schedule.

It was a fucking depressing experience. Hot and sweaty for all the wrong reasons, sticky and wet because of a stupid idea, itchy and drainage-y thanks to rolling around in clover (to make a flat space for the crow offerings). I felt so fucking demoralized as we drove home; it was the first time my magic wooden basket was going to come home empty (well, almost empty: there were two naturally shed feathers and one tiny little pine bolete). I'm not ashamed to admit that I was taking it all as a not-so-subtle portent of unpleasant things to come.

Just as I was about to officially lodge a complaint with the Universe about the piss poor results of every-motherfucking-thing that day I jammed the fucking brakes to the motherlovin' ground because, holy fuck, there was a roadkill pheasant at the side of the fucking road. And not just ANY roadkill pheasant, but a beautifully plump hen that was hella safe for human consumption. My magic wooden basket? Didn't fail me after all.

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Having finally fulfilled all of our spring obligations we were ready to turn our attention to the season at hand: mothereffin' Harvest. The day after our Stone Throne pilgrimage we were free to begin poking around our favorite hotspots, so we decided to officially open mushroom picking season at a local castle (a terrific place for birch boletes, penny buns and fly agarics).

Pictured above is a young and particularly phallic Boletus edulis (aka penny bun, cep and porcino) growing amongst forest debris.

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Older Boletus edulis specimens (aka penny bun, cep and porcino); they look a bit ragged and past their best, but their spongy undersides were still unblemished.

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More Boletus edulis specimens (aka penny bun, cep and porcino) partially hidden by long grass.

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The very first Amanita muscaria (aka fly agaric, fly Amanita & toadstool) of 2011. Some critter enjoyed the psychoactive properties before we could, so we left the mostly pockmarked toadstool behind for the agaric lovin' inhabitants of the beech hedge.

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Past the field of clover and line of trees you can hazily make out the bared breast of Bennachie (appropriately named Mither ("Mother") Tap). It's the the highest point in this area and, unsurprisingly, contains evidence of very local, very ancient goddess worship. Whenever I'm outdoors working, playing or fucking Mither Tap is always just once glance away.

Feather Blessing

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When Aepril Schaile - bellydancer, musician, witch, animal rights advocate, astrologer, shaman, performance artist, bird watcher and all round renaissance woman - made the horrendous fucking mistake of letting my ass know that TC and my expletive-studded crow tales had actually proved to be inspirationally useful for one of her new corvid-themed projects I immediately threw open my dubious flasher witch coat and asked if she'd be interested in some naturally shed carrion crow feathers for good luck.

(Of course they're genuine! Just nibble on the quills; Corvus corone, the real fucking deal! Do I look like the sort've person who'd pass off junk I found like it was a handful of magic motherfucking beans? On second thought, don't answer that.)

Before I could send the feathers away to Aepril I had to select them (a mixture of old and recent Pine Hedge Rookery finds), tidy them, ritually cleanse them and seek an Otherworldly blessing by those who've already passed on. Now that they've been given the corvid seal of approval they're ready to travel Stateside to bestow a ridiculous fucking amount of good luck and success to a fellow devotee of our Blessed (Underground) Mother.

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Offerings of fresh borage, cornflower, foxglove, harebell and loosestrife from my container garden.

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Beech Hedgerow Crow's skull was my corvid link to the dead, and one of TC's recently shed wing feathers provided my corvid link to the living. Behind my relic anchors are a pair of blue glass chalices filled with offerings of food and water which - along with either a nice piece of diced meat or a mostly intact roadkill animal - will be left at the Pine Hedge Rookery for the carrion crows who generously shared their excess plumage with me.

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Dried flowers from a previous blessing, mixed with fragrant grains of Oman frankincense and white copal.

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A homemade incense blend with air-themed resins and herbs that was used to sanctify and purify the shed carrion crow feathers.

Blessed By the Dead

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Shed by the living, blessed by the dead.

Giving Thanks, Revisited

I give thanks for the meat that'll feed us, the crop full of bilberries that'll grow into fruit-bearing shrubs, the underdeveloped eggs for fairy tale witchcraft and the special heart, liver and gizzard offering for our Saturday night black magic cat (Mr. Mistoffelees). Thanks for the feathers, bones, flesh and feet that'll be turned into project-ready parts, and for the vitamin-rich internal organs that'll feed and strengthen the new generation of carrion crows, rooks and magpies that visit us every day.

I give thanks for a life I didn't take by ensuring that its death isn't wasted.

Giving Thanks

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Giving thanks for yesterday's hedgerow bounty.

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Another Morning After

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First Feeding

We're busier than I'd like to be. Shit's begun piling up again, and the rooms that were once 96% clean are slowly degrading into a post-apocalyptic mess of epic fucking proportions. The constant running in circles (from living animal to dead animal, from chore to errand) has left us both of us exhausted as fuck - as you've probably noticed since my journal entries haven't been exactly stellar in the past few weeks - but we've got to keep on pushing; once berry'n'mushroom season hits (late July) there'll be zero time to get the house in order.

(TRANSLATION: If shit ain't complete within a month, then shit won't be complete until AFTER Christmas, and I really fucking hate even having to consider the fucking notion that my ass'll still be spring cleaning in motherfucking January of next fucking year.)

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I've been holding off writing this entry because I wanted to explain the biological process of maceration, and all of my rituals, rites and spiritual practices that coincide with the grand pageant of reducing rotting flesh to clean, sterile bones. Unfortunately, I'm just too fucking busy to devote that much time and effort to one journal entry (unless I've got a serious motherfucking axe to grind). So, for now, you'll just have to settle for a handful of pictures with a quick explanation of what's going down in each image.

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My altars are usually elaborate fucking things, but those sacred spaces tend to be spread out on giant fucking plateaus of furniture so they aren't normally constrained to cramped, tiny ass areas. (First unspoken tenet of witchcraft? Work within your means. Sometimes that means setting up shop in an undesirable space, sometimes that means using clean, flat bed sheets instead of fancy tablecloths and sometimes it means rummaging through kitchen drawers to see what you have on hand, or what's currently available to you.)

When reducing roadkill from flesh to bone I use my Bean Nighe bowl (actually, I put the macerating pot'o'animal in the bowl, but you get the point), but seeing how Peck-Man's (aka TC) currently living in the fucking thing it's unofficially out of commission until further notice (or until a heavy fucking duty emergency). Instead, my decomposing animals were ritually interred into Second Hand Sunday purchases, and then placed at the feet of my Santa Muerte black rabbit (the head honcho of my rabbit militia) who'll oversee the rite of rot.

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Tourist Trap Crow's (usually abbreviated to TTC) skeletal frame slowly sinking into its watery womb of transformation.

Before submerging the crow's body I ritually stripped it of soft tissue to help expedite the maceration process (which, hopefully, won't be too long since the warm weather should really encourage the bacteria to make short work of decomposing muscle). To learn more about TTC, my rite of reduction and how a fully feathered roadkill crow will eventually turn into project-ready pieces (i.e., bones, preserved skin (complete with tail feathers and wings), organs and blood) be sure to check out my Tourist Trap Crow journal entry.

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Unlike Tourist Trap Crow, the rabbit head that was ritually interred in this Second Hand Sunday vessel sank like a motherfucking rock. (In fact, the pot turned out to be just a little too tight for TTC - it was inhibiting the crow from sinking properly, which doesn't sound like a big deal but a waterline could potentially stain a bone (or so I've heard) - so it was carefully rehomed to a roomier maceration pot until it decomposes to the point of bone separation.) To learn more about the roadkill rabbit, how it came into my possession and how I sent it off Ms. Dirty-style be sure to check out my Love and Sorrow journal entry.

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I ritually feed, water and interact with the animals as their physical remains decompose and separate from the perishable to the preservable. (It's not so much "taming" as it is luring them into a sense of familiarity; I don't "break" them, I make them comfortable around people and modern living. After all, these are wild fucking animals whose natural disposition is to be wary of human beings.) These pictures are from the roadkill animals' first feeding, a semi-ceremonial event that normally happens once or twice a week (regardless if it's the first, third, tenth or last feeding).

Left section (based on a carrion crow's diet): locally grown oatmeal (dry, cracked grain), Rice Krispies, mealworms and a scrambled organic'n'free-range egg

Middle section (based on a living organism's diet): fresh water

Right section (based on a common rabbit's diet): locally grown oatmeal (dry, cracked grain), Rice Krispies, organic parsley and organic celery

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My Santa Muerte (literally translated to Saint Death) black rabbit, with wispy tendrils of incense smoke woven around her head. To understand this black rabbit you have to understand the Black Rabbit, and to understand the Black Rabbit you have to understand the Black Goddess, and without the entry Black Rabbit Altar none of the above is fucking possible.

Ghede-Pleasin'

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Altar photos from a recent weekend session of Ghede-pleasin' pussycraft. I'm way too fucking tired to write anything remotely coherent, so I'll save all stories, explanations, anecdotes and recipe (oh, honey, yes I'm super sharing!) until later.

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Next Big Thing: Ladders

I posted this over on my Tumblr blog the other day (<- think of it as Graveyard Dirt lite; I write less, but update more), and it's so fucking OH, INTERNETS! ridiculous that I had to record it here for posterity (and to ensure - once this shit goes Llewellyn mainstream (snort) - that I'm remembered as the originator of the altar ladder fad):

How to Make a Halloween Altar @ eHow

Or, more accurately, "How to Make Ms. Dirty's Halloween Altar". (<- Do you think the eHow writer knows that the use of ladders isn't standard practice, and I have a very personal, very ancestral reason for including the item in my rituals and beliefs?)

PS: LOL @ "THINGS YOU'LL NEED...A LADDER". Christ.

PPS: Pictures of my completed Halloween altar can be found here (lights on) and here (lights out).

PPPS: I resent the fact that the difficulty's been listed as "easy"; the fuck it is! How many motherfucking ladders has this eHow writer dressed with multiple cloths, garlands, fairy lights and dangling paraphernalia? APPARENTLY NOT MANY (OR NOT WELL).

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.

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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By Ribbon and Thread

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Learn more about TTC (Tourist Trap Crow) here.

Tourist Trap Crow

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There's twenty-four mothereffing photos internet-stapled to this particular journal entry, so I'm going to ditch the overly verbose shit I'm usually known for since the pictures should, for the most part, speak for themselves. If you're looking for a wordier explanation regarding my, uh, unique spiritual practice of rescuing, butchering and working with roadkill you'll probably find some of your answers in Reduce, Reuse, Recycle which explains the process in better detail. Be sure to also check out my roadkill specific journal category (Asphalt & Entrails), and its correlating Flickr set for even more stories, information and images.

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If you've been visiting Graveyard Dirt for over a week - hi, hello and thanks for coming back for seconds (or thirds or fourths or, you know, whatever) - chances are you're already acquainted with Tourist Trap Crow in some form (see Panikhida). TTC's the "saturated, spring chicken" carrion crow Italics and I found during one of our recent roadkill rounds (May 31st, 2011), and since bringing the soaked-to-the-motherfucking-bone bird back home I've conducted various funerary rites (Corvid Funeral), ritually prepared the bird for decomposition (Resurrection) and ceremonially interred its skeletal remains into a decay-inducing womb (The Black Rabbit's Cauldrons).

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Just by gently examining roadkill with my bare hands I usually get a fair idea of the internal condition of the body, and, sometimes, where the animal received the fatal blow. The only noticeable external trauma was the compound fracture blithely jutting from one of TTC's feet, but, despite feeling solid, I found more broken bones beneath feathers and flesh.

Even though it isn't 100% apparent in the photos below the carrion crow's sternum was slightly crushed and its wishbone cleanly snapped in two (it doesn't take a mothereffing genius to figure out what part of this bird collided with a fast moving vehicle). To ensure no more bones were broken during the ritual of reduction I very carefully worked at joints to disconnect appendages naturally so the only damage visible in the skeletal remains is the damage it sustained when getting nailed by a car.

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A ribbon was tied around the crow to restrain, comfort and relax it during the rite, and then, after prayers, libations and multiple cleansings it was unraveled to release TTC's spirit from the burden of its physical body.

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A sideways peek at TTC's white beard.

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A much better shot of TTC's white soul patch.

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I used a blend of several incenses throughout the ritual of reduction. (The miniature bird-footed bottle is probably familiar, but I think this was the first time I busted out the vintage Russian cruet set that Italics gave me for Christmas.)

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The bowls, tools and brushes used during the ritual of reduction. (I only nicked myself once during the first incision - accidental blood offering, ahoy!)

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TTC's ribboned body resting on layered plates. (One set down for the flayed feathers'n'flesh, and the other to hold its skinned body.)

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Whenever I work with one of my roadkill animals I try to document its appearance and any visible trauma through photographs for two reasons:

1.) It's a quick reference guide that illustrates the condition of the animal which allows me to decide how best to reduce the animal without having to dig it out of the fucking freezer to physically examine it multiple times.

2.) It allows the caretaker-to-be* to develop a bond with the creature they'll be opening their home to.

* I know it probably sounds hella retarded, but I really fucking despise using the word "owner" when referring to people who'll eventually give my critters new homes; these roadkill animals aren't property, and if anything's going to do the owning you better fucking believe it'll be the animal that decides if it wants you.

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TTC has a set of beautiful fucking wings, although this photo only relates half of the glory because there was no effing way to effectively keep the wings spread while taking a picture of them at the same goddamn time. (Shame about the ratty tail, although those feathers can easily be cleaned. <- I try and leave some "grooming" jobs for the caretaker-to-be; perfect animal'n'human bonding activity.)

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More of that white motherfucking soul patch that I love so damn much.

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May 31st, 2011: Appearances can be really fucking deceiving. When we picked up the juvenile carrion crow (aka "Tourist Trap Crow") it was nearly frozen and soaked to the motherfucking bone. Despite its saturated, spring chicken state we picked it up anyway - it was a clean hit; skull unfractured, no bodily ruptures or glimpses of internal organs - making it the first official roadkill crow of 2011. After some serious TLC (which required 24 hours of gentle feather fluffing while breathing onto the cold body to warm and dry the bird) the roadkill crow magically transformed from an ugly (dead) duckling to a taxidermy worthy specimen.

From ugly duckling to slightly-ruffled-around-the-edges swan.

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I have such tender affection for TTC, and every fucking time I see this photo my black, shriveled heart somehow manages to swell with love. I don't want to get all, you know, magic-woo-woo on you, but the rituals of release and reduction were so effortless and smooth that the entire process left me with the biggest sense of affirmation, serenity and happiness.

I'll be honest, there've been countless times this past month when I was at the end of my sharing-my-life-and-office-with-an-injured-fucking-crow rope and all I could do to deal with the stress of the routine-shattering detour was throw my hands up to the sky demanding FOR MOTHER LOVIN' CHRIST, WHY?!. It wasn't until after TTC was spread out in front of me that I understood where that feeling of intimate connection came from: TC.

By devoting time, energy and emotion to a living crow I've created an association that, like it or not, unlocks my maternal instinct whenever I interact with them. Every crow - dead, alive, roadkill or natural death - is now, and forever will be, the injured fledgling we rescued, lived with, cared for and loved, and because of that I can't help but work more carefully, more gently and with the greatest amount of compassion when handling any crow.

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When inspecting TTC's body I noticed an egg-like bump bulging out from its lower abdomen. The force of the impact had caused the internal organs to distend down - ultimately tearing the thin abdominal sheet between skin and viscera - into the lower abdominal cavity. In this picture you can see the liver, gizzard and the tattered remains of the thin ass membrane that once protectively covered the organs.

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TTC's flayed skin in one complete piece (feather side up).

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TTC's flayed skin in one complete piece (feather side down).

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Carrion crows have bristle-like "hairs" that grow along their upper beak (in the opposite direction of their other feathers), and thanks to an extra sharp medical grade scalpel I was able to include those feathery "hairs" in TTC's flayed skin.

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TTC stripped down to muscles, bones, organs and feet. (Sorry about the intestine spillage; I, uh, wasn't wearing gloves - DON'T BE LIKE ME; ALWAYS WEAR FUCKING GLOVES WHEN WORKING WITH ANY DEAD ANIMAL, OKAY? - so I didn't want to gingerly tuck in entrails with my bare hands.)

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TTC's feet, cleanly separated from the body without breaking any bones or inflicting any new damage.

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Most of TTC's organs waiting to be separated into two piles (the skin's already been removed, and I allow the brain to liquefy within the skull as the remains macerate in water): the shit that's kept and dried, and the shit that's returned back to the earth. I kept the heart, liver, eyes and tongue (which is still attached to its trachea), and buried the other internal organs in my borlotti bean container. (Magic crow beans, anyone?)

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TTC finally reduced to muscle and bone.

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To help expedite the maceration process I removed as much soft tissue as I could from TTC's body. Whatever was cut off ended up in the shit-that's-kept-and-dried pile to be used at the discretion of the eventual caretaker (for obvious fucking reasons I don't recommend treating the dehydrated breast steaks as homemade jerky).

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After a long ass afternoon of serious motherfucking work TTC had been ritually reduced to six distinct parts: the muscle and organs I kept (blue glass bowl), its flayed skin, complete with soul patch, beak hairs, wings and tail feathers (ceramic oval dish), five giant blood clots (paper squares), feet (rectangular white dish), skeleton (blue glass dish) and the muscles'n'organs I returned back to the earth (white metal bowl). Nothing, as you can clearly see, was wasted or thrown out.

...but that's not the end of Tourist Trap Crow's story, because, really, it's only just begun. Like I mentioned in Panikhida, I'll be updating Graveyard Dirt over the next few weeks with pictures of TTC's progression from cold, wet roadkill to naturally cleaned, project-ready parts (bones, feet, blood, organs, skin and feathers). So if you do come back for seconds - or thirds or fourths or, you know, whatever - you'll be able to witness the slow transformation of flesh to bone.

The Black Rabbit's Cauldrons

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Manmade wombs cradle the newly dead as they sleep beneath a still sheet of filmy water.

Love and Sorrow

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On June 3rd the Orthodox Church observes the feast day of The Vladimir Madonna. This particular Mary's called Vladimirskaya (to us Slavs, anyway), and it's her heartrending expression that simultaneously reflects maternal love and sorrow that's made her one of the most highly revered icons of all Orthodoxdom. As a devout witch I have unending respect and admiration for what the Blessed Mother stands for, and I regularly drag my city-hatin' ass downtown to church to invite Her influence of mercy, compassion and love into my life. (Praying for those virtues is way, way easier than practicing them. <- I'd normally cap a statement like that with "just trust me on this", but I don't think you need to be wearing the Ms. Dirty dress to get where I'm coming from.)

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My holy day of reverence began with the old dead (love), and ended with the new dead (sorrow). The sad, autistic reality is that mercy, compassion and love comes easily when you can cradle fur and feathers to your chest, but those qualities'n'characteristics - which pour out naturally for wild and domesticated animals - isn't a default response when dealing with people. I could probably give you one million and two reasons why I do this entire roadkill thing, but at the heart of it I sometimes wonder if it's all an exercise in relating, understanding and, ultimately, forgiving.

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I found the youngest of the two rabbits at the base of a small crow rookery built in tall pine trees towering over a heavily trafficked country road. One or two fledglings had already met their asphalt death, and to ensure that the same deaths weren't repeated I removed the bunny from the road to eliminate any scavenging temptation. Unfortunately, this rabbit's skull was shattered, so I skinned the body, took the fur, feet and tail, and buried the rest of its physical remains in one of our sweet corn containers (which'll then be emptied at the end of the year for the insect-cleaned bones).

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Graveyards have a tendency of leaving gifts for me - even new, unexplored ones - and to foster a feeling of goodwill I always reciprocate with something in return. Most cemetery visits are planned (working out that shit in advance gives me a chance to bake an appropriate offering), but when they aren't I can always fall back on the individually wrapped candy, cookies and oatcakes that I keep in my magic wooden basket.

I very nearly didn't take anything when exploring this kirkyard since it was our first introduction (and because my magic wooden basket wasn't actually with me; I didn't think I needed it while haunting the cemetery at 5:30 in the motherfucking morning), but I couldn't resist the celestial dead bell in my path. Sometimes a gift's just a gift and you need to suck it up and simply say DUDE, THANK YOU! least you upset the generous, non-expectant gesture.

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The elder of the two rabbits found on the 3rd wasn't as immaculate as the first (one of its hind legs had burst open - presumably upon impact - revealing the gravel-embedded muscles beneath), but its soulful, doe-like eyes hinted of wisdom gained through experience and I found myself returning, again and again, to stare into the dead eyes of the roadkill rabbit. Unlike the bunny this mature rabbit's head was in perfect condition, but, as I soon discovered, the sustained internal injuries far exceeded the more obvious external damage.

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To be perfectly blunt, the organs had exploded and were floating in a sea of vegetative chyme in the abdominal cavity. I salvaged 2/3 of this rabbit's coat (it was impossible to hygienically skin the lower third) leaving its two front feet attached (like a hand puppet), took its head (the eyes and tongue to dry, and the skull to clean) and buried the rest of its physical remains in Papa's tobacco container (which'll also be emptied at the end of the year for the insect-cleaned bones).

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Most roadkill I find is usually hugging the sidelines, but this fledging carrion crow with three white nails (see them?) was brazenly spread eagle in the middle of a small country road. It seemed like a clean kill until I gently turned over the dead bird's body and saw the majority of its entrails hanging out in a tangled knot. Skinning was an option, but the head - just like the young rabbit's - was crushed, which meant there wasn't much of a skull to retrieve, and I would've had to been insanely careful about flaying it thanks to the bacteria ridden organs hanging out. Since it was already partially eviscerated I decided to hollow out the rest of the bird to prepare it for my first foray into homemade mummification.

May 31st, 2011

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I've been so fucking busy that I've been shying away from the inevitable dirty work that comes with my spiritual practices. Finding the effort to drag my sorry ass out of the house at 5:30 AM to do my roadkill rounds is a piece of motherfucking cake, as is collecting mangled animals, building and creating altars for their funerals and then working with each animal individually (which includes rites, cleansings and, eventually, ritual dismemberment to ensure there isn't any physical baggage keeping the animal anchored unnecessarily to our world).

It's recording shit here in Graveyard Dirt - I mean, past posting "One A Day" photos - that's always felt like a divinely foisted curse that I've had to suck up and endure. Some days there aren't words, but there aren't enough photos, either, which means I have to strike some sort of balance between the two. Today's one of those days where my brain just isn't on (probably because I've been ankle deep in dead wildlife, and, after a while, funeral fatigue starts setting in) and I'm just not feeling this entire journal writing thing, so, like, apologizes in advance if this entry seems sort've flat and listless.

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It's not any secret that Scotland's fostered a strong hate towards wildlife for most of its history. Nature was an enemy, and certain indigenous species were deliberately hunted to extinction due to their pest and/or fashion status, or because folks felt that the animals posed a threat to either humans or livestock.

Recently there's been renewed interest in reintroducing species that had been previously obliterated (i.e. beavers, wild boar, etc.), but any introduction seems to be met with resistance (mostly from people who own serious amounts of land and don't want to see their property affected by animals setting up camp in their territory). Some gamekeepers are still poisoning raptors (predatory birds) despite their protected status, and some farmers seem all too fucking eager to scapegoat and condemn any animal that seems to benefit from living on the fringes of human habitation.

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Here in Scotland (I'd say "in the UK", but Scotland and England have differing wildlife laws, so I'm only versed in what's applied to me and my work here in the northeast corner of the country) it's completely legal to hunt crows, rooks and magpies provided you follow a few simple rules and go about the business as humanely as possible. What I wasn't aware of was the practice of using hunted, dead corvids as scarecrows to deter birds from fields.

We only managed to liberate this hooded crow; there were just too many posts to check and morning traffic had picked up which meant our rescue operation was in plain view. Whoever this farmer is, they're the first to go on this witch's very personal, very local shit list (enjoy your agricultural blight, motherfucker).

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Crow nests are known for being unstable fucking things, and dangerous, to boot, because they build them high up in towering trees which means a tumble out of the nest can be fatal, but even living in the nest can be deadly - it's easy to get picked off by predator birds when you're young, defenseless and sitting on an elevated platter.

This year has been particularly hard on this generation of birds because we've had some seriously unseasonable weather including frequent gale force winds. We suspect that TC was a victim of one of those unusual storms, and after falling out of the nest - or gliding, since it was definitely in its fledgling stage when we found it - an animal tried to grab it by its wing but failed to make a meal out of young crow.

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Appearances can be really fucking deceiving. When we picked up the juvenile carrion crow (aka "Tourist Trap Crow") it was nearly frozen and soaked to the motherfucking bone. Despite its saturated, spring chicken state we picked it up anyway - it was a clean hit; skull unfractured, no bodily ruptures or glimpses of internal organs - making it the first official roadkill crow of 2011. After some serious TLC (which required 24 hours of gentle feather fluffing while breathing onto the cold body to warm and dry the bird) the roadkill crow magically transformed from an ugly (dead) duckling to a taxidermy worthy specimen.

The second corvid from the left - the one with grey shoulders and back - is the hooded crow that we liberated from the farmer's field. (Some people use "hooded crow" and "carrion crow" interchangeably even though hooded crows were granted a separate species status back in 2002. It's hard to change a conception that's been around since the beginning of time - especially since the reclassification happened less than a decade ago - but I feel its important to acknowledge the differences between the species and not lump everything together under a giant umbrella.)

Hooded crows in particular are associated with the Morrigan, the Cailleach (more like "veiled crows"?) and fairies, and it was once custom to throw a variety of shit at one to weasel out information from the Universe about your husband-to-be. I'll be the only one chucking shit at this hooded crow, though, since it's the first of its kind and I have a hard'n'straight rule about keeping firsts for myself.

From left to right: juvenile carrion crow (roadkill; near "Tourist Trap"), adult hooded crow (hunted; field), fledgling carrion crow (natural death; Pine Hedge Rookery) and an undetermined rook (natural death; Pine Hedge Rookery)

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The third corvid from the left is the fledgling carrion crow that we found at the Pine Hedge Rookery later in the morning. It was one of two birds discovered at that particular nesting site, and the first to be spotted as we clambered over the fallen stone wall into the peninsula-shaped hedge. Still hot to the touch I papoose-wrapped its warm, limp body in a clean towel just incase it hadn't finished the processing of passing over (although I didn't feel any sort of pulse). I'm not sure if it was just barely alive (or just barely dead) when we found it, but it was certainly gone by the time I performed the outside funeral.

The fourth and final corvid found that day was also discovered at the Pine Hedge Rookery. It was much further along the decaying process than most birds I pick up - you could see the emaciated, almost mummified body beneath ratty feathers - but its body seemed perfectly intact and I felt like I could still gently break the carcass down into bones. So the stinking rook - which I didn't know was a rook at the time since I didn't get to examine its head to spot the hairless beak, but I did know it stunk to high fucking heaven in that familiar HOLY FUCKING SHIT, HOW CAN SOMETHING ORGANIC AND NATURAL SMELL LIKE GODDAMN BURNING TIRES?! dead mothereffing animal way - was taken home, along with all of the pine needles, beetles and dirt attached to it.

This is the first rook I've found, so its remains - like the hooded crow - will be staying with me.

From left to right: juvenile carrion crow (roadkill; near "Tourist Trap"), adult hooded crow (hunted; field), fledgling carrion crow (natural death; Pine Hedge Rookery) and an undetermined rook (natural death; Pine Hedge Rookery)

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When the weather becomes more favorable I perform the majority of my funerary rites outdoors (naked, usually - I'd rather wash blood off my body than out of my clothes), which is especially useful when you're bringing home multiple animals and can't use the garage as a giant refrigerator due to rising temperatures. (<- Winter in Scotland is a scavengers dream. But the second summer rolls around? You got to either work with your roadkill animals super quick, or cleverly hide them in the fridge until you're ready to start and finish the process in one go).

We make offerings to visiting wildlife on a daily basis - now two times a day since fledglings have left their nest and are being taught foraging skills by their parents - and on this occasion I used breakfast cereal to create edible veve-like patterns around the bodies of the dead to feed both the crows and the wildlife that the food would inevitably attract.

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.

Corvid Funeral

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An open air funeral for four corvids (two carrion crows, one rook and one hooded crow) found on the 31st of May.

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Only one of the birds - the more mature carrion crow (bottom right) - was roadkill. The hooded crow (top left) was found hanging from a fucking pole in the middle of a farmer's field, and the rook (bottom left) and infant crow (top right) were both natural deaths.

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Resurrection

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Sheep Shearing

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Scotland's known for its fickle, changeable weather. "Ne'er cast a cloot til May is oot" is a famous folksy saying; a folksy saying I'm not actually allowed to say because I have, like, zero fucking talent for accents and me reading any sort of Scottish dialect out-fucking-loud is a crime against the indigenous people of my adopted homeland. (Trust me, it really is that fucking bad.)

I experienced the temperamental Scottish weather last year when I stood, dumbfounded, in front of our office window as it snowed in motherfucking May. (That's right, May.) It served me right; I really fell off the sovereignty wagon and couldn't get my ass motivated to perform any of my seasonal rituals or duties on time. Snow in mothereffing May was, needless to say, the kick I needed to get back on track and take the shit I do more seriously.

(Little known fact: you can make the rules. The thing about making rules, though, is that you have to be fully committed to exercising them otherwise the Universe and God's host of angelic drag queens aren't going to play along. The game is for you to create, but you've got to actively participate in the process to keep it going.)

Traditionally Scottish farmers don't sheer their sheep until elder goes into flower, because it's only when the creamy, fragrant blossoms appear that the threat of unseasonably cold weather has passed. Here in the northeast that's typically in June, although this year it feels like we're slightly ahead of schedule. (Could it have anything to do with the fact that I actually managed to change the motherfucking guard on fucking time this year?)

Seeing as how I'm part sheep - Aries with the hugest fucking capital "A" - I couldn't resist joining the sheering party for summer, especially since I spend a significant portion of the season outdoors and naked. For something like eight months a year I let myself go feral, but when the weather turns - for the better - I ritually dehair and tidy myself to enjoy the sensation of the sun warming my bare, hairless skin. It's a stupid little thing, but it's my stupid little thing and I eagerly look forward to the annual meeting between me, my pubic hair, a vat of hot wax and a weirded out beautician who's used to more...uh, sophisticated...clientele.

(This last chick? Had to check on me several times while I was undressing because the mothereffing room was so effing small that my fat fucking ass kept bumping into things - metal things, which clattered and clashed and pinged and rattled - and it made it sound like I was having some sort of closeted epileptic fit. Don't EVEN get me started on how I almost put the waxing panties on wrong...)

This year differs from previous years because I got the deed done early in the season. It wasn't until last year - when my pussy was getting waxed in mid-July - that it dawned on me that I wasn't being much of an Aries leader by waiting until all the other sheep were getting sheered to join the herd. Rather than ensuring an early, warm summer I was waiting for it to happen, and when it did I waxed in celebration. That attitude? Way too passive for someone who's supposed to assure shit happens on fucking time. If it's my job to make sure everything stays on schedule then I've got to be a catalyst and set an example.

Birthday Offerings

Just a few pictorial offerings from April 11th (my birthday):

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My birthday cake; a homemade, gluten-free German chocolate sheet cake. (<- I was too goddamn lazy to bake three separate 9" rounds and do the entire layered thing.) If you can believe it (and you should, because my ability to pack food away borders on being a divine motherfucking gift from God), only a tiny corner remains.

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To include everyone in the birthday festivities offerings were made to my ancestors, companions and the roommates-with-benefits comedy team cohabiting with us. This makeshift altar in the backroom was for my indoor companion animal spirits: Chippy, Tiger and The Shango Man.

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All I can say about this picture is: the less said about it, the better.

Well, maybe one thing - if you really fucking dig German chocolate cake and haven't had it in motherfucking years having your ass eaten out as you dive face first into your piece of birthday cake while under the influence of nitrous is probably the way to go. (I should know.)

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The quiet before the "stoned off my fucking ass and crawled around on the flour at 5:45 AM wearing nothing except my new Sunday school goth dress and an antique wooden goat's harness" debacle: homemade sole'n'almond gin (a gift from a friend), and a spring hedgerow-themed jigsaw puzzle.

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Birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper for a mostly benevolent goddess made incarnate. Hidden beneath Yuletide greetings? Vintage jewelry, new altar pieces, some clothing and a handful of other miscellaneous items that fall beneath a Ms. Dirty persuasion.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I start each of my roadkill animals with the best photographic intentions, but by the time I'm elbow-deep in muscle, fat and skin I forget to reach for my trusty camera to document each stage of skinning and - if the meat's safe for human consumption - butchery. So one thing you'll notice with most of my processing-themed images is that the set's never the whole production, just a slight tease of a few steps before I obviously became too engrossed with my work to continue snapping pictures.

While I wouldn't consider this particular set of processing images "complete" (it's missing the all important gutting stage), it does give you a good idea of what skinning an animal's like and how ungross, unbloody and ungrotesque it really is. (I'll be honest - it can be a messy affair. It all depends on how the animal died and where it received the hardest trauma. But a complete, unruptured, fresh animal usually yields a clean and almost effortless job provided you have a sufficiently sharp object (I work with a pair of kitchen scissors and a medical grade scalpel) and comfortable amount of space to work in.)

Over the next 16 images you'll be able to see how I reduced the pair of badgers we found on March 7th from abandoned roadkill to pelts (for tanning), meat (for consumption) and bones (for use in our personal practices) while wasting nothing in the process (unless you count the small amount of bruised, overly bloody badger meat that I offered to my corvids and visiting scavengers as "a waste"). These images aren't gratuitous; in fact, I barely consider them "graphic". If you can stomach eating meat, working with meat, visiting a butcher's shop and watching culinary-based TV shows where entire sides of animals are whittled down to roasts, chops and ribs then you can definitely digest this entry without feeling queasy.

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The night of the badger funeral. I've now conducted roadkill funerals (which involves everything from altar creation to ritual butchery) in the bathroom, kitchen, backroom and directly on my roadkill altar outside beneath The Shango Tree. This was the first time I used the bathroom, and it would've been fucking perfect - a toilet, sink, and bathtub only a stretch away, not to mention the ability just to wipe laminated floors and tiled walls clean in an instant - if the room wasn't so goddamn small.

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Bee (sometimes known as Beh) was one of our pet rats who had an overwhelming compulsion to dig up the fucking carpet. ("BEE! FOR FUCK'S SAKE! STOP TEARING UP THE MOTHERFUCKING CARPET!") When she passed on we chose a badger toy to represent her, a sort've magical effigy, or spirit doll. Within fucking months I discovered that someone - or something - was repeatedly digging up my goddamn outside altar and tossing heavy shit like Stone Cock aside. And then we caught that thing red-fucking-handed; a badger, on our tiny little subdivision property, digging up the fucking yard. ("BEE! FOR FUCK'S SAKE! STOP TEARING UP THE MOTHERFUCKING GARDEN!")

Not every pet rat became a woodland toy animal, and not every roadkill animal has a correlating rat spirit living in a stuffed toy. Bee's a little special in that way, and that unique connection was hard to overlook. So instead of invoking Chippy - who normally helps me with ritually processing wildlife - I called on our Busy Bee to act as a psychopomp for our March 7th pair. It must've been an exhausting fucking job, because the stuffed badger actually looked wrung-the-fucked-out after the ritual and she kept falling over without anyone knocking into her. After an offering of fresh water and a peanut butter'n'pumpkin seed sandwich Bee looked less ragged and finally stopped tipping over without provocation.

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This was the first badger we found on March 7th, the female. She was in worse shape than her possible mate (we found the other badger, the male, within eyesight the female), and was much larger, dustier and more battered (she had been hit multiple times).

She had exaggerated teats and extensive mammary tissue, which lead me to believe that there was probably a den of orphaned pups that had been left behind. (Whenever I pick up a female that was obviously lactating I always make an extra offering of rich cream to her offspring, because I know that their food source - their mother - won't be returning home to nurse them.) Her absence will ultimately result in their death, and that's something I always try to keep in mind when working with my roadkill animals: death doesn't just take the hit animal, sometimes it takes its mate and/or children as well.

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This was the second badger we found on March 7th, the male. Rigor mortis hadn't set in, so when I lifted his skank ass - and, Lord, it was fucking skank (three potent and intense "M" words: male, mating season, musk) - he rolled into my arms like a cuddly teddy bear, all soft limbs and bristly, pliable fur. He was visibly smaller than the female, and weighed less which meant I carried the motherfucker around the house like my baby for as long as I could. (Or, uh, bear. I mean, even the fucking MUSCLE of the male badger naturally stunk to high heaven, and not because he was so old he was "off".)

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Badger feet, they get me every fucking time. (Aren't they fucking adorable?) Whenever I see them I immediately think of Flower, from Bambi. (Although we don't have Flowers here, or raccoons, or possums, or even chipmunks. We're also very, very lucky to live in an area where wildlife diseases don't run rampant, so, for me, the risk of running into something is very low. Rabies, for instance? Practically non-existent here.) When I skin most roadkill I leave everything intact, so along with the face, head, tail and external reproductive features I also leave things like the paws attached so the animal's entire body is present in the flayed skin.

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...if you have a better fucking suggestion of how to weigh large roadkill animals I'd like to hear it. Until then, though, I'm sticking with "old plastic trash can sitting on top of the house's communal scales". The female clocked in at 2 stones ("stones" is a legitimate weight system here in the UK, medieval or what?) and since a stone's something like 14lbs that roughly made her about 30lbs. The male weighed around 10lbs less, and didn't seem as at home in the trash can. (I didn't get a picture of it, but when he went in to get weighed his arms stuck up and out of the container and beseechingly stretched to me like a toddler desperate to get out of a playpen.)

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For me, blood's inevitable at some point of flaying large roadkill because I can't bleed the animal before skinning it (I don't want to ruin the pelt, either by staining it or introducing marks, cuts or holes that'd detract from the fur's eventual appearance), and because it has a tendency to pool around the site of massive trauma (i.e., where it got hit) and form pockets on the side bearing the animal's weight (the parts of the body touching the ground). If you work carefully with a crazily sharp object (I use a pair of kitchen scissors and a medical grade scalpel) you'll find that skinning an animal - even one as big as a badger - doesn't necessarily have to be a Bathory bloodbath affair.

(If you look really fucking closely you can see a dark stripe running along the male badger's neck - that's blood. It's still neatly contained because I didn't puncture the artery, which is why working slow and with a seriously sharp instrument is highly recommended when skinning unbled animals. You can literally skate around some of the major blood vessels in the body if you just take your time.)

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Like I said earlier, skinning in the bathroom was almost fucking perfect but there was only one drawback: not enough leg room. I processed the entire male badger in the bathroom, but when it came time to work with the female I set up camp in the backroom. It was far more comfortable - and relaxing, I plugged our MP3 player directly into the turntable's speakers and listened to The Moors while flaying, gutting and cleaning - but the lighting wasn't as great, so the pictures below look darker and less detailed than the ones above.

I tried taking a few pictures of the mostly skinned female badger to give people a sense of anatomy, but flash photography isn't the best way to show off the intricate weaving of nature and evolution. A badger's jaw is hinged in a way that can't be dislocated unless physically broken, so the skull and upper vertebrae get a tremendous amount of support from an insane amount of muscles (which is clearly visible in this picture). The abdominal cavity isn't open, although you can see some of her internal organs just peeking beneath the disrupted mammy tissue towards the back legs and tail (the muscle holding them in split in one or two places along the inner thigh).

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While the female badger's skull looks undamaged, it was actually in fractured pieces. (The only thing holding the skull together was muscle.) The male sustained much less damage, although his jaw was severely dislocated. In this picture you get a good fucking idea of how goddamn robust a badger's neck is; it doesn't taper down gracefully, and the thick, muscular layers extend straight from the skull to the shoulders.

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The flayed pelt of the female badger. What you see is the entire animal: her fur, feet, ears, whiskers, nipples, asshole - everything. I haven't yet taught myself how to tan hides and furs (that's one of my 2011 goals), but when it's time to preserve her I'll be working with her complete skin. In fact, out of respect to the animal I won't be "grooming" my furs for symmetrical appearance, but that's just my personal feelings as the caretaker of my animals.

(In addition to selling the bones and feathery remains of my roadkill animals I'll also be selling their preserved pelts, although the decision to pop in lower jaws or groom furs will entirely be up to the animal's caretaker. Any pieces trimmed away would be kept - either by myself or the caretaker - to ensure that all of the animal's preserved remains were properly honored.)

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One of the female badger's beautiful little paws, studded with five super long nails that once ripped through the earth to find food and create homes.

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Meat is fucking meat, and we're carnivores, so I don't expect anyone to be blown away by the fact that we eat roadkill (provided that the animal's safe for human consumption). There are certain animals that we won't eat for spiritual or legal reasons, but everything else is fair game. And to be completely honest? If given a choice between hunted food and roadkill food I'd always prefer the roadkill option. (I've eaten hunted game and had to spit out fucking shots; there ain't no bullets to accidentally break your fucking teeth on when eating a roadkill animal.)

People might not believe it, but eating roadkill has drastically changed our diets and personal beliefs of how an animal - one destined to be eaten - should live and die. We've always been concerned about animal welfare, but I've always felt - at least until recently - that two people couldn't really make that much of an impact on industrial farming.

I'm now entering my second year of scavenging and we no longer eat full-priced meat from battery operations (we only purchase the reduced-to-clear shit that's on the verge of being thrown out - our feelings are that letting the animal go to waste by being dumped in a landfill would be the bigger crime), we've drastically reduced our intake of pork and beef, we've instigated vegetarian-only days (which is really fucking hard when you're a flesh-eating troll like me) and drastically raised our intake of local, welfare-assured meat and indigenous game (not just roadkill).

Even though I'm not responsible for the roadkill animal's death, I feel like I make peace by using the dead body. And that's what this picture's all about: communion.

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In these last four pictures you'll see how I reduced the female badger's body down to bone and meat. She isn't 100% complete; her body was so badly damaged I had no choice but to take off her lower legs and bury them with her internal organs. To the right of her partial carcass is a section of her spine, one of her arms (she sustained serious injury to her head, one of her shoulders, her back and one of her hips) and a sheet of fat I managed to rescue off her otherwise inedible lower third.

If you're a meat eater (and, most importantly, a cook), you might be able to pick out familiar cuts in the image above. The most obvious are the ribs which flank the spine on either side, and the two fleshy medallions of meat hugging part of the vertebrae are the tenderloins. Tenderloin is also known as "fillet steak" (here in the UK), or "filet" (French); it's the most tender - and most expensive - cut of meat you can get. Filet mignon comes from tenderloin, so, essentially you're staring at what was eventually removed and made into badger filet mignon.

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Before I could extract those two prized strips of tenderloin I had to remove the excess fat hiding the meat, which is a prize within itself. Pure animal fat is gold in a motherfucking jar to a witch and cook, so I take my adipose harvesting really fucking seriously. Once I have enough reserves from a certain type of animal I gently warm the solid lumps until they've melted, and then strain the liquid fat clean into glass jars which are kept in the fridge. One of my goals is to be able to offer rendered fat from roadkill animals to the witchcraft community through my store-to-be, but first I have to find a supplier of tiny jam jars to see if the idea's even viable.

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By this point I've removed the fat, extracted the tenderloins and removed most of the edible meat from the bones. Because I wasn't sure how to separate the ribs cleanly from the spine (we're totally having BBQ badger ribs) I left the spinal column intact for later butchery.

Her fractured head sits in the middle of the photo, and to her right are her practically meatless bones which will be cleaned for divinatory purposes (I'll be digging up her leg bones once the flesh has rotted off). The two bowls crowning the towel hold fat for rendering and meat for eating, and the clear bowl at the bottom of the towel holds the small, inedible portions which was offered to fellow scavengers. (Picking up roadkill means taking a prospective meal away from carrion eaters, so I like to right the balance by sharing remains with them.)

The ritualized funeral'n'butchery process is hella involved, but it allows me to make most of the unfortunate deaths I come across and, as you can see, nothing - not even a scrap of membrane - gets wasted.

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...and here's most of the female badgered butchered, cleaned, portioned and vacuum sealed. Her head and bones were kept together for cleaning, her fat gathered up into one neat pile for rendering and her spinal column and neck were left whole for future BBQing. The other air-tight plastic envelopes contain meat, and they was separated by cut. (Thin, fleshy flank steaks and thick, chunky casserole bites.)

For the curious, I haven't had badger yet, but I can tell you that it smells like any other red meat. I wouldn't describe the scent as "gamey", but I did detect a faint lamb-like aroma when my mouth began watering. (And, holy fuck, it watered. It watered often.) I'm keeping the tenderloin pieces for something special (badger stroganoff, anyone?), so our first foray into roadkill badger eating will probably be shish kebabs using the chunkier grade of meat flavored with a Mediterranean-style marinade.

Supermoon Altar

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If I tell y'all a secret, do you promise not to burn me for blasphemy? (Don't think I don't know how this relationship ends, Internet. Bad things happen when your arrival's celebrated with palm leaves and rejoicing.) I'm not so hot on the moon. There, I said it. In addition to not worshipping any gods/goddesses - or considering myself pagan - my goto celestial body is the sun. (<- Strike three for Ms. Graveyard Dirt! Watch my witchcraft cred plummet like some bad fucking stock.)

The moon isn't for me; it's for Italics. It's his opposite, as the sun's mine. As Darkness I crave Light (I'm totally a day person who seriously goes stir-fucking-crazy if I don't get enough natural light), and as Light he craves Darkness (he, unsurprisingly, is more of a night person who isn't as affected by the lack of natural light). Our opposites complete us, so it isn't that much of a stretch to understand why I'd intuitively reach out to the heavenly body that's associated most with masculine qualities. (Unconvinced? Just ask Diana; homegirl knows all about Darkness coveting Light.)

It's not that the moon isn't present, or doesn't play an active role in my life or beliefs, because fuck if I don't experience firsthand the very special type of lunacy that comes with being ruled - emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically - by Luna. It's a wild, feral, untamed energy that I can't harness or control, and more often than not it has me screaming and thrashing around like a rabid fucking beast until I get that rampaging animal out. It's worse during full moons, it's especially bad if I'm nocturnal during a full moon, and it's terrifyingly unnatural if I'm nocturnal during a full moon and I'm on my first week of contraceptive pills.

Because the moon brings out the worst in me - the worst which I can't control - I've done everything from gingerly tiptoeing around it to shoving it into a lockable vault and throwing away the key. (<- Proof you don't need to be emotionally mature to be a witch!) It's not the most conducive environment for personal growth, but at least I realize my instinctual reaction to block the moon's influence is a coping mechanism (and, admittedly, an avoidance tactic).

(Translation: I'm not dumb, I'm lazy and willful. And I JUST manage to get away with it because the Universe seems to like "willful". Or, at least, my homegrown version of willful.)

The pill I'm taking is a 3 week cycle with about a week off so I can have my "period". (It's not a really-for-real period, but I bleed for several days every 24-28 days and that's good enough for me. In fact, that was the deal breaker - I'd go on the pill, but only if it allowed me to have a natural seeming cycle since menstruation is crazy important to my flavor of witchcraft.) After 8 days of being off the pill I begin taking them again for the next 21 days, and holy fuck if the first 1/2 of the first week isn't hell on fucking earth (for both me and anyone who needs to be in close proximity to my raging ass).

Rather than experiencing one or two days of intense PMS symptoms before my period, I now get super ramped PMS symptoms that last for nearly a week. There's no fucking doubt in anyone's mind as to what the contributing factor is because it's so goddamn obvious. I'm fine until I take my first pill, and then within 2 motherfucking hours everything changes. Towards the end of the first week the emotional side affects taper down, and by the second week - which is a different set of pills - you'd never guess that I spent the last 7 days terrorizing NE Scotland with my more-beast-than-woman hormonal routine.

So, for reasons stated above, this entire household cringes when I'm about to go on my contraceptive again, and when we're about to get hit with a full fucking moon. And when the two converge? Sheer fucking white-faced panic. (Why they don't shoot me in the ass with a tranquilizer dart is beyond fucking me; it's not like I couldn't use the extra fucking sleep.) Nothing, we thought, could be worse than a grand conjunction of nocturnal mode, full moon and first week of pills...but we were wrong. We were supermoon wrong.

When I took the last effing pill on the 11th of March I counted out my 8 days on the calendar and my restart day - because the Universe enjoys a good fucking LOL! - was the 19th, the day/night of the supermoon. (<- That's not fucking coincidence, that's the Lamb breaking open one of the first motherfucking seals.) But wait! It gets better! On the 19th the full moon was the closest it's been in nearly 20 effing years, which meant without a fallout bunker Italics and my in-laws were woefully unprepared for the unholy union of hormones, autism and repressed lunar rage.

To say I was apprehensive about the event would be the understatement of the fucking year/decade/existence, but it seemed like a major fucking waste to not tap into what was going on - and I didn't feel like kicking myself for benching my own ass - so I reluctantly acknowledged the full moon's positioning by dragging out anything I wanted consecrated by Luna. As light faded I began grouping objects and tools in front of the backroom's patio door, where rays of moonlight would fall through unobstructed glass and illuminate my most treasured possessions as they rested on the floor. (<- Not exactly my standard altar, but this one had a unique purpose so I'm going to let the unsymmetrical, yard sale-lookin' mess slide. For once.)

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I don't know if it's entirely obvious, but my supermoon altar was composed of 3 separate categories: my tools, objects that celebrate a certain aspect of the divine female and super personal magic items that I wanted sanctified by the grace of the moon.

The first altar tier was dedicated to the tools that I use in daily life and in all of my witchcraft-based practices. Resting on my newly acquired vintage tea towel (which is a ritual item within itself, it's already been used to create an impromptu altar at the foot of a sacred hill as we performed an engagement rite on the Spring Equinox): a knife given to me this past Christmas by my godchildren's parents, two vintage trivets I use when burning incense (one's for roadkill work and the other's for more personal affairs), my deer bell to call my spectral herd, a stag candleholder which I use like trivet'n'stand, the miniature enamel casserole pot I burn resin-based incense in, my antique goat's bell (I wear it during sex rites; if I'm already doing the entire fertility goat thang I might as well wear a goat's bell while doing it), the all-too-familiar sickle, a handmade, boline-like knife given to me by a very generous friend (it was originally made for her), the scalpel I use when skinning/working with roadkill, a vegetable kitchen knife for my wildcrafting adventures (the curved blade is excellent for cutting/peeling mushrooms), my crazy-important ritual scissors (I'm more of a scissor witch than knife witch; I'm a sucker for super functional shit) and my machete which usually lives right next to our bedroom door. (<- Yes, that IS a warning and a threat, uninvited guests.)

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More of the tools that I use in daily life and in all of my witchcraft-based practices: my make-up brushes (I rarely wear make-up, so when I do it's usually because something big's about to go down, and on those occasions I use make-up to create a living mask of the persona I'm preparing to embody), my ritual apron (the first time we celebrated Hieros Gamos I wore seven layers of clothing which were gradually removed during the sacred rite, the Scottish-themed apron - the clothing of a married woman - was one of those layers), a rectangular slab of slate taken from the threshold of a ruined chapel (used like a trivet, incense burner and cutting board) and sitting on top of them all is my goat whip broom that's groaned beneath the weight of my naked, fat ass on many a Walpurgisnacht.

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The second altar tier was dedicated to objects that I felt celebrated the divine female, but more specifically a certain aspect of the divine female that I'm stupidly deficient in. I have She-Who-Wears-Pants war-like aggression in spades, but what I lack is the merciful, nurturing patience present in goddesses like the Virgin Mary (and even Hathor despite her infamous moodiness). While the moon's a source of madness, it's also a source of a sort've Zen compassion and if I could only strike a slight balance between the two I know I could curb my werewolf curse.

Sitting on my wooden tray: Tawaret, Ephesian Artemis, the Blessed Virgin, the small figure of Kadesh bears my gold Czarina earrings (they once belonged to Alexandra), there's a small statue of Hathor partially hidden by a ring box fitted with my wedding ring and my new Lent purity/engagement ring, cutlery that'll eventually be used when I make a special table setting for our ancestors, the first piece of pentacle jewelry I ever bought (I bought the ring last year and wear it inverted on my left thumb for the LOLs), the large intaglio lapis goat pendant is normally worn with my chain link bra (another one of my 7 bridal layers), the sculpted vulva is actually a handmade cicada pendant with a feminine twist, the square pendant is a handmade Hail Mary sigil-made-jewelry and the cock'n'lady charm is a Thai fertility pendant.

Within the wooden bowl is my female chalice (there's a hole in the handle that's yoni-shaped), 2 effigies of me (one slightly more tongue-in-cheek than the other), 3 eggs (the first to be laid this year by battery-rescued hens; they're being saved so I can blow them out for pysanky) and everything's sitting on a bloodied kitchen towel that I normally wrap my ritual scissors and knives in. (<- When I accidentally stabbed myself with the scissors a few years back I applied pressure to the wound using that towel, and I've kept my ritual blades wrapped up in it ever since).

To the top right of the bowl is an antique statue of the Virgin Mary, and hung on the spires of the statue are pieces of female orientated jewelry: my moonstone ring that once belonged to my mother, and a triad of pendants - a quartz crystal, a teardrop-shaped piece of moonstone and a yoni-shaped religious medal of the Virgin - I almost never leave home without. To the bottom right of the bowl is a 18th century silver beaker depicting the Blessed Mother brandishing a sword amidst angelic hosts (no, seriously), and my carved head of Hathor peeks out of the antique cup all Oscar the fucking Grouch-style.

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The third and final altar tier was dedicated to super personal magic items that I wanted sanctified by the grace of the moon. Those objects included: my wooden foraging basket (it performs an amazing trick), two boxes of seeds (of poisons, medicines and entheogens), the Santa Muerte black rabbit (see Year of the Rabbit), my ritual Bean Nighe bowl and #01's skull (which is now slowly drying in a dark, cool room). The ass-shaped sabbat cake (it has the combined sexual fluids of both Italics and I), bar of dark sea salt chocolate and shot of my homemade plum liqueur were offerings left for Luna in thanks for the blessings bestowed on my most sacred of possessions.

Four Funerals and a Bath

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The badger funeral was conducted in our bathroom, and was overseen by Bee (our pet rat who turned into a badger after death; the stuffed toy is Beh's spirit doll, which was invoked to act as a psychopomp for the recently deceased). Offerings were a fresh bowl of cold water, resin-based incense and a shared peanut butter and honey sandwich with raisins on gluten-free brown bread.

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The pheasant funeral was conducted in our kitchen (if the animal's fit to be eaten, then it's fit to be butchered in the culinary heart of our home), and its spirit was ushered outside with the rest of our "chickens" who we regularly feed using old bread, table scraps and Rice Krispies. Offerings were a fresh bowl of cold water, stick incense and a bowl of locally grown oats (not that this motherfucker needed any more food with how much wheat he had stuffed in his crop).

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The rabbit funeral was conducted in our backroom, and was overseen by my Santa Muerte rabbit (the head rabbit of my five black rabbits). Most animals that come into this house end up being processed in the kitchen, but because I'm not allowed to eat rabbit - and because we both picked up an initiatory illness from one that lasted a fucking month - I try and do my rabbit butchery as far away as possible from where I prepare food for consumption. Offerings were a fresh bowl of cold water, a carrot, resin-based incense and a little gem lettuce and parsley open face sandwich on gluten-free brown bread.

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The deer funeral was conducted in our backroom, and the twitterpated couple spent the entire evening nuzzling one another over a shared sandwich as I worked on the female badger in the same room (our tiny bathroom turned out to be too cramped to process a nearly 30lb animal, so I relocated my skinning operation to a larger area with more leg room). Offerings were a fresh bowl of cold water, resin-based incense and a little gem lettuce, parsley and hummus sandwich dressed with some of my "uniquely special" fly agaric/toadstool oil on gluten-free brown bread.

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Amidst the mourning there was some bathing. A few days after our March 7th roadkill haul we stumbled across the mud-soaked body of a dead male pheasant who, despite being plastered with gravel, was still in fairly good condition. We took him home and I Bean Nighed its ass in my orange roadkill bucket filled with cool, sudsy water, rinsed him until the water ran clean and then preened some of his feathers back into place before reducing him down to bones, feathers, meat and feet. I think it must've appreciated the care; this particular pheasant was practically odorless (either that or I've become totally desensitized to the sour, bile-y scent of busted crops and internal organs).

Twitterpated

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For obvious reasons these two (#09 and #10) will be sold as a set.

The Day of 7

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Here's a sterling example of my recent streak of bad fucking luck: within days of passing its mothereffing MOT - which took longer than fucking usual, so we were without access to a vehicle for something like 1/2 a week instead of the usual overnight - my car broke. I mean, like, within 48 effing hours of being returned home. On our first foray out after a long nocturnal period I lowered all four car windows to clear them of condensation and only three came back up. And then the door of the non-working window began whining, even AFTER I turned the fucking engine off. My ass? Never even left the effing driveway that day.

We sealed the open window with a trash bag (a sight I haven't fucking seen in something like 15 or 20 years; Scottish people are notoriously car-vain, so you don't see dirty ass beaters chugging down the highway with homemade plastic windows like you do in the States) and I braced myself for the inevitable: the frustrating disbelief of how much fucking time would be necessary to fix what was, essentially, a small fucking problem. Because that's what happens with this car. (Last summer? It was out of commission for nearly a fucking month because the speedometer stopped working. Not a complicated problem, but, LOL!, the repair guys ordered the wrong part, couldn't fit the used one they found and...)

I'd totally agree with you about needing to be more laidback and zen about this shit, but with our fucked up sleeping schedule - which has been in place for over ten fucking years, so it ain't gonna change anytime soon - there are month long periods where we're up exclusively at night. And being up at night, in Scotland, during the depths of winter means I have to abandon my roadkill duties entirely until our bizarre way of living finally falls in synch with the normal world for a few long weeks. In reality, I actually have a very small window of opportunity to engage in those duties (at least during the darker months of the year), so I begin biting my nails when the car suddenly goes down just as our schedules align with the ability to go out.

Within a half a fucking hour Italics had already pegged what had gone wrong. Apparently, my make of car is notoriously fussy about moisture. Water got into where it shouldn't have been when I lowered the windows, and a fuse freaked. But we aren't mechanics, so the car had to be turned over to professionals who wouldn't listen to Italics, and therefore spent over a motherfucking week taking shit apart going "WOW, WE REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS THING".

After 8-9 days of nail biting we finally get a "LOL! HE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! LOL!" call from them, and I tried really, really fucking hard not to see red, but it was hella hard, internet, when I finally got my fucking car back only to find that the repair guys busted our radio and internal clock. Which means it needs to go back to the shop. Again. So something else can break within a week of bringing it back home.

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(The serious fucking kicker? My father did all of the mechanical upkeep of our cars, but when I asked to be taught those skills he laughed the idea off. Neither of my parents took the time to talk to me about drugs, alcohol or sex, so you'd think they'd try to strike a balance by teaching me something useful like simple auto repair, but...no.)

Anyway, this entry isn't solely about me bitching about my car, I just sort've wanted to give you an idea of how life can get royally fucked when I don't have one when we're up during the day. (I suppose I could've been succinct and said something like: no car = no roadkill work, nocturnal mode = no roadkill work.) And this time of the year is a crazy special time because all of the hibernating animals are sluggishly coming to, which means certain species are getting hit as they groggily stumble around.

(Roadkill definitely has its "seasons", and right now we're knee-deep in badger season. It's not that badgers don't get hit off-peak, it's just that during this time of the year they're slowly waking up, emerging from their dens and diving headfirst into mating season. In badger world it's a crazy motherfucking time, although it's an unfortunate time that often sees a high body count and leaves many badgers windowed (they mate for life). 2011 is my second year of scavenging, and in that time - at least until yesterday - I've only come across two roadkill badgers and both of those were found in early March of last year.)

So, like, that's why the car's broken window had me biting my motherfucking nails: badgers (the dead ones, anyway). Because, fuck, we love badgers. Seriously. Out of all of the indigenous wildlife here in northeast Scotland they secured the biggest chunk out of our collective hearts. They're amazing, wonderful creatures burdened by medieval beliefs. They're maligned animals - much like foxes - and seem to have become the farmer's scapegoat. For all of those reasons and more we place badgers pretty fucking high on our roadkill pedestal; to be given one is a tremendously huge gift, and one we don't take for granted.

But badgers aren't the only animal of this story, (roe) deer play a pretty significant role, too. During this past Yuletide season we created an altar beneath the Christmas tree (an altar beneath another altar? talk about motherfucking talent!) around our Yule log, and we used apples, oranges, pears, plums and foil-wrapped candy to decorate the space. After the holidays we split the food into three lots: one was offered to the kids at the boarded up orphanage and home for disturbed children, the other went to the cemetery cairn for Papa, our ancestors and the locally buried dead and the last and final lot - comprised of 6 plums and 1 pear - were set aside for the roadkill deer I found, and, subsequently, took home in 2010.

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So, yeah, okay, it took my fucking ass three motherfucking months to finally execute the ritual (I ended up freezing the fruit to preserve it), and you'd think there might be some residual hard feelings about the delay, but even before we began leaving each deer its offering (at its death site; we left a whole plum - a significant choice because my roadkill altar is beneath a fruiting plum tree which means my spectral herd got a-fucking-lot of fresh, homegrown plums as offerings during last year's Harvest season - wherever we found the body of one of my deer) we stumbled across the ruffled - but unruptured - body of a male pheasant. (I mean, that find in itself makes a successful roadkill haul.)

Within minutes of dropping the first plum and ringing the deer bell for the first of 6 times (I spent 21 fucking days last October "herding" these motherfuckers with Chippy to get them to associate the sound of the goddamn bell with food) we came across the near perfect body of a wild rabbit. Unless you get them early on, roadkill rabbits tend to get mangled within an hour of death. Miraculously, this one - who wasn't warm to the touch in the slightest - somehow managed to remain unscathed, which meant I found my first intact rabbit of 2011. (Two usable roadkill animals in one day? That's a hella successful roadkill haul.)

After approximately placing #2's offering down (it was a drive-thru operation; I drove, and Italics rang the bell and tossed the plums out the window in the general direction of where the body had been found) I caught the dingy, yellowed belly fur of a large animal. "BADGER! BADGER! OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! BADGER!" I started screaming - almost swerving - because all I needed to see was that dusty, ivory stomach hair to know what animal was lying at the side of the road for me.

I cried. Just a little. It was a weird mix of grateful, happy and sad. I would never, ever choose anything but life for any creature, but when death happens in my little kingdom-territory I want to be there for the animal. When I use the word "happy" to describe how I feel when it comes to roadkill, it's only because I'm relieved that the animal isn't lost and wasn't deprived of a funeral with mourners. I'm "happy" because I made sure that the animal wasn't forgotten, and that its death wouldn't have been in vain. I'm "happy" because I know how much love it'll get once it gets home (I admit it; I'm autistic and hug things, especially roadkill animals), and how much love it'll receive when it's time for me to transfer responsibilities to a new caretaker.

But, fuck, yeah. A badger. Pristine. Huge. A mother of a mother, in fact. (Teats; she's got them.) She had a somewhat shitty ass that needs to be babywiped, but otherwise she was in perfect condition. I moved the roadkill pheasant and rabbit aside and gently laid her giant corpse in trunk of the car, stopping to caress the depth of her winter coat. (Three usable roadkill animals in one day and one of them's a motherfucking badger? That's a crazy hella successful roadkill haul, even if she did unceremoniously fart in my fucking face as I loaded her into the car.)

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Before I could make my third offering - literally, just around the road's bend from the badger - I caught the battered remains of a deer in a ditch. So Italics, for the fourth time, had to patiently wait in the driveway of someone's house as I assessed the new animal. The buck (#9!) was too old, too broken and too gutted (his stomach had been hollowed out, but was filled with bloodied water) to be carted home, so I dragged his mangled-shattered-eaten remains far from the side of the road to give me - and fellow scavengers - a safe place to do our business. Despite being somewhat bruised his head seemed otherwise undamaged, so I decapitated him, took his head, released his spirit back into the wild and left the rest of his body tucked under some budding gorse for Nature.

I just barely pulled out of that motherfucking driveway when my eyes caught the all-too-familiar tuft of yellowed belly hair. Another badger, within seeing distance of the other roadkill badger and deer. Perfect. Amazing. Soul-crushingly teddy bear cute. And when I lifted it up into my arms, spying his little package, my heart almost broke. We found a male and female badger within less of a 1/4 of a mile of one another; it's very likely they were a mated pair.

On one hand you think "well, fuck, at least they're together, you know?", but on the other hand you think "fuck, what must've it been like to experience your mate for life get killed? and then to be killed the same way as you stumbled around confused and grieving?" and that second thought still causes everything in my chest to ache. So it was a little downbeat in the car as we inched closer to home, because finds like that really make you appreciate the serious prices that need to be paid for a "crazy hella successful roadkill haul" and that an animal's death doesn't just impact that specific animal, it potentially spells disaster, death and loneliness for offspring and mates as well.

Within a few miles of offering #3 (we've found two deer and one badger in that spot; I'm going to do my goddamn hardest to get some sort of animal crossing sign put up at that deadly bend to see if I can lower the wildlife body count) I caught the bristly hair of another deer (#10!). For a second I thought I hallucinated the crumpled body because, fuck, who finds 6 motherfucking usable roadkill animals within a 15 mile radius of their fucking house in one fucking drive?

#10 remained a questionable hallucination for about a half an hour; with no more room in the trunk (2 badgers, 1 pheasant, 1 rabbit and 1 decapitated deer head) we had to make a quick pit stop at home to unload our haul just in case the phantom deer turned out to be a reality (a tangible reality that was complete enough to take the entire body).

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Plum offering #4 was made on our way home, and then plum offering #5 was made on our way back to the maybe-for-real-but-who-knows? roadkill deer. She - #10 - was a rare fucking find; a treasure. Only 3 of the 10 deer I've found have been female, most of my herd's made up of young males. While Italics became acquainted with another driveway (just so I'm not giving the wrong impression: Italics is crazy active and helps me with most of my physical work, but yesterday his bad back was acting up so I benched his ass) I got out to inspect the very real deer.

Her state was near identical to #9's, which we found less than 10 minutes away. My guess is that both had been dead between 2-4 days; long enough for the eyes to turn milky white, to give scavengers a chance to empty the abdomen (but not make a huge dent in any other area of the body) and to be a little too far gone to take home and process in our little Scottish kitchen. (My mother-in-law? Just LOVES sharing her white kitchen with my roadkill.)

Her head, like most hit'n'run deer, felt solidly intact, so I dragged her partially eaten remains up a hill - jamming my fucking wrist against the ground when we both started sliding down the steep dirt mound - where I performed my decapitation/release ritual away from speeding cars and prying eyes. (Cause, like, the last thing people want to see is my fat fucking ass hanging out of my fucking jeans while beheading a dead animal at the side of the fucking road.)

A secondary surprise came in the form of detached wings, which I found on the way back to the car. Not even full, proper wings, but the very tips made up of a handful of bashed feathers on either side. But it was only the tips, plus a few nature-cleaned bones still attached to the structures, that I found. With no other feathers or scattered remains it seemed like something had carried those remnants from the original site of death. From the looks of them, they came from a rather large bird. (I have my suspicions, but I haven't had a chance to actually ID them yet.)

No offense to the trunk full of dead animals we were carting around, but fuck were we shattered after finding #10 and the tattered wings. That particular roadkill route usually takes me about 30-40 minutes to perform. Yesterday? It took three fucking hours. You would not fucking believe how thankful we were when it became clear that the roadkill slot machine was finally empty.

The last deer offering (#6) was made on the way home, and shortly after - just down the road where I pick the majority of my fly agarics/toadstools - a seventh offering was made (a large pear), because, as we all know, "7" is way, way more magic than "6". And it wasn't until later that night I realized that I had arbitrarily chosen March 7th to make my 7 offerings, which, in turn, rewarded me with 7 animals. 7 usable roadkill animals in one day? That's not just a crazy hella successful roadkill haul, that's a seriously magic roadkill haul from a Universe that evidently doesn't hold grudges.

PS: I realize that the entire roadkill thing is a niche interest, and that not every visitor to Graveyard Dirt is going to understand or accept my practices. That's cool, I totally get that. But if you ARE interested in learning about how I incorporate roadkill into my feral version of witchcraft (what I do, why I do it, etc.) two good places to start are my roadkill Flickr set and my Asphalt & Entrails journal category. Happy scavenging!

Wild, Full and Fertile

Three days before celibacy I'm sprinting barefoot across the recently swept March-cold patio, past the just-planted tobacco, the sleeping fruit trees and crowning foxgloves, past stainless steel offering bowls, buried remnants of roadkill animals and Stone Cock's vacant throne. Naked and flushed from sex I run from the comfortable heat of the house into the cold of the night; wild, full and fertile holding-gripping-cupping the precious fluids trickling warmly out of my well-loved cunt to bless and consecrate the King's divine seed lovingly sowed over the shrouded remains of a long dead crow.

Lunch & a Funeral

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#7 - Italics' little cheeky devil - enjoyed a fresh basil, Chinese cabbage and romaine lettuce heart open faced sandwich on a slice of multi-grain brown bread (served with a generous trickle of my toadstool oil), and a bowl of fresh water before we embarked on our six hour funeral rite.

Blood, Bone & Water

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Valentine's Day Funeral

I know I've mentioned it before, but there's this curious phenomenon I experience after a long period of nocturnal-related absence from my roadkill duties: on the first day out I'm always given some sort of gift. In winter it's usually a pheasant, in summer it's usually a rabbit but on February 13th we stumbled across the broken body of a young roe buck at Dead Animal's Curve (so far we've found one adult badger (Under the Bed Badger) and two adult deer (#6 and now #8) on the bend; like the oldie song goes "it's no place to play") bringing my roadkill deer total up to 8.

By the look'n'smell of him I could tell that he'd been at the side of the road for a few days. Thankfully the cold snap we've been experiencing helped preserve his body, so the scent was more "old meat getting more old" than "rotting, bloated corpse". Unlike #7 who had a cheeky little glint in his beady eyes (he's a mischievous little fucker; trust me) #8's corneas were glazed over-milky, and they had already begun the process of retreating back into the skull.

Scavengers had obviously not wasted any time tucking into the free, nourishing meal. (In fact, an entire flock of crows took the air as I approached the deer's body, ferociously cawing down at my ass from naked beech trees for disturbing their Sunday brunch.) A huge patch of fur and flesh had been stripped from #8's body leaving a section of his ribs exposed. Something had also perforated the deer's abdomen revealing a couple of strands of puffed up intestine. Needless to say, this particular buck wasn't in any condition to take home. So I took the one body part I could "save": his head.

After apologizing on the behalf of the human race for what happened (you're welcome, human race, and if you're going to send me a box of chocolates as a thank you I totally prefer "dark"), and asking the Old Woman (the Cailleach) for strength and speed I furiously began cutting through inches of fur, skin, fat, muscle and bone (winter coats are a motherfucking bitch to work through) with my dinky little hacksaw. (Because, like, that's totally what people want to see on their late Sunday morning drive in the country: a woman with her fat ass hanging out of her pants while decapitating a roadkill deer.)

Once the connection was completely severed I bagged the head, slapped the buck on its ass to encourage his spirit to take off (I release animals back into the wild instantly, but they do occasionally get rounded up - herded by Chippy in the case of my spectral deer - to be fed and watered) and dragged the decapitated body deeper into the beech hedge to give scavengers a safer place to consume the deer's remains. (I mean, the spot's been nicknamed "Dead Animal's Curve" for a reason.)

Because it was so late in our "day" (we're still rocking weird, nocturnal hours but we're slowly inching to a more normal sleep pattern) I left #8's head in the garage overnight so I could perform a proper funeral the day after (Valentine's Day) without feeling rushed by my early afternoon bedtime. The pictures below are of that funeral ritual, which, by this point - if you've been following Graveyard Dirt for a bit - should probably look sort've familiar. (Why mess with a formula that works?)

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Normally I hold wakes outside on my roadkill altar, but that's only if I'm physically in the backyard keeping an eye on the dead animal (or dead animal part). Despite living in a rural subdivision our property's a hotspot for wildlife activity (everything from hedgehogs, badgers, foxes and deer), and it's forever being patrolled by every goddamn cat that lives in a five mile radius. So it goes without saying, if I'm not able to keep a hawk's eye on the funeral (and the bodily contents that make up the funeral) then the shit comes into the house - no matter how god-fucking-awful the scent is.

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Dying is an exhausting process, so to help my roadkill animals overcome the disorientating sluggishness of death I always juice them up with offerings of incense, fresh water and a freshly prepared sandwich. I have yet to explain it (I'm several years behind on stories), but I have a magic little deer bell I ring to alert my spectral herd that it's feeding time. (The process of them associating the sound with a free meal took 21 fucking days and was a huge pain in the motherfucking ass.)

#8's open face sandwich was made up of organic little gem lettuce and fresh dill on a slice of gluten-free white bread served with a generous drizzle of my "uniquely special" psychoactive toadstool (fly agaric) oil. (<- Reindeer aren't the only deer that enjoy the buzz from consuming the hallucinogenic mushroom, although they're probably the most well known for the behavior.)

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The damage sustained to #8's antlers. Even though you can't tell, the one that looks intact - the one on the left - was actually loose and slightly floppy. I've "rescued" four bucks since starting my roadkill duties, but only one - the first deer I ever found - came with a pair of antlers that didn't suffer major trauma.

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Roe deer - what this young buck is-was-is - was the original Bambi. Walt Disney swapped roe for white-tailed deer because the species was more familiar to American audiences.

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Tiny, adorable antler nubs. When I eventually rot #8 down to retrieve the skull I'll try my best to retrieve any broken or shattered parts of the antler so the person who ends up buying the head will also receive the fragmented bits which they can add to a mojo bag, place on an altar or carry around in a pocket or purse.

Superbowl Sunday

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

Me and #7

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If I still smell like wet ass deer fur, this is probably why.

Before & After

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I still have a bannock to bake, a bed and altar to create for Bride, and one roadkill deer to skin and butcher, so this "before'n'after" entry's going to be hella short. (I was expecting to bake and create today, but I so wasn't anticipating working with any sort of roadkill beside Beech Hedgerow Crow. <- Whose macerating water, by the way, smelled like nasty ass morning breath today. Just incase you were wondering.)

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After several post-flu infused days of cleaning for the Bride, my work was finally done late yesterday night. Now all I have to do is create a bed for Her on the couch, put together an altar for Her (and Spring) on the tiled coffee table and somehow break it to my mother-in-law that in my inscrutable wisdom I've decided to skin and butcher the roadkill deer on the motherfucking kitchen floor.

Cleaning for the Bride

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smoke Bath

I'm still sick, so I'm pushing through the post-flu phase as gently as possible. Not yesterday, but the day before - the first day back on my feet (even if only for 3 hours) - Italics helped me pot roast the gorgeous roadkill pheasant we found on the 14th. Even though the meal was only a fraction of the size of Harvest's celebratory dinners, it was the first proper serving of real food either of us had in something like five fucking days and I thanked the fuck out of the bird for providing us some hardcore nourishment after a severe wave of illness.

Until I'm fully recovered I'm going to have to pick my daily battles carefully. Now that the brisket's finally brining, my sole focus is cleaning the backroom (currently stuffed with cardboard boxes filled with bones, dried "edible" mushrooms and dried fly agarics, not to mention several sets of feathers pinned to boards, dried Midwinter evergreen that needs bottling up and a basket full of gifts decorated with twine, feathers and bones). But, I can't clean the backroom until I'm finished with the communal lounge, and that motherfucking room can't get the ALL EFFING CLEAR! stamp until I've taken down all the Christmas decorations, boxed them up and tossed them back into the attic for another 11 months.

In lieu of a proper journal entry I've decided to post a short video of me ritually purifying Beech Hedgerow Crow's dried feathers (two wings, one set of fanned tail feathers and one feathered head hood) in an incense smoke bath with Chippy's help. (I suppose I should thank Enya for providing a dated, easy-listening soundtrack for the event? <- Storms in motherfucking Africa!) After we had worked our way through the separate pieces I jokingly held the spread wings against Chippy's back (he's my "air" correspondent, in his original form he has two sets of raptor-like wings) and my ass was instantly met with three booming, crazily enthusiastic words: "BUTTERFLY, WOMAN, BUTTERFLY!"

Good fucking Lord. After several thousand years of existence, Mr. Lord of the Flies - disease, pestilence and famine himself - wants to be a motherfucking butterfly. I can't say I'm surprised (he does have an awful fondness for cuteness), and one of his favorite things to do OTHER than watch Christmas music videos is sit outside near the butterfly bush and wait for his winged friends to visit him. (I, uh, inadvertently domesticated the undomesticated. It's amazing what can be achieved with sex, homemade soup and flying kites.) So, on our belated Christmas Morning, we granted that wish and helped him become an honorary Lepidoptera member.

Bride's Brisket

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It's taken nearly 96 fucking hours, but we've finally rejoined the ranks of the living and mostly conscious. (If your partner has a quick toke in a public bathroom before having lunch in town, and they ominously tell you they got an instant bad feeling that they caught something from that bathroom do not: kiss them, let them fuck you in the ass, rub your face into their genitals, share a bong with them or let them cough in your fucking face for two fucking days straight. <- Just trust me on this.)

Today's only priority was hauling ass to the local butcher's to pick up 6 motherfucking pounds of beef so I could begin brining Bride's brisket this evening for the 2nd (Bride's Day). The only problem? No fucking salt to create the preservative marinade. (It's always fucking something, you know?) Now tomorrow's only priority is haul ass to the grocery store to pick up some sea salt and a turkey bag, which means this year's brining experience will be 6 days instead of 7.

But 6 days is still good. In fact, even 5 days is good. If you were thinking about also preparing a brisket all corned beef-style for Bride (my recipe here), you still have another 48 hours to make up your mind and pick up a piece of suitable meat. (Cause, really, all you need is the brisket, kosher salt, black peppercorns, ground allspice, dried thyme and bay leaves to start. You can totally wait to worry about the boiled vegetables until the 1st or 2nd of February.)

Pheasants of Love

What? You didn't know Kate Bush's Hounds of Love album and ritual butchery go hand in hand? Well, you do now.

Winter Altar, 2010

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I'm happy to keep Christmas-Midwinter-Yule shit up until Bride's Day. My in-laws? Not as fucking happy. In fact, if I don't yank my Winter altar out from the communal lounge as soon as humanly possible it's only a matter of time before Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, begins throwing garbage into my offering vessels. (OH YES HE HAS. TWICE, EVEN.)

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Deconstructing one of my elaborate altars is always a fucking downer. I resist the job for as long as possible, but the unavoidable eventually wins because it's only a matter of time before an "incident" occurs between my sacred space and my father-in-law. (I could tell stories, but I get REALLY worked up retelling them and the last thing this household needs is me attacking Mr. Awesome's motherfucking face first thing in the morning.)

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Our communal lounge is a large, open space that only becomes homey when I blanket it with seasonal decoration. The second you strip that seasonal sheet away, you're left with an uninviting environment that verges on feeling medically sterile. In a lot of ways it sort've feels like a empty theater, quietly waiting for the next big production to roll into town.

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Christmas is the only holiday season I'm granted complete and utter control of the shared room. Other celebrations and special dates (i.e., Easter, Halloween, Harvest, etc.) are isolated to one or two spots in the room (the floating table between the speakers, and the CD player's cabinet unit), but because my in-laws understand Christmas they'll put up with all the fake evergreen, strand upon fucking strand of clear fairy lights and even the inverted wooden pentagram I hang up in the window as our private Yuletide joke.

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I meant to create a panoramic view of the decked out lounge, but we were so goddamn busy this past holiday season that I never got a chance to whip out the tripod. You sort've get a sense of the all-encompassing Yuletide cheer in Belated Christmas Morning, but the glorious explosion of wrapping paper, bubble wrap and discarded boxes does a good job at distracting you from what the room would look like if it was actually clean.

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Every year a tiny tweak is made to our Winter altar, but it hasn't radically changed since its first appearance back in 2008.

Last Christmas-Midwinter-Yule we upgraded to a fancier garland, illuminated it with two sets of lights, placed matching wreaths on the black offering plates and included several gifts from friends (the handmade stocking, the bird on the chimney's wreath and the heart dangling from the central skull). This past holiday we included our recently purchased "KNEEL TO PRAY" hassocks on the sheepskin rug, and I managed to improve the didukhy's (the decorated wheat bundle) appearance.

Today's crazy fucking insane schedule includes ritually butchering yesterday's roadkill find, working on Beech Hedgerow Crow, and creating a venison casserole for dinner from scratch while packing up more Christmas decorations and doing eighteen fucking tons of laundry (without a motherfucker dryer; it broke JUST before Christmas). Normally I love to explain every facet of my altars, but I just don't have the minutes to spare this time around.

If you're a Graveyard Dirt regular a lot of the altar items should already familiar. If not, then the brand spanking new "altars" category should help fill in the blanks. Previous incarnations of my Winter altar can be found here (2009) and here (2008), and a drive-by explanation of WTF a didukhy is can be read in my Sviata Vechera, 2010 journal entry.

Beech Hedgerow Crow

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"Do you wanna park?" I asked Italics as we loaded the car with our grocery shopping. It was just after 10PM in early July, which meant the natural lighting had dimmed, but it wouldn't truly be dark for another hour or so.

(We live far enough north to experience dawn breaking around 2:30AM during summer; night doesn't properly fall until around midnight, and even then - especially around Midsummer - there's this luminous blue ribbon that hugs the tiny space between the horizon and sky that doesn't disappear during the 2-3 hours of darkness.)

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So I drove to the small country lane that begins with crossroads and ends in a 3-way junction, where my wild roses grow, where I ritually reap wheat, where we pick up roadkill pheasant for dinner, wave to the familiar cattle, get followed by the local raptors and occasionally pilgrimage over to the trio of standing stones that've seen countless generations live, die and work the sacred land that the ancient stone monuments inhabit.

We pulled into the beginning of a blocked off, feral road (nature's reclaimed the unused stretch of asphalt, and now it's covered with grass and wild flowers providing the local rabbits a lush playing field) and parked, but hot'n'heavy car action didn't come into play because I was dying for a piss. (I'm a woman of many curses, one of them being the inexplicable need to fucking urinate the second I'm in the fucking country.)

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In that dimming July night we broke through the tricky hedge separating open country and forest, and spilled into the twilight hushed woods. Silent and eerie we maneuvered around pockets of pooled water, broken pine boughs and the dilapidated remains of a pheasant coup as we explored new, uncharted territory.

(One of the reasons why I find so many goddamn pheasants is because we live a few miles off an estate that provides hunting, so the gamekeepers artificially inflate the number of birds by introducing human-reared pheasants into the wild.)

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And then we did what we always do when it's just us and nature: we fucked. This time against a tree as I simultaneously tried to keep the position (the second I lost the perfect angle his cock would pop out) AND not slip off the two different dirt mounds I was standing on. We both laughed, we both climaxed and we both ended up having to pick bits of broken bark from our hair once we finished our amorous encounter.

As I scooped the combined sexual fluids trickling out of my cunt to offer it to the ground - to the woods, nature and earth - we found the remains of a solitary wild rabbit skull, perfectly cleaned and white washed by the elements. (Which is usually standard for us. For whatever reason the wild likes to repay favors, and it repays them pretty fucking quickly. The year before we ended up having ritual sex in another pine forest, and as we left a hunter gave me seven shot rabbits for free.)

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We did manage to park despite our unintended foray in the woods, and we sat - side by side - in the front of the car passing a bottle of chocolate milk back and forth while I enjoyed a reduced-to-clear apple turnover. (<- Post-sex munchies!) And when it was time to leave, we came home via the tiny, old village that we often walk to in order to visit the local graveyard (and abandoned wall garden, the ruins of an antique chapel, the beech hedgerow, the field where I first ritually reaped wheat several years ago and the disturbed children's home and orphanage).

Even though it was much darker than when we originally set out "to park" I instantly identified the black anomaly resting against the low stone wall separating the beech hedgerow from the road: a youngish carrion crow. I quickly pulled into a partially barred field opening leaving Italics (and the running car) to quickly jog down the length of the stone wall to pick up the roadkill bird to take home.

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(Corvids nest in that particular hedgerow, but I'm not sure of the actual type. The bird I picked up was definitely a carrion crow - it's kind've easy to misidentify/mix up juvenile rooks and crows because rooks don't develop their garish, gray-colored beaks until adulthood - due to the beak beard it sported. (<- Carrion crows, regardless of age, will always have a smattering of bristly feathers growing along the top of the beak.) I can't say for certain that this crow lived in those beeches, but it was a lot smaller than the other crows I handled later in the year so the assumption that it was a youngin' from that group of nests isn't exactly unfeasible.)

Once home I promptly ignored all the fucking groceries that needed to be unpacked and sat my ass down on the kitchen floor to release and ritually deconstruct the dead crow. First the two sets of gravel-crusted wings were clipped from the body, then its tail feathers (they're still attached to a dried bit of skin so instead of being reduced to loose feathers they form a tiny fan), and once the major appendages had been removed I carefully skinned the bird's head with a model craft scalpel to save the feathered hood to dry.

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Having never actually seen the internal anatomy of a crow - or any wild bird, for that matter - I gently opened Beech Hedgerow Crow to take a respectful peek inside, although its small body sustained massive trauma which reduced the majority of the internal organs to a pulpy mess.

(When you get hold of a larger roadkill animal it's always obvious where it got hit. Internally, I mean. The smaller the animal, the more damage it takes throughout its whole body, so instead of having one isolated area that's bruised and battered the entire fucking body can get beaten up and liquefied.)

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The youngin's clipped feathers and hood were pinned against cardboard, salted and dried. I bagged the more perishable remains - the body, feet and head - and immediately froze them, leaving the eyes and tongue in tact for later extraction. (Waste not, want not.)

And in the outside freezer Beech Hedgerow Crow still sits with the other corvids, waiting for the day when a witch comes along and knows in his/her heart'o'hearts that this lovingly prepared roadkill crow was meant to come home to them.

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Just incase this entry grabbed your interest:

I'm selling both the wild rabbit skull and all of Beech Hedgerow Crow's parts. Currently both of its wings, its tail feathers and hood are dried and ready to be shipped, although they do require a little TLC to remove gravely bits. The skull, bones, few internal organs and feet aren't ready, though, so they require some processing time before they can be mailed. (I know, I know, I hate waiting too, but at least the tradeoff is knowing I'll be working on those parts especially for you.)

I have video footage of me ritually cleansing the wings and feathers that I need to post (not to mention an entire fucking folder of still photos), but if you already feel strongly about any part of this carrion crow (or the rabbit skull) you're more than welcome to contact me (graveyarddirt@gmail.com) about reserving or purchasing your desired piece(s).

Winter Altar, 2010

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Just a quickie while I sort through and edit the other images.

Sviata Vechera, 2010

It's Christmas Eve tonight in Ukraine, which means I have blood relations sitting communally around a kolach-decorated table celebrating Sviata Vechera only a time zone away. (If you've been following Graveyard Dirt since early December you already know that we celebrated Holy Supper on Winter Solstice's evening.) And even though I SHOULD be in the motherfucking kitchen getting a new batch of pyrohy ready (we decided to informally observe today's Julian calendar date as well) I thought I'd take a few minutes to share the pictures I took of the ritualized evening.

I'd be lying like a fucking dog if I didn't admit that this was my most ambitious Holy Supper to date. A huge part of the pressure I experienced came from intimately sharing the custom with folks who read this journal; I shared, I educated and in doing so I provoked some major enthusiasm which ultimately meant I had to fucking deliver, and I had to fucking deliver spectacularly because I knew people would be watching.

Our Winter Solstice celebrations began with a total lunar eclipse, and as the rest of Scotland was rising for the day ahead both Italics and I were getting ready for bed. (We've spent a significant amount of November and December in nocturnal mode.) We waited until the full moon's luminous, rounded body was swallowed by shadow, and then in that morning's night we crawled into bed and solstice spooned ourselves to sleep. (And in doing so we actually missed ALL of the 21's light; we went to bed in darkness, and we woke up in darkness. <- Longest night or what?)

Before we could even contemplate celebrating anything the entire house had to be cleaned, the kitchen table had to be set, the hay had to be scattered, the ancestors' setting needed fine tuning, the animals needed to be fed, the house had to be fumigated with frankincense, we had to ritually bathe, Light needed to be brought into the house and our ancestors had to be formally invited for the ancient Midwinter feast. And until we welcomed that single flame indoors we kept the house as dark as possible - no Christmas lights were turned on, and only the most fucking crucial lamps were switched on (to their dimmest settings).

In an apron, gold earrings and crowned with traditional Slavic braids I carefully followed Italics' slow and even pace as he lead us through the pitch black house - room by room, starting with the backroom's open patio door and finishing at the same spot - holding a solitary candle, the tiny, burning flame our only illumination as we welcomed Light back into the house with incense and fire as the Russian Orthodox Church's Christmas mass service played eerily in the darkened background. (Inviting our collective ancestors, relatives and friends was a little less solemn and involved carols, ringing bells and blowing through a cow horn.)

Sviata Vechera officially began with a toast of homemade plum liqueur (since Italics can't eat wheat I performed the kutia ceremony privately with my Ukrainian ancestors), and it was when our solstice-chilled drinks clinked together (I decanted some of our homemade hooch into a fancy pants container and partially buried it in the snow on the 20th) I knew we had created something really fucking special together. Holy Supper 2010 was a tre-fucking-mendous success, and I've never felt more in tune with my past, present and future. It was the sort've experience that seconds, thirds, fourths and fifths the motion that you're doing the right fucking thing, even if you're essentially making up shit as you go along.

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The Sviata Vechera altar on my kitchen window ledge seems a little naked because it should've had some evergreen filling up the empty spaces. We were hit with two fucking monumental blizzards in early and mid-December, so the insane amount of effing snow kept us from being able to clip fresh foliage to bring indoors for Midwinter decoration. (We did eventually manage to bring greenery into the house, but that wasn't until New Year's Eve when I built a 2010 altar on top of the threadbare Sviata Vechera altar.)

The long, tapered golden candle in the middle of the ledge was the one that Italics carefully carried throughout the house to bring Light back indoors. It doubled as an invitational beacon for the Wandering Traveler (both living and dead, mortal and divine) to show that we practice(d) the old ways, and that anyone without a home or meal that night was welcome to join us for food, warmth and companionship. (I'm amazingly bad for feeding strays. Even the unsavory sort that isn't welcomed into this house still get a plate and lit candle placed outside on the patio step. <- Sometimes all it takes is a single act of kindness, y'know?)

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It's customary to feed the dead on Sviata Vechera, whether you fix a plate/setting specifically for them or leave the Holy Supper table dressed with all of the traditional courses all night long. We do both in this house, but the ancestor setting is a semi-permanent set-up in the lounge (where the Christmas tree is, where our stockings are hung and where our Winter altar is located) and our invited guests are continuously feed throughout the Yuletide season, not just on Holy Supper.

I use Ukrainian linens to create the table setting, some which I inherited from my mother when she passed on, some which I created and some which I scored off of Ebay for crazy cheap prices. The seed pot featured in this photo is actually Native American in origin, but it has special value because my mother, a professional potter, created it. (We're Ukrainian AND Native American; my Mom went the Indian route and I ended up embracing my Eastern European roots.) When the place isn't set with a plate of food her handmade pot sits in the center of the ancestral altar acting like a bridge between the world I live in and the world she - and the rest of my family - resides in.

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Sviata Vechera is dictated by the evening sky, the meal isn't allowed to start until the first star of the night - representing the bright light that guided the three wise men to Bethlehem - has been spotted. (That's usually the job of the kids; I still remember rushing into my grandparents' house in southeast Wisconsin to announce the arrival of the star.)

Back in the old days you didn't just sit around and wait for the star, though. There were a lot of agricultural rites and rituals that needed to be exercised before your ass settled down at the dinner table. For starters, you had to ensure that all of your animals were generously fed (I've even read that it was customary to mix in everything you ate that evening in the animals' feed), and the table holding the festive spread had to be decorated a certain way.

Holy Supper's table is meant to be decked out with your finest. A hand embroidered cloth with traditional designs is set down, the ritual bread - the kolach - is placed in the center on fresh-cut evergreen and the braided loaf is meant to be flanked by a pair of candles.

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You're supposed to scatter hay beneath the table to remind everyone of the humble setting of Christ's birth, but I like to think of the hay as an offering to all of the animals we've eaten or consumed the products of throughout the year to ensure we never forget how crucial their presence is to not only our life, but the lives of our ancestors.

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Sviata Vechera usually consists of twelve dishes spread out through four courses: kutia, borsht with pickled condiments and bread, the main dishes and then dessert - and they're always eaten in that order. It's considered very bad form not to have a token amount of everything, but because Italics has coeliac disease he's got super special permission not to take part in the annual kutia (which is a glorified cereal made out of whole wheat kernels) ceremony. Which, you know, is sort've fitting since wheat, for me, is a representation of the divine male; it's my job to grow it, nurture it, harvest it and then keep the sacred seeds safe until it's time to plant again.

The serious shit happens right at the start with the first course, where blessings, prayers and ritual divination takes place using the kutia. After the semi-solemn ceremony the head of the house booms "Khrystos Rodyvsya!" (Christ is born!) and all of the peons (heh) joyously respond with "Slavim Yoho!" (Let us glorify Him!). It's at that moment when everyone finally relaxes and begins enjoying the long evening ahead of them.

This year's Sviata Vechera menu followed the traditional Ukrainian Holy Supper formula - 12 dishes (18, in total, this year (it was supposed to be 19 but I couldn't get my hands on any pickled herring), and 15 of those had to be made from scratch) spread through 4 courses, but it also paid homage to Italics' ancestors and the last course (dessert, aka "the only course that REALLY counts") reflected our addition to the annual feast.

(A proper dessert was never really presented to the family after dinner, and it always seemed a little anticlimactic. On our first Christmas "alone" (the in-laws take off for two weeks to Spain so the 21st, 24th, 25th, 31st and 1st are very quiet, intimate affairs between Italics and I) we baked ourselves a chocolate-chestnut Yule Log, and we've made one every year since.)

Pictured above: kolach (ritual bread centerpiece), kutia (wheat-based cereal), borsht (beet soup), bread (gluten-free and sauerkraut'n'rye), dill pickles, pickled mushrooms, holubtsi (stuffed cabbage leaves), kapusta (sauerkraut), kartoplyanyky (potato pancakes), mashed potatoes, mushroom sauce, pyrohy (pierogies), skirlie (toasted oats), swede and a homegrown garlic bulb (my grandfather fucking LOVED raw garlic). For more in-depth information about any of the food be sure to read my Sviata Vechera Menu, 2010 journal entry which breaks down the menu dish by dish.

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We toasted longer days and the return of the sun with a homemade liqueur made from our backyard plums. I decanted a small amount from our maturing reserves into a decorative glass container and buried it outside in the snow where Stone Cock once proudly stood. It sat outside for the duration of the full moon and total lunar eclipse, and by the time it was brought indoors for Holy Supper it was deliciously winter-chilled.

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Ignore Wuzza, she just wants attention. (Trust me on this one.)

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Our Winter altar (which I still need to take proper pictures of). We traditionally exchange a gift on Midwinter, so those've been tucked near the altar's black rabbits. My mother's seed pot was carefully relocated on top of our new church hassocks ("KNEEL TO PRAY") since the ancestor setting had begun steadily filling with offerings of food and drink.

One aspect of Sviata Vechera I haven't had the time to explain is the ceremonial procession of the didukhy (decorated wheat bundle) indoors for the festive season. The didukhy is the last bundle of wheat to be cut during harvest, and the solemn ritual is executed gravely. The bundle represents our ancestors, whom we invite into our homes for the Yuletide season.

Much like my Ukrainian ancestors I also perform a reaping ritual during Harvest, although my personal rendition is slightly more pagan than the already unsubtle pagan practice. After marrying and nurturing the King throughout spring and summer I sacrifice him in fall for the better good, mourn his death and safekeep his divine seed until spring when I resurrect and remarry him which heralds a new agricultural year.

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Because I view our Christmas tree as one of the major Midwinter altars we have a custom of placing all of our spirit dolls - or dolls at least representing spirits/companions/helpers we work and live with - beneath the tree amongst our presents and non-perishable food bought especially for the Yuletide season.

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To formally invite our ancestors over for Sviata Vechera we threw open the backroom's patio door and made an inconsiderate amount of noise (we weren't ready to celebrate until near midnight) to provide a noisy path to the house.

We both took turns on a cow horn fitted with a silver mouthpiece (which makes the most exquisitely bizarre sound since it doesn't have the length to make the trumpeting bellow deep and grand), and I played a beloved Ukrainian carol that would've been recognized by both Christian and pagan ancestors while enthusiastically ringing a bell. (The infamous Christmas classic "Carol of the Bells" is actually based on an ancient pre-Christian Ukrainian chant.)

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...and one fantastically blurred picture of 2010's edible Yule Log just before we cut into our annual chocolate and chestnut tradition, marking the end of another Eastern Orthodox-themed evening of witchcraft and the celebration of Light, family and ancient customs that've never died.

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

2010 Altar

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2010; a year of bones, a year of death, a year of green and wheat, a year of animals, a year of roadkill, a year of wild mushrooms and berries, a year of hedges, a year of forests, and a year of graveyards and standing stones. 2010 was the year my land reached out to me, initiating an intense period of acceptance which I clutched in my tight-fisted hands as if it was the only meaningful thing in the entire motherfucking world.

So how the fuck do you gratefully wave good-bye to a year that's given you so goddamn much? You deconstruct it, piece by piece, gift by gift, until you're left with the raw basics that built it. With bones and seeds and leaves and musty, fall-scented fungi I created and layered an altar of thanksgiving, working on the tangible hymn up until the last few minutes of the 31st. (<- Something better've duly noted that I worked to the very fucking end, OR ELSE.)

"2010," my voice cracked, overcome with emotion. Italics didn't say anything, but he draped an arm across my body in comforting agreement. And we silently stood, side-by-side, before our altar of adventures, trials, victories, failures and achievements as husband and wife, king and queen, god and goddess and - my personal favorite - devoted shepherd and loving (even if somewhat willful) goat.

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I first started with the kitchen's stark fucking naked altar. Traditionally evergreen is brought indoors during Holy Supper to decorate the table (I use a mix of ivy, yew and cedar - all from bushes growing on our property), but because we were buried under an insane amount of snow around the Winter Solstice I couldn't get out to our shrubs to take cuttings. (<- That's why the window's Sviata Vechera altar looked so fucking bare on the 21st.)

On the 30th of December the snow had receded enough to let me take clippings from outside, so on New Year's fucking Eve I finally got to tangle a variety of evergreen up and around my Khokhloma pieces, candleholders, skulls and candy. (Better late than never?) With the layer of greenery set, I embellished the curtain of foliage with homegrown wheat, the first set of deer bones we ever found (I, uh, still need to write this particular story AND upload the pictures), two homegrown chili peppers, the conjoined bolete triplets we found in October, my jar of "uniquely special" toadstool (fly agaric) oil created on Halloween and one of the miniature kolaches baked for Sviata Vechera.

Winter Altar, 2008

Here's the thing: I've been on my fucking feet since BEFORE December cooking, cleaning and preparing House for the Yuletide season. Yesterday I finally reached my tipping point and nearly blew my culinary gasket (don't get me wrong; cooking is crazy magic, but it can quickly become an unescapable dungeon if you're the sole meal provider who needs to follow a strict dietary code), which means I've been granted a leave of absence from the kitchen for the next few days.

My mood's shot, my holiday spirit's flatlined and all I want to do is crawl under the bed sheets and wait until the first crocus is spotted. Any attempt at proper journal writing today would be a fucking joke, so instead of intensely concentrating on one long entry I think I'll upload a few short ones and spend the rest of my energy focusing on emotional damage control.

(Translation: getting really fucking high with Italics, eating Middle Eastern take-out, watching porn and playing Guitar Hero all goddamn day long.)

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Our first ever Winter altar, which I pieced together in 2008. (Yeah, these pictures are that effing old. This past December I tried incorporating old shit along with the new, so at least half of this month's journal content comes from previous holiday seasons.)

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All the central pieces displayed on this altar are 2008 specific. The miniature chimney was my Halloween gift from Italics, the didukhy (wheat bundle) was the very first one I created from ritually reaped wheat and the twig stag and wreath were both clearance bin finds at a home decorating store.

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I'm proud to admit that I only accidentally set the didukhy on fire once during this photo shoot.

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Every year the Winter altar slightly evolves, but, for the most part, the basic idea never really changes. Last year we added lights to illuminate the garland running behind everything and added matching wreaths on the black offering plates, this year two identical hassocks were thrown on top of the sheepskin rug and were used during the Yule Log's "consecration" (ahem).

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My first two didukhy had Muppet-like afros because the wheat was harvested later in the season. (<- To get a uniform shape for displaying I had to make a collar to keep the seed heads together.) This year, though, I ritually reaped earlier in the season, and then let the bundle dry hanging upside down so 2010's didukhy looks radically different from its previous incarnations.

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And there's Papa on the left with my New Year bell.

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And there's Tentacle Monster on the right with the Black Rabbit's matryoshka doll. (<- Instead of being filled with tinier dolls, she's stuffed with Lindt chocolates.)

Santa Claus (& Reindeer) Altar

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Last year I rediscovered some Christmas magic; put something special out for Santa (in my case: hard cider, cookies and a year's worth of homemade porn featuring yours truly), and Santa leaves something EXTRA special for you.

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...but I don't forget those hardworking reindeer. For the North Pole's flying deer I leave fresh, organic carrots and dry fly agaric mushrooms (in case they need extra OOMPH before going trans-Atlantic).

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Before I go to bed on Christmas Eve I leave out a plate of Santa's favorite treat (khrustyky; a fried - but dainty! - Ukrainian pastry-like cookie), a cold bottle of booze (strawberry and pear cider this year) and a flash drive stuffed with images/videos of my fat (and mostly naked) ass.

(Just between you and me? I think he must genuinely like my non-traditional offerings because he always leaves me a joint and a handwritten thank you note next to the crumb-flecked plate.)

#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.)

Sviata Vechera, 2010

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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. (Now that I've gotten the schmaltz out've the way; may you fuck like the unbridled pagan animals you are. Happy fucking Solstice.)

PS: Only six months until Midsummer!

Winter Altar Creation

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One more Ukrainian dish to cook (Kartoplyanyky; potato pancakes) and my Sviata Vechera menu will be complete. (A day early? That's a motherfucking miracle of divine proportion.) And then? Then Winter altar creation, edition 2010.

Kolach, 2008

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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 (and food). (<- THE FOOD IS THE MOST IMPORTANT, NATURALLY).

In 2008 I embellished the kolach (the braided bread centerpiece*) with evergreen from outside, holly (cut from the disturbed children's home and orphanage), chocolate truffles, apples, pears, limes, and lemons. Throughout the Yuletide season I burn candles in the bread, and at the beginning of the New Year we take the candy, fruit, and bread to the graveyard to leave as offerings.

* Typically the kolach is made of three circular, braided loaves of bread stacked on top of one another. Because I'm difficult and HARD TO LIVE WITH I left mine straight and represented the holy trinity by three candles.

Ancestor Setting, 2008

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A place is always set on Sviata Vechera (Holy Supper) for our ancestors, loved ones, and friends who can't be - or aren't - with us.

Shown in this picture: apple cider (the alcoholic kind), water, homemade egg nog (YOU JUST CAN'T BUY IT HERE IN SCOTLAND!), a piece of kolach (ancestor bread), and a piece of whole wheat ciabatta (I didn't actually bake this).

Sitting on the plate is a veritable Ukrainian feast of kutia (a whole wheat "cereal" sweetened with honey and served with poppy seeds, nuts, and cream), stuffed marrow (a large zucchini stuffed with a spiced tomato lamb mixture and topped off with a Parmesan cheese sauce), holubsti (cabbage leaves stuffed with bacon, beef, pork and rice and baked in tomato juice), potato pancakes, pyrohy (sort've like a dumpling / ravioli - a pasta-like dough filled with creamy mashed potatoes and smoked pancetta and then boiled and fried in butter), semolina bake, Cointreu cranberries with pomegranate (that's, uh, not entirely traditional), sour cream, kapusta (sauerkraut with four different types of smoked pork), creamed mushrooms, and homemade turkey marsala gravy.

Everything melted together to form one gigantic, peasant-y, orgasmic feast.

Of Christmas Trees Past

Someone asked what our 8 foot, 7 plug, 10-13 layer "awesomely pretty spectacle" of 500+ lights looks like, so I dug out some older photos that I never got around to posting of Christmas trees past to give an indication of where our tree's headed.

(In all actuality, it should already be there, but I've been struggling with some sort've stomach bug for the last several days and writing here in Graveyard Dirt is all I've really been able to do. <- I've fallen so, so far behind with everything. This somehow happens every fucking year.)

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Here's our 8 foot monster illuminated, but not decorated. Every horizontal off-shoot of every effing branch contains one upright light (I couldn't figure out how to make it appear any more "even" so I went balls out and covered them all). It's, uh, more impressive in person; our camera does an awful job of taking pictures of Christmas lights. This photo was coupled with last year's festive bitching about our fucking tree: Existence of God.

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Our decked out monster, in all of its Yuletide glory. Because this photo was from 2008 the tree looks sort've bare to me; we've since bought a fuckload of more ornaments, so the new and improved tree is bejeweled to a ridiculous red-gold-cream-white degree. (Confession: I'm so effing anal that we actually have a fucking color code for our tree and room.)

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Under the tree money shot. We have a tradition of hauling out all of our favorite stuffed animals, any new stuffed animals bought that year and any seasonal favorites (Christmas Polar Bear and Christmas Seal, for starters) to give them some free-range time beneath the tree.

PS: I have no fucking clue where those two decorative deer went. I know they got wrapped up in trash bags and put in the attic, but no one's ever been able to find them since.

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Holy shit, this tree looks fucking bare! Thank fuck we've continued to overburden it with new ornaments, otherwise we'd still have a naked ass tree.

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Tapout Lion's in the back, and there's also Christmas Polar Bear (he traditionally guards the Christmas presents), Christmas Seal, Fugly (wearing the sunglasses), Grumpy, one of the Black Rabbits, and part of Hootor.

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In this photo you'll find Clyde, Shango Man, Shango Lamb, Mr. Fancy, one of the Black Rabbits, Woodstock, Faffle in polar bear form, and Timmy (who you can't really see).

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Hootor and Cosy Bibi - both gifts from my bestest (and most favorite!) Cosykins - hanging out beneath the tree with one of the Black Rabbits.

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We have a stuffed camel and that's PRETTY CLOSE to having a Nativity scene!

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2008's Hexenhaus; our best gingerbread house! This year we're SUPPOSED to make one from scratch, but I've fallen so far behind on my Christmas TO EFFING DO! list that I'm afraid I might need to lame out and buy another DIY kit. Sigh.

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Marzipan pumpkins and sugar pyramids supplied by my dear friend, "Pumpkin".

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Both of us had around 30 gifts that year to give one another so presents were opened gradually - a few almost every night - throughout a two week period. We finally celebrated PROPER CHRISTMAS on New Year's Day and opened the rest in an explosion of paper and weed.

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I woke up that Christmas morning to find Anubis (aka Mr. Fancy) sitting on my computer chair.

Sviata Vechera Menu, 2010

Right. So. Sviata Vechera; a topic you're an expert on now. (If you have absolutely no fucking clue what I'm talking about you'll need to dip back a day and read the previous journal entry, Sviata Vechera (Holy Supper).)

Since yesterday's Ukrainian-themed adventure laid the foundations of Holy Supper's what and why, I can move onto this year's menu (fresh off the press!), break it the fuck down and explain what the courses are, why they're on the effing menu and what significance they have. (Although you may be sorely disappointed to find out that "swede" isn't a magical powerhouse eaten to commune with the dead - it's just a Scottish winter root vegetable that goes well with mashed potatoes and skirlie.)

For the most part the descriptions below will be suspiciously brief, but only because I plan on dedicating entire entries to certain courses. (Oh, I have buckets - Flickr buckets! - full of pictures, stories, recipes and tricks of the trade you should know if you feel brave enough to follow in my footsteps.) Right now I just want to get everyone acquainted with the CRAZY UKRAINIAN NAMES you'll be encountering throughout the Yuletide season, so when I come on-line to bitch about ethnic cooking on Tumblr or Twitter you just might understand what I'm damning to ancestral hell.

If you really follow Graveyard Dirt you'll know that my Midwinter archnemesis is the fucking Christmas tree. (Don't tell it I said that, though, because I seriously don't want a strand of fucking lights blowing out on the fucking thing two motherfucking days before Christmas...like LAST year. Instead of throwing a tantrum - which is my totally suave reaction to things - I actually sat down, poured homemade vodka shots and got drunk. <- See how adult I can be about things if I don't let my anal Aries autism get in the way?)

But runner-up to that prestigious, insanity-inducing title? Festive Ukrainian cookery. Actually, I take that back. Holding second place to the damn tree is trying to get a billion gifts out into the postal service and to my international friends BEFORE the 25th. (Which is EXACTLY why this year I've decided to not even bother. With an exception of my godchildren and their parents everyone's getting their Christmas-Midwinter-Yule gift from me AFTER the New effing Year.) Third place, then, undoubtedly goes to holiday cooking of the ethnic kind.

There are two major problems with traditional Ukrainian food (or any traditional food from the culture of your ancestors):

1.) Because it's so specialist you don't often find full courses available at your local grocery store (and if you do, the quality's probably gag-inducingly below par - I've been forced to eat Mrs. T's pierogies and I'd rather not relive the trauma, thanks), so the majority of the shit you find yourself craving needs to be made from scratch.

2.) The food's so goddamn good it fucking defies reason to the point you find yourself in the kitchen at three in the fucking morning blanching three heads of cabbage in an orange bucket that you normally use to wash blood and dirt out of flayed roadkill pelts. (It's a MAGIC fucking bucket, okay?)

And the shit you didn't like as a kid? Suddenly becomes a culinary mind fuck to your adult taste buds and you find yourself going "HOW COULD'VE I POSSIBLY NOT LOVED THE FUCK OUT OF THIS WHEN I WAS EIGHT?!" while eating mouthfuls of bacon-flavored sauerkraut straight out of the damn pan. (<- True story! I personally wasn't so hot on kutia, holubsti and kapusta when I was younger, but now I occasionally make those dishes EVEN WHEN IT ISN'T CHRISTMAS. My grandparents? Would be SO proud.)

This year's Sviata Vechera menu follows the traditional Ukrainian Holy Supper formula - 12 dishes (19, in total, this year, and 15 of those still need to be made) spread through 4 courses, but it also pays homage to Italics' ancestors and the last course (dessert, aka "the only course that REALLY counts") reflects our addition to the annual feast. (<- A proper dessert was never really presented to the family after dinner, and it always seemed a little anticlimactic. On our first Christmas "alone" (the in-laws take off for two weeks to Spain so the 21st, 24th, 25th, 31st and 1st are very quiet, intimate affairs between Italics and I) we baked ourselves a chocolate-chestnut Yule Log, and we've made one every year since.)

* Kolach (Ancestral Offering Course): The Kolach is a celebratory ritual bread baked for very special occasions. Typically it's braided, and then the ends are joined to form a circle. This is the decorated loaf of bread that becomes the centerpiece of the Holy Supper table. The kolach is my personal offering to my ancestors, so I often build an altar around it and, after the festive season ends, I offer the whole loaf to visiting wildlife. This is a course that I'll definitely be writing an expanded entry on, so you can look forward to an in-depth explanation to the significance behind it.

* Kutia (1st Course): Kutia is probably the most "pagan" of all Sviata Vechera dishes. It's an ancient, ancient dish made up of soft, whole wheat kernels (you soak them overnight and then boil them until al dente; just like beans), poppy seeds, nuts (walnuts, usually), honey and cream. It's eaten cold, but leftovers are amazing warmed up in the microwave for breakfast. This is another course that I'll be returning to in fuller detail.

* Borsht (2nd Course): Borsht is the infamous beet soup of Eastern Europe; the blood of the Slavs! Traditionally you're meant to eat the vegan version for Sviata Vechera, but I didn't grow up with that practice. My borsht - THE BEST EFFING BORSHT, THANK YOU - take three fucking days to make, but it's totally worth the effort. I'll be writing about this soup again, so you can look forward to the recipe and some accompanying pictures, but it doesn't have any real significance like the kolach or kutia.

* Bread (2nd Course): Ukraine's known as "THE BREADBASKET OF EUROPE", so it goes without saying that we Ukies know bread. I mean, really fucking know bread. (Fuck, bread is made from the broken, dead body of God. Wheat and my ancestors are inseparable, which is why it plays such an important role in my spiritual duties, practices and beliefs.) The kolach is ceremonially made for the dead, so I normally bake something that the living can eat. This year I've decided to make a batch of sauerkraut & rye bread (I think it'll go crazy-awesome with the borsht), and Italics will be looking forward to a pack of store bought gluten-free rolls. (<- I haven't yet mastered yeast-based gluten-free bread, but it's on my TO EFFING DO! list.)

* Dill Pickles (2nd Course): Ukies have a tremendous hard on for preserving shit. Pickling is one of the very favorite ways to store savory foods, so you'll often find a basement - one that usually reeks of sour cabbage - brimmed with filled mason jars. My ass isn't educated in the fine art of pickling - but I'm totally, for really real going to work on that in 2011 thanks to my sugar mommy and her Amazon wishlist generosity - so I'll end up nabbing a jar from the grocery store. (At least I can count on Tesco carrying dill pickles, pickled herring and jars of sauerkraut!)

* Pickled Herring (2nd Course): Sviata Vechera is meant to be a predominately vegan feast, but fish - and only fish - is allowed. This is, uh, kind've awkward for me to admit because I know I have a lot riding on this cooking thing I do, and I'm known for being somewhat fearless when it comes to tasting and experiencing something new (for fuck's sake, we eat fucking roadkill in this house!), but...I really, really, really hate fish. Like, seriously hate it. I can't stand the smell, or the taste. Insanely fresh stuff isn't offensive, but unless the fish is considered "meaty" (monkfish, for example) I can't abide the taste, which is sort've crazy since I actually enjoy a lot of seafood (squid, for example, was one of the first things I ever ate). Typically a Holy Supper spread will have MANY dishes comprising of fish, and to keep up with tradition - and because, GAG, my grandparents were really into it - I usually buy a jar of pickled herring as my token "fish dish".

* Pickled Mushrooms (2nd Course): Mushroom hunting is a national fucking sport in Ukraine, and it's been that way for thousands of years. When I was a kid I really effing hated eating mushrooms (don't ask; I have no idea why), but the Ukie was so strong in me I felt the drive at a very early age to go out with my grandmother to hunt down the elusive Slippery Jack. Other than drying, pickling is the other favorite way to preserve foraging treasures. This'll be the first year I attempt to pickle any mushrooms (it's a quick recipe that only requires something like 24 or 48 hours of sitting) with the hope that next year Italics and I can pickle locally harvested wild mushrooms.

* Holubtsi (3rd Course): Holubtsi are little cabbage parcels stuffed with a filling (typically a mixture of rice, ground beef, ground pork, bacon and spices) and then baked in a thin tomato sauce. Back in the olden days the vegan filling would've been different sort've grains and spices, but now adays most people serve meat-filled holubsti for Holy Supper. While this dish doesn't have huge, sacred significance to the meal, it's a Ukie staple so you can look forward to me bitching about how long it takes for motherfucking cabbage leaves to become pliable enough to wrap.

* Kapusta (3rd Course): Sviata Vechera is not fucking Sviata Vechera unless the entire house smells like fermented cabbage and smoked ham hocks. Kapusta is, basically, sauerkraut, but other flavors are added to make it fuller and richer. Normally bacon, a ham hock, shredded carrots, onions and sometimes sliced mushrooms are thrown in. Leftovers of the mixture can be used to stuff savory doughnuts (pampushky), or fill pyrohy.

* Kartoplyanyky (3rd Course): Kartoplyanyky are potato pancakes. They aren't a traditional dish normally associated with Holy Supper, but Italics really, really likes them, they go well with everything else and they provide a perfect excuse to eat an insane amount of sour cream.

* Mashed Potatoes (3rd Course): The most traditional of all Sviata Vechera dishes: leftover pyrohy filling! A lot of hardcore Ukie food requires the creation of a meat, rice or vegetable filling, but because you never know how much you're going to need you always end up making way too fucking much and then you find yourself stuck with a stupid amount leftover. To ensure nothing goes to waste the filling is then either served as an independent dish (mashed potatoes) or used as a stuffing for something else (kapusta).

* Mushroom Sauce (3rd Course): What can I say? We Ukrainians really fucking dig mushrooms. Some sort of mushroom sauce or gravy is traditionally served at Holy Supper; it does have a special name, but I don't know what it is. (Probably because it'd be based on what sort've mushroom's being used. It was only this year that I learned that the word I always assumed meant "mushroom" actually was the word for a very specific type of mushroom, the bolete.) This Sviata Vechera we'll be making a sauce out of fresh mushrooms, our dried mushrooms, fresh dill and sour cream.

* Pyrohy (3rd Course): If there is any Ukrainian dish you know, it'll probably be this one. These mashed potato filled "dumplings" are known as pyrohy and varenyky, but to the rest of the world they're known by their Polish name: pierogies. They're sort've like ravioli in the sense that you cut out a pasta shape (in this case, circular), fling in a filling, pinch the parcel shut and then boil it until cooked. Normally after boiling, you sautée them in a frying pan with butter and onions (the fat helps them from sticking to one another). If I had to choose one traditional Ukie dish to eat for the rest of my fucking life, it'd be this. I do plan on dedicating a much larger entry to the creation of these tasty motherfuckers, but this'll be the first year I attempt making them gluten-free, so don't be surprised if I sound all demoralized if it doesn't work out.

* Skirlie (3rd Course): Skirlie (fried oats) is probably my favorite traditional Scottish dish. Which, okay, probably sounds sort've weird but it's amazingly gorgeous, and goes mind-blowingly well with swede and mashed potatoes. I cheat by crushing up a pack of gluten-free oatcakes (instead of making my own), but I make up for it by toasting the baked oats in a skillet with butter and fat (usually goose).

* Swede (3rd Course): Swede - known as "rutabaga" in the States, I think - is a winter root vegetable. It's a lot like turnip, but unlike their white counterparts (swedes are typically a golden orange) they're pleasantly sweet, tasting a bit like carrot-y mashed potatoes once boiled. I consider them part of the holy trinity of old timey, peasant Scottish cooking because any large, traditional meal is often served with some sort of oat dish, potatoes and swede.

* Chocolate Yule Log (4th Course): Like I mentioned previously, we like to end our Holy Supper on a special note, so our modern, personal touch on the ancient feast always involves a homemade Yule Log. I've been using the same recipe for years - a gluten-free chocolate sponge cake roulade filled (and frosted) with a Frangelico-spiked chestnut whip cream. Here's a picture of last year's Log half-dressed: ta dah!

* Better than Jizz Sauce (4th Course): In this house I'll find ANY excuse to make Better than Jizz Sauce. (Why BtJS? Because it doesn't really have a name, cools down to the consistency of semen and, as the title would suggest, is slightly more tasty than your average load of spunk.) It's basically a sweet champagne and cream sauce that pairs beautifully with anything (especially a clean spoon and your mouth at one o'clock in the fucking morning). I normally make a giant batch for Sviata Vechera's edible Yule Log so there's enough leftover to dunk cookies in, or smother Christmas morning's homemade crepes with.

* Egg Nog (4th Course): Egg fucking Nog is so prevalent in American culture that you can buy it EVERYWHERE during the fucking Yuletide season. But here in Scotland? They don't even know what the fuck it is. So to sate any Midwinter cravings we experience (because even Italics is sort've sweet on the festive drink) I make a jug the night before Holy Supper so it's perfectly chilled for Sviata Vechera. Most years I make a rich chocolate version, but this year I think I might keep things all White Christmas. Our "adult" additions to egg nog usually includes Frangelico (a hazelnut liqueur), Hennessy (cognac) and this year it'll feature the homemade coffee/vanilla bean-flavored rum liquor I made for Papa on Fet Ghede. (Remember? Sharpie voodoo?)

Sviata Vechera (Holy Supper)

Every motherfucking December I get all jazzed up with the intent of writing in-depth, NO HOLDS BARRED! Yuletide-themed entries explaining away all of the LOLtastic Ukrainian-flavored traditions, rituals and rites I perform during the last month of the effing year, but I always wait to the last fucking minute when I'm too goddamn busy EXECUTING those traditions, rituals and rites so a lot of my holiday activities have remained a partially obscured secret that I've just eluded to.

Every damn year I get really fucking down because I never manage to scratch the surface, let alone hand over a textual tome demystifying how I've managed to incorporate my ethnicity, childhood experiences and Eastern Orthodox practices into my version of witchcraft. And that shit's V. IMPORTANT SHIT because it helps illustrate how I got to where I am today (as a person and as a witch).

(I mean, that's the whole effing point of maintaining Graveyard Dirt, you know? To provide a totally unique example of how I'm doing it, by using the adventures, mental ruminations, disasters and personal epiphanies I've experienced that've shaped my beliefs, actions and goals.)

So, anyway...

There are so many goddamn Christmas-Midwinter-Yule traditions in this fucking house I don't even know where the fuck to start. And it's not all just Ukie shit that Italics gets bullied into taking part (heh!), there are little things - some stupid, some sentimental - that've taken shape in the thirteen Decembers we've spent together. (Like the Yuletide goose, which you guys should already be familiar with. <- See? I'm on a mothereffing roll this year! First the goose and now Sviata Vechera!)

Today I'm tackling Sviata Vechera (Holy Supper), probably one of the most beloved celebrations in the Ukrainian world. My version of the feast is twice removed from "the old country"; my grandparents were born and raised in Ukraine, but they actually met in Germany, and my mother was born in Germany, but raised in the United States (where I was born).

I'm two generations separated from THE REAL THING, but I like to think that what I do sort've bridges the gap between myself and my grandparents (once my mother found concrete proof we had Native American ancestry - my great-grandfather was a full-blooded Hunkpapa Lakhota who traveled with a wild west show to Europe, but he got deathly sick on the boat and refused to make the trip back home so he settled in Ukraine and married my great-grandmother - being Ukrainian became outlawed).

I mean, the shit I do isn't one billion percent traditional, but it's easily recognizable to any Ukie. And in all honesty? I've just peeled back the hella thin Christen veneer that was painted over practices so obviously pagan that to this fucking day we still arrive to church on Holy Saturday with baskets of phallic shaped bread for the priest to bless. (No, no, you did an AWESOME fucking job converting us, Orthodox Church, and we're TOTALLY baking our cock bread to celebrate the resurrection of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ...snort.)

Now, Sviata Vechera is normally celebrated on Christmas Eve (most Ukies follow the "new" calendar and have the meal on the 24th of December, but a lot of people in THE OLD COUNTRY still run on the "old" calendar which places the feast in January), but because one of our longstanding traditions is to go out for a romantic dinner on the 24th we've bumped Holy Supper back a few days to Midwinter to celebrate and observe the winter solstice. (See how easy it is to reclaim appropriated shit?)

For hardcore Ukies fasting's usually the norm before a feast. (Part of it is religious devotion, and part of it was, a least a long fucking time ago, conserving the food you had throughout winter. I'd eventually like to incorporate the act in my own spiritual practices, because I feel strongly that to engage in any hedonistic activity you need to balance the shit out by abstaining from it as well. It's not a popular opinion, but every extreme needs the opposite extreme to keep life even.)

The meal itself, despite being a "feast", is predominately vegan (with an exception to fish). Meat, dairy and eggs (fuck, eggs in Midwinter? are you kidding me? hens need at least twelve hours of light to stimulate egg production, which is why eggs were such a huge fucking deal during Easter - the hens began laying again) can't be touched until Christmas Day. And the meal itself is comprised of twelve dishes symbolizing the twelve apostles, although I personally view the holy number of "12" as a representation of every month of the year.

(I'll be totally upfront - I, uh, gloss over the vegan aspect of Sviata Vechera cookery. It's hard enough to pull everything off as gluten-free, let alone gluten, meat, dairy and egg-free. Besides, I've never taken part in ANY Holy Supper that was that extreme. Everyone now adays uses meat, mostly smoked pork products and the fat/grease that the products release while cooking. Holy Supper without bacon added to almost every dish is practically unheard of in modern Ukrainian cooking.)

Sviata Vechera is dictated by the evening sky, the meal isn't allowed to start until the first star of the night - representing the bright light that guided the three wise men to Bethlehem - has been spotted. (That's usually the job of the kids; I still remember rushing into my grandparents' house in southeast Wisconsin to announce the arrival of the star.)

Back in the old days you didn't just sit around and wait for the star, though. There were a lot of agricultural rites and rituals that needed to be exercised before your ass settled down at the dinner table. For starters, you had to ensure that all of your animals were generously fed (I've even read that it was customary to mix in everything you ate that evening in the animals' feed), and the table holding the festive spread had to be decorated a certain way.

Holy Supper's table is meant to be decked out with your finest. A hand embroidered cloth with traditional designs is set down, the ritual bread - the kolach - is placed in the center on fresh-cut evergreen and the braided loaf is meant to be flanked by a pair of candles. You're also supposed to scatter hay beneath the table to remind everyone of the humble setting of Christ's birth, but I like to think of the hay - which is long ass grass I've personally cut from our yard during summer - as an offering to all of the animals we've eaten or consumed the products of throughout the year to ensure we never forget how crucial their presence is to not only our life, but the lives of our ancestors.

Sviata Vechera usually consist of twelve dishes spread out through four courses: kutia, borsht with pickled condiments and bread, the main dishes and then dessert - and they're always eaten in that order. It's considered very bad form not to have a token amount of everything, but because Italics has coeliac disease he's got super special permission not to take part in the annual kutia (which is a glorified cereal made out of whole wheat kernels) ceremony. Which, you know, is sort've fitting since wheat, for me, is a representation of the divine male; it's my job to grow it, nurture it, harvest it and then keep the sacred seeds safe until it's time to plant again.

The serious shit happens right at the start with the first course, where blessings, prayers and ritual divination takes place using the kutia. After the semi-solemn ceremony the head of the house booms "Khrystos Rodyvsya!" (Christ is born!) and all of the peons (heh) joyously respond with "Slavim Yoho!" (Let us glorify Him!). It's at that moment when everyone finally relaxes and begins enjoying the long evening ahead of them.

The last remaining bit of Ukrainian weirdness involves leaving the table - everything: the food, the used plates, the cutlery - out for the entire night. It's believed that the spirits of our deceased relatives and ancestors return home on Sviata Vechera, so the Holy Supper is deliberately left out to allow them to partake in the festivities and food. I've always found this particular practice equal parts endearing and creepy, because, dude, there's nothing like catching the sight of a celebratory meal left abandoned, in entirety, sitting quietly in the dark of night.

Because this entry's so goddamn long I've decided to keep 2010's Sviata Vechera menu as a writing prompt for another day. In the next few weeks I'll slowly be picking apart our Christmas-Midwinter-Yule rituals, traditions and rites so if you check back occasionally you'll - hopefully! - find a mix of Yuletide-flavored offerings in-between stories about mushroom hunting, roadkill scavenging and other Ms. Graveyard Dirt-themed adventures.

2010 Halloween Altar, Light

So, like, around late October I posted a series of "dark" altar pictures (Fet Ghede and Halloween) with the promise that I'd return to the elaborate spreads with the lights on. I kept putting the job off because, fuck, I really, really wanted to do them justice, and it wasn't until this morning that I realized I was being retarded - the altars don't really require an in-depth explanation, because the seasonal-specific decorations and ritual items speak for themselves: death (good ole #13).

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...and I give you light! (Well, light AND 2010's Halloween altar.) Even though I refer to the entire spread as "the Halloween altar", there are actually two altars present: one for the Black Goddess (central table), and another for the Black Rabbit (the two units flanking the central table). Last year I wrote a lengthy journal entry regarding my relationship with the Black Rabbit as I explained away Her altar(s), so to get a low down on Her (and them) be sure to read Black Rabbit Altar.

Before I move on to the next picture I'd like to take a moment and personally thank everything that helped provide the most stress-free altar creating experience, ever: the iron, sewing pins, duct tape, our meter stick, the spirit level and the motherfucking lint roller. Without you guys I couldn't be the anally straight, symmetrical, even and wrinkle'n'lint free witch I am; thank you.

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Even if you've only recently began watching the train wreck known as my life, things like the little pot-bellied chiminea, ladder, sheepskin rug, "masks" and sickle should be familiar. (If you've been following my adventures for a long ass time then the majority of this shit should be hella familiar.)

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Some shit (i.e., the "masks", the brandy sniffers filled with the corresponding element, black rabbits and the sheepskin rug) has permanent altar status, while other familiar items (i.e., the ladder, sickle, #13 key and my bean nighe/washer woman basin) are rotated in depending on the seasonal celebration.

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The asymmetrical centerpiece; the matching candlesticks on either side begin to display the symmetry that eventually pulls everything together in a visual balancing act.

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I know EXACTLY what you're thinking, and you're totally effing right - it COULD use more bones, skeletons and skulls. (I'll try harder next year, promise.)

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The Assyrian figures represent Italics and I (I'm the busty wifey holding the chalice/censer, just in case that wasn't - you know - obvious), the key in front of them is #13 key (it's my spirit key used by relatives, friends and ancestors so they can easily enter the house) and the glass jar behind holds some of our ritual jewelry and Thai fertility pendants.

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The left side of the altar represents Italics (as Papa) and the divine male. You'll always find Papa's "mask", his skull incense burner and a brandy sniffer filled with his Fet Ghede dirt (earth being his element) on the left of any lounge altar.

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The right side of the altar represents me (as Tentacle Monster; who, bizarrely enough, is a masculine entity - go figure that I have a cock representing my tits) and my subconscious/the divine female. You'll always find Tentacle Monster's "mask", his octopus handle (the base screws into a walking stick/cane) and a brandy sniffer filled with salt water (water being his element) on the right of any lounge altar.

December's Golden Ticket

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In late November I send Italics away to the local butcher's - regardless of weather - and he walks down to the former mason's lodge on my behalf; sometimes returning with a pound of smoked bacon, or a glorious piece of fillet steak, but always returning with December's golden ticket: our reservation for the largest Yuletide goose the butcher can provide.

Goose is synonymous with "Christmas" in my family; it's all I've ever known*. As far as I'm aware, it's not a traditional food eaten by Ukrainians during the festive season, so I think my mother must've introduced the practice when she assumed control of Christmas Day dinner.

(In a lot of European countries Christmas Eve is a much bigger deal than Christmas Day, so huge attention was paid to Sviata Vechera (Holy Supper) which is eaten on the night of the 24th. But because it's so damn ethnic you can't pick up the courses and side dishes at any grocery store. Everything - down to the pickled fucking mushrooms - had to be prepared at home, in advance.)

(My grandmother, being the matriarch of the family, was responsible for Holy Supper, and then my mother would step in on the 25th to give her a break from cooking by presenting the family with a traditional roast goose meal. And now that my mother and grandmother have passed on, both jobs haven fallen to me, which, admittedly, isn't as stressful as you'd think since I'm only cooking for Italics, myself and our ancestors.)

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The geese I grew up eating came home vacuum sealed and frozen as fuck from the nearest available grocery store. The geese Italics and I eat are free-range, organic birds who were born, raised and butchered humanely by small, independent farms whose top priority is the happiness and welfare of their animals. The birds are carefully hung to allow the flavor of the meat to develop, and when it comes time for Italics to bring our goose home (Christmas Eve) it's fresh - not imprisoned in an air-locked bag - and has the majority of its offal and fat.

I'm not going to lie: it's an expensive fucking tradition (hell, it's fucking expensive enough just picking up one of those sealed motherfuckers from the grocery store!), but it's tradition, and Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a goose on the table (along with roast potatoes, homemade black pepper and candied ginger plum sauce, sweet'n'sour red cabbage and bread dumplings).

* Well, sort've - I had the V. good fortune of sampling my father-in-law's signature lunch for the 25th: roast turkey (still raw) and sausage stuffing (no comment). Italics and I were both 17 and I was spending my first holiday away from home with him and his family. Needless to say, that particular Christmas was the first - and last - time either of us ate anything OTHER than goose. (<- I didn't even have to campaign to convert him; with his very first taste he was hooked. Instantly.)

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Unlike my mother - who simply roasted the bird like a chicken (WTF?) and threw out the fat by pouring it over the dogs' dry food (WTF?, SQUARED) - I wring as many meals as I can out of our beloved Yuletide goose, ensuring nothing gets wasted and the bird is used to its maximum potential. I personally process the bird, render the fat, roast the crown, preserve the legs (to make confit), transform leftovers into secondary meals and create brown stock from roasted bones, skin and other unsavory viscera.

What we can't eat - the bones, basically - is offered to the Old Woman and her beasts of winter, but everything else has a purpose whether it's a bowl of homemade soup, a covetable vat of creamy, white fat (looks like ice cream, doesn't it?) for cooking, or a small, secret stash of pure fat (rendered without seasonings) for "winter activity" use. (Ahem.)

Pictured above: Goose legs and thighs sitting in a brining mixture of bay leaves, thyme, garlic and sea salt flakes. After brining, these legs will be fried to extract the fat, and then poached - completely covered - in goose fat. (Due to the blanket of fat covering the meat entirely it'll remained preserved until we're ready to dig them out, fry them up (again!) and eat them with a mountain of fries from the local chipper.)

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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.

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The annual ritual of adoration begins! After executing the V. SRS welcoming rite (aka "MS. DIRTY CRUSHES THE BIRD TO HER CHEST AND RUNS AROUND THE HOUSE SCREAMING LIKE RAINMAN") the honored guest is removed from it's loose swaddling, bathed in frankincense smoke (LOLOL, GOOSE EXORCISM, LOLOL!) and aired until it reaches room temperature.

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One of the lesser known annual rites: comparing the size of the goose to a can of soda. (Tizer, by the way, is one of Scotland's national drinks. I can't stomach Irn-Bru (too bubblegum and flat orange soda for me), but Tizer is one of my weaknesses, along with the occasional Tunnock's Chocolate Caramel Wafer.)

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The Blessed Virgin ain't the only one giving birth on Christmas Eve. (The offal and parts - neck, liver, heart and gizzard - are walled up within the empty internal cavity by huge fistfuls of solid fat, which are pulled out and eventually melted down for projects, pleasure and cooking.)

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The traditional Christmas piñata has been opened, revealing a treasure trove of internal organs, fat, flesh and bone.

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Goose fat is one of the most precious things in my world, so great pain goes into stripping whatever I can off bones, skin and organs. Every scrap is then rendered down - melted gently to remove any impurities - into pure fat, which is then used for cooking, moisturizing and lubricating.

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Last year our goose came with a very special gift: one of its toes, complete with claw. (As you'd expect, the second I discovered the "mistake" I went mental. <- You don't often get such an unusual keepsake from your Christmas Day meal.)

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Speaking of claws and nails, my nails are normally never this long. My mom was a potter, so there was zero attention paid to her nails and that attitude trickled down to me (especially since I also work with my hands). I've never been able to reconcile length and productivity; although, once in a while, I do find myself fantasizing about owning a set of fairy tale talons painted scarlet.

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Last year's Christmas goose, disassembled. (Because goose legs have a tendency to get a bit dry I cut them off - along with the thighs - and confit the fuck out of them.)

The pan of assorted parts are waiting to get roasted (for the brown stock), the goose's crown has been scalded, the toe's been cut off, every shred of fat has been picked over and added to the pile, the apron of skin that covered the lower cavity has been saved (I was going to throw it over a pheasant - because they're quite lean birds and need an external source of fat to keep them moist while cooking - but I ended up melting the skin with wild pheasant fat and duck skin to make "winter fowl fat"), the liver set aside as an offering to Shango Man and Tiger and the massive legs/thighs have been cleanly removed from the body for confit brining.

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Brown stock parts seasoned with sea salt, herb salt, garlic salt and garlic pepper.

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Like any true carnivore I know where it's at: skin, marrow and fat. To ensure a perfect goose I always skewer the crown (the fat, not down into the meat), scald the body with boiling water and then allow the skin to get super dry in a cool place until it's time for roasting.

Harvest Altar, 2009

I'm absolutely fucking hopeless when it comes to posting images of my altars. Conceptualizing, creating, building I've got down (<- WAY MORE TALENTED WITH "BEGINNINGS" THAN "ENDINGS"; UNLESS MY ASS FALLS UNDER "ENDINGS", AND IF THAT'S THE CASE THEN I'VE GOT ALPHA AND OMEGA METAPHORICALLY TATTOOED ON EITHER CHEEK), it's taking pictures of everything and then uploading them that always gets me in the end. (Too many adventures = not enough time to write things down.)

2009's small, homey Lammas altar on the kitchen windowsill? Sitting in Flickr limbo. The endless photos of containers spilling with vibrant vegetation and bursting with growth (my outside Midsummer altar)? Having a cup of tea with the Lammas altar photos. (<- TRANSLATION: "ANOTHER FLICKR LIMBO VICTIM.") Our Spring / Easter / Hieros Gamos / Great Rite / Sacred marriage altar photos from last year AND this year? Haven't even left my fucking desktop. (See? Hopeless, with a capital "H".)

So, before I inundate this journal with more images of belated altars (Fet Ghede, Halloween/Black Goddess, Harvest, Walpurgisnacht, Easter/Hieros Gamos and Bride's Day), I thought I'd play a little catch up. Rather than start at the beginning (Spring), I'm going to start at the end (Harvest) and backtrack through the year(s). (<- TYPICAL MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT BEHAVIOR, EVEN MY DEFAULT STOVE TOP STIRRING IS ANTI-CLOCKWISE.)

NOTE: If you notice a change in tone halfway through this entry it's because I wrote the first part last September (when everything was fresh and new), and then promptly forgot about it. (<- New adventures are always eclipsing old ones.) Since I consider Thanksgiving a secular Harvest celebration I knew that this altar's theme wouldn't be too unseasonable, so I finally forced myself to sit the fuck down and finish what I started last fucking year. (And it was like pulling motherfucking teeth; I apologize in advance.)

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Harvest altar, 2009. (MY FIRST EVER "HARVEST" ALTAR!) From the start I wanted it to reflect two things - my ethnic heritage (I'm Ukrainian, which is V. Eastern European/Slavic) and this year's bounty (Inanna has her lapis, I have my bowl of Shango Tree plums).

((OKAY, OKAY, MAYBE I WANTED TO REFLECT //THREE// THINGS WHEN YOU TAKE THE AMOUNT OF SKULL PARAPHERNALIA INTO ACCOUNT (AND IF YOU THINK THIS IS OBSCENE AMOUNT OF MORTAL REMAINS JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THE BLACK GODDESS ALTAR). SKULLS AND BONES - THEY AREN'T JUST FOR HALLOWEEN.))

In addition to reflecting those two themes I also wanted to incorporate several ritual/altar pieces which are integral to my beliefs and representative of the season we were celebrating - Harvest. So it was V. V. V. important for me to work in the ladder*, the chimney, the sickle and the didukhy (the decorated bundle of wheat, more on that later).

(* Some cultures have world trees or stangs or pillars. Me? I have "LADDER", which works out TRES EXCELLENT since it turns out that my ancestors (and the ancestors of my ancestors) were ALSO really into ladders as well. <- EASIER TO CLIMB THAN A TREE OR PILLAR. WE'RE SMART //AND// LAZY!)

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When God came to the Carpathians (<- my family comes from western Ukraine which backs into - and up - the Carpathian mountains) it put a serious dent in His conversionmobile. Ukrainians - much like the Celts - didn't bother dropping the baggage of their pagan past. Instead, Christianity was incorporated into ancient traditions and beliefs, giving a superficial Christian veneer to longstanding rituals they practiced - and still continue to practice - for thousands of years.

You don't even need to scratch the surface to view Ukraine's pagan past - it's all there, in the open, with the equivalent of a slightly new name. Take the decorated wheat bundle, the didukhy. The very last of the wheat was considered crazy sacred, and great care, ceremony and seriousness went into harvesting it. (There's a lot of mythology and religious practice involved with wheat growing and harvesting, but I'll leave that for another entry.)

It was ritually cut and then ritually decorated and then ritually displayed in a prominent place in the house. Later on, when Eastern Orthodox Catholicism greatly influenced the people, religious icons were added to the display until the didukhy were partially phased out leaving only icons in their place. Growing up I remember token stalks of wheat in my grandparents' dining room, but never a full-fledged bundle decorated with a ceremonial embroidered cloth. (I'm pretty sure a Rushnyk is used.)

I have absolutely no idea what a traditional didukhy even looks like. Seriously. It's not for the lack of resources because I know damn well I could just Google the shit, but I feel like that'd be copying rather than creating. A bundle of wheat cut and revered by my pagan ancestors a thousand years ago is going to look different - symbolize something different - to future generations. For me it's enough that I sowed the wheat myself, that I grew it and reaped it, that I created the didukhy, decorated and displayed it.

(I don't have a proper rushnyk, so, instead, I used a cloth that my mother embroidered which was originally used for covering our Easter baskets when taking them to church on Holy Saturday.)

By creating my approximation of a didukhy I'm at once celebrating the work of my ancestors (not only the effort, sweat and blood that went into growing and harvesting, but also the primitive genetic modifications made through generations of selecting and growing the wheat with the best qualities - it's an exercise in transformation, from something rough with potential to a finalized product sculpted by the idea of "something better"), observing the life/death cycle of the divine male (who I nurture and grow during the Light year as the Bride, and then reap/kill as the Hag fertilizing the dying year with blood and sex, keeping His seed to pass onto next year's Bride) and giving thanks, in my own way, for a food that's become the foundation of western civilization - bread.

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As if my mother's embroidered Easter cloth wasn't enough decoration for the didukhy, I also adorned it with a piece of horse brass from my personal collection (small, but growing annually).

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In an effort to give thanks for the bounty of last year's harvest a token portion of everything gathered, foraged, and grown was added to the altar, along with fruits, vegetables and herbs that were used in all of the celebratory meals.

On the left side of the altar - dedicated to the divine male since it carries His seed (the didukhy) - I grouped the (literal) fruits of the season. The apples were baked into a homemade pie and the lemons were peeled and juiced to make lemon curd. The pear and pomegranate have personal significance (pears and apples I associate with my grandfather - whose life I was celebrating since he died September of last year - who kept a two acre fruit orchard in my youth, and I don't think I need to explain the entire pomegranate thing to witches/pagans, do I?).

The garishly decorated lacquer jar in the center holds pinhead oats (the "raw" oat before the bran's removed and the oat's flattened into a flake) locally grown, a kind've sort've nod to Italics' ancestors (oatmeal was once a super crazy big thing here in Scotland) since we all had homemade porridge with honey, nuts and plums for Harvest morning. I know that the rowan berries look like decorative fillers, but they were added for a purpose - to dry and jar up for winter (to make syrups and teas and other herbal and magical concoctions).

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Words fail to convey the supreme love I have for my little pot-bellied, cast iron chiminea. It was a Halloween gift from Italics several years ago to make up for the fact that we don't have a fireplace in this damn house. Despite being heavy as fuck it gets dragged out for every major holiday that's celebrated within the home, starting with Harvest and ending with Easter. (Fire, then, is transferred outside where instead of detached fireplace chimneys we have open-aired bonfires.)

Draped over the makeshift fireplace is the Black Goddess's string-o-skulls (it's home, normally, is around our Black Goddess ritual bong, but on special occasions we remove Her bling to ensure She's properly represented since neither of my in-laws would be especially thrilled to see me elaborately venerating a fucking bong in a shared, communal space), my ceremonial rosary carefully hangs from the wooden handle of my sickle (even though these pictures are over a year old I still remember experiencing INTENSE FRUSTRATION at the delicate touch needed to situate the necklace on the polished, slippery surface of the wood), and beneath it - just in front of the fruit and leaves - is the base of a stag's antler which stretched across the altar's centerpiece display.

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Death says TAKE WHAT YOU WANT, and you size up the leaves, berries and autumn fruits on display. TAKE WHAT YOU WANT, Death insists, holding out a pomegranate. And you take what's being given, whether it's right or wrong, out of your own freewill, knowing that there isn't any real choice but to accept what's being offered to you.

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2009 and 2010 were two totally different Harvests. In 2009 - when we still didn't have a car - I spent the entire year creating an intimate relationship with my land by exploring every last inch of local rural countryside by foot and slowly assuming control of the yard here at home. Last year I forged a connection with the plants and earth within my tiny Scottish kingdom (and it responded by providing me with my first ever fruitful Harvest), this year that connection was made with the animals that inhabit my space and live by my side (and they responded - and accepted my petition for the vacant sovereign role - by leaving me their dead).

(Yeah, I know, dead animals aren't exactly a cornucopia of squash, pears and tomatoes, but roadkill has provided food, clothing (I love fur, but for obvious reasons I can't - with good conscience - buy new fur, so I've flayed, frozen and will personally tan and create my own articles of clothing using the pelts given to me), a deeper, more profound attitude towards the consumption of meat and materials to work with (and sell). And as much as I'm into gardening, I have to say - it's a special sort of graduation when the Universe entrusts its animals into your care. Being a gardener is by choice, but to be a guardian? You need to get vetted for that shit.)

One of my prized crops last year were plums that came from two trees in the backyard. In 2007 one of them - which eventually became The Shango Tree - beared a single branch of fruit for the first time. I discovered it by chance during a full moon, ritually consumed the five plums and vowed on my Ukrainian orchard growing genes that I'd convince the tree to produce more prolifically (up until that year I had never seen any of the trees produce fruit, and I've been visiting this house since 1997). I spent all of 2008 nurturing it (you don't even want to know how much homemade soup it got), and my efforts were rewarded in 2009 when the tree burst into blossom around May Day.

The parsley to the left of the sickle grew at the base of The Shango Tree within the raised dirt bed of 2009's phallic worship altar. (Stone Cock's altar has since moved to my peach tree, and the raised bed at the foot of The Shango Tree was rededicated as the roadkill altar. You don't even want to know how many fucking plums were produced this year thanks to decomposing bodies providing natural fertilizers.) And you can just make out the braided stalks of my homegrown garlic nestled behind the bowl of plums.

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The altar's centerpiece display, in all of its Harvest glory.

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My first ever crop of homegrown garlic. Tiny, but significant. Making the decision to grow garlic was the first real step in assuming control of the yard. I first tentatively stole a narrow stretch of waste ground that ran beneath our office/computer room window (shit for growing garlic, but totally awesome for building the foundation of my gardening empire). When no one complained or tried to stop me I began pinching other parts of the property - the Shango Tree, for example - and it didn't take long before my "at home" territory expanded like wildfire.

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I know this is probably exquisitely lame to admit it, but...sometimes I sneak into my altars set and silently marvel over this particular spread. A lot of my altars are for show; they're a tiny church, or a temple. They represent the season, or the holiday. But this Harvest altar - much like my Easter altar - encompasses all that I've done, all that I am and everything I aspire to be. Rather than representing a holy day, festival or sabbat it represents me. I'm weirdly proud and vain about all of my altar work (I consider the creation of sacred places a ritual and prayer you physically act out), but this one in particular is special because it's a reflection of who I am.

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In an effort to give thanks for the bounty of last year's harvest a token portion of everything gathered, foraged, and grown was added to the altar, along with fruits, vegetables and herbs that were used in all of the celebratory meals.

On the right side of the altar - dedicated to the divine female - I grouped the (literal) "fruits" of the season. The tiny acorn squash, tomatoes, rowan berries and peppers were grown at home, while the potatoes and pumpkin were bought at a local grocery store. (I've tried growing pumpkins here in northeast Scotland; it's virtually impossible. I haven't tried growing potatoes, though, which are supposed to do pretty damn well in containers.) And the garishly decorated lacquer jar in the center holds sea salt blessed by a priest.

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If you've been following me, or my adventures in altar creations, you'll know that I'm crazy anal when it comes to symmetry. The centerpiece tends to be a bit Choose Your Own Adventure, but when it comes time to balance the appearance I always mirror the objects on either side of the predominant display. Since one side featured my dressed didukhy with a piece of horse brass, the other side needed something complementary - a dressed vase of sunflowers with a piece of horse brass. (Oaks, I think - because that's what it's suppose to be, oak leaves and an acorn - embody the sacred male in Slavic mythology, while birches are considered the sacred female counterpart.)

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The cracked out looking sunflower peering over the neatly uniform sunflowers below came from my container garden. (Despite starting them in March, outside, the majority of them never managed to reach full blooming potential. Just a few were able to cross the finish line, and when they did they were immediately added to the vase of flowers sitting on the Harvest altar.)

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My first Harvest, and my first Harvest altar.

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).

Building a Fortress

For the majority of November we've been up at night, which is super awesome great for unwinding after several months of being chronically outdoors, but isn't so super awesome great for working through the remainder of my Harvest to-do list because we cohabit with my in-laws who, unlike us, don't go through extended phases of living nocturnally. Any activity that produces noise or smoke is limited to "normal office hours", so a significant portion of our life has to be put on a nail biting, stagnant hold until everyone in the house is living at the same time.

We went nocturnal when I still had several major "within house" duties to perform: ritually bake bread, change the office's altar guard, create this year's wheat bundle (aka didukh) and magic clean our bedroom. I admit that baking bread and assembling the didukh are two activities that can be executed at night, but when I have something as big as "magic clean the fucking bedroom" looming over me (an annual event that can take anywhere from 12+ hours to several long days) that's all I can fixate on because I know what that seemingly mundane ritual really entails.

(Entails: emptying the entire room of everything, salt-bombing the perimeter of the room, washing the skirting boards, walls, ceiling and thresholds of the room (door and window; inside and out including hinges and ledges and vents and handles), washing light switches, plug outlets, the radiator, the ceiling fan and window blind, washing the pillowcases, bed sheets, mattress topper and duvet, Febrezing the mattress, pillows and window blind, washing the closet, two nightstands and the bed frame (inside and out), washing the contents of my witch's work bucket (including bucket), polishing the window's glass until it shines (both sides), vacuuming up the salt-bombing mess, moving washed furniture back into the room, WD40ing the bed frame, reassembling the bed, washing every fucking object that returns to the bedroom, incense-bombing the newly built fortress and, once everything's cleaned and in place, finally airing our coffin cover which is reserved for ritual work and winter warmth.)

With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching and a fresh set of holidays just around the corner I began getting despondent because, fuck, I needed to start focusing on more Yuletide-based to-do lists but I still had rollover shit from motherfucking Harvest because I couldn't execute one of the V. SRS jobs due to being up at night. And then? And then my in-laws left for the weekend, leaving us with the house and our current nocturnal life. With Italics' blessing - and occasional help - I descended upon six fucking months of bedroom mess at one in the fucking morning and didn't emerge from the room for another thirteen hours.

Magic cleaning the fucking bedroom? Done. Now if I could just cross all of the unexpected stresses that've added themselves to my effing list in the past 72 hours (Italics' pectoral lump and my estranged father phoning my ass for money help) I could get the fuck on with my motherfucking life.

Harvest Home Pheasant

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A word of warning that's totally unnecessary, but I'm feeling unusually nice today so I'm stamping a disclaimer on this shit just in case someone wakes up screaming in the middle of the night because they couldn't handle what food looks like before it appears shrinkwrapped at their grocery store: this journal entry involves a dead animal; specifically, a roadkill pheasant I found and then ritually butchered for one of our celebratory Harvest meals. This is probably one of the tamest, least gratuitous entries that falls under my Asphalt & Entrails category. There are zero fucking pictures that involve blood and/or gore, so readers with a sensitive nature should be mostly okay with the content within provided they can handle feathers, raw meat and a stainless steel dog bowl full of internal organs (in the non-grossest way possible).

Right. So. Now with that out of the way, allow me to introduce to you my Harvest Home hen. Come to think of it, you guys are already acquainted. Back around the autumnal equinox I posted Funeral for a Pheasant which incorporated a short video clip and an explanation on why the fuck I was posting a video where nothing (seemingly) happened.

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Not every roadkill animal I pick up has the pleasure of being ritually processed in the kitchen (rabbits are a non-negotiable "NO", but I MIGHT be able to wrangle a pensive "WELL...OKAY" for something less bioterrorismtastic), but every roadkill animal that I pick up is given the same treatment regardless of their physical condition, what they are and how they died: a period of getting to know one another (I visit them frequently while they "lay in wake" on an altar, petting, stroking and taking to them so they recognize I'm not a threat), offerings of food and water (usually a sandwich; deer get lettuce sandwiches, badgers get peanut butter'n'honey and foxes get smoked ham on whole wheat - you think I'm joking?), ceremonial cleansing via a smoke bath (frankincense, usually) and then, finally, release (of the spirit) through physical dismemberment.

Pictured on the altar: my favorite kitchen knives (which I ended up not needing since I rely so fucking heavily on my ritual scissors), locally grown pinhead oats (oats in whole form that haven't been flattened into flakes) and water for the pheasant, my ritual scissors (consecrated by my own effing flesh and blood), one of Chippy's outside offering bowls (I needed something to read entrails in, and since Chippy was already involved he suggested using one of his stainless steel dog bowls), a piece of thin roofing slate that came off a ruined building we discovered earlier this year (with a glowing charcoal block on top of it) and, finally, the hen.

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See? No effing gore, just like I promised. (Unless you count the "flesh wound" on Chippy's nose; we learned Choney liked to bite-play thanks to that particular run-in a few years back.) In under an hour I was able to hold the pheasant funeral, butcher the wild bird and reduce it to six usable pieces (entrails, body, feathers, feet, head and seeds) without wasting one part of the animal. I kept the entrails to read (haruspicy!) and the body to roast (dinner!), but everything else - feathers, feet, head and seeds - were set aside for a friend. (I actually need to get on drying the feet and head for her because everything else is ready to go.)

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Her head, which is currently sitting intact - feathers, beak and all - in the freezer until I can get my hands on a bag of fucking cornmeal. Sometimes I pick up roadkill with no visible wounds, but, on most occasions, I find big and little reminders that the animal didn't die a natural death (i.e., broken antlers, crushed skulls, split skin and scuff marks on beaks (above) and feet). I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the smaller, almost unseen injuries always affect me the most.

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Her feet, which were bound with ordinary white string so I could hang her in the garage until I was ready to process her. I've always suspected that I liked my game fresh, but it wasn't until she accidentally hung* for almost a week to confirm my suspicions. The scent was...intense. Not rotting, or sick, or "like farts" (I know it's incredibly childish, but that's really the best fucking way to describe the internal scent I get from the combination of organs - it's like sour/bitter farts); just intensely robust with a sneaking waft of smoke.

* Long short? I caught a fucking cold the day I picked her up. Normally I hang the birds for only 2-3 days, but in this particular case I had no choice but to leave her until I was well enough to handle her properly.

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She looks elegantly swan-like, doesn't she?

Within the glass bowl are grain seeds I removed from her crop, and feathers that fell out during the butchering process. Pheasants initially store food in their crop before digestion (you know that pocket space between the start of the bird's breast? just in front of what remains of the neck? that's where food's deposited and momentarily kept). Depending on how much your bird has (or hasn't) eaten you might have A LOT of fucking seeds to scoop out, or, in this case, not many at all.

I always save the grains - along with any feathers or particles of skin and meat that are too small to cook with - and plant them the following year (seeds, feathers, skin and all) so the grains germinate from the physical remains of the dead bird. (<- Death and rebirth, baby.)

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Her internal organs and entrails that were read in Chippy's bowl. Once I finished the positively fucking medieval dead of haruspicy I offered the contents of the bowl to my crows. To say they "tucked into the leftovers" would be putting it delicately (which, admittedly, isn't usually my style, but I'm kind've sort've eager to get this entry written in entirety in one fucking day because this sort've shit can drag on and fucking on).

They took everything but the stomach - and part of the intestine still attached to it, but for simplicity's sake let's just say "stomach", okay? - and left that delectable blob of dead tissue sitting in the fucking rain on the motherfucking patio for three fucking days. I eventually had to admit defeat and respectfully dispose the unwanted remains via container garden burial. (Thanks, crows, because Christ knows I already don't have enough to do.)

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Her body, which was then plastered with fresh bay leaves, seasoned and snugly wrapped in smoked, fatty pancetta strips. I roasted her over a bed of sweated rooted vegetables and fresh herbs, and then made brown stock out of everything. The stock was strained (and then frozen), the carcass was stripped of all of the meat (and then frozen; the meat, I mean) and then the leftovers - cooked vegetables and pheasant bones - were either left as offerings to visiting wildlife (vegetables) or cleaned off and dried for gifting purposes (bones).

Because she had matured longer than I originally intended I had to trim a few pieces of discolored meat from the body (only because it smelled just too damn strong for my palate), but those pieces were added to the organs and entrails. In fact, I caught one of our magpies happily making off with one of the blue-green tinged pieces of meat, so even if I couldn't get any use out of those small bits it still managed to feed another life.

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One of her wings, prior to being pinned to a piece of cardboard to dry. I clip them ridiculously close to the body - essentially giving up one of my favorite eating parts of a bird; the wing - so if you end up buying a preserved specimen from me you'll be getting the complete deal. I was a total retard and forgot to take pictures of everything pinned down prior to cornmealing (although I do have a set of fixed wings and feathers from another pheasant); I'll try and remember to take a few photos when I finally remove them and dust them off.

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Pheasant's such a lean fucking meat you generally need to cover it with a source of fat to keep it moist as it roasts. Because the skin's going to be hidden beneath a layer of smoked pork fat there's almost no point in retaining the skin (which is blasphemy, I know, because crispy skin and fat is, hands down, my absolute favorite part of eating meat), so when I butcher pheasants I don't really bother plucking - I flay them like any furry creature.

Pictured above is the hen's skin - with all her feather's still attached (except, of course, the pair of wings) - which I peeled off in one piece. I then turned it feather-side down (to expose the inner flesh), pinned the Leatherface atrocity down and covered it in a stupid amount of cornmeal. That way my friend now has all of the pheasant's feathers without the threat of them snowglobing her house upon arrival.

Fet Ghede Altars, Dark

Due to Chooch's very recent passing neither of us were up for the wet'n'wild Halloween celebration we had planned (she left us three effing days before Halloween; an awesome-ideal time to die, although NOT an awesome-deal time to deal with death - especially "so fresh it's only been 72 fucking hours!" death).

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What energy wasn't spent on eight hours of entheogen-flavored ritual sex in front of the Black Goddess altar got funneled into observing Papa's holy feast, Fet Ghede, with gifts, homemade food and new altars created on-the-fly. (Throwing myself into the festival with every ounce of my motherfucking being? Equal parts of loving devotion and a not-so-fucking-sneaky execution of my best coping mechanisms - cooking and cleaning.)

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Normally I keep Fet Ghede - or anything Ghede related - low key in this house because any sort've voodoo shit is still motherfucking "voodoo" to the average person (namely, my in-laws - specifically my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, who, incidentally, is carrying more graveyard dirt in his bowels than the local cemetery).

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This year, though, I threw caution to the psychopomp-tinged wind and created two altars for the occasion: one on the kitchen windowsill (that bit of tiled ledge is about as close as I get to having a sacred space in a shared, communal setting) that oversaw the blessing of ritual items and food that was used in our celebratory meals, and the second incorporated some of Papa's very favorite things (i.e., his Tupac and Biggie votive candleholder) and gifts we bought him for the occasion on a corner unit momentarily residing in the hallway. (<- Famous last words.)

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To keep things from getting too goddamn epic I'm posting these dark images first, and then - once I have more time - I'll write a follow-up entry explaining what's going on. If you want to see my Halloween and Fet Ghede altars "unveiled" (in other words, "with the fucking lights on") be sure to keep an eye on Graveyard Dirt, where all will (eventually) be revealed. (Or, you know, something to that effect.)

2010 Halloween Altar, Dark

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I knew I couldn't continue postponing the inevitable, so after a lot of feet dragging (I've been STUPID tired; who knew that pulling several 12 hour shifts in the kitchen AND losing the very last of your pets could be so goddamn exhausting?) I finally dismantled the Halloween altar last night - but not before snapping a few pictures to document this year's seasonal spread. I'll soon be uploading clearer photos (translation: with the lights on!) to better illustrate what's going on, so be sure to check Graveyard Dirt in a few days for longwinded explanations about shit.

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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.

Fet Ghede, 2010

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"Give me any grief," I said to him, "and next Fet Ghede you'll be hanging by your neck." The Old Man just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Fet Ghede's Checklist

Things I need to accomplish in the next 48 hours: create a coffee liqueur out of a bottle of rum bought and dedicated to Papa, give the Old Man his Fet Ghede gifts, bake Pan De Muerto (soul cakes this year need to be made for Shakey Bear, Wuzza and the Chooch), visit the local graveyard to make an offering, lay some cards down and create a gluten-free southern-themed meal from scratch (gumbo, crab cakes, hoppin' john, cornbread and sweet potato pie).

Things I've actually done: make a pot of coffee.

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.

Harvest Festivities & Rites

itmoons asked: Hello! I've emailed you before and I am a great admirer of what you do. My boyfriend and I have been discussing the old ways and pagan holidays and such things and decided we'd like to celebrate them correctly (we did an informal ritual for mabon). With samhain coming, i was wondering what you did for mabon and what you will do for samhain. also, any sources you can direct me too would be helpful. apologies if these questions are too forward/personal/presumptuous. just two lil pagan boys lookin to give the goddess her due.

Ever since I received this question I've been hella excited by the prospect of answering it, but I've been so knee-fucking-deep in various observances and celebrations (and work - will the mushroom season EVER FUCKING END?) that I haven't had a chance to address it. (I'm actually pushing this question to the top of my list because 1.) it's seasonal and 2.) it provides an explanation as to where my AWOL ass has been for the past few months.)

At this point in my life my Gregorian year is split into halves. In the first half, the Light Year (spring and summer), I'm the virginal Bride who marries the divine king and throughout the growing months we reign together ensuring fertility and new life. The second half, the Dark Year (fall and winter), I'm the great Whore who sacrifices her husband, consort and king (wheat, vine and bull) and harvests his blood, flesh and seed for consumption and resurrection.

(This is a really quick, basic breakdown to give you an idea of where I'm coming from. I've addressed the Virgin/Whore dynamic and perpetual tug-of-war far better in previous diary entries. If you hit up the categories BRIDE and CAILLEACH you'll find more thorough explanations that I'm much happier with.)

Because we live in a mostly rural setting and I work with the idea of female-based sovereignty the majority of my Harvest (from Lammas to Mabon to Samhain to Fet Ghede) is agriculturally themed. Rather than just focusing on our little patch of property I've incorporated this entire area that we live in as my land, and I routinely drag Italics across the local landscape to perform various rites and rituals in the Scottish countryside we see every day out our windows.

The following is a list of activities, rituals, celebrations, observances and traditions that we try and nail every year. Some, it goes without saying, are more important than others, so we prioritize things and keep our schedules flexible for unplanned disasters (i.e., bad weather, catching a cold, family drama) to ensure that the most important shit is executed. (<- Like Italics/the divine king, har har.)

* Reap wheat; Every year I ritually reap wheat from local fields and from containers in my backyard patio garden that I've personally grown. The wheat is then gathered into a bundle and decorated with a blessed cloth embroidered with traditional Ukrainian designs. The venerated bundle - also known as didukh in Ukrainian (pictured here) - represents my ancestors, this land, my sacrificed king, consort, and husband. Throughout the Dark Year the bundle's featured in every major ritual and altar until spring, when I dismantle it and plant the king's seed I've been protecting and holding since Harvest. (See Cereal Mariticide and The Widow is Born.)

* Change the guard; Our companion for the Light Year is Chile Bird, but when it flies the coop for winter it's replaced by Cobweb Spider. Around the time of the equinoxes I remove everything from our office/computer room windowsill altar, wash everything (the objects sitting on the space, the window (inside and out), the frame (inside and out), the ledge (inside and out) and even the hinges, handles, blinds and areas of the wall touching the window), return the permanent altar shit and swap to the appropriate "guard". (See Changing of the Guard.)

* Clean bedroom; Before I drag out our vintage coffin cover to keep our asses warm throughout winter I have to thoroughly clean our bedroom to remove traces of the Bride. I've jokingly referred to the ritualized act as "cleaning up after the Bride" since I have a tendency to leave incomplete projects scattered across any flat surface. But this is serious, crazy magic cleaning that involves blood, sweat, urine and protective washes. (See Cleaning Up After the Bride, Cleaning Day I and Cleaning Day II.)

* Plant garlic; I use a lot of garlic in my cooking and magic work (not that cooking isn't magic), so I've started to grow my own which allows me to add "special" ingredients to the soil for themed bulbs. Garlic's the only thing I plant as the Whore that the Bride harvests.

* Turn down the yard for winter; During the Dark Year my major altars are located within the house, but during the Light Year my major altars are located outside of the house. When it's time to begin moving indoors I "turn down" the yard for winter which involves planting garlic, cutting the grass (for the final time), raking leaves, collecting seeds, emptying pots, straightening up sacred spaces (i.e., the Shango Tree roadkill altar and the patio altar) and covering vulnerable plants from extreme weather.

* Move Stone Cock; At first snowfall Stone Cock (and his black pebble balls) is brought indoors (this year He sat at the base of my peach tree as my patio altar's centerpiece), where he'll stay until the first day of summer. On May Day (Beltane), He'll be paraded out with blessed ribbons (that decorated the "maypole"; nudge, nudge, wink, wink) which will then be hung on branches of fruiting trees.

* Cut the grass; Which, understandably, doesn't sound hella magic, but I then rake up the grass and dry it so I can offer homegrown green (albeit dried green) to local lactating ewes on Bride's Day (Imbolc).

* Harvest from the backyard; I usually choose a single day to complete the majority of my backyard harvesting. Half-naked and high I burn incense on my patio offering pillar as Italics helps me pick plums, cut herbs and gather other backyard food we've managed to grow during the year. Everything is then washed, processed and divided into what we keep, and what we give as tribute. (See 2009 Harvest.)

* Create a Harvest altar; I created a Harvest altar for the very first time last year (pictured here) and it kicked so much fucking ass that I really regretted the fact that I was too busy this year with roadkill, mushrooms and berries to raise it for 2010. Fingers crossed that next year I'll manage my time better to give myself a chance to recreate the place of thanksgiving.

* Create a Halloween altar; The only time I've ever missed constructing a Halloween altar was several years ago when both of us came down with a serious case of influenza that lasted the entire Halloween vacation (and then some). (<- Because we cohabit with my in-laws I'm only able to have a spacious altar four times a year when they're away on holiday: Easter, summer, Halloween and Christmas. Creating altars is a huge fucking deal for me because I normally don't have the ability to dedicate spaces to elaborate setups for any real length of time.) Oops! I just realized I never uploaded any pictures of last year's altar. I have one photo, but the job's only been partially done: 2009 Halloween altar construction.

* Perform the Whore's Black Mass; At some point in our Halloween vacation we celebrate the Whore's Black Mass which involves various intoxicants (pot, MDMA, mushrooms, nitrous and alcohol) and ritualized marathon sex in front of the Halloween altar. When we celebrate Hieros Gamos (the sacred marriage), the drugs'n'sex rite is a ceremony of union, which I've always found to be gentle, loving and tender. Black Mass, though, is all about out-of-your-fucking-head screwing for the pure sake of pleasure. (Reproduction be fucking damned, let's see how far you can force your fist into my cunt!)

* Observe Fet Ghede; My Harvest ends with Papa's feast, Fet Ghede, which I celebrate on November 1st and 2nd. We bake Pan de Muerto for the occasion, using the dough to fashion offering cakes to those who've died since last Fet Ghede. (We then take the bread to the local graveyard and leave it on a cairn.) I also whip up a special meal specifically geared for Papa. Sometimes it's homemade gumbo, sometimes it's baked ham, but there's always cornbread, rum and Hoppin' John. (Not to mention pot, cigars and sexy lingerie.)(See Fet Ghede, 2008.)

* Pay tribute; It's important for me to give back what I've taken or have been given throughout the Light Year as the Bride. It's a thank you, a tribute and a celebration of everything I've done and achieved. With baskets and bags I take a fraction of the roadkill I've found, food I've grown (and gathered) and bread I've ritually baked to the nearest standing stone and leave my tribute at the base to give back to the land that's fed me, and to show my gratitude for all that I've been given. (See Harvest Home Offering.)

* Steal potatoes; The local farmers don't know it, but they pay tribute to me. When the wheat turns gold I reap from their fields, and when the potato plants shrivel up I unearth potatoes. It's a teeny, tiny price to pay to have a witch personally looking after your crops (and the land they're growing on), especially when all of the agricultural land here is either grain or potato. "Stealing potatoes" is more of a LOLOLOL tradition, though, and nothing more than a bit of fun to fluff up our celebratory Harvest meals.

* Bake Castle Pie; One of the local castles has an annual sale of produce grown within its walled gardens. Every year we go to buy plums and apples, walk the castle grounds, visit the bees still hard at work, have sex beneath the same tree and return home to bake Castle Pie together. (The yearly event must be magic because Italics isn't really into fruit, but I often find him picking at the pie when no one's looking.)

* Visit the apple and pear sale; Once a year, on one day only, a pay-to-enter heritage site holds an apple and pear sale selling fruit grown within its gardens. This is the one chance to get a hold of really old varieties I've never heard before ("cat's head" and "bloody ploughman" come to mind). We normally buy three bags of fruit and then take a long walk along a path that circles and winds around old stone walls, farming fields, hedges and beech woodlands (usually pausing to pick blackberries because, holy shit, dude, you would not believe the size of the motherfuckers that grow there).

* Bake Baba's Ukrainian apple cake; Using some of the apples purchased from the heritage site sale I bake a traditional Ukrainian apple cake for my (now deceased) Ukrainian grandmother. My grandparents fashioned themselves a slice of "the old country" in southeast Wisconsin which meant I spent my growing years running around barefoot in a fruit (pear, plum, cherry and apple) orchard, so I have a strong, sentimental attachment to autumn fruits and how they're incorporated into festive cooking and I've tried to keep that tradition alive in my own way. (See Dreading Mortality.)

* Bake bread; Wheat is enormously significant to me; it's the face of my God, my husband, lover, consort and king. With one hand I kill Him, and with another I resurrect Him. I drink His blood, I crush His bones and I eat His flesh. When He's alive and living (Light Year) I refrain from baking bread, but once I perform the reaping ritual I'm allowed to use His body until resurrection. My baking season begins with a traditional Ukrainian bread (paska or babka; babka's like paska plus, using more butter and egg yolks) during Harvest, and ends on Easter (with the same bread, although this particular loaf gets toted off to church on Holy Saturday to be blessed by a priest) when I bake my last and final loaf for the year.

* Prepare celebratory meals; The only thing more celebrated than sex in this house is food. We try to eat seasonally, and as locally as possible. (Pretty goddamn "local" when you're digging up your own potatoes, plucking berries off bushes just yards away from your house and picking mushrooms only a few miles from your rural subdivision.) We have several Harvest related feasts (not including Fet Ghede), and when preparing those I focus on incorporating as much wild or homegrown food as possible. This year, for example, we're roasting a roadkill pheasant with the "stolen" potatoes, and we'll also be making homemade wild mushroom and pheasant risotto using boletes I've picked throughout fall and a roadkill pheasant I picked up on the autumnal equinox.

* Transition from Bride to Whore; Because my hair takes for-fucking-ever to grow I only cut it two times a year: spring and fall (the same goes for Italics, although I usually cut his hair for him while my hair is trimmed by a professional). In addition to getting my hair lopped off I also get my eyebrows done (threading all the way, baby!), and thoroughly rub my ass down with a homemade purifying scrub out of salt, olive oil, honey and rosemary essential oil. (In spring I give my physical appearance a boost because I'm a bride getting ready to be married, but in fall I become a mistress, so my preparations are less wedding based and lean more towards "super extended night on the town".) During the Dark Year I use henna to dye my hair darker (Whore), but during the Light Year I use henna to dye it red (Bride).

This year's Harvest has been crazy mental, but insanely rewarding. I've never experienced anything quite like it because, up until recently, I didn't have a car. I spent nearly a decade fantasizing about a way of life I was desperate to live, repeatedly telling myself "IT'S OKAY, YOU'LL GET TO DO IT ~NEXT YEAR~, IT WON'T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS" to keep it together. 2010 has been a breakthrough year for me; it's been the year I officially began to live and everything I've done and experienced has been a complete and utter joy and revelation.

My boyfriend and I have been discussing the old ways and pagan holidays and such things and decided we'd like to celebrate them correctly (we did an informal ritual for mabon).

If you're exercising a Choose Your Own Adventure-style spiritual journey there isn't a right or wrong way to celebrate and observe special days; it's an experimental process that evolves yearly. If you're involved in a religion with a hardcore set of beliefs I'm sure there is a "correct" way of doing things, but if you haven't committed yourself to a one specific path you aren't obligated to follow anyone else's instruction manual.

The beautiful thing about going solo and doing what makes sense (to you) is that sometimes it'll work spectacularly, and sometimes it'll end disastrously funny. But - BUT! - no matter what the outcome, it's always a learning experience that ultimately shapes the rest of the game.

My suggestion? Do shit. Do a lot of shit. Do stupid shit, do funny shit, do crazy shit, do serious shit. Just do shit, and keep the shit that makes you laugh, cry, and feel alive and work on that shit so next time around you'll laugh even harder, cry more meaningfully and feel so fucking alive that the very core of your being is on celestial fire.

also, any sources you can direct me too would be helpful. apologies if these questions are too forward/personal/presumptuous.

Man, I'm the worst person to come to when resources are involved. I've written my own mythology, created my own gods and crowned myself a divine queen in my world. And the worst part? The Universe is playing along. (I guess that means my "script" has been optioned?) I can tell you what I believe, what I do and the meaning behind everything, but I'm not a quotable resource.

What I can do, though, is direct you to the blogs, diaries and journals of witches, pagans, spiritualists and rootworkers that I follow who are a LEETLE less out there that might be able to provide different views and approaches to celebrate this time of year. (Hit up the index page of Graveyard Dirt; you'll find those links on the left under the "READING" category.)

I'll also point you towards my Amazon wishlist so you can get an idea of the reading material that most interests me. (I always feel weird providing the link, but I've had a lot of people ask for it to discover new material to add to their own personal wishlist.)

Right! I hope I've been slightly helpful (or at least moderately interesting). Whatever you guys do, just make sure it's coming from the heart (and/or gut), because that's the shit that sculpts your beliefs and transforms your life. Good luck with Halloween/Samhain, and thank you for prompting me to finally sit my ass down and write about our Harvest festivities and rites. (I actually began drafting an entry along those lines to explain my absence, but with all of these new activities, all of the old traditions and taking care of our tumor-ridden pet rat, Choney, I just haven't had a chance.)

PS: Just FYI; when you're the type of person who posts a picture of yourself barebacking the New Year roast, naked, there's no question that's "too forward/personal/presumptuous", *winks*.

Fighting Fire with Fire

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If I told you, you'd regret asking.

Passover

"There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt - worse than there has ever been or ever will be again." ~ Exodus 11:6

I didn't hear the "pop". Italics did, though, and came through to tell me that the washing machine made a "breaking sound" and stopped spinning. I remained uncharacteristically optimistic until several days later when the repairman arrived and Italics had to convey some very important news that began with "OKAY, SO THE GUY SAYS THIS IS HIGHLY UNUSUAL" and ended with "WE HAVE TO GET A NEW ONE, BUT IT WON'T BE DELIVERED UNTIL NEXT WEEK".

The motor? Dead. And I mean dead fucking dead; no passing "GO", collecting money or reincarnating. Our washing machine of only four fucking years burst into flames (well, figuratively), but no renewed phoenix rose from the proverbial ashes to continue cleaning our dirty laundry.

Even worse? It'd be another week, at least, until I'd be able to wash anything, and we were both sick (because it's easier on the skin we typically blow our noses into old t-shirts so we had a mountain of crusty shirts that needed laundering), I was expecting my period (I don't use tampons and very, very rarely wear any sort of cloth menstrual pad so I bleed directly on myself/my clothing), Chooch needed her bedding washed and changed daily (her cluster of mammar tumors has gotten so large she can't move to her designated bathroom spot so her towels get soiled pretty quickly), not to mention that, LOLOLOLOLOL, I only have two fucking pairs of house pants to my name. (Seriously.)

Egypt? Had nothing on the loud wailing throughout this fucking house when the dreaded Mercury Retrograde curse unexpectedly struck one of my most beloved appliances.

Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles, sat (and consequently broke) our motherfucking washing machine. I know it was Him, because it fits his modus operandi. The fat bastard's been breaking our shit since 2007 when Italics and I unwisely snickered at one of his devotional songs sung by a husky Indian boy coifed up like Tom fucking Jones. (WE WERE STONED, IT LOOKED LIKE AN AMERICAN IDOL AUDITION AND THERE WAS NOTHING ON TV AT 5:45 AM EXCEPT FOR ISLAMIC PRAYERS, FOX'S "RED EYE" AND TELEMARKETING.)

If things are going to break - break spectacularly - it's going to be during a Mercury Retrograde period, because that's when we originally cheesed off Lord Ganesha. We've lost multiple DVD players (in fact, within an hour of our fateful snickering the DVD player broke; Italics tried recording the program's repeat, and it died during the Ganesh devotional - that's how fucking quick the Retrograde curse was instated), computers, a plethora of phones, remote controls, toasters, car headlights, showers, toilets - if it plugs into a socket, requires batteries of some kind or makes life bearable, it's fair game (and has been for the past several years).

I knew immediately what I had to do to placate him and call a truce on the wanton destruction (nab a statue, bake him a traditional offering and set up a Ganesh altar every time Mercury went Retrograde), but in the past 3-4 years have I done any of the above to stop the household object genocide? Uh...no. (Does "LISTEN, ASSHOLE, I'VE BEEN BUSY, OKAY?" sound like a totally legit excuse? How about my reluctance to welcome anything else with a pair of fucking balls into this house? Because, seriously, I'm totally fucking drowning in man junk here and it's not like I'm sprouting multiple pairs of ovaries to keep shit balanced.)

Okay, fine. I'm lazy. When I'm unenthused and unmotivated I'm probably one of the laziest motherfuckers you'll ever come across. For some utterly bizarre reason buying a statue and creating a nook altar for a few weeks seems like way more effort than spending 21 days chasing after a phantom elephant who regards any object that falls under "modern convenience" as his personal fucking sofa. (I console myself with the fact that even if I am a lazy motherfucker, at least I'm a lazy motherfucker who's able to be 100% honest about herself to herself.)

"TAKE CARE OF IT, AND IT'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU," the John Lewis man said after installing our brand new Bosch Avantixx WAE24366GB Washing Machine two days ago. I wasn't in the room, but I knew the statement was aimed at me, and I instantly identified the sinister element lurking behind the casual comment (which, granted, is probably said on a daily basis to everyone getting fitted with a new appliance, but not everyone is dogged by a planetary curse caused by an enraged anthropomorphic elephant god) - the second the washing machine was hooked up to the house was the second it became susceptible to Lord Ganesh's Mercury Retrograde curse.

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For the sake of domestic sanity something had to be done; I've lived for over a week without being able to do any laundry and I swear to all that's fucking holy I'm never visiting that particular circle of Hell again. As far as I'm concerned NO ONE'S FAT FUCKING ASS IS GOING TO SIT ON MY BRAND NEW WASHING MACHINE, EVER. (Fine Print: Except for mine, preferably during the spin cycle.) I had to do something to protect it. I had to do something that'd make the appliance the antithesis of "comfortable" to the ass of an elephant-man god. I had to do something that'd force the curse to pass over -

- wait, wait, wait - what was that? "Force the curse to pass over." Pass over, pass over, pass over...Passover. ("The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." Exodus 12:13) The solution was right there in my own words; I needed to kick it Old Testament-style and perform a Passover ritual.

(Passover (just in case you didn't grow up watching Cecil DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments) is a Jewish observance which commemorates the story of Exodus (when Moses led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt). It gets its name specifically from the 10th and final plague that was inflicted on the Egyptians: death of the firstborn. To avert God's curse the slaves were instructed to anoint their door/threshold with lamb's blood, and in doing so the plague would "pass over" the household. Generations upon generations later the event is still remembered as the festival of Passover.)

I only really needed two things: fresh lambs' blood and protective herbs (not exactly the cleanest/most inconspicuous of magic washes, but - just between you and me - the very best kinds rarely are). Because there's some dispute over what herb the Hebrews used to smear the blood over doorposts (hyssop is the most commonly accepted story, although I've heard arguments that the biblical hyssop isn't the hyssop we know today) I used herbs that were significant to me and my ancestors: dill, rosemary and parsley.

Three fresh lamb hearts were bought at the grocery store and were wrung dry to supply me with blood. I also bought the rosemary and parsley at the same time, but the dill came from my container garden outside. The eco-friendly detergent, fabric softener, stain remover and washing machine cleaner were purchased as offerings for the new appliance. (Laugh all you want, but I'm trying to seduce a motherfucking washing machine so it never fails me, okay?)

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Grand stories that inspire grand rituals demand grand altars. Just after midnight I pushed back the kitchen table, swept the floor and began piecing together what eventually became my Passover altar while praying to God - er, Elohim - that my mother-in-law wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night thirsty.

(I can bullshit a lot of things - consider the art one of my natural talents - but a very special car salesman job is probably required when explaining to your in-laws why you and their son are fucking on an altar at the foot of the new washing machine at one in the fucking morning. (<- As if the time of day makes any difference in a situation like that.) It physically pains me to say this, but...I might be a gifted bullshit artist, but I'm not THAT fucking gifted (yet).)

Starting from the bottom of the picture and working up: one of three lamb hearts, my charcoal incense burner (a tres swish miniature enamel casserole dish with lid), the bowl of fresh lambs' blood (I added a pinch of blessed sea salt to the liquid, and after ritualized sex our body fluids were mixed in), a roof slate from a ruined chapel (to absorb the heat from the incense burner), herb bundles made from dill flowers, rosemary stalks and bunches of parsley, a tisane made with hot water, a handful of the protective herbs and a pinch of sea salt (I created an internal wash that was run through the machine on its first use), the other two lamb hearts, the user's manual and machine instructions (they're BLESSED WORDS that I will keep holy and sacred in my heart), the washing machine's offerings (the eco-friendly detergents and cleaners) and, finally, the sheepskin rug that Italics once slept/played on as a baby that I (sort've) recently inherited.

I'll be one billion percent honest, the sheepskin? Totally makes the altar Passover fabulous.

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If you've made it this far I'm so not going to bore your ass with minute details of happened because there's no point - I think it's pretty damn clear to both of us what went on. (AHEM, AHEM, AHEM.) What I WILL say, though, is that a doorway is a doorway regardless if it's the threshold of a house, car or washing machine, and that being in two different places at the same fucking time always makes one helluva orgasm.

On a slightly related note: the rubber guard that pads the space between the hinged door and the basket/barrel? One of the most comfortable headrests I've ever had the pleasure of using. (Trufax.)

Exodus 12:13

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"The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."

Preparing for Passover

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What's Ms. Graveyard Dirt getting ready to do? (HINT: It involves lamb's blood, our brand new washing machine and the tenth plague of Egypt.)

Funeral for a Pheasant

I'll be completely honest with you guys: I don't actually consecrate and sanctify every piece of clearance meat I buy over billowing incense before cooking and consuming it. (In a bizarre way (which makes absolute, total sense to me) I feel that I make amends for "taking a life" by choosing to primarily eat reduced-to-clear meat that would otherwise be thrown out. It might be a lame excuse for my carnivore ways, but it's also one less wasted life unapologetically rotting in a dump.)

Roadkill, however, gets the red fucking carpet treatment. The butchering process combines several rituals in one act. While breaking the physical carcass down I'm also holding a funeral, releasing the spirit, spiritually cleansing the body (to bless and purify the meat that'll be eaten, and the various parts (i.e., organs, feathers, feet) that'll be used for future witchcrafting), giving thanks (to the animal) for the gifts received and, if time/situation permits, I usually sneak in a quick haruspicy (aka entrails reading) session.

I'm planning on dedicating a much larger journal entry to this specific roadkill ritual, so I'll save my trademark wordy ass explanations for then. In the meantime, you can marvel at the once-in-a-blue-fucking-moon cluttered state of my windowsill kitchen altar. (How do you know when an autistic anal aries witch has too much going on? When you can't see the surface of her altars/work areas.)

Broken Deer Funeral

The funeral of a broken deer found at a crossroads.

Death's Lunchbox

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In this house? Offerings of sandwiches transcend species. Ask the fox (smoked ham on whole wheat), ask the badger (peanut butter and honey on white), ask the deer (organic romaine heart on handsliced pieces of gluten-free bread).

Death; Rebirth

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A new deer priestess is born.

Fox's Funeral

Fox's offerings of omani frankincense, a bowl of organic milk and a smoked ham sandwich (on whole wheat, naturally).

RESURRECT! RESURRECT!

How do you explain to your in-laws why you're naked (on all fours), crassly exposing yourself to the sacrificial bull and his wheat (on the First Reaping altar) while groaning RESURRECT! RESURRECT! as you climax spectacularly in a frankincense smoked out room at 2:30 AM?

You don't; it's just another normal day in this house.

The Widow is Born

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Now you, Husband, King, and Lover, will nourish and feed as I have nourished and fed. (The Bride weeps; the Widow is born.)

Cereal Mariticide

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Not many women get away with mariticide, but, somehow, this witch does. (It helps when your divine consort's life-death cycle is symbolically embodied within the germination (resurrection & new life; celebrated in our annual Hieros Gamos rites) and harvest (death & communion; celebrated in our annual Harvest rites) of wheat.)

Yesterday I ritually reaped the first bundle of wheat that'll go into my 2010-2011 didukh. I really, really want to hit four other locations and create a sort've magic bouquet of locally grown wheat:

* the crow rookery (where I now go to leave super special corvid-based offerings)

* the stone throne (I still need to write about this place, it's my sovereignty seat)

* the Drum Stone (it isn't a battlefield, but it IS a field where companies once met BEFORE engaging in a bloody war)

* the field near our graveyard (the location of my first Reaping)

I also like the idea of gathering wheat from a field overlooking the loch (famous for it's black magician Laird who supposedly stole unbaptized babies from our graveyard and once rode across the winter waters of the loch in the company of the Devil himself) so that's my emergency/plan b location.)

If I somehow manage to pull off this most righteous plan there'll be way too much wheat for one person. I'm thinking about, maybe, selling smaller bundles tied up with a ribbon and charm to spread the resurrection-death-resurrection love. (Whether people want to place their bundles on their altar, or even dismantle the bundle after a few months to have wheat seeds they can plant - and then harvest - themselves. <- Easily grown within containers. Seriously. I've been doing it for years.)

The only thing is...there'll be traces of red wine and body fluids (saliva, semen and vaginal sex juice) on the wheat since I anointed my hand with the substances and then grabbed the first fistful with that hand when making my sacrificial strike. (I figure most people who are familiar with the way I work won't be surprised by the questionable ingredients involved.)

ANYWAY. I need to hold a wheat funeral while it's still dark. (Yesterday I stripped the unnecessary leaves off the stalks, today I need to allow the bundle to lay in wake before I string it up to dry.) I ALSO need to create a super special magic embroidered cloth (using a traditional Ukrainian design) because my divine consort deserves a more fitting death shroud than the old t-shirt (which I use as a menstrual rag) He got wrapped up in yesterday.

(Man, you don't know you need that sort've shit until you're naked in a misty Scottish wheat field at six in the fucking morning hacking down what's meant to be your cosmic other half (who you'll cannibalisticly consume throughout the Dark Year). And when you DO finally realize that maybe a torn up Dolemite t-shirt doesn't properly illustrate the gravity of the situation all you can do is stand there, naked, holding a handful of wine and sex fluid soaked wheat going "UH...OOPS?". <- True story.)

Be Careful w/Your Machines

"This cannot be. The worlds of magic and logic must exist side by side; not destroy each other. Take care! Be careful with your machines, I say!" Carolinus, Flight of Dragons

There's a scene in the animated movie Flight of Dragons where the green wizard, Carolinus, watches helplessly as a swan's dragged under the powerful current of a watermill. He wades out to the broken bird and resuscitates it while shouting "TAKE CARE! BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR MACHINES, I SAY!" to the oblivious workers within.

Whenever I encounter roadkill that particular scene is always the first thing I think of, and while carrying the dead animal back to the car I'm haunted by Carolinus' words which still loop in my head after 20+ years. But they were never as real, never as poignant until I found myself in the backroom at 4:30 AM, sobbing, cradling a paralyzed rabbit that we had to euthanize because its spine had been broken by a car.

Take fucking care. Be careful with your motherfucking machines. Please.

Deemed Worthy

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Outside of this rural subdivision, past the dental practice, old berry farm and butcher stands a tiny little hamlet of a forest on a busy country road surrounded by wheat fields, industrial complexes and new housing. It's recognized woodland, protected and cared for by the government (official trails tricked out with wooden walkways, painted sign posts indicating various routes, sections actively cleared for conservation purposes) and a favorite haunt for nature-lovin' locals.

(Walking and being in the wild? Super huge big here in Scotland. I've never encountered people so passionate about land and their inherent RIGHT to access it. <- Like I said before, Scotland doesn't have any trespassing laws. You go where you want, when you want, provided it's done respectfully and within reason.)

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The most active corvid rookery I know about - at least "just out the door" locally - is located there. In a tiny stretch of peninsula-shaped land between the parking lot and wheat field exists a cluster of long-needled pine trees, and those coniferous trees have provided nesting grounds for countless generations of crows.

I've always avoided this particular patch of woodland; too popular, too busy (especially being situated on a narrow country lane way too fucking small to accommodate the full-blown trucks barreling down the broken asphalt), too noisy and too fucking messy. (<- Some Scots love nature so fucking much they'll wheel their McDonald's all the way to the fucking woods to have an idyllic backdrop for lunch, but then they'll follow up their appreciation by tossing their garbage out the car window and into the grass, or parking lot, or the very fringes of the forest.)

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I didn't want to get attached to it because people, over the years, have transformed the first section of the forest into a litter-specked wasteland and it's only gotten worse thanks to all of the new houses backing straight up to the woods. I didn't want to be privy to people's love-hate relationship with nature, so I went elsewhere. I spent the last several years exploring the countryside's secret places - far away from people, parking lots and padded trails - which still managed to stay hidden behind crumbling stone walls and overgrown hedges. We haunted the places where you had to slip beneath barbed wire, wade through knee-high grass and scale ancient drystane dykes.

Not this past Saturday, but the weekend before Italics and I visited the rookery in the woods. I knew from previous visits that it wasn't too uncommon to find dead crows there, and seeing how they hadn't moved to a new location it seemed like a prime spot to find the remains of expired birds who died a more natural death (as opposed to being hit by a fucking car). My hunch was right; within minutes of scouting we found one. (A black crow with two white toenails - how's that for auspicious?)

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The next morning I projectile vomited all over the fucking bathroom. Italics almost immediately copycatted my ass, although his execution was a lot less spectacular than mine. Our response was so violent, so fucking immediate that there were only the crows to blame. (After finding the one at the rookery we came across a second further down the road with its head partially bashed in, so we actually came home that Saturday with TWO dead crows.) But that's a story for a different entry (because I've already tangented off my original intent).

So we got sick. "Wretchedly sick", if you remember. We couldn't eat for a whole 24 hours (I was deathly afraid to even drink water in case it set me off for a third time), and when the most extreme aspect of our illness passed our appetites only allowed us the occasional bowl of soup, or piece of plain toast. (Not that I didn't try. Italics watched in horror as I voraciously gobbled down steak, tortilla chips, vanilla ice cream and frozen Reeses Pieces. I spent the next two days regretting the binge, but, hey, the homemade DIY Blizzard was a-fucking-mazing after an entire day of not eating jack shit.)

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I had several huge meals planned - homemade buffalo wings with hot sauce, gingered duck stir-fry with fresh vegetables and a hearty steak dinner complete with slow-baked potatoes - none of which either of us could stomach. I managed grilling the steak, but I couldn't save the poultry. The defrosted portions of chicken and duck pathetically sat in their protective vacuum sealed bags until I decided to haul them out as offerings for the crows (a lame "thank you for only making us sick and not killing us" gesture).

When we were finally well enough to leave the house for an extended period one of the very first things we did was make a pilgrimage to the rookery to express our gratitude for the bodies and experience they gave us. (Initiation, dear and gentle readers, has its price. In this game you rarely get shit for free; if it's worthwhile having, then it's worthwhile suffering for. Admittedly, I regret that Italics had to bear the same discomfort, but I suppose that's the ultimate price he pays for trying to tame and domesticate a half-feral witch who brings dead things into the house.)

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A gift was waiting for us. (Two, actually, if you count the crow we scooped up all Navy Seal-like on the busy, narrow country road.) Beneath the towering pines a lone fledgling laid dead, still soaking wet from the torrential rain that had hammered the countryside a day before. A tiny thing, a wee thing, drenched to the bone and wide-eyed. (It's never pleasant discovering a dead animal, there's always a part of you that wishes you had come earlier as if you somehow stood the chance of saving it if you had only been motivated to go the same route an hour, a day, a week before.)

We tore open plastic bags of rotting meat and neatly piled the offerings into a stinking pyramid of poultry. While I swaddled the baby crow in Ziploc bags Italics poured out a libation of elderflower cider over the meat (which was a particularly nice touch since several bushy elder shrubs grow beneath the collection of nests) as new housing owners jumping on a trampoline with their kids suspiciously looked on. (IT'S CALLED WITCHCRAFT. LET ME SPELL THAT OUT FOR YOU, W-I-T-C-H-C-R-A-F-T. DID YOU GET THAT?)

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Our original intent was to stay for a few hours to get acquainted with the place, but after a short amble on a hella easy path we found our energy reserves declining and decided it was better not to push ourselves after being so goddamn sick. I managed to find the first raspberries of the season, but only two berries (all of the others were still tight green buds despite the two having reached perfect ripeness) and on the way home we managed to pull of a roadkill retrieval stunt that surely deserved a round of applause.

(The road? The narrow, crazily busy country lane flanking the woods? The one with enormous semis tearing down patchy asphalt? Even busier than usual. They closed a major intersection that the public uses to access the only grocery store in town, and the diverted traffic is now being funneled ("funneled" because the route is bordered on either side by two massive stone walls) down that tight, dangerously claustrophobic track. Even without the pressure of added commuters the stretch of road is known for recklessly fast driving despite the twists, bends and blind spots.)

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(A crow - a huge ass motherfucker of a crow - was nestled against one of the walls, seemingly unsmashed due to the protectively solid nature of the dyke it was leaning against. Italics and I had to time our actions just right, in perfect sync. We couldn't get out of the car, let alone really stop it. Like Falkor snatching Atreyu just as Gmork was closing in Italics partially opened the car door as we coasted past, never moving from his seated position in the car, and lifted the dead bird from the side of the road and into his lap. One, two, three. It was over before it began.)

July 22nd was a long ass day. It was our first full non-Saturn Return day (Saturn left Virgo on the 21st and entered Libra; as far as old man Saturn goes he's someone else's problem for the next 30 years) and, I think, the day the sun entered Leo (which is my ascent, I'm part ram, part fish and part lion). Despite just getting over a serious bout of sickness we both found ourselves pottering around outside even after our forest walk and a spot of grocery shopping. I harvested thistle and feverfew growing outside in the front yard, and then let Italics loose with the lawn mower to take down the meadow my in-laws don't want to see (they come home in two days, SIGH) while I ritually dismembered my fridge full of dead crows.

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There was something special about the larger crow we picked up that day. It was a lot of things, the absolute desperation to rescue it despite its awkward (and damn near impossible) positioning, how perfectly preserved and utterly flawless it remained despite having spent several long hours at the very edges of the busiest road in town, it's eerily life-like, frozen appearance. When Italics successfully lifted it from the road I enthusiastically cheered and told him, half-joking, that for all of his effort he could keep it.

It spooked me with its beady, glossy eyes still coal black and sharp (as a roadkill scavenger I'm more used to the frosty, glassy eyes of death). Stiff, but warm, it groggily glared through half-open eyes at its surroundings, dead but very much alive, caught in a bizarre "DON'T ASK ME HOW MY FUCKING DAY'S BEEN" limbo. It must've been hit while walking, and in death it retained its fatal gait. The only obvious trauma it suffered - at least in a superficial appearance - were a few partially twisted toes, and because it wasn't mangled or broken it needed almost no coaxing to stand.

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As ridiculous as it sounds, I was hesitant to dismember the crow. It was dead, it was OBVIOUSLY fucking dead, but something was there. Half-aware. Dazed. Alive. I knew it was dead, but a part of me was terrified that it'd awaken mid-decapitation and I'd only realize, after it was too late, that it had only been stunned for the 3-5 hours it remained perfectly still, perfectly stiff. I processed the oldest two first, and then the baby as the large black crow blearily looked on from its container garden roost.

When I finally severed its head from its body fresh, uncoagulated blood trickled from the decapitated bird and thickly pooled at the tips of my toes as if its heart had only just stopped beating. A gift. A truce. Acknowledgement that I had walked through fire and stayed on course, that even if I didn't follow them into death I sacrificed enough as I accompanied and comforted them as best as I could on the long, painful walk to the other side. Through sickness I was tested, they were satisfied and the blood that trickled from the beheaded crow was my initiation.

I anointed myself and wore the bloody cross with pride; I was deemed worthy.

Anointed

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

Wiping Winter Clean

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What has Ms. Graveyard Dirt learned in seven months that 29 previous years didn't teach her? Two things:

01.) Death, good ole #13, strikes a cosmic balance with Spring's seemingly "new life" monopoly, but in order to appreciate the constant tug and pull you need to witness the body count first hand.

02.) If you inform the Universe how it's supposed to work ("OKAY, OKAY, SO I DO //THIS//, AND IF I DO THAT IT MEANS YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO //THIS//, OKAY?"), you're a fucking moron if you expect it to hold up its end of the deal if you do jack fucking shit yourself.

I've already publicly flagellated myself multiple times for the entire changing of the guard thing. (Long short? Every equinox I'm supposed to thoroughly clean our office/computer room window altar and change the centerpiece (Cobweb Spider for Fall/Winter and Chile Bird for Spring/Summer) to herald in the new "year" (i.e., Dark and Light). This year I was lazy in welcoming Spring; coincidentally, this year was the first year in fucking ages where we got motherfucking snow in May.) I finally admitted my secret Spring-Lent-Easter-Hieros Gamos shame, so what else is there?

On the first day of Summer (aka May Day, Beltane) I, uh, kind've sort've didn't take Stone Cock outside like I was supposed to. Or tie the consecrated ribbons onto the plum trees. Or retire our coffin cover - which we use as a secondary blanket/bed covering when it's Winter - for the Light part of the year. I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW - BAD WITCH. VERY BAD WITCH, NO UNBAPTIZED BABIES FOR A FUCKING MONTH.

It's just...it was never the right time, you know? The stars weren't in alignment, the in-laws were being distracting, I wasn't feeling it, the atmosphere wasn't right, we weren't up at the right time, the weather wasn't being cooperative. I think the immortal words of the king of Siam sums it up best - ET CETERA, ET CETERA, ET CETERA. (<- The problem with et cetera is that it multiples hella quick if you allow a pair to reproduce. DO YOURSELF A HUGE FUCKING FAVOR - NEUTER YOUR EXCUSES OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF A POPULATION BOOM.)

It got done. Eventually. (Four months late, but who's counting?) The blessed ribbons somehow found their way onto the plum trees, Stone Cock was paraded out on Midsummer to join my beloved peach tree (THE MIGHTY PHOENIX RISES FROM HER ASHES! Or, well, leaf curl, in actuality, but "RISES FROM HER ASHES!" sounded marginally more impressive) on the Summer altar, and despite belatedly executing the activities by a half a fucking season it still felt like my spastic tardiness was grudgingly acceptable.

(Hey, I'm fucking trying here, okay? As much as I'd like my PERFECT FANTASY WORLD and my REAL, NON-FANTASY WORLD to merge in divine union it's not going to happen; too many IN REAL LIFE factors, too many clauses resting heavily on other fictional clauses.)

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Yeah, so, wiping winter clean - where do I even start?

Normally I don't browse Ebay USA because, inevitably, I'll fall in love with something crazy cheap that I simply can't live without only to find that shipping the cheap ass item overseas to Scotland is the equivalent of sending your first born to university. For financial reasons I usually limit myself to Ebay UK, but, once in a while - when I'm REALLY fucking bored - I'll casually thumb through a few favorite USA-based categories (the mortuary/funeral section, ethnic clothes'n'jewelry and antique holiday decorations).

Several years ago I stumbled across a vintage coffin cover - the real deal - and snagged the motherfucker for the opening bid of $14.95 USD. After a slight kerfuffle (the seller WAY underestimated shipping it internationally and demanded more than double of the postage we already paid, thankfully the in-laws were in Florida at the time so we were able to send it over to them and they brought it home with them via their luggage) the black brocade beauty came home to me.

It only took unfolding the goddamn thing to fall in love with it; despite one or two pinprick holes in the glossy, partially flocked paschal lamb design it was immaculate. Everything about it - the material used, the overlapping gold trim, the handmade cross embellished with embroidery - was lovingly made, giving it the appearance of a serious work of art.

And it is. Serious, I mean (and a work of art, heh). It's a seriously heavy piece of magic that I consider myself lucky and privileged to own. It was created for a specific purpose, and then used repeatedly in a ceremonial setting infusing and defining the object with the passing of countless lives. This ornate, glorified blanket knows its purpose and the biography of its existence is woven into every stitch and crease.

So what did I do with a genuine coffin cover that was used for god knows how many funerals, covering god knows how many dead bodies? What would you do? Wrap it up like the holy fucking grail and stuff it in a locked safe, never to be invoked, but, maybe, occasionally seen once or twice a year when sorting your personal inventory? Keep it eternally folded and on display in a prominent position? Treat it with so much reverence and respect that the only thing it does is gather dust?

Fuck that shit, I tossed it over our fucking bed and used it as a secondary blanket during the colder months (because there's nothing more cosy than the dead keeping you warm as you sleep!). My majestic shroud of death is something I have intimate contact with on a daily basis during the Dark Year: I dream beneath the comforting, lulling weight (you feel them - all of them - the first few weeks, pulling and drawing you down to them, and you go willingly, unafraid, because the pressure pushing down on you is so overwhelming unmalicious and promising), I fuck on the shiny brocade surface (the stains eventually fade away leaving unmarked lambs in their wake), take pictures of newly acquired treasures on the photogenic pattern and every fucking morning, after Italics rises, I pick the crumbled cover up off the floor (it almost always slides off while we sleep), dust it off and fling it back over our bed.

Some things are inherently special, but they're never so special that you have to exclude them from your life and practices. I COULD'VE shelved the cover and only unfolded the motherfucker for V. SRS NECROMANCY/UNDERGROUND TRAVELING but then how would've it been potent? The blanket wouldn't have known me. Fuck, the fucking dead who briefly rested beneath the enveloping material wouldn't have known me. By using it and incorporating it into day-to-day life I made a stronger connection and foraged a personal relationship with it and with everything attached to it. When it's time for me to walk in Darkness I know I won't walk alone.

Because it has such a hardcore link to DEATH, THE OTHER SIDE and SPIRITS it's aired on the first day of Winter (aka Halloween, Samhain) and remains a constant feature until the first day of Summer (aka May Day, Beltane) when it's folded up, ritually cleansed, carefully covered in one of our old bed sheets and retired until the start of the Dark Year. (<- I mean, in my PERFECT FANTASY WORLD. In REAL, NON-FANTASY WORLD it gets done when it gets done, although it normally doesn't take as long as it did this year.)

It's hard to say what requires more effort (i.e., pulling out or putting away). Our bedroom goes through an annual deep clean (all magic-style) in the weeks leading up to the first day of Winter. (See Cleaning Up After the Bride, Cleaning Day I, and Cleaning Day II.) Draping the coffin cover over a just purified bed is the last step in welcoming the Whore, but the activities and events leading up to that moment can take days (and, in some cases, even weeks). Retiring the cover simply requires me to "wipe Winter clean", although I need to be IN THE ZONE which demands a little more effort than physically cleaning a room and washing bed linens.

After folding the coffin cover - with excruciatingly amounts of care - I run it through three types of incense smoke (I start with frankincense, move to rosemary and finish with sage*) before tightly wrapping it up in one of our old bed sheets and placing it beneath our bed for the duration of the Light Year. And beneath our living bodies the dead sleep, for half a year, resting and waiting until Winter's great Whore calls out them to keep us safe and warm throughout the Dark Year.

* This year I found myself petitioning my dead mother while fumigating the cover with sage. Which isn't SO strange because I associate sage with my mom (thanks to being part Native American I was raised following the traditions of my great-grandfather; sage is used to purify ("smudging") and because I was raised using it for that specific purpose I still use it today even though I no longer follow any Lakhota practices), but it is kind've sort've strange because I've never formerly involved her in anything I've ever done (magically and spiritually, I mean).

Making Spring Happen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crazy Little Magical Rituals

INTERNET, I ADMIT IT...

...I'M KIND'VE SORT'VE GOING TO BE SAD WHEN IT'S TIME FOR MY BUSH TO GO THIS SUMMER. (OH, THESE CRAZY LITTLE MAGICAL RITUALS; ELDERFLOWERS BLOOM, SHEEP GET SHORN AND MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT GETS A BRAZILIAN.)

Spring Leftovers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Garlogie's cattle rubbing stone from a different angle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unexpected Bridal Bedchamber

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

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

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

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

Denny's Dumpster

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When we first saw her - when she was an impossibly small baby - Italics said "she looks like a rat who'd live in a dumpster behind a Denny's" and the name just sort've suck. To celebrate her life with us we built Wuzza her very own Denny's dumpster to rest in during last night's wake.

Changing of the Guard (Spring 2010)

Spring's finally come to our office/computer room altar.

Walpurgisnacht Altar, Dark

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

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Lost and Found

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just Married

We were married today, in an ancient earthen passage made of stone and wood that once - nearly two thousand years ago - stored the fruits of harvest. The ceremony only cost me a third of my Blessed Virgin trio, my mother's moonstone, my teardrop of cloudy (breast) milk.

Going Underground, Internet, still has its price.

Paska Invocation

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

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

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

Nevermind

INTERNET, YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I MADE ITALICS DO TO OUR EASTER PASKA (AKA THE RESURRECTION BREAD).

…ON SECOND THOUGHT, YES YOU WOULD.

Wedding Altar Building

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The to-be wedding altar where Italics and I will be exchanging marital vows sometime in the next 11 days. (I know it doesn't look like much, but wait until I get everything laid out, measured, taped and freshened up with a lint roller. <- YES, I //DO// USE A RULER, DUCT TAPE AND A LINT ROLLER WHEN PIECING TOGETHER A SACRED SPACE - ALTAR BUILDING IS V. SRS BUSINESS, OKAY?)

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The black rabbits have been unleashed upon the world once again! Nestled amongst the stoic sentinels is our Black Goddess ritual bong (she's wearing a garland of white plastic Halloween skulls around her neck). To the left of the picture you can see the all important tape (duct AND electrical!), and Italics' wooden crab peeking from beneath an embroidered tablecloth.

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I'm so anally organized that all of my ritual/ceremonial linens, tablecloths, aprons and scarves are kept folded up in their own specific boxes. I have an inordinate amount of golds, whites, greens, blues, purples and blacks, not to mention a growing collection of traditional Ukrainian embroidery. (The golds, whites and greens are usually paired with wooden/brass/golden objects, the blues, purples and blacks are typically paired with silver.)

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Thanks to my father-in-law's inability to keep his hands to himself I have to keep all of our ritual/ceremonial shit under lock and key. (If you leave anything out - ANYTHING, EVEN FOOD YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY GOING TO EAT - it's only a matter of time before he breaks it, ruins it, kills it, eats it, takes it or throws it out.) It's only when he's gone on holiday that we have the freedom to throw open the closet and parade out our magic goods to create a seasonally elaborate altar in the lounge.

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I'm considerably less anal when it comes to organizing our ritual tools and items; if I can shove something into an awkward space without breaking the object, it fits. (YOU try and find a way to store a vintage KGB hat, a Ukrainian gun candlestick, skeletal hands and an army of votive candle holders in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. I've tried; it's not worth the madness.)

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Honest to fucking God, when I found out that this past Sunday was Palm Sunday I almost threw up. Not only is my ass totally not prepared in the SLIGHTEST for my upcoming wedding, I also have to somehow flawlessly execute a traditional Ukrainian Easter in less than a week's time.

Imbolc's Oatmeal Soda Bread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frangelico Crème Brûlée

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

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

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

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

Bride's Braid, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sliced and ready to serve.

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

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

Bride's Day, 2010

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

Bride's Day Eve

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Candle wax reading.

Cailleach Stalking the Bride

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

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

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Winter Altar, 09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Yule/2009 Log

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Medicine and Vice

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

Yuletide Phallic Worship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sviata Vechera's First Star

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

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

(Pssst! We got a white Christmas too!)

Christmas Goose Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

78 Pretty Pictures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winter Wash

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

LONG STORY SHORT?

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

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

Without asking "why?" I did.

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

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

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

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

TAKE A WILD FUCKING GUESS WHICH OPTION I WENT WITH.

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

Witchcraft is...

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

Cleaning Day II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cleaning Day I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Invocation & Banishment

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

Full Moon of the Dead

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

Fet Ghede, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Fet Ghede we bake Pan de Muerto for our ancestors and loved ones recently departed. Unlike the previous year (2006), our skull sculpting wasn't up to scratch (I'M BLAMING THE FLU) so you'll have to excuse our embarrassing foray into bread shaping (something we're usually A LOT better at).

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Last year we lost our Busy Bee (one of our pet rats). It was particularly hard to lose Bee since it was immediately after Hezbollah's death. (Bee always acted strangely - "OH, BEE'S JUST BEING BEE!" - but she began exhibiting even stranger behavior after her roommate, Crazy Rat (aka Hezbollah), passed away. It turned out that our Bee had "a brain thing" (tumor) and quickly succumbed to the disease within weeks of Hezbollah passing.)

Bee's FOR REAL name was Sloop John B (Hezbollah was Rhonda and Jigga was Barbara Ann). Due to being introduced into the family in the later stages of Hezbollah and Jigga's life she often got referred to as "the Baby", which eventually shortened to "Bee".

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Hezbollah got sick out of nowhere (which is typical of rats due to their high metabolism rate). Despite knowing it was her time to go I flexed my magic muscles and attempted my first ever stab at healing. Despite all odds, she lived, but only just. After several weeks of unexpected ups and gut wrenching downs we finally lost her, and I'm 100% sure the only reason why she lasted as long as she did was because of our little magic sessions.

Crazy Rat's favorite movie was Hitman (IT'S A HUGE LONG STORY THAT, ONE DAY, I MAY TELL), so it was only fitting that her individual pan de muerto reflected her taste in cinema.

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I remember being EXCEPTIONALLY frustrated with the ancestral loaf of pan de muerto because, going into the oven, it was PERFECTLY skull shaped. Unfortunately, it entered looking one way, but left looking entirely different. The cloves originally gave it a cutesy jack-o-lantern appearance, but once baked the clove studs lost their Halloween charm. (SIGH.) It tasted fantastic, though - I added a little bit of rum to the orange-sugar glaze before brushing it over the bread, and added just a wee taste of the marmalade glaze made for the ham.

Last year we feasted like we had never feasted before. Dinner was a three course meal spread throughout election night. (Instead of celebrating on the 2nd we postponed the festival until the 4th.) We started with a traditional southern soup - Brunswick stew - and carried on to an eight dish dinner (marmalade glazed ham, roast potatoes, roast squash, crabcakes, hoppin' John, pan de muerto, buttermilk rolls and homemade lemon butter dip (for the crabcakes)) and finished with a homemade pumpkin pie.

Despite wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving (in 2008) I never got a chance to, so Fet Ghede stepped in - unbeknownst to me at the time - and provided us with our thanksgiving meal, albeit earlier in the month than I'm accustomed to. (<- TRADITIONALLY, IN THE USA, THANKSGIVING IS CELEBRATED THE LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER. AND TYPICALLY IT'S TURKEY, NOT HAM, HEH.)

I won't even want go into detail how much food I managed to pack away that night because it just might make me sick to even consider. (NORMALLY I CAN EASILY EAT FOR TWO, BUT, THAT NIGHT, I WAS EATING FOR PAPA, CHIPPY AND ALL OF OUR ANCESTORS.)

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The marmalade glazed ham in all of its glory.

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The marmalade glazed ham in all of its glory.

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Left to right: roasted acorn squash, carved ham and homemade crabcakes.

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Homemade crabcakes.

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More marmalade ham and crabcakes.

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Roasted squash and ham. (<- THE DAMN SPICES - CINNAMON AND NUTMEG - GOT EFFING SCORCHED IN THE OVEN, BUT THE SQUASH DIDN'T TASTE BURNED, THANKFULLY.)

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Hoppin' John. (A traditional beans and rice dish.)

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Roasted potatoes and roasted squash (again).

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Our place settings with the pan de muerto to the left, the homemade buttermilk rolls to the right and the lemon butter dip (for the crabcakes) in the center.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

This year we DID manage to celebrate the return of the Black Goddess Ms. Graveyard Dirt style (with a LITTLE less intoxicants than usual since it's been A VERY LONG TIME (<- NEARLY TWO YEARS!) since we "partied" due to my broken stomach valve) which left us out of commission for Fet Ghede.

Although considering last year's effort - flu and all - I'm sure Papa doesn't mind TOO much for this year's laidback atmosphere. (<- ESPECIALLY SINCE I PROMISED EVERYONE THAT I'D DO THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR //FOR SURE//. <- I AM TOTALLY, TOTALLY READY FOR SWEET POTATO CHEESECAKE WITH A MAPLE PECAN GLAZE.)

Happy Halloween

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Dearest Witches and Imps,

Rock that thinning veil, baby.

Happy Halloween,
Ms. Graveyard Dirt, XOXO

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Black Rabbit Altar

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When we celebrate the Dark year we welcome back the return of the Black Goddess. To me the Black Goddess is a very specific archetype - a concept found universally - more of an idea, an understanding than actual person-woman-deity locked inside an accepted image. She's THE SOURCE, She's THE IDEA, She's OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HER, She's WHAT WE WITCHES ASPIRE TO BE.

The Black Rabbit is both the living incarnation of the Black Goddess and Her representative. And unlike the Black Goddess the Black Rabbit has a first name (fuck, She even has an ethnicity and an entire biography). She's mortal. She's modern. She's Divine made flesh, and in being born again She suffers like us, She feels like us - She understands what it's like to be human because She is.

In very personal terms the Black Rabbit is my subconscious. When I went Underground for the first time and followed Her around like an awe-struck puppy (THERE WAS NO WAY TO HIDE HOW OVERWHELMED I WAS; I WAS FIVE ALL OVER AGAIN, BREATHLESS AND MARVELING OVER AN OLDER, LIVING WOMAN-GODDESS WHO EPITOMIZED EVERYTHING AWESOME AND COOL IN THE UNIVERSE, EVER) I had an anvil dropped on me when She let me in on a secret - She was me.

(OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD.)

The Black Rabbit is the very best of me; She's ALL of me - my conscious and subconscious balanced - Baphomet, the sacred goat (or, uh, "rabbit" in this case). The exercise in this lifetime? To be as much of Her as I can be before death. Going Underground the Universe showed me a picture of myself - a future template - and said "THIS. YOU NEED TO BECOME //THIS//. THIS IS YOUR JOB. NOW, GO TO WORK." before letting me loose on the world, aware and knowing, but splintered and fragmented.

All of this sounds magnificently crazy, I know. (BLACK GODDESS? WHAT? BLACK RABBIT? WHAT? SUBCONSCIOUS? WHAT? MESSIAH COMPLEX? WHAT?) But when you break it down and translate it non-magic terms it's a lot less mystical and more psychological - the brain controls every function of our biological lives, and despite being the most important organ it's the one as we, human beings, aren't using to full capability. I simply created a bridge - an anchor, a link - from my conscious self to my subconscious self, and rather than outsourcing the job (to gods, goddesses, demons, etc.) I went inwards and created my own guide - me.

((IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE? THAT'S OKAY, IT'S A ROUGH DRAFT. HALF THE TIME I MANAGE TO CONFUSE MYSELF AND NEED TO WALK AWAY FROM THE TANGLE OF STRING BEFORE I BLOW A GASKET. IT'S HARD TO TRANSLATE (AND CONDENSE) EMOTIONS AND AN INNATE UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR BEING INTO A PERFECTLY COHERENT EXPLANATION FOR OTHERS. IN FACT THIS ENTIRE GRAVEYARD DIRT THING - PRACTICING, LIVING, WRITING, RECORDING - IS ALL BEING EXECUTED FOR A SINGLE REASON - TO ONE DAY EXPLAIN IT AS SUCCINCTLY AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE A COMPLETE CRACKWHORE.))

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The communal lounge is symmetrically structured, which makes my autism BIG HEAP HAPPY. (THERE MUST ALWAYS BE MIRRORED BALANCE; ALWAYS.) Even though you can't see it in this image, there are four five wooden units against the wall. In both corners are a two cabinet blocks, and in the center there's a "floating" table (where the main altar sits).

Because the two speaker units closest to the centered table are identical I often use them as altar bookends. For Easter (The Great Rite / The Sacred Marriage / Hieros Gamos) and Halloween I create identical miniature altars for the Black Rabbit, and during the Yuletide season I fill in the spaces with a festive evergreen display (cedar, ivy and yew).

After creating this Halloween's altar(s) I turned to Italics and asked "YOU DON'T THINK I'M //OVER// BONING THE ALTAR, DO YOU?"; he refrained from comment, but snorted/laughed. (<- IT TOOK ME A SECOND, BUT IT GOT IT...EVENTUALLY.)

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This particular altar? Almost entirely courtesy of ASDA (the UK's Wal-Mart). We bought five teal rabbits from their gardening aisle years ago and spray painted them black for ritual/altar use. The fake bones, skeletal candle holder and skull candles were all scavenged from the Halloween aisle. (WHILE I DO LOVE ANTIQUES AND PRICEY SHIT SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE AND/OR CAN AFFORD. But that's the entire point of witchcraft, right?)

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The skull figure is the only altar decoration NOT bought at ASDA, but was still bought at a discount store. (<- A LOLTASTIC HEADSHOP WHERE WE ALSO BOUGHT OUR RITUAL BLACK GODDESS BONG.) I have two skull figures like this, one's a skull/iron cross/naked woman which is situated on Papa's side of the room (left), and the other is the skull/iron cross/snake/tentacle figure above which is situated on Tentacle Monster's side of the room (right).

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This particular altar? Almost entirely courtesy of ASDA (the UK's Wal-Mart). We bought five teal rabbits from their gardening aisle years ago and spray painted them black for ritual/altar use. The fake bones, skeletal candle holder and skull candles were all scavenged from the Halloween aisle. (WHILE I DO LOVE ANTIQUES AND PRICEY SHIT SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE AND/OR CAN AFFORD. But that's the entire point of witchcraft, right?)

Cleaning Up After the Bride

At this point in my life The Bride and The Whore have a symbiotic relationship (even though they're technically one in the same - The Whore becomes the Spring Bride, and as the Light year progresses She "ages" until the cycle comes full circle transforming the virginal Bride into The Sacred Harlot who reigns over winter and the Dark year).

The Bride creates and makes the martial bed, the Whore sleeps (and stains) the martial bed. The Bride sows the ritual wheat in Spring, the Whore reaps the ritual wheat in Fall. The Bride grows and gathers, the Whore harvests and uses. It's all about enlightenment gained from experience, celebrating the fruition of uninitiated ignorance to initiated wisdom and Venus's placement in my natal chart (<- GEMINI; TALK ABOUT A VIRGIN/WHORE DYNAMIC!).

Despite my fantastically anal attitude towards cleanliness The Bride's been exquisitely messy and unorganized this year. I've decided to point the finger of blame on one thing - all the new shit I've "tested" and created this year. For the first time in my life I worked on a billion things simultaneously which meant overlapping projects sitting in various states of doneness. (Me? I finish EVERYTHING, although not always on the deadline I've assigned myself...)

Since a lot of this year's activities have been strongly influenced by witchcraft I couldn't leave the majority sitting out for anyone to snoop and touch. (AHEM, MR. AWESOME, AHEM.) I think any seasoned witch will probably agree that in order to be a witch YOU NEED FULL USE OF EVERY GODDAMN ROOM IN THE HOUSE WITHOUT FEAR THAT PEOPLE WILL BE FUCKING WITH YOUR SHIT BEHIND YOUR BACK.

Thanks to living in a communal situation with someone who frequently "forgets" to NOT TOUCH, THROW OUT, RUIN, BREAK, OR KILL MY THINGS, EVER (despite nearly 10 years of asking in varying degrees of politeness) all of my activities, projects, gifts and work has no choice but to be allocated to the third smallest room in the house (behind my in-law's en suite bathroom and the house's main bathroom) - our bedroom.

I observe the shift from Light to Dark (and vice versa) with three rituals: the changing of the guard (JOURNAL ENTRY HERE!), stripping our bedroom down and cleaning everything (JOURNAL ENTRY HERE!) and celebrating the return of the Bride/Whore through an ecstatic, entheogen-fueled bout of ceremonial sex with my husband/consort, Italics. (THE LONGEST RUNNING "BOUT"? NINE FUCKING HOURS. SERIOUSLY.)

The changing of the guard took place last Saturday, Italics has already taken his "mistress" out (<- HE TOOK ME TO SEE BAT FOR LASHES IN GLASGOW, PAID FOR A HOTEL ROOM SO WE COULD SPEND THE NIGHT IN TOWN (IT'S A THREE EFFING HOUR BUS RIDE TO GET THERE!), PAID FOR ME TO GET MY MAKE-UP AND EYEBROWS PROFESSIONALLY DONE, TOOK ME OUT FOR DINNER AND THEN BESTOWED GIFTS AND OFFERINGS (AKA SHOPPING, SHOPPING, SHOPPING!) UPON ME), the Black Goddess altar is finally done and Halloween's only a week away.

The only thing left? "Washing" away the very last vestiges of the Bride from the bedroom to fully welcome the Whore.

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The bedroom in its ossuary glory. We hung up the plastic/vinyl wallpaper for 2006's Halloween (normally ritual sex happens in the lounge but we decided to celebrate the return of The Whore that year in the bedroom) and liked it so much we never took it down.

Just last week we bought a new "scene" to rewallpaper the bedroom - a cemetery backing into a haunted forest. (I have this horrible feeling that I'm REALLY going to miss my blue-tinged skulls and pillars...)

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My side of the bedroom.

It's a well-known fact that I fucking HATE reading, but despite that hatred I still buy and collect books. (<- I CAN CHOKE DOWN NON-FICTION, JUST DON'T ASK ME TO READ ANYTHING REMOTELY FICTION, EVER.) In fact, we have so many goddamn books that you'll find a pillar of print in almost every room of the house. The bedroom? Has two.

PS: Despite the appearance I don't usually leave laundry lying around - those are my BEDROOM MONSTER SOCKS. (MONSTER SOCKS = SOCKS MADE OF MUPPET-LIKE MATERIAL. IT FEELS LIKE YOU'RE SHOVING YOUR FOOT INTO THE MOUTH OF ONE OF THOSE SESAME STREET YIP-YIP ALIENS.) I have god-fucking-awful circulation in my hands which means I wear socks to bed during winter AND summer.

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His side of the bedroom. (Note how much cleaner it is (on the floor) next to his side. Although I win for having a slightly more organized nightstand top.)

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When we celebrated in the bedroom in 2006 the entire room got decked out - ossuary wallpaper, cobweb drapes, skeletons hanging like garland from the window, glowing pumpkins in the corners of the room and a glow-in-the-dark night scene featuring the moon, stars and bats stuck on the window. We got so attached to the wallpaper AND the night scene we decided to just leave them, and they've been hanging up - undisturbed - since.

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Particles of incense, dust, debris and my extended lighter (for starting charcoal blocks) on the windowsill.

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This is seriously an abomination to my house cleaning skills. There is, honest to all that is holy and divine, no room that even REMOTELY looks like this in the house. I've been so busy with projects and taking care of the rest of the home that I haven't had a chance to DUST MY OWN BEDROOM IN MONTHS.

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My nightstand tabletop.

Anything look familiar? Papa's mask hangs to the side of our ritual bong, my ritual scissors are tucked in the ceramic pot filled with incense, the goat bell's wedged between the ceramic pot and a jar of shea lotion, the ribbons wound around my headphones are off the Shango Tree, the vase I found in the cemetery (just behind my Apis Bull figurine) holds a spray of dried flowers that I wore in my hair when we performed Hieros Gamos in a local wheat field on Midsummer. (<- ALL OBJECTS AND THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN RECORDED VIA PICTURE'N'ENTRY EARLIER THIS YEAR.)

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The growing closet. We start the majority of our seeds in the closet, move them to the backroom and then harden them off in the bonsai house outside.

Here's the second pillar of print in the bedroom, limbs off of various trees for broom making (beech and sycamore), the key and lock fetish I hang on our ritual/altar ladder when celebrating the Sacred Marriage (between the virginal Spring Bride and the King) and my zombie machete.

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The top of the closet is the closest I get to "altar space" in the bedroom. Normally only the basket full of animals (all significant in someway - not so much the stuffed animal as what they represent) and two scorpion bowls occupy the space, but I have a bad habit of filling in the emptiness with UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNTS OF SHIT. (IT'S ALL GETTING CONSECRATED, OKAY?)

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His nightstand tabletop. (There's a metallic Baphomet sigil beneath all of that shit. You can kind've sort've make out one of the ears in the clearing between the ceramic crab trinket box, the bunched up paper towel and the ceramic bowl covered by CDs.)

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My storage solution for everything "witch" related. Empty alcohol bottles, curing herbal salts and sugars, non-perishable sabbat cakes (solar AND lunar), homemade incense, organic and inorganic finds, our vintage funeral casket cover topped with my craft supply boxes and seeds (it gets pulled out and fumigated with frankincense during the Dark part of the year, and gets wrapped up and put away for the Light part of the year), harvested and dried potion/incense ingredients and a few choice pieces of fur (Edwardian ermine muff and collar/scarf set) tucked safely away in a box.

Changing of the Guard

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In Spring we welcome the Virgin Bride, the Bride of Light, the Bride of Spring (aka "The Bride"). In Fall we welcome the Harlot Mistress, the Hag of Dark, the Winter Whore (aka "The Black Goddess"). (<- I'M SO DIFFICULT I'VE THROWN OUT THE SACRED TRINITY (I.E., MAIDEN, MOTHER AND CRONE) AND REDUCED THEM DOWN TO TWO - BRIDE AND WHORE. IN MY WORLD THINGS REALLY ARE BLACK AND/OR WHITE.) To reflect the exchange of power I perform a changing of the guard ritual around the equinoxes.

In Spring we welcome back Chile Bird (a bird-shaped copper, bronze and lapis wall hanging bought on Ebay from, you guessed it, Chile) and he happily lives in the window during the Light part of the year, but when frost appears and the leaves begin falling I know it's time to send Chile Bird on his annual migration to warmer climates.

In Fall we welcome back The Spider (see below) and he weaves his continuous metal web throughout the Dark part of the year, partner to the Witch, the Whore, the Black Goddess of magic and death. When tender green shoots erupt from the defrosting soil with a celebratory spread of crocuses and snowdrops I know it's time to send The Spider to cooler climates, to sleep until the return of the Dark.

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The ritual itself is subtly disguised behind something so commonplace that people wouldn't think twice if they caught me performing it - cleaning. (CAST A CIRCLE? WTF FOR? I EFFING //BLEACH THE BASE OF THE COMMUNAL TOILET WITH MY BARE FUCKING HANDS//. THIS HOUSE? IT'S CLEAN. AND WOE BE UNTO ANY UNINVITED GUEST IN THE HOUSE OF A WOMAN WHO REGULARLY GETS ON HER HANDS AND KNEES - WILLINGLY - TO SCRUB PISS STAINS OFF THE FLOOR. <- NOT THE SORT OF WITCH YOU WANT TO MESS WITH, JUST FYI.)

First the blind comes down and everything gets removed off the window and windowsill. I then roll up my sleeves and physically clean every inch of the "threshold"/altar - the ledge, the inside glass, the decorative window decals, the inside vent, every stick of inside wood, the hinges and handles, the blinds, the outside glass, the outside vent, the outside concrete ledge and every stick of the outside wood.

Once the window's been physically cleaned (and "cleansed" due to all of the attention, work, effort, sweat and focus) I burn incense on the inside ledge, fragrancing the wooden frame with frankincense and spices. When the smoke clears I know it's time to begin piecing the altar back statue by statue, plant by plant and jar by jar. (Not until they, too, have been cleaned with a duster and wipes.) My juniper ghost beads and string of Papa's green chili peppers go up first (both "protective" in their own way), and then The Spider.

The carved jars return, and then the two succulents with their sticks of sandalwood incense (from Egypt). Tawaret (me) and Sobek (Italics) grace the windowsill altar first, and then Wadjet (with Her key) returns, positioned in front of the stone jars. Anubis, Thoth, Serket and Hathor follow suit with the ladies on the left and the men on the right. And with the final positioning of the second tier Egyptian gods and goddesses it's done - the Bride is gone and the Whore's arrived.

NOTE TO SELF: This year when you began the process/ritual of changing the Spring-to-Fall guard (October 17th) you began your period. (<- ATTENTION, WORK, EFFORT, SWEAT, FOCUS AND BLOOD - HOW'S //THAT// FOR MAGIC?)

Halloween Altar Building

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Yesterday was THE DAY. Yesterday I plucked the fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers off our Harvest Home altar (pictures forthcoming!) and began piecing together our Halloween altar. (The Spring Bride / Return of Light / Easter / Great Rite / Hieros Gamos altar is more minimal and elegant, while the Winter Whore / Return of Darkness / Black Goddess / Chthonic altar's a little more fun and over the top.)

It's MOSTLY done now (I still need to string a strand of skull lights on the other side of the ladder, fill the brandy glasses with their correlating element (graveyard dirt for Papa's side, and salt water for Tentacle Monster's side), replace the red votive candles with white, glue the skeletons to their ribbons and maybe - MAYBE - replace the triad of bones behind the candle holders with vases filled with yew branches) but not done enough to warrant a second picture.

(THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GET //1// "PARTIALLY DRESSED ALTAR" PICTURE ONLY!)

2009 Harvest

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THE GAME: 2009 Harvest. THE OBJECTIVE: Get in as much shit as you can before it gets dark. THE CONFLICT: Waking up just after FIVE IN THE FUCKING AFTERNOON, thus giving you only an hour or two to successfully complete the game. THE PRIMARY FRUSTRATION: Lack of natural light forcing the use of flash indoors creating shitty, blurred pictures. (OH, FLASH, WHY MUST YOU BE MY ONLY NATURAL ENEMY?)

Everything pictured above is what we managed to gather before night fell completely. Italics woke up just after six in the evening and immediately clambered up a ladder to help pick the plums out of my reach and dutifully pulled down branches of the rowan trees so I could cut down the berries.

(I WASN'T ALLOWED ON THE LADDER DUE TO MY TINY GODDESS FEET. <- TINY GODDESS FEET DON'T EASILY SUPPORT HUGE ASS GHETTO GODDESS ASSES. MY BALANCE? COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FUCKED UP BEYOND BELIEF. THAT'S THE PRICE OF MY HOURGLASS FIGURE.)

Half-naked in Summer's waning warmth (NAKED WITCH ENJOYS BEING NAKED BUT ALSO UNDERSTANDS THAT SOMETIMES THERE IS A NEED FOR MINIMAL AMOUNTS OF CLOTHING, LIKE WHEN HUGGING PRICKLY PLANTS AND MOVING SHARP, BONE DRY TWIGS) I pottered around in the garden barefoot, my toes sinking into the cold grass as the scent of Frankincense wafted in the air.

(I had to test if a roofing slate would take the direct heat of a charcoal block so I set up a tiny altar on one of the patio's small columns - the one where I normally leave offerings for the crows - and burned dusty chunks of resin during the act of harvesting, bathing my ritual scissors and gathered fruits, vegetables and herbs in the fragrant, sanctifying smoke.)

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Way, way in the back in the plastic terracotta colored container is my sad looking wheat which looked so pitiful and pathetic that I attempted to cheat out on my wheat growing, harvesting and displaying responsibilities by cruising local wheat fields to see if there were any patches of field left unharvested. (The answer? NO. (NATURALLY OF COURSE!))

With no other option I sat down at one in the fucking morning and cut down my wheat, and sitting on the floor I gathering each stalk - sheaf by sheaf - tightly in my left hand until I created a mace-like scepter. Didukh? Done, and not nearly as awful as I envisioned it'd be. (Last year when we ritually Reaped I cut the wheat down when it was still green and straight in the field so it naturally dried in a desirable shape, this time around I waited too damn long and the majority of the VERY dry wheat slumped over itself in a cascade of honey gold. DESPITE THE USE OF FLATTERING ADJECTIVES IT WASN'T A HOT LOOK, YO.)

The huge yellow-white-green leaves next to the wheat are Papa's tobacco, and the bundle of long, tall stalks resting on top of the leaves is the very last of our dill. The orange-red berries are just a fraction of what's still left on our dirtyard rowan tree, and there were so many goddamn plums that I began running out of containers to keep them in. In the bottom right corner you can see some of the parsley that was cut down, but the majority of the herb got shoved in a giant orange bucket filled with water (CLASSY, I KNOW).

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HERB TRAY, AHOY! (Actually, it's a roasting pan so I guess it should be "HERB ROASTING PAN, AHOY!".) This is the very last of my beloved herbs, cut down deliberately (AND OH, HOW IT PAINED ME TO DO SO!) to offer to the Old Woman. (She gets a portion of EVERYTHING, including all of my culinary herbs.) In the mess you can sort've kind've see parsley, thyme, rosemary, mint, marjoram, oregano, bay and our last cucumber.

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PLUMS, PLUMS, GLORIOUS PLUMS! I waited YEARS for the plum trees in back to bear fruit, and the second I saw masses of white flowers around Beltane I guarded the trees with a crazy insane she-bitch ferocity. ("I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING, HE [MY FATHER-IN-LAW] BETTER NOT EVEN FUCKING //LOOK// AT THE TREES, OR ELSE, DAMMIT! MARK MY WORDS - //OR ELSE//!")

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That effing basket is quickly climbing "MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT'S TOP FIVE RITUAL ITEMS" list. It was originally bought to transport our Easter/Great Rite ritual meal to church to be blessed (BECAUSE I'M SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT AND A PAIN IN THE FUCKING ASS I COMBINE BOTH SLAVIC CATHOLICISM - EASTERN ORTHODOX PRACTICES I GREW UP WITH - AND VARIOUS PAGAN TRADITIONS WHEN CELEBRATING EASTER / SPRING / THE GREAT RITE / HIEROS GAMOS), but it's since been used for all forms of wildcrafting, carrying fresh roadkill home, moving my witchcraft junk from one room to another (i.e., BOTTLES, MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF LITTLE BOTTLES AND JARS) and, more recently, gathering the fruits (vegetables and herbs) of this year's harvest.

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A close-up shot of Papa's tobacco, dill, some of the plums picked and the top sprigs of a parsley plant.

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It was nothing short of STUPIDLY BLISSFUL JOY when tugging on the soft, swollen fruits and feeling them separate from the tree straight into my hand. I grew up partially feral in my Ukrainian grandparents' orchard (two acres of oaks, apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes and vast flower and vegetable gardens), but as kids we never took part in mass harvesting. The only time I picked fruit was for instant consumption, so it was something of a novelty to collect all of the plums off the trees and gently drop them in my basket.

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The Old Woman's portion of my herbs were gathered together in neat little bundles and banded together (YAY FOR RUBBERBANDS! THEY SECURE CLING FILM OVER PITCHERS OF STOCK, OPEN PAIN IN THE FUCKING ASS STUCK JARS AND BUNDLE FRESH HERBS TOGETHER!) to create an herbal posy. This bouquet (GARNI! HAH HAH HAH, GET IT? GET IT? BECAUSE IT'S BAY AND PARSLEY AND THYME AND...oh God, never mind, it's a lame cooking joke) was placed on a miniature altar adjacent to our main Harvest Home altar next to even more parsley, my basil plant and a few bulbs of garlic.

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Fresh, organic herbs! (OH, GOD, HERBS, I WILL MISS YOU V. MUCH DURING THE DARK YEAR AND LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AGAIN DURING THE LIGHT YEAR.) The last - the best - for Her. (OH, THE SACRIFICES I MAKE TO - AND FOR - MYSELF! <- WHEN YOU WORSHIP YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS AS A DEITY YOU GET THE BEST OF //BOTH// WORLDS!)

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I struck a deal with the Old Woman - anything that touched the earth belonged to Her. So all of the windfall fruit - no matter how viable they were - were instantly turned over to Her and placed in Her offering bowl. And anything that fell out of my hands or basket when I was collecting, cutting and gathering shared a similar fate.

And that system was great and fine and She cheekily stole one or two plums off the branches while I was plucking their siblings, but the super major LOLOLOLOLOL! from the Universe came when there wasn't enough ladder (or Italics) to reach the plums at the very top of the tree and he was forced to shake the trunk to dislodge the last of the fruit. My job? My job was running back and forth at the foot of the ladder like a retard trying to catch every goddamn plum as they came crashing down so they wouldn't touch the ground.

(OI FUCKING VEY.)

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Moroccan mint! (A lot of it!) When bundling up the mint I actually GOT SICK just from the scent clinging to my hands. (Long story short? I have a broken stomach. There's a long list of UH OH! foods that set off my symptoms, and any sort of "mint" is RIGHT THE FUCK UP THERE. Even the perfumed fragrance of fresh mint is enough to get my lame ass stomach worked up.)

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My bucket'o'parsley! I grew a ring of parsley around one of my sweet corn plants to be able to dig them up later - roots and all. The rest of the parsley was planted in the raised dirt bed at the base of the Shango (Bone) Tree and grown exclusively for their leaves. (IF I PROMISED YOU ANY SORT OF WITCH PACKAGE YOU BETTER BELIEVE YOU'LL BE GETTING SOME HOMEGROWN SHANGO (BONE) TREE/PHALLIC WORSHIPING ALTAR PARSLEY.)

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These plums got some crazy love this past year. From Beltane to Mabon I was outside whispering, stroking, murmuring, kissing and affectionately touching the growing fruits. My day wasn't complete unless I went outside to inspect my plants and leave a little bit of love on clusters of ripening plums.

To give something back to the trees that brought me endless amounts of happiness during this year's growing season I'm going to give them an offering of my grandfather's beer (a 40oz Heineken that's been sitting in the graveyard since last year, diluted in a bucket of water), and I'm going to begin burying the carcasses of roadkill in the raised dirt bed that makes up the outside altar.

(That way the tree gets the nutrients from the decomposing bodies, I can grow magic herbs over the flesh and bones of ritually butchered roadkill and, once stripped by insects, I can go back and dig out the bare bones for personal use. <- WASTE NOT, WANT NOT!)

Harvest Home Offering

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Is it criminal that we haven't been back to the semi-local standing stones since walking to them for the first time earlier in June? (YES, PROBABLY.) In June it was effort - it was a fucking EXPEDITION - that had us cutting through sopping wet cow fields, hugging the linear trail of dashes along the sides of country lanes, receiving shocks from electrified fences and cutting through fields of growing wheat as summer's morning sun beat down on us with a crazy amount of ferocity for six in the fucking morning.

But now? But now we have a car - A CAR! AFTER NEARLY TEN YEARS! A FOR REAL CAR WITH FOR REAL WHEELS AND A FOR REAL ENGINE AND A FOR REAL GAS TANK - and the Scottish countryside is my oyster. (<- Hence the lack of quality posting recently. First we were sick, then we were having country sex in historical settings (OH, NEOLITHIC MONUMENTS AND ANCIENT CEMETERIES AND IMPOSING SCOTTISH CASTLES) and THEN Harvest Home hit and I've been scrambling madly to try and retain a quickened pace of urgency to ensure all of my proposed activities, celebrations and rituals come to fruition.)

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When I picked up the fox roadkill on Lammas (I haven't yet written an entry about it, but there are pictures of me processing the body nearly step by step in LAMMAS 2009) I didn't waste ANYTHING. The majority of its vital organs were gone (the stomach cavity must've exploded on impact leaving nothing noteworthy except a friction burned heart) so what remained was carefully extracted and frozen - the hide was gently peeled from the mangled carcass, the feet cut and bundled together, the windpipe, eyes, tongue and teeth meticulously removed and muscles from the mostly undisturbed haunches were stripped off and frozen into little fox steaks.

What I couldn't salvage and use I carefully wrapped in plastic and froze as well, packing it alongside the rabbit, crow and female blackbird in the outside freezer. (LOL @ THAT GODDAMN FREEZER TURNING INTO MY CREEPY GIRL ROADKILL MORGUE. IF ONLY MY IN-LAWS KNEW THEY WERE PAYING EXTRA FOR ME TO RUN AN EFFING FREEZER FOR WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR BUTCHERED PARTS.) I wanted to give those remains as an offering, but I couldn't make up my mind WHERE I wanted to leave them. (The standing stones were the first place I thought of, but I was afraid if people found the pile of gruesome leftovers there'd be some SATANIC PANIC in the air. <- POOR LITTLE MISUNDERSTOOD DEVIL-WORSHIPING WITCH!)

In the end, though, the idea came full circle and the fox remnants were left at the foot of the original standing stone (the other two in the background were later added - they seem to be proper standing stones, although probably not part of the original circle). And to combat any SATANIC PANIC I naturally went overboard making the offering look EVEN MORE SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE DELIBERATE WITCHCRAFT. (Although how BLACK MAGIC can it be if I'm also leaving plums, rowan berries and a small loaf of bread? <- CLEARLY, I AM IN LEAGUE WITH SATAN HIMSELF.)

This is my offering to the Old Woman, the Cailleach, my "darker" self (as opposed to the Virginal Spring Bride, my "lighter" self). With this offering I'm effectively giving thanks for what I received during my reign as the Bride and passing on a portion of my gifts and bounty to my other self. I've sowed, I've nurtured, I've reaped, harvested and learned, and by giving a portion to myself I'm also accepting the experience, wisdom and riches that comes from work. (LOOK, I NEVER SAID IT WAS GOING TO MAKE PERFECT SENSE, DID I? Although it makes PERFECT sense to me...)

The magenta pile of raw meat are the remains of my beloved fox (I DID EVERYTHING BUT STRIP NAKED AND FLING THE BLOODIED AND FLAYED PELT ON MY BARE BODY) and behind it is a huge ass soup bone that I picked up for Chippy, our live-in demon who's been house trained like a dog. (<- WHAT DOES AN AUTISTIC GIRL DO WHEN AN ANCIENT SUMERIAN DEMON COMES KNOCKING? SHE PUTS A DOG COLLAR ON IT, GIVES IT LOVES AND HUGS AND FLIES KITES WITH IT.)(HE HAPPENS TO LOVE FLYING KITES V. MUCH, THANK YOU.)

The round loaf of bread is a traditional Ukrainian bread called babka (it's sort've like a cake bread; rich, sweet and fragrant like brioche) that I normally bake during our Easter/Hieros Gamos celebrations. Normally I only bake babka (or paska) in Spring, but I found a recipe for a pumpkin version and after THAT I wouldn't consider anything else. Thanks to me being me the bread wasn't gloriously orange-gold like it was supposed to since I opted to substitute sweet potatoes for pumpkin (I think they have a better, more rounded flavor) and the tres swish potatoes I used were more corn silk gold than pumpkin orange. (SIGH.)

The babka is sitting on a jellied stack of bones from the three different birds consumed during our Harvest Home celebrations. (Long story short? Because I identify the Cailleach as my MONSTER HAG BABA YAGA SELF I offer Her/Me/Us primitive witch food - booze, bread and bones. <- THREE THINGS, LOLTASTICALLY ENOUGH, UKRAINIANS ARE VERY FOND OF.) I made a stock using the frozen bones and gizzards of last year's Christmas goose (I always offer the carcass of the body to the Woman, but keep the shit trimmed away prior to roasting for stock making) and then added leftover roast duck to the soup. The last set of bones comes from our ROADKILL PHEASANT which I butchered, tidied up and then casseroled with venison.

The plums are windfall fruits from the two plum trees that I've been babying for the past couple of years. (It's taken A LOT of effing work to get those fuckers to flower and bear fruit. Like NEARLY THREE YEARS WORTH OF EFFORT AND WORK AND CAJOLING, PLEADING, DEMANDING AND THREATENING.) I promised any fruit, vegetable or herb that touched the ground to the Old Woman which made plum picking V. interesting when Italics was forced to shake branches way above me because he couldn't reach the ones at the very top. (OH, BUT IF ONLY YOU ALL COULD'VE SEEN ME HALF-NAKED AND RUNNING BACK AND FORTH WITH A HUGE ASS BASKET OVER MY HEAD TRYING TO CATCH EVERY PLUM PLUMMETING TO THE GREEDY GROUND BELOW.)

Last are a huge handful of fresh rowan berries from our overloaded tree in the dirtyard which sits at one of the perpendicular angles of the crossroad we're situated on. (I've been meaning to sit down and string the fuckers up into necklaces and garlands and shit BUT I JUST HAVEN'T HAD THE TIME. Currently I have bunches of rowan berries liberally scattered throughout our altar and in various ceramic bowls throughout the house.) Italics said that it was the berries that finally pushed the Harvest Home offering into OBVIOUS WITCHCRAFT TERRITORY. (BECAUSE, LIKE, PILES OF ROTTING MEAT, PLUMS AND A LOAF OF BREAD ARE CLEARLY AMBIGUOUS UNTIL YOU ADD ROWAN BERRIES.)

OH WAIT ALSO! I also offered water at the stone, pouring it over the very tip of the stone and letting it race down to the earth below. (You can kind've sort've see the streaks in the first picture, especially if you view it in a larger size.) As we departed I managed to unearth an oddly shaped stone - really reminiscent of the one we were just at - from the soil and I took it home with us in the hopes I can create a miniature recumbent circle at the base of the Shango (Bone) Tree's altar next year.

(I'm just going to let the next few pictures speak for themselves. ME? RUIN THE THE PERVASIVE ATMOSPHERE? SURELY NOT!)

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The nipple peak tentatively emerging from the dense morning mist is Bennachie, also know as "Mither Tap" ("Mother Tap" due to the breast shape of the hill). In ancient times it had a significant religious role in the indigenous people's lives. (The Old Woman, the Cailleach, usually inhabited the largest hills and peaks in the area.) While I can't see Mither Tap from any of our windows, the second we're on the road that winds down to the cemetery it (She?) comes into view.

For a year or two now I've been desperate to get to the summit to collect materials to create my own neolithic/stone age hammer. (In stories the Old Woman brings Winter down by striking the ground with Her hammer.) I have no idea how to fashion a hammer out of stone, sinew, leather and wood BUT THAT ISN'T GOING TO STOP ME. (FEAR ME, SCOTLAND, FOR ONE DAY I WILL CONTROL WINTER AND YOU WILL TREMBLE IN THE RIPPLING WAKE OF MY AWESOME POWER! (<- Actually, LOLOLOLOL, I just want to ensure A WHITE FUCKING CHRISTMAS EVERY YEAR, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.))

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After collecting a mostly perfect roadkill rabbit (THAT'S ANOTHER STORY I'M SAVING FOR LATER, BUT THE CONDENSED VERSION IS: FOUND A DEAD RABBIT - RATHER BLOATED BUT 100% IMMACULATE FUR - ON THE WAY TO THE STANDING STONES AND SKINNED ITS PELT TO BEGIN THE LONG ROADKILL FORAGING PROCESS OF CREATING A HOMEMADE RABBIT BLANKET; YAY FOR STANDING STONES PAYING IT FORWARD!) and offering this year's bounty at the stones we casually drove around the country as the sun rose, admiring the mist riddled landscape, gawking at the sheer number of pheasants and carefully looking for even more roadkill.

This is mist rising from the local loch (a man made feature created hundreds of years ago) during sunrise. If you have a super great memory you might remember me mentioning "THE LOCH" when pointing out the glimmer of water in the distance in pictures taken at the new cemetery (as opposed to the old cemetery where we go to leave offerings and gifts and help tend the graves of complete strangers since I'm unable to care for the resting place of my family and ancestors).

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The loch and village containing both cemeteries are named after an infamous magician that lived and practiced the black arts just a mile away (the "Wizard Laird"). He spent part of his youth in Italy, supposedly studying magic, and upon returning home continued his "satanic" practices here. He's buried in the very graveyard we visit - the same cemetery where he allegedly stole corpses of unbaptized babies for his nefarious deeds - although the exact location of his burial site has been "lost" and a modern marker in the shape of a headstone was created to commemorate him and his family.

(I have a kind've sort've maybe idea of where he is. Occasionally I leave a treat for him when we visit the graveyard, knocking on the totally nondescript monument to "wake" him up. The first time I did that I requested that he send me his magic birds - crows, rooks, magpies and jackdaws (I already had the crows and magpies, I eventually got the rooks but I'm still waiting for the jackdaws) - and that very night I had an unsettling dream where I found myself standing in a very specific location in the cemetery, practically choking on the overwhelming, blinding presence of something with big heap ju-ju.)

Harvest Home Altar (Dark)

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The picture above is my ancestral altar where I'll be plying my recently - and not so recently - deceased ancestors and relatives with food and drink throughout our harvest celebration. (Because I'm somewhat estranged from my family I don't have any pictures of anyone except for my mother, and even THAT image is the only one I have of her.)

Tonight's menu? Leftover yogurt soup (I made fresh stock using frozen bones from last year's Christmas goose and dumped in carrots, baby corn, potatoes, rice, roast duck and grilled sirloin steak marinated in miso soup), cubes of cornmeal spoonbread (it's a Ukrainian thing) and homemade garlic bread.

The bowl to the right contains Mabon's first meal - an oatmeal breakfast using PROPER pinhead oats, whole milk, a shredded apple, nuts, plums from outside, whole milk and honey. (Everyone in the house - including the rats - had a bowl before we began harvesting on the equinox.) On top of it is an offering of a glazed donut (REDUCED TO CLEAR GLAZED DONUTS? YES PLZ!) and an Italian cookie. (<- I continuously add whatever we're eating to their altar so they don't miss out on anything.)

Below are a few blurry candlelit shots of our main harvest home altar, thanks to baking bread all day (FOUR RISES? WHY DOES UKIE BREAD ALWAYS NEED EXCESSIVE RISING?!) I'm dead tired so I'll skip out on explaining shit until I have better quality pictures. (There are A LOT of skulls and A LOT of food and A LOT of Slavic kitsch.)(It'll look a billion times more impressive with some light. Honest for real.)

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Lammas Bread

Despite not being pagan (<- IF YOU'RE GOING TO WORRY ABOUT WITCHES, THIS IS THE SORT'VE WITCH YOU'VE GOT TO BE MOST WARY OF!) I still observe the majority of neo-pagan festivals that celebrate the shifting of the seasons (from the super big solstices to the smaller, quieter dates in between).

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At the heart of it I know the REAL reason (WHO DOESN'T WANT AN EXCUSE TO GET INTOXICATED, CELEBRATE AND HAVE MAD SEX WITH THE ONE(S) YOU LOVE?) but the older I get the more my foot eases off the gas pedal in a deliberate attempt to appreciate and understand the subtle changes throughout the year and how they, in turn, affect not only me but my relationship with my husband, the world, Universe and all that's Divine.

(That, and there's also the ANYTHING GOES element to grocery shopping when it comes time to creating the sabbat menu. "BUT, BABY, IT'S THE FIRST OF THE HARVEST FESTIVALS! HOW CAN WE //NOT// GET A VENISON HAUNCH AND SEVERAL BOTTLES OF ELDERFLOWER CHAMPAGNE?! IT IS OUR SEMI-DIVINE DUTY TO CELEBRATE TO ENSURE HAPPINESS, GOOD LUCK AND HEALTH IN THE FOLLOWING SEASON!")

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I bake homemade bread for every sabbat - regardless of my state of health (WOE BE UNTO THIS HOUSE WHEN THE WOMAN IS TOO SICK TO GIVE THANKS FOR THE GRAIN THAT SHE USES TO FEED HER FAMILY!) - certain breads and dates set in stone (for Christmas/Yule I bake a kolach and at Easter/Hieros Gamos I bake paska - two ancient, traditional Ukrainian breads baked for ritual use to either give thanks or feed the dead) but I freestyle with other celebrations provided they reflect the season/event we're observing in our own off-roading way.

Thanks to Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, being away for the majority of June and July my container garden was spared of the dreaded BLACK SPOTTED POX which, up until this summer, plagued my plants every fucking year. (<- Long story short? He has a stagnant partial pond that's sat unfinished for nearly twenty years. Instead of letting me water my own plants (which I've politely requested NUMEROUS TIMES for SEVERAL YEARS) he splashes them with the fetid, diseased water and, within a few weeks, black patches of blight would appear on everything rendering it unfit for consumption.)

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My favorite parts of the day during (this past) summer vacation? My early mornings (whenever they happened; we tend to be nocturnal for half the month and then have a more normal sleeping schedule for the rest of the month) and late evenings when I'd make my first (or final) check of the day, naked, pattering around the warm concrete of the patio while stroking and whispering to my trees, bushes, vegetables, flowers and herbs.

Sometimes Italics would come out with me, trailing behind in his blue bathrobe as I cooed and loved, pointing out the small changes to my beloved garden. "LOOK HOW HEALTHY AND HAPPY MY HERBS ARE!" I'd proclaim, satisfied and proud, my hands on my naked hips (perfumed with Moroccan mint or golden marjoram or lavender or oregano or...) as I surveyed the miniature orchard, berry patch, vegetable, flower and herb garden, the twice daily activity never getting boring or old.

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To capitalize this year's blemish free bounty I thought it was only fitting to include the herbs I've otherwise been unable to use (or even harvest for any purpose) up until this point, specifically my oregano and marjoram which sat happy and lush on the patio steps without even a trace of a black, damning speck ("OH MY GOD HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THEM LOOK SO AWESOME BEFORE?!").

Serendipity said YES, IT WOULD BE FITTING, WOULDN'T IT? as I gingerly flipped through my The Herb & Spice Book looking for raspberry, blackberry and elderberry recipes and stumbled across a recipe for Oregano Salt Sticks (which called for both fresh oregano and marjoram). And with THAT decision made for (and by) me the recipe got earmarked for the upcoming Lammas celebration.

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With the in-laws away for the weekend I had a blissful Lammas morning in the kitchen - high and partially naked, apron on and music playing, drifting in and out of the culinary trace of restful, content meditation as the sun streamed through the window and gently rested on ritually harvested produce on my makeshift window altar.

I bled, very slightly, despite not expecting my period so when time came to add a little of myself to the bread I dipped my fingers in warm full milk and ran my moistened fingers along my cunt, gently grazing between my labia to collect traces of (sort've) menstrual blood before submerging my wet fingers into the dough and kneading.

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And when time came to knead in the fresh herbs and grated Parmesan I carefully plucked one of my Virgin Hag Hairs (<- two dark hairs grow just beneath my chin, and they take FOREVER to regrow so I use them sparingly since there's a bit of magic when using hair from "the beard of a virgin") and dropped it in amongst the other ingredients so a bit of the Virgin and a bit of the Hag were both represented (since the scale is slowly tipping from one to the other; one still in play, the other getting ready for Her turn).

This recipe turned out to be THE PERFECT recipe for the day. I originally liked it because it starred and celebrated the fresh herbs I had growing in the back, but I liked it even more when I realized the short time needed to create a batch from scratch meaning we could spend the entire day in town at the local farmer's market.

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(Only 30 minutes of resting time? With another 10 before baking? HOLY SHIT, DUDE! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG PASKA TAKES TO MAKE? Try THREE FUCKING SEPARATE RISES in addition to BAKING SEVERAL DIFFERENT BATCHES BECAUSE ALL OF THE LOAVES WON'T FIT IN THE OVEN AT ONCE. This was totally - TOTALLY! - the fast food version of bread making, but still homemade!)

Lammas 2009

This year's Lammas celebration in 54 pictures. (<- WITH EXPLANATIONS TO FOLLOW!)

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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.)

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.)

Midsummer Fire

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

Egg Wash

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I've just finished washing my hands and face with an egg yolk. I DON'T KNOW, DON'T ASK ME; I'M REALLY, REALLY HIGH RIGHT NOW.

(For whatever reason I "wash" my hands with ingredients when MAGIC cooking; when the egg broke crazy and the white (I DIDN'T SEE A WHITE, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE THE YOLK WAS STUCK TO THE INSIDE OF THE SHELL, WHICH IS WHY I GOT SOME ON MY FACE BECAUSE I SMELLED MY HANDS, AFTER, TO SEE IF IT WAS OFF) disappeared I had slippery, liquid gold in my hands and I thought OH SHIT! CAN'T LET THIS GET AWAY, BETTER WASH AND RUB IT ALL IN! and before I knew it I had massaged it into my hands, my forearms and my face. After striping off every gelatinous layer (LIKE AN EASTER CHICK, BABY, FRESH AND NEW AND FLUFFY AND YOUNG) with warmish water I buried my face into a starched kitchen towel catching, just for a second, a scorpion emerging from its watery home and crawling onto land underneath the light of a crescent moon.)

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(OH, LORD, IT'S GOING TO BE ONE OF //THOSE// NIGHTS, ISN'T IT?)

June 20th Walk

Midsummer activities have worn me the fuck out. So while I recoup and ponder MY MIDSUMMER SPREAD, THE RETURN OF ZOMBIES, TAILOR MADE HOLES and THE LAUGHING HIGH PRIESTESS I'll leave you with pictures from a recent walk. (This adventure includes an honest to God MONSTER STORY!)

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This is what northeast Scotland looks like around 11 PM the day before Midsummer. (And THIS is what it looks like around 3:30 AM around Midsummer.) The long, dark winters eventually give way to long, light summers which makes being semi-nocturnal a lot easier to handle. (I think we've patented LONG COUNTRY RAMBLES AT 4 AM. While the rest of the world sleeps we're outside climbing ancient, crumbling walls and crossing oceans of dewy fields finding new places to build SEX FORTS. <- WHAT YOU PLAY WHEN YOU'RE 29 YEARS OLD AND MARRIED!)

In this particular picture you're overlooking the boundaries of the "new" section of the cemetery across the cow pasture towards the (obscured) walled garden. (If you click on the image above I've noted where the wall is, but it's much easier to see if you click on "ALL SIZES" and view the original 912 x 684 image.) Behind the line of trees and the walled garden is the ruined church (which you can't see), and to the very left of the image - where a clump of trees jut out just above the cobbled wall - is the beginning of the beech hedge where the stone "stove" is located.

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Do you see the two pinpricks of orange/amber lights in the distance? That's where we live. (ROUGHLY, APPROXIMATELY, I MEAN.) The lights indicate the start of housing developments; where the street lamps end partially tamed country begins. We live close to the outskirts of country (at one time this part of the subdivision was the outpost, but the town's grown since then and we've watched local, wild fields succumb to compact family homes) so it takes about twenty minutes to walk from home to the cemetery.

In this picture you can sort've see how the one cow field stretches between the beech hedge and the walled garden/ruined church and touches the very back of the cemetery. Contractors want to bulldoze the pasture and build high income homes. So far, they've met with pretty hefty opposition by villagers. Due to the recession plans were axed and withdrawn, but I've read that they're trying to push it again...

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Sometimes when it's just us and the weather's nice and we're pleasantly stoned we'll wander around the cemetery like it's our backyard. We visit familiar graves (Papa's grave, Muriel, the Nun and Bill - BILL, WHEN THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO GET A HEADSTONE, DUDE? IT'S BEEN, WHAT, OVER A YEAR NOW?), knock on the headstones politely to wake up the occupant and leave them offerings of food and drink. (I always carry a bottle of water and a plastic bag full of individually wrapped chocolate in my walking book bag, just in case we're in a hurry to leave and I forget to take something.)

We tidy up graves, pick up litter and remember those who are forgotten. (<- SOMETIMES IT'S NOT CLEAR WHERE THE WEATHER, SUN-STRIPED PLASTIC FLOWERS ARE SUPPOSED TO GO. WHEN THAT HAPPENS WE LEAVE THE ARTIFICIAL BOUQUETS ON GRAVES WHO OBVIOUSLY AREN'T VISITED ANY LONGER.) It's less "caretaker" and more...I don't know..."ensuring everyone is happily tucked in for eternity", I guess. (<- WOW, IS THAT MATERNAL OR WHAT? Death's the only thing that brings out the nearly non-existent maternal nurturer in me. Maybe that's Santa Muerte's influence?)

That's Chippy my Sumerian house trained demon dog sitting in my leather bag behind the flower arrangements. (LONG STORY. VERY LONG STORY, IN FACT. SHORT STORY? I TRAINED A NON-CORPOREAL ENTITY TO REACT TO A PLUSH TOY. CHIPPY'S - MORE COMMONLY KNOWN TO PEOPLE AS "PAZUZU" - CHOSEN FORM WAS A SHAR PEI SO YOU'LL SOMETIMES SEE ME WALKING AROUND THE COUNTRY (OR THE MOVIES) WITH CHIPPY STRAPPED TO MY BACK LIKE A PAPOOSE.)

(DUDE, EVEN DEMONS TRAINED TO ACT LIKE DOGS NEED TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SOMETIMES, YOU KNOW?)

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A simultaneously garish and eerie sight are the solar powered lights that glow an icy blue/white against shadowed headstones at night. We first encountered them on our February full moon walk after receiving a staggering amount of snow. (<- NOT STAGGERING ENOUGH TO STOP US FROM OUR 4 AM WALK, ALTHOUGH I DID GET THROWN A SERIOUS "WTF?" LOOK FROM A WOMAN AS SHE PASSED BY. JESUS, WIFEY, "WTF?" YOURSELF. WHY ARE //YOU// OUT WALKING IN THE SNOW AT 4 FUCKING AM? I'VE GOT AN EXCUSE - I'M A SEMI-NOCTURNAL WITCH.)

(ALSO, YES, IT IS REAL FUR; IF YOU CAN'T WEAR YOUR KNEE-LENGTH FUR COAT IN THE SNOW ON A 4 AM WALK TO THE LOCAL CEMETERY WHEN CAN YOU?)

The blur of festive looking Halloween light in the center of this picture? That's me, naked from the waist up (ITALICS TOTALLY NEEDED TO BLOW HIS NOSE AND I WAS TOTALLY LOOKING FOR A REASON TO GET NAKED SO, CLEARLY, I HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE OFF MY FUR COAT, MY LONG-SLEEVE SHIRT AND MY BRA SO HE COULD BLOW HIS NOSE IN THE ONE ARTICLE I DIDN'T NEED - MY BRA; BUT ONLY BECAUSE I WASN'T WEARING UNDERWEAR, AS USUAL), pausing for just a second to wave around a solar powered snowman that was flickering on someone's grave.

(That makes me a full fledged witch, right? Running half-naked in a cemetery on a full moon just after receiving the most snow Scotland's seen in almost a generation? <- THAT'S //MY// SNOW, BTW. YOU DON'T CHOKE DOWN SHOTS OF WHISKEY WITH THE INDIGENOUS WINTER HAG FOR NOTHING.)

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I wanted to capture the 60s artificial yellow/green of the miniature ferns growing out of the stone wall "containing" the beech hedge, but by the time we passed the row of gnarled trees it was too dark to capture the inorganic, plastic quality of the plants. Although it wasn't too dark to see how the light behind the ruined church filtered through one of the empty, arched windows making the inhabitable spookily habituated on the night before Midsummer.

"It's something out of a fairytale," I whispered to Italics, although in this story Gretal was also the Witch. (Poor, poor Hansel...)

(Some of these images have notes, so be sure to click on the thumbnails above to see what I've added. ALSO, ALSO, ALSO! Also, these picture's are one billion percent best viewed in the dark and at their original 912 x 684 size (just click on "ALL SIZES"); you'll be surprised how much more you see if you turn off all the lights and let your eyes adjust. See? SEE? AND SEE?)

(If you look hard enough/let your eyes adjust you can see how the ruined church has no roof and even see the empty frame of one of the windows in the last picture.)

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THIS PICTURE COMES WITH A LOLOLOLOL! STORY! (A story? WHAT? You mean there might be a reason why the Midsummer stove* offering was ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE instead of neatly arranged within?)

(* An outside stone stove with offerings? DOUBLE WHAT? MS. GRAVEYARD DIRT, WHAT CRACK ARE YOU SMOKING NOW? An older journal entry, ARCTIC RIVER, should explain away some of the confusion.)

RIGHT! SO!

Because darkness grants a wee bit more privacy than light and I have the extraordinary ability to DRAW THINGS OUT FOR AS LONG AS I EFFING CAN I decided that we'd leave our Midsummer stove offering - water, homemade flat bread, dried dates and a banana - AFTER we visited the cemetery so there was no chance that nosy country folk could interrupt the ritual.

("OI, YOU TWO! FET YE DOOIN'?" <- Italics laughs at my Doric but I think that's pretty close. WAIT, NOT CLOSE ENOUGH! Apparently it's "FIT YE DEEIN?" - close enough? Probably, at least I can intuitively understand most of it even if I can't speak it. <- YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR ME READING ROBERT BURNS OUT LOUD. IT'S AN AWKWARD AND DEMORALIZING EXPERIENCE FOR ANYONE WHO'S SCOTTISH.)

I pride myself on being stupidly fearless. (STUPID IN THE SENSE THAT I SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW BETTER, BUT DON'T GIVE A FUCK.) The only thing that really terrifies me is DEATH (LOL, I KNOW, I'M GOING TO NEED TO GET OVER THAT ONE, RIGHT? I MEAN, IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, OR I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO BULLSHIT MY WAY OUT OF IT) with a close second being HUMIDITY AND/OR RAIN. (<- WEATHER, DON'T YOU BE RUININ' MY HAIR AND MAKE-UP, GODDAMMIT. ALSO, I ONLY LIKE TO GET WET ON TWO VERY SPECIFIC OCCASIONS: WHEN I'M BATHING, AND WHEN I'M SWIMMING. THE END.)

Monsters? Ghosts? Demons? Hell? Jesus H. effing Christ, I live with a fucking SUMERIAN DEMON and A RANDY FUCKING BLACK MAN (Papa Ghede, also known as Baron Samedi), there's a broken car parked in the fucking driveway, there's a trash heap in the backyard and there's no lawn in the front, only exposed dirt and piles of rocks heaped beneath cast aside pieces of driftwood. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WHEN YOU LIVE IN HELL HOUSE MONSTERS, GHOSTS AND DEMONS DON'T ENTER YOUR RADAR AT //ALL//.

Fearless and proud we entered the dark expanse beneath the beeches, having just enough light to maneuver around fallen limbs and ditch-like grassy pits. It was almost midnight when I dropped the black leather book bag (<- DEAR DECEASED MOM, YOU WILL NEVER APPRECIATE HOW MUCH I LOVE THE BLACK LEATHER WHIRLPOOL (<- HOLY FUCKING SHIT, I ONLY JUST REALIZED THAT! WHIRLPOOL! FUCK! STAMPED RIGHT ON MY FUCKING BOOK BAG! FUCK! HOW DID I NOT "SEE" THAT BEFORE? FUCK!) BAG I "INHERITED" WHEN NEEDING EXTRA LUGGAGE TO TAKE BACK SOME OF YOUR THINGS) next to the foot of a tree, Chippy and his yellow and orange t-shirt were the only things easily visible to the naked eye in an otherwise sea of shadowy ground.

Methodically I loosened the leather straps securing the bag around his neck (I tuck the book bag's "flap" into the bag itself so when I draw the strings closed the bag tightens around his neck for a cosy fit) and pulled him out for a moment of freedom (the last time I did that he took off and upset a whole herd of cattle who, honest to fucking God, tried to scale A STONE FUCKING WALL WITH BARBED WIRE just to get away from the unseen phantom terrorizing them; we've since discussed what is - and isn't - appropriate "out for a walk" behavior) so I could get to the offerings.

In the dark everything was still and quiet, even the crows overhead were silent in their nests as the sound of a crunching plastic bag intruded on the otherwise deep and heavy summer solemn. The bottle of water and bag of food were removed from the book bag and, to ensure our getaway was quick, Chippy was instantly return to his snug carrier despite protests of disappointment. (OH, HE TALKS. HE SOUNDS LIKE ANIMAL, FROM THE MUPPETS, AND SPEAKS IN SIMPLE THREE TO FIVE WORD SENTENCES WITH ONE OF THOSE WORDS USUALLY BEING "WOMAN". <- That's me, if that wasn't, you know, entirely obvious.)

It was all going to plan until I squatted at the base of a beech for my ritual "piss in the woods, ruins, cemetery or other places of great importance". (<- LET'S DISCUSS THE ENTIRE EMPTYING OF THE BLADDER RITUAL LATER, OKAY?) As my jeans dropped to the ground there was a sudden rustle in the overgrown grasses to our right. JUST AN ANIMAL OUT AND ABOUT, I assured myself, but my muscles tensed and my eyes flitted from patch of grass to patch of grass because I knew, deep down in my totally not afraid stomach, that the horror movie had started.

JUST A BADGER, JUST A HEDGEHOG, JUST AN ANIMAL OUT FOR A WALK SINCE IT'S ANIMAL TIME HERE IN SCOTLAND, but I was still unsure. I gathered folds of denim into a tight fist so I wouldn't accidentally piss on my clothing, but, really, I just wanted something to unapologetically cling to for moral support. I couldn't see ANYTHING; not even with my glasses on. What natural light remained was reflected off the tips of meadow grass - the downy kind that stretches up to your knees - but past the tapered blades there was nothing, an entire ecological kingdom of "nothing" that was 100% obscured (and leering at me and my naked ass hovering a few inches from the twig-riddled ground).

But the entire "piss in the woods, ruins, cemetery or other places of great importance" is sort've our THING (one of many, anyway), and I didn't want to rush the job because it'd be like rushing foreplay or sex or, you know, that special stuff that couples do that's serious but really a weird, evolved in-joke that can't be explained. So, for reasons imagined and stated above, I didn't want to do a piss'n'run (it's more piss'n'shake the ass, slap the ass, point to the ass, pole dance around the tree trunk/ruins as sexily as one can with pants still shackling ankles and then...well, and then CENSORED MARRIED STUFF).

Performance anxiety hit, but it wasn't //MY// fault. Amidst the darkness, the gnarled grey trees and their trunks, the tall meadow grasses and sunken pits blanketed with rotting leaves there was movement. Unmistakable, undeniable clumsy, heavy movement that was zeroed in on me and steadily moved closer and closer. My heart, healthily hammering away in my chest, leapt into my throat with the first hissing, spitting, huffing sound. (HOLY FUCKING SHIT SOMETHING WAS FUCKING HISSING IN THE FUCKING GRASS AND IT WAS HISSING AS IT WAS MOVING IN MY FUCKING DIRECTION.)

I swear to all that's holy and divine I TRIED MY BEST TO BE COURAGEOUS, I TRIED MY BEST TO BE BOLD AND UNAFRAID, I TRIED MY BEST TO REMEMBER THAT MONSTERS DON'T EXIST but, in the end, I got swept into a story that ended with A RABID FUCKING BADGER BURSTING OUT OF SHUDDERING GRASSES - JAW AGAPE AND RAZOR SHARP TEETH GLEAMING IN THE NIGHT - AND SINKING ITS BACTERIA INFESTED MUTATED TUSKS INTO MY WHITE EXPOSED ASS GORGING PAPA'S (AND ITALIC'S) PRIDE AND JOY.

(Monsters aren't real but mutant, rabid badgers with mastodon tusks who hunt the naked asses of unsuspecting nubile young women having a piss in Scottish hedgerows are, okay?)

If you saw how quick I hauled ass to get the fuck out of there you'd think I was competing against the Devil himself in a supermarket sweep stake. Jeans were unsexily yanked up, Chippy and the tote wildly thrown over a shoulder and the offerings unceremoniously dumped at an APPROXIMATION of the stove's opening (ritual? what ritual? THERE'S A CRAZED BADGER AFTER ME!) all in one whirling movement before I was off like a rocket, charging through grass and brush and over the toppled stone wall not stopping until I crossed the street to the safety of the modern world - asphalt.

For a day or two we speculated what the fuck it could've been, and we always wound up with "badger" due to the sheer size (when it moved it displaced A LOT of fucking grass) and sound. And "badger" we stuck with until the evening of the 21st when THE SAME EXACT NOISE WAS SUDDENLY IN THE BACK FUCKING YARD. ("OH MY GOD IT KNOWS WHERE I LIVE!") I tore through the house like a fucking maniac to find a flashlight hoping, praying and wishing that whatever IT was that IT wouldn't leave until I had a chance to uncover this potentially ass biting mystery.

The noise - MY GOD, THE NOISE! - that hissing, huffing, wheezing sound! Barefooted I carefully crept closer to the unsuspecting visitor, my naked toes curled into the wet grass as I inched closer to the bristled sound, the beam of light from the torch jumping from left to right as my hand shook with uncertainty. I almost didn't want to look. Seriously. There was a second where I thought of several reasons why INSIDE was better than OUTSIDE. (i.e., "MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST, YOU KNOW, LEAVE IT ALONE. MAYBE IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO BE OUT HUNTING MONSTERS WITHOUT SHOES. MAYBE...")

With an utterly brave flick of a wrist I caught the soft glow of an luminsecent eye. And there IT was; there THEY were. My Scottish hedgerow monster(s) who fiendishly hunted down my scent turned out to be THIS. (VICIOUS! HORRIBLE! LOOK AT THOSE ASS THIRSTY EYES! LOOK AT THOSE AWFUL, SOULLESS FEATURES MADE POSSIBLE ONLY BY THE POWER AND WILL OF SATAN!)

Like a pair of retarded turkeys the two male hedgehogs puffed and huffed at each other, taking turns to circle one another as they competed for dominance. (How can something so fucking small make such a loud fucking sound? HEDGEHOGS, CEASE WITH YOUR ASTHMA-LIKE MONSTER NOISES! But DON'T cease with your asthma-like eating noises because it's pretty goddamn cute to hear you guys happily wheeze while eating homemade sweet potato pancakes. Awwww!)

And that, dear and gentle readers, is how you spook a witch who isn't afraid of monsters, ghost, demons or hell - you throw her in an overgrown hedgerow where she can't see a fucking thing and set loose the hedgehogs.

Midsummer Spread

So, like, I drew *7* pentacle cards for my 10 card Celtic Cross spread on Midsummer. (The other three were THE DEVIL (beneath me), TEMPERANCE (before me) and 7 OF WANDS (final result); ENDING ON A HIGH, YO.)

I'm not ashamed to admit - AT ALL, UNIVERSE, AT ALL - that I have absolutely no knowledge or innate understanding of the entire tarot thang (I do better reading coffee foam or tea sediment or broken egg yolks or blood clots OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT ISN'T A DECK OF CARDS WITH VERY SPECIFIC MEANINGS CREATED BY SOMEONE ELSE) but the fact that I pulled SEVEN FUCKING PENTACLE CARDS is enough for me to go "OH, HEY, WAIT! I THINK SOMEONE OR SOMETHING (OR ME, MYSELF, ALL SUBCONSCIOUS-LIKE) IS TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING..." without a worry that I might be reading into things a little too deeply.

#1 (This card covers you / Represents the present situation)

8 of Pentacles:
The future indicates that an opportunity will arise for you to use your strong powers of imagination. You will be able to use your dedicated ability of method and order.

* * *

#2 (This card crosses you / Obstacles that are now, or will confront you)

7 of Pentacles (R):
This is going to be a period of many problems due to your inability to make your mind up. Worrying over money will not make things easier. Trust in your own abilities.

* * *

#3 (This card crowns you / This card casts a strong influence over the present circumstances. It also reflects the best one can achieve under the present conditions.)

6 of Pentacles:
This is going to be a time when you will posses great power over your own fate and also over the destiny of others. With effort you will achieve prosperity and respect.

* * *

#4 (This card is beneath you / An event or matter in the past relevant to the present situation)

The Devil:
You have a selfish desire for money and all it can achieve. You are determined and ruthless in your craving for power and status. The future shows your wildest dreams could come true but you will then have to choose between good and evil.

* * *

#5 (This card is behind you / This reveals an influence in the past which could affect the future)

4 of pentacles (R):
You may find obstacles in your path with regard to finances in the near future. You should listen to good advice offered to you in a spirit of friendship.

* * *

#6 (This card is before you / This unveils the influence which is coming into action and which could operate in approximately six months time.)

Temperance:
You should now begin to work within a budget. The future indicates a long journey for which you will need extra finances. You have a good brain and you are usually right over the outcome of a situation.

* * *

#7 (This is yourself / This card affects you personally.)

Queen of Pentacles:
You will be influenced by a dark skinned mature lady. She has a clear insight into the true character of others. She is domineering but tries to disguise it.

* * *

#8 (This is your home / This affects your family life.)

Knight of Pentacles:
A dark skinned young man who is quick witted and hard working and honorable in his outlook, intent on his pursuit of wealth, features strong in your future. He will be capable of altering your destiny.

* * *

#9 (Hopes and fears / This could reveal your subconscious hopes and fears.)

3 of Pentacles:
Now is the time for you to think about business, as constructive and favorable forces are at work. Money will be gained through speculation or partnership.

* * *

#10 (Final result / Shows the culmination and results which will be brought about from all of the influences as revealed by the other cards in the divination, provided events and influences continue as indicated.)

7 of Wands:
You will overcome delays and obstacles. You can be too casual in love affairs. The future indicates a great victory over a rival.

ALSO, I HAVE FINALLY HAD "NORMAL" SEX.

(We haven't had it NORMAL since Mardi Gras because we said we'd break SEX FAST 2009 in the "doorway" that's in the middle of the wheat field where we Reaped together last year. We kept pushing back the date - FROM FUCKING EASTER SUNDAY - because THE TIME'S JUST NOT GOOD or THE WEATHER IS SHIT or WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SMOKE. But within a few minutes of JUMPING OVER A CAST IRON PAN FILLED WITH FIRE (<- FERTILITY HOP SCOTCH!) I was all "OH HEY LET'S GO TO THE FIELD //RIGHT NOW// AND HAVE SEX".)

(And we did. And it was good. And I got stung by nettles. And we were up before the crows. And the police didn't catch us stumbling out of the field. And the two young girls traveling home around 4 AM (WTF ARE YOU DOING OUT AT FOUR FUCKING AM YOUNG LADIES?!) didn't even bother giving me wide berth despite my purple and black African dress, ritual jewelry (not as ostentatious as my dress), white Scottish apron (aka LAST YEAR'S WEDDING DRESS) and baggy flannel jacket/shirt. <- IT'S A PROGRESSIVE, HOT WITCH LOOK.)

ON A FINAL NON-SEQUITUR NOTE: I can totally dig almost every aspect of periods except - EXCEPT! - the 3-4 days of continuous upset stomach-ed-ness. (SRSLY, UNIVERSE, I DON'T EVEN COMPLAIN ABOUT MY CRAMPS. HOW ABOUT CUTTING ME SOME SLACK HERE? JESUS.)

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.)

April 29th Walk

When my mother-in-law mentioned she had a work related appointment at Balmedie and offered Italics and I a chance to roam the shoreline there was a mad scramble for showers and clean clothes.

(HOLY SHIT, DUDE, IT'S BEEN AT LEAST //2 YEARS// SINCE I LAST VISITED A FOR REAL BEACH EVEN THOUGH IT'S LESS THAN A HALF AN HOUR AWAY. <- When you depend on others for a ride, spontaneous trips to the beach become an elusive thing of the past.)

There was a bit of back and forth between Italics and I because Balmedie has a reputation for being one of the very few recognized SEX ZONES of the area (everything from swinging to voyeurism), at least during the beach's AFTER hours.

(WHICH, HONESTLY AND TRULY, MUST BE TOTALLY AWESOME FOR THE LULZ, AND I WOULD 100% GO TO INVESTIGATE IF I DIDN'T THINK THAT SHOWING UP DURING THE RUMORED HOURS WAS PARTIAL CONSENT AND/OR GAVE THE APPEARANCE OR IMPRESSION OF GENUINE INTEREST ON MY PART. I MEAN, IT WOULD BE GENUINE INTEREST, BUT IT WOULDN'T BE THE SAME INTEREST SHARED BETWEEN MYSELF AND ANY POSSIBLE EXTRA-MARTIAL PARTNERS, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.)

With us galloping towards the solstice the days are stretching out and claiming territory that used to belong to night. Right now we still have remnants of sunset that hang around in the sky long after the sun's disappeared, so the Scottish gloam period extends further and further into military hours. Around four in the morning Byzantine blue erupts in the east and pushes back the glittering cover of night, by five the first incandescent streaks of light peek over neighboring houses and spills across concrete.

SEX PERVERTS BE DAMNED, I ultimately decided. (LOLOLOL @ SEX PERVERTS BE DAMNED, AS IF THE WOMAN WHO SAT COMPLETELY NAKED ON THE RAW NEW YEAR'S PRIME RIB AND DEMANDED HER HUSBAND TAKE PICTURES COULDN'T POSSIBLE FALL UNDER "SEX PERVERT" HERSELF) In the end we agreed that it wouldn't be dark enough to warrant anything overtly sleazy and dubious so we could fly Chippy's butterfly kit undisturbed and, more importantly, unmolested.

(LOOK, IT'S NOT THAT I'M AFRAID OF SAYING "CHEERS, BUT NO THANKS!" AS POLITELY AS I CAN; IT'S JUST THAT I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO BROKEN RECORD IT THROUGHOUT THE DURATION OF OUR NON-SEXUAL KITE FLYING BEACH TRIP. I TOTALLY GET THAT //I'M// THE ONE NOT USING THE BEACH FOR WHAT IT'S INTENDED FOR, RUMORS AND ALL, SO, IN A WAY, //I'M// THE ONE GIVING OFF THE WRONG MESSAGE.)

Showers were taken, eyebrows were plucked, better-than-nice clothes were crawled into (I WAS GETTING READY TO VISIT MY SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL HOUSE; YOU DON'T GO TO CHURCH WEARING YOUR RAT-CHEWED SWEAT PANTS, DO YOU?), best white push-up bra and favorite crotchless panties were donned, ritual jewelry was adorned, Chippy's butterfly kite (Chippy's my chthonic air correspondent who has a soft spot for little cheap-cheap birds and dainty butterflies) was located and the blue haduka pysanka (an Easter egg dyed blue with a black Sharpie drawing of a coiled serpent; a very old, very ancient Ukrainian design that's thousands of years old) was plucked from the egg carton to leave in the North Sea as an offering to my chthonic water correspondent.

...and after ALL of that effort we never actually went. (FOR SERIOUS.) It mostly boiled down to wind, if you can believe it. (NO, NOT SEX PERVERTS SINCE I FEEL I COULD OUT SEX PERVERT ANY SEX PERVERT YOU PUT IN FRONT OF ME.) It was already hella windy here, about 15-20 miles inland, and, apparently, it was a lot worse on the actual coast. So we folded our kite flying and Easter egg offering cards in favor of going for a walk to the local cemetery to leave some of our overly ripe pysanky at the cairn for the dead (which we meant to do on Easter Sunday).

((This is the point where I'm going to break down our walk through pictures so the V. IMPORTANT SHIT (i.e., the shit that almost always seems to happen when we're in transit to, or from, the local cemetery) gets noted for personal reference. I love being overly enthusiastic with unnecessary words; just not today, especially when photos can easily get the job done.))

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Just after we crossed the tiny road trailing up the hill and began passing the first fenced in pasture field (SHEEP! BABY LAMBS! TREMENDOUS "AWWS!" ALL AROUND!) next to the DISTURBED CHILDREN'S HOME (some pictures are HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE) I discovered a bit of fur fluff on the grass next to the wire fence.

Something popped, literally, when I bent over, which made me pause for a split second before I dismissed the sensation in favor of investigating the piece of (wild) rabbit fur. Upon further inspection, it turned out that bit'o'fluff was actually a detached tail, connecting bones (or cartilage) and all. After expressing concern for the now tailless rabbit I tucked my pointed fluff into my breast pocket and we continued on towards the stove and cemetery.

(When I went Underground for the first time and encountered the female deity-entity-person-thing who governs over me She told me that rabbits were sacred to Us and that I wasn't allowed to eat them. (Although I AM allowed to wear them, which means I didn't have to retire my beloved white rabbit fur coat.) As frank as She was, it was Her straight-faced amusement that made me wonder if She was just yanking my chain. OH, BLACK RABBIT, I KNOW THAT WE COMMUNICATE THROUGH LOLS BUT THIS IS ONE MYSTERY I HAVE YET TO UNRAVEL COMPLETELY.)

(I SRSLY THINK SHE'S JUST SNICKERING AT ME BEHIND MY BACK AND SILENTLY NUDGING EVERYONE ELSE WITH HER ELBOWS IN MY DIRECTION SO THEY CAN JOIN IN AND LOL AT ME, MISS HOLY-SHIT-SHE-DIDN'T-GET-THAT-IT-WAS-A-JOKE. "OH, YEAH, SURE, WE DON'T EAT RABBITS, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE WE'RE THE BLACK RABBIT, AND RABBITS REPRESENT SEX AND DEATH...")

The rabbit tail is sitting on the saucer of my Russian divining tea cup set (THE BLACK RABBIT IS RUSSIAN, BTW, WHICH, I GUESS, IS PROBABLY IMPORTANT TO MENTION) but it's going to be dropped in a clean baby jar with lid and packed away with all of my other semi-gruesome witch jars filled with dehydrated animal parts. (OH, HONEY, YES, I'M //THAT// SORT'VE WITCH.)

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Since our normal route to the cemetery always involves crossing the beech hedge into a cow pasture we decided to stop at the stove (it resides at the very start of the narrow line of ancient trees) to see if any of the offerings we left about a week ago still remained.

(BEECH HEDGES? COW PASTURES? OUTSIDE STOVE AND OFFERINGS? Sounds like you might need to read the ARCTIC RIVER entry which explains our annual outside stove ritual.)

Everything was gone; they didn't leave a trace. All of THIS had disappeared - without leaving so much as a crumb - except for the two pomegranates which laid discarded amongst the broken stone. I pocketed both, deciding that I'd leave them (secondhand offering, YAY!) at the cairn with the eggs.

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Last year we started the tradition of decorating an egg for friends, relatives, pets and people who've passed once since the previous Easter. We dye about a dozen eggs and then carefully designate which egg will represent the deceased and decorate it accordingly.

Once the eggs begin smelling ripe (they have a tendency to get left on the altar a little bit TOO long, YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES) they get carted off to the cemetery where they're left at the roots of the giant tree that grows in the middle of the cairn.

(As it turns out Ukrainians - 7/8th of my genes; the other 1/8th is Lakhota - left red eggs on the graves of their ancestors and friends around Easter long, long ago to celebrate the concepts of resurrection and reincarnation. It's amazing to find the shit you're doing through spontaneous instinct actually has a FOR REAL history with your heritage.)

This year we decided only some of the eggs we decorated would be left at the cemetery. My grandfather's egg, Beh's egg and Hezbollah's egg are still at home with us waiting to be buried in various plant and tree containers along with a few other eggs that were decorated purely for decoration purposes. (You don't throw away pysanky; it's bad luck. You respectfully bury it, burn it or drop it in running water.)

(We've already agreed that Beh's bumblebee egg will be buried beneath the bee balm we planted her this year (bumble bees live underground! they're chthonic, you know!), Didi's red pysanka will be buried beneath the red apple tree that's just arrived, but we aren't entirely sure what to do with Hezbollah's egg...)

Italics made a LOL! pysanky tribute for two guys involved in MMA that've passed recently (Mask and Evan Tanner) and I left behind two slightly more traditional Ukrainian pysanky with folkish designs (done in Sharpie marker - ONE OF THESE YEARS I WILL PICK UP A BEGINNERS KIT TO MAKE FOR REAL PYSANKY, UNTIL THEN NON-TOXIC MARKERS WILL HAVE TO DO).

So the eggs and pair of pomegranates were left, and I took the opportunity to trim some overhanging branches that've made getting to the hidden cairn a bit difficult. It took me shaking off my flannel jacket (so I could have an unencumbered woodland piss) to discover that OH SHIT, THAT POPPING SENSATION FELT EARLIER WHEN PICKING UP THE DETACHED TAIL WAS ACTUALLY THE BRA STRAP OF MY VERY NEW, VERY FAVORITE WHITE PUSH-UP BRA SNAPPING AND SEPARATING FROM THE BACK.

(And I only realized THAT once one of my unleashed boobs came tumbling out of my t-shirt. OH, BABY, EVEN UNINTENTIONALLY I AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT //CLASSY//!)

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One of these days I'll tell you guys about how - long, long ago - I desperately wanted to be a nun. (Blame AGNES OF GOD and my mother allowing me, as a fix-six-seven-eight-nine-ten year old, to watch it whenever the fuck I wanted. I was raised on a movie diet of RED SONJA, BARBARELLA, AGNES OF GOD, STAR WARS, and SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE.) I mean, they're just priestesses in uniform, you know?

Whenever I visit the cemetery to leave something for Papa or Muriel (ANOTHER STORY I V. SRSLY NEED TO TELL) I occasionally leave something for my fellow sister, so it only seemed right to leave her a less ostentatious Easter egg. Both Sister MacDonald and Muriel were given undyed eggs and a long drink of bottled water.

(LOLOLOLOL! IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT, IT TOOK ME LOOKING AT THE PICTURE ABOVE TO REALIZE THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH I VISIT IN TOWN TO PRAY AT THE FEET OF MARY'S STATUE ("ZOMG SHE DOES //WUT//?!" DUDE, I'M NOT PICKY WITH MY VIRGIN MOTHER ARCHETYPES, OKAY? BESIDES, A STARBUCKS AND A LINGERIE BOUTIQUE ARE ON THE SAME STREET - SCORE!) HAPPENS TO BE THE SAME ST. MARY'S THAT SISTER MACDONALD WAS FROM. LOL, WHOOPS?)

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WAIT, WAIT, WAIT - THAT'S NOT THE AVERAGE LENGTH AND WIDTH OF A GRAVE THEY DIG HERE! (So what the EFF is going on? THE WITCH WHO ADOPTED THIS CEMETERY AS HER GRAVEYARD STOMPING GROUNDS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW.) What I DO know is that it wasn't impressive enough for me to yank off my favorite pair of crotchless panties to drop into the to-be grave (or whatever it is).

(I ACTUALLY HAVE A DRAWER IN THE BEDROOM PARTIALLY FILLED WITH USED PANTIES. ONCE MY THONGS OR WHATEVER GET SHOT THEY GET TRANSFERRED TO THE PANTY OFFERING DRAWER TO BE DONNED FOR THE FINAL TIME BEFORE BEING LEFT AS AN OFFERING.)

(FOR INSTANCE, I CLAIMED MURIEL'S GRAVE BY PISSING IN IT (WHICH IS HARD TO DO WHEN YOU'RE HIGH AND TRYING NOT TO PISS ON YOUR FEET WHILE BALANCING ON WOBBLING PLANKS ONLY PARTIALLY COVERING AN EMPTY HOLE WAITING FOR A CASKET) AND THEN DROPPED IN THE (WHITE) UNDERWEAR I HAD BEEN WEARING. AFTER SHE WAS BURIED AND THE SOD WAS THROWN BACK OVER THE GRAVE I LIFTED A PATCH AND TUCKED A SECOND PAIR OF WHITE PANTIES IN, EFFECTIVELY SANDWICHING HER BETWEEN MY USED UNDERWEAR.)

(YOU DO MAGIC YOUR WAY, I DO MAGIC //MY// WAY.)

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OH DEAR, JESUS, LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE'S BEEN BREAKING //A LOT// OF BREAD RECENTLY (PERHAPS IN "ALL YOU CAN EAT" BUFFET FORM?). OR MAYBE YOU'VE SECRETLY FORSAKEN YOUR DIVINE FATHER IN FAVOR OF CAKE? (IT REALLY WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME, WASN'T IT?)

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When walking back home from the cemetery we passed an overly friendly couple ambling in the opposite direction. I flashed a polite smile and glanced away, not in the mood for direct contact. As it turned out it was my old doctor - the one who blatantly disregarded everything I said and, in doing so, set back treatment for my several diagnosed digestive disorders - and his wife, and once Italics clued me in I felt saliva burst into my mouth and spat the froth behind my shoulder in my former GP's direction.

(I BAKED HIM A LOAF OF BANANA BREAD, YOU KNOW. MY SECRET INGREDIENT? A PINCH OF MY HOMEMADE FET GHEDE GRAVEYARD DIRT. HE SAID IT WAS INORDINATELY DELICIOUS; HIS WIFE, IN FACT, FINISHED MOST OF IT OFF. NEWS USUALLY TRICKLES DOWN FROM HIS WIFE TO MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, AND THEN FROM MY MOTHER-IN-LAW TO ITALICS. ONE OF THESE DAYS, WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, I'LL HEAR SOMETHING AND KNOW THAT THAT PARTICULAR STORY SOLELY BELONGS TO ME.)

Italics spat too, a few second after me, and I've wondered ever since if that was deliberate, or accidentally coincidental. (It's not like he doesn't have his own personal grievances when it comes to our once shared doctor.)

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It was only after the walk that I realized that it was April 29th, which meant it was my mother's birthday. She was born in Hanover; a German refugee camp because her father - my grandfather - was a Russian army deserter (after killing an infant sibling and institutionalizing a sister (for speaking out against the Russians and communism) the red army came and forced my Ukrainian grandfather - and all other able men and boys from his village - to join the army).

She died in one of our two ancestral homelands - the Black Hills, South Dakota. (The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakhota people. She took her quarter of Native American and discarded everything else; I've embraced my 7/8ths of Ukrainian and left her with my eighth of Indian.) If she hadn't died of a pulmonary embolism a few years ago (she fractured her ankle after falling on ice when letting one of the dogs in, a blood clot formed and traveled up to her lungs where it got stuck and effectively caused an artery to blow up) she would've been 62.

After the bra strap, after the tail, after the stove, after the pomegranates, after the eggs, after the mysterious grave, after ALL YOU CAN EAT Jesus, after spitting in the dust of my previous doctor (THEY SO WOULD'VE BURNED MY ASS FOR THAT A FEW HUNDRED YEARS AGO), after receiving two orgasms and reciprocating with a handjob it suddenly dawned on me - as I glanced out the bedroom window to the sickle hanging in the sky - that it was my mother's birthday.

So, after all of it, I stood in silent communion on the cold concrete steps, and took a picture of the blazing crescent moon (IT BLAZED A LOT MORE IMPRESSIVELY TO THE NAKED EYE, BTW) for my mother; the stubborn bull that was the precursor to this stubborn Aries.

Arctic River

This Spring's been an arctic river overflowing with winter run-off. Fast moving, non-negotiable waters thunder past my legs pushing, pulling and sweeping me away with the charging current. There's no use fighting the tidal wave of lightening movement, so I haven't tried. (No struggling means freedom, even when lost amongst the tumbling chaos, and with my attention undistracted I can almost catch all of the beautiful, awe inducing gems the season's hidden away just for me.)

(IN OTHER WORDS, I'VE BEEN SO GODDAMN BUSY FOR THE PAST THREE WEEKS DUE TO SPRING RELATED ACTIVITIES THAT I'VE HAD TO RELY ON MY BRAND NEW BIRTHDAY CAMERA AS A DIARY.)

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Late last year I stole a narrow stretch of waste ground where I loosened the earth and haphazardly planted over three heads of garlic. (I didn't think it'd work, but it DID.) Very early in February there were suspicious shoots popping up in a semi-neat row, and now, at the very end of April, this is what it looks like. Next year? Next year I'll try even //harder//. (Any more effort than I originally expended would already be an improvement. Srsly.)

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No signs of scrapes yet. (Once the garlic is ready to flower it grows out a tentacle - the scrape - which'll eventually blossom. To encourage bulb growth you need to cut the scrape before it flowers so the energy is diverted below.) But, baby, once those fuckers pop up it'll be garlic scrape pesto time...

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Sections of Aberdeen were built on a hill, so a part of it slopes down at a slow angle and is only disturbed by stairs and old buildings. Wild city rabbits live in any patch of green (along roadsides, next to towering blocks of apartments and in cemeteries) and as we were cutting through lanes and streets and alleys to get to our dinner reservation, we saw that the rabbits had already beaten us to Sunday dinner.

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I always feel stupidly disappointed when wild animals don't respond to my ANIMAL SPEAK. (ANIMAL SPEAK = PURSING LIPS TOGETHER AND SUCKING AIR IN JUST A LITTLE TO MAKE A SQUEAKING SOUND.) Italics and I have spent years developing ANIMAL SPEAK since our first pair of rats, Ann and Nancy (after Heart, although Nancy was the one who got fat out of the pair).

Animal Speak gets used when I want to attract the attention of the rats (they know it's my COME HERE RIGHT NOW or FOOD PEOPLE HAS FOOD or I WANT TO SEE YOUR LITTLE RAT FACES voice), but it'll also work on wild animals - they cock their head, blink and then give you a straight up WHAT THE FUCK? expression.

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Last year we celebrated the winter solstice by renting a hotel room and staying in town overnight. (Aberdeen's roughly 15 minutes away from us; we're in a subdivision in the shire where it's mostly rural.) Even though we were running late we took a few minutes in the privacy of the alley to take some pictures.

(AND WHEN I SAY "TAKE SOME PICTURES" I MEAN, "GET HIGH BEFORE EATING A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF CHINESE FOOD AND, ALSO, TAKE SOME PICTURES".)

The above picture was taken mid-April (spring!), and THIS HERE PICTURE was taken mid-December (winter!); both show Marischal College's tower erupting in the background.

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In the few instances we've used the stairs as a shortcut we were always on schedule for something. This past trip, however, we were running early so we were able to loiter more leisurely around ancient brick and stone.

While Italics was trying to get our pipe working (JOINTS ARE NICE IN A SUPERFICIAL VISUAL WAY, BUT WASTEFUL - AND, ALSO, I DON'T LIKE MY FINGER SMELLING LIKE CIGARETTES) I noticed, for the first time, that there was writing on the wall.

(I have NO idea what it means, but Aberdeen's known for keeping crazy ass insane records, so it should be easy to find out the history behind the engravings.)

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I don't know anything about this church other than it's OLD, OLD, OLD (you can tell by the structure of the buildings attached to it, and the look of the building materials) and IT'S ANOTHER ABERDEEN CHURCH (you guys would not believe how many fucking churches there are in the city). I haven't made my way up to visit it, but I do intend to...eventually. (To see the church at night in winter click on THIS HERE LINK.)

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I chose this little Italian cafe place for my belated birthday dinner. Despite being absolutely desperate for a pizza (I'VE TOLD ITALICS V. BLATANTLY AND WITHOUT ANY SUBTLETY THAT I'M WILLING TO PROVIDE SEXUAL FAVORS FOR A REALLY FUCKING GOOD PIZZA; YOU JUST CAN'T GET THE PIZZA I WANT HERE IN SCOTLAND) I saw that they served veal Marsala and my Evil Queen heart (I ALSO WEAR FUR. THAT'S RIGHT - I EAT VEAL AND WEAR FUR AND ADMIT TO BOTH; CRUCIFY OR WORSHIP ME AS YOU PLEASE.) skipped a beat and all notion of pizza was gone.

Italics, either up for the challenge or hoping to fill the pizza void in my Chicago-born heart, ordered a calzone. The picture above does absolutely no justice to the sheer size of the fucking monster; that plate could fit a decapitated head on it easily - EASILY. My veal? A little tough due to being overcooked, but the Marsala sauce was exquisite. Their cured meats (our starter) were terrific, but the Tiramisu was only so-so (they put a layer of jam, or something, through the dessert, but it tasted like apricot-flavored petroleum jelly at best, and apricot-flavored toothpaste gel at worst).

The coffee? To fucking die for. (It was seriously the star of the evening.)

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By the time we saw a movie, walked up from the beach, had dinner and returned back to the hotel it was edging just past nine in the evening. I had to keep a straight face while gnawing on a inner cheek when I noticed that our hotel neighbors opposite of us, despite having two trash cans in the room, decided to discard their take-away garbage in the hall.

(LOL, CLASSY! I ESPECIALLY LOVE HOW THEY HUNG THE "DO NOT DISTURB" SIGN. OH, POOR PEOPLE, YOU'RE AN ENDLESS SOURCE OF DISGUSTED AMUSEMENT FOR ME. PS: THIS PICTURE'S BLURRED BECAUSE I FORCED ITALICS TO GO BACK OUTSIDE AND TAKE A PICTURE AND AS HE WAS DOING SO ONE OF THE OCCUPANTS BEGAN OPENING THEIR ROOM DOOR.)

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Italics didn't know that I packed away my blond wig, a pair of knee high socks and my cheerleader outfit for fun later that night. I posed, for a second, in his semi-new sort've Indiana Jones BUT NOT REALLY jacket, and the whole cheerleader thing went out the window. (FIGURATIVELY, I MEAN. DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE NICE WIGS ARE? JESUS.)

After dinner entertainment was wearing my husband's jacket and nothing else (WAIT, I TAKE THAT BACK - I WAS STILL WEARING A BRA!) and the "movie" mode on our recently retired digital camera. (I was feeling the affects of the coffee - even though it had been a decaf - so I needed a visit from THE FIREMEN to soothe the affects of GERD. <- LAUGH NOW, BUT WAIT UNTIL YOUR OVERLY ACIDIC STOMACH IS IN DIRE NEED OF A SHOT OF SOMETHING ALKALINE TO CALM IRRITATION.)

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This is a shot of Union Street running down into Castlegate (the smaller, secondary looking castle in the middle of the picture) in downtown Aberdeen taken by Italics the morning after our belated birthday celebrations. (IT STARTED WITH HIS JACKET, AND ENDED WITH A CHIPPER AND A BAG OF MALTEASERS IN BED.)

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Aberdeen, to the naked eye, appears to have been built around a church (St. Nicholas) and its graveyard. This is a picture of the more formal entrance to the kirkyard which is used as a thoroughfare and public park. (I've never seen people so happily sit on green cemetery grass like they were visiting a botanic garden until St. Nicholas.)

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"Marischal College is a building in the Scottish city of Aberdeen belonging to the University of Aberdeen. It was formerly an independent university in its own right. A significant portion of the building is currently leased on a long-term basis to Aberdeen City Council for office space. As well as being the tallest building in Aberdeen, it is also the second largest granite building in the world."

Oh, Wiki, you're a blessing to this lazy shell of a human being! (View right outside the newest Starbucks in town.)

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Since the St. Nicholas kirkyard is in the center of the city, it's one of the best semi-private places to have a joint before galloping off to diner. Our preferred spot is near Mr. Alex Fullerton, Druggist, which is wonderfully aged and picturesque on gloriously sunny days. (LOLOLOL, I KNOW. WE ONLY REALIZED THE "DRUGGIST" PART SORT'VE RECENTLY.)

When a friend who's involved in medicine and health care requested some graveyard dirt I immediately knew whose grave the dirt was coming off of. (NOTE TO SELF: In return you left one of the red-dyed Easter eggs (Ukrainians, in the olden days, left red eggs at the graves of ancestors and friends to encourage reincarnation and resurrection) and a gold foiled chocolate coin.)

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This is the infamous dirtyard, post-crocus season. (IT HAS SERIOUSLY SAT LIKE THIS FOR OVER THREE YEARS NOW.) I took this picture just before I went to work with a flattened box of cereal and a spade to mark the strip where I intended to plant carrots and beets. Unfortunately, the street extends too far beneath the soil so some of the chthonic vegetables I wanted to grow in the dirtyard (carrots!) will have to be planted elsewhere.

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Last year my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, threw away all of my spring bulbs that Italics had given me as a gift. (IN THIS HOUSE, HE GETS TO DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR THINGS.) He never apologized or acknowledged that he had thrown away another gift (or ashes that belonged to my mother, or an anniversary gift I was making for Italics, or...) so Italics stepped in and bought me another round of bulbs.

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"Richly coloured tulip of burnt orange-red with petal edges of yellow-gold."

One of my favorite parts of Spring is watching the giant, almost unbelievable changes that seem to happen overnight. One day tulips are tight, pursed buds; the next they've unfurled with a gasp for fresh air. Transformations always seem so immediate during the season of renewal.

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Oh, nasty ass Starlings, I love how you don't give a fuck about me even if I'm outside doing gardening work next to your bird food. (Nothing comes between you and the food I put out for you guys, NOTHING.)

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When planting out CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE Spring flowers last fall (grape hyacinths, dwarf irises, dwarf tulips, tulips and daffodils) I discovered a handful of mysterious bulbs hidden deep within a dirt filled container. I rescued them (they were buried too deep to properly sprout, Christ only knows how long they've just sat in that plastic bucket) and relocated them to the container with my Finnish poppies. This Spring solved the mystery; they're Narcissus, and they smell like heaven.

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Whenever I cook with Italics there's always a fifty percent chance of ass.

(This is our third batch of Cowboy Bread (sort've like a flour tortilla meets pita bread) - THE BEST YET! - after its first rise. Italics is dividing the dough into eight smaller portions so after the second rise we can roll them out and "bake" them in a skillet.)

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The Cowboy Bread's risen twice, rolled out and then pan-fried in olive oil until golden spots appear. (We made two super huge ones - the size the recipe suggests - and then halved the other portions so they were more pita than giant, fluffy flour tortillas.)

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Once cooked-baked-fried you shove the flat bread(s) into a ziploc bag, or cover them with a damp towel, so the steam keeps them soft and pliable. (We never got around to artfully arranging them on a plate for SRS FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY because all we wanted to do was tear into the fuckers and shovel hummus into our mouths.)

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Shango blossoms on the Shango (Bone) Tree. (Technically, Mr. Awesome (my father-in-law) owns the tree, but I adopted it a few years back and have been gradually and systematically exerting control over it.)

Two years ago - the first REAL year I started getting V. serious about all of this magic business - the Shango Tree (a plum tree), bore fruit. Thanks to everyone's complete disinterest in the the garden I was able to secretly reap the reward and ritually consumed the tree-ripened plums without having to share.

I was so swept up in foraging hedonism that I didn't occur to me to KEEP THE FUCKING PITS SO I COULD GROW NEW SHANGO (BONE) TREES FROM SEED. I kicked myself for fucking MONTHS for discarding the pits and anxiously waited for the next growing season to roll around. And what did the tree do last year? NOT FLOWER, OBVIOUSLY. (No flowers = no fruit; no fruit = no seeds; no seeds = no new Shango (Bone) Trees.)

I spent all of last year coaxing it to flower (everything from leaving offerings of food, watering it by hand almost every other day, laying my hands on the tree and giving it some Barry White vocal love) this year, and all of that effort paid off. (Although it would've been A LOT MORE AWESOME if the Shango (Bone) Tree hadn't decided to stick out the ONE FLOWERING BRANCH IT PRODUCED like a fucking flasher with an erection. <- WAY TO ATTRACT MR. AWESOME'S ATTENTION, S(B)T! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SUBTLE MAGIC? JESUS.)

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I can't remember a time when Scotland wasn't washed with some sort of green. Even in winter the wild azaleas and mosses and lichen and holly trees retain their vibrant colors. It takes late Spring to alter my perception of "green".

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We're on route to the cemetery and stove to leave belated Easter offerings, passing pasture land, green wheat fields and weathered stone walls. With every new walk to the kirkyard the landscape gets more green and alive.

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There's a hedge of ancient beeches that outline an entire side of pasture which touches the crumbling wall that runs in front of the ruined church (with the abandoned walled garden in the background) and the back of the local cemetery. Discarded in the line of trees is this old water trough (or at least that's what I //think// it is) which we call "the stove".

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Even though the metal's rusted and old the hinge and latch work perfectly, which allowed me to safely hide roadkill (a rabbit, fresh and in near pristine condition) last autumn when we were stealing potatoes out of a local potato field. (I didn't want to bang up the rabbit while we scrambled over walls and frantically dug up potatoes from an agricultural field at six in the morning.)

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There comes a point, every year around Spring, where non-perishable food offerings begin taking over the house. When we begin feeling claustrophobic we know it's time to visit "the stove" and leave the offerings to their Fate*; we've been doing that for two or three years now.

(* IN OTHER WORDS - WE LEAVE IT FOR OUR ANCESTORS, BUT KNOW THAT THE INDIGENOUS WILDLIFE WILL ALSO BE ENJOYING THE SPREAD.)

This Easter season, while I was flipping through one of my Ukrainian cookbooks, I stumbled across a passage explaining several ancient customs Ukies observed around Easter. Apparently, long ago, food was deliberately left IN A STOVE as an offering to feed and sustain ancestors, relatives and friends who have passed on. (WE ARE SO ON THE BALL WITH SOME OF THIS SHIT THAT SOMETIMES IT SCARES ME.)

(NOTE TO SELF: This is the first year you put individual Paska/Babka for loved ones who died since last Easter (i.e., Hezbollah, Beh and Didi) in the stove rather than at the cairn in the cemetery.)

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It took until LAST FUCKING YEAR for me to even notice there was a wild gooseberry bush growing in the ruins of the church. By the time I realized what the shrub was the berries were the size of quail eggs. (I AM SO NOT JOKING IN THE SLIGHTEST; THIS BUSH HAS GOT SOME SERIOUS JUNK ON IT.)

Unfortunately, I was hella, hella sick last year (bedridden due to symptoms and ailments that's baffled the medical community and put me in the very familiar category of "atypical") so by the time I was well enough to leave the house the animals had enjoyed every ball-sized gooseberry and left none for me, SIGH.

(Behind the bush you can see one of the walls and doors of the abandoned wall garden directly behind the ruins of the small church.)

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When I was a kid and running naked through Midwestern waste fields and woodlands I could name almost every flowering plant I ran across. Finding something totally new felt like discovering new species of previously unidentified vegetated life.

That excitement and drive totally disappeared around the time I started high school, but resurfaced recently (just over ten years later) the deeper I got into indigenous folklore. If I haven't misidentified it, this is Green Alkanet (in the same family as good ole Borage) and it grows rampant in the space between the NEW OLD CRUMBLING WALL and the OLD OLD NOT SO CRUMBING WALL.

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Until last year it was an absolute mystery where they were burying the majority of the recently deceased. As it turns out, what I thought was a community football pitch was the new section of the cemetery. (There aren't a lot of headstones, and they're way, way in the far corner of the very long stretch of land. Until you're physically in the open space it's difficult to tell there are bodies actually buried there.)

This was post-stove and pre-cairn, just before we hopped over the road and had lunch in an open meadow beneath an oak tree. Two fields and a line of trees over you can see a man-made loch created a very long time ago.

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The stone wall neatly bordering the graves in the background is the wall that separates the cemetery from the pasture field which touches the hedge of beech trees and ruined church. This is the new portion of the old cemetery, where Muriel and the nun are buried.

Our visit to the kirkyard had to be quick on this occasion because hired help were mowing the lawn. (HOW AWESOME OF A JOB IS THAT? MOWING THE VELVETY SOFT LAWN OF AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH CEMETERY ON A GLORIOUS SPRING DAY? HOLY SHIT, DUDE, WHERE DO //I// SIGN UP FOR THAT GIG?)

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I HAVE NOT HAD "NORMAL" SEX SINCE FUCKING MARDI GRAS. When the GREAT RITE was celebrated it was celebrated IN MY ASS, so since Easter Sunday we've been joking that I'm only half married (OR PERHAPS "ASS MARRIED"?) and that I'll remain only partially married until ACTUAL VAGINAL PENETRATION IS MADE.

Because I'm so good at making things difficult I suggested we wait to have "normal" sex until we can have sex in the same wheat field where we reaped last year for the first time. (IT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT? IF I'M REAPING AND HARVESTING THE FRUIT, I BETTER BE FERTILIZING THE LAND TOO, YO.)

Content with the half he married (THE ASS HALF, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN) he agreed, so we're now just waiting for the right moment (i.e., WHEN WE HAVE POT, WHEN IT'S DRY AND WHEN IT'S DARK ENOUGH) to finish the rite we started on April 12th.

(My idea is to have sex in the space between the two wooden posts, effectively performing Hieros Gamos on and in the threshold of a "door". If not there there's always an unused water trough right next to it...)

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The very first local Spring lambs we saw were a pair of black kids. (Ever since Imbolc I've been meaning to leave an offering of oats to the lactating sheep but I never got a chance.) (LAMBS HAVE A PECULIAR AVERSION TO FACTORY PRODUCED STRAWBERRY-FLAVORED MARSHMALLOWS. I, UH, READ THAT SOMEWHERE ON THE NET, OR SOMETHING.)

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OH, SKELETON ZOMBIE I WANTED TO TAKE YOU HOME WITH ME, OR AT LEAST TAKE YOU TO SEE A MOVIE. (BUT IT'S PROBABLY GOOD THAT I DIDN'T SINCE MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS, EVEN IN 3-D, WAS SHOCKINGLY SHIT, EVEN WHEN REALLY, REALLY HIGH.)

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I think they must've recently painted and decorated the Haunted Mansion because I don't remember it ever looking so fresh and new. (ONE OF THESE DAYS I'LL FORCE ITALICS TO BUY SIX TOKENS SO I CAN SEE WHAT THE HAUNTED MANSION'S ALL ABOUT.)

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I wish I could remember more of this day. I know we saw two movies (I Love You Man and Monsters Versus Aliens), I know we went out to eat (Jack Daniel's Monterey Burger at TGI Friday's) and I know we visited the shoreline twice to get high (once before eating and once again before the second movie).

I also know that I realized something, or said something, or Italics said something - THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT SEEMED OBVIOUS - but now I can't remember what IT was. ("Zoe" was scribbled into the sand, which, if I remember right, means "life" in Greek, and seeing the name/word and even being able to translate it somehow felt significant.)

I poured fresh water on wet, salty sand as an offering, and it left the impression of a dick with balls. Cruelly, the camera's battery died just before I was able to secure a picture of my sand cock. (OH, MAGIC, SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED.)

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This is my fat little bizza bear, Shoney, who's pretty sure that my camera might be food. (DON'T TELL HER IT ISN'T, OTHERWISE SHE MIGHT NOT BOTHER SITTING STILL THE NEXT TIME I SHOVE IT IN HER FACE.)

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OH, BEGGAR RAT SISTERS, LOOKING FOR A FOOD HANDOUT WHILE LOITERING IN MY COMPUTER DESK. (My lap's the bridge between two hollowed out spaces in my desk so there's constant rat traffic streaming back and forth when there's a suspicion of food.)

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The trio of rats we have now - Wuzza (Denny's), Choney (Shoney's) and Shakey (Shakey's Pizza) - are damn near impossible to take pictures of. All the other generations of rat roommates we had managed to sit still longer than three seconds which allowed us to build a library of photos. These guys? They've been restricted to "movie" mode on the camera because they're always just a blur of motion in anything remotely resembling a picture.

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Within a day of noticing that I turned over earth in the dirtyard to possibly plant some carrots and beets Mr. Awesome drove through the dirt with a car leaving two very distinct tire marks across the strip of land I had marked in the soil.

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We've had the dirtyard for years. (AND WHEN I MEAN "YEARS" I MEAN "AT LEAST THREE, PROBABLY FOUR".) After several years of no obvious intent I decided if I can't plant grass I might as well make use of the available dirt and grow some vegetables. After several years of no obvious intent my father-in-law suddenly DROVE OVER THE EXACT SPOT WHERE I HAD BEGUN MAKING A ROW FOR BEETS. (Should I take that as a hint?)

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The thing about this NEW DRIVEWAY he's created is that UP UNTIL THIS POINT - THE POINT WHERE I MADE AN OBVIOUS MOVE TO CLAIM SOME UNUSED DIRT - HE'S NEVER, EVER DRIVEN OVER WHAT IS, EFFECTIVELY, THE FRONT YARD.

I don't know what's changed, if he's acting out or if it was a honest necessity when he found he couldn't maneuver any other way out of the driveway. At any rate, it isn't exactly an auspicious start to my adventure into creating a dirtyard vegetable patch.

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You know to expect some MAN BEHAVIOR when your husband helps you with the Spring gardening. I was instructed to sit still as Italics ran for the camera to document how perfectly he dropped a Sharpie down my pants on his first try. (OH HEY, I'M WEARING UNDERWEAR FOR ONCE! EVEN IF IT IS A PAIR OF BOXERS.)

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Oh, we do horrible, awful things to our Lindt Easter bunnies. This white chocolate one, for instance, graced our Easter basket this year which was blessed at a special church service on Holy Saturday. Even divine intervention couldn't save him (her?) from the melting pot when it came time to make Chex Muddy Buddies. (The giant dark chocolate rabbit? Oh, his (her?) fate's already been determined - dark chocolate brownies.)

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My inside outside vegetable garden post-growing closet and pre-bonsai house. (Once the plants get too big in the confined space of the closet they get repotted and moved to the backroom where they'll sit for a few weeks to bulk up before being relocated to the bonsai house to become acclimated to outside temperatures.)

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There are two other fruit trees other than the Shango (Bone) Tree trained against a wooden fence in the backyard. One of them is an apple tree, but I can't remember what the other one - the one pictured above - is. It might be another apple, or it might be another plum. Either way, it's getting some extra love this year to encourage the flowers to fruit.

(In the background you can see all of Mr. Awesome's bonsai trees and shrubs that he said would only sit in the backyard for a few weeks. That? That was last year. And on top of that, he killed off all the grass in the backyard - after digging it all up in the front yard - so we literally had NO LAWN to sit on last year during summer.)

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WHOOPS, I FORGOT I HAD ALREADY TAKEN A PICTURE OF THE SHANGO BLOSSOMS ON THE SHANGO (BONE) TREE! (This one was taken about a week after the first one. Nearly a week after THAT the petals of the plum blossoms are almost gone, and whatever remains is hidden behind leafy buds that get bigger every day.)

BEAR ME FRUIT, DAMMIT, I'VE MASSAGED YOU LIKE A PAMPERED COW, FED YOU LIKE A HUNGRY HUSBAND AND WATERED YOU LIKE...UHM...A CAR (OR SOMETHING).

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The backyard's become a bird sanctuary due to the high ratio of bushes, shrubs and trees to gravel and concrete. (FOR SOME REASON SOME SCOTTISH FOLK LOVE TO TEAR EVERYTHING GREEN OUT OF THEIR YARD, FILL IT WITH GRAVEL AND DUMP A CONTAINER OR TWO OF TULIPS AMONGST THE ROCKS.) It helps that their natural predators - the neighborhood cats - are too busy scarfing down (people) food offerings to be bothered with them.

(That feed container? Yesterday, on May Day, I decided to refill all bird seed containers no matter how full they were in honor of the day. Just before twilight I filled that exact feeder until it was spitting seeds, this afternoon - just after three - it was virtually empty. THESE BIRDS ARE GOING TO PUT ME IN THE POOR HOUSE.)

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I first began wedging bones into tree branches as a joke (on my father-in-law, who's forever getting in trouble for TOUCHING THINGS THAT AREN'T HIS), but then the joke grew and before I knew it the Shango Tree had become the Shango Bone Tree. (Winter's a much better time for the S(B)T, with the onset of Spring all of the whitened and weather-stripped decorations get lost behind a canopy of green.)

(I can't believe that A.) that the Christmas goose carcass is still hanging off the truck and B.) Mr. Awesome hasn't touched ANY of the bones dangling off the plum tree I stole from him.)

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HOLY HELL OH MY GOD MY ABU HASSAN TULIPS HAVE FINALLY BLOOMED! (OOPS for thinking they were dwarf! WTF gave me //THAT// idea?)

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What was it the internet said about the appearance of these tulips? WAIT, HOLD ON, I MENTIONED IT EARLIER IN THIS ENTRY: "Richly coloured tulip of burnt orange-red with petal edges of yellow-gold." OH, NATURE, YOU DO DELIVER, DON'T YOU?

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Italics bought these Flava tulips for himself (although I'm taking care of them for him), and they're the very last bulbs to flower from the bags'o'bulbs he bought me on our CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE last year. (I swore they were an early dwarf bloomer, but I also swore that about all of the Abu Hassans I planted.)

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The amazing two-headed Bull Heart tomato plant from Ukraine. (OH, GREAT APIS/BA'AL MAY YOU BE EXALTED IN FUTURE TOMATO SAUCES!) I might just keep this one indoors since it refused to grow outside last year. (You can see part of Chippy as he inspects the inside outside garden; he's a very keen gardener, you know.)

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What our backroom "lounge" looks like when a witch is hard at work.

(The plastic skull bowl is the ritual bowl I use when I'm doing something a little more heavy duty than baking bread or soaking menstrual rags. The scattered wheat sheaths inside is the last bit of the didukhy that I've systematically picked apart so every wheat kernel from every sheath got saved for growing or ritual use.)

(The eggs are our version of Sharpie pysanky, some especially decorated for pets, relatives, friends and others who've passed on since last Easter. When it's time to leave our Easter offerings at the stove and cairn we leave the decorated eggs amongst the food for the dead.

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Beh's bee egg is sitting in a carton as the glue attaching the wings to the egg dries. There's a handmade miniature hat that Italics created for another egg, a bowl of partially shucked wheat (the kernel's still attached to the long, skewer-like spikes), Papa's skull planter with some of his dried tobacco leaves and a Jack Daniels gift set that Italics had given me earlier in the day.

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From a tiny, withered peanut to a vibrant, lush plant. Only two of the five peanuts I bought germinated; I can't decide if I want to buy and plant more, or just stick with the two healthy plants I already have. OH, DECISIONS, DECISIONS...

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OH, IT'S ALL SUPER CUTE, NOW, WITH ITS BLACK AND WHITE TUXEDO AND LITTLE SMILING BEGGING FACE BUT ONE DAY, DAMMIT, ONE DAY NEAR THE SUMMER SOLSTICE WHEN IT GETS LIGHT HERE AT THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING THAT FUCKER WILL BE ON MY GODDAMN BEDROOM WINDOWSILL SCREAMING THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW FOR BREAKFAST. (HOW THE FUCK DOES A MAGPIE KNOW WHICH ROOM IS OUR BEDROOM? I DON'T KNOW, TRY //MAGIC//.)

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That's one of the four (five?) aubergines (eggplants) that I've grown from seed. One of these days I'll have to relocate them outside to the bonsai house, but until then they get a chance to flourish in better-than-green-house conditions.

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One of my Sub-Arctic tomatoes which will most definitely be moved outside since they were deliberately bought for their "sub-arctic" nature. (GROWING TOMATOES IN SCOTLAND WITHOUT A PROPER GREEN HOUSE CAN BE HELL. I'M SO DESPERATE I'M GROWING THE EQUIVALENT OF SIBERIAN TOMATOES.)

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One of my thriving courgettes (zucchini) on the verge of blossoming. (Which is EXACTLY why I kicked that very nearly flowering plant out of this house - the second I let ONE plant mature, flower and fruit in the house is the second I breakdown and let ALL of the damn plants mature, flower and fruit in the house and we don't have the room for that sort've Eden.)

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.

A Lot of Food

If there's no obvious holiday decorations, ornate altar spread in the lounge, or sheepskin rug and rocket bucket in the backroom, how do you know we're on vacation?

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Food. A lot of food.

(A lot of food of the likes you've never seen and probably don't want to see and probably shouldn't see after a day or two of mingling and standing at room temperature. <- LOOK, IF YOU'VE GOT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE TOGETHER WHERE EVERYTHING RUNS FLUIDLY INTO ONE ANOTHER LIKE EFFORTLESS MOVEMENT IN GOLDEN WATERS AS HEAVENLY CHOIRS SING, CONGRATULATIONS. SOME OF US - THE LESSER EVOLVED - ARE STILL TRYING TO IRON A FEW KINKS OUT. <- ONE OF MINE BEING "THE DISPOSAL OF RITUALLY OFFERED FOOD AND BEVERAGES IN A TIMELY MANNER.")

(AND WHEN I MEAN "IN A TIMELY MANNER" I MEAN BEFORE IT BEGINS WITHERING AWAY LIKE MOLD ENCRUSTED ASTRONAUT FOOD AND SMELLING LIKE FERMENTING CAULIFLOWER MINERAL WATER.)

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After a day or two shit begins to pile up, and by day three our speaker/stereo cabinet begins to look like the table of a buffet enthusiast who's prepared to exploit every single word in the promise of "all you can eat." (One of my greatest sexual fantasies? Italics, unlimited pot and a booth at Warsaw Inn. I AM THAT BUFFET ENTHUSIAST, AND I DON'T WEAR UNDERWEAR, REALLY, SO I'LL BE MORE THAN COMFORTABLE WHEN MY WAISTLINE'S EXPANDING.)

Papa (the Baron Samedi altar doll) doesn't usually "head" the table, but, somehow, his ass managed to park itself right next to the food. I love his GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON LOOKING RESOLUTE WHILE CROSSING THE DELAWARE expression in the picture below, if you look above (at the first picture) you'll see the target of his grim, fixed gaze - the dessert plate.

(FOOD. IT'S HIS JOB (OR AT LEAST WILL BE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS), AND HE TAKES HIS JOB V. SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU.)

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Spring Migration

Chile Bird flew the coup on April 1st and made his (her?) great seasonal migration from SORT'VE ALTAR WALL DECORATION to SORT'VE ALTAR WINDOW DECORATION.

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(Top left corner: yellow beaded juniper necklace, a string of Papa's unripened (but dry) chillis / Top right corner: Celtic seahorse fake stained glass / Bottom left corner: donkey fake stained glass / Bottom right corner: Celtic peacock fake stained glass / Windowsill, left-to-right: Serket, Hathor, succulent w/sandalwood incense from Egypt, Tawaret, stone jars, Wadjet, Sobek, succulent w/sandalwood incense from Egypt, Thoth, Anubis, little fishie jar filled with buttons that need to be sewn back onto clothing)

I've been going back and forth (for fucking MONTHS, guys, FOR FUCKING MONTHS) on when it'd be most appropriate to change the window guard of the accidental Egyptian altar. (OR NOT SO ACCIDENTAL AS I LEARNED LAST YEAR. MY GOD, HOW LOLERIFICALLY OBVIOUS IT WAS ALL ALONG, BUT IT TOOK ME BEING SUPER HIGH AND ROLLING AROUND ON THE OFFICE FLOOR LIKE SOME SORT OF FARM ANIMAL TO REALIZE IT.)

FUCK IT, I announced a few days ago, amazingly and completely wasted off my ass, CHILE BIRD IS GOING UP ON APRIL 1ST! And with THAT declaration THE SEASONAL CHANGING OF THE GUARDS was set in stone. (IT HAD TO BE! I WROTE DOWN THE REMINDER IN MY WITCH CALENDER IN PEN. IN //PEN// PEOPLE!)(<- BECAUSE SHIT DOESN'T GET ANY MORE SERIOUS THAN USING A FUCKING PEN IN AN ADDRESS BOOK OR CALENDER. INK? THAT'S FOREVER, BABY.)

On April 1st Chile Bird returned home at 6:25 AM (Italics set his phone to go off at dawn), roosting for the first time amongst the dust, ash, cobwebs and withered spider parts. I HONESTLY TRULY FOR REAL intended to give the window altar a thorough cleaning* before hanging up our copper and lapis friend, but I, uh, didn't have the time. (NO, BUT FOR SERIOUS! TIME'S SOMETHING I'VE SERIOUSLY BEEN LACKING LATELY!) But - BUT! - I DID find the time yesterday, the first day of our Easter vacation. (OH HONEY I DID - I SPENT MY FIRST DAY OF VACATION CLEANING LIKE A CRACKHEAD ON CRACK.)

* "A thorough cleaning" = CLEARED OFF ALL OBJECTS, METHODICALLY FLASHWIPED EVERY WOODEN PIECE OF WINDOW AND WINDOWSILL INSIDE, POLISHED HANDLES & HINGES, CLEANED OUT & POLISHED VENT, METHODICALLY FLASHWIPED EVERY WOODEN PIECE OF OUTSIDE WINDOW AND WINDOWSILL, CLEANED OUT SPIDER APPENDAGES & COBWEBS FROM FRAME AND OUTSIDE CORNERS, WASHED & POLISHED OUTSIDE WINDOW, WASHED & POLISHED INSIDE WINDOW, WASHED RADIATOR BENEATH WINDOW, SOAKED SUCCULENTS, DUSTED & POLISHED EVERY CLEARED OBJECT

(All to be performed - AGAIN! - on October 1st when Chile Bird flies south for the winter and the Cobweb Spider returns to fill the seasonal vacancy. Oi vey.)

Some Say Prayers, I Say Mine

Spring happened sometime between borsht and The Sisters of Mercy; before the last of the slanting, sloping rays of the setting sun disappeared behind subdivision roofs, and after the first hissing pop-n-crackle of the turntable's speakers instantly coming to life with the push of one rectangular button.

Or maybe it happened during Lucretia, My Reflection when swimming in the golden light of dark matter - dirt embedded under fingernails, damp earth clinging to jeans, seeds spilling from hand to soil, body dancing, dancing, dancing under the beam of the last light, the final streak of glowing warmth hitting skin and setting flesh alight like an incandescent orthodox icon.

"WE GOT THE KINGDOM, WE GOT THE KEY / WE GOT THE EMPIRE, NOW AS THEN," I sang - I prayed - while planting on the concrete patio steps, the upper half of my body crossing the open threshold from outside to inside for seeds and biodegradable peat cups, only just aware of the significance of the movement - the moment - of mirrored life.

("WE DON'T DOUBT, WE DON'T TAKE REFLECTION...")

Lost in the whirling, tumbling pull of cannabinoids I shed my skin of self-consciousness (whatever thin, transparent, negligible "skin" I have) and freed myself into the rushing current head first, heart open and body willing. It was prayer, it was praise, it was giving thanks while simultaneously grieving, it was the soul speaking directly without words, without thought, without distractions or filters. It was tribute, it was worship, it was exaltation and glorification of being.

("SOME SAY PRAYERS / I SAY MINE...")

Or, perhaps, Spring might've begun the second I dropped the dull needle to vinyl, and, as Dominion began playing, I threw open the patio door and knelt at the concrete pew of nature. (THE PEW OF NATURE, ADMITTEDLY, WOULD'VE BEEN MORE...NATURE-Y...IF THE GROUND HADN'T BEEN SO FUCKING DAMP MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO DO ANY PLANTING ON THE BARE EARTH.) Papa's birds, roused by sound, crept closer to the house, the melodious song of the blackbirds echoing lyrics, joining Chippy (who was sitting on an empty bag of seedling compost) and I in the ancient rite, reveling and paying homage to the beginning of the end.

And when all was said and done, all was celebrated, when the warmth waned, the night breeze cooled, when the seeds were covered, the soil spent, when the remnant of the sun was just a faint haze of fading orange in the obscured horizon I bowed my head in reverence, in thanksgiving, and tenderly held the promise of new life while filling earthen chalices with water, one biodegradable peat pot at a time.

Clannad's Past Present, the closing hymn, gently ironed out the electricity of jangly guitar rock and ecstatic, heady dancing gave way to reserved thankfulness. In the chill of the gloam - with the blue Loch Ness monster watering can in hand - I found myself suddenly chanting "BEE BEE, COME HOME, BEE BEE, COME HOME, BEE BEE, COME HOME..." when watering Beh's only-just-planted container of bee balm.

Maybe Spring began when my eyes welled up with tears that threatened to break the barrier of lashes and spill across my sun-kissed cheeks. Watering, I felt the bitter sting of loss, the ache as sharp as it was almost a year ago when we lost our Bee, and then when I lost her, again, when the honey bee, at the send of the season, crawled through the office window and clung onto the sagging DIY screen and slowly died next to me - less than a foot away - as I cried and stroked it's listless, buzzing body. "BEE BEE, COME HOME," I coaxed my Bee, I coaxed all of my vanishing, dying Bees, so they knew that they haven't been forgotten, so they knew that they were still needed.

God, I don't know, maybe Spring actually began with the decision to bake fresh bread a day before (molasses oatmeal "farmer's bread"). Or to defrost one of the last frozen blocks of borsht and have it - along with the freshly baked bread - for lunch this afternoon. Or when I said "FUCK IT, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE!" to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it was a little TOO late to start Spring planting when the sun was about to set.

Or when I saw the haggard, Old Woman in the sediment of my tea cup, reaching over the deep ravine to the young Bride, becoming and yet letting go. Or after I jokingly scattered pumpkin seeds I cleaned and toasted ("LOL! WE CAN USE THESE FOR DIVINATION! WATCH!") to find a poised scorpion lurking within the contents ("LOL! MR. AWESOME CAN HAVE THESE! LOLOLOL!"). Or the wild, careless dancing I gave into when Children of Bodom's covers of Somebody Put Something in My Drink and Rebel Yell came on while I was cooking dinner.

Or, fuck, maybe Spring officially began when I took two homemade pheasant pot pies out of the oven that Italics and I had made together and we discovered that my set of asterisks had magically transformed - through the power of baking - into a promise of what was to come:

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(DUDE, WHEN YOU'RE HIGH //ANYTHING LEAF-LIKE// LOOKS LIKE POT LEAVES, OKAY?)

(PLANTED: aubergines (5), bee balm (approx. 60), courgettes (5), peas (2 trays), Russian sunflowers (11) and sub-arctic tomatoes (5). WATERED: apple trees grown from seed (3, but one hasn't sprouted leaves yet), Russian olives (no signs of life yet) and strawberries (need to separate and plant into strawberry pot). INSIDE: aubergines, courgettes and sub-arctic tomatoes. LEFT OUTSIDE: bee balm, peas and Russian sunflowers.)

(IMPORTANT NOTES: Crumbled up Beh's two-pack of BEBE COOKIES (CRACKERS?) and added the crumbs to the compost before planting Beh's bee balm over it. <- THAT? THAT'S CALLED //MAGIC//, BABY!)

Yule Log '08

THE STORY OF THE YULE LOG.

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This was the first year we had a proper Yule Log. (Or my version of a Yule Log. <- ADMITTEDLY I DON'T KNOW MUCH; I LIKED HOW THE IDEA SOUNDED AND JUST RAN WITH THE CONCEPT WITHOUT BOTHERING TO DO ANY REAL RESEARCH, WHICH IS, NATURALLY, THE BEST WAY TO MAKE IDEAS -MORE REAL AND SPECIAL- TO YOU.)

On the 23rd of December (I KNOW, I KNOW, POST-YULE) we went out for winter walk to specifically find a Yule Log and possible Stoner Tree. (<- CHRISTMAS IS A BIG DEAL, OKAY? SO I HAVE A NAZI CHRISTMAS TREE IN THE LOUNGE THAT IS THE SHOW CHRISTMAS TREE THAT ADHERES TO A VERY STRICT COLOR-THEMED CODE WHICH MEANS A LOT OF FUN AND STUPID AND LOLTASTIC ORNAMENTS DON'T GET HUNG UP ON IT. SO, IN THE BACKROOM, WE HAVE THE STONER TREE WHICH IS DECORATED WITH MULTI-COLORED LIGHTS AND EVERYTHING THAT MAKES US LOL! AND AWW! THROUGHOUT THE FESTIVE SEASON.)

Along the way I found holly growing at the Disturbed Children's Home (<- A SMALL VICTORIAN MANORESQUE HOUSE ALONG THE ROAD THAT WAS ONCE USED TO HOME "DISTURBED" YOUNG BOYS, GIRLS, AND ORPHANS. RIGHT NOW IT'S ABANDONED BUT IS IN GOVERNMENT CUSTODY SINCE IT WAS ONCE A GOVERNMENT FACILITY. IT IS CREEPY, BUT THE KIDS HAVE WARMED UP TO US WITH BRIBES OF CANDY AND SWEETS AND A GIFT OF TOYS LAST YEAR DURING CHRISTMAS. SO -DON'T PISS ME OFF- BECAUSE I HAVE A SPECTRAL HOUSEHOLD OF DISTURBED CHILDREN WHO ENJOY BEING DISTURBED AT MY DISPOSAL.) so we clipped several branches for eventual house decoration.

After that winter harvest we meandered through our usual walking route of: crossing the beech hedgerow over the stone wall, through the cow field, over another stone wall, getting high at the small ruined church, taking dubious pictures in the sort've abandoned walled garden behind it (NEXT TIME WE'LL STEAL THE CLAW, OLD FOLKS!), exiting the walled garden and following the path through to the road to the now old folks' home (once a much larger manor; the walled garden and ruined church is part of it), ambled down the road and out onto the street, turned the corner and entered the cemetery so we could make our offerings and visit our ancestors before returning home.

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Winter mist descending from the hills.

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Every year I love Scotland more and more.

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Ruined church across the cow field.

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There's only one cross on the building AND I WANT IT SO BAD.

This year in the field in front of the manor a farmer grew potatoes. (AND I WENT MENTAL WHEN I HAD THE SNEAKING SUSPICION WHAT THE CROP WAS; I CIRCLED THE STONE WALL MANIC, PACING BACK AND FORTH WHILE TRYING TO REMEMBER IF THOSE LEAVES AND STALKS AND PLANT MATERIAL LOOKED FAMILIAR TO ME AT ALL, SINCE I WAS A KID THE LAST TIME I WAS FACE-TO-FACE WITH A POTATO PLANT. THANKFULLY, SOMEONE UPROOTED A FEW PLANTS AND BABY POTATOES WERE STILL ATTACHED TO THE WITHERED STALKS. THEN, AS EXPECTED, I WENT EVEN MORE MENTAL - FRESH POTATO FREE-FOR-ALL!)

When the crop was confirmed we came back closer to harvest time, around six in the morning, and harvested a little for ourselves. (THERE WERE SO MANY HIGH-LIGHTS TO THIS YEAR, BUT ONE OF THEM - I MEAN, RIGHT UP THERE - IS SNEAKING INTO A FARMER'S FIELD IN THE EARLY AM AND FRANTICALLY DIGGING UP EARTH TO REVEAL A RICH TREASURE OF POTATOES WITH MY HUSBAND WHICH WERE SMUGGLED AWAY IN ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY GROCERY BAGS.)

Those potatoes? FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. (Oh, we had them hashed, fried, dilled, roasted...) (<- You can officially add "potato thieves" to our list of criminal and moral offenses.)

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As if the treat of stolen potatoes wasn't enough I was very lucky to find Her. She had just been killed, and a pair of crows were keeping her company. By the time I was able to scoop her up she had only lost her eyes and there was a small hole in her thigh, but she was otherwise immaculate. And soft and pliable, but cold. I cradled this beautiful thing who had just lost her life in my arms, and took her home with me, later burying my face in fur and crying on the back step. (She was just so...real. I don't know, she felt like a pet, and I mourned her as if she was a pet.) She's in the freezer now - DON'T TELL MY IN-LAWS, THEY HAVE NO CLUE THAT I HAVE A WHOLE DEAD RABBIT AND CROW IN THE OUTSIDE FREEZER - because I wasn't sure how to preserve certain aspects of her body, so she's frozen until I'm more knowledgeable.

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I carried her over a mile; at first cradled in my arm like a sleeping pet, and then like contraband that had to be sneaked in the house least the parents find out. Her fur gleamed like gold in the rays of the rising sun, and she was the single more gorgeous thing I had seen in a long time. (It was so hard finally breaking the connection and wrapping her up in her plastic grocery bag death shroud before committing her to her freezer grave.)

RIGHT, OKAY, I AM RAMBLING WITH PICTORIAL EVIDENCE NOW, TIME TO GET BACK ON TRACK.

We kept our eyes out for a fallen piece of limb that we could use as our Yule Log. I had a feeling that we'd end up finding it along the long stretch of road from the manor/old folks' home to the street, and those ovary instincts were right. Just as we had stopped for a second to snap a few pictures of the potato field in winter I noticed THE PERFECT LOG. (We never found THE PERFECT STONER TREE, but with so many things going on this year we opted not to have one.)

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Barren potato field.

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Setting winter sun over the potato field.

Once home it got decorated with the evergreen and holly we had cut down, using some of my mother's (she died several years back, so the very few things I have of hers are super special and only get used for super special occasions) green embroidery thread I bound the branches to the log. We both found a part of the center piece on that walk; Italics found the gold star in the cemetery, and I can't remember where I found the spiral coil. (<- WHIRLPOOL ALERT.) (I have a sneaking suspicion that I might've found the coil at the ruined church...)

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The Yule Log sat in front of the altar on the sheepskin rug Italics was bundled in when he was younger. (LULZ, IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT, IT TOOK UNTIL I APPROPRIATED THE SKIN BEFORE THE RUG GOT EXPOSED TO DRUGS AND SEX, AND, ON A FEW OCCASIONS, A COMBINATION OF BOTH.) The wooden crab is one of Italics's special pieces (it's one of his animals / symbols) and I often use it for incense burning. (You can't see it, but it has a carved out dip in the middle of the shell, so it perfectly holds my bowls of burning incense and also absorbs the emanating heat.)

I'm not entirely sure how to concisely explain the Black Rabbit thing. I'm governed by (and am part of) a female deity who's all about SEX, DEATH, DRUGS, VIOLENCE, WAR, FIGHTING, INEBRIATION, NIGHT, MAGIC - you know, ALL OF THE FUN STUFF THAT MAKES LIFE WORTHWHILE. She has different names in different cultures, but in this lifetime She came to me with a Russian heritage, with an entirely new name. "Black Rabbit" isn't her name, but it is Her. And to honor the Black Rabbit we bought five teal plastic rabbits from the gardening section of ASDA (that's the UK equivalent of Wal-mart) and spray-painted them black for ritual/altar use. There's a HEAD Black Rabbit - pictured above - who got a coating of gold glitter and was decorated with my Santa Muerte pendant and a strand of skull prayer beads.

(WHEN YOU'RE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF A LOT OF DIFFERENT INTOXICANTS THE SHADOWS OF THE RABBITS ON THE WALLS BECOME ELONGATED AND SHARP UNTIL THEY BECOME SILENT, IMPOSING JACKALS.)

The brass devil/imp fire poker was a gift from me to Italics this year. We're slowly getting more into ritually burning things (I like to burn any flowers or foliage used for magic or altar work, and the remains of vegetable and herb plants that were grown for special purposes) so we can incorporate the ash into the dirt that'll be used to grow even more vegetables, herbs, and flowers. After THE NIGHT OF HECATE experience (OH, LULZ, THAT NIGHT) I decided Italics probably needed something a little more swish than the METAL HANDLE OFF A BROKEN BADMINTON RACKET he was using to stoke the fire.

AND THAT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS THE STORY OF 2008'S YULE LOG. (WHICH STILL NEEDS TO BE BURNED. <- WE'LL GET AROUND TO IT...EVENTUALLY.)

How Many...?

Q: How many witches wake up at 4:30 in the fucking morning to consecrate a hole that city workers dug up right in front of her house (SYMBOLICALLY IT'S A GRAVE, OKAY?) the day before with blood, urine, magic mushrooms, and antique hair pins?

A: NONE, LOL, THEY HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON BECAUSE IT'S WAY TOO FUCKING EARLY IN THE MORNING AND IT'S RAINING, ANYWAY, AND SLEEP FOR ANOTHER TWO HOURS AND THEN RUSH TO GET EVERYTHING DONE BEFORE EARLY COMMUTERS CAN CATCH THEM IN ACTION. (BURN THE WITCH!)

Bean Nighe

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Not all of us have to die in childbirth.

Let's Exchange the Experience

First windstorm night; pulled and tied gusts in fluttering apron just after midnight. I'M THE OLD WOMAN, THE WASHER, AND I BRING THE RAIN. (She's getting closer to the top of the hill.) It crashed and hissed and exploded like wings (surf breaking? only a lobster, clinging to the ground...) and when the cold air touched the small of my back I arched and shuddered in the darkness, my fingers knotted around the old white cotton of my wedding dress, holding the wind and feeling the weight of the world bear down on me as I inched up the hill.

Happy 100 posts, baby.

Sunrise Over Scotland

Today I woke up to a rainbow and Fox's Wedding, so the very first thing I did - before pissing, before making a cup of tea, before saying good morning to the rats - was tie on Our apron and collect rain in the folds while watching the sunrise over Scotland.

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(NOT EVERY TIME IS ALL STORMS AND LIGHTENING AND THUNDER, OKAY? SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO CATCH THE RAINBOWS AND SUMMER DRIZZLE TO -BALANCE THINGS OUT-!)

(LOL, I AM COMPLETELY JOKING 100%, BTW. ABOUT THE RAINBOWS AND BALANCE SHIT, I MEAN.)

(I WAS, IN FACT, STANDING IN MY DASHIKI IN THE BACK GARDEN IN MY BARE FEET JUST BEFORE EIGHT IN THE MORNING COLLECTING RAIN IN AN APRON I APPROPRIATED FROM MY MOTHER-IN-LAW THAT WAS WORN AS MY -FOR SERIOUS- WEDDING DRESS THIS YEAR BECAUSE YOU GOT TO MAKE SURE YOU GET -ALL KINDS OF RAIN-, NOT JUST THE BLISTERY KIND, WHEN DOING THIS CAILLEACH / WEATHER STUFF. BUT I WASN'T DOING IT TO "BALANCE THINGS OUT", SO LET'S NOT BE CONFUSED WHATSOEVER.)

(I MEAN, LOL, WTF YOU THINK THIS SHIT IS, LLEWELLYN?)

Make A Wish

I finally pulled my magic witch hair out. (I believe I fit in the category of BEARD FROM A VIRGIN/MAIDEN. <- When virgin means "WOMAN WITHOUT CHILDREN", obviously! (OBVIOUSLY.)) I'd been saving it for weeks and months, not knowing what I was going to use it for, so I just waited and saved and watched and stroked and wondered and then finally (FINALLY!), about five minutes ago, I knew what I wanted to use it for.

(12 hours before my appointment.)

I ran a thumb across my hairless witch chin (A CRONE NO MORE), just before I dropped the single black hair onto Her phone. And then I looked at Her, and She looked at me, and I said "YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS FOR" and She just gave me the rabbit grin.

Thirty Minutes After

I stopped it from raining last night.

(It held for an evening and thirty minutes; it waited for a shower and a beer. I pulled Our apron tight - high above the stars - and We cradled the rain against Our body, against Ourselves, with arms unwavering as the clouds billowed and rolled below Us. The Universe said "YOU DID THIS. YOU DID THIS, YOURSELF." and I laughed and I cried while we watched my rain from the kitchen windows, after a shower, after a beer - thirty minutes after I looked up at the sky and said "NOW IT CAN RAIN!" as the blood and semen and spit and wine sank into the earth where there were roots without sheaves of wheat.)

Aquarius Lunar Eclipse

Tonight I Reaped.

I Break Legs, Bring Snow

The following post ventures into "OLD NOTES" territory. In this particular case it's a copy and paste job from an old livejournal entry from Nov. 22nd, 2007.

So Italics's Dad was all "OCH IT'S NAE GOWIN TA SNEW!" (<- LOLOLOLOLOL! GROUND'S KEEPER WILLY!) to me when it V. V. V. V. V. CLEARLY WAS GOING TO SNOW and I was all "I DON'T KNOW, IT'S THE RIGHT SORT OF WIND" and he was all "BUT IT'S TOO BRIGHT" and then "IT'S TOO WARM" and I was all "I DON'T KNOW, IT'S THE RIGHT SORT OF WIND" and he CLEARLY DIDN'T BELIEVE ME so I was all "I'LL SHOW THAT CRAZY OLD BASTARD!" and I marched outside with a shot of vodka and I said "BABA, LET LOOSE YOUR APRON AND BRING ME SNOW!" and, lo and behold, within two hours, just as Italics's Dad and Mom were leaving for their trip (which prevented them from having Thanksgiving with us), just as they were CROSSING THE THRESHOLD FROM THE DOOR INTO THE OUTSIDE it started snowing and I was all "OH, HEY, LOOK, I WAS RIGHT - IT'S SNOWING!" in my happy cheerful "WHAT NOW, NIGGA?" voice.

DANCE, MAGIC, DANCE!

(In return I said "T'BEAH YEAST-TEH, BABA!" when I left her a turkey wing and a homemade crescent butter roll out in the snow on the patio's ledge . (<- LOL! A+ HAPPENING, UNINTENTIONAL LUNAR CRESCENT CAKE OFFERING! A+++! I IZ TEH BEST @ MAGIC!))

Two Down, Seven to Go

Today Italics fucked me so hard I couldn't walk straight. Literally. (I'm expecting a bruise after the metal bed frame incident. And another one thanks to the entire walked-into-a-wall thing.) (THE FACT THAT I GOT CALLED "A FAT FUCKING SLUT" DURING SEX AND SLAPPED ON THE ASS DEFINITELY TAKES THE EDGE OFF OF WHAT OTHERWISE COULD HAVE BEEN A VERY TRAUMATIC EVENT.)

Side note to self: Two rooms "sealed" (back and bedroom). Anointed threshold of every door and every windowsill in room with combined body fluid immediately after sex. ("WHO SMEARED SEMEN AND VAGINAL SECRETIONS ALL OVER THE ROOM WHILE WE WERE GONE?") Seven more to go (includes outside room). (Garage for the LULZ?)

Game Point

Magic likes to volley, but not in an amicable, Pong sort’ve way. There’s no waiting in magic; when inspiration hits you need to get shit done, STAT, otherwise you’ll find yourself stalling, and the longer it takes you to “serve”, the longer the universe has to prepare to spike your lazy fucking ass. (HAVING PLAYED NEITHER VOLLEYBALL NOR BADMITON PROFESSIONALLY IN ANY SENSE, I CAN CONCLUDE, WITH MY VERY LITTLE ELEMENTARY/HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE, THAT SERVING AND OFF-SETTING SPIKING CAN BE VERY, VERY HARD WHEN PLAYING ONE-ON-ONE ON A FULL SIZED COURT.) How ever you decide to approach it there’s one thing for certain – it’s been impatiently waiting to bounce the ball back into your court while you were pissing time away.

I’ve experienced the instantaneous return enough to know better than to sit on shit. (One of these days I’ll eventually get around to logging the story of how Papa told me to boil and bury an egg, and then hatched me out a bird. <- THESE ARE NOT, IN FACT, LYRICS FROM A PETER, PAUL, AND MARY SONG DESPITE THE FANTASTICAL ELEMENT OF THE RIDICULOUS AND IMPOSSIBLE. (LIKE BEING WARY OF THE LEMON TREE, OR SAILING AROUND IN A SHOE, OR THAT PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON WASN’T ACTUALLY A METAPHOR OR REFERENCE TO DRUGS.)) But sit on shit, dear diary-journal-log-book of shadows, I still do. (NOTE: IF YOU FIND YOURSELF REREADING THIS ENTRY IN A FEW YEARS TIME AND THAT EMPTY BOTTLE OF RUM THAT HASN’T BEEN FILLED WITH GRAVEYARD DIRT AND HASN’T BEEN PLACED UNDER THE BED STILL HASN’T BEEN FILLED WITH GRAVEYARD DIRT OR BEEN PLACED UNDER THE BED (LIKE THE OLD MAN INSTRUCTED) THEN YOU HAVE A SERIOUS, CHRONIC CONDITION THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING CURE.)

...except for this time.

Chippy, for better or for worse, is a demon-about-town. (You wouldn’t expect an entity composed of jackals, snakes, scorpions, lions, eagles, and an emaciated man (whose apparent existence was-is-was built on a foundation of disease, famine, chaos, and death) to be inherently metrosexual, but you would be wrong. (And how wrong you would be!)) He enjoys the finer things in life – food, bathing, perfumes, fashion, long walks down country roads near cattle and sheep that can be easily crazed into a murderous stampede (WHEN YOU TAKE A VERY ANIMAL-LIKE DEMON YOU’VE TRAINED LIKE A DOG FOR A WALK ALWAYS MAKE SURE HE’S WEARING HIS COLLAR AND LEASH OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF BOVINE ON HUMAN VIOLENCE! <- THEY WILL TRY AND SCALE ANCIENT STONE WALLS TOPPED BY BARBED WIRE WITH THEIR SUPPOSEDLY HERBAVOIRE HOOVES. TRUST ME ON THIS.), the occasional soup bone, lesbians (<- he’s male, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise), and reading the Sunday paper (I think he might just be looking at the pictures which, I know, isn’t really “reading” but it doesn’t require me to teach a demon all about the written word so I’m not about rain on his possible picture parade).

After seriously disrupting our lives when he first appeared Chippy house-trained well (or, at least, well enough to this MAGIC NOVICE who, at the time, decided the best way to work with the incorporeal was by using something corporeal – a large, plush Shar Pei stuffed animal in his case. <- I HAD SEVERAL DREAMS WHERE CHIPPY WAS “GIVEN” TO ME, AND, FOR WHATEVER REASON, HIS CHOSEN FORM WAS OF A SHAR PEI TOY EVER SINGLE FUCKING TIME, SO I JUST WENT WITH IT.), and settled into family life quickly. (I’d maybe almost say that there was slight desperation, on his part, to be with me/to be here, and the prospect of being alone, in the end, totally outweighed the prospect of “sharing”. (<- AND NOW HE IS ALL ABOUT SHARING. SERIOUSLY.)) In his very genuine attempt to fit into a family structure and become relevant to the household we would often find him copying other people’s (or other things’) preferences, or mimicking/trying to get involved in whatever activity we were currently engaged in.

Reading the paper has become something of a weekly institution for us. It’s simultaneously A SERIOUS BANE TO MY EXISTANCE (when it takes me over a fucking week to get through it – AND I DON’T EVEN READ THE ENTIRE GODDAMN PAPER!), and an idealized Sunday morning/afternoon that’s often fantasized about (inviting/invoking everyone to join us for some homemade French toast or pancakes, bacon, coffee, sloppy Mimosas, the Sunday Times, and an inexhaustible amount of pot), but rarely executed. I’m sure it was during one of those few, magnificent lazy days that Chippy inevitably linked READING with HAVING A GOOD TIME (<- OH, GOD, IS THIS WHAT IT’S LIKE WHEN YOU’RE A SMART PERSON WHO ENDS UP HAVING A STUPID KID? JESUS.) since a lot of our relationship developed around associating one thing with another (i.e., understanding that when I was interacting with the plush dog I was actually interacting with him).

Chippy normally sticks to the FASHION and ARTS & CULTURE supplements and sometimes, on the very rare occasion, the main section of the Sunday Times. (We have this in-joke when I’ll ask him what’s going on in the world and he’ll respond with something like “TROUBLE IN MIDDLE EAST, WOMAN!” and I’ll LOL and he’ll LOL despite the joke being old, BUT NOT AS OLD AS THE CONCEPT OF “TROUBLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST” TO A SUMERIAN ENTITY!) On a particular Saturday night, a few weeks back, Chippy requested the “money” section of the newspaper out of the blue. When I asked him what the fuck he wanted it for he said he was going to use it to get me money. (SCORE!) I spent something like a half hour tearing the fucking house apart looking for the very specific section he requested which I never read in the first place which ultimately meant IT WAS ONE OF THE VERY FIRST PARTS OF THE PAPER TO GET DUMPED. (Christ.)

Of course I couldn’t find the damn thing, so he had to be placated with the “business” section from that week and was given the promise that he could have the “money” section from the paper that we’d be getting the next day. That night Chippy went to bed with the folded business section of the paper tucked between his mouse pillow and the wall. (YES, HE DOES GET TUCKED IN EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, AND FURTHER MORE HE REFUSES TO SLEEP IN THE BED WE GOT HIM FOR CHRISTMAS LAST YEAR – HE USES THAT AS HIS LOCKER ROOM – AND SNOOZES ON THE FLOOR RIGHT NEXT TO MY SIDE OF THE BED USING A MOUSE PILLOW FOR HIS PILLOW AND MY ROBE FOR A BLANKET AND I KNOW I SHOULD BE STRICT AND FIRM AND GET HIM TO SLEEP IN HIS DAMN BED BUT IT’S CRAZY HARD TO IGNORE THE PITIFUL SOUND OF HIS WHINING DEEP INSIDE MY BRAIN WHEN I’M TRYING TO GET MY SLEEP ON.) And there, dear diary-journal-log-book of shadows, it sat, and I wondered how the hell the universe was going to work its magic by having me give an entity-cum-toy-cum-idol a piece of newsprint. (We briefly thumbed through the articles but nothing caught our eyes.)

It sat for a week, maybe two. (Maybe less with the way my memory works. <- AN UNFORTUNATE SIDE-EFFECT FROM THE HABITUAL USE OF WEED, BUT AN UNFORTUNATE SIDE-EFFECT THAT IS WORTH THE PRICE!) One evening when we were smoking up in the bedroom the first fly of the season graced us with its presence. (A VERY FATAL MISTAKE, MY LITTLE FRIEND!) As it sprung off walls and buzzed around agitated I gave it the warning most “beasts” (<- BY FAR ONE OF MY FAVORITE UK/SCOTTISH COLLOQUISMS!) get in this house – “CHIPPY, TELL YOUR FRIEND TO LEAVE OR I’M GOING TO SWAT ITS FUCKING ASS!”. (Almost every insect is referred to as one of Chippy’s “friends” with him being THE (MESOPOTAMIAN) LORD OF FLIES AND ALL.)

When the fly didn’t haul ass I called fair game and scouted, while very, very high, for something to smack it with. And THEN I had one of those MAGIC INSPIRATION MOMENTS brought on by a serious head rush (<- THE VERY BEST SORT OF MAGIC INSPIRATION MOMENTS!) and I was all “OH SHIT! I NEED THAT FLY! DON’T LET THAT FLY GET AWAY!”. (I can’t remember the exact details, but the idea was rhyming HONEY and MONEY while submerging the fly in the liquid BECAUSE OH MY GOD FLIES LIKE HONEY AND THEREFORE IT CAN BE EASILY USED IN SOME SORT OF MONEY RITUAL SPELL THING WHERE THE FLY REPRESENTS MONEY AND WE REPRESENT THE HONEY AND ALL WE WOULD HAVE TO DO IS PRESERVE THE FLY IN HONEY UNTIL WE NEED IT AND THEN WE CAN JUST BURN IT ON A CHARCOAL BLOCK AND HOW ACE AND WONDERFUL AND TERRIFIC IS THAT?! Fine. It made sense to my brain, anyway.)

There was absolutely nothing suitable in the bedroom to do the job, EXCEPT FOR A NEWSPAPER SECTION THAT COULD EASILY GET ROLLED UP INTO A TUBE THAT WAS OTHERWISE JUST SITTING ON THE FLOOR, BETWEEN THE WALL AND PILLOW, WAITING TO BE USED FOR –SOMETHING MONEY RELATED-! Perfect, except the fly wouldn’t die and I wasn’t sure how the fuck I was going to shake out A LIVING, BREATHING, FLYING FLY THAT MOST CERTAINLY WAS NOT DEAD IN THE SLIGHTEST out of the jar it was in without losing it. So I spent five minutes, high off my ass, running around with a stackable compartment of containers that screw into one another, desperately trying to think of a solution to my mad cap idea. (I instantly ruled out “JUST LEAVE IT AND LET IT DIE BY SLOW SUFFERCATION!” because, well...Santa Muerte and all of that. WE ARE ALL ABOUT DEATH BEING A HAPPILY ANTICIPATED RELEASE AND RELIEF FROM THE TOILS OF LIFE HERE AT CHEZ GRAVEYARD DIRT.)

Armed with an ash tray, a small metal skewer (FLY KABABS, ANYONE?), a jar of honey, and my stackable, circular compartments all screwed into one another (containing very important things like MY WITCH HAIRS and DEAD SPIDERS! <- IF I SAID I WASN’T TRYING HARD, NAY, IF I SAID I WASN’T EVEN TRYING AT ALL WOULD YOU BELIEVE ME?) I was able to carry out my first ritual sacrifice – crushing and submerging a fly into decanted honey while saying something along the lines “LIKE FLIES TO HONEY, I CALL WEALTH, SUCCESS, AND MONEY!” (<- “SO MOTE IT BE!”, J/K! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!). (And if that wasn’t outrageous enough for you I ALSO WEAR, BUY, AND WORSHIP FUR COATS and ENJOY VEAL WHENEVER POSSIBLE. <- CLEARLY I AM DEMONSTRATING MY INABILITY TO ADHERE TO ANCIENT WICCAN LAWS OF ETHICS AND MORALITY. <- LULZ @ U, LOOSERS! THE ONLY “THREE FOLD RULE” I ACKNOWLEDGE IS WHEN I’M MAKING CHINESE FORTUNE TELLERS OUT OF PAPER! Do you want number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8...?)

So, ritual-wise, that’s the work done. (If you count “FINDING A PROPER CONTAINER THAT ISN’T AN ASHTRAY SHOVED INTO A ZIPLOC BAG SITTING ON MY ALTAR/NIGHTSTAND WITH EVERY OTHER FUCKING THING THAT DOESN’T NEED TO BE OUT (BUT, FOR SOME EXPLICABLE REASON, IS) TO STORE AND PROPERLY SEAL THE FLY FOR LATER USE” as “work”.) And, for once, I was ready for the spike, which means I shouldn’t be surprised at the immediacy of these things because, really, THERE SHOULD BE NO EXCUSE FOR ME LAMELY LETTING THE BALL DROP IN MY COURT WHEN IT’S MY TURN TO SERVE OR SET BECAUSE I FUCKING KNOW BETTER BY THIS POINT.

FOR REAL NOTES: Chippy was given the business section from the Feb. 10th, 2008 edition of The Sunday Times. He should have gotten the money section, but it was gone-ed. He received the section on Feb. 16th, 2008 with the promise he could have the money section from the paper the following day (the Feb. 17th, 2008 edition).