bits of the beggar

Detritus. 
What am I?  Not what or who I thought I was.  Not that person or being or thing floating, falling endless away from pulsing nature.  A cup brimming with life's essence.
It doesn't sustain me.
In my quest and questions I don't find truth.
I find what I can not be.  I find strength and love.  Be what I can't be.  But lately, I find this beggar looking ...for more.

It's okay to feel something there, inside.
I'm not a cross or star.  I'm not a smirk on a door.
I find what I am not and it makes me sigh.
Not glamorous, not well... not who I want to be.
So quests and questions yield what I do not want to find
Written on August 30, 2012
I sit with myself and sip from the samovar.  I am unable to find the time to explain how awful it is to be low in spirit sometimes.  Here, I can have a conversation with myself.  Here, I can look back at what I once wrote.  Years ago, it seems now.  I have to admit that I was scratching at the surface.  The ideas for this blog are at least three years in the making.

the Tree People: my long lost tribe

(from November 15, 2011)
For people who know me, they will inevitably know about the treepeople.  These are beings who came to me relatively early on in life and have been my saving grace and the very foundation of my personal beliefs and my creative outlets.  I am thankful for the gifts of this tribe.  This tribe who saved me.  I am forever in their debt.  Beings I created... with a pen, who jumped from the page to be my friends in the lonliest of times.  I called them the treepeople from the beginning and they went with me through my school age years and into college.  They followed me into independence and into my marriage.  They come through me to the pen and give me courage.  Is it strange to be grateful for one's creations?  I say yes.  I am eternally grateful to them.  Had I not had that shot of inspiration early, I may have talked myself out of a lifelong love affair with art.  I may not have gone with them through the woods as I sat in the dark with a candle and music and let them flow.  I had dreams early on to make them lifesized... and live with these lifesized guardians in a room.. such is the mystical woodland in my mind that is full of them.  I still strive to bring them to full scale through any kind of sculpting method possible.  For now they still come forth from the pen as always... bringing me love and thoughts and experiences.  When I saw them and created them and talked to them I did not know anything about any other mythological beings.  I had never heard of these types of creatures... they were simply there and to me that is magical. I guess it's a story about my  youth and my being.  They are me.. My energy is theirs.  Simply put, I feel they are the expression of the very tribe of which I wish to be a part.  For now more will come through.  More pieces of the wood revealed and I will continue to follow them as I always have down the forest paths of my mind.  This is my story... my earliest art adventure and the story of my childhood.  It is my greatest adventure and I continue to look forward.

creative pulse

I've had a bit of a revelation and it makes me happy that I did.
I've gone through giving up on wanting to sell my artwork but I did have a little revelation while reading a Native American legend.  I began to remember going to the museum in Salamanca, NY and the guy there told me that my art must be akin to theirs (the Iroquois).  I saw all of their Corn Mother sculptures and thought "plant people" I told him about my tree people.  Anyway, while reading the Life and Death of Sweet Medicine, it finally occurred to me that my art isn't that off the mark of what they are talking about.  My insides, my brain, whatever, wants to animate the flora and fauna.  I infuse them with my own version of animate and energy.  So, I thought, why not be a storyteller similar to the natives are in their legends and stories?  Since I feel the same inclination, why not?  So, in my own way, I'm going to try to make little books with stories I write that explain the different characters in my creations.  Kinda goofy, since I'm not going to do anything with these little books.  Maybe make copies and give as gifts or something.  But, I  am excited to get exploring creatively again. 
And, I feel, I get to give a little nod to all the storytelling traditions.  One thing I love is when, on Northern Exposure, the medicine man, Leonard Quinlock, tells Ed (shaman in training) that white man's new versions of healing mythologies and stories dwell in filmmaking and movies.  I love that idea, that we simply have a new way to tell healing tales.  Obviously, I'm also going to do the artwork for all the "little books" and bind them with thread.  I'm even going to find gift bags to put them in since I have a definite idea for the look of the books.  In this way, I can write the stories behind my creations and their adventures and create.  I want to be 'Kara the Storyteller' through my art and words.  That is where I belong.  In telling my own healing mythologies. 
  I'm printing the books on parchment and binding them with mainly black thread.  The sheer bags should be white or green or black.  I like the ones with the stars on them.   I feel I can get my art and writing off of its feet.  My first tale is about a seed inside a shell under a leaf.  An animate.  :)  Yay! 
Thought I'd share my end of winter thoughts and things.  I'll just be happy to finally have a little library of my own works.  Whether I get to the printing process or not. 
Right now, I'm jumping into the comic strip I wanted to develop for my treepeople tentatively called 'Leafy Hooligans'.  I'm also currently working on my Tree People Tarot and a 'Leafy Hooligans' calendar.

Waxing Gibbous

83% visible, 11 days old  We prepare to say 'goodbye' to merry May and 'hello' to a full moon at the start of June.  June will be here and there is so much to do!  I am trying to align myself more with the phases.  I am trying to deliberately move through each phase one day or night at a time.  Birthing things at the full moon is an excellent way to send out the positives.  This is animate and energy.  Working the muscles and the memory.  I want to carve the face, the scrolls, the curls.  I want to work on the comic strip.  Life being both comedy and tragedy.  I want the vibe of a cemetery in my quaint living space.  I envision a 'kara' shabby chic.  Some place to park my beat up trunks and tables.  Some stone slab to eternize this mess of life.  Tonight, my moon may appear.  I want to drink in the rest of May.  She'll be gone soon.  With the vines dying and the ivy needing a new home, things are restless.  Planting seeds comes soon.  I put them down the second week of June!  Happy Rosalia in the eve!  Though no roses yet bloom.  There is a promise for flowers to come.  Studio workings (in the studiolo) aren't yet done.  I still have some organizing to do. 

She in Spaces

No dusty old blanket.  No coffin cart.  No way to the cemetery.  I believe in things lost being reclaimed or, simply, found.  They should not stay lost forever.  In this sea of the everyday, we lose many things.  We forget.  Where do they go?  Down a rabbit hole?  People are the worst to lose.  Perhaps it is best not to have them.  I see the circles of the women, the ladies, having their fun.  They are doing all the things they so desire.  They circle and drum.  Why am I not one?  I could blame it all on the mean girls for their tete-a-tete at times they found to bring me down.  They nibble on their amuse bouche of tasty insults.  Hidden slurs.  Quiet whispers.  I could take them to task.  Instead, I'll queue the calliope music for the clown car of versions of myself that never were.  Where, exactly, did the time go?  I'm not a 'real' friend?  I can live with that.  But you'll never take me alive.  So, if I'm not real.  Indeed, if I don't exist to the majority of those in my life, do I exist at all?  Why do men seek to destroy me when they look right through me?  They are the descendants of everything they detest and they show it well.  No soul.  No mercy.  Should I rake them over the coals for it?  Are they the problem here?  It is my space to write and find things that are lost.  It is my place to reveal them.  Right wrongs.  Apologize.  Move on.  Things have got to start.  Things have to be found.  For someone in the bargain basement spirit bin, mine was half off.  For sale.  Dozing.  When I rinse, wash and repeat, I've become a drone.  A conformist to the norm.  Some people ask me to join their band, but I can't play.  Never could.  I'll visit someday.  Just to observe the circles and circles as they join and go on without me.  They have their life, their homes, their fertility.  They have their space, their drums and their spirituality.  I have myself.  She is the only space I've known in this place.  I'm sorry.  Meaning not to offend.  But I can not trust the self with something that my awkward self was never born to be.  I have no confidence in believing.  I see smirks behind smiles.  I have no faith.

Mistress of Fire

Growing up cold, I will steal the fire to feed the flame.  I will expire.  Until that day, I will surely live beyond the paved city, beyond the crumbling homes.  I will live with blooms and boughs.  I will live with a pin dotted sky of stars.  What do I throw out to the Universe?  Even if it doesn't respond, to me the absurd is just as real.  The realization of the smallness and meaninglessness of it all.  Don't quote me, dear scientist.  I am just reeling in my neediness.  My human need for something, someone, to care, is too strong to deny.  Don't ridicule me for thoughts a human should have.  I'm not a human machine.  It's just the wrong day and you didn't give up your artifacts of fiction.  You didn't tell me it doesn't matter that the sky doesn't care.  It stares without ever blinking.  I am aware of how big that sky is, even when it is shrouded in clouds or crowded with trees.  Those trees pull me up by the tresses, pull me up by my muddy boot straps.  Silly girl, they say.  Draw, they say.  It may be fun to cajole with these leafy hooligans.  I sense, though, that the rest of the world took a secret dig at my small world.  These things happen, to even the sweetest flower, to even the nicest girl.  She may have a flower face and shine up at you.  That girl probably has been dug.  She wears the black seed water bead choker and headband.  She looks happy on the outside.  It's a ways old circle that leads back.  I'm still taking that trek over the catwalk across the moonlighted sky with my dad.  He's still telling us that the men are hanging below us on ropes down in the midnight black abyss.  The chilly wind picks up and moves my long hair.  I dream what it would be like to tumble down there and see them as I fall.  The ghost of the old ones, hanging in dreams, hanging on the bridge with my dad and I.  A last memory.  A memory to last.  He takes us over the bridge.  We survive.  He tells us of hidden gold in the valley.  He talks of thieves and Native curses.  The land will reclaim this place, he said.  I remember it clearly.  That was what he said the curse was.  The trains took the land and the tracks would go, the metal would fall.  After getting over the bridge, after looking into the autumnal orange moon, we walked down into the valley below.  We walked into the darkness, on the wild pathway.  We heard the rustling of animals at night, we heard the babbling creek.  No other humans, just us walking.  We made our way up the ravine, to the other side of the bridge and back out.  We made it out alive.  And in the morning, I awoke to see a sight in the thick morning mist.  A native man with a headdress, tomahawk in hand, walking quietly out of the trees.  Abandoning all of my senses, I was transported.  And even though I slept under the stars, I was awakened to the possibility that dreams are real.  More so than the stars I sought in the sky at night.

Moon Candles

We work our way through the phases by the light of the moon candles.  Each phase and shift a reminder of another change.  The first quarter, drawn by athame, is lit by a small candle.  It is lit for the honoring of change and the pace of nature.  It is honoring the clock and wheel.  We are stuck in the cogs of time.  At present, so many things change.  Things revolve and evolve.  This candle calendar for the moon helps us keep track.  Each week we observe and make a tiny mark.  Each rotation is done with deliberation.  New shoots of grass and new moons growing to full.  Walking in a deliberate path with clover under foot or hoof or heel or paw.  Mindless movements of muscle memory.  We remember.  One phase unto the next.  The candle calendar for our moon phase.  Meditations in the midst of chaos.  One rung bell.  Of spring opening.  Who could tell the open hole in the earth to close?  Graves are plantings.  You spend your sleep with dirt and rock.  Bent tree gates to eternity. 

Queen May

I get drawn in because I am so needy.  She is the queen bee or the bee's knees of this ridiculous social construction.  I get drawn in.  I breathe a little too deeply sometimes.  I breathe in the toxic mixture of manipulation and fake smiles.  Is it a friend?  I wonder if I've been pulled in by a shill.  Someone made me relax around these hyenas.  I should defend.  I should pull my guard.  I should throw them away.  The laughing flowers in their quidnunc ways.  I can hear the shrillness of their sounds.  Little laughing petals mock me.  Perhaps, I shouldn't delve into it just now.  The whispers and back stabbing are tiresome.  Something comes with May.  It might just be the freeing temperatures and mild wind.  I have the devil may care attitude now.  I think I should keep it.  Don't feel guilty for feeling full.  Focus on the positives.  Cultivate life like a garden.  Keep loving the variety it brings.  Move forward with life.  One step at a time now.  Pull those trees out of the firmament of the mind.  Pull those flowers forth.  The ones that are pleasing to both eyes and nose are the best.  Pull that forest into view and have a fire to dance around.  Keep an eye on the sky, the clouds, the sun and the moon and never forget to gaze at the stars.  So small they seem to me but they are firey rays of hope shot across the expanse of space and time.  In this world, in this bubble, don't allow the negative to rule the silly spring time.  Don't let the flowers point us into Narcissus' mind.  We have too much to do without drowning in self pity and solitude.

Feast and Fuel

Listening to you has been the best fuel for my soul.  I guess I've felt out of it at times.  I've been running on empty.  You feed me in the best way.  You listen and respond.  I am in my repose.  I don't want to let go but I have to.  She drags away the mask of who she was.  Does she really have to let it go?  I don't want to.  I don't want to say good bye to that girl.  Am I her anymore?  Scrolls of hair drag down in the humidity.  Not who I was before.  Mint leaves over little skulls.  Not a happy girl.  But yellow trees and blue sky symphonies have been my days.  The bird songs in the backdrop.  I try to soak it up now.  The setting sun.  As I sat there, I knew it was over.  The fish jumped high in the morning sun breaking the surface of the pond.  The birds swooped in and made themselves known.  Things started moving as I set out alone.  I didn't want to say good bye.  But I took that moment to do so.  Now, I'm at another crossroads of leaving.  I don't want to let go because I never do.  Who will you be tomorrow?  Where will you go?  Life is leading the dance.  I can reminisce but I can not come back again.  There are crucial times in our life when we must make the correct decision.  Sit back with memories, the prom of the ancient shimmering isles where all the magic began.  Realizing I'm older, the feast must change.  We eat different ideas as we grow old.  The maiden must make her way.  Ways must part.  Now, we each must start.  Light the torch anew.  I am now in transition.  The middle road must be mine.  Holding out each hand  to bridge the gap.  From the young to the old.  Hold all the knowledge you can.  I don't want to make the trek alone.

Dark Moons and Silver Slivers

I am particularly fond of the moon.  As it moves into the first quarter, I begin to think about what life has become.  I am needy.  I am wanting a friend.  Firstly, I do have friends.  But, I guess I want to experience something I never have before.  I am always needy and always wanting.  I want to belong.  I can't instantly chum with someone.  It is not in my dna.  I guess I'm the kind of friend who like the more contemplative conversations.  Hell, I don't mind friending the elderly man who is so kind to me each day.  Honestly, he's a good friend right now.  I feel as though people speak a language I do not.  It is alienating.  I try to reach out with things I understand.  People always end up backing away.  That is okay.  Perhaps I am a little too intense sometimes.  And I've thrown my hands in the air and let the words go.  If this is popularity, if *this* is what it takes, then I guess I'm glad I'm not.  I should simply be thankful for who I am and that I'm not pretending to be something I'm not.  I can joke and I can be a smartass.  But, I am only that with people I feel close to.  If there are doubts there, I can't get that comfortable.  A sliver of the silvery moon hangs in the sky.  It's a little slice of a hello.  Holding out my hand, I pretend I can reach the moon.  I try to hold it up.  No chance.  This act is a simple longing.  I want to know more than just the loneliness of the silvery moon.  I want to know more than it's phases that are followed by the day.  Each night I hold out hope that tomorrow will somehow be different.  No more mirrors.  No more talking to myself out here.  One person has to enter this field.  How lonely will death be?  Are we really going to visit different realities?  Are we going to enter different rooms?  Or, will we travel alone for eternity seeking each other out and never connecting?  Float, flow through space.  See the dreamy dripping colors of a star birth.  Alone.  Where wood and bone may hold you, the stars you can not grasp.  Nothing touches but the dark out here.  Dreaming toward points of light.  Alone.  It is my gravitational constant.  My single mark for which to aim.  That barriers may rip away.  Connection could be made.

Agathos Daimon and relaxing at home

You might get switched for a witch.  You might get switched at birth.  Your identity might not be what they wanted it to be.  You may have been assimilated so quickly, your mark wasn't noticed.  Bringing out the brooms, sweeping away the dust and debris of another year.  Too much paper.  I'd love a glass of wine.  And although I'm a red wine girl, I don't mind some Sweet Chantilly with my dinner.  Something white and on the sweeter side sounds really good right now.  I'm a champagne giggler.  Basically, a really nice drunk.  But you don't want to test the waters too much if you have the tendency towards decadence.  Some do.  Drunkenness, craziness and wildness has driven even the most level headed, cool youth to their breaking point.  You only have it put all together if you can keep it from falling apart.  I have brought about banishing clutter.  It doesn't happen overnight.  But, I want to honor the ancestors well.  I want to tell them, it's all right to enter here.   They may not appreciate a cluttered house.  Too many cracks in the walls.  The grass has become overgrown.  Agathos Daimon may not be relaxing at home.  It might be about preparing.  I feel I'm in constant preparation.  I contemplate the renovation of a new place to be.  We are words.  I'll open another book, watch another show.  Life is working on becoming real.

Lilacs at the end of the alley

This time of year yields so much greenery that when a flower so powerful comes forth it can not help but be noticed.  Most people appreciate lilacs.  I have come to love them so much on my morning jaunt down the lane.  I almost forget the doldrums of the activities life offers up.  Sprinting out in the rain with two dogs and no umbrella, I pull up my hood.  I make it to the end of the mud and rocks and smell them before I see them.  They are simple clusters of purple flowers on a large bush that has become as large as any tree.  The scent flows through the decay of the back alleys and side streets.  It makes everything aromatic and beautiful.  Red rain boots protect against the mud.  Muddy paws pad around the soft earth and delight in it's messiness.  How much we need the water.  I always think that the colors owe their existence to water and light.  How much water will it take to bring out the burnt oranges in the fall?  How much water pulled forth this electric green?  And how much did the light burn through the mist and pull them up by their stems?  It's like hair standing on end watching this spring fiasco.  I am fully ready to embrace the chicks and nests and crazy growing things along my fence.  Lilacs in season.  There is no single time, so fleeting, that creates such contentment. 

Devil's Logia

Fine wine and fruit offerings.  The full moon stirs the restless souls to awaken and speak.  Dare I say, reach for the low hanging fruit from the sparkling tree?  These are dreams.  It seems I have a penchant to walk down imaginary streets as much as I do for living in a dreamscape.  Sometimes, dreams and reality collide.  Confusion ensues.  It is me.  But I also have a penchant for battshittery.  I love the absurd.  Architecture and carvings lace my world.  What about the face that smiles through the branches and then disappears?  I love a good farce.  I love a good tragedy.  The symbols on my class ring were the faces of comedy and tragedy.  The faces of the theater that they represent.  But those faces could also foreshadow the future after leaving high school.  Monk chants and opera stars.  Sounds that reverberated through my headphones.  I suppose this happens after an illness.  It happens after summer and winter arrive in the same week.  My bones and muscles are sore and ache.  My head burns.  The rest of my body shivers with chills.  It's like I'm constantly fighting with myself over where to turn. Nothing is sacred except the possibilities.  And they are like carrots on a string.  Possibilities always exist but you never catch them.  As a child, my earliest dreams were to become an archeologist, a police officer (detective) and a cemetery caretaker.  I haven't achieved or attempted any of these things.  I always envied the old men who rode the lawn mowers at the cemeteries.  Life in a small town is bliss as would be working amongst the dead in an even smaller town (of dead people).  Why do these cemeteries seem so small?  There had to be many more before us who were buried.  Take a bite of the forbidden fruit.  It sparkles in the moonlight and temps the young woman who stands below.  She was just checking for bears rooting through her garbage.  But there are other things in the night and in the forest, just a few feet from her back yard, than she can imagine.  The trees change at night and so does everything in the woods.  The gurgling sound of a stream can take on a creepy quality.  Any deviation in the complexity of the sound can make a brain scream to stop.

Designed to Die: a Flora arrangement

Secret keys to a dark space with dark energy.  Flora and green.  This time of year I call to her.  She dances the dance and lets the petals go.  Even the trees bend and bow and let loose their blooms.  'Take that!' She cries into the warm spring air.  Flora brings up by stems the green shoots of daisies and daffodils.  Sprays of leaves adorn vines.  Up and up they go.  They creep and crawl along the trellis or fence.  They show their faces to the sky.  Flora brings spring things to us all.  What a sweet surprise!  Lilacs and roses.  Buttercup.  Peony and posy (no rings around your roses), would you like a poesy?  Violet and Lily.  Poppies, Orchids, Dogtooth and some wild peas, please?  The world becomes a sight to behold under the growing banquet bouquet.  We shall feast our eyes on orange, yellow and green, red and white, purple and blue.  No more wilting until their time.  We can enjoy a moment under the sun and the moon.  Syzygy of earth, moon and sun.  The seasons change for every one.  Now, sip this wine and taste this herb.  Realize the day is done.  No more dancing.  Spring has sprung. 

Bacchus Calling: an ode to the wayward wanderer

Some nights, it seems are better than others.  Tonight was okay but not exciting.  The wind blew fast over the tombs and rocks and roads.  We sat in an alley in a long black car.  We settled down into the seats.  My sunglasses were perched on my forehead.  The dark clouds were moving in.  They came from far away and the storm looked like a torrential sea flipped on it's head.  Here we are, in the middle of mud and rain.  For another spring, we will never sleep again.

a place to die

Hills with roads.  Access to the dead.  All the vehicles travel here because the townspeople want to say their farewells.  Some come back to take care of their own plot.  Others are caring for the plot of a loved one.  All gather here.  Candles burn and flowers are heaped upon the wet grass.  Look upon the open graves.  There are no bones there.  But we can see the feet beneath us.  How far do they have to plant us to hold us down?  I saw the dead man quickly pass a crypt and move out of sight.  He was tall and pale.  He had long black hair and empty sockets and he moved so fast that it took my breath away that I saw that much of him.  I followed him.  He moved so fast, though.  I didn't realize the dead could walk.  I saw him enter the church basement.  There was a long hallway down there with windows open to other rooms with caskets.  The dead man stopped at each one and gave a strange low growl.  The caskets opened and they followed him.  They left the basement, all four of them.   They were a band of bedraggled corpses and yet walked like anyone else, except more quickly.  I dare say they had some kind of extra sense that gave their movements a crispness.  It was all so surreal.  But I followed them anyway.  They went away, into the forest and they walked along the flowing water of the small creek.  Stones and roots did not get in their way.  They stopped at a spot where a cave seemed to open in the side of the earth on the slant toward the waterway.  This was where they would dwell.  They had instruments and wine.  They played a tune of strange sounds.  Each would flail or kick as they played.  They looked as if they were marionettes on a string.  The singer was the tall one.  He was the leader and he smiled sardonically at the others.  "The worst," he uttered.  Although his voice was deep, it was still flat.  There was no humanity to it.  It sounded dead.  But the smile was all too real and I shuddered with the realization that the dead could smile like that, even though they couldn't really feel.  I listened to the strange concert through the night, dozing by a large rock down river.  When I awoke the music was over, but the ruckus continued.  I heard splashing and laughing and glass breaking.  A large number of people had gathered here to listen to the skeletal zombies.  Suddenly, they began again.  The living threw the cemetery flowers at their feet and used the candles to light the scene.  It was strange to me that the people didn't seem to care that the players were dead.  The guitarist was a woman with brilliant red hair.  She had leaves and sticks clinging to her scarlet locks.  The crowd was under some sort of spell.  The songs were slow and hypnotic and sounded much better than their rehearsal.  The drummer was a short blond man.  He seemed to be much more serious than the rest but his drums were made of some sort of animal skin.  And the band played on.  The moon was full.  The night filled with an exotic sound.  The songs played long into the night and each person grew tired and slept.  Something pulled them to edge of woods to this spot.  The sight should have been horrific.  Instead, they partied until the morning. 

blood and the old gods

New memories.  The fact that we are so transfixed with all that is ancient and wise and the fact that we live in a new age of science gives way to a new epoch.  We overthrow the simplicity of the old ways without losing the intent and we incorporate the new information to hone our skills and learn new things.  Our past may seem tenebrous but we have layered ideas, thought and language.  We have learned more and have more to learn.  Blood, it is said by some, is the defining factor in the calling of the old gods.  If one was born with some form of bloodline, then they are more likely to hear the call of a particular tradition.  I argue that blood may have less to do with it than our collective memories.  These things are what we remember and how we are.  And although I am not a true reconstructionist and my ideas, thoughts and beliefs live only in my head, I strive to put into practice the old AND the new.  My ideas may seem old but they are not and they are very much married to science.  In essence, my creations cannot exist without the natural world and the changing seasons.  It can not exist without the sun and the moon and the stars.  All these things are very tangible.  I impose my own inner truth on a constant and universal truth; the natural world.    I have always had a thing for the man in the moon.  He was probably the first personality I created in my head.  If I open the door to the absurd and see a face there, where the moon should be, I'm falling into an altered reality.  The door closes and I'm in.  There is no going back.  "Moon man!"  Someone is shouting.  Obviously, this 'someone' is not just anyone.  I see the large black figure lurch forward in the darkness, however it can not come too far as it is attached to the ground, quite permanently.  "Moooon maahn!" I hear the gravely voice continue.  It sounds as if it is choking and yet spits out the words rather well.  There are crashing branches and deafening sounds around.  The tree that talks is angry.  And he is sick of being rooted to the spot.  "I see you," he says.  His eyes glint in the darkness, catching a reflection from the shining orb above.  It is almost too bright.  But the forest is still dark and the tree is embedded in the deep.  Only glints of the moonlight can be seen through the brambles.  Something is falling from above and yet it is not falling with gravity.  It is falling and yet floating.  It is silver and shedding its skin.  When it lands upon the earth, it is a man.  He is not awake.  The tree bends down.  There is a strange sniffing noise coming from within the forest and the tree opens his trunk and pulls forth a shining orb.  It lights everything around it.  The face of the tree is rather terrifying.  And it offers the orb to the man who lies prostrate on the dirt floor.  The orb hovers and descends and falls into the chest of the visitor.  The natural spirits can call the high energies when they wish.  The ancient wisdom knows that the sky and forest are not separate worlds.  Each visits the other.  Lena lives on the edge of a mangled forest.  She has a small house and small garden.  It is a simple life and there is no access to most conveniences.  Yet, she is happy to have the sky and trees all to herself.  Across her small field is a pond.  Her small home is a happy one.  Lena has no children and she did not marry. 

Merry month of May

When I see them my mind becomes blind.  They are covered in electric green buds.  She walks over the pavement in a long dress, haphazardly carrying a bouquet of every flower.  It drags over the walk leaving tiny sprigs in its wake.  Herbs, flowers and wine.  The procession has begun.  He walks carrying a bent switch.  He strides over the grass in his leather brogues.  He chews on a shoot of grass as he moves.  They move swiftly over the land and bring forth the budding leaves and flowers.  The verdant landscape is owed to the lord and lady.  They are diurnal dwellers, carrying out their magic march in the warm May sun.  This is the penultimate moment of spring.  Spring is soon turning to summer.  They march over the most ragged alleyways.  They find every nook.  No polluted city can hold out against the carriers of the green.  They will find a way.  And as they move,  things bloom.  Seeds take flight and set out on long journeys.  Roots travel.  Flowers grow, bloom and die quickly until the next year and others take their time in the warming sun.  We follow the path of the green man and his cohorts.  Every green thing takes time, always in the clinch with the ever faithful death.  Death is danger with its ever present skullduggery.  But May pays no mind as she glides over the earth.  No treachery will stop her, no threats will keep her still.  May moves beyond boundaries and into the birth of the great and small. 

Green sprigs, tree chatter

Through all the wailing and swaying, they let their expletives flow.  Blowing down wind on the humans below them.  A branch might cut across the face of an unsuspecting victim of these grouches.  No doubt their knots and knees have them bent and angry.  'Hello, down there!'  'Hello, indeed! You walk where you want and you don't care to keep your own space!'  It was all a bunch of bafflegab to the urchins below, who simply want to get on their way.  The children skin knees on the stones below the trees and yet they won't cry.  The trees believe the kids all speak gibberish.  They are a pack of wandering dolts chattering gobbledygook.  The screams, it seems, pull the trees from their roots.  No old oak can put up with screams.  And that is what some of the children do, even when in play and perfectly content.  'Keep your caterwauling to yourself!'  The bent old oak says.  Even though, to the children, the trees sound like nothing more than leaves brushing leaves in a rushing wind. 

Rosalia as a spoke in the Wheel: honoring the dead, honoring ancestors

I don't belong to any kind of cabal.  My spiritual path is something that I've been carving out on my own for some time and I don't expect others to immediately 'get it'.  What non pagan people need to understand is that pagans are not cookie cutter type people and each person will have their own way of doing things.  Each person will actually have their own ideas and traditions and entire systems and that is cool, too.  So, this post is designed to share the significance of one sabbat, the Rosalia.  Rosalia is a time to honor the dead and it is a time that happens (for me) between the end of May to the end of June.  It is perfect that the more mainstream holiday of Memorial Day takes place during this time, also.  The Rosalia is demonstrated by going out and offering roses to those who have died.  You can honor loved ones and ancestors with roses during this time.  I also feel that Rosalia encompasses the a time to share an appreciation for flowers.  June 13 is my dedicated day to honor Flora during the Rosalia.  Whilst offering roses to the dead, one should share a poem or dedication.  One could also simply hold what is in their heart without ever speaking aloud.  It is important to recognize the dead, especially after a particularly long winter.  This is the time for our spirits to be lightened and the long hours to be shared amongst our people.  Remembrance is a beautiful way to keep loved ones with us.  This is why I love Rosalia the most.  It is a time to embrace the dead.  Keep them in our hearts and minds. 

zentangle, scherenschnitte and baby lanterns

It is Wednesday!  We inch ever closer to Thursday night.  I have some ideas up my sleeve for Kitsch Witchery.  This week I'll be focusing on meditative art.  Due to the wildness of the full moon this week and all the havoc that spring has sprung, it is time to try something a bit new.  I have yet to truly dive headlong into meditative art; an art form that some religious person would definitely tell you is 'of the devil'.  But meditations are not bad.  Indeed, prayers are meditations and so are using mala beads and rosaries.  This week, I'll be counterbalancing all the upheaval with some zentangle.  It is a form of meditative art and, one could say, is exactly what I've been doing with my pen and ink drawings to some degree.  I'll also be creating (or attempting to create) some cut paper birds in scherenschnitte style.  I have been inspired by the baby Chinese lanterns growing in my garden.  It is time to seed sow a little bit. I'll wait for my sunflowers but the lanterns are starting now and they are incredibly cute!  So is the mint!  Hip hip hooray for the month of May!

Criticisms and cataclysms

The life and times of the Brighid Birch.  That was to be her name.  All at once, it seemed, my world dropped down to zero.  In the void, there was no light.  It was not like the world of shining, distant, diamond-like stars.  It was a world with nothing.  I held onto the birch tree.  She was my friend.  The dreams of the daughter never to be clearly would be my end.  But this was not the only dream death I've experienced.  Brighid was one who was meant to be who wasn't and therefore she became a tree.  My birch.  I have dabbled with the Hawthorne and Oak.  I've held weary Willow's hand.  Juniper jumped into my path and Maple helped me stand.  But my little birch tree is so dear to me.  Aspen, a close cousin, calls her name.  I've heard Chestnut and Beech whittling away the hours with whistling voices.  Pine stands solemnly.  The seeds and leaves bunch around.  The ground is bare for another season, until the May Queen hangs around.   Did the elves hear her in the hedgerow as they said?  She makes no noise when she walks.  The flowering trees all giggle delightedly and that may be the only proof that she is near.  Deer and crow borrow.  It is a fair place to let her live and breathe.  Brighid.

Help! Help! There is death in my bed!

For some time, I looked out of the truck window and wondered why they moved so easily in the wind and rain.  They looked so calm most of the time.  It was as if the rain were their tears and the wind was their breath.  I could see them stepping forward and moving together in weird rhythms to music I could not hear.  I looked at my father, next to me at the wheel.  He was focused on the road.  He made a face and then looked down at the gage.  We were running out of gas.  He began to drive dangerously over the back road.  He took the corners hard, trying to get home before we were completely depleted.  I only watched and waited for the inevitable.  We stalled out.  And drops of rain were falling rather large on the windshield.  I almost lost my cookies back there, and now that we were stopped, I started walking back on the road to collect my luggage that flew out of the back of his truck.  Thankfully, we ran out of gas.  Otherwise, what would have happened to my suitcases out here?  I chuckled to myself.  Only my father would think that flooring it would get us home.  Instead, it cut us off.  He started walking the opposite direction and told me he had to go and get gas to get us started again.  But before he got going too far and just as the words fell from his lips, a car pulled over.  A friend of his and he had a gas can with him.  I couldn't believe the luck.  I tossed my bags back in the truck and got back inside.  We had shared some pie at the Crossroads diner.  We had talked a bit about the future.  At that moment, though, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to be.  I just knew I was at the whims of life.  And I was very clearly still seeing visions of things I had since I was a child.  The trees still moved and smiled and gave me greetings.  I still knew home by the trees and the land.  I never paid attention to city limits.  When I moved years later, the lack of pine trees would bring me right back to this place.  There was no leaving the pines behind.

Herbalia as a spoke in the Wheel: directional intent and the number 13

Thirteen jives with a lot of people.  Let's just say, it jives with me, too.  And, thusly, my created spoke (sabbat) of Herbalia is a time during the month of May where I honor the various herbs in my life.  This plugs in perfectly with Kitsch Witchery and my need for a Thursday night spoof.  Herbalia is a time in May and the main day falls on May 13th.  I create my own and mix in the true, just to keep things interesting.  I'm a creative sort, so why would spirituality be any different.  Just turn up the heat on the stove and watch the ingredients come to a boil.  Now, this brew of Herbalia is a straight up honoring of the green and my main (and constant) affair and honoring of the Green Man.  Not just him, but her, too.  So, in each of the thirteen months, I use the moon phases and, intermingled and twined like a Morning Glory vine, are the sabbats.  I still hold to traditional Wheel times.  The solstices and equinoxes.  But some of these others are new.  I also honor the cross quarter days.  Anyway, Herbalia (May 13th) is a day for honoring the uses of herbs.  It is a time to gather experience, information and create art.  It is a time to cook with herbs and get adventurous with spices.  It is a time to open the book of Spring Shadows and delight in all the mysterious and delicious recipes within.  Herbalia began with my love of Patchouli.  I will say, I've loved it's scent for a very long time and would get annoyed with the constant allusions to it being a "hippy thing".  I even created a tree person named Patchoula in honor of my love for patchouli.  I also learned to love peppermint (many different mints, actually, although in the beginning, I only knew a few), lavender, rosemary and sage.  I love that lemon balm comes to the fore every spring and that it spreads like wild fire, along with the orange mint.  Dill is another favorite.  This Herbalia threatens to be a yummy one.  I even would love to recreate the cream cheese wraps with spicy cayenne and herb dip.  Some kind of a healthy chip on the side.  Art wise, I love to use the ink and draw the growing herbs.  There is an herb cabinet in the kitchen of my brother that has a special place in my heart and I have tried to organize my own seed and herb cubbies for a while now.  Herbalia moves us beyond Beltaine and yet maintains the Beltaine spirit.  For me, it is a part of the Beltaine season.  Later in the month, and through the month of June, I also observe the Rosalia.

something moves/darkened streets

I still wander into the darkened streets of my dreams.  It's a place where 'old' friends are still very new and very present in my life.  It is a place of dreams and nightmares and, best of all, a place I love to dwell.  Along this broad road, there are large lawns.  The tree-lined street is always dark and wet with a rain that has come and gone.  Tonight there is a drizzle.  I walk by the empty space of a large lawn behind the line of trees on my way to the center of this place.  I won't call it a town.  But I've seen it when it has been abandoned of all of it's residents.  It is where I like to go.  There is but one place open tonight.  It's a bookstore and happens to sell the occasional record or furniture piece.  The place is kind of shabby.  There is a counter and a young woman with glasses standing there smiling.  Behind her is a set of stairs that goes upward to some unknown.  The place is peeling paint and there are inches of dust, but I can see through the layers.  I see my old stuff stacked up in odd places.  'For sale' tags dangling.  There is even a bargain bin.  I still smoke in this place, but it is not the old smokes I used to cram in my coat pocket.  These are herbal cigarettes.  It feels good to just be blowing some sage smoke into the stuffy, acrid space.  The sage seems to create an aura of peace for me to look around and not be put under any sentimental spells.  The girl behind the counter could bewitch me, for sure.  She has her own thing going on.  She has light hair and dark eyes and behind her smile, there is something a bit more dangerous and dark.  She's hiding it well.  I find that I'm wearing my old worn out leather jacket.  It's funny how hours of wandering these darkened streets in real life have given me plenty of space to move around in this dreamy filled territory.  The firmament is wet and thick and only shows lush green grass expanding outward.  In the center of this road, in this bookstore, however, things are crammed together.  There is a row of funky wine glasses on a shelf behind a table that has seen better days and, against the back wall, beyond the stacks of books and the shelves is a door to a wall length closet.  Those things always gave me the creeps.  And yet, I wanted to make one my bedroom at one time.  They are skinny and long.  Rooms for ghosts.  What other being would want to live in a two by twelve hideaway?  I start rummaging through the bargain bin because this is where I notice a few of my old pictures.  The curled up angel giving me the sidelong glance.  She is pale with dark brown hair and clear blue eyes.  She reminds me of our family.  The poster paper she is printed on is beaten up but she is still there.  She reminds me of nights lying comatose under twinkle lights.  I was preparing for my friends to come over to find me mimicking a death sleep in my bed.  They may have found it comical.  In those days, this angel kept watch.  She's been gone for a while.  I still miss the old milking stool I find at the bottom of the bin, too.  It was a my mothers and she was rather fond of it when we lived in the house together.  One of the few items I remember from the only home I ever had.  She got mad at me when it disappeared altogether.  'Hey, mom, look!  It's in the bargain bin!'  I wonder what it will take to buy it back.  The girl behind the counter grins as if she heard my question.  I'm fairly sure the answer is nothing to smile about.  I actually see some form of horns protruding from her small forehead.  I see red eyes and fangs.  But, I only see these things if I squint at her.  Her glasses disappear in that instant.  When I stop squinting, she is back to the waif of a nerd with the secret.  To buy back all the things lost, it would indeed cost an ounce of flesh and more.  Much more.  But I'm not playing that game.  For now, I'm just perusing.  And I put the burning sage stick back to my lips and then blow.  Take that, demon!  I think to myself.  She is slightly bothered by the smoke coming her way, but she appears to side step it. 

full bloom moon flower

The moon appears to be hazy from the front window.  It is not Thursday night tonight, but the kitchen is still sitting there.  It's waiting.  The art is waiting, too.  I haven't honed any skills by taking classes or showing work.  I haven't listened to criticisms.  I'm still hanging out in the kitchen waiting right in front of the back door.  I can go back and visit this scene at different times.  What year is it?  Instead of a small dog, there is no dog and instead of multiple projects, there is one objective.  Since we had ditched the outdoor sleeping idea, we snuck inside.  And then we felt compelled to move through haunted hallways and rooms.  It was a mind game we played.  By the end, I was standing in my own urine and others were screaming and terrified.  The back kitchen door.  Frightening.  But, back to this minute.  It is the back kitchen door on a full moon night and nothing prevents me from walking through it.  ~~  Some people have dreams of lush meadows and gardens and gatherings.  I have one simple dream.  To squeeze a small oasis out of a dirt patch.  It's proved next to impossible but it remains a dream.  Ghosts skim the mud puddles and moss.  Gravels roads, gasoline and mints line my dream alley.  If getting the moon flower to grow in this environment is not impossible, it is, at the least, very difficult.  On nights like this, from the back kitchen window, I dream of the difficult and almost impossible.  The small dream of one flower combining with the others.  A sort of flower magic that makes a promise.  Things can be hard but not impossible.  Happiness is not a dream or mirage.  Something real, deliberate and beautiful can and will make the difference. ~k

recipes and the short sneeze

It is not Thursday night, but it is the beginning of May and I am looking forward to better days.  Food is a constant source of agony and struggle.  Not only do I love different foods but I'm allergic to them, too.  It makes life a pain in the nose, stomach, throat and yes, it is a pain in the a_, too.  But, I'm trying to combine spirituality and creative eating.  Not just eating but cooking, cleaning and baking.  I would like a functioning home and hearth.  Not just a wish for it but a have it.  I'm not a domestic cat and find much more joy in the absurdity of things.  I like dark comedies and dark chocolate.  But, these days, my health relies on much more than those things.  (and the health of my other half and our animal babes).  I find the pompous sort go on about how life will come to you if you are good and 'in love' and yet we don't have children.  We only want a life.  It is constantly eluding me.  Even a more spacious yard and trees.  Why do the small dreams elude me?  Something has got to give.   I've decided to go full city.

the wheel in the kitschen: full moon rituals

The full moon observance, for me, is the opposite of the new moon rituals.  It is a very free flowing time to visualize, create and send out energy.  This energy can be in different forms.  It can be a new artwork or it can be a simple spell.  I only use 'spells' as focus exercises.  They are prayers with juice.  Unlike the new moon, I use four days for my full moon observances.  They don't usually involve gods or goddesses but virtues.  I decide which virtue to use.  The virtue can be tied to other things or not and it is the only constant I wish to attach to full moon observances.  The moon may inspire different things, so it has to be free flowing.  This is a time for travel.  Not staying still.

the wheel in the kitchen: new moon rituals

It is not Thursday night, but I feel like writing some ground rules and some directional guides.  During each month, I celebrate three days surrounding the new moon.  I will start here.  I have pretty much stolen it from the Hellenic tradition which I respect greatly and don't pretend to be.  I use this model for my own practice and because these gods and goddesses of the Greek persuasion call to me more than any others.  Anyway, the new moon of each month can be observed in three days time.  I use the first day (also known as Hecate's Deipnon) to honor the goddess Hecate and the crossroads.  These days are sunset to sunset and Hecate's sunset to sunset occurs the day prior to the new moon (beginning at sunset).  At sunset on the night of the new moon (Noumenia), I honor the moon goddess Selene.  This goes until the next day at sunset, at which time I perform the Agathos Daimon (the observance of the spirits of the house and the honoring of ancestors).  This is the three day observance of the new moon and is a foundation for my spiritual path.  It is a meditative time and meant to be structured.  It is a time to release negativity and sweep negativity from self, hearth and home.  It is also a cleansing time to prepare for the building energy to the time of the full moon. 

the kitsch in the kitchen, the witch in the witchery

Since I have started quite a few blogs and pages, I have set my mind to using them for my own betterment whether others read them or not.  This page is dedicated to Thursday night hijinks in the kitchen and has to do with basic foodie or arty attempts at 'witchery'.  This is a word I'm using for that uber creative quality for my Wheel of the Year.  I have many spokes on my wheel and it is inspired by the Hellenic religion although it is not strictly Hellenic tradition.  I take liberties with my practice because I follow my own instincts (and I'm not a Greek).  I will however give homage and try to incorporate as much ode to the culture as I can here.  Thank you for taking the time to read this (if you are).  If not, may it serve to keep me grounded in the world in which I live and help me invent the world I wish to create.