I've been working my way through Christopher Penczak's book The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft; this month, the third month of lessons since I started the book with the new year, is focused on the Lower World. Among other exercises such as finding your 'power animal,' (which I find I have to put in quotes because it doesn't seem like quite the right term to me), he also talks about beginning a relationship with the local fairies.
The thing about fairies, or faeries, or the Fay*, or the Good Folk, or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods, is that everyone knows, more or less, what they are, but no one can quite define them. I suppose that's appropriate, given their in-between nature. They might be nature spirits, the dwindled remains of former Gods, the Dead, all of the above, or something else entirely.
One thing that does seem to be agreed-upon, however, is that they have an aversion to iron. I have always taken this to mean that iron is a symbol of civilization and of mankind's determination to control and subjugate nature; and so as the voice of the wild, the fairies are naturally not too keen on the stuff.
Now that leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. You may have heard (or you may not have, since I imagine a few readers will have popped over from the Pagan Blog Project page), that my father was a hoarder. A hoarder who was also a mechanic, which influenced what he hoarded. Oh sure, he hoarded the usual things, newspapers, books, and used paper coffee cups, but his especial speciality was junk cars and, guess what, iron.
My sister and I have been cleaning up this yard for the last couple of years; that's a whole other blog. Hie thee over there for the gruesome details, including a video of the yard at its worst. Oh, it was bad. Trust me.
There were piles and piles of iron here, saved against Godsknow what dark future my father feared, though, honestly, my latest theory is that hoarders believe that if they save enough stuff for 'what-if' or 'someday' then they will be prepared. And by prepared I mean they think they will be able to avoid the bad stuff, because they have something saved just for that. And by bad stuff, I mean death. I really think that hoarders, or at least my father, think that if they save enough stuff they won't die.
Anyway. We've taken lots and lots of iron out of here in the last few years. By last count, and this is a real number because I have the receipts, we've brought more than seventeen tons of iron to the scrapyard. Yeah, seventeen tons. And it's not anywhere nearly cleaned yet. There's still plenty more where that came from.
The thing about iron is that is decomposes; it rusts. So even if we were at the point where we'd taken all the surface stuff away, there would still be bits and pieces of rust in the dirt. When we rake up the debris, the more we rake, the more iron and rust we find. My father hoarded this property for something like forty years; that's layer upon layer of rust, and leaves, and dirt, and I have no idea how far down it goes.
And there's plenty of iron in the soil around here anyway, just naturally. The local mill-stream runs red, and the rocks within are coated with it. We used to have well-water. I could never understand what people meant when they claimed water had no taste; to me it was this horrible metallic stuff. Once, my father put the faucet on a slow but steady dribble, then held a magnet to the side. The water bent.
And so where does that leave the local fairies? I can't imagine that any of them are going to want to come anywhere near my yard, not for a very very long time, like decades, maybe. Or if they do, or are here already, won't they be angry, really, really angry? Not that it is my fault, and yes, I am cleaning it up as best I can, but still. That much iron is not going to agree with them; it just can't.
And so I can't imagine inviting them in; it sounds, well, mean of me. Come hang out in a place that will hurt you. That's like asking your friends over when your smoke detector is stuck on alarm mode. Ouch. Penczak does say that it's optional, and something you should only do if you feel called to it; and so I think I will hold off on it for now.
I do think the fairies would approve of the clean-up job I'm doing; but I just don't think the place is anywhere near ready yet.
*Pet peeve from a Tolkienist: fey with an E describes a certain kind of who-cares-any-more clear-sighted despair due to being near to death and knowing it, for example in the late mental state of the guy of whom was said A Túrin Turambar turun ambar-tanen; it is not the same word as fay, which is another word for fairy. Maybe, maybe, under the definition of 'displaying unearthly qualities' it could be applied to fairy sorts, but, sorry, no, it's not just another way to spell 'fay.' SO STOP IT PEOPLE.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
E Is For The Elements
Once upon a time I was in a coven. It was a while ago now; we split up when some of us moved north and others of us moved south and it just wasn't working, geographically, anyway.
In this coven, like a lot of others, when we cast circles we used the correspondences of east as air, south as fire, west as water, and north as earth.
I went along with it; it was what we did, and I guess I didn't think about it too much. But one thing always bothered me and never made any sense to me at all, and that was putting earth in the north.
North is winter. Winter is cold, dead, sleeping, comatose; none of this makes sense to me as earth. Oh I get that earth represents the Void in some ways, the black primal matter from which all else arises; but in my experience with the Void, or the wings of my daimon, shall we say, that black is not dead, but vibrantly alive, teeming with potential: radiant, even. And north and winter just don't fit that, for me.
If something is going to function as the I guess archetype of the element, then I'd expect that element to be awake, at least, and for earth, that means growth, luxurious unbridled inexhaustible life, zoë, as Kerényi would say. In other words, not winter.
But then in my wanderings about the internet I found this article: Re-Thinking the Watchtowers, by Mike Nichols. If you've never read it, go do that now, and then come back. I'll wait.
He makes a fairly compelling argument for doing it this way: east as earth, south as fire, west as water, and north as air.
So I tried it, since north as air fit with what I'd always seen, here in New England, which is so much like Old England, in both the lay of the land (once in fact the very same land, which split off with continental drift) and, more or less, in climate. North as the place from where the cold winds blow? Yes, that makes sense to me.
And it worked. Holy moly it worked. Everything got upped, got more powerful. I could feel it. Mostly, I think, because, like Nichols says in his article, you get a sort of 'generator' effect, of alternating 'feminine' and 'masculine' energies, of the obviously horizontal (earth and water, that which literally is the horizon and that which seeks the level, east and west) and the vertical (fire and air, both of which can flow upward, heat rising through the air, south and north); and it really does feel (to me, anyway) like an radial engine firing, round and round and round, building up power.
Now. One of Nichols's arguments for putting air in the north, is that it corresponds to the layout of the land, specifically the British Isles. When you look on the map, to the west is the Atlantic Ocean, to the south, the warmer lands (and eventually the equator), to the east, the great land mass of all of Asia, and to the north, the cold blustery Arctic, which, incidentally, is not land anyway, being a frozen ocean.
But then the other night I was again wandering about the internet and came across another web site talking about the elements and the directions; alas, I don't remember what the site was, so I can't link now, but the author recommended trying all kinds of different correspondences, to see what fit best for you. Everyone, after all, has different associations with things depending on circumstance and experience, or on how one's individual brain works.
So then I thought: well, much as I like England and wish I were there (I've been and it felt like home, oh my god it felt like home), I am not. I'm in New England. And when I look at the map of where I actually am, the land I am supposed to be grounded to, my landbase, as Hecate would say, what do I see? I see water, that same Atlantic Ocean, to my east, and the great mass of the rest of the country to my west. Now I know, west as the Sea over which the Dead pass, sure, that's very ingrained in folklore. Folklore that I've certainly read, and which resonates, because my family does ultimately come from those lands, but folklore which is still specific to a place that is not where I am now.
So I switched it again, putting water in the east, and earth in the west. It still has the same horizontal/vertical, feminine/masculine tension to it.
Now I've only just come up with this, and so I've only had one chance to try it, and that wasn't in a full circle, just as part of cleansing a space. But as I faced east, I could picture the ocean before me, the ocean I know and am familiar with; and facing west I saw the rest of the land, all the way across the Mississippi, over the plains, over the mountains, all the way, all this land, and I knew where I was. I could feel my feet firmly planted in the reality of this land, this specific place.
So I'd say, if you live on the eastern seaboard of the US (Hecate, yeah, I'm totally looking at you), give it a try. It grounded me instantly, profoundly, unthinkingly, just as a matter of course, because it represents where I am.
In this coven, like a lot of others, when we cast circles we used the correspondences of east as air, south as fire, west as water, and north as earth.
I went along with it; it was what we did, and I guess I didn't think about it too much. But one thing always bothered me and never made any sense to me at all, and that was putting earth in the north.
North is winter. Winter is cold, dead, sleeping, comatose; none of this makes sense to me as earth. Oh I get that earth represents the Void in some ways, the black primal matter from which all else arises; but in my experience with the Void, or the wings of my daimon, shall we say, that black is not dead, but vibrantly alive, teeming with potential: radiant, even. And north and winter just don't fit that, for me.
If something is going to function as the I guess archetype of the element, then I'd expect that element to be awake, at least, and for earth, that means growth, luxurious unbridled inexhaustible life, zoë, as Kerényi would say. In other words, not winter.
But then in my wanderings about the internet I found this article: Re-Thinking the Watchtowers, by Mike Nichols. If you've never read it, go do that now, and then come back. I'll wait.
He makes a fairly compelling argument for doing it this way: east as earth, south as fire, west as water, and north as air.
So I tried it, since north as air fit with what I'd always seen, here in New England, which is so much like Old England, in both the lay of the land (once in fact the very same land, which split off with continental drift) and, more or less, in climate. North as the place from where the cold winds blow? Yes, that makes sense to me.
And it worked. Holy moly it worked. Everything got upped, got more powerful. I could feel it. Mostly, I think, because, like Nichols says in his article, you get a sort of 'generator' effect, of alternating 'feminine' and 'masculine' energies, of the obviously horizontal (earth and water, that which literally is the horizon and that which seeks the level, east and west) and the vertical (fire and air, both of which can flow upward, heat rising through the air, south and north); and it really does feel (to me, anyway) like an radial engine firing, round and round and round, building up power.
Now. One of Nichols's arguments for putting air in the north, is that it corresponds to the layout of the land, specifically the British Isles. When you look on the map, to the west is the Atlantic Ocean, to the south, the warmer lands (and eventually the equator), to the east, the great land mass of all of Asia, and to the north, the cold blustery Arctic, which, incidentally, is not land anyway, being a frozen ocean.
But then the other night I was again wandering about the internet and came across another web site talking about the elements and the directions; alas, I don't remember what the site was, so I can't link now, but the author recommended trying all kinds of different correspondences, to see what fit best for you. Everyone, after all, has different associations with things depending on circumstance and experience, or on how one's individual brain works.
So then I thought: well, much as I like England and wish I were there (I've been and it felt like home, oh my god it felt like home), I am not. I'm in New England. And when I look at the map of where I actually am, the land I am supposed to be grounded to, my landbase, as Hecate would say, what do I see? I see water, that same Atlantic Ocean, to my east, and the great mass of the rest of the country to my west. Now I know, west as the Sea over which the Dead pass, sure, that's very ingrained in folklore. Folklore that I've certainly read, and which resonates, because my family does ultimately come from those lands, but folklore which is still specific to a place that is not where I am now.
So I switched it again, putting water in the east, and earth in the west. It still has the same horizontal/vertical, feminine/masculine tension to it.
Now I've only just come up with this, and so I've only had one chance to try it, and that wasn't in a full circle, just as part of cleansing a space. But as I faced east, I could picture the ocean before me, the ocean I know and am familiar with; and facing west I saw the rest of the land, all the way across the Mississippi, over the plains, over the mountains, all the way, all this land, and I knew where I was. I could feel my feet firmly planted in the reality of this land, this specific place.
So I'd say, if you live on the eastern seaboard of the US (Hecate, yeah, I'm totally looking at you), give it a try. It grounded me instantly, profoundly, unthinkingly, just as a matter of course, because it represents where I am.
Friday, February 10, 2012
C is for Compassion
I used to have compassion for some people, by whom I mean my father.
But I have learned that having compassion for, well, people who are frankly abusive, doesn't get you very far. It's a nice idea, and it sure is easy to talk about if it's not your problem, if you've got the distance to be able to talk about it in the abstract, but—
My father was a hoarder. I've only had a name for it for a few years now. Before that, it was just this completely baffling... thing. Now, however, not only do I know that what he did is called hoarding, but I know that it is a serious mental condition, in his case, something called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Not obsessive compulsive disorder, let's get that straight. But a personality disorder.
And the thing with those is that the person doesn't change. The person can't change. The person doesn't think there's anything whatsoever wrong with them. It's the entire rest of the world who is wrong, in their mind. It is a fundamental brokenness in the brain. Think sociopathy, or narcissism.
I know, I'm repeating myself. Sometimes I think that saying it over and over again is simply validation, or maybe due to disbelief on my part, which I am trying to break through. It is a strange thing to come to terms with, when you grow up thinking it normal.
So people don't generally 'suffer' from personality disorders; like I said they don't think there's anything wrong with them. But the people around them sure do suffer.
If a person has something wrong with their brain, something that cannot even be perceived by them, never mind understood as something not-right, they are not going to change. They just aren't. They can't. But that person is also not going to be able to help harming those around them. They can't change that either.
I have found that having compassion for people like that, while you are one of those people around them, just means that they hurt you over and over again. And especially when that person with the personality disorder, the, shall we say, self-absorbed, or perhaps, toxic person, has trained you to consider their needs first, always. Well, that's not quite true; in my father's case it was more like his whims came first, before the needs of the rest of us. It was more important to him that he got to pile some rotton boards on top of each other in the yard, than it was to see that the water heater was installed. So compassion, in this case, just gets you hurt.
So fuck compassion.
Now, I may come back to it sometime in the future; I don't know. But here's the thing: there is nothing wrong, morally, with where I am now. Which leads me to the other C's:
C is for crooked path. And C is for curse.
I have never yet cursed anyone; I have, in the past, thought it morally wrong. But that was before I started thinking about things like my dysfunctional family and my neglected childhood.
I spent years, no decades, literally decades, trying to talk my father into cleaning something, anything, up. I memorized the littlest shadings of his moods, the subjects that would get him to open up, just a little, what time of day was best to talk to him. I learned diplomacy, when to push, when to leave things alone, what to bribe him with, how to butter him up, and I had the patience of all the saints combined.
It didn't work. It never worked. It couldn't work, because my father was incapable of change.
I have no patience left, none at all. I used it up. I also have no compassion for him, now; not, in this case, that I've used it up, but that it was coming at the expense of compassion for myself. And that must, absolutely must, come first.
And so I find my outlook has changed. I can see nothing wrong with curses, morally. They are simply neutral. Some things cannot be solved any other way. If someone is abusing you, and there is nothing you can do to stop it? Self-preservation must come first. You, I, have the right.
There is of course no need to curse my father now. He is safely out of the way in a nursing home, after a stroke that damaged what was left of his brain, after the personality disorder and the dementia he had due to age. He can do no harm where he is.
And I am very, very grateful for that.
But I have learned that having compassion for, well, people who are frankly abusive, doesn't get you very far. It's a nice idea, and it sure is easy to talk about if it's not your problem, if you've got the distance to be able to talk about it in the abstract, but—
My father was a hoarder. I've only had a name for it for a few years now. Before that, it was just this completely baffling... thing. Now, however, not only do I know that what he did is called hoarding, but I know that it is a serious mental condition, in his case, something called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Not obsessive compulsive disorder, let's get that straight. But a personality disorder.
And the thing with those is that the person doesn't change. The person can't change. The person doesn't think there's anything whatsoever wrong with them. It's the entire rest of the world who is wrong, in their mind. It is a fundamental brokenness in the brain. Think sociopathy, or narcissism.
I know, I'm repeating myself. Sometimes I think that saying it over and over again is simply validation, or maybe due to disbelief on my part, which I am trying to break through. It is a strange thing to come to terms with, when you grow up thinking it normal.
So people don't generally 'suffer' from personality disorders; like I said they don't think there's anything wrong with them. But the people around them sure do suffer.
If a person has something wrong with their brain, something that cannot even be perceived by them, never mind understood as something not-right, they are not going to change. They just aren't. They can't. But that person is also not going to be able to help harming those around them. They can't change that either.
I have found that having compassion for people like that, while you are one of those people around them, just means that they hurt you over and over again. And especially when that person with the personality disorder, the, shall we say, self-absorbed, or perhaps, toxic person, has trained you to consider their needs first, always. Well, that's not quite true; in my father's case it was more like his whims came first, before the needs of the rest of us. It was more important to him that he got to pile some rotton boards on top of each other in the yard, than it was to see that the water heater was installed. So compassion, in this case, just gets you hurt.
So fuck compassion.
Now, I may come back to it sometime in the future; I don't know. But here's the thing: there is nothing wrong, morally, with where I am now. Which leads me to the other C's:
C is for crooked path. And C is for curse.
I have never yet cursed anyone; I have, in the past, thought it morally wrong. But that was before I started thinking about things like my dysfunctional family and my neglected childhood.
I spent years, no decades, literally decades, trying to talk my father into cleaning something, anything, up. I memorized the littlest shadings of his moods, the subjects that would get him to open up, just a little, what time of day was best to talk to him. I learned diplomacy, when to push, when to leave things alone, what to bribe him with, how to butter him up, and I had the patience of all the saints combined.
It didn't work. It never worked. It couldn't work, because my father was incapable of change.
I have no patience left, none at all. I used it up. I also have no compassion for him, now; not, in this case, that I've used it up, but that it was coming at the expense of compassion for myself. And that must, absolutely must, come first.
And so I find my outlook has changed. I can see nothing wrong with curses, morally. They are simply neutral. Some things cannot be solved any other way. If someone is abusing you, and there is nothing you can do to stop it? Self-preservation must come first. You, I, have the right.
There is of course no need to curse my father now. He is safely out of the way in a nursing home, after a stroke that damaged what was left of his brain, after the personality disorder and the dementia he had due to age. He can do no harm where he is.
And I am very, very grateful for that.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Announcement
Just letting everyone know that my CafePress store is down right now. I am sorry if there has been any confusion. In the meantime, I also have stores up at Printfection and Zazzle, if you're interested.
My Printfection store link
My Zazzle store link
I also have a section at Zazzle just for greeting cards, here.
Again I apologize for the inconvenience/bafflement.
My Printfection store link
My Zazzle store link
I also have a section at Zazzle just for greeting cards, here.
Again I apologize for the inconvenience/bafflement.
Couple Updates
Yes, well, B is for Busy. B is for Behind. It's been a week o' kittens around here.
Ratty is doing well, though he really doesn't care for the Cone of Shame he has to wear so he doesn't yank out his stitches. Poor thing. Grooming is so hard-wired in the little cat mind that he's been attempting to lick, say, his shoulder, and ends up licking the inside of the cone. Over and over and over.
Ratty may not be the brightest bulb.
Also, Rory is staying. And there's a long story. I gave him up, with his brother, Wednesday morning. I was expecting I'd be sad to see them go—kittens are after all cute and sweet and all—I was not expecting that Wednesday night I'd find myself bawling my eyes out over Rory being gone. I wasn't sad; I was devastated.
Sometimes, I think, you just know. The look Rory gave me when I dropped him off and walked out of the shelter said it all—it wasn't one of Don't leave me! it was simply Where are you going? A little confused, but mostly calm, and very knowing. As if, he knows the story, and he knows how it ends, and that was not it.
I mean not like I need another cat. I really, really, don't. I can do it; the house is plenty big, and I've been feeding him anyway so I know I can afford it too. But...
The nearest I can figure is that he's meant to be my familiar. I mean the others are nice kitties and all, but they're not Rory. And it's not even that he's still a cute little kitten and they're getting towards full grown; honestly I'm kind of done with kittens after this last summer and I'd really like it if they could mellow out a little already. It's just that he's him. That's the best I know how to say it.
I mean, if you'd been stupid enough to give your familiar away, you'd feel about like you'd cut off your own arm, right?
So I more or less moved heaven and earth to get him back, which is apparently a huge, huge no-no with shelters. If you surrender a cat, damned straight you're not getting it back. I'm still not sure what the logic is, but they were nearly adamant. I thought for a while it just wasn't going to happen. But it did, and the powers-that-be softened, and let me have him. Well, I had to officially 'adopt' him, fee and all, though that included a neuter and lots of shots, so it's okay. Sure, I feel like an idiot, but I don't care. Because I've got Rory back.
It was a very long drive (Friday night Boston rush hour, oy), to the shelter, in of all places Salem, Mass; even without traffic, the drive back was like an hour and a half. He mewed a little here and there on the drive back, but was mostly quiet. Finally I pulled into the driveway and shut off the car.
And in the sudden quiet I heard something else, this low but loud thrumming.
It was Rory purring. He knew he was home.
Ratty is doing well, though he really doesn't care for the Cone of Shame he has to wear so he doesn't yank out his stitches. Poor thing. Grooming is so hard-wired in the little cat mind that he's been attempting to lick, say, his shoulder, and ends up licking the inside of the cone. Over and over and over.
Ratty may not be the brightest bulb.
Also, Rory is staying. And there's a long story. I gave him up, with his brother, Wednesday morning. I was expecting I'd be sad to see them go—kittens are after all cute and sweet and all—I was not expecting that Wednesday night I'd find myself bawling my eyes out over Rory being gone. I wasn't sad; I was devastated.
Sometimes, I think, you just know. The look Rory gave me when I dropped him off and walked out of the shelter said it all—it wasn't one of Don't leave me! it was simply Where are you going? A little confused, but mostly calm, and very knowing. As if, he knows the story, and he knows how it ends, and that was not it.
I mean not like I need another cat. I really, really, don't. I can do it; the house is plenty big, and I've been feeding him anyway so I know I can afford it too. But...
The nearest I can figure is that he's meant to be my familiar. I mean the others are nice kitties and all, but they're not Rory. And it's not even that he's still a cute little kitten and they're getting towards full grown; honestly I'm kind of done with kittens after this last summer and I'd really like it if they could mellow out a little already. It's just that he's him. That's the best I know how to say it.
I mean, if you'd been stupid enough to give your familiar away, you'd feel about like you'd cut off your own arm, right?
So I more or less moved heaven and earth to get him back, which is apparently a huge, huge no-no with shelters. If you surrender a cat, damned straight you're not getting it back. I'm still not sure what the logic is, but they were nearly adamant. I thought for a while it just wasn't going to happen. But it did, and the powers-that-be softened, and let me have him. Well, I had to officially 'adopt' him, fee and all, though that included a neuter and lots of shots, so it's okay. Sure, I feel like an idiot, but I don't care. Because I've got Rory back.
It was a very long drive (Friday night Boston rush hour, oy), to the shelter, in of all places Salem, Mass; even without traffic, the drive back was like an hour and a half. He mewed a little here and there on the drive back, but was mostly quiet. Finally I pulled into the driveway and shut off the car.
And in the sudden quiet I heard something else, this low but loud thrumming.
It was Rory purring. He knew he was home.
What C is Really For
Because every time I sit down to write one of these Pagan Blog Project entries, I get this song in my head. Thanks, Ms. Pendragon.
So I figured I'd share. No reason to be going quietly insane all by myself, now is there?
So I figured I'd share. No reason to be going quietly insane all by myself, now is there?
Friday, February 3, 2012
C Is For Cinquefoil
So, in The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft, which year-and-a-day course I've been following along with, one of the visions takes you to your Inner Temple.
Mine turned out to be a small square building with a column at each corner and a perfectly hemispherical dome leafed in gold; inside was a main room, the same size, more or less, as the outside, maybe thirty by thirty feet.
Of course though there were rooms off it and it was as they say bigger on the inside than the outside. One of those rooms lead to a library.
When I stepped into the library I caught a flash of a small yellow flower with five petals. Something little, and wild; it looked like a rose, or a primrose, maybe. Though if it was a rose it was a species rose, not a hybrid; maybe Father Hugo's rose, though that yellow is on the pale side.
I've done some gardening, though it is a damned frustrating experience in this yard what with the abundance of groundhogs and deer, not to mention both wild rabbits and the giant domestic one from across the street who keeps getting out of his cage and hanging out in my yard. My neighbor, like Ratty, may not be the brightest bulb; half the time when he comes over to retrieve his rabbit, he brings his dog. Because the surest way to coax a rabbit to come walking up to you is to bring a wolf with you. We've taken to calling the neighbor Mr. Fudd, as the rabbit is obviously smarter; the rabbit herself I'm calling Cunny, after the old pronunciation of coney.
Anyway. I have not, in this Witchy journey of mine, so far done much with herbs and plants, though last season I did manage a functional herb garden. It hasn't been my field, I suppose, and it's a little intimidating as I know it's just a huge subject. At any rate I have never sat down and tried to commune with plants.
And I'm not sure it's the season to try. Most everything is asleep, up here in New England, I'd think; it strikes me as the height of rudeness to go knocking on doors waking things up to say Oh hey tell me about yourself okay? So I'll wait on that, I think.
But I can at least look up some book-learning. I think the plant I saw is cinquefoil. I know it grows wild around here; I've seen its little yellow flowers about my yard as long as I can remember.
It's called potentilla, in the Latin, cinquefoil is. That name, as you may have guessed, means powerful. 'Cinquefoil' itself means 'five-leaved' and refers to the way the leaflets are arranged in a cluster like the five fingers of a hand. An older name, tormentilla, from the Spanish, means 'little torment', as in, it relieves little pains; and medicinally it was used to relieve stomach ache and diarrhea.
Here's a picture of it, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Photo by Hans Hillewaert
It's a very, very familiar plant. I know I have yanked it out of my cultivated garden on more than one occasion. Was that rude?
It is also known as five-leaved grass, or five-fingered grass. Culpeper (1653) says it is an herb of Jupiter, good for treating the quinsey, sciatica, St. Anthony's fire, and the bloody flux; mainly though he says it is good for inflammation and fevers 'whether infectious or pestilential,' and gives several ways to take it, usually by boiling it in wine to make a sort of tea.
I know I have seen plenty of cultivated varieties under the name potentilla; I think, come spring, I shall see how many of them I can find, to put in my garden. Then I shall sit down and see what they tell me. I'm interested in seeing how the wild version of a plant differs from a cultivated hybrid in what it has to say.
At the very least, I know it has said hello.
Sources: Wikipedia (yeah I know), Culpeper's Herbal
Mine turned out to be a small square building with a column at each corner and a perfectly hemispherical dome leafed in gold; inside was a main room, the same size, more or less, as the outside, maybe thirty by thirty feet.
Of course though there were rooms off it and it was as they say bigger on the inside than the outside. One of those rooms lead to a library.
When I stepped into the library I caught a flash of a small yellow flower with five petals. Something little, and wild; it looked like a rose, or a primrose, maybe. Though if it was a rose it was a species rose, not a hybrid; maybe Father Hugo's rose, though that yellow is on the pale side.
I've done some gardening, though it is a damned frustrating experience in this yard what with the abundance of groundhogs and deer, not to mention both wild rabbits and the giant domestic one from across the street who keeps getting out of his cage and hanging out in my yard. My neighbor, like Ratty, may not be the brightest bulb; half the time when he comes over to retrieve his rabbit, he brings his dog. Because the surest way to coax a rabbit to come walking up to you is to bring a wolf with you. We've taken to calling the neighbor Mr. Fudd, as the rabbit is obviously smarter; the rabbit herself I'm calling Cunny, after the old pronunciation of coney.
Anyway. I have not, in this Witchy journey of mine, so far done much with herbs and plants, though last season I did manage a functional herb garden. It hasn't been my field, I suppose, and it's a little intimidating as I know it's just a huge subject. At any rate I have never sat down and tried to commune with plants.
And I'm not sure it's the season to try. Most everything is asleep, up here in New England, I'd think; it strikes me as the height of rudeness to go knocking on doors waking things up to say Oh hey tell me about yourself okay? So I'll wait on that, I think.
But I can at least look up some book-learning. I think the plant I saw is cinquefoil. I know it grows wild around here; I've seen its little yellow flowers about my yard as long as I can remember.
It's called potentilla, in the Latin, cinquefoil is. That name, as you may have guessed, means powerful. 'Cinquefoil' itself means 'five-leaved' and refers to the way the leaflets are arranged in a cluster like the five fingers of a hand. An older name, tormentilla, from the Spanish, means 'little torment', as in, it relieves little pains; and medicinally it was used to relieve stomach ache and diarrhea.
Here's a picture of it, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Photo by Hans HillewaertIt's a very, very familiar plant. I know I have yanked it out of my cultivated garden on more than one occasion. Was that rude?
It is also known as five-leaved grass, or five-fingered grass. Culpeper (1653) says it is an herb of Jupiter, good for treating the quinsey, sciatica, St. Anthony's fire, and the bloody flux; mainly though he says it is good for inflammation and fevers 'whether infectious or pestilential,' and gives several ways to take it, usually by boiling it in wine to make a sort of tea.
I know I have seen plenty of cultivated varieties under the name potentilla; I think, come spring, I shall see how many of them I can find, to put in my garden. Then I shall sit down and see what they tell me. I'm interested in seeing how the wild version of a plant differs from a cultivated hybrid in what it has to say.
At the very least, I know it has said hello.
Sources: Wikipedia (yeah I know), Culpeper's Herbal
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Ratty Update
Got a call from the surgeon this afternoon; the surgery went just fine, all is well, Ratty'll be home tomorrow or maybe the next day. He also said that it looked like an old injury, judging by the damage surrounding it.
Ratty's only seven months old. How old can an injury be?
I am still completely baffled as to how he did it in the first place, though I do recall that his feral mother gave birth to her kittens on top of a pile of wood under one of those little high-up windows in my downstairs garage. And I also remember scooping kittens up off the floor and returning them to her (as well as trying to make it safer by rearranging the boards so there was at least a little bit of a wall in the front).
He certainly hadn't been limping any earlier than the middle of last week.
I really don't know.
Ratty's only seven months old. How old can an injury be?
I am still completely baffled as to how he did it in the first place, though I do recall that his feral mother gave birth to her kittens on top of a pile of wood under one of those little high-up windows in my downstairs garage. And I also remember scooping kittens up off the floor and returning them to her (as well as trying to make it safer by rearranging the boards so there was at least a little bit of a wall in the front).
He certainly hadn't been limping any earlier than the middle of last week.
I really don't know.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Quick Note
Well I've caught up on the Pagan Blog Project posts; but since I backdated the second A entry it's down a ways under all the kitten pictures (both visible rays and X-rays). Just wanted to point that out so it doesn't get lost. My own fault, I suppose, for backdating them.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Oh Ratty
Oh Ratty. Oh, oh Ratty. How on Earth did you manage this:
Let's get a bit of a close up:
Even a layperson such as myself can tell that that left hip-joint (his left, our right) is seriously out of whack. One of the vets I talked to today said she doesn't usually see something like that without some serious trauma—being hit by a car, falling out of a third storey window. Not that Ratty (or any of them) go outside, of course. Last week I did hear a loud crash coming from the cellar; when I got there though, not a single thing was out of place save an empty laundry basket, which was tipped on its side. All four of them just sat there looking at me with their heads tilted, wide-eyed, innocent, calm.
He'd been limping a little since about last Wednesday or Thursday, but he let me poke around and move his leg a bit. Silly me I didn't follow it up the rest of his leg until Saturday night, when I did finally notice that there was a big lump on the same side up by his hip (I couldn't really see it because of the fur; he's long-haired and fairly fluffy). And guess what—that turned out to be the head of his femur in a place it really shouldn't be, namely, completely out of the hip-socket by something like an inch and a half. Though otherwise he had seemed more than fine—despite the little bit of a limp he was running around, jumping up on things, frisking with his brothers like a crazy kitten, and purring up a storm as usual. Even today, when one of the vets (there were several) went to listen to his heartbeat, she had to put his heart rate down as 'purr'.
So Ratty gets to spend the next couple days in a cage, which he doesn't much like, keeping off it until he has his scheduled surgery on Thursday. Where they will, and this is completely counterintuitive, actually chop off the ball of the femur and just let the end of the bone rest in the socket. I know. I would have thought that putting it back in would be the right way round, but the vet said if they did that it would be prone to just popping out again. I guess something must be permanently damaged. Of course I was like well won't one of his legs be shorter than the other then? The vet said no, actually; he'll be pretty much completely normal, running around again in no time.
So that's all good, if don't-even-ask pricey. But there's nothing for it, of course; rest and home remedies aren't going to cure something like that.
Still, I'd like to know how he did it.
Let's get a bit of a close up:
Even a layperson such as myself can tell that that left hip-joint (his left, our right) is seriously out of whack. One of the vets I talked to today said she doesn't usually see something like that without some serious trauma—being hit by a car, falling out of a third storey window. Not that Ratty (or any of them) go outside, of course. Last week I did hear a loud crash coming from the cellar; when I got there though, not a single thing was out of place save an empty laundry basket, which was tipped on its side. All four of them just sat there looking at me with their heads tilted, wide-eyed, innocent, calm.
He'd been limping a little since about last Wednesday or Thursday, but he let me poke around and move his leg a bit. Silly me I didn't follow it up the rest of his leg until Saturday night, when I did finally notice that there was a big lump on the same side up by his hip (I couldn't really see it because of the fur; he's long-haired and fairly fluffy). And guess what—that turned out to be the head of his femur in a place it really shouldn't be, namely, completely out of the hip-socket by something like an inch and a half. Though otherwise he had seemed more than fine—despite the little bit of a limp he was running around, jumping up on things, frisking with his brothers like a crazy kitten, and purring up a storm as usual. Even today, when one of the vets (there were several) went to listen to his heartbeat, she had to put his heart rate down as 'purr'.
So Ratty gets to spend the next couple days in a cage, which he doesn't much like, keeping off it until he has his scheduled surgery on Thursday. Where they will, and this is completely counterintuitive, actually chop off the ball of the femur and just let the end of the bone rest in the socket. I know. I would have thought that putting it back in would be the right way round, but the vet said if they did that it would be prone to just popping out again. I guess something must be permanently damaged. Of course I was like well won't one of his legs be shorter than the other then? The vet said no, actually; he'll be pretty much completely normal, running around again in no time.
So that's all good, if don't-even-ask pricey. But there's nothing for it, of course; rest and home remedies aren't going to cure something like that.
Still, I'd like to know how he did it.
Friday, January 20, 2012
B Is For Bastet
So Bastet (or Bast) is the Cat Goddess of old Egypt. Those Egyptians, they had their priorities straight all right.
Her name means She of the bas, a bas being a type of ointment jar; in the exceptionally dry climate of Egypt moisturizer is an absolute necessity. I like to call Her Our Lady of the Salve.
Her cult center in Egypt was at the city of Per-Bastet ('the domain of Bastet' and now I'm totally cracking up at the I assume coincidental resemblance of Per to purr) up in the Delta; it was the capital of the 18th nome (administrative district; something like county, state, province) of Lower Egypt (lower of course meaning downstream in the case of the Nile, so that lower=northern, and upper=southern). It was famous for a particularly merry festival dedicated to Bastet, which involved lots of alcohol.
As you may well imagine, I've been petitioning Bastet left and right around here lately.
What? you say. Why is that?
All right; for those of you who have not been paying attention, I'll try to keep this brief.
Once upon a time at the start of last winter a little grey and white cat showed up on my doorstep, looking plaintively in at the glass door. That was Spot:
But of course she wasn't alone, oh no of course not. She had in tow three little kittens, who I reasonably enough named Splotch
Smudge
and Stripey
Crap, I thought. I could instantly tell that two of the three at least were female by the tortoiseshell color schemes. And I've been around the block a few times and so knew exactly which direction that was going to go in.
So I asked Bastet for help. I asked Her to make sure that they had someone to look after them, and to find them a good home with enough food to last them through the winter.
What do you think I am doing? She purred.
Crap, I thought.
So I fed them, because it was the beginning of winter in New England and knowing they were there I could not let them starve.
I will admit I hemmed and hawed about the next part of it, though, because I could see what was coming and how much work it was going to be if I chose to do it. I mean it doesn't take the Sight to know what will happen when three (at least) unspayed female cats show up on your doorstep.
So I started looking around on the internet. But it took a while. For one thing, with the crap economy charities have very few resources nowadays. One particular cat charity, just last year, would come to your house, trap the feral cats, take them away to be neutered, deal with the aftercare and then bring them back to be released (as trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats is really the best bet at population control, plus, you know, it avoids killing them); this year though they couldn't be arsed to even call me back, never mind lend me a trap or two. And it's true, I procrastinated a bit, because I knew it was a big job and it simply took time to get my brain around it. But in the end, yeah, it was my responsibility.
In the meantime, the Stripey kitten went missing. We found one by the road a few days later; maybe it was that one, maybe not. It had been there a little while and I honestly couldn't tell. We buried it.
So what with the hemming and hawing and lack of help with the traps (which I simply cannot afford to buy myself), and tracking down someone who would spay feral cats on the cheap, never mind psyching myself up to trap what is essentially a wild animal (I am, I suppose I should admit, a rank coward in more than a few ways), by the time early spring came around Spot had reproduced again, giving us this guy:
This one I managed to socialize, as his personality was fairly open to it (Splotch and Smudge were really skittish from the start). Plus the weather was nicer; it's hard to have much patience standing out there in January trying trying trying to coax a shy kitten to let itself get anywhere near you. So I ended up adopting him myself and now he's my Aleister Meowley, Frater Purrdurabo, the Lesser Beast (333). I've been calling him by his Chinese name lately, Miao Li (apparent younger brother to this Lady). I also sing him this song:
Then of course before I knew it it was Splotch's turn, and she had these four, named after the place she gave birth to them, an old MG in the downstairs garage.
There was Austin
Healey (you can see she inherited her grandmother's spot)
Spridget
and Morris Minor
By this time I'd been talking to the local cat shelter and knew I had to bring them inside. But before I could rearrange the dining room to accommodate them Morris Minor was killed, probably by a coyote. The bastard pretty much tore him in half and just left him there. So I buried him. Nature, sure. Child of the Goddess, sure. Still a bastard in my book.
So I got the other three inside, and socialized them. They all got adopted out, eventually.
Not, however, before it was Smudge's turn. She also had four, though one of them died at three weeks as it just didn't thrive (something like one out of four kittens don't make it for whatever reason). I buried that one too.
The other three, though, were Maurice (named after Morris Minor)
Danny Lyon
and of course, Ratty.
Oh, Ratty. That's the one I bottle-fed. And after all that work, he had to stick around too.
Then there was Danny and the long saga of him, which I haven't shared before and which is frankly rather a nasty story, involving a mother who insisted that she could handle taking care of him while I was away for a couple weeks; but one day I called to check up on them and was told that six-week-old Danny had 'broken his neck.'
Of course he hadn't; he was, instead, really, really, sick.
And my mother didn't see any reason to take him to the vet. She just sort of threw up her hands and said, O how sad! How terrible that nothing can be done!
It is a long story; basically I had to frankly bully my own mother from six hundred miles away into calling a goddamned cab to get that kitten to the emergency vet. She didn't want to. But she did. I swore a lot, and for some reason that worked.
When I later picked Danny up (after cutting my vacation short) the vet there said he was '95% dead' when he was brought in. They were, frankly, amazed that he recovered at all; one of the vet techs said she almost had a heart attack when she saw him trying to sit up the next day. A couple of weeks ago I stopped by the emergency vet to give them an update. The lady there said they don't usually remember animals since they come and go so quickly through there, but she sure remembered Danny.
One of the first things I did when I got home from my vacation was make an appointment with my lawyer, to make sure that, should something happen to me, my mother, specifically, is absolutely NOT to be the one making decisions for me.
I did say my family was dysfunctional. Yeah.
But anyway so then of course Danny stayed (you should see that vet bill, hoo boy).
I was going to put Maurice up for adoption, I really was. But he has this sort of chronicish respiratory condition which is well under control but still there, and I didn't know how adoptable he was going to be. Plus, he absolutely worships his Uncle Aleister. You should see it. He follows him around, rubs himself against him, gets in his path to head butt him, the whole thing. I suspect Aleister is a little annoyed with it all, honestly, but he tolerates it. So he stayed too.
Now, through all this summer of course there were eye infections going around, and no one could leave here until everyone got the all clear. Which meant putting this nasty ointment (why there's that word again) in their eyes. Plus there were some antibiotics in there for Maurice, never mind all the stuff Danny had to have, and honestly it's all kind of a haze now. It sure as fuck was a lot of work.
I did eventually scare up some traps, though I had to go pretty far afield (Boston, actually, which is not particularly local). And I caught all three of the mommy-cats, though I had to let Spot go the first time because she was obviously still nursing yet another batch of kittens. Now those are:
Rory (named after the marvellous Rory Pond, of course)
Flufius Maximus (that's Latin don't you know)
and their really quite exceptionally shy sister, Mademoiselle Zéphirine Chattonne-Gris.
(That's the best picture I have of her so far). All three of those are now in my dining room. Rory and Floof have been good to go for ages; they socialized fairly easily, though Floof took a little longer. But they are still here, because their sister is really very, very, very shy; I'm only just at the point where I can pet her a little while she eats without her freaking out. The two boys are a help with her; when she sees them come out and climb all over me purring I can see the wheels turning in her little cat head, that maybe, just maybe, I'm okay. So for now they're here.
And in the meantime Spot has been spayed. Which means all three of the mommy-cats are missing the tips of their left ears, as well as their reproductive organs and man I can tell you that makes me so very happy. Because this last batch is it.
Well, so much for brevity. But that's been my life lately. It's a lot of work. Oh sure, I know, sounds awful, doesn't it, hanging out with kittens and making sure they get enough cuddles and playtime; but, really, what I've been doing is transforming eleven wild animals into eleven tame animals. Holy fuck is this a lot of work, especially given my lack of mothering proclivities.
So I've been, like I said, bending Bastet's ear a bit this past year. And She has come through. I've always (eventually) gotten help when I needed it.
But I've been too busy to make any proper offerings. The most I'd done was offer some incense, and keep Her statue on my altar dusted.
Yes, well.
That's not actually how it works, is it. I have been making offerings. I have been making sacrifices to Her. All this, all this work I've done, this Work I've done, this real-life hard slog feed the kittens medicate the kittens drive the kittens to the vet, the shelter, the place to be neutered, trap the mothers, but no let that one go because she has very young kittens and she can't be away from them that long yet, trap her again later, get them all spayed and release them and keep feeding them and trap Zéphirine before it's too late and socialize them and tame them and pay attention to them first because they need to eat now and I want to go to bed but I have to clean the litterboxes first—all of it, is all an offering. It's all many offerings, over and over again, to Bastet, to the Goddess of the Cats.
I know this is true, and I know it is what She wants. Because when I look at Her now, all She does is purr.
Her name means She of the bas, a bas being a type of ointment jar; in the exceptionally dry climate of Egypt moisturizer is an absolute necessity. I like to call Her Our Lady of the Salve.
Her cult center in Egypt was at the city of Per-Bastet ('the domain of Bastet' and now I'm totally cracking up at the I assume coincidental resemblance of Per to purr) up in the Delta; it was the capital of the 18th nome (administrative district; something like county, state, province) of Lower Egypt (lower of course meaning downstream in the case of the Nile, so that lower=northern, and upper=southern). It was famous for a particularly merry festival dedicated to Bastet, which involved lots of alcohol.
As you may well imagine, I've been petitioning Bastet left and right around here lately.
What? you say. Why is that?
All right; for those of you who have not been paying attention, I'll try to keep this brief.
Once upon a time at the start of last winter a little grey and white cat showed up on my doorstep, looking plaintively in at the glass door. That was Spot:
But of course she wasn't alone, oh no of course not. She had in tow three little kittens, who I reasonably enough named Splotch
Smudge
and Stripey
Crap, I thought. I could instantly tell that two of the three at least were female by the tortoiseshell color schemes. And I've been around the block a few times and so knew exactly which direction that was going to go in.
So I asked Bastet for help. I asked Her to make sure that they had someone to look after them, and to find them a good home with enough food to last them through the winter.
What do you think I am doing? She purred.
Crap, I thought.
So I fed them, because it was the beginning of winter in New England and knowing they were there I could not let them starve.
I will admit I hemmed and hawed about the next part of it, though, because I could see what was coming and how much work it was going to be if I chose to do it. I mean it doesn't take the Sight to know what will happen when three (at least) unspayed female cats show up on your doorstep.
So I started looking around on the internet. But it took a while. For one thing, with the crap economy charities have very few resources nowadays. One particular cat charity, just last year, would come to your house, trap the feral cats, take them away to be neutered, deal with the aftercare and then bring them back to be released (as trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats is really the best bet at population control, plus, you know, it avoids killing them); this year though they couldn't be arsed to even call me back, never mind lend me a trap or two. And it's true, I procrastinated a bit, because I knew it was a big job and it simply took time to get my brain around it. But in the end, yeah, it was my responsibility.
In the meantime, the Stripey kitten went missing. We found one by the road a few days later; maybe it was that one, maybe not. It had been there a little while and I honestly couldn't tell. We buried it.
So what with the hemming and hawing and lack of help with the traps (which I simply cannot afford to buy myself), and tracking down someone who would spay feral cats on the cheap, never mind psyching myself up to trap what is essentially a wild animal (I am, I suppose I should admit, a rank coward in more than a few ways), by the time early spring came around Spot had reproduced again, giving us this guy:
This one I managed to socialize, as his personality was fairly open to it (Splotch and Smudge were really skittish from the start). Plus the weather was nicer; it's hard to have much patience standing out there in January trying trying trying to coax a shy kitten to let itself get anywhere near you. So I ended up adopting him myself and now he's my Aleister Meowley, Frater Purrdurabo, the Lesser Beast (333). I've been calling him by his Chinese name lately, Miao Li (apparent younger brother to this Lady). I also sing him this song:
Well I hear you're just a kitten now
And I can see your pretty whiskers getting
in the tuna fish
You've got me right in your paws
Yes I'll put more in your dish
Aleister
I know this world is thrilling you
Oh Aleister
Meow meow meow mew
Then of course before I knew it it was Splotch's turn, and she had these four, named after the place she gave birth to them, an old MG in the downstairs garage.
There was Austin
Healey (you can see she inherited her grandmother's spot)
Spridget
and Morris Minor
By this time I'd been talking to the local cat shelter and knew I had to bring them inside. But before I could rearrange the dining room to accommodate them Morris Minor was killed, probably by a coyote. The bastard pretty much tore him in half and just left him there. So I buried him. Nature, sure. Child of the Goddess, sure. Still a bastard in my book.
So I got the other three inside, and socialized them. They all got adopted out, eventually.
Not, however, before it was Smudge's turn. She also had four, though one of them died at three weeks as it just didn't thrive (something like one out of four kittens don't make it for whatever reason). I buried that one too.
The other three, though, were Maurice (named after Morris Minor)
Danny Lyon
and of course, Ratty.
Oh, Ratty. That's the one I bottle-fed. And after all that work, he had to stick around too.
Then there was Danny and the long saga of him, which I haven't shared before and which is frankly rather a nasty story, involving a mother who insisted that she could handle taking care of him while I was away for a couple weeks; but one day I called to check up on them and was told that six-week-old Danny had 'broken his neck.'
Of course he hadn't; he was, instead, really, really, sick.
And my mother didn't see any reason to take him to the vet. She just sort of threw up her hands and said, O how sad! How terrible that nothing can be done!
It is a long story; basically I had to frankly bully my own mother from six hundred miles away into calling a goddamned cab to get that kitten to the emergency vet. She didn't want to. But she did. I swore a lot, and for some reason that worked.
When I later picked Danny up (after cutting my vacation short) the vet there said he was '95% dead' when he was brought in. They were, frankly, amazed that he recovered at all; one of the vet techs said she almost had a heart attack when she saw him trying to sit up the next day. A couple of weeks ago I stopped by the emergency vet to give them an update. The lady there said they don't usually remember animals since they come and go so quickly through there, but she sure remembered Danny.
One of the first things I did when I got home from my vacation was make an appointment with my lawyer, to make sure that, should something happen to me, my mother, specifically, is absolutely NOT to be the one making decisions for me.
I did say my family was dysfunctional. Yeah.
But anyway so then of course Danny stayed (you should see that vet bill, hoo boy).
I was going to put Maurice up for adoption, I really was. But he has this sort of chronicish respiratory condition which is well under control but still there, and I didn't know how adoptable he was going to be. Plus, he absolutely worships his Uncle Aleister. You should see it. He follows him around, rubs himself against him, gets in his path to head butt him, the whole thing. I suspect Aleister is a little annoyed with it all, honestly, but he tolerates it. So he stayed too.
Now, through all this summer of course there were eye infections going around, and no one could leave here until everyone got the all clear. Which meant putting this nasty ointment (why there's that word again) in their eyes. Plus there were some antibiotics in there for Maurice, never mind all the stuff Danny had to have, and honestly it's all kind of a haze now. It sure as fuck was a lot of work.
I did eventually scare up some traps, though I had to go pretty far afield (Boston, actually, which is not particularly local). And I caught all three of the mommy-cats, though I had to let Spot go the first time because she was obviously still nursing yet another batch of kittens. Now those are:
Rory (named after the marvellous Rory Pond, of course)
Flufius Maximus (that's Latin don't you know)
and their really quite exceptionally shy sister, Mademoiselle Zéphirine Chattonne-Gris.
(That's the best picture I have of her so far). All three of those are now in my dining room. Rory and Floof have been good to go for ages; they socialized fairly easily, though Floof took a little longer. But they are still here, because their sister is really very, very, very shy; I'm only just at the point where I can pet her a little while she eats without her freaking out. The two boys are a help with her; when she sees them come out and climb all over me purring I can see the wheels turning in her little cat head, that maybe, just maybe, I'm okay. So for now they're here.
And in the meantime Spot has been spayed. Which means all three of the mommy-cats are missing the tips of their left ears, as well as their reproductive organs and man I can tell you that makes me so very happy. Because this last batch is it.
Well, so much for brevity. But that's been my life lately. It's a lot of work. Oh sure, I know, sounds awful, doesn't it, hanging out with kittens and making sure they get enough cuddles and playtime; but, really, what I've been doing is transforming eleven wild animals into eleven tame animals. Holy fuck is this a lot of work, especially given my lack of mothering proclivities.
So I've been, like I said, bending Bastet's ear a bit this past year. And She has come through. I've always (eventually) gotten help when I needed it.
But I've been too busy to make any proper offerings. The most I'd done was offer some incense, and keep Her statue on my altar dusted.
Yes, well.
That's not actually how it works, is it. I have been making offerings. I have been making sacrifices to Her. All this, all this work I've done, this Work I've done, this real-life hard slog feed the kittens medicate the kittens drive the kittens to the vet, the shelter, the place to be neutered, trap the mothers, but no let that one go because she has very young kittens and she can't be away from them that long yet, trap her again later, get them all spayed and release them and keep feeding them and trap Zéphirine before it's too late and socialize them and tame them and pay attention to them first because they need to eat now and I want to go to bed but I have to clean the litterboxes first—all of it, is all an offering. It's all many offerings, over and over again, to Bastet, to the Goddess of the Cats.
I know this is true, and I know it is what She wants. Because when I look at Her now, all She does is purr.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
A Is Also For Ancestors, Again (An Addendum)
So one of the other things I've been up to lately is taking one of Max Dashú's online courses, this one called Spiritual Heritages of Ancient Europe, part two (I missed part one). Today Max gave a web seminar (also called a 'webinar' for all you techno-kids out there) about megalithic statues of Europe, mostly western Europe if I'm remembering correctly, like in present-day Spain and Portugal. Especially, of course, the stones that are identifiably female.
Many of the stones have very similar faces: a highly stylized straight browline, a squarish or pointed nose depending from that, with two circles for eyes. And, in most cases, no mouth. Like this one, from neolithic Provence, dating to the end of the fourth millenium bce, though it's not technically a megalith, being just shy of a foot tall:
I scanned that in from Gimbutas's The Language of the Goddess (drawing by Patricia Reis); Gimbutas calls it a depiction of the Owl Goddess, a form of Death Goddess, as the owl is long associated with death and the night; Max was saying though that she thinks it more likely as representing the ancestors, the dead, because the dead don't speak. In fact she'd titled the lecture 'Grandmother Stones.' You can see some more of these type of stones here, at her site.
So I thought that interesting, not just in general but in the timing for me as well given yesterday's post, since as far as the rest of the course goes we're talking about Rome right now. So it got me thinking.
As you may have guessed from my last post, I've got some issues, shall we say, with the idea of the ancestors, at least the immediate ones, what with the rather dysfunctional upbringing and all. Also, though it is hard to explain succinctly, thanks (or no thanks) to said upbringing I have always felt like I am starting from scratch; I've always had the feeling that nothing I accomplish ever sticks. Like I said, it is hard to explain, and I suppose I should refer you yet again to Tetanus Burger where you might be able to get more of an idea as to why. And feeling like I'm always starting from scratch means it feels like I've never had anything to build on, which is what the idea of ancestors is all about, isn't it. That there is an unbroken line going back and back. That you are not the first. That you have something to build on, something that is yours, because it is your family, your blood.
So maybe I need to think of it a little more distantly, more abstractly. Fuck these few generations I can see; after all my line, because I am here, on this Earth, now, goes back and back and back. From what I know I am of British blood, by which I mean, of the isle of Britain: English, Scottish, Welsh. But before that there has to be continental Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon, and Teutonic in the middle of Europe, and whoever else was there first before the migrations and invasions and it is perfectly plausible and in fact likely that the ancestors of my ancestors were the ones raising stones like that.
So then I thought: this is basic, basic stuff. This is not about grandmother's apple pie recipe (or, rather, Depression-era chocolate cake made with bacon grease, gah); this is simply about living long enough to have a healthy child, and that child living long enough to do the same, and so on and on. And I thought: what would she be called then, this old, old ancestor? She would be called She-Who-Survived.
She-Who-Survived. That is a powerful name, a powerful idea, for a kid who was frankly neglected, whose survival was not exactly guaranteed. I mean I'm here, so I did, and I can't even say it was really touch-and-go, properly, but... We had no hot water growing up, because when the water heater broke my father couldn't be arsed to fix it, and due to the OCPD he wouldn't let anyone else fix it; and, because he was a miser he never let the heat get more than fifty-five degrees in the winter here, in New England. And trust me, your brain and your instincts do read being that cold all winter as a threat to survival. That's the kind of cold that sinks into your bones. It's the kind of cold that becomes the default state in winter; being warm is the exception, the brief foray into comfort. It always comes back to the cold in the bones.
So. She-Who-Survived. I think She might make the best kind of ally.
Many of the stones have very similar faces: a highly stylized straight browline, a squarish or pointed nose depending from that, with two circles for eyes. And, in most cases, no mouth. Like this one, from neolithic Provence, dating to the end of the fourth millenium bce, though it's not technically a megalith, being just shy of a foot tall:
I scanned that in from Gimbutas's The Language of the Goddess (drawing by Patricia Reis); Gimbutas calls it a depiction of the Owl Goddess, a form of Death Goddess, as the owl is long associated with death and the night; Max was saying though that she thinks it more likely as representing the ancestors, the dead, because the dead don't speak. In fact she'd titled the lecture 'Grandmother Stones.' You can see some more of these type of stones here, at her site. So I thought that interesting, not just in general but in the timing for me as well given yesterday's post, since as far as the rest of the course goes we're talking about Rome right now. So it got me thinking.
As you may have guessed from my last post, I've got some issues, shall we say, with the idea of the ancestors, at least the immediate ones, what with the rather dysfunctional upbringing and all. Also, though it is hard to explain succinctly, thanks (or no thanks) to said upbringing I have always felt like I am starting from scratch; I've always had the feeling that nothing I accomplish ever sticks. Like I said, it is hard to explain, and I suppose I should refer you yet again to Tetanus Burger where you might be able to get more of an idea as to why. And feeling like I'm always starting from scratch means it feels like I've never had anything to build on, which is what the idea of ancestors is all about, isn't it. That there is an unbroken line going back and back. That you are not the first. That you have something to build on, something that is yours, because it is your family, your blood.
So maybe I need to think of it a little more distantly, more abstractly. Fuck these few generations I can see; after all my line, because I am here, on this Earth, now, goes back and back and back. From what I know I am of British blood, by which I mean, of the isle of Britain: English, Scottish, Welsh. But before that there has to be continental Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon, and Teutonic in the middle of Europe, and whoever else was there first before the migrations and invasions and it is perfectly plausible and in fact likely that the ancestors of my ancestors were the ones raising stones like that.
So then I thought: this is basic, basic stuff. This is not about grandmother's apple pie recipe (or, rather, Depression-era chocolate cake made with bacon grease, gah); this is simply about living long enough to have a healthy child, and that child living long enough to do the same, and so on and on. And I thought: what would she be called then, this old, old ancestor? She would be called She-Who-Survived.
She-Who-Survived. That is a powerful name, a powerful idea, for a kid who was frankly neglected, whose survival was not exactly guaranteed. I mean I'm here, so I did, and I can't even say it was really touch-and-go, properly, but... We had no hot water growing up, because when the water heater broke my father couldn't be arsed to fix it, and due to the OCPD he wouldn't let anyone else fix it; and, because he was a miser he never let the heat get more than fifty-five degrees in the winter here, in New England. And trust me, your brain and your instincts do read being that cold all winter as a threat to survival. That's the kind of cold that sinks into your bones. It's the kind of cold that becomes the default state in winter; being warm is the exception, the brief foray into comfort. It always comes back to the cold in the bones.
So. She-Who-Survived. I think She might make the best kind of ally.
Friday, January 6, 2012
A Is For Ancestors
Ah yes, where to start.
I don't think I like most of my ancestors. I mean, I can't help but acknowledge that they are my ancestors, I mean duh. And while the fact that I am here can tell me some things (like for example somewhere along the line they survived the bubonic plague long and successfully enough to keep the line going, as I am of European descent and I simply wouldn't be here if they hadn't), I've never really understood what the fuss is about. I think, most people just automatically, of course, how could you think otherwise, honor their ancestors because they come from decent people.
My family isn't close. I realized for the first time not that long ago that I actually have three Cousin Toms. The generations are skewed, and long, and so growing up none of my cousins were any where near my age. That also means that I have pretty much no experience of grandparents, besides maybe a single blurry memory of my mother's father when I was very young.
If you have been over to my other blog, Tetanus Burger, you know that my father was a hoarder. You will also know that that was caused by what can only be a serious case of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, which, before you go thinking you know what that is, is most emphatically not the same thing as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCPD is a personality disorder, which as far as I can tell, pretty much just comes down to a fundamental brokenness in the brain. The person with it cannot see that they have it, and in fact, a lot of the time, will not only deny that there is anything whatsoever wrong with them, but will also adamantly insist that it's the entire rest of the world who is wrong. And they believe it. With my own eyes I have seen my father confronted with a reality that did not fit with his belief. He looked at that reality, and then repeated his belief, over and over, louder and louder, though the proof that he was wrong was right in front of him. In his world if reality and belief were in conflict reality lost. This also means that people with personality disorders kind of don't get that the people around them are people and not extensions of their own world, or rather their own selves, since that is the same thing to them. And when you come right down to it that rather precludes empathy. Don't forget, other personality disorders include things like narcissism and sociopathy.
Speaking of narcissism, yeah. That's the other one that runs in the family. It's been fun here, lately, and the word that keeps coming to mind is unfortunately toxic, as in, my family is toxic.
So, if you're a family member and you're reading this, well, that's what you get for snooping on a Witch's blog, isn't it. Well, unless you're Cousin L, you're cool. You're about the only one, though.
What I know of my grandparents isn't good. I suppose I should confess straight up that I have no problems speaking ill of the dead. I've been rather enamoured of truth, lately. My father's father, well, he might have been all right, but he died young, and by that I mean in like 1934. My father's mother, well, I'm pretty sure I know where the hoarding gene came from. I've heard some atrocious stories about the state of her house.
On my mother's side I don't know much about my grandmother, though I have the impression she was pretty controlling. As for my grandfather, well, I don't really care if it was accepted practice at the time to hit your children with your belt, or to give your daughter bread soaked in milk for dinner, while you sat there eating steak; I consider that abuse and neglect, and so I consider you a bastard.
So really, I don't want much to do with them, my literal ancestors. I certainly am not inclined to put up an altar to them. In fact, my father in particular (though he's not technically dead yet) was such a miserly bastard that I really don't want anything to do with him again, ever. Not in this life and not in any other lives. I've considered, even, some kind of ritual to sever myself from him, karmically, I guess you'd say. I don't want to bump into him ever again.
I don't care if that's harsh. It's true. One of the things you don't get growing up in a hoarder's house is space, not physical space, not personal space, not emotional space; there is no ease at all to anything. It is all, always and entirely about the hoarder. And so there is certainly no space, none at all, for a voice.
I've found mine now. And I will scream and curse if I feel like it.
I don't think I like most of my ancestors. I mean, I can't help but acknowledge that they are my ancestors, I mean duh. And while the fact that I am here can tell me some things (like for example somewhere along the line they survived the bubonic plague long and successfully enough to keep the line going, as I am of European descent and I simply wouldn't be here if they hadn't), I've never really understood what the fuss is about. I think, most people just automatically, of course, how could you think otherwise, honor their ancestors because they come from decent people.
My family isn't close. I realized for the first time not that long ago that I actually have three Cousin Toms. The generations are skewed, and long, and so growing up none of my cousins were any where near my age. That also means that I have pretty much no experience of grandparents, besides maybe a single blurry memory of my mother's father when I was very young.
If you have been over to my other blog, Tetanus Burger, you know that my father was a hoarder. You will also know that that was caused by what can only be a serious case of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, which, before you go thinking you know what that is, is most emphatically not the same thing as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCPD is a personality disorder, which as far as I can tell, pretty much just comes down to a fundamental brokenness in the brain. The person with it cannot see that they have it, and in fact, a lot of the time, will not only deny that there is anything whatsoever wrong with them, but will also adamantly insist that it's the entire rest of the world who is wrong. And they believe it. With my own eyes I have seen my father confronted with a reality that did not fit with his belief. He looked at that reality, and then repeated his belief, over and over, louder and louder, though the proof that he was wrong was right in front of him. In his world if reality and belief were in conflict reality lost. This also means that people with personality disorders kind of don't get that the people around them are people and not extensions of their own world, or rather their own selves, since that is the same thing to them. And when you come right down to it that rather precludes empathy. Don't forget, other personality disorders include things like narcissism and sociopathy.
Speaking of narcissism, yeah. That's the other one that runs in the family. It's been fun here, lately, and the word that keeps coming to mind is unfortunately toxic, as in, my family is toxic.
So, if you're a family member and you're reading this, well, that's what you get for snooping on a Witch's blog, isn't it. Well, unless you're Cousin L, you're cool. You're about the only one, though.
What I know of my grandparents isn't good. I suppose I should confess straight up that I have no problems speaking ill of the dead. I've been rather enamoured of truth, lately. My father's father, well, he might have been all right, but he died young, and by that I mean in like 1934. My father's mother, well, I'm pretty sure I know where the hoarding gene came from. I've heard some atrocious stories about the state of her house.
On my mother's side I don't know much about my grandmother, though I have the impression she was pretty controlling. As for my grandfather, well, I don't really care if it was accepted practice at the time to hit your children with your belt, or to give your daughter bread soaked in milk for dinner, while you sat there eating steak; I consider that abuse and neglect, and so I consider you a bastard.
So really, I don't want much to do with them, my literal ancestors. I certainly am not inclined to put up an altar to them. In fact, my father in particular (though he's not technically dead yet) was such a miserly bastard that I really don't want anything to do with him again, ever. Not in this life and not in any other lives. I've considered, even, some kind of ritual to sever myself from him, karmically, I guess you'd say. I don't want to bump into him ever again.
I don't care if that's harsh. It's true. One of the things you don't get growing up in a hoarder's house is space, not physical space, not personal space, not emotional space; there is no ease at all to anything. It is all, always and entirely about the hoarder. And so there is certainly no space, none at all, for a voice.
I've found mine now. And I will scream and curse if I feel like it.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Away
I have been away, I guess you could call it, for a time lately. Well, not really away; but very much preoccupied with the little mundane things, which around here make little mewing noises; I'm nearly there with them. (At least I think that's a light at the end of the tunnel.) Three out of three feral mother-cats have been trapped, spayed, and released, four out of four new adopted nearly grown by now kittens have been neutered, two out of three little kittens have been captured and are socializing up quite nicely in the dining room (they purr and come running when they see me now). That just leaves one single kitten still outside, born to a feral mother who has since been spayed. This single feral kitten worries me a bit, though; it is solid grey and very very long-haired, especially given the wintry weather. It is also very shy, unlike its two brothers who are in the dining room now. And I suspect it is female. It is of such a color and fluffiness that I cannot tell; grey isn't sex-linked, like say calico, or even marmalade, and honestly, its butt is just too damned fluffy to see if there is anything there. So I worry. I did get to pat it a little today for the first time, by putting a plate of wet food just between my feet. I had been trying to seduce this one with toys but wasn't getting very far, and it is getting older and older day by day and further and further from being able to be properly socialized. It does not help that I don't know exactly how old it is.
The other thing that is going on is rather deeper, deep enough I'm not sure how much I want to get into here. Let's just say there are some, well, issues with my family, ones the holidays are not helping at all. I have also been exploring the past, and with that and the current not-so-fun shall we say present, I have been processing a lot of stuff. And I mean a lot. And it's only the beginning, probably.
I used to be really big on Tarot; that has gone into a bit of a lull for the past few years. But I still like to figure out my Tarot year, which you do by adding up the numbers of your birthday and month, plus those in the current year. And for me, 2011 was a Tower year.
I am not surprised, not at all. This past year has been exactly that, and it's not over yet. Though it does help, I think, to know this. Instead of lightning randomly striking my life, unexpectedly smashing apart this structure to fall down on top of me, I have managed, somewhat, to pull it down myself. I think that makes a world of difference, though I am not saying I am having an easy time, oh no, nor that I am in any kind of control, really. But at least I know what I am seeing.
So. Next year is the Star for me. I am very much looking forward to that little glimmer of light, as per the story in the last post, though that wasn't on purpose. I am also glad, very glad, that the darkness of the year has turned now, though I still feel like I can't see in the dark, which is disconcerting, because I usually can.
The other thing that is going on is rather deeper, deep enough I'm not sure how much I want to get into here. Let's just say there are some, well, issues with my family, ones the holidays are not helping at all. I have also been exploring the past, and with that and the current not-so-fun shall we say present, I have been processing a lot of stuff. And I mean a lot. And it's only the beginning, probably.
I used to be really big on Tarot; that has gone into a bit of a lull for the past few years. But I still like to figure out my Tarot year, which you do by adding up the numbers of your birthday and month, plus those in the current year. And for me, 2011 was a Tower year.
I am not surprised, not at all. This past year has been exactly that, and it's not over yet. Though it does help, I think, to know this. Instead of lightning randomly striking my life, unexpectedly smashing apart this structure to fall down on top of me, I have managed, somewhat, to pull it down myself. I think that makes a world of difference, though I am not saying I am having an easy time, oh no, nor that I am in any kind of control, really. But at least I know what I am seeing.
So. Next year is the Star for me. I am very much looking forward to that little glimmer of light, as per the story in the last post, though that wasn't on purpose. I am also glad, very glad, that the darkness of the year has turned now, though I still feel like I can't see in the dark, which is disconcerting, because I usually can.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Question
Oh, I wanted to ask:
Did anyone else experience that blinding brightness this summer? I had asked around, a little, to some Witchy sensitive sorts I know but they didn't know what I was talking about. I'm sure it's got a lot to do with where I was, but at the same time it really felt like a bigger phenomenon than just me, like a few years back when the Veil felt really thin.
Like I said it felt like this: like I was looking through a pane of dusty glass, upon which the sun was shining so brightly that everything was just this haze of brightness, and I couldn't see, See, much of anything.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Did anyone else experience that blinding brightness this summer? I had asked around, a little, to some Witchy sensitive sorts I know but they didn't know what I was talking about. I'm sure it's got a lot to do with where I was, but at the same time it really felt like a bigger phenomenon than just me, like a few years back when the Veil felt really thin.
Like I said it felt like this: like I was looking through a pane of dusty glass, upon which the sun was shining so brightly that everything was just this haze of brightness, and I couldn't see, See, much of anything.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
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