Spa fun for foodies!
31 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in concoctions
Every year in late March, I have a personal holiday on which I pamper, indulge and buy gifts for myself. It is not my birthday — my birthday is reserved for other people to buy me gifts! Instead, this is a day all about self love. It’s a beautiful thing, and I heartily advise you all to take up the tradition.
This year I decided to do something extra special, and spent the evening cooking up natural spa treatments for myself, predominantly made of things found in my kitchen. I always say any evening that ends with you covered in food is bound to be a good one. The night and the products were a grand success, so I thought I’d share some of them!
(The recipes I used came from or were inspired by the wonderful book, Earthly Bodies & Heavenly Hair, by Dina Falconi. Highly recommended, but go easy on some of her essential oil portions, as some she suggests in her formulas are sensitizing.)
First Stop: Avocado Flour Face Mask
Ingredients: Ripe avocado, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, water, jojoba oil
I started with a face mask made with avocado and flour. The cornmeal provides a gentle exfoliant, and the combination creates a nice thick and creamy paste. I combined this with the classic cooling cucumber slices on the eyes. It was soothing, purifying, moisturizing, and decadent. I should also mention that it looks fabulously flattering when on…
Next up: The most luxurious bath you’ve ever taken.
Ingredients: Fresh, organic full cream, local raw honey
This bath could not have been any more delicious. I put the bowl in a hot water bath so the honey would liquefy while I blended in the cream. To make things a little sexier, I also threw in some sandalwood and ylang-ylang oils. Yummy, yummy, yummy. Milk baths are a favorite of mine (working on an etsy shop… more to come soon, hopefully!), and there’s almost nothing better than making it full cream. Lactose is a natural exfoliant, and the fats in the milk delightfully softens and moisturizes the skin. Honey, in addition to all its other magnificent benefits, is also a skin humectant, bringing the natural moisture to the surface. So not only does this bath look, smell, feel (and probably taste!) sumptuous, you get out instantly moisturized. Splendid!
La pièce de résistance: Garden Blend Shampoo
Ingredients: Infusion of nettle leaf, comfrey root and basil, almond oil, castille soap, basil and lavender essential oil
This recipe made three nice little bottles of shampoo (shown above with the ingredients). The finished product is quite watery, not like a traditional shampoo gel, but it works up an AMAZING lather. Fantastic stuff, and it smells heavenly. The comfrey is reparative and smells especially nice.
I also whipped up a little coconut oil hair balm with a custom blend of moisture balancing essential oils to replace my conditioner and tame flyaways.
I have to say I was very pleased with the results. It made me want to touch my hair a lot and make kissy faces, which is always how I like to end my special day.
All in all, a very lovely time was had by this lady. And I now have natural products I can use throughout the year that I don’t have to worry about poisoning me or my environment, and I never have to spend excessive money on hair products again!
This week, take a moment to give yourself a little pampering, and pamper the earth a little while you’re at it.
Love to you all!
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Because you were certainly wondering…
29 Mar 2012 5 Comments
Many weeks ago, Mister Joseph Magnuson of the Candlesmoke Chapel ever so kindly included me in a Versatile Blogger post, with my humble blog tucked into a long list of intimidating company. I have been having trouble lately putting thoughts into words for the blog, so I think I will at last go back to this and use it as a prompt to get something posted, even if it is just to say, “Hi! I’m still here, and thanks for reading!”
Per Magister Magnuson, here are the rules to the Versatile Blogger Award:
- Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post
- Share 7 things about yourself
- Pass this award along to 15 recently discovered blogs you enjoy reading
- Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award
So, a big thank you to Joseph and Sara at the Candlesmoke Chapel (follow them on Twitter!). And now to tackle seven things…
ONE
I don’t know why, but this popped into my head first. Here are some of my favorite Yiddish slang words:
- bashert — like kismet; soul mates, fate, destiny
- chutzpah — hubris, sort of
- kibbitzer — a “meddlesome spectator,” backseat driver
- altvarg — a decrepit person or thing
- ahntoisht — disappointed; the one thing worse than angry your parents can be
- farshnoshket — in much less expressive terms, a drunk person
Although much of my family in recent history was raised attending progressive Methodist Christian churches, my mother’s family is reputedly of Jewish descent if you go back far enough, and in the last couple of decades, several of my aunts have converted to Judaism. Maybe it was just from growing up in Goosetown, but I somehow became accustomed to smattering my speech with the occasional Yiddish color. These are my Yiddish greatest hits. Or something. Also inspired by a trip to the library with my amazing cousin Izzy. (“He’s stuck in the philanthropits!”) Eh, moving on…
TWO
My proudest moment was winning a Twinkie eating contest during a Late Night Trivia event at undergrad. I managed to get down three Twinkies in 30 seconds, then do 25 sit ups in the 30 seconds immediately following. Intoxicated by victory, I celebrated by eating the rest of the box of Twinkies.
Some of my greatest memories and experiences have been linked to gastronomic feats, and I have historically loved weird foods (Braunschweiger was my childhood comfort food). I am not shy about trying new things (birthday dinner highlights included escarole with anchovy and nutmeg), and I like to pass on to others the adventure of good eating. To my knowledge, (at least since I have been old enough to think about it), I have only refused to try one meal, and that was a goat head during my study abroad. Normally I would have been excited about it, but we had already eaten every other part of the goat for the two weeks prior (including the sea-creature-resembling stomach parts), I had seen the head sitting unceremoniously in a bucket day-in and day-out throughout that time, and I just hadn’t worked up quite the energy for it in time for breakfast. I still feel rather guilty about that.
Although I will likely never give up my reign as the queen of fancy cheeses, hopefully, in small steps at a time, I am moving towards healthier adventurous choices. Only recently the boy and I discovered a delightful recipe for non-dairy “Not-so cheese sauce” made primarily of almonds and pimentos. Tasty!
THREE
Animal attraction. I have a thing with wild animals. No, not that kind of a thing, exactly… Let me try to explain with some examples. When I was still in the single digits, I called my mom to the front door to come see the squirrel I had brought home. A live, unwounded, not rabid, adult squirrel cradled in my arms. This earned for me the nickname “St. Francis” from my immediate family members. In the summer as a teenager there was a chipmunk that would climb up and perch on my shoulder while I read outside, and sometimes he would ride in my hoodie pocket or in the cuff of my jeans while I went for walks. In high school while on a camp out with some friends, I rose early to walk down to the lake, and got swept up in a run through the trees with a herd of deer.
There are exceptions, however, that bear mentioning. I have identified a list of the top five scariest birds. They are, in no order of preference: Nile shoe-bills, west African vultures, piliated woodpeckers, wild turkeys, and large murders of crows that move like a giant shadowy cloud. I am fortunate to say I have only had too-close encounters with four of the five, thank goodness. The fear is a sort of thrill, but I am still uncomfortable about wild turkeys, after the way they ganged up on me, and how they skulk around like they are covered in snakes… *shudder* Oh, and I was once rushed to the hospital after being attacked by my own cats. For the WIN!
FOUR
I am a big nerd. HUGE. I was a laminated card-carrying member of a Fox Mulder fanclub. To be honest, though, my X-phile status kept me out of a lot of trouble back in the day, when I was inside chowing down egg foo young and having viewing marathons with my other nerdy friends every free weekend. In math class, we would finish our work early and list the episodes in chronological order. Our lovely and talented teacher, who reminded me of Invisigoth from Kill Switch, would help us fill in the blanks. As you can imagine, I was in love with her.
My intimate knowledge of X-files trivia did gain me some curious attention recently, however, when I was the only person in a large audience of a live comedy show to gleefully whoop and applaud at a mention of autoerotic asphyxiation. Raise your hands, nerds, if this also puts you in mind of Peter Boyle and Chantilly Lace.
FIVE
I love music, and I have aspired to keep it an active part of my life by picking up a series of musical instruments. I started out tamely enough with 15 years of piano lessons, followed by a brief and frightening tour in show choir (the strangling sequins! clown makeup! a horrifying contraption called lollies! jazz hands!!), retreated relieved into a small women’s madrigal choir, flirted with violin and guitar, then spun wildly off with the non sequitors of sitar in college and in the last few months, my beautiful concertina. What next? I’m thinking bagpipes. The boy recently took up the glockenspiel, and I have to say that glockenspiel and concertina cover a mean Lady GaGa.
SIX
When my sister was little, she wanted to grow up to be a gas station attendant. It must run in the family to have career ambitions that are falling out of fashion, because I recently applied for grad school to become a librarian. (*Please, please let that happen!) I didn’t always have that dream, though. In second grade, on my birthday, I got to fill out a poster called, “All About Me!” (Not unlike this blog post, really…) Under the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question, I wrote in very large, round, pencil letters: “Veterinarian. … or Parapsychologist.”
Later swayed by new passions, I prepared myself for a future as an archaeologist by teaching myself to read middle Egyptian hieroglyphs and immersing myself in ancient history. And although fate had other plans for my studies (Practicality! Says the girl with a degree in French literature and medieval and renaissance studies), I still love studying dead languages. Egyptian, Latin, Greek, Old English, Old French, Sanskrit, you name it… I have flashcards!
The weirdest job I ever had was milking sheep for cheese and soap making. It didn’t bring in much money for my tuition, but I was awfully fond of the lambs, and I kind of liked mucking around in the barn. It was also really relaxing to look into the wide vat of pure, fresh milk…
One of my current coworkers is fond of telling me that I have weird stories and I talk about things she never thinks about, but in my experience, there is nothing really new under the sun. While at an academic conference for medieval studies last spring, I met a total stranger who was not only familiar with my obscure current field of work, but had actually worked on a project my company also handled, and when I asked him the strangest job he had ever held, he said, “This is really weird, but one year I made money by herding sheep…” and I got to say, “No effing way – me too!”
SEVEN
I am really, really clumsy. I can fall down when I’m not even moving — and I have, on many occasions. I once kicked myself in the head with a tap shoe while falling backwards down the stairs (while trying to demonstrate my “grace” by dancing for my grandparents). Once at a birthday party, I got sucked down to the waist into a hidden mud hole, and the birthday girl had to recruit multiple adults to help pull me out. I once smelled a perfume sample in a magazine, sneezed, and my contact lens flew out of my eye. I hope I don’t die in some horrible accident, but knowing me, maybe it would be a little bit funny. I wouldn’t mind that so much, if my death brought a little inexplicable chuckle to the world.
Alright, that’s seven, so we’ll leave it at that!
The original Versatile Blogger Award specified that it should be passed on to 15 blogs, but I am not dedicated enough to blog reading to even be familiar with that many, I don’t think, so I have instead chosen eight. Here they are — go check them out!
- Magick and Mundane
- The Forest Witch
- New World Witchery
- Pagan By Nature
- The Juicy Witch
- Happily Essa After
- A Bad Witch’s Blog
- Ivy on the Path
I’d also like to quickly mention how much I am loving the pagan podcasting world lately. To everyone out there who is taking the time and making the effort to produce shows for us, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You make my little world go ’round.
Thanks for reading!
~arrow
All I have to do is dream, dream, dream…
07 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in aural arts, dreaming arrow, presenting arrow
Hi! *waves*
I miss you. Or my imaginary, personified version of you. I’ve been seeing all these amazing posts at other’s sites lately, and it finally prompted me to just sit down and type, even if I have nothing structured to say. So… here we go!
I’ve had a couple (or several) weeks spent working till anxious exhaustion overtakes me, but the cubicle stress has been offset by the pleasure of surprisingly witchy dreams to soothe me at night. One in which I was enlisted by my aunts to do a dark working at that place special to our family, but they told me it would require digging up the graves of murderers on the property. I told them that by my understanding I could just take some dirt from the graves to the same effect, and my cousin (the one I call “twin cousin” who shares my witchy flavor) said approvingly, “She really knows her stuff.” (I do not feel that that comment was accurate, but it still felt very nice to hear, sleeping or awake.) In the dream, I capitulated, and headed to a tiny witchy shop the size of a tollbooth to get some supplies. The owner said to me as I was picking out my tools, “You have your amethyst, of course, for protection.” I nodded, thinking to myself, um… no… so I decided to look at some amethyst jewelry as a backup. Found some lovely and strange earrings, that I think I might ask the boy to help me make. Tally of remembered protective amulets from dreams is now up to 2!
In another, after a fun little adventure in a cave deciphering sarcophagus hieroglyphs with my dad, and packing up crates of dark blue glass, I was sitting with my family in a golden field of tall grass making truly beautiful music I wish I had the ear to reproduce in waking life. Mom suddenly swooned, and I rushed off to get a remedy for her, mostly consisting of sweetgrass, one white, and one red rose…
Around my birthday, I dreamt I bought an antique concertina with wrought iron handles that came with a musical journal/scrapbook written by the previous owner. She had christened the concertina “Circe,” and her scrapbook was all full of glamourous ladies and death. This, and the fact that I had by then dreamt of concertinas on numerous occasions oddly enough, prompted me to request help from my boy and parents to purchase a concertina for Christmas. (I wisely settled on a less expensive but good quality beginner’s model, although I had a lot of fun browsing through the gold and rare wood ones…) It is awesome, and I am so excited to be learning and playing music again. It’s a challenge getting to know the button placement, but I have been practicing a little every day, and I’m already making playlists of songs I’d like to learn. The boy is being sweetly tolerant of my honking, halting practice songs. I now have a weird/awkward music corner with my concertina, my sitar and that baby-size classical guitar I dug out of my parent’s basement. *claps* All that’s missing are some bagpipes, and maybe a Turkish ney and some Orff instruments…
Oh! I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but I discovered a pagan friend at work! It started with a conversation about bathing with flowers (yeah, I don’t know how we got on that topic either), and somehow we both asked enough vague, leading questions until we figured out neither of us had “whaaaa?” expressions when the other was talking about citrine spheres or smudging. It’s kind of saving my work life at the moment. I told him about my surprise serendipitous rendezvous this week in which I ran hastily away from work to catch a bus, missed it, and wound up at the library (which I thought was closed) drooling over a facsimile of a 1659 transcription of John Dee/Edward Kelley spirit channeling, then found THE book of sigils I had been wishing existed in the stacks. I think we might take a little field trip after work one of these weeks so I can show them to him.
Anyway, new pagan work friend was telling me about some crazy dream effects he was feeling with amethyst and amber by his bed, so I took my amethyst beads I had picked up (after that protection dream, dontchaknow) and went to bed that night. Dreamt that while walking through the country, the boy and I spotted a family hand dying wool in the most brilliant colors, spinning and weaving and knitting the greatest hats I’ve ever seen, and we decided to quit our “real” jobs and start raising alpacas. We lived with my parents, and we had to keep a snake in the house to balance out the ecosystem… for some reason. Mom wasn’t too thrilled about the giant green python sliding past her feet when she was in the bathroom, so we had to make it sleep outside the first couple of nights. Somewhere in that same dream cycle I had an amazingly vivid still moment nose-to-nose with a horned stang that was quite wonderful, as well.
I don’t feel like I have been doing much that would earn me these dreams lately. I haven’t done any rituals, no spellwork, no truly witchy reading (unless rereading “Mists of Avalon” is sufficient), no card consultations, not even any meditating or even listening to many podcasts. But who am I to look a gift horse – or alpaca – in the mouth? I am loving it. And I am finding a lot of inspiration in them for my non-work life that is making that other part we don’t like to talk about more bearable.
In case someone reads this and is inclined to respond, I’m curious what relationship others have with their dreams. Do you remember your dreams? Do you find overlap between your spirituality and your dreaming? Do you take anything from your dreams and apply it to your waking life? Dreams have kind of always been “my thang,” but I don’t know what others do with them.
So… I guess that’s about it for now. Here’s a picture of my parents’ dog, just for fun:
Happy New Year!
Thanks for reading, and best wishes for 2012!
Yours,
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On Yoolis Night
22 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
Wow, it has been a month of Sundays since I posted anything, and so much has happened!
On Halloween night, the boy and I moved into a new place, a lovely and strange old place complete with stained glass, servants’ stairs, parson’s (and pocket!) doors, a clawfoot tub, howling windows, phantom knocks, a widow’s room, and a pepto-bismol-pink bathroom. (Not too shabby a resume for an apartment!) Best of all, it has way more doors than make sense, and they all open with skeleton keys! *squee*
Okay, sorry. Clearly, I am still really excited and not wholly accustomed to the new place. …Mostly because we are still not moved in, because work for both of us has been SO crazy. I’m trying not to think about it too much during non-work hours, but it’s even starting to affect my dreams. The other night, what started out as a basic work anxiety dream complete with scary, stiff-necked auditors carrying giant medieval-style books of things I could have effed up, ended with me asking (sincerely, even) how I can be the best [insert my title] I can be, and my dream told me, “Stop doing it. Leave.”
But until I cave in to my subconscious and quit, I will be suffering in a loopy, overworked, blindly optimistic stupor. And spending the rest of the time pretending I’m not terrified by my job and focusing on how much the rest of things don’t suck at the moment!
One down side (sort of?) to the new neighborhood, is my commute is significantly shorter, leaving me less time in the morning and evening to catch up on podcasts. First world problems, folks. I’m grateful that I have a place to live, food to eat, and the people I love are safe and healthy.
That about saps my gushy positive energy. But it felt nice to put it all out there. :) It’s officially winter at this hour — I draped some lights around our cardboard boxes, and I’m feeling the spirit of the season. Best wishes to you and yours, readers. Keep yourselves and each other warm.
Love,
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Mabon Post Preview
08 Oct 2011 2 Comments
in exploring arrow, featured photo
I know it was several weeks ago now, but I do still want to add a post about my lovely Mabon activities! Since it is not quite there, I wanted to at least post a few photos of the affair. Hope everyone is well and enjoying the beautiful fall!
xo,
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Magic in the Ditches
12 Sep 2011 4 Comments
in exploring arrow, featured photo, flora, heart branches
I’ll admit it — I love most of the plants that reasonable people consider weeds. I especially love the fluffy floaty kinds that generate horrendous allergies in most of my friends. I can’t help it! I root for the underdog.
I never really learned what most of the common plants around my neighborhood were except for those I could eat, like blueberries, black raspberries, nasturtium, marigold, and Queen Anne’s Lace – whose roots are wild carrot (sooo delicious, unless you accidentally confuse it with hemlock).
I found out in my teens that my grandmother Alma used to know the common and Latin names for every plant in the state (or so it seemed). She made a point to learn them all when she was 14 and left home to be a domestic and a schoolteacher in a one-room school house, a few miles horseback ride from the house where she boarded. (*grin* It sounds so romantic put like that, but I can only imagine the difficulty of the winters.) When she passed away, I was only just beginning to get to know her — the real Alma behind the plump and airy Grandma persona — so I made a resolution to try and learn about the plants around me in her honor.
I have another confession. I didn’t do very well on that resolution. But in plucky midwestern fashion, against the odds, I decided to give it another go. I started on a good foot when I took some courses in essential oil therapies, learning the important differences between species of plants that may share common names but produce vastly different oils. Then baby steps… I bought a tree and wildflower identification guide for my state, fell madly in love with the catalpa trees in the city, then trekked off with my guide under my arm into the woods. I didn’t go until fall was already creeping in, but I was still able to spot and identify over 20 different species of wildflowers on my walk in one afternoon. Not only did it boost my confidence in the possibility that I can still learn these things, it felt so rewarding to walk the same paths but suddenly feel like I was surrounded by dear friends because I recognized their faces and knew them by name. Somehow that experience, and the awe of knowing whoever or whatever created all of them also created me reaffirmed my devotion to the beauty, mystery and connection of the natural world.
Okay, I’m done being misty… probably. But I can’t promise I won’t still wax poetic. :)
Here are a few of the common faces of my neighborhood of which I am now especially fond:
common yarrow – achillea millefolium - named for the legend that Achilles used this herb to treat bleeding wounds during the Trojan war. I read a rather lovely albeit frightening love spell with yarrow that tells you whether he loves you – by making your nose bleed endlessly. According to Cunningham, an infusion of yarrow flowers if drunk will improve psychic powers. This one is easy to spot because of its feathery, fern-like leaves.
new england aster & pearly everlasting
indian pipe – monotropa uniflora – a waxy, bell-shaped single flower on a thick stalk, looking rather like an alien fungus
canada goldenrod – solidago cnadensis – a staple of the fields and prairies.
new england aster – aster novae-angliae – charming purple stars with yellow centers
pearly everlasting – anaphalis margaritacea – white pearl-shaped buds with yellow centers, like clusters of tiny lotuses
common tansy- tanacetium vulgare – heavy clumps of bright yellow button flowers. the leaves of the tansy are often used as a substitute for sage in sachets, prompting me to wonder if they could be used as a sage substitute in magical workings. be wary, however, as this flower contains a toxic oil.
field & bull thistle – cirsium discolor & vulgare – gorgeous, purple and spiny, but the field thistle is slightly less prickly. In Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, he gives this spell to call the spirits: place some thistle in boiling water. remove from the heat and lie or sit beside the pot. As the steam rises, call the spirits and listen carefully – they may answer your questions.
orange hawkweed
evening primrose – oenothera biennis – bright yellow with four petals, has a rather intriguing x-shaped center (sigma) which I’m sure could be used symbolically somehow, eh? also pollinated by the sphinx moths at night, a rather romantic and mysterious notion. this plant was one of three named for me in a dream once years ago.
prairie clover – dalea candida – a slim and unassuming flower but it can send roots over five feet deep into the prairie soil in search of water. a great emblem for hidden strength and determination if I ever saw one.
orange hawkweed - hieracium aurantiacum – colorfully also called “devil’s paintbrush” or “king-devil,” this flower was named hawkweed after a folk belief that hawks ate the flowers to improve their vision. perhaps a nice flower for your altar when you wish to see beyond the veil?
swamp buttercup – ranunculus hispidus – delicate and cheerful, with five cupped petals. I was excited to find three of these on my walk.
buttercup
Speaking of plants that give out fluffy drifting sneeze-inducing seeds, I thought it would be fun sometime to use them for a spell – focusing your intentions on the blossom as a whole, then plucking and releasing them in the wind or blowing on them to watch them fly off carrying a million little seeds to grow and manifest your desires. Then, of course, I realized everyone and their mother does that all the time, wishing on dandelions. I am more in love with that practice now than I ever was before, and now I find myself driven to make wishes on every aster, thistle and milkweed I pass as well!
In all, it was a lovely afternoon, I hugged some trees, spun around in some circles and enjoyed seeing, truly, the wealth of magical and wild resources sprouting up all around in those beautiful weedy ditches.
There was also this giant fungus that felt like the chin of a beluga whale, or so I imagined (I’ve never met a beluga – I’m landlocked).
baby beluga
I realize I’m still learning, so if you see anything here I’ve incorrectly identified, please let me know. :)
Hope all is well for you!
Love,
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Losing Our Senses
26 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in healing arrow, memory lane, pondering arrow
I think most of us, at one time or another, have felt the sensation of losing our senses. And although that phrase tends to evoke images of madness (something about which I have some tangled and complex feelings), recently I was reminded that I have, at distinct moments in my past, literally lost my senses, one at a time.
I don’t just mean being unable to smell because of a case of sniffles, or temporarily unable to taste after scalding my tongue on a too-eager spoonful of hot soup (both considerably unpleasant experiences).
When I was little I used to practice navigating my house with my eyes closed, stumbling up and down stairs and through the halls, testing my abilities with a determination that seemed to signal a certainty that I would imminently lose my eyesight. I can’t recall if this activity started before or after I was first informed that I needed corrective lenses. Oddly enough, I continued to do this even as I got old enough to realize how silly it must seem. I guess I imagined there was no harm in it, and that way if I was ever attacked by a flock of birds that pecked out my eyes, I might still be able to find my way to the refrigerator. Of course, I never imagined that I would be so thankful for the practice.
In my teens I was struck with a frightening combination of concurrent respiratory illnesses. The severity of my symptoms delivered me to the hospital – not overnight, but just for a lung X-ray. The procedure was routine enough that I was prepped in my heavy lead gown and directed about the radiology room by a student technician. Poor fellow.
Everything was going fine until I realized, as I stood after the second scan waiting for the technician to reenter the room, that I could no longer see. My vision wasn’t simply blurred as it might be without my glasses; it was absent. I could see nothing at all — everything was darkness. I was completely bewildered at first, and I remember putting up my hands to feel my face just to make sure my eyelids weren’t closed. When I touched my open eyes, I’ll admit, I was scared. I stood there silently just touching my face in disbelief and turning my head every direction to seek out some form of light, but nothing changed. I finally heard the door open, the technician’s footsteps, and his slightly shy detached recitation of the next round of tests.
Afraid he might walk away if I didn’t say something, I interrupted with a rather high-pitched squeak of “I can’t see.” I can only imagine his look at this point (as I didn’t see it), but I remember him stumbling over his words for a second before asking, “What?” I can’t see; I can’t see anything. My hands fluttered over my face again, and I felt myself losing my balance. His voice had a confused tremor to it when he asked me to sit down, and I blurted out “Where?” under a panicked laugh. He didn’t seem to understand until I stumbled while babbling that I couldn’t see any place to sit, trying to make him believe me. I wondered what my eyes looked like, but they must have appeared normal since it took him so long to register the extent of what I was saying. Finally he guided me to a chair and just said, “I… I’ll be right back.”
I don’t know where he went, what he told the doctor, or how long I was there alone, wondering what the hell was happening. It felt like hours.
I do remember thinking, I’m glad I prepared for this.
As inexplicably as my vision was lost, it eventually returned, sometime shortly after he returned with a doctor. I was too young to feel I could ask them for answers, and they never offered an explanation or any words of particular comfort. Maybe they thought I had been lying and were relieved when the problem silently resolved itself.
I recall that when we were children we used to frequently ask each other what sense we would give up if we had to choose one. Do young people still play that game? Did you? If so, what sense(s) did you tend to choose, and would your answer change if you were asked again?
For a long time I considered entering a convent. Not out of religious conviction, but because of a need for silence. I didn’t feel like the world around me was too noisy, but I felt sometimes like I myself would never stop talking, and that only an outside order could teach me the thrill of golden silence.
Then one morning I woke up, and I could no longer speak.
I have lost my voice in the past, several times. My sister used to say I was the “voice-losingest” person she’d ever met. But usually it was accompanied by other symptoms, came on gradually, and would allow me to have that raspy fun Hollywood minx voice for a while, maybe whisper softly, or at worst gurgle a little. This was utterly different. (Or unutterably different.)
I felt perfectly fine before, during and after, except for the fact that I could not produce any sound through my throat, not even a polite cough. I decided I must need rest, and I didn’t push it. Instead I resigned myself to hand signs, exaggerated facial expressions and scribbled notes. I thanked my stars for my sign language class and quickly improved at shorthand, because my voice didn’t come back.
A week went by. Finally, I signaled to my mom that I needed to see a doctor. She made the call. Checking in at the reception was interesting… I had forgotten to bring a notepad, and the ladies behind the desk looked at me like an alien while I floundered to communicate to them who I was, what I was doing there and why I couldn’t talk (which, of course, I couldn’t have explained anyway).
The doctor looked down my throat, did some tests, and ultimately told me that there was nothing wrong with me. (Really. He actually said nothing was wrong.) But, friendly guy that he was, he prescribed me some heavy medication anyway. (Suffice to say I never wanted to go back to this doctor again. And I’m not even going into the time I went to him for immunizations before travel and he got the place I was going to wrong twice. Who knows what he actually injected me with, if he thought I was off to a different continent? But that’s neither here nor there.)
Another full week passed before the one morning finally arrived when I woke up, gingerly swallowed, and finally produced words. As before, there was no gradual easing back, no identifiable cause for the loss or the return, and no comforting wisdom that I could prevent it from happening again.
I hadn’t thought about these experiences for a long time until very recently, and I suddenly wondered if I were being tested somehow, and whether I should be prepared to experience the loss of some other sense or ability soon. I also realized for the first time that while dealing with some back issues last year that culminated in a sudden collapse in front of the sink — as though my body momentarily forgot how to support its own weight — I recognized the same kind of feeling. One of shock, detached wonder, then awareness, thinking “Oh, so this is what it’s like for those who can’t do what I take for granted.”
These experiences of mine had no clear cause, no obvious reason for their resolution, and had the unusual trait of being witnessed by medical professionals. I don’t ignore the possibility that there are, somewhere, simple explanations for all of them, but when I lay them all out like this it sounds like a fable. The girl who lost her sight, her speech, her ability to walk. But each was granted back to her by the power that took it away, like a light switch flicked off, then on.
To what end? What is the moral? Is the story over, or what lesson do I still have to learn? And in its learning, what do I have yet to lose?
Last spring my dad lost his hearing. In an instant. He woke up, thought perhaps it was some sort of head cold, but the buzzing, the pressure, the muffling silence never waned. After ENTs, steroids, acupuncture, chiropractic, essential oils, and favors called in to the brightest experts of the western medical community, there is still no change.
I never thought to draw a connection, but maybe now I can summon up the courage to tell him that I know, at least a little bit, how he feels.
Courage enough, maybe, to tell him my wish that I could find that power to turn his switch back on.
Someone once told me that pirates used to wear eye patches even if their eyes were both fine, but they would switch the patch to the opposite eye each morning and evening. So doing, one eye was kept always in darkness, so that after sundown or below decks when it was uncovered, accustomed to the lack of light, it provided the pirate with naturally perfected night vision. Maybe my temporary losses were teaching me to sensitize – or be sensitive to – my senses. And maybe someday my dad will wake up above decks and have the sharpest ears, like an owl.
Thanks for listening.
Love,
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Celebrating a Summer of Fire
14 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in arrow recommends, exploring arrow, foods
What a beautiful weekend! Yesterday there were so many summer events on the docket that it was hard to know what to do with oneself. I felt a little useless in the morning, still full after our sushi overdose date Friday night. After the boy went to work at the studio, my friend Bex and I went out for a stroll about town and visited the closest block party. The crowd was a bit overwhelming, but the bands were good, and we indulged in some brightly colored snow cones that dyed our tongues and made us feel childlike and giddy. We walked home arm-in-arm as the afternoon sun was growing in intensity.
After Bex headed for home, the boy and I biked down to the full moon puppet show across the bridge, led by a spectacularly wide rainbow that generously appeared despite the lack of any rain. This month’s festivities were being held outside in the middle of the street, with a stage in front of one of the houses, chairs, blankets and strings of lights draped over the facing lawns, a truck with screen printers parked down the line next to the blacksmith’s anvil, the band on the corner, and the sheep roasting over giant flames signaling the entrance with flare. There was a bit of theatrics as some industrious young gents worked to lasso a rope over the nearest utility pole so they could string up a giant fabric and metal framework moon over the street lamp. Their efforts were only partially successful, but unimpressive anyway next to the true full moon that rose just beside its makeshift impersonator.
The children were frolicking about with water balloons, bubbles, ice pops and face paint, all gleefully rolling on the ground in harmony despite the fact that many of them did not speak any shared languages. It was quite adorable. We stood around and chatted with friends while Rambo spun northern soul records, waiting for the sheep to be done and the show to begin. Once the meat was juicy and crispy, everyone queued up for tacos and the entertainment got fully underway. As the darkness fell further, the hoots and howls from the audience grew rowdier, fireworks were catapulted into the sky, and we all delighted in the bewildered expressions of passing motorists as they slowed and stared at the tattooed, pierced and barefooted congregation, the hunks of glistening meat, and scores of mounted skulls flickering under the carefully orchestrated fireballs shooting from the gas line rigging above the spit.
Eventually the show concluded (on a very optimistic and poignant note!) and we went on our way enjoying the dusk clouds and a bike ride in the moonlight. We stopped for bubble tea, then spent a few sweat-soaked hours dancing in Dinkytown before grabbing some local pizza with preposterous toppings and finally dozing off around 4 am.
After all the excitement of Saturday, today was a relatively quiet, contemplative sort of day, with contented enjoyment of corn, portabellas, tomatoes and eggplant to celebrate the first fruits of our garden, grilled apricots with ginger syrup and angelfood cake, more bubble tea, and a lot of Griffin & Sabine. (If you haven’t already read this series by Nick Bantock, I highly recommend it. It has everything: art, Jung, alchemy, parallel universes, world travel, cryptozoology, timeless expressions of desire, and the thrill of reading other people’s mail.)
Now it’s time to curl up with a book and the boy until the next bout of dreaming carries us to tomorrow, when the boy starts his new job, and I (hopefully) return to mine with a bit more pluck, calm, optimism and courage.
I hope everyone is doing well, and I encourage you all to look for some rowdy independent entertainment in your hometown this week. Ideally some that includes a lot of fire.
All the best,
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Lakefront Visit, and some Campy Tips
12 Aug 2011 3 Comments
in astronomy, aural arts, concoctions, exploring arrow, fauna
Hi all! I’ve recently returned from my annual pilgrimage north, and I have to say the transition back into city life is going fairly well, considering what a spectacular week I had to leave behind. There were a number of beautiful and memorable moments: a gigantic setting crescent moon sliding down the most vivid crimson sunset sky just minutes behind the sun, glorious weather and captivating clouds, remarkably not-frigid lake water ideal for sauna-ing, the spirits of the bluff shooing us away with absurdly brief and localized thunder and rain (two warning claps and a 15-second sprinkle), mesmerizing sky-wide northern lights swelling and flickering for hours on the night of our sixth anniversary, and – miracle of miracles – our Polish-Swedish and Danish-German skin *not* getting sunburned despite eight straight days under the sun! That last feat was accomplished only with much credit to some Cataplex-F capsules, gallons of water and diligent/obscene re-lathering of sunscreen. We even got to have a shivaree* for my cousin and his new bride on her first visit to our little wooded Mecca.
*shivaree or charivari (Fr.): a medieval French custom involving lots of raucous noise-making and satiric songs traditionally used as social pressure to mock and scorn sinners and fornicators, which somehow migrated to the American prairie and my family now uses it to serenade those on honeymoon. We still begin by parading around and banging lots of pots and pans, however.
On Wednesday my partner and I got up before dawn and trekked out to our secret spot near the border, arriving before 7 am when the mist was still laying heavy over the water and the mossy groves. (Yes, the very same sacred spot where, six years ago, we first got that twinkle in our eyes and discovered the more flirtatious aspects of blueberry picking.)
Though we have been blessed with unfathomable bounty these last many visits, the northwoods finally made us work for our harvest this year. Four labor-intensive hours to get anywhere near our usual quantities, with scant and scrawny (though perfectly delicious!) berries to choose from. I also could have done without the slug patch I wandered into right off the bat. I should have left some kind of marker for myself in the cattails so as not to repeat the experience… it was not a pretty sight! At first they were tiny and harmless, but they got progressively larger as I ventured back, transfiguring into grotesquely swollen wood-grain-patterned cashews slurping all over the choicest bushes in oozing piles. Yum.
Anywho! What was I trying to get at? Oh yes, lovely sunny breezy romantic wooded fruitful outing with a loved one. The birds were flitting and calling, the squirrels scolding adorably, the insects keeping a respectful distance, and the plant life as diverse and impressive as ever. It amazes me how much certain northern fungi and mosses look like deep sea creatures building soft coral empires under the birches and pines, luring you in your pre-dawn stupor to sink down onto them and relax a moment before you remember the dampness just waiting to seep through umpteen layers of pants… (It is always worth it, however.)
After several hours of back breaking, I finally stumbled through a bramble onto a perfectly lovely and gluttonously ripe cluster of blueberry bushes. I inhaled deeply and tumbled down, relishing the thought that I might at last stay in one location for a few minutes without having to desperately hunt for more than a handful. Only a few branches gleaned, I heard a short call. It had been a while since our last “Marco!”-”Polo!” exchange that we volley back and forth periodically to keep tabs on each other through the thicket, and I was just about to respond when a chilling chorus broke out behind me. It was a louder performance than any the wilderness had put on for me yet, and I quickly gathered that this was because the source of the fanfare was only a few short yards away. And that short call I had heard had *not* been human.
The rally was breathtaking. I couldn’t find a perfect example, since recordings can’t do justice to the sheer harrowing volume in that early morning forest silence, but to give you an idea, check out this video, around the 2:37 mark.
I love wolves, and I love being around them, but with that love comes a respect for their territory and a healthy dose of awareness of my rank in their food chain. Granted, I was probably in no kind of danger, since I have encountered them here many times before; this pack has plenty to eat and no interest in snuggling up with humans. (Many more people are killed each year by pet dogs than by wolves.) Their playfully carefree howling was perhaps the best indicator that they had no concerns about our presence, since they undoubtedly already detected our scent. Even so, I couldn’t help but recall that the last time I had heard a cry of this complexity at this time of day had directly preceded a very noisy pack kill, and I was overcome with the need to have a visual confirmation of my partner’s whereabouts.
I (prudently) snatched up my pail of berries and darted off away from the sound towards the last “Marco!” I could remember hearing. Bumbling through the branches with all the stealth and grace of a careening fruit cart, I found him within a few gasping breaths, calmly standing with his head cocked, listening silently and appreciatively to the cascade of howls still echoing behind me. I felt foolish, and I never was able to find my way back to that prime berry patch. Maybe to ease my embarrassment, the boy suggested that we stay a bit closer to the path.
Despite my undignified behavior, it was a truly magnificent thrill, and I look forward to sharing air, earth, woods, lake, sun and berries with the pack again next year.
And now for your Witch Outdoors tip of the day: To repel insects the easy-but-powerful, natural, and better-smelling way:
Pour about a teaspoon of carrier oil of your choice into the palm of your non-dominant hand. (I recommend Fractionated Coconut Oil because it’s light and absorbs quickly, but you can choose whatever you like: jojoba, sweet almond, sesame, olive oil…) Add to the carrier two-to-four drops of citronella essential oil and one-to-three drops of geranium essential oil. Blend with a fingertip, then simply dab on any exposed skin and rub in like a lotion (but try to avoid getting it in your eyes, please). Any excess can also be patted on clothing or swiped over your hair. And no need to wash your hands — these oils are naturally antiseptic and bactericidal! If desired, you can make the blend in larger quantities in advance to store or bring with you on group outings.
An additional tip: A study conducted at Iowa State University revealed that the principle active ingredient in catnip essential oil is actually more effective than DEET at repelling mosquitoes. Note, however, that the pure oil is so potent it should be used only in very low dilution (one drop to at least one teaspoon of carrier) if applied directly to the skin, or better yet simply spray/diffuse the oil if you’re going to be in one area for an extended time. Be forewarned, however, that this can be a risky oil to use extensively if you’re in an area with any kind of wildcat population! (They don’t call it catnip for nothing!) Your best bet is to blend with other oils to take down the feline-summoning odor a notch.
That’s all for today, then. Perhaps I’ll post some pictures once I wrestle them out of my camera? Hope everyone is enjoying their summer and staying cool and safe.
Love,
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Portable Fortitude!
25 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in arrow recommends, collectibles, games, visual arts
I recently ordered a deck of “Portable Fortitude” cards by Corina Dross after hearing them described on one of my favorite pagan podcasts, New World Witchery.
The deck arrived today and I could not be more pleased! I’m so excited and torn between that feeling of wanting to get one for everyone I know and wanting to keep them all to myself. The prints are clean and crisp, the cards sharp and smooth, the images haunting, spirited, tirelessly honest and funny. I was especially pleased to see my heroine Hypatia as the Queen of Spades (did you hear the discussion of her on Standing Stone and Garden Gate?? Wee!), and the author of my most beloved book, Virginia Woolf, as the King (Yes, KING!) of Clubs. LOVE LOVE LOVE.
I’ve picked out a few of my favorites to spotlight below, but I’m enamored by them all. I look forward to seeing her other artwork and continuing to support independent artists… when I can afford it!
In a burst of good luck today, I also got a chance to talk to the heretofore astoundingly quiet interoffice mail delivery guy who startles me every other day with sudden envelopes over my shoulder when I am not paying attention. I discovered with perhaps slightly-too-unbridled glee that he is a kindred spirit as suspected, and a friendly conversationalist once the barrier is broken. He is leaving me to go to grad school for library sciences (twin!), and I even worked up the nerve to ask him about his work back in the day on Mystery Science Theater 3000, that tremendously strange staple of my youth. Hooray for wholly innocuous office crush!
May the fortitude be with you!
Love,
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