Ides of Autumn

We've had a few days of cloudy weather, followed by a couple of nights where the temperature got down to the high 20's, and suddenly the days feel like Autumn.  Now that the sun is back, I really notice how much shadow covers the yard.  

Since it was going to be sub-freezing, I drained the fountain and took out the pump.  This made me melancholy, because now the the hummingbirds won't visit.  The first cold morning I put out a plate of water on top of the fountain's basalt column.  One of the morning hummingbirds zipped over the fountain, hovered around it, and I swear it looked over its shoulder through the glass patio door at me as if to say, "Unacceptable," and zipped over the house and away.  This is the sort of thing that makes me want to have a ritualistic re-filling of the fountain, which will probably have to wait until the March 20 Equinox.  

The second cold morning, all the zinnias durned brown; so did most of the grape leaves, which subsequently fell off of the vine and scattered along the foundation of the backyard-fort-turned-arbor.   

I suppose this will make the yard look seasonally festive this Saturday night.  In lieu of decorating the front, we've been decorating the back for a kind of private display.  I wish friends could come over in person, but with COVID-19, it's out of the question.  I suppose we'll have fun by ourselves -- Mark and The Child have decided that they'll put out Trick-or-Treat bags on a table and leave that out for anyone who wants to walk by the house.  And I still plan to RollerBlade in the full moon light.

Two Marses, Two Moons

I should have posted this a while ago.

Here's a photo of Mars and the Moon from September 5th (three days past full), the Saturday before Labor Day (and all those wretched fires).  

And here's a photo of Mars and the Moon from October 2nd (one day past full).   In this photo, the Moon was still fairly low in the sky, and smoke from fires in California stained it burnt orange.   Mars will be in opposition on October 13th.  

I'd forgotten that I'd taken the September photo -- which really says something about when exposure to ten day's worth of hazardous smoke particulate levels will do to a person.  I was going to say something about how the Earth has moved approximately twenty-six degrees along its orbit and that you can see that in how the Moon's position has changed in relationship with Mars'... but Mars went retrograde September 10, so I'm not sure how much one can really say about the Earth/Moon orbit and its effect on the Moon's phases from these photos.   

John Fiddles with SVG

 This is mostly an experiment to see if Blogger will support internal SVG calls.  If it can, then I can draw pretty images directly on the page.

...Okay... so it works, I just can't see the lines in the editor.

Noble Dog

 Noble Dog is noble.  

Actually, I'm pretty sure she was looking at some people riding scooters and wanted to eat them.

The dog-whisperer at the dog park.  

The water main at the park is broken, and Mark has taken to bringing water (along with snacks) to share with Aoife's various friends.  

Not pictured:  me, the other day at the dog park after winning, "Best (Hair) in Show."  The judge really liked my hair, and I think would have touched it if Mark hadn't cleared his throat and identified himself as my husband. 

Design Gone Wild

 I thought that I would try to make a seasonal design for the Ides of Autumn.  I was trying for something based on a crescent moon, but when I put in a second notch in the crescent, the result looked like something Batman would use to fight crime.  Or a sigil for Klingon Pagans.

I tried a few different designs, but they all looked like something for a Sapphic Pagan Metal Band called "Vagina Dentata."

I finally ended up with some wreath shapes that don't look too lethal.  

Much.

Ides of Autumn Plans

 The Ides of Autumn are approaching. 

I really wanted to have a large, outdoor party for October 31.  There would be jack-o-lanterns in the shrubbery, and small mini-pumpkins hanging by strings from the cherry.  There would be a large punch-bowl filled with hot cider.  There would be friends over, in various costumes (or not).  I'd figure out some sort of directional altars, and maybe even a fog machine, and some music.  

Obviously, that's not going to happen in this season of Covid-19.   At least the friends part.

I thought we weren't even going to participate in Trick-Or-Treating, but Mark was talking to The Child about some sort of candy shoot -- so maybe we'll make some kind of giant snake.  

On the costume front, I've been fiddling with cardboard models of wings, with the idea that I could make some very large, white wings to fit over my arms and then I could go RollerBlading at night and Certain Husbands Wouldn't Worry So Much that I would get run over because I was wearing a black cloak.  

Since I'll have white wings, I'm going to try to make the feathers look like a barn owl's feathers by using the examples here:  https://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/browse-common2.php .  The cardboard I'm using is fairly thick, so I'm unsure how I will make the feather's shafts show up.  Depending on how artsy I'm feeling, I might be able to texture the feathers by painting them with the edge of card to simulate the barbs.  My thought is to make all of the covert feathers one (or two) piece so they can more easily hold the primary and secondary feathers in place.

I'm still debating whether to make the wings one long piece.  The plus is that the wings would be easier to build and more durable.  The minus is that I'd have to RollerBlade with my arms held straight out and could be a good way to rip my arms out of my shoulder socket if I were to have some sort of crash.  I'm not too keen on repeating shoulder problems, so I guess I'll need to figure out some kind of hinge.

Vaux's Swifts of Labor Day

 

Labor Day evening, Mark and I went to watch the Vaux's Swifts funnel into the chimney connected to Agate Hall on the U of O Campus.  It was so cool.  Jupiter (and a faint Saturn) were out, and although I couldn't take any still photos of them, I was able to record this video.

Then the West Coast caught on fire and I forgot about this.  It was only four weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime ago.

Tuesday Morning Musings

I woke up Tuesday morning at three and couldn't get back to sleep for the longest time.  Sometimes when I wake up, I can go back to sleep if I imagine invoking the four quarters and protective circle.  This time I got out of bed so I wound't wake Mark, and went out and joined the dog on the couch.  Part of what was keeping me up were thoughts about how I don't feel writerly enough, or gay enough, or NeoPaganly enough.  I think part of this stems from not being able to physically gather with peers and mentors.  A character-driven plot begins when the protagonist is dissatisfied with their life and ends when they A) make changes or B) resign themselves to their situation.  After an hour, I did manage to fall asleep.

Lately I've been RollerBlading up at the reservoir, the top is about two city blocks by a half-block wide, which means I can get a long gliding runs in.  The place is popular with other skaters, small children and their bikes, and martial artists.  Previously to RollerBlading there, I would only go for astronomy.  I'm hoping that if I can continue to go, it will be like a workout, and I'll get some of my muscle tone back (or at least lose a little bit of the belly that's crept back).  

Over the weekend I purchased a foliate head.  I've been wanting a traditional looking one for a while and just happened to find this one at a local store (they have lots of garden art, but they tend to focus on Buddha or gnomes or Quan Yin or winged pigs).  I found a place in the grape vines for it, but I think what it really needs is a stone column in the hedge to peer out from.  Perhaps in the next few weeks I can make a kind of Ides of Autumn altar with it.

Last Lazy Sunday of September

Today is a lazy Sunday.  The morning's fog has finally burned off and white clouds are scudding along a blue sky.  Mark and I had thought to go to the beach, but Mark suggested that maybe we could put it off a week; I was feeling disinclined to spend hours in a car, so I agreed.

I spent the morning sipping some tea, listening to Sunday Baroque, and virtually visiting the chapels of Oxford via a booklet put together here:  

http://www.cleverpaper.co.uk/dominic_price/stained%20glass/mobile/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1doslfpq6E6w7eC9ZphmSPkiJmt9u4wctJjVca83kjDX19vXxhYTN7lIY#p=55  

and I came to the conclusion that Pamela Colman Smith must have been influenced by various stained glass windows when she created the images in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. 

Slightly related, I've been having some fun watching Dr. Colleen Darnell and her husband, Dr. John C. Darnell, at The Vintage Egyptologist:  https://www.youtube.com/c/VintageEgyptologist/featured  

---

The spiders are out and building their webs.  There are at least three visible from the back deck; they each hold quarter-sized orb-weaver spiders (I think).  The brown and dun bands on their legs and abdomens remind me of rattan.  I'm guessing the larger spiders are the females.  Yesterday I'm pretty sure I saw a mating ritual; a larger spider sat near the edge of its web and strummed one of the strands.  A smaller spider slowly advanced along the threads.  They faced each other, the smaller spider waving three or more legs so that the tips just brushed the larger spider's legs.  The smaller spider moved closer and closer, occasionally tagging the larger spider, then rushing away as if to a avoid a tag-back.  The larger spider eventually folded its legs close to its body and held still.  The smaller spider quickly wrapped its legs around the larger one (?pinning its legs?) and pressed its abdomen against the larger one.  About ten seconds later, it dashed off, quick as lightning, and hid under a nearby leaf.  The larger spider unfolded and splayed across several web strands.  I didn't stay to watch, but I think they were going to do it again.

---

The hummingbirds continue to visit the fountain.  I'm torn between wanting to go out and get a feeder for them and the knowledge that eventually Cicero and Smokey will tolerate Aoife enough to venture back into the back yard.  Cicero's bad enough with dragonflies and snakes, and I can imagine catching and torturing hummingbirds would be great sport for him. 

Autumnal Equinox 2020

Happy Equinox!  

We've had a few relatively smoke-free days, and when I checked this morning the Air Quality Index was something like 15 -- much better than the ten days of +400 readings we had after Labor Day.  

I felt so much better the other night when I stepped outside and I didn't have to worry about not wearing a particulate mask and I could see Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Capricorn.  The miasma that had settled over this end of the valley oppressed and depressed me -- I'm sure glad that I don't have some sort of breathing problem, because by the tenth day of the smoke I was ready to just curl up and sleep forever.

I can't imagine being a crow, eagle, hawk, osprey, hummingbird, heron, wren, or other flying thing sharing the sky with the smoke; I can't imagine being a squirrel, frog, raccoon, cat, dog, rabbit, deer, sheep, cow, newt, or other small creature picking through the ash-scape; I can't imagine being a grape, cherry, apple, rosemary, hornbeam, azalea, iris, lilac, laurel, pine, oak, or other leafy thing enduring a sun-block of burnt forest and houses.   

And I can't imagine why someone nearby would want to smoke a cigar right now and ruin an otherwise pleasant evening with their foul smoke.  I mean, honestly.  

Unfortunately, this isn't the last bad fire season we're likely to see (and I think the cigar smoker is a neighbor).  Fortunately, more wind and rain from the ocean is on our way, so we're in for a respite.  

On the plus side, the pair of hummingbirds who had discovered the fountain and come to bathe on top of the basalt column once or twice most mornings seem to be sticking around.  Aiofe bothers the cats so much that they don't venture into the yard, so the birds are safe from them for this season.  I've tried taking some photos of them as they rustle and flutter in the water, but so far I haven't managed clear shots.

Forest Fires, Smoke, and Ash

Well, let's see. The West Coast has been on fire for a week and our skies havebeen Mordor Dark with a ruddy ember for a sun. It started late Labor Day Monday when Oregon got Santa Ana-style winds. A variety of fires in the Cascade Mountains got pushed down-slope into the easter Willamette Valley. Several mountain communities and towns have been burnt; there are a handful of fatalities. Eugene wasn't under evacuation orders, but parts of neighboring Springfield were.

The air quality index has been pushing 500 for at least the last five days; 250 is hazardous air quality for all populations.  0-50 is generally healthy, 100 starts to be problematic for sensitive groups.  The dog and cats don't understand why we won't let them outside.  Each morning, Mark takes a wet cloth and mops up the fine ash that has seeped in under our windows and doors.  Outside, cars, trees, the sidewalk, mailboxes, streetlights -- everything -- is covered with a fine layer of ash from pines and houses.

Supposedly, the smoke was to clear by last Wednesday; then Friday; then by this last weekend. If we're lucky, a new weather system will blow in Friday and we'll have blue skies -- or at least rain -- again. 

Labor Day itself was a warm and sunny day; it seems like a lifetime ago I arranged the Backyard Circle into a Ritual Writing Spot and invoked the four directions to help me write.

One bright spot in otherwise smothering days is that the hummingbirds have been using the fountain as a bathing station.

August Reading

I've been reading.  I finished Ronald Hutton's "The Witch," which was more about using the historical or ethnological lens to have a global look at the cultural phenomenon of the witch, and less about actual witches or witchcraft.  He spent a lot of time criticizing Ginsberg's "Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath," mostly for folk-story back-projection.  The interesting histories, which I wished there had been more of a focus on, dealt with ancient Mesopotamian and Roman beliefs and records.  The tiresome histories dealt with when churchmen equated witchcraft with heresy (Satanism) and forced confessions into their paradigm of what an anti-Christian practice should look like.   Slightly less tiresome were the politically-motivated accusations of witchcraft between competing dynasties.  More interesting was the proposal that where random bad luck (e.g., lost crops) was less likely to have an economic impact or was more likely to be blamed on fairies, the result was less witch trials.

Okay; the most entertaining thing I read was that the Anglo-Saxon pronunciation of cc was "ch."  So it's spelled wicca, but it's pronounced (toss a coin to your) "which-ah."

Still, I think the comments about "service magicians" (folks who find lost items or turn the evil eye) and Hutton's five-part definition of a witch--which he used to nail down a specific cultural role--makes for some interesting ways to think about how to world build magic users in fantasy settings (i.e. are they evil, or can they use destructive spells for good? are they working with forces to bring down humanity, or are they simply annoyed at certain, bothersome neighbors? can they shape-shift?  do they fly for real, or only in spirit? how can they be resisted or counter-acted?  What is their relationship to the recognized, orthodox religion or state?) .  

[11-24-2020 Edited to add some additional notes]

The other interesting idea is that William Grimm compiled the idea of "The Wild Hunt," which might have had origins in the benedanti  and other European folk beliefs about "good ladies" leading a magical following to bless houses; or Norse rituals informed by Sami shaman  traditions.  I'm a little stymied about how stories about the riders from Annwn (Cwn Annwn) fit in.  

[end edit]

Moving on, I'm in the middle of Jane Yolen's "Choose Joy," which is less a manual for writers and more an inspirational tract.  So far the open secret about writing that she's shared is, "get your Butt In Chair and write every day."  While she does organize chapters by various writing tasks and novel structures, this is not a workbook like LeGuin's "Steering The Craft"--although I think the two make good companions.  Yolen makes me laugh out loud in places, which is a good thing, and is a perfect antidote to sadomasochistic writing advice out there.  

---

Mark had made a comment about me not leaving the house on my writing nights, so last week I attempted to write out of the house at Hendrick's Park, but that didn't go over so well; there aren't many spaces to write comfortably.   I've concluded that one of the reasons I stick around the house is that it's covid-free, there are snacks, and, generally, spaces to write. 

On the submission front:  I had submitted a story to a contest and hadn't heard back from them; it turns out they choose contest winners and don't tell the losers anything -- so one story rejection by lack of response. The other story I have in the mail has been short-listed; I won't know anything more about it until probably October.   Sigh.  I need to work on my submissions.

RollerBlade Interlude

 (John RollerBlades up to Mark, who is walking back from the grocery store.)

John (reaching for a gallon bottle):  "I can take the water."

Mark:  "I've got it.  Do you want a macaroon?"

John:  "Sure."  (Takes macaroon, RollerBlades in circles around Mark.)

Mark:  "The Child called; he didn't know where you were."

John:  "He could have looked out the front window or something."

Mark (in teen voice):  "'I tried calling him, but his cell phone rang in the house--'"

John:  "He was sitting in the bathroom when I left."

Mark:   "--'I didn't know where he went; he didn't say anything.'  I told him he was being controlling and said, 'Maybe he's in the crawl space; or maybe he's checking out the water main.'"

John: (recalling Lenny and Squigy from Laverne and Shirley):  "Or maybe I was puttin' on my luv clothes."

Mark (taking in John's RollerBlades, shorts, wrist-guards, black T-shirt, and bike helmet):  "You're not getting anywhere tonight if those are your love clothes, Electra."

John (sings from the musical, "Starlight Express."):  "I am Electra / I'm a computer / (elaborate arm gesture) I am electric / the future is me // if you make me board (pirouettes on RollerBlades)  / I'll hit my keyboard / you'll be erased from my memory (pivots to a stop, brings right hand over head, points at Mark)  // AC-DC it's okay by me / I can  switch and change my frequency..."

Mark:  "Is that how it goes?"

John:  "Well, it's in the song."

Mark:  "No, I meant trains; can they really change like that?:

John (finishing macaroon):  "I don't know.  It's Starlight Express:  Cats for trains."  

Ides of Summer Dreams

 Dream One:

I was in some sort of classroom or church.  The room had white walls and light wooden floors.  There were rows of chairs or desks or desk/chairs or pews, with a aisle up the middle.  In the back of the room, three women -- an amalgam of various red headed women I've met over the decades -- began singing a kind of medieval song (in waking life, I think I'd scrambled a new version of Qntal's "Dulcis Amor" by moving the starting bar back two beats and adding more polyphony -- maybe I'd added bits of "Ab Vo d' Angel").   

Superimposed over the image of the three red-haired women singing, there was a kind of hinged metal toy? nut-cracker?   The base was a long tongue of flat dark metal (iron), about two feet long (no longer).  A metal deer with antlers, one angular fore hoof raised (the hook of the hoof and the 90 bends in the metal of the leg stick out in my mind) stood at the far end of the metal base, facing the hinge.  The hinged arm part was also metal, but it was angularly wavy, and represented the rushing waters of a river.   Wielded to the metal river was a smaller deer, also antlered; this was closer to the hinge, and it faced the far end.  When the metal river arm lowered, there was a way for it to rest around the larger deer, and the two animals could face each other.  

The river became real.  The song continued.  Real deer faced each other, with the addition of a metal wolf (metal angular mane squares around the wolf's muzzle) on the riverbank stalking the smaller deer.  The flowing river tilted up on its hinge and became metal again, and the wolf had been added to the sculpture.  

I have a sense the sculpture opened and closed several times, transforming between a real river with animals and metal tableau.  

Dream Two:

I was walking through a wooded area.  It may have been the North Side of the hill I grew up in.  I think I found a house or inn -- the recall is muddled.   Somehow, I'd stumbled into the story of a high school acquaintance.  I think there was a woman in the house/inn -- anyway, we found my high school acquaintance's journal.  The friend had disappeared in real life, so the journal entries were from 1980.  

He had written a series of short stories where he was living in a better life as the inn-keeper of the inn we were in, which was somehow enchanted, and under the protection of a large black bear, who had somehow banished (i.e. killed, eaten, or disappeared) my friend's abusive father. 

There was a "so that's where the bear came from moment"; the bear still roamed the woods, an angry dark shadow.  I think about now I realized I was in a parallel world and that I should figure out how to get back into this one.

Dream Three:

X-rated.  But highly consensual and with good communication.  

August Reading

Goodness... there's been a bit of a gap since the last posting.  

The current news is that the water main between our house and the utility meeter has broken, so we're on day three without water in the house.  I'd noticed a damp patch in our front yard Sunday evening; by Monday morning it had turned into a seeping spring that moistened the sidewalk for about ten feet.  I suppose this is practice for when the Big Cascadia Earthquake hits (and, yes, the Earthquake Folks are right about how much water one goes through in a day).  So far the most troublesome aspect is making the toilet flush.  I'm not particularly looking forward to the bill, and hope that fixing the leak doesn't involve slicing through the front sidewalk.  

I'm been actively reading more.  I skimmed through Pete Buttigieg's "Shortest Way Home," and am currently reading Ronald Hutton's "The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present."  Buttigieg's book starts a slowly and didn't really pick up for me until about page 50, when he gets into college.  The slowest parts forme were the accounts and exposition blocks of the campaign trails.  The better parts were scenes with dialog or first meetings.  The best parts are usually at the end of chapters, where he shares an insight -- like his discovery of the blinders he had about Big Data.  I was hoping for more about his process of coming out and his relationship with the LGBTA community, but the book paints him more of a workaholic than someone who actually dates -- the way the book tells it, he was sort of busy and only until he was thirty did he realize that if he wanted a family he was going to have to do something about it.  

"The Witch," is slow starting.  I always want to go into Hutton's book like I remember going into "Triumph of the Moon":  turning the page to see the next "ancient wisdom's" genesis in the 1950's.  This is a longer overview, which starts by skipping lightly over ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia,  Africa and Canaan, for views of magic and a working definition of what a witch is -- as opposed to what he calls a "service magician."  He's got five criteria: 

1. A Witch Causes Harm by Uncanny Means
2. A Witch is an Internal Threat to a Community
3. The Witch Works within a Tradition
4. The Witch is Evil
5. The Witch Can be Resisted

I suppose I should note that this is a historical definition used by the book to try to get a grip on cultures spanning millennia and from around the globe.  The first section concludes -- which is as far in the book as I've gotten -- with the differences between shamanism and shamanistic practices and witchcraft.  I suppose it would be a much thicker book otherwise, but I do wish he had spent more time on actual artifacts like curse tablets and magical bowls and The Burney Relief (in the case of the Relief, there was some question as to its authenticity and provenance, which in turn has bearing on the question of Lilith as spirit, demon, or goddess).  

Anyway, skimming ahead, it looks like he touches on English fairy lore in later chapters, so that looks interesting.