One Week Later

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, trying to write myself out of numbness and staring alternately at the blinking cursor in front of me and out the window at the skeletons of spent sunflowers and evening primrose towering above the garden. I say skeletons, but the goldfinches, titmice and pine siskins are still enthusiastically gleaning seeds from the vessels the plants offer in communion. As I stare, one of the ranch staff walks by with a leaf blower. Although we have to use google translate to have a conversation, we have discovered we have a mutual fondness for animals and for each other. Last spring he was tasked by the land owner with removing the nests of pigeons in the barn. One of the nests had two well sized babies, not quite ready for fledging. Told to “get rid of them”, instead he put them in a bucket and brought them to me, handing them over with soft eyes (I took them to the local wildlife rescue - pigeons, also known as rock doves, are native species - they belong here). Then just the other day he told me he was leaving soon. Having bought a piece of land in Mexico (“for the animals” he explained), he is excited to begin raising chickens. He wanted to know what they need to be healthy, aside from “good food, clean water and lots of love”. I don’t know if he is undocumented, but I feel relieved that he and his family will be getting out before January 20th.

On Samhain I participated in a new Morris Dancing ritual done by participants all over the world. “Dusking” is the practice of dancing the down the sun, in complement to the practice of dancing up the sun on Beltane. With whiskey in one hand and a mullein torch in the other, I walked down to the edge of the property I live on. I was surprised to see a stag in the eucalyptus grove - I’ve never seen deer on this side of the fence, and especially not a buck. He lifted his head as I approached with my torch, but did not run away. What did he make of me, wearing a mask and antlers, carrying fire and walking on two legs? I sang to him and he decided I wasn’t much to worry about, as he went back to nibbling the newly emerged chickweed. I got within 20 feet before he turned and slowly sauntered away. With chills running up and down my spine, I continued down to the bottom of the property, adjacent to a neighbors apple orchard, and did my dancing there. This morning I went for a walk as the sun burned off the fog from yesterday’s rain, and there he was again, just over the fence from where I had danced. He looks to be about 3 years and totally unconcerned about my presence. In my fantasies I hope to have a tea party with him soon. In my dreams, I hope to hop on his back during the Wild Hunt.

The mask I created for All Hallows Eve and the Dusking ritual was based off an illustration I did circa 2016, of Mugwort personified. This in turn was based on a decades long relationship with this plant being, which I was led to through a series of dreams. In turn, these dreams were born from a year of fear and trauma, and in this liminal time, over and over, a buck deer (I just accidentally wrote dear, which is also appropriate) would approach and nudge me gently with his antlers. In my waking hours, I would often return from work in the evenings to find a buck in the driveway, in the yard, out my bedroom window. During this lonely and transformational cycle, I also became enchanted by the archetype of Artemis, another life long relationship. In part this was due to a passage in a favorite book at the time - Sexing the Cherry, by Jeanette Winterson - a favorite author while we were in the thick of Third Wave Feminism. I hope you’re getting some of the subtext here, as spelling it out overtly feels tiresome. But this past week I have been thinking of this book for the first time in many years, in particular another passage.

I am a woman going mad. I am a woman hallucinating. I imagine I am huge, raw, a giant. When I am a giant I go out with my sleeves rolled up and my skirts swirling round me like a whirlpool. I have a sack such as kittens are drowned in and I stop off all over the world filling it up. Men shoot at me, but I take the bullets out of my cleavage and I chew them up. Then I laugh and laugh and break their guns between my fingers the way you would a wish bone.

I go straight to the boardroom. There’s a long hardwood table surrounded by comfortable chairs. Men in suits are discussing how to deal with the problem of the Third World. … I start at the top end and I pick them up one by one by the scruff of their necks. Their legs wriggle in their Gucci suits; I’ve got nothing against the suits, lovely material. I drop them into my sack, all screaming at once about calling their lawyers and who do I think I am and what about free speech and civil liberties.

When they’re all in the bag, I leave the room tidy, throw in a few calculators so they won’t be bored, and off we go.

I am coming back to this writing space as an act of creation and defiance. I succumbed to feeling discouraged this past spring, frustrated with apathy and the algorithm and the apathetic algorithm, but now is not the time to give in to futility. I feel a bit awkward in starting up again, here I am in your inbox, where have I been? Here are the headlines of the last few months, in no particular order of significance:

• My partner and I got covid for the first time. On our first day of vacation.

• The Popcorn Patch was the star of this year’s garden.

• My kiddo started high school and is thriving.

• After practicing my own intuitive variety over the last 15 years, I began formal training in Internal Family Systems therapy this year, and have found my professional home.

• After 10 months, the cat we adopted finally decided she loves me, and it’s very nice.

• Our summer was brutally hot and dry and The Park Fire burned through many places I know well and dearly love, including some of the area mentioned in this post.

• Our country elected the most heinous, racist, misogynistic, ecocidal and due to be most powerful, president, in history and the gloves are officially off.

Thanks for being here. I send my love and care to you all. I really mean that.