Restless,

These days are:

disappearing rapidly

falling down like old leaves

as i hurl myself 

(accidentally)

head thrown forward pushing against gravity

the most i hear 

(elderberry trees snipped back from the trail)

is the sound of an egg breaking 

(stick-crunch)

this tear-stained face i lift to the sky

swallowed, knee deep in dirt

swooned thickly, breast and heart swallowed, swallowed

wrapped by grey mist as she tucks her blanket in over the rocks, the earth

tucks her blanket in over me

(swollen eyes, still kissing trees)

earth loves water

water loves earth

(they say)

It's in the poison,
It's in the drugs.

It's in the clouds--expanding.

(obscurity, comfortable darkness of everything)

(i am standing, floating, anchored only by steam and sky-vapors)

yet a campfire flames just around the corner

past the fledgling maple trees and artemisia

(so young, so deceptively fragile)

past the trickling of water on rocks, past the poison oak

past the water trough the fire--

the fire burns

(undeterred by wetness and falling mist)

two children walk slowly up and down the steep curve of the mountain

they pretend they are skiing, they slip on the shale

and laugh

and laugh again.

(it's like throwing a teardrop into the flames)

Faded cluster

of weeks and days

trundled by

so quickly

already 

the magic

the enchantment

has crept, hands and knees tied

bound, cold and ashamed

into the space behind the wallpaper

beaten and bundled like a wet cat

my sometimes feline eyes cast themselves down

to hide their intensity

trying not to scald you

with their euphony, with their cacophony

soaking wet,

and still the fire sings--corrosive, melting heat

i have armed myself for retreat

even before taking a single true step forward

disenchantment eats, corroding the paths of my brain

little warped worm tunnels twisting under rotted earth

smell of decomposing leaves and life-death of the soil

breaks into my calloused fingers

(little alchemist's heart, you said, and I smiled)

perhaps you are too quiet
too steady
too detached

perhaps I am too full of darkness
made in the storm

perhaps this is simply the clear light of day

breaking through the clouds--

and perhaps I should surrender

perhaps I should run

(perhaps)

the word repeated, over and over,

turned like a seashell in my hands

crenelated into sand

until there is nothingleft

but nothingness—itself—is a thing,

a thing less alive than death

but a thing that grapples

meaningless

nonetheless

and such nonsense

descends.

and my eyes peel back to

limitless depth—

I creep out

to kiss the mud at night

licking leaves of poisonous plants

while you dream your guilty sleep
i bite your ear lobe, lie awake--trapped.
if i could taste boredom, i would be tasting it now.
(your guilty sleep)

I can't stop running

my inertia, momentum--

carrying so much fire

(heaps of sodden, rotted wood—and flames—burning still under pouring raindrops)

waves enwombed in thunderstorms,

breaking hard in my chest

dawning with the light

and mockingbirds in the morning air,

euphony and cacophony--

grey mourning air

turning to black. 

So I sit quietly,

comfortingly alone

words building their bridges

wondering, dissecting, eating

leaves and maybes and bird tongues

with my eyes--

let's just leave it at that.

(perhaps)

it really is spring, finally... and my brain is buzzing, full of calendula bouquets & datura-lust

Yes, there has been a definite lack of posting.  It seems to be hard to keep up with something like a blog when my backyard is full of tiny little plant creatures, all of whom need a lot more love than I am able to give at the moment... but I've set aside 3 hours this morning to have a little chat with each of them.  My datura woke me up as I was falling asleep last night--she has been leafing out for about a month now, but as I wandered outside last night to pay my respects & harvest a leaf for a night-time flying session of sorts I was stopped in my tracks by the power of her shadows.  Plants have a way of revealing their true faces very slowly over a period of many seasons, many years--and this is one of my strongest plant allies, but I was reminded yet again that I have barely scratched the surface here with her.  Her shadow was just so striking--such softness, the fuzz on her stems glowing in the light of the night, yet the contours of the clusters of new healthy leaves shot up, stretched at angles full of ferocity and that dangerous nightshade poison that I know so well.  The shadow moved as I moved, but more drastically, full of shifts and back-arches and outstretching with leaves.  I buried a dead hummingbird under her soil, deep down near her thick roots where the blood meal has begun to do its work, and hung my snake-necklace around her thick central stem... a few drops of oil, a few words and some ghost-corn prayers and I harvested a leaf from her.  Her leaves smell like peanut butter and are so soft--her intensity is buried beneath softness and seduction & maybe that's why I feel such a strong sensual connection to this particular plant.  Bloodroot has been another plant lately that has made me marvel endlessly at her power--my relationship with Bloodroot is just beginning & hasn't been growing for years as has been my relationship with Datura, but I feel like there's a strong connection there & am very much looking forward to exploring it.... to say nothing of the hundreds of tiny little seedlings that are growing oh so quickly under the shade of the brugmansia tree blooming like mad in my backyard.  So much beauty these days, so much enchantment & still, there's always the darkness & pain buried under my dirt-coated, sweat-drenched, sun-crisped skin.

collision

and... because i am, yet again, bogged down with too much information i will be posting more poetry instead of plant write-ups.  i do promise, however, that several excellent posts will be here soon (i also need to find the cord for my camera so i can upload photos--i have tons of pictures!)--portraits of bloodroot, angelica & tobacco are all on their way.
until then, here are some more words:

I'm not sure this tumbling would resolve anything.

But, the lack--

the stillness of action

is eating my skin.

As i was walking, downhill

a scene played out in my mind:

"Give me your eyes," she said

as he opened his mouth

and she wanted to take the silver-spoon-slung with sugar

dress her eyes with sugar and coal

and feed him her stare.

Watch her eyes slink down his throat

licking, shivering tongue

your sweat

in my mouth

and i trip, distracted

but do not fall.

Poised mid-air collision with the wind

only a stumble

i wished for the pain

the full flat-facesmashed crash

knees scraped

to be pushed--facedown in the dirt

stones kneading my shoulders, heaving

(let my animal loose for awhile, please...)

let me

drink in the air that surrounds you

let me

use my mouth to breathe

instead of just

host tears of saliva

(the jitters are rushing the air out of my lungs)

i need to hold onto something.

I need to surrender

(let me let go of the wheel for awhile)

but my fingers, despite themselves, grip it far too tightly.

Knuckles red and swollen.

Let me

please--

release.

Chickens, donkeys, onions and gifts. (Many gifts....words)

(this was my brain today: remedios varo, nacer)

 I feel like today was a gift.  Last night was the beginning of the gift, but filled with much more subtle emotional intensity.  These past couple of months have been so loaded with freedom, longing, confusion, uncertainty and a great deal of unbridled joy that I've been existing in a more or less constant state of over-stimulation.  Today, the uncertainty faded suddenly--that's the magic of words and silence working in their strange way--and I found myself at work this morning, being paid to do what I love.  I planted onions and tended to a rather neglected vegetable garden near Sisar Canyon.  It was beautiful outside--the sun beat down on my face and my hands dug through dirt, pulling stubborn weeds and tearing out buckets full of heavy, twisted roots to make way for the little onion starts.  There were so many animals wandering around it was impossible not to smile.... so many noises, so many little creatures running around joyously.  Michaela, the woman I am working for, has SO many animals: a donkey (who is very sweet and gentle and loves to be pet), 5 dogs, a pond full of turtles, a lot of ducks that waddle around and quack at me through the fence while I work, about 17 chickens --one of whom is named Mr. Pants (because he has these funny tuft-like tuxedo puffy pant feathers on his legs, hehehe. Mr. Pants and his friends zoom around the pasture and chase each other all day)--, 2 pot bellied pigs that are just wonderful to watch and have this really WARM nest-smell--the smell makes me feel like I'm waking up early in the morning to a home-cooked breakfast, pancakes & eggs, really snuggly and safe and warm--, and 2 goats that love to climb onto the highest spot they can and bleet their little goat-hearts out (Michaela is going to build them a jungle gym of sorts to play on, since they love climbing so much--that's one of the projects I'm going to help her with).  Michaela also has a ton of tasty avocado trees of various sorts, almond trees, peach trees, orange trees, tangelo trees.... Needless to say, my job is WONDERFUL.  My brain was quiet, peaceful today--probably for the first time in months.  There was no incessant racing of thoughts, circling in on themselves and twisting around uncomfortably in my brain.  There was no brain buzzing, no rushing, no roller coaster, no angst, no dread, no frustration.... it was just quiet--ecstatically quiet.  There's something about this solitude--working outside with my hands in dirt and the sun on my face, being completely surrounded by LIFE in all its various forms--the sounds of life, the fertile smell of the earth, the aching of my hands as they scrape and dig while becoming even more calloused and embedded with dirt; the quacking of the ducks and the tyrannical gusts of wind that blow my shirt sideways--there's just something about that experience that makes me feel right.  At peace, quiet.  Almost bliss... full of love (and pain, as always).   The broken-ness starts to unbreak, and I start to think about the future with the somewhat foreign feeling of hope, innocence.  I think of my soil-stained hands touching your soil-stained hands, and I know that this is exactly where I'm meant to be.  I'm thankful the plants have taught me patience; I am going to need a deep roaring river of it before I can repair these pieces of ours. For now, gratitude is enough.

The Rabbit Hole

I seem to have tumbled down the rabbit hole... perhaps I have too many irons in the fire at the moment. I have been researching Angelica and Tobacco with untamed glee for the past week or so, and I keep attempting to synthesize what I've learned into some sort of blog post, but as soon as I begin to write I find more information that leads down another path, which leads to more information, which sends me down another path... etc. So, Angelica and Tobacco will be another post. Until then, I've unearthed a few words from the massive, sprawling pile of pages that is the mound of the ouroboros nonsense-book I've been writing for the past two years or so. As I try to edit this jumbled mess, I'm noticing I have a tendency to loop my sentences around like endless unhinged carousels--they run on and on and on and then fly off the handle into some random corner of the universe, totally unrelated to wherever the sentence began. I'm not sure whether this is something I need to harness in a bit & try to tame, or whether it is just characteristic of my writing and I should just let it be what it is... Maybe when I finish this writing project I will have found the answer... most likely I will have only found more questions, but that's one of the things I love about creative projects. Here's a snippet:

Inhaling deeply the odor of her body, the odor of the green light that had borne itself into her and was now traveling throughout every inch of her skin, she heaved her limbs into the misplaced laughter of the scattered light around her. The world was hallucinating, and she was peaceful in the center of the commotion, laughing, laughing, laughing...

Her head grew heavy and fell back onto the carpet as she slid the length of her body down off the bed, rubbing one way, rubbing the other, feeling the growth of the carpet onto her skin, and into her skin; it tickled her, and she began to laugh again. It felt as if someone was running their fingers through her hair ever so carefully, gently enough to make the small hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention, harshly enough to make her neck twist and her eyes close.

When her soul was quiet in that space there was no longer a world outside her, no longer anything else but her throbbing brain and its false silence, a convincing impostor of peace.

In this cocoon the green-eyed girl could feel her tiny caterpillar feet twisting in their reach toward ecstasy--soft, slow ecstasy that dissolved her body down to nothing—here, she was the caterpillar when it was no longer a caterpillar, when it was nothing but a soft pulp of potentiality awaiting its transformation into another life-form. When she inhaled this poison (her poison) she was inhaling the breath of that other being that lived in her veins, the hollows of its body thriving and throbbing, whose head lit up like a crazed frog when electricity coursed through the long rubbery strand of cord that attached its heart to the wall.

She ran—ran away from it, dove into the water of the pool, of the tub, of the river—to wash herself clean, to purge her veins of this scattered clattering energy—she swam back and forth, back and forth in the water as the bats dipped their wings into the green glowing liquid. But it was useless; the surge had taken her over, she could either ride it out or succumb to the frantic jumbling of her electrons underneath the skin of her skull—she was not actually sure that she had a choice, or that it would make a difference. So she ran--ran out of the house with her brown suede coat on, slowed only when she was far away at the end of the street, slowed to a fast walk, and paused to light a cigarette in the dark and started running again, onto the next block, two streets down she turned left, propelled in a senseless motion and paranoid about the gazes surrounding her, the people hiding in their houses with the lights off, normal people. She worried that they would see her--multicolored hair flying around her face with black eyeliner smudged around her eyes, smoking as she ran, coat flapping awkwardly in the wind, cigarette dangling limp in her hand, shaking and scattering ash all over herself, wearing torn stockings but no shoes-- sometime before midnight. She had run down this street in disarray many times before, and whatever the normal people saw they probably could not believe; she imagined she looked as if she was a piece of the circus that had cracked and lost its way, lost a wheel, and was hurtled in a violent splash of colors unevenly rolling down the street...and what could normal people say about the circus, anyhow?

"All this sun, my heart is a toad!"/"We fucked on the roof, not everyone looked"/The Inspired Writing of Anthony McCann

Here's one of my favorite poems, from one of my favorite teachers (and one of my favorite people, for that matter--someone who has helped me immensely with my own writing, helped me learn how to live with this constant word-intake/alchemy that presses from the inside, out--without fear--with willing embarrassment and plenty of laughter).  I just found out that he has a new book of poems available, so now seems like an appropriate time to revisit his work. I think of Anthony as a sort of Wildebeest/human hybrid, which seems fitting given the frequency with which wildebeests and similar beastly characters pop up in his poetry.   His poetry walks this delightful line between the insanely beautiful, enlightened ecstasy of human-absurdity and emotions, NOISE and sacred nonsense, always threatening to fall off the edge, but somehow maintaining this teetering balance.  There is a lot of Kafka-esque mechanical malfeasance and thing-hood that appears in his poems as well (and I really shouldn't say Kafka-esque, because it is a thing-hood totally and completely unique to Anthony's writing style).  His poems are definitely meant to be read aloud--voiced, they come alive, unwieldy, beastly and full of the insistence of absurd, rambling rhythms and noise--intoxicated by shadows and trees with a roaring hunger: throat open, eyes twinkling with an almost devilish glee.
Really, all these poetic descriptions of mine don't do his work justice, so I will just post some of his work (I think of it as one long poem, even though it is titled "Five Poems").  Here it is:

Five Poems

*

I came out of the past, with fingers all stained

Behind my face my brain glows like carp

It’s like this, you’ll see, even in pictures

Leave it to someone to figure that out

That sad bug guy just imitates birds

Hey guy, I said, hailing the dude

The flowers you gave me weighed like ten pounds

But I walk up that hill every night

Still, I won’t put the moon in my poem

The moon knocks at the window, each window it makes

These bugs deposit some eggs in the dust

I respect the impulse, but can’t understand

The weather was there, a feeling like teeth

A small kindness, something like that

She’d wanted to listen to my voice late at night

She’d asked me to mail my voice to her home

I’d only wanted to speak truth to weather

It doesn’t matter, it’s going to happen

The moment withered, stood up and looked

I leaned in to get kissed, but I’d misunderstood

*

The surface is quiet; I’m suffering joy

Silently weeping she sniffed at my hair

All the blood, together, spilled from my face

May happy precision inflect your whole fate

“What have you done?” our someone exclaimed

You shrieked as though you’d stabbed me yourself

It was weird; being there, with the rocks and the trees

I leapt from the platform into your arms

You gazed down through the branches, the flowers, to me

I saw myself stumble from two miles out

When I opened the door you leapt into my arms

All the water spilled from my body at once

I was happy, adrift, in the spectacle fires

When I opened my mouth little bodies came out

In my dream there were dogs, blue feathers and dread

The cops filmed our wounds while we strolled in the park

As the city acquired a specialty light

As each night we watched the light drain from its wound

I can’t really imagine what anything’s like

But at times I’m compelled to recall how I felt

*

In this forest milieu: an encounter with void

I burst from the scrub to the roar of the crowd

Was a horse, untethered, alone in the glade

I stood in your place while you backed away

A horse is some kind of encounter with legs

The enormous head, hooded, just lowered itself

Here is precisely what gentleness is

There was shit on the stairs, I had to go back

O to wiggle and still be blessed and have legs!

Now here is a landscape for feeling bald things

This path wanders down through some unfurnished thoughts

I followed these ruts to your shack in the pines

O little blue bird, clear voice of the pines

Your letter has made me hot with new joy

Truly I tremble here in my plight

To have passed this close to one animal’s health!

I dozed with my view of the stream and the hills

Woke with blue fur in my teeth and my beard

Slowly—in bloom—my skull grew new eyes

Thin fingered light slipped down through the pines

*

The clouds drifted over a late human lunch
From miles away the tiny clouds came
Soft moss underfoot, far off rage of the dogs
Protect me, my love, from these horrible words

When the rains began I was waiting for you
The sky opened up and delivered this sound
It makes my lips linger here near the plates
Each thing we perform is rehearsing for death

This miracle gland gives my body no rest
To be emptied again by the meaningless roar
Let’s go die, and then die, and then die and then die
Roll on, little toes, to the top of the earth!

I address this next line to the mind of the trees
The trees are green hair, all wild and ripped
Then the world slumps and is soft as clay heads
I lie at your feet and imagine my eyes

The hedge behind me is filled with small eyes

Each animal seems like a personal trait
All of these signs—but only one word!
Demented! Demented! I run through the woods

*

It’s strange to be seen, I’ve said to a tree

To have trembled so much while breathing the air

For I stood by the lake and was taking its place

And you were the first to see me be seen

You sat and I watched you watching me watch

I was hearing the wind and then seeing the wind

I’d slowed down the film to watch your hair seethe

So that you were The Phantom and I was The Hand

I’m over your face—leaning in—to your face

(I watch the light change as your eyes re-adjust)

Soft lids close over the voice in its dream

Cloud shadows drift and shoot over the lake

Vacant and bright I hoist breakfast flags

Just watching the lake I’m forgetting your face

Hot, wet and alive—slickened with beads

All I see is your tongue, where it sits, in your head

No object here aches to be seen (except me)

Once again I’d arrived at the limit of friends

It might just be me and it might not be me

But it’s nice to be held while watching the waves

Here's a link to more of Anthony's work for anyone who is interested: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/05/poetry/four-poems

The Seduction of Angels

It's been a very nightshade-heavy day; I have a feeling it's going to be a nightshade-heavy night as well.  The rain, the recent full moon... various cavalcades, emotional collisions and a serious overdose of brain-intensity these last few days. But, on rare occasions, you ask something and the universe answers you clearly, unequivocally.  That is what happened today, regarding the harvesting procedure for Belladonna.  While this is a plant I've been enthusiastically growing since May, it is also one of the most formidable presences in my garden; she has serious attitude, intensity, and VERY sharp teeth.  Seeing as this is first time I planned to harvest the leaves and use them, I wanted to go about it properly.  So I asked & got a very clear sense of what my own "right way" of approaching her would be--without going into great detail, my ritual/harvesting more or less boiled down to stripping naked in the rain, wooing the plant with homegrown tobacco, other appropriate gifts & some eerie singing.  My fingers and toes went numb rather quickly, but it was well worth it.... the whole thing left me feeling very connected to the plant in a way I haven't previously.  I took a bath in the leaves afterward to thaw out & spent an hour or so languishing in the hot water, watching the room fill with incense and steam--enjoying the intensely powerful, intoxicating embrace (arm-lock? vice-grip?) of Atropa Belladonna.
I was reminded of a particular section of Dale Pendell's beautiful Pharmako/Poeia titled On the Seduction of Angels.  Here's a brief excerpt:  "Our Way is the seduction of angels.  Trouble is, sometimes after you've seduced the angel, you find that is really the angel that has seduced you.  Then you find out that the angel has horns.  Wonderful hard nubs of goatlike horn beneath her hair.  If you are a shaman of our way you don't care.  In fact you are delighted.  You love the horns.  You kiss and fondle them.  You weave intimate designs upon them.  And are given woven charms in return."

deep water

My love is buried—caught up in the teeth of fear,

like so many things.

I thought nearer to you—fighting the empty space between us

(it knows, but do you?)

breathing underwater, i'm struggling to stay afloat. Kicking my legs, uselessly writhing.

Such a strange and willful dance.

It is your breath I want.

(This may or may not be a declaration of --------. )

the current tides me back under, and for a moment I forget.

For a moment the smoke in my lungs reminds me that I am only human—that this is only my humanity

manifesting itself, taking hold of me,

my own intensity eternally circling the drain

Sucking peels of water down with hungry power.

(It is raining outside.  It is raining inside this skin, my skin)

soaked with dewdrops, wet with raindrops.

mouth open wide

throat bare

head tilted back

to drink the wetness.

I drank water from a maple leaf this morning, and saw your face

reflected back

in my cupped hands.

My eyes looked out across the horizon

searching for a glimpse of something that would explain my rushing blood, shivers.

But I found only sleeping mountains.

I invoked their names and whispered another. Pieces, unraveling. (I surrender)

yet the electricity of the air shudders my skin with ecstasy--

point, counterpoint.

I am all earth and water--fingers, hands and eyes.

(there are places in me you have not yet seen, unexplored landscapes. earthquakes--)

The seething pit that swallows me whole

Endlessly,

hides full moons

cauterized with craters and caverns; a twisted gravity begs my release

beneath the calm sea—and that sea,

that sea is what you see

when you look at me.

(It is deep water)

Eyes--torn asunder.

Coyote teeth, snake bones. The sawed-off front leg of a deer, fur still attached in patches.

I sat with the coyote until it died, paralyzed.

Watched the life go out of its eyes,

wondering.

why the light goes out of our eyes, sometimes

even as blood still races life through our veins.

There is fog on my brain today, whiskey and red wine.

And lust-dreams keep me awake even in sleep

after the drive home, watching the yellow tracks blur on the highway

where I was the only one—swans and smoke, exhaling transcendent noise

reverberations and tobacco spiraling

spilling through the open space of the window.

Gas-light on.

then, stripping my stockings off and climbing into warmth.

Knowing sleep would not come.

even as I was dreaming, I wished it were true--

All the absurdities, confessions, faith.

Twisted elegiac logic of dreams

the soft feeling of your skin, unreal.

I contort myself to escape back into my dream; the rain tethers me.

Sometimes daylight is...

beating me over the head with a sharp stick.

A presence so full of absence.

Blue Vervain

While on a hike with friends yesterday, I came across a few blue vervain plants. They were unusually soft and fuzzy, sensual—much more pliable and yielding than the vervain plants I grew last year (the ones that are currently dreaming under the earth, with just the shiny purple leaves crowning above the ground) and although they did not look identical to the blue vervain I was familiar with, a taste-test confirmed their identity. Blue vervain has a very distinctive slightly sweet (almost narcotic) bitterness that has a way of creeping and sliding around the back of your throat with a very thick potency & astringency—once you've tasted fresh leaves, that particular bitterness is unmistakable.

Anyway, I identified the plant as Verbena Lasiostachys, also called blue vervain & western vervain. It is used along with Verbena Hastata (the blue vervain I have growing in my backyard) in the Herb Pharm blue vervain tincture, so it's got to be good stuff. Finding the plant growing in Ojai jolted me with an intense curiosity, and this curiosity prompted some thorough research and a good amount of leaf-fondling (my way of requesting extra information from the plants themselves).

Medicinally, vervain is one of those plants that provides an unlimited panoply of remedies. Not only that, but every part of the plant has its own particular medicinal use, from seed to root. It was fondly referred to as “The Herb of Enchantment” in many ancient cultures and seems to have been used consistently for both protection and fertility across many geographic locations—used in Greece, Italy, Jamaica, by Druids, by early Christians (who believed it had been used to staunch Jesus' wounds as he was crucified) and by various Native Americans. I'm not sure there is anything this plant couldn't do—it's been used to soothe intestinal complaints, as an analgesic (both internally and topically), to rid the body of parasites/worms, to prevent regular recurring symptoms of a particular disease (from malaria to asthma), as an astringent, to promote sweating & rid the body of toxins, to gently cleanse the liver and kidneys, as an emetic, expectorant, as an emmenagogue & to stimulate blood flow in general (which also explains why it is such a powerful aphrodisiac), to increase the flow of breast-milk, as a vulnerary (again, both topically and internally), to treat fevers & UTI's, and as a powerful nerve tonic/mild sedative, treatment for insomnia, dream-enhancer/lucid-dream enabler. Poultices were also used to treat headaches, sore muscles & rheumatism. The Iroquois used the seeds as a food source, and other tribes also made a type of blue vervain flour (resembling corn-meal) from the ground seeds.

During the summer I had used blue vervain a few times (made a very strong decoction from the leaves of the plants I had growing) and my experience of the plant boiled down to this: fevers and dreams, with a very strong, pervasive sexual energy. Again, there is a conflation of the masculine and the feminine. This plant is sacred to Thor, Mercury, Diana/Artemis, & Isis (and I would suspect Kali has a presence here as well), giving it the following affiliations: thunder, lightning, storms, knowledge, communication/connection, the wild virgin hunter, the moon, love, fertility, magic, motherhood, the protector of “all beginnings” (children and the dead).

The plant has a very strong serpent vibe—it was used as a charm against snakebites, and could make a man “tough as iron” and “hard as steel,” acting as a strong aphrodisiac and transferring the “hardness of iron” to the man while making love. Interestingly, the wild vervain has a much softer, yielding, feminine energy, while the V. Hastata was much stronger, sharper, rougher, more demanding and with a bit of a masculine touch (although still distinctly feminine). It seems to me that using these two varieties of Vervain together could create some serious mojo... both in terms of medicinal use, and otherwise.

Magically, Blue Vervain was used to sanctify altars and amulets, to purify the body and mind, to create lustral water, to help find true love and recover lost love, made into bridal wreaths (gathered by the bride herself) and as a sacred herb in Ancient Roman sacrifices. Vervain was often used with Rue (seems like a perfect combination) and was hung around windows and doors to protect the home, sprinkled around a room/house to bring peace and happiness, scattered in fields to ensure fertility and bountiful crops, added to potions to intensify their effect, used by witches to potentiate their will, used in exorcisms, added to dream pillows to prevent nightmares/intensify positive dreams, in healing ceremonies & to clarify sight and aid in divination (to help one see their path and their word more clearly). According to Thiselton-Dyer's book “The Folk-Lore of Plants,” Blue Vervain is to be harvested when neither the sun nor the moon is in the sky, only gathered “when the dog-star arose, from unsunned spots.” Given Isis' association with Sirius/the Dog-Star, this makes an awful lot of sense. According to Daniel Schulke's Viridarium Umbris, Vervain must always be collected with the Left Hand, and its preferred sacrifices are honey and beeswax (the bees really love this plant). It is quite startling to see the connections with this plant across such a large temporal/geographical/cultural sprawl, and to see how these different cultures identify it similarly in terms of mythology and its strong predilection for fertility/protection.

This plant is fascinating—I am becoming quite enamored... I can't wait until my sleeping crowns of blue vervain re-awaken for the spring, sending up their torches of blue-violet flowers for the bees to suckle, their leaves changing over time from green to deep-violet and blue, veined and tinged with lines and flashes of dark indigo. I imagine that honey made from blue vervain flowers would be something rather special—I'll have to have a chat with the bees, I suppose.

I can't resist...

Here is a fantastic music video from Sailboat--I did the makeup/swamp monster "facepainting" or whatever you want to call it for the singers & helped with the green screen stuff a few years ago.  Pretty delightful juicy electropop goodness... and sailors with eyeliner.  Yes, sailors with eyeliner.... Good shit.

Omie Wise

So, I have to say, murder ballads bring out everything that is great about folk music.  I was digging through the freakin mess that is the 500 gigs of music my brother gave me as a yuletide gift & I came across an entire compilation devoted to reiterations of this very old song, Omie Wise.  (There is another compilation that has about 20 versions of John Barleycorn--great marauder's tale about a famous bootlegger for anyone not familiar with the story).  Anyhow, the lyrics are beautiful and I love hearing all the different voices & instrumentation.  They are all so good it's hard to pick a favorite--Clarence "Tom" Ashley plays some really F*^%$(# great  banjo & the a capella version of Addie Graham is completely raw and kind of tugs at your emotions.  Dock Boggs is almost delighted with his story... not sure what to make of that.... also good banjo, on that one.  Doug & Jack Wallin have a bit of fiddle and really solid vocals--that might just be my favorite one so far, sort of tied neck & neck with Doc Watson.
Anyhow, enough rambling--the point of this is that this is a really old story, a true story about the murder of Naomi Wise sometime around 1808.  The fact that this woman's death has been preserved & passed down in via this sort of musical oral history for about 2 centuries, spawning a thousand different variations--a song sung by hundreds of singers, played on all sorts of different instruments--is simply incredible.  The lyrics, of course, have evolved and collaged themselves over time, so that the story has become a sort of fictionalized folk myth--though it began in the truthful story of a man named Jonathan Lewis who drowned a woman in Deep River, North Carolina.  He was arrested in 1808, promptly escaped, was captured & then acquitted of the murder, despite the fact that "it seems certain that Lewis murdered wise."

I'll tell you a story about Omie Wise,
How she was deluded by John Lewis's lies.
He promised to marry her at Adams's spring;
He 'd give her some money and other fine things.
He gave her no money, but flattered the case.
Says, "We will get married; there'll be no disgrace."
She got up behind him; away they did go
They rode till they came where the Deep River flowed.
"Now Omie, little Omie, I'll tell you my mind:
My mind is to drown you and leave you behind."
"Oh, pity your poor infant and spare me my life!
Let me go rejected and not be your wife."
"No pity, no pity," the monster did cry.
"On Deep River's bottom your body will lie."
The wretch he did choke her as we understand;
He threw her in the river below the mill dam.
Now Omie is missing as we all do know,
And down to the river a-hunting we 'II go.
Two little boys were fishing just at the break of dawn;
They spied poor Omie's body come floating along.
They arrested John Lewis; they arrested him today.
They buried little Omie down in the cold clay.
"Go hang me or kill me, for I am the man
Who murdered poor Naomi below the mill-dam."

If I ever figure out how to do it, I'll post some audio.  Reading the lyrics just isn't the same as listening to the song...

 

Emily--digging through old writing.

we found these artifacts, 

spiral closures wrapped in skin 

skin of the last one that came down laughing. 

and the headlights of dandelions breed a delicate madness--           as we walk

the black ribbons of the pier and stand above the ocean

                                                                                                 pearls,

                                                                                                 i smell seagulls. taste salt. 

       i left her in minneapolis, small apartment windows covered 

       black fabric to block out the light.        i lived here, sick and sweating. 

                      taking baths at four am to quell the shakes-- 

                                                               My legs have a life of their own.

she took pictures of herself          naked.          shaved head. 

                                                                     plastic dildo in hand. 

                  and i watched her. 

                  i watched her watching me.

                                                eight years and then she came down laughing---

                                                                                                      laughing, 

                                                                          eight years and she came down

                                                                          laughing. 

                                                when she found the edge--- 

                                                her proclivity for 

                                  steady pain sent her 

                                  spiraling--- 

                                                    ( did i? ) 

                                 so we spiraled.

                                                         vacant notebooks        hotel bathrooms

                                                         little blue bottles of shampoo

                                                                     for those dead dolls       in their dead dollhouses.

                                                                                                                       porcelain---- 

                        

                                                                                                                                  emily.

i closed the windows, skeleton keys straddling sanity. and she looked at her feet

and they were      wrapped in skin--- and the hotel bathroom,

we are wrapped in skin;

                                                                                                                         the pricking

                                     pregnancy of forgotten nouns, in my belly--- as she thinks of artifacts

                                                          i think of artifacts

                                                          and in this room, we come down laughing.

when hours pass and this door is opened.

         the drafts of the door,      opened,     send chills             shivering       

                                                                wafting over the sallow heads of children 

                                                                                                                       shallow ivy

        twisted vines of ivy 

        that have positioned themselves 

        in a stance of relative disclosure 

        equipped with a recursive silence that blinds       and 

                                                                binds her feet, 

                                                                              wrapped in skin 

                                                                              as she came down laughing.

                      

                                                                 ( we are casting off unnecessary equanimity ) 

  in order to melt into the drunken winding dusk. 

      “my spirals have come undone, the dollhouses closed their eyes

                        tavern's windows blinding my light.” 

                                           

                                                                                              so we drive.

we drive out of somewhere                     into nowhere,

                                                             on our way 

                                                             to a not-even-anything-place---- 

                                                                          but, perhaps-----perhaps we could 

                                                                                             purchase some peace, 

                                                                                             or find love in the eye of a needle.

                                            the kind with a possessive gravity, a lust for destruction. 

                                            pulling you down, 

                                            pulling you down, 

                                                                       down, 

                                                                                down. 

                                                                              until you wake, find yourself drooling with eyes open.     muscles slow.     mind detached. a vague memory     of    something like a waking dream still     sticking to your skin.          the skin of your mind, sedated.   shivers of pleasure. where the air hung wet and yellow     around your ears and you could hear----- the buzzing blizzard    of everything---pebbles shifting, bird feathers swishing, cars----always angry---the distance closing---and--- 

                                                                             and it was warm. 

                                                                                     for a few hours, anyway. 

                  there's always the black to every white even tar has a little ether in it    the up, and the                   down.

                                              and i hang.

                                              i hang-- 

                                              unwitting captive 

                                              strange ride. 

i find my hands        my hands     they are wrapped in skin, and i can travel for hours 

             wrapped in skin, going nowhere-- 

                                                      but up, down, 

                                                              up down 

                                            down up 

                                                     downnnn 

                                                                                      

                                                                 nnnnn 

                                                                     up down up 

                                                                           up up up--- 

                        unraveling my own solidarity                                                            (for loss       

                       under some stable middle ground                                         must be a carnival

                                                                                                                     riding my eyes) 

                       and when the daylight comes again 

                                       i will marvel at this snakebite 

                                                        three spots of blood---

                                                                                         three artifacts, laughing.

                                                                              

                                                                     wrapped in skin   the skin

                                                                     of a snake i          am wrapped in skin. 

                                                                                       and when the world came down 

                                                                                       i heard

                                                                                       not a sound.

                             

                                                                                                                   (not a sound

                                                                                                                           not a sound)