Wild Hunts
Hi from the solstice. Not that "the solstice" is a place ... it kind of is, though. It's the heart of winter, an auspicious day back in pagan times, for, you know, cosmic reasons. Me? I think the sparkle of today is just the promise that life will return.
Isn't that why we drag green branches into our home when there's nothing green outside?
It's interesting, actually, to remember why we do all the shit we do this time of year.
"The symbolic use of plants at Christmas effectively transforms the modern-day living room into a place of shamanic ritual," reads Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, And Rituals At the Origins Of Yuletide.
Saturnalia and the Wild Hunt. Yule logs, the cult of tree worship, and magic mushrooms that let your mind soar the sky like it's on a sleigh. That winter holiday, the one we forgot about, sounds a whole lot rowdier and more darkly magical. And I'm down for that ... I can't speak for you, of course.
The mistletoe I hung—for kissin' season. The Druids would be proud.
Ye olde Christmas ficas tree.
Old Portland
I'm not from-from Portland. I grew up like a little pine cone in the mountains of Colorado. But I've lived here for a minute. A decade, to be honest. Perhaps you're the same? A long-term foundling of the North country? It's nice to have a nice place to live, and to love.
Change, though—change fucking happens!
"Portland is expected to see a population growth of 725,000 in the next 20 years," says, like, everyone. Property prices are poppin', and all the old business are going away.
This weekend I went to an art show commemorating a passing Portland icon—the Magic Garden. If you know it, then you know it's a dirty hipster strip club, magnificent in an "old-Portland" way, which is a term I keep using lately. Old Portland. Cheap and scummy, but with a heart of gold. Tarnished gold. Maybe brass.
The strippers donned clothes and gave all their $1s back—a move, I'm told, that portends the coming of the apocalypse.
Also, a line out the door for the Slammer? Mind. Boggling.
For Patti
Something I've been re-reading lately.
“I escaped into daydreams as I did my piecework. I longed to enter the fraternity of the artist: their hunger, their manner of dress, their process and prayers. I’d brag that I was going to be an artist’s mistress one day. Nothing seemed more romantic to my young mind. I imagined myself as Frida to Diego, both muse and maker. I dreamed of meeting an artist to love and support and work with side by side.”
Yes.
Reprieve
It's the first of December, the 11th hour of this weird, wild year. I traversed the long holiday weekend drinking, eating, dancing, shivering, watching the sun rise and fall quicker than I ever remember it doing.
Thanksgiving was had at the Bracewell residence with some of my very favorite dogs and people. Everyone arrived with a bottle of wine and a casserole dish, so that when all the food was out, no inch of surface wasn't supporting a bottle or steaming bowl. Mountains of food. The dogs played for hours, slobber-mouthed and wrestling in the middle of the floor and providing grand entertainment to a room full of people who wanted to be entertained and yet to move very little.
Sunday was so bright and ferociously cold that the mere act of living burned up all your calories. Skating in it tore teardrops from my eyes. I was exhausted by 7:30 p.m.
Really, these long black nights are a gift—a reprieve. See, I'll take a potent allergy pill (doctor's orders—I'm not an abuser) and sleep the sleep of the dead, or of the very innocent. Of which I am neither.
Brrrrrrr.
Cold Crusade
For a mind clogged with the debris of life, a few clear, cold days are all you could hope for. On dog walks, for instance, the wind rakes everything away, mentally speaking. The sky is either azure or, if it's past 5 p.m., especially starry. "Every walk is a sort of crusade," says Thoreau. And it's true.
Also, the Christmas cactus is blooming. Just when one needs it. When one might go out and buy oneself flowers. Thanks, plant. Sorry I never watered you.
