From Alexander Barclay, trader, to his brother George in St. Louis, June 11, 1845: Our wants are few, and as we witness no instance of ostentation and luxury in our neighbors, we have nothing to create envy. Thus, we have only to repress occasional recollections of the superfluities of civilized life to be contented with [...]
Last week M. and I climbed over the ridge to “Camera Trap Spring” (our personal name for it) to leave an offering to Tlaloc. Thing have changed a little bit since a year ago. The ground is black with ash. Stones have cracked from the heat of a forest fire. That ground-up bark on the [...]
Some fairies are said to live in boulders, others perhaps in purpose-built housing. In this blog post, a professional gardener in southern Colorado moves from greenhouses to fairy houses (with her dad as maintenance man) to bee houses. And please scroll to the bottom — it’s a long post — for a list of bee-killing [...]
My little patch of the southern Colorado foothills may not be great agricultural land, but it does (or because it does) have boulders. Big ones. Ever since I posted about the Icelandic huldufólk (hidden folk) documentary, I have been scrutinizing them. Is this one . . . um . . . inhabited? It is [...]
• At Wytch of the North, a lengthy blog post on being a godspouse. • A small publisher seeks submissions for a volume on “transgressive rites and rituals.” We are looking primarily for practical articles describing new and original rites and rituals that cross barriers and challenge social norms. Although the bulk of the book [...]
The local weekly newspaper arrived in my post office box today. I see that a liquor store in my little mountain county is announcing a new 12/21/12 pricing plan: Bud or Bud Light six packs will cost you two chickens or a goat . . . Canadian Mist 175′s will cost you 1,000 rounds of [...]
Organizers of this year’s Pagan Pride Day in Denver, Colorado, want to set a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people dressed as pointy-hat witches. One of the organizers posted to a statewide mailing list, I think that we should let witches in non-black hats participate, too…I was thinking we would have the [...]
I think it is time to rebuild the shrine to Tlaloc under the bridge — the one that was mysteriously augmented last summer. I had taken it down before the spring run-off, which is just a memory now. Once the heat abates a little, I need to hike back over the ridge and leave an [...]
. . . at the Beltania festival, where the temperature is about 45° F with rain now and again. I spent the morning at one of the volunteer fire department’s monthly training day, helping more people become familiar with the whole process of drafting water from a creek (hydrants? we don’t need no stinking hydrants) [...]
Everyone has posted their “Happy Equinox” messages. Oh well. I live in a house that was placed by the Old Ones to line up with the equinoctial sunsets, instead. You can see how tonight the sun seemed to fit into a particular notch in the ridge to the west. They were truly wise, the Old [...]
