Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Re-Blogging: First Spring.

Early Spring Foliage - originally posted to my tumblr on 3/10/2014
The Signs of Spring are getting to be a little hard to ignore. But one could be forgiven for missing this one. A tiny 1/4” Least Bluet hidden in early chickweed and wood sorrel sprouts.
First Spring doesn't happen until it happens. I don't even bother trying to conjure up the land serpents until they show that they're ready to wake up. I mean, really... "Never tickle a sleeping dragon."

So when the first of them feels restless, when the blue has come off of its eyes and it seems ready to split the old skin and emerge shiny and clean then I will brave the chill of the night and drum and rattle and stomp until it gets the point and stops lazing about.

The first signs could be anywhere from early February to April. If it goes much later... I simply tickle the dragon anyway.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Re-Blogging: Garden Spider

Garden Spider - Originally posted on my Tumblr 12/17/2014

Monday, June 16, 2014

Fangs and Claws.


The clock has stopped ticking. My spouse's snoring has gone quiet. The cat's grooming has ceased. Everything stills, utterly, completely, fully.

The only movement in my entire body is the slow surge of blood, and my breathing. I am so still I can feel the swelling of veins move tissue and muscle. I will, through sheer force, myself into a point of consciousness somewhere behind my face, and nothing else. This is the reverse of phantom limb syndrome - my body is insensate and alien. I cannot feel my breathing, my limbs, my blood, or the bedding. And thus removed I feel my body change, to be as it is when I run wild, ecstatic, in the night. As I reshape the image of myself, I expand my awareness back into my body, bit by bit, until I can occupy those changed members once again - first the surges of blood, then the rock of breath.

And then I am a beast.

I stand up from the bed, and my skin is there - empty, sagging, dead to the world. This new shape that had been hidden in it crouches to get through the gap beneath the door, tip-toes through the house, and out the chimney. It thuds down to the deck, through the garden gate, and to the hedgerow fence. As soon as my toe crosses the line, the pack is there, waiting.

Doing this is different than "just ending up" at the Sabbat-hill. The conscious direction stays, and so it is with the others there. We make our signs and off we go, faster than fast. Blazing, blurring, twisting. Half-smoke, half-form, bestial and wild as demons.

Tonight our hunt is sinister. A black bear the size of a house takes us thundering to another person like us - a horse so beautiful it's just a shame what's about to happen - we eat him. I know that some terrible law was broken, and that his body in this world must be taken from him so it cannot occur again. I really have no idea what happens to him when he wakes up. I imagine this un-asked question is answered by "nothing good."

And the strange thing is, I can tell that my spouse is shaking me in the bed. I've howled in my state, he's getting upset. I gallop back, crawling between my own teeth like smoke so that I can draw a perturbed breath and say "The hell did you wake me up for?" - I have to come back quickly, he gets scared because when I'm asleep a ladybug's fart wakes me up, but when I'm out... I may as well be dead.

I can taste horse. Not the blood, or the meat. But the musk and sweat. The froth and foam of a panicked prey-animal. The clock is ticking. My spouse is settling back into snoring. The cat is slurping noisily at her toes.

For that night there will be no more flight.