Bits & Bobs

Finally managed to get a few of the photos Beth took during the May Tides to share. I've had a helluva time trying to get these photos as this has been a painstakingly unsuccessful endeavor for most of the time. First off, I tried hooking her camera up to my computer while she was here celebrating with us to load the photos on my computer but my USB cord didn't fit her camera so that nixed that idea.

Then I tried swapping out her SD card for mine to load them from my camera to no avail. Next I had the brilliant idea of loading the pics from her SD card into the Wi Photos Application -- which worked great, I was able to load about thirty really good shots into the Wii. Then I realized that Nintendo hasn't provided a way to download the photos lol. I upgraded the Nintendo platform with extra SD features they now offer. Now I am able to download the entire photo module to an SD card. But once you have done that there is no way to open the program and extract the photos (or none that I have found as of yet).

Does anyone know what exactly a .BIN file is anyway? I found a few sites that offered programs to download to convert BIN files into usable files but they all came from those haxor type sites and I am very wary of downloading items from places like that as they are apt to be laden with spyware, malware, and worse. Eventually I enlisted help from my sister Yvonne when we went to Panama City a few weeks ago. I arranged a time for Beth to meet at my Mom's as Beth was loaning me a working printer so I can get rid of this broken HP dinosaur that takes up valuable real estate on my desk. She brought her camera and we took the photos off her SD card and put them on Yvonne's laptop.

Next, I used Yvonne's laptop to make a DVD disk of the pictures, I created a loverly slideshow with music to accompany about 40 wonderful photos that she took that day, she captured scenes that I hadn't and both sets together gave you a nice visual diary of the day's events. After making the DVD, I cleaned up my sister's computer as a favor, and got her comp. performing at top speed again. I also deleted the photos I had captured from Beth's SD card and took the DVD I had created home with me.

I found that my computer doesn't play DVDs....only CDs. I could play the disk I burned perfectly downstairs on the DVD player attached to my television lol but couldn't do a thing with them otherwise. I waited until I had to return to PC for a Dr's appt. and used the *recuva* program, no really, that is what it is called lol...but it worked like advertised and I was able to recapture about 10 usable pics that it salvaged from the recycle program. The picture above of May Queen Arianna, May King Dax, and Prince Wolf Aidan (he named himself *g...) and this is one of ones that she took that day that I was especially fond of.

Also, any one who had been a fan of the series of articles in Mike Howard's The Cauldron magazine by Giles Watson's entitled A Witch's Natural History you can view his many Flickr offerings, many exceptional photos with accompanying text in the form of descriptions of the items he's photographed as well as pieces of his very moving poetry.

Last but not least, this bit was shared over at the Wild Hunt.

I'll be in the fourth row, third seat across from the left ;) See you there!

Queries Regarding Ingression by Water

I received a lovely card from a friend recently, enclosed was a picture that I found very dear and memorable of my two friends at a birthday party for one of their sons. While I do love the portrait inside, the card itself had an enchanting and entrancing image from a hot springs located in Yellowstone Park.

This pool is named the Morning Glory Pool. The pooling waters of the spring, and it's dark watery entrance, looked at once to me like images I have imagined while doing visionary work. I scanned the image from the card and changed it slightly, adding the pattern framing the pool and adding also the lock and key contained in the deepest, darkest portions of the entrance that beckon the way below.

Folklore is rife with entrances such as these, doorways to other realms that are contained within hollow hills, deep wells ringed by stones and wild roses, damp caves that wend their way deep into the ground, spiraling beneath the earth in labyrinthine patterns.

These doorways lead to the low country, to the warm country, to the land of Elphame, to the dark recesses where dwell the faerie folk, the dead and guardian spirits who would prevent your entryway or freely allow your admission provided you are deemed worthy.

If you do acquire the skills to pass these guardians and make your way to what lies beneath do you know just where to tread? Have you the charts to navigate your way among the many routes and paths? Will you follow signposts left by others who have made this trek? Here be more than dragons friends.

Will your wisdom bring you to the looms that weave both night and day, designing fate as the fabric that we are all spun from? Do you possess the key that will unlock the door that bars you from the Weaving Goddess of those threads? Will you be a member of the convocation that has humbly received her blessings?

And finally, will your sojourn leave you unscathed? Shall you bear the scars of your quest? And what shall you leave behind, what will you return with...?

*********

"Some sepulcher, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within. "

-- Edgar Allen Poe, The Sleeper

The Tenacity of Spiders

My husband and I moved up to the country here in North Western Florida close to four years ago. I am very happy and quite content in my current environment, I do not hear the scream of sirens that are the portents of bad news brought to loved ones left at home or the chatter of pedestrians as they hurry to and fro, nor do I hear the constant barrage of sounds made from the many cars coming and going that populate the highways. Most days my ears only hear the trilling of the birds, the chirp of crickets and the warnings of impending rain from the small green frogs that live under the canopy of the hickory, oak, pine and cedar trees that cover the land. On some rare days, wind is the only voice that speaks, whispering through the leaves, telling secrets from far away and long ago as each leaf trembles with the message that it bears.

We are not alone on our small plot of land that we've named Rocking Witch Farm. We enjoy the company of our two dogs, two cats, an aquarium filled with a variety of fresh water fish and a Quaker parrot whose vocabulary seems to expand daily. Recently however, I was made aware of how many others share this land with us from the rabbits that come at dusk to forage in our newly planted vegetable garden to the deer that come as dawn approaches to drink from a small fountain dedicated to Pan. In addition to the birds such as; hummingbirds, woodpeckers, bluejays, cardinals, and sparrows that come and go there are also a variety of insects. The hum of bees can be heard all summer as they dance their flight paths to the way of pollen cached in the many flowering herbs and plants. Roses, azaleas, gardenias and others provide a riotous concert of floral color all through the seasons giving them much to dance about. Along with the bees are industrious ants, marching over twig and under leaf to find the bounty of food to bring back to those left in the hills tending juveniles and attending their Queen.

There are also spiders.

While I am content to share our habitat with all of these creatures that populated this land long before we came and will continue to do so long after we are gone, I am somewhat uncomfortable sharing it with spiders. It isn't that I have an innate fear of them, I am concerned when their habitat crosses over to mine in a more intimate fashion. The photo at the top of this post is from my front porch. The web shown there was spun overnight. What a complicated and detailed creation it is. The spot was carefully chosen to take advantage of the wind that may blow a moth off path as it comes to seek the light cast from the lamp we light in the evenings. Other bugs get caught in there as well, curious ladybugs, caterpillars that will never make it to their final stage of transformation, and on occasion lovely patterned butterflies have drifted in to their unfortunate deaths by getting trapped in the tangled skein of silken threads.

My office, affectionately named the Witch House, is a separate building from our main living quarters, it is small cottage like building with a porch of it's own. This is where I house my computer, all my books, stereo and cd's, several altars and assorted collections of personal items. It has four windows, and each affords a view of differing directions. The back window looks out upon a small hill where my compass is contained. Ringed by large stones with appropriate objects located in the cardinal points, this is where my small working group and I make magic or should I say magic makes us.

In the east is a wooden tripod that holds a small cauldron that represents fire. In the south is a cairn of stones and rocks that form a small hill, this represents earth. In the west a small brass spigot offers up fresh spring water, adorned by stonework in the form of a faery in front of an oak stump, this represents water. In the north is where the stang is planted during workings, with a candle lit between the horns the smoke from this candle spirals up and outward, representing air.

Other windows offer up vistas of rolling hills, dense canopied woods, and the almost hidden path to the compass area. This provides a most relaxing atmosphere, calm and serene although at times wicked storms pass through raining hickory nuts atop the tin roof of the Witch House that sound like firecrackers exploding on the fourth of July - the power of this place is much changed then but still it is an amiable location.

Inside the Witch House are many nooks and crannies, delightful spots for a variety of spiders to make their homes. I try my best to remove them, placing them outdoors to find new homes and spin new webs in the verdant landscape available. Occasionally I have found spiders of a poisonous kind and while I understand that they are an important part in the overall scheme of life, I do not wish to share such close quarters with them. Sadly, I must admit to using chemical poisons in the form of sprays to rid myself of their company at times. More often than not though I do try and simply relocate them.

I'll relate what prompted this post as I've been busy this morning before I came online. I've been moving a trapped spider into an unused ten gallon aquarium I have. In essence, I captured a female brown recluse spider just inches away from my computer keyboard back during our May Tide festivities -- she was climbing over a tiny gargoyle stature (one of a pair) that sits in front of my desktop speakers.

Since I have such a slow healing process due to certain medical conditions I did *not* want to even put myself in the way of possibly being bit and having the deadly necrosis associated with those sorts of bites. Doug (one of my working partners) caught her for me in a small glass jug that once held herbs/worts. There was already the corpse of a male brown recluse in the jar that had been caught after being well-sprayed with a bug killing solution some months ago. I placed the jar in the dark recesses of my wort cupboard and forgot all about it.

When I went to check for something a few days ago I found her quite alive and she had spun great webs all about the jar, totally encasing the gargoyle figurine (which got placed in the jar as well) and was very active. I assumed she would have died from lack of air! Since she has such a determined spirit I could not find it in my heart to poison/kill her so I made a sort of home for her out of the aquarium (with a very tightly screened lid lol). My husband helped me negotiate the process of moving her and I was able to catch a few small moths to put in with her so she'll have something to eat as well as water placed in a small shallow shell that went in her new home with some moss and twigs.

My husband reminded me that these sorts of spiders only need to mate once and they store the sperm forever which enables them to have young whenever they wish! I hope to Gods I don't find hundreds of tiny spiders in there one day as it was not my wish to provide an incubatory atmosphere for her. Let us hope she is a virgin!

During this event I have found that while I may hold the deed or title to our small plot of land in this country landscape, my husband and I are no more the *owners* of this land than our two dogs are. We share this environment, with both the spirits of those seen and unseen, forces that are both titanic and diminutive, benefic as well as malefic. And it is our interaction and our intentions with these companions that determine whether or not our home here is filled with pleasure and joy or whether it is filled with pain and sorrow. Quite a revelation when considering that despite all I've learned spiritually over the years from my intensive studies and personal revelations I considered myself at the top of the ladder as it were - I believed I was the Mistress of all I could see. What a shock to find that I haven't even begun to see where the ladder ends above and that there are still many rungs to climb.