kentuckwitch

[kentuckwitch]

I have really enjoyed the years I’ve been on this website and appreciate so much the support I’ve received from so many of you. I’ve learned from people who’ve been kind enough to share and interact, and I’ve just had a lot of fun. The last three years have been hard; I lost my career and marriage due to an alcohol addiction and mental illness that nearly killed me. I ended up in a sober home for two years and let this blog sit basically idle while I got my shit together, but I really have enjoyed being more active recently. I had a surgery that ended forever my dream of becoming a mother. I bounced back and I’m rebuilding. I have a wonderful therapist and have really benefitted from Dialectical Behavior Therapy. For any of you struggling with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, trauma and abusive childhoods, and/or substance abuse disorder, I recommend checking that branch of therapy out. It��s changed my life. I’ve also grown and changed spiritually. I waffled around for a while, not really sure what I believed and where I was going on my path, but I feel surer now.

Unfortunately, this is no longer a space in which I feel comfortable. There are many judgmental people in my life who would like to dictate how I live my own, and I find that in sharing this blog with someone I’ve actually opened myself up to criticism, ridicule and harsh judgment, and have the additional threat of being exposed to my broader community and family before I’m ready. That’s just not something I can deal with, considering everything going on in my personal life. I’ve shared quite a bit of information that could easily identify me, including linking to other social media accounts, so I never intended to be fully anonymous, but I find that someone cyber-stalking and cherry-picking my posts and denigrating my practice and beliefs has worn me down and turned something I once so enjoyed into something that doesn’t feel good anymore. I might be attaching too much sentiment to it, I tend to be kinda dramatic, but it was special to me. I’ve always wanted community and to meet and interact with likeminded folks. It’s lonely sometimes, where I live, and building community has become something very important to me. I don’t go into a lot of specifics about how I practice or what workings I’m doing at any given time, but I always planned on sharing more about what’s worked for me, when it’s worked. I regret that I feel like in some ways I’m going backward, retreating, but I don’t really see a way around it.

I don’t know that I won’t change my mind about this retreat or regrouping, but I’m going to take a break. Goodbye! Blessings and well wishes to anyone reading. I hope that you find community, peace, acceptance, and that on your journey you find yourself in a position to never have to stand down, back into the shadows (unless that’s where you’d prefer to be), and hide any part of who you are.

I’m leaving everything the way it is, because there are some things I’ve shared (like those posts from a while back of Appalachians sharing folk healing and folk magic stories) that someone might find encouraging or interesting or helpful. Those stories will die away, if we don’t preserve them. Our culture is changing, and we’re losing many things - some should be lost, but others are so special. I can only hope that in the future I might be able to look at my niece and nephew, since I can’t have kids of my own, and see an interest in where they come from and the ways our family and others like them believed and made magic and medicine and found their resilience and their lives’ meanings. I hope they love and protect the land, and cherish those stories wherever in the world their lives take them off to.

[kentuckwitch]

more natural dyes: the blue was made with red cabbage + cornflowers and the purple was made with blackberries + maple bark. plants are magical.

[kentuckwitch]

You hear it in the trees at night — a snapping branch, a sigh.

[kentuckwitch]

hitch your heart to one small thing

[kentuckwitch]

On this day, 16 February 1931, the Coal Operators Association in Harlan County, Kentucky, cut miners’ wages by 10%. Workers responded by going on strike several weeks later, kickstarting nearly a decade of often violent conflict with bosses, armed thugs, police and the military. By the end of the decade, employers were forced to concede union rights to miners in the region. This is our archive on mineworkers’ struggles: http://ift.tt/2Cqj8OS Pictured: miners confront troops in Harlan County, 1939 http://ift.tt/2EB1b60

[kentuckwitch]

The Witch’s Cabinet:

Plant Lore, Sorcery and Folk Tradition

by Corinne Boyer

[kentuckwitch]

On this day, 8 February 1921, Peter Kropotkin, famous proponent of anarchist-communism, died of pneumonia in Russia. In his life he founded and participated in revolutionary groups in Russia, England, France and Switzerland, and wrote many key texts in the development of anarchist theory. These included Mutual Aid: a Factor in Evolution, which showed how cooperation was a key factor for any successful species, and Fields, Factories and Workshops: a practical model on how a free society, run by the working class, could function. Works by and about him, including a beautiful new illustrated edition of Mutual Aid with an essay by David Graeber, available here in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/peter-kropotkin https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1916470735204734/?type=3

[kentuckwitch]

– Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832), from “Faust” (first performance 1829), translated from the German by W. Daniel Wilson 

[kentuckwitch]

Vintage Valentine ca. early 1970s.

[kentuckwitch]

Mountain Snake, by Rebecca Zwanzig.

[kentuckwitch]

your growth depends on how well you respond to failure.

[kentuckwitch]

Mom Adopts a “Dog”

So y’all keep blowing up my notes with the various Family Lore stories I’ve been telling, so I guess I should tell one on my parents now.

My Mother’s Father was part of the United Auto Worker’s Union, and during the 50′s and 60′s, was on strike a lot. My point is, grandpa got himself an entirely deserved reputation for being a sucker who loved animals, so people would dump thier pets on him. Hence, my mother grew up in a house with pets such as Picket the one-eyed tomcat, Tweety the Bald canary, Dummy the cat, Stupid Son of Dummy, Spooky Garbage Dog and Chiquita the Tarantula.  Eventually Grandma put her foot down when Grandpa brought home Gerta the Saint Bernard.

I say all this because it provides some context for how the following occured.

Mom and Dad had just moved in together (my parents dated for six years and were engaged for 13 days, driving everyone on both sides insane), and unfortunately, My mother’s German Shepherd, Cops, has just passed away due to bone cancer.  After mourning for a bit, Mom and Dad decided to get a dog together, as a couple.  

For context, my father had never owned a dog in his life.  His mother had ‘Pretty Bird” the budgie as a child but parrots are alien life forms, not pets.

So they go to the Palo Alto Animal shelter to adopt.  The year was 1987, and at the time, Palo Alto was… not a great place.  Lots of drugs, gangs and poor civic managment.  Mom told me that she learned to identify different types of gunfire while living there. They get there, and mom explains that she’s always had a preference for Big Dogs, and the guy’s face lights up.  Oh Yes, he says, We have a Big Dog.  For expirienced owners, yep, adoptable today, here we’ll give you a discount even-

Somehow my parents were not suspicious about this.

They were shown to the Animal in question, a Gorgeous blue-sable beastie with pretty golden eyes who immediately pressed herself against the fence and gave them the best PUH-LEEEEEEASE TAKE ME HOME puppy eyes 100lbs of canine can do.  Mom and Dad fall in love instantly.  They sign all the paperwork and take her home for $10, and name her “Mazel” as in “Mazel Tov.”

Within the hour, it becomes clear that something is amiss.

Cops had lived with his kibble stored in a plastic garbage can in the garage for six years without incident.  Mazel figured out how to open doors and got the locking lid off the can in six minutes, horking down about four pounds of the stuff before my mother notices that it’s been weirdly quiet.  Most dogs bark at or chase squirrels.  Mazel stalked and caught one the second day, presenting it to my mother like an offering.  Mazel knew all her commands but would clearly stop to consider before obeying, and trained my dad to give her good treats within a week.  The locks on the side-yard gate were undone, and she took a stroll around the neighborhood, but always retuned home for dinner.

After a week of gradually realizing that Mazel was smarter than most of the professors my mom worked with, they took her to the Vet for a routine checkup.

Dr. Hamada walked into the exam room, dropped the clip-board and said “Where the HELL did you get a Wolf?”

After a bit of prodding and a very-angry-dr.hamada-calling-the-pound, they determined Mazel was a high-content hybrid, probably with a husky, but was going to be a lil shit her entire life.  OK, said Hamada, I don’t like destroying animals and you’ve got a lot of expirience with dogs, so I’m okay with letting you keep her, but you should keep her away from small children because her Prey Drive could kick in.

Two years later, mom got pregnant with me.

Mazel noticed instantly, and reacted by digging a large hole in the yard and catching even more squirrels for mom, because she needed the protein or something.  That what you do when the Alpha Bitch is preggers, right?  Dig a den and ply her with food?  On the advice of my grandmother, my mom stayed overnight at the hospital once I was delivered, and dad went home with a shirt that had moms and my scent on it.  Mazel spent the whole night puzzling over it.

The next morning, when mom came home with me, there was the sudden and instantaneous recognition of PUPPY!!!!!! :D:D:D!!!!! PUUUUUUUPPY!!!!!!  and Mazel turned into the most aggressively maternal being I’ve ever met.  Playing with me on the blanket, sitting under my chair at meals (I was a messy eater), sleeping under my crib, teaching me to walk by letting me hang onto her fur and shuffle around.

Dr. Hamada thought mom was a madwoman, until he saw me holding Mazel’s mouth open and sticking my face in so i could look at her teeth.  He gave up when my mom announced she was pregnant with my sister.

I’m making living with a Wolfdog sound awesome, but it did come with some drawbacks:

Mazel did have to be muzzled at the vets, because she had Opinions about having things stuck up her butt.

HAIR.  One of my chores growing up was to brush her out every week and I’d frequently end up with more hair than animal.

the only way we could reliably get her to stay in the yard was with an overhead tether with a STEEL cable, which she chewed through anyway.

Do you like waking up by being hit in the face with half a dead animal? No? Wolfdogs may not be for you.

More than capable of opening the fridge and eating everything if you’re not watching

Will get into everything if not otherwise occupied.  Including eating your tax forms.

Howls along with sirens at 4 AM.

PROS of growing up with a wolfdog, as a small child in the 90′s

I was afforded a degree of freedom normally associated with a pokemon trianer. It was no big deal for me and my sister to walk three miles through my not-really-good neighborhood to the Froyo if I took Mazel with us. People tended to leave us alone when we had 100lbs of overprotective Apex Predator following us around.

WINNING at Pet Day at school.  There wasn’t actually a compettion but Billy’s hamster sucks in comparison to an animal that is perfectly willing to demonstrate how she can snap an oak branch in half on command.

PTA moms losing their shit because Mazel would walk down the block by herself to come pick ups up from school.

Grew up associating the word “Bitch” with teeth and the willingness to rip an asshole’s face off for being rude.  Never changed the definition.

Learned the I-Own-This Strut and Murder-Stare from the absolute best.

When she was 17, Mom and Dad decided to add another room on to the house.  They rigged up the overhead tether so she could be outside but not underfoot for the contruction guys.  One morning, mom came out to notice them all milling in the side yard entrance, muttering worriedly.  When mom asked what was wrong, one of them explained that Carlos forgot to bring the Hamburger.  What do you need a hamburger for?  Asked mom, and they pointed down the side yard to where Mazel was sitting, doing her best Viscious Alpha Bitch Stare.

Apparently they’d never realized that she was on the VERY end of her tether there and couldn’t actually get to them, and had been scamming them for a big mac a day for a month.  Mom had my six-year-old sister pull her away to show she wasn’t dangerous and tired her best not to laugh but kind of failed.

Mazel ended up living to be 19 and a half, and except for some minor arthritis, remarkably hale until the day she passed away in her hole in the back yard while taking a nap.  I maintain that Death had to wait until she was sleeping to get a crack at her, or she would’ve taken his scythe for a chew toy.

[kentuckwitch]

Harold H. Thompson was an Irish-American anarchist from Huntington, West Virginia. After a stint in the army, he became involved with anarchism and anti-war activism as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Thompson was prosecuted and found guilty of murder and robbery in 1979, and sentenced to life plus 50 years.

He worked in prison as a jailhouse lawyer, aiding other prisoners with legal matters, filing of internal grievances, post-conviction, and lawsuits against prison officials. He was a writer and poet, publishing in various anarchist newspapers and newsletters over the years, in addition to a booklet of prison writings and struggle poetry by the English Huddersfield ABC, They Will Never Get Us All! He was a strict vegetarian.

Thompson died of a heart attack in 2008, aged 66. His ashes were scattered over Lough Neagh in Ireland by six of his anarchist friends.

[kentuckwitch]

The fruit trees are waking up!

[kentuckwitch]

✨8✨ (or just favorite quote from any magic text)

8) What is your favourite passage from your sacred text, if you have one?

6.1 And it came to pass, when the sons of men had increased, that in those days there were born to them fair and beautiful daughters. 6.2 And the Angels, the sons of Heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another: "Come, let us choose for ourselves wives, from the children of men, and let us beget, for ourselves, children." 6.3 And Semyaza, who was their leader, said to them: "I fear that you may not wish this deed to be done, and that I alone will pay for this great sin." 6.4 And they all answered him, and said: "Let us all swear an oath, and bind one another with curses, so not to alter this plan, but to carry out this plan effectively." 6.5 Then, they all swore together, and all bound one another, with curses, to it. 6.6 And they were, in all, two hundred, and they came down on Ardis, which is the summit of Mount Hermon. And they called the mountain Hermon, because on it they swore, and bound one another with curses. 6.7 And these are the names of their leaders: Semyaza, who was their leader, Urakiba, Ramiel, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Daniel, Ezeqiel, Baraqiel, Asael, Armaros, Batriel, Ananel, Zaqiel, Samsiel, Sartael, Turiel, Yomiel, Araziel. 6.8 These are the leaders of the two hundred Angels, and of all the others with them.

7.1 And they took wives for themselves, and everyone chose for himself, one each. And, they began to go into them, and were promiscuous with them. And they taught them charms, and spells, and they showed them the cutting of roots and trees.

[kentuckwitch]

Brenna Twohy