In a Room Full of Reptiles, You Are the One I Love. (And the Weirdness of Entanglement.)

Sheltopusik (Pseudopus apodus) or Scheltopusik,
the European Legless Lizard or "Glass Snake." 

I Love you like a fan girl. There is no explaining it, so I won't try. 

Arabella, zealot of the White Worm.
illustration from Bram Stoker's
1st ed. Lair of the White Worm.
Image courtesy Wikipedia.

How can you anticipate that when you enter a room full of strange reptiles & arthropods that you will find yourself overcome by a crush that threatens to drive you to plaster pictures of someone -- a legless lizard no less -- on your dressing mirror? 

"This lizard inhabits open country such as short grassland or sparsely wooded hills. The scheltopusik consumes arthropods and small mammals. Snails and slugs appear to be its favorite prey, which may explain why it is particularly active in wet weather, although it prefers a dry habitat.

Due to its size, the scheltopusik tends to respond to harassment by hissing, biting, and musking. It is less likely to drop off its tail than some other species that display caudal autotomy. However, these occasional displays of caudal autotomy are responsible for the name "glass lizard" (or "glass snake"). The released tail may break into pieces, leading to the myth that the lizard can shatter like glass and reassemble itself later..." -- Wikipedia

Who needs the rest of the exhibit, the fair, or the world, when I had you?

But perhaps there is more at work than meets the eye. 
I suspect Weirdness (or Wyrdness). 

***

Lair of the White Worm, 1911.
1st ed. illustration by Pamela Colman Smith
(also illustrator of the Rider-Waite Tarot)

I could not shake the esoteric feeling that this Sheltopusik was recalling to me the White Worm from Bram Stoker's unpopular horror novel, The Lair of the White Worm. I confess that this is a book I still have yet to read, but I do possess it & revisit from to time with a certain ambivalence since my copy is an electronic version & I dislike e-books. However, I have seen Ken Russell's campy film (not his best work -- I am guilty of a wee bit of Russell fan-hood too) which is loosely based on the Stoker book & I always suspected that the book itself might offer a more interesting story.

I decided to look up a synopsis of the Stoker book & discovered that the story is based on the legend of the Lambton Worm, a tale from North East England. The story, as with all oral tradition, changes some with every telling, but the basic plot revolves around a battle with a giant worm, or dragon. Stoker's adaptation involves cult-like mesmerism, vampiric themes & brazenly discards the traditional dragon slaying for a more dramatic & explosive conclusion. 

The personal Weirdness begins to develop with an unexplained reference to Lewis Carrol's Jabberwocky I found in the end notes of the Wikipedia article for the Lair of the White Worm text. Now, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass are books I read during my childhood more times than I can count. The Jabberwocky was the one poem which I loved so dearly that I memorized it in it's entirety & would recite to family members from time to time in order to impress or entertain -- depending upon the person, of course. 

Perhaps you are my Jabberwock, returned to me?

***

This chain of connections would me more nostalgic & less Weird/Wyrd if it weren't for the fact that -- unbeknownst to me -- on the other side of the ocean, another human organism very similar to & yet different from myself was simultaneously being drawn to the very same text, not by way of a captivating reptilian encounter, but by way of a different yet similarly campy 1980's American film. 

And I can't quite wrap my brain around that.

The glass snake as featured in early American iconography.
"Un serpent coupe en deux. Se rejoindre or mourir" or
"Join or Die," by Benjamin Franklin
Image from this article.

Supplemental Weirdness: 

"In 1989, screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wrote a film treatment for The Loathsome Lambton Worm, a direct sequel to his 1973 film The Wicker Man. The sequel would have involved the original film's protagonist, a Scottish police officer, battling the Lambton Worm. However, it was never produced."
-- Wikipedia

The Wicker Man. Quite possibly my favourite film of all time. Wyrd.

I Aways Come Back to You & Your Woo...

June 24th, afternoon.

I am wandering with the wee folk, collecting wild rose (Rosa aciculariso or R. nutkanapetals) for a rose petal vinaigrette. 
Maybe some dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) leaves for a dandelion mustard.
I stop in a clearing between some birch (Betula neoalaskana) and black spruce (Picea mariana) because both boys want to pee.

And then I feel it.
I look about. There must be something, someone here...  But I don't find the source of this energy, this dizzying woo, this psycho-spiritual play on the body which cannot be described but only experienced.

I see nothing of note. Where are you?

Then I abandon the search when the Changeling begins to get radical with his clothing removal, figuring I might have been having a false alarm. After all, it is quite early in the season & it has been very dry...

As I am tackling the wee one in the duff, attempting to save his naked flesh from the flocks of mosquitos clamouring to get at his tiny bottom, I hear our eldest gasp & shout from behind me:

O...
M...
G...

OMG!

We both turn & scramble to him. The spot where the Little Lad is now hovering, clutching his camera, is the precise spot where I had been standing.

Two tiny, precious little slimes, hidden in the shadows of the strong, slanted sunlight popped into view with the gesture of his finger. 

Wolf's Milk Slime (Lycogala epidendrum)

I was standing on that log. Had I not been so still, I might have trampled them. In all that scanning the micro-landscape, I hadn't thought to look down at my feet.

Wolf's Milk Slime (Lycogala epidendrum)

And this might seem inconsequential to most humans, probably nearly all humans... but for the humans who find themselves entangled with me & this slime, this encounter speaks volumes about connections complex & inexplicable.

Animist Blog Carnival: The Shape of Time & Other Things

...Why I never doggedly pondered you? Because I can see your shape & it is so familiar... within & without. 

"Double Helix Nebula" by ashiphire of deviantART. 

I have always found myself agitated by philosophical & theoretical discussions of Time. Time is, like the universe itself, incomprehensible to a large degree & (unlike the discussions) I am comfortable with that. I don't need to know how it works, or where it does not work, or how we puny humans might manipulate it, or where it throws out all the rules & works in a new, mind-bending manner. I need only know that it is working at this moment.

However, in thinking about this prompt* (which I have found faintly agonizing), I realized that my sense of time has always included a natural form, a visual understanding of its structure. In my mind, Time has a shape. It is a familiar, known formation. This is a notion I have carried with me -- almost entirely unaltered -- since I was a child. Given my strong belief that children's ideas & conceptions of the world are rooted in animism, I felt that some digging about in the memory stores was in order.

Prepare thyself for weirdness. Or something.

Χρόνος/καιρός

"What time is it?" by KAZ1167 of deviantART.

During the majority of my life, when people have referred to the recent past (that is, the past I have experienced, that which is within my lifetime) or the approaching future (also, within my lifetime) I clearly see movement around a platter-like surface. I am standing on this disc, this plate of Time. The dish has a gradation of sensory cues; changing light, colour, smells, temperature, humidity, etc, but no distinguishable figures. I always seem to view it from approximately the point of my birthday which places October to my right (in the South, as near as I can tell). Midwinter is then directly behind me, Spring curving forward along my left, Midsummer in front, etc. I still see it this way today. Little about it has changed over the years except for the markers or cues which are infinitely more numerous than they were when I was a youngling.

However, this scheme isn't as simple as prancing 'round & 'round the two-dimesional saucer of Time ad nauseam like Alice in the Caucus Race. From my position on the platter I can see the recent past & the near future. But what of the more distant laps around the plate? The past & future should have shape too, no? Just what is the shape of the length of Time & how does it relate to the little saucer of the relative now? By strange revelation, I came to know the extended shape of Time some time in 1980, thanks to a man as familiar, influential & beloved to my generation as Mister Rogers: Dr. Carl Sagan.

Except that Dr. Sagan wasn't talking about Time. He was talking about cells.

In the COSMOS series, Sagan visits & revisits cellular structure in great detail. Why? Cells are extraordinary, miniature universes. They form & drive our living world. They encapsulate & exemplify the vastness of inner space. They personify the intricacy of the everything & the nothing. Cells also contain limitless lengths of nucleotide chain. The double helix -- endlessly unraveling & rewinding -- is the shape of Time.

I clearly remember the moment I recognized it. While watching a cellular biology segment of COSMOS (quite possibly the segment below) I realized a disconnect (or was it a connect?), thinking, "This is Time. I am watching Time! He is talking about DNA & RNA but I just know this is Time!" I felt with a child's certainty that I was viewing a very faithful portrayal of the assembly & disassembly, the orchestration & dissolution, of Time... 

Carl Sagan Discusses Cells. 

If you don't like trees, you can skip to 2:11 to view the nucleotide segment.

Mostly however, I remember wondering with a vague desperation, "Who are these "enzymes" who weave & unravel this stuff?" (I remember feeling a peculiar fondness for them as well.) That is the big question, isn't it? I still don't have that answer. Not that I have any answers at all, just crystal clear pictures in my head.

Watching nucleotides being strung together gave me a new, three dimensional structure to my platters, each disc sitting on one layer of a an endless coil. For some time now, I have defaulted to this disc-filled slinky-like vision of extended Time, neglecting the important fact that the double helix is just that: double. I have simply ignored the other side of Time. 

While reflecting on Time for this piece, I have begun to consider that second strand. What is going on over there? Is that the side of all possibilities? Our reflections? Our dopplegangers? The timeline of the Otherworld? What? Or, perhaps I have always misunderstood a basic aspect of the structure. Could it be that instead of the past & present residing on opposite ends of a single strand, each one of them is a strand? Two strands, past & future being spun & frayed, replicated ad infinitum while we stand somewhere on a saucer, suspended between them in the intelligible present...

"Slinky" by Iridescent of deviantART.

In the mind-bending, I inevitably reach the essential animist's question: "Can we talk?" Ah, relationship. 

I tend to understand Time as a function with form, albeit an intangible form. Maybe. Or perhaps it is something of a function & a place. But is it within, or without? Or is it both? Or neither? Of course I naturally wonder, am I missing something? Everything? My marbles perhaps? Is there a being of Time with whom we can talk? Or does it just "go," like a Dr. Seuss verb?

I have never tried to talk to Time. Nor do I plan to. As I mentioned earlier: I need only know that it is working.

However, there is someone -- or some Ones -- I would really like to know. Maybe. The Time-winders. The builder, divider, replicator enzymes of the temporal chain -- wouldn't an attempt to know & understand Them prove to be a more fruitful & valuable endeavour than coffee klatsch with Time? Exactly Who are the weavers of Time & how do we talk to Them?

I don't have answers, just pictures. Understanding those enzymes of Time is a pretty distant reality & the truth of the matter is, I can live with that. I am very happy with the relationships I have here on this pretty little platter & the best part about it is, it is working.

"Creating Time" by intao of deviantART.

* This post is a part of the Animist Blog Carnival of March 2013. To read other animist perspectives on time, follow the link.


An aside (for the files): During my early school years, I had a relatively short-lived, yet concurrent, linear view of time which might be better described (in retrospect) as a plan or trajectory. I think I understood it to represent time, or more specifically, the future. In Salt Lake City, there are many parallel streets. I happened that my elementary school was located on a street that paralleled the street of what I believed to be my future high school (located further North). Additionally, the University I always imagined myself attending was on that same street belonging to the high school yet even further North. So, I had this picture in my mind's eye that I would be progressing Northward, over time, toward University. But then school boundaries changed as they are wont to do & I missed the district of the school to the North by one block & my whole image of direction & future was nearly shattered except that there was still the University, except that I ended up at a University in New England. Thus, I gave up my brief interlude with Time that looked like a straight line as wide as a city street.

May I Borrow a Cup...?

A short, amusing anecdote about living with uncommon neighbors. For the files.

I received a text from downstairs asking if I might be troubled for a moment with a phone call. Our neighbor needed to borrow something. 

A cup of sugar? 
A power drill? 
A spot of rum? 

No. 

"A small dish for consecrating salt, please."

Under normal circumstances, this request would easily be accommodated. However, having just completed our move, we could not find such an item. There was a brief panic until I remembered the pretty earthenware sake set boxed away above the refrigerator. A cup. Perhaps this will work.

Hubby trailed me as I carried the small, speckled compromise downstairs. The door was ajar. Beyond it, the room was filled with Witches wielding swords & smudge sticks. There was much busy-ness & making of smells & sounds. An overflowing altar glittered from the center of the room. I waded into the kitchen & handed him the little cup. 

"Perfect."

Upon returning to our own kitchen upstairs, Hubby turned to me with a wry grin,

"Our neighbors are weird."
"Yep."

✫✫✫✫✫

One of the real joys of living so close to "weird neighbors" is sometimes they let you in on something very special. 

Like fresh, homemade lemon curd. 
Or insightful divinations.
Or sacred fires.

Fire, fed by three wise, wild women.

A toast to weird neighbors! May they continue to borrow strange objects, wave swords & set fire to rocks... 

...perhaps we should check on the insurance policy.

When the Land Greets You Back, Part 2. Or, How I Came to Eat My Familiar.

"A late sixteenth-century English illustration of a witch feeding her familiars. The use of the
familiar was something that witches and cunning folk were believed to have in common."
ca. 1579, from, "Cunning folk in Britain" @ Wikimedia Commons

This is a story comprised of equal parts embarrassment, amusement & enlightenment. It might also be a bit tongue-in-cheek. Or not. I have yet to decide.

Still wandering about, greeting the Land, I returned to my most beloved -- above all others -- boreal haunt in the Anchorage area. Peace & Belonging met me at the entrance. 

Once we had marshaled all the gear & accoutrements necessitated by having wee folk in tow, we began our reunion ramble through the park. About 30 feet down the paved central path, there is a 3-way crossroads. Our choices: the equestrian centre to the East, the exercise circuit & playground to the South/SouthWest & the parking/entrance to the North. Unpaved trails traverse & weave their way around all these features. These trails were our ultimate goal, but one must first pause to make a decision at the crossroads. I opted for the easterly arenas & began to turn in that direction when I felt it.

This is a weird thing, this thing that sometimes happens with fungi. I can be ambling about anywhere when my vision, or brain, or both, shift slightly & suddenly become kind of wavy, like heat rising off the road in the dead of Summer. Following this, I find myself turning my attention to a fungus (it happens with slimes too) which I had previously not noticed. Does this sort of thing happen to you?

So, I got the woo-woo sensation, gazed down at the angle where the paths meet & there it is: 

Boletus Edulis. The King Bolete at the crossroads.

A perfect King Bolete… in early July. What the helvella?

When the Land greets you back, more often than not, It catches you unawares. This is the joy of it, is it not?

Later, in the kitchen, prepping & dry sautéing commenced. As per my own tradition, the first found of the "Kingys," as we affectionately call them, must be ceremoniously cooked (naked, alone, unobscured by other foods) & eaten, no, relished, by yours truly (because no one else in this household will do it). 

We sat at the table & I, self-satisfied in my porcini delight, began explaining to Hubby how we found this beastie "at the crossroads in the park." Mid-sentence, I was reminded of the material from this box which I had been digesting for the past few days -- material involving the of meeting familiars at the crossroads. I begin to say, half-jesting, "You know, you're supposed to be able to meet your familiar at the crossroads & here I am… eating my familiar…" With the sense that I just might be experiencing a very perverse epiphany, I screw up my face & consider the bits of fungus between my teeth. Then, it all begins to feel a bit awkward.

Spirit slices.

Hubby responded matter of factly to my ambivalent, canary-eating face with the most astounding statement, "Well, when you work with these things the way I do, you know that was just a gift of your familiar -- a gift of itself, but only part of itself. Your familiar is not gone. As you know, what you found is only the fruiting body. The mycelia, your familiar, is still there at the crossroads…" Then, with a nonchalant wave of the hand, he finished with a casual, "Familiars give all kinds of gifts..." I stared at him, stupefied. What the helvella? Who is this guy? Certainly it was not my vaguely-spiritually-inclined, but mostly-in-it-for-the-parties husband.

In bed, I asked him from whence he pulled all this cleverness & wisdom regarding the mysteries of familiar spirits. He began by expanding further on his ideas about familiar gifts & drawing parallels to various mythologies in a remarkably insightful manner. Again, I was nonplussed. Then, he told me he learned it all in the Kingdom of Loathing. Right. Now I understand why he has spent the last 10 years battling sorority zombies & mixing oxygenarian cocktails in that stick-figure game. Wisdom. Gnosis. The Mysteries. I wonder if they have crossroads in there? 


Well, I really don't have the moxie to be a virtual disco bandit, so I guess I'll have to continue learning my lessons the hard way. I am comfortable with that. It's so much nicer outside, IRL, breathing, wandering, being with the Land & its clever, wondrous & occasionally appetizing denizens. Even if, on occasion, I might find myself outwitted by a mushroom.

Haunted.

Last night, as I settled in to bed, I looked over at my water bottle, loyal sentinel of the bedside table... & I saw THIS:

What fiendishness lurks here?

Turn up the lights!

A bedtime Goatshead (Tribulus terrestris) nutlet, illuminated.

...Are they onto me being onto them?

More Animist Weirdness: Is There An Editor In the House?

Back in October, I submitted an article to No Unsacred Place. The article was classic animist weirdness ala Moma, written from the heart. Actually, I was driven to write it (from the heart). (You can read it here: Lessons of a Slime Whisperer, if you feel so inspired.)

After that story, I had all these imaginations of submitting regularly & being that guest contributor who really gave her best to support the team. I was going to participate! Make a difference! Support a very worthy project! Yes! 

...Right. I must have forgotten about the children for a moment.

"Animism" by HaylieNowak of DeviantArt.

So, all my clever stories & articles are still simmering somewhere in the back of my cluttered mind while I tend to things like catboxes, little lads dissecting owl pellets & changelings eating ossified foodstuffs from under the dining room table. 

However, some muses are pushy, noisy, demanding things & I was pressured... nay, catapulted into another story this week by the prodding of one such "muse." This story's animistic oddity eclipses that of  "slime whispering,"or at least I am pretty certain it does. (I find that more & more I have lost sight of my ability to measure these things.) Anyway, I need someone to read it over & tell me if it is fit for public consumption or if I should spare myself the public humiliation & keep it to this blog (which is comparatively far from "public"). While said reader is reading, perhaps they could check it for things like spelling, syntax & sanity?

Any takers? I promise I didn't write about "loo rolls." If you think you are up for the task, let me know.