JOURNAL: Twilight

Twilight went by so fast today, the soft linimal space almost unnoticed now that nights are drawing in so quickly. Sharp cold comes quick in the shade of night yet all are awake and alive.

JOURNAL: Mellow bricks and sunlight

The yellow earth which makes the brick garden wall suffuses with warmth in the early afternoon, particularly on the west wall. I feel Samhain approach fast now, this coming weekend must attend Janette's festival. To travel east will be wearisome but necessary.

The following weekend I shall travel to Glastonbury in pilgrimage and to collect materials from Star Child. My store room will have all kinds of interesting objects and resins and herbs, prepared in various forms and for various purposes to be used over the coming months.

Am unable to sleep until nearly dawn, again. Today awoke midmorning and am weary to the bone yet cant manage to change the routine. I dont know if my body is geared to the southern hemisphere or what I am tapping into that wont give me the necessary mental stillness to allow my body to sleep.

A message from my much loved colombian witch, she is well and will return to London next year or even this year's end, so we shall resume our witching hour conversations and little readings of the furute in burning embers and sacred leaves. Few companions who truly make me feel among equals, easy flow of energy and occasional pooling of energies and resources. She is missed for more than that, of course.

JOURNAL: autumn afternoon

Crisp clear skies of that faded blue which seems almost transparent. A little sunlight of the kind that warms the mood but not the skin. In brief, London in autumn. Indoors, no fresh flowers and a depleted larder which will be remedied early evening with a delivery of organic vegetables and Irish soda bread. The storm of last night abates to an extent after a night spent in vigil. Yet there is movement afoot. Tomorrow I shall refresh the altars ready for an accounting, a marshalling of forces.

Poem: to have a son

A chosen one, of one's loins and of one's blood
flesh of the flesh that engendered him
ragtag mix of genes and raw emotion
could be no dearer through the blood of birth
than you, my son of the spirit
engendered of multiple births and incarnations

child of Nuit and child of Horus as you are
vibrant voice trembling at its own strength
fluid spirit made of all elements and belonging to itself
a homing bird who has found me through the ages

JOURNAL: waning moon, black sky

Past 4 am and sleep eludes me again. As time passes I begin to understand that the great loves in one's life are not always the ones that remain nor the ones which are logical or even sensible. They are simply heart-felt.

I think I may be losing a great love in my life and this saddens me more than if he had been my closest lover or my longest held partner. I have said since I was in my twenties that friends are more important in my life than lovers are.

Now I know on a deeper level how much this is true for me. How one friend can die for another and feel immense anguish in loving. I had found friendship to be the love which need never fade or die, a safe love. I find tonight that is not so. To lose a cherished friend to life's viscitudes is too much to bear this night. To lose to death is an honourable kind of loss, but in this matter there is no honour. There is only bare, naked loss.

No candle accompanies me tonight and the outside sky is dark. As the moon wanes, my heart fades with it. I always thought if my heart were an animal, it would be a female lion and if my womanhood were an animal it would be a panther. Yet I am not lion-hearted tonight. I sting with loss and the need to be in the presence of my friend, to speak the words that heal, the words that bring together out of immense difference. To fight for that space is perhaps the best I can hope for, knowing the door is not bolted against me. I begin to believe that doors made for the heart seldom are bolted by any heart. The very nature of the heart makes them rather more fluid than other keepers.

Outside a small bird sings, even at this unlikely hour of an autumn's night, and I wonder is someone from a fairy realm may visit and take my message across the skies. They are kind to me, the fairies, knowing I love them well.

JOURNAL: awaiting passage

Perhaps this font should be green for hope or for new beginning, but it's blue. Deduce what you will but it is a poor riddle. I would -if I could- fly on the wings of Isis to a warmer place, my wintering bolt-hole for the months to come. My body has ached for days with the dropping temperatures and I need brighter light. Ah for the sharp, crisp, dry cold of Scotland in autumn instead of London's soggy entry into Samhain!

My little bramble cottage begins to express itself, last night in a dream I cleaned it and felt the energies flow stronger and more definite. Tonight I shall explore the hills behind, in the middle distance. Perhaps my first visitor shall soon arrive.

In the kitchen today a chicken and bacon pie cooking slowly in the oven; and some sweet potato in a saucepan. Winter food, accompanied by a bountitude of fresh cress in a sharp modena vinegar salad. I looked at a pumpkin but I think that shall be for tomorrow, roasted with onions and carrots until sweetness oozes from it.

Talking with Mother, I told her I bring home some mead. When I explained what it was, she said 'so we can make it here, find out how to do it' and so I shall, I was instantly taken in my mind to her own kitchen in a village under the Andes among hills and forests. She used to cook up a storm and make conserves for winter, and purchase sacks of potatoes and flour and sugar all ready against the shortages that come in small places in deep winter. I was very little then and she was younger than I am now, a great deal younger and already with two small children at her knee.

Twilight comes early today, helped by rain clouds. Time to bring in the washing and think about closing the windows against the damp of evening. I shall light some incense and a candle, too soon in the year to use heating yet.

JOURNAL: bramble cottage by moonlight

Stone upon stone calls her home, warm glow calls her home, by moon and by zephyr wind home fast and true she flies, the woman from the past enters the now radiant and tender.

Poem: thus you imagine us

Nos imaginas asi: virginales y etereas caminando a ti
somos hueso carne saliva sudor
llegamos y te dejamos
algunas con anzuelo has pescado
otras con alma te han robado y dejado naufrago

somos de los mismos ingredientes, hermanas todas
y en tu cara quien sabe ver nos ve en rapida sucesion
se mezclan palabras con aliento a mar, a fuego, a humo, a cinnabar
portamos la llama para ti de toda diosa

entre tus brazos una sola voz
en la noche hemos llorado y portas nuestro llanto
marca mas indelible que la breve felicidad
virgenes lascivas, humedas, fertiles
en tu sangre la marca de nuestro poder y de tu desespero

JOURNAL: Full Moon October 2006

Last night a crisp harvest moon in London. The air beginning to cool to the point of making me shiver but not enough to search for my cloak, that vast expanse of wool which Tato crafted for me. I stood in the street looking upwards for ages, falling into the sky until I became dizzy. When I was a child I used to do that, but being a cautious child I would lie down on the ground before looking at the moon. London cement doesn't compare to the soft grass in my grandmother's garden.