Corinne + Francesca = best bunny girls ever.

Miss Valerie, resplendent in purple and extravagantly top-hatted.

Faith + I being sweet by the tinker trailer. She just had a little baby boy!
He’s too little for Easter egg hunts this year, I reckon – but next year, maybe!

Chesley + Frannie lookin’ fine as can be.

Miss Amelia, always pretty as a picture.

Dawn wearing a gorgeous embroidered collar by Chromium Dumb Belle

My fairy-godson Sascha attacks his first piñata! Kill the bunny!

Adelle-Rose gets cascaroned!

Wee widgets with parasols – Wolfie and her best friend Madeline.

Watermelon is delicious!

Isadora, Molly Karen and Elliott, trio of adorableness.

My favorite sister Penny + Mattie – Penny made the most luscious lemon-drop cake ever!

Flip and Wolfie made these beautiful art eggs – I picked the octopus and the deer to treasure always.

Colin’s mama Becky made this wonderful lambie cake, which Canon won in the cake walk.

He was so proud of it, he wanted to take it to school for show and tell!

Katinka Pinka and her bitty sweet lemondrop of a nephew!

Steve + Emily, looking dandy-fine in their Easter Sunday best.

Two beautiful Sarahs – Sarah Marie + Sarahfina

My grampa was there, in fine fettle. I wish he could be here this year.
The headphones and radio-looking-thing are actually his preferred choice
of hearing-aid. He likes it, and it works – but people always think he’s listening
to music. I had to learn the Serbian word for hearing-aid when I was there,
because everyone was curious about them. The word is: slušni aparat

My dear papa played old tyme tunes on his banjo.

Sienna serenaded us on the ukulele.

This is what happens to Maddy when she eats a pile of sugar – she becomes a lightning-footed fairy!

She ran circles around that sycamore for about half an hour, solid. Just a blur in a bright dress!

☆♥More photos from last year can be found here:Easter 2010 set

☆♥Miss Shanna also has some sweet ones: Easter Afternoon at Angeliska’s

☆♥Easter in New Orleans

☆♥Chemists Cauterize, Chill Cadbury Cremes from Neatorama

☆♥Cadbury Egg inside chocolate cupcake

☆♥Dressed Up For Easter – Vogue asked designers to re-imagine the Easter egg.

☆♥Children scared shitless of the Easter Bunny thanks, Boing Boing!

And Easterness of yore:
☆♥Magic Windows #11

☆♥Sketchy Bunnies!

☆♥Bunnytown

☆♥Easter Egg Hunt!

It is to be a Winter Wonderland Feast, by way of the Balkans and
the Black Forest, to be sure – and then taking last year’s neglected
Trans-Siberian Express maybe up near Finland. I’m thinking Saami
princesses, a forest of white dresses, silver dowry coins and cuffs,
and an excess of wimples and other elaborate headdresses. If this
is too much for you, just wear all (or mostly white), and pile on the
tatty furs and buffalo robes, but it will probably be rather chilly!
Snowflake-dappled red apple cheeks, and frozen eyelashes.
Shivering towers of crystal and ice, antler and pelt, snow glitter!
Animistic fashions are always welcome, as are Mongol hordes.
These ladies are excellent inspirations:
Frozen Maidens in Folkloric Fantasyland

I missed out on having my birthday party at home last year, due to
inclemently cold weather, and and general sense of being overwhelmed.
Hostessing a party in a half-gutted house in the middle of winter is no
minor task, and considering that our abode currently looks like a bad
episode of hoarders, I definitely have my work cut out for me! I love a
real birthday party though, and nothing else ever seems to be quite as
much fun for me, so it’s worth the frantic hustle and bustle. I like creating
an environment wholly devoted to one purpose: celebrating and reveling
in fantasy, my magical life, and my wonderful friends! Also, going to restaurants
with a large group is always slightly awkward. I prefer to just have a massive
potluck, because it’s much cozier and loads more fun! Also: awesome leftovers!
We’re entreating guests to bring their favorite wintertime dish, treat or beverage –
Recipes from cold countries, cozy-making comfort-food and
copious arrays of exotic boozes + champagnes are always
sure to please, isn’t it so? Bring a musical instrument if you play,
or a performance of some kind, if you feel moved to.
There will be bonfires, cozy sherpa-tent lounging and hot Glögg.
I’m hoping for reindeer dancers, snow queens and Mr. Tumnus!

Inspiration for boy guests:

In fact, all male guests must dress like this. It is by my decree.

Look at this debutante party that went down recently in New Orleans:
Snow White-themed bash was a deb party for the ages
Why am I not absurdly wealthy so I can make parties as extravagant as that?
Feh! I will make do with pennies and twigs! Wish I could’ve crashed it, though…

Past birthdees:
✷ Trans-Siberian Birthday Wishes
✷ Birthdee Glee
✷ Black Forest Fashion
✷ Black Forest Wishes
✷ Black Forest Birthday!
✷ Balkan Birthday!

(Photograph by John-Paul Pietrus)

I am wrung out, but I still have an Mariana Trench worth
of tears – I squeeze dead seahorses and hagfish from
my tear ducts. Blackened crones beat their breasts and
begin the keening that signals the end of the this turning.

(Photograph by Ice)

I stand on the hill, I kneel in the dirt, I find myself flat on
the earth hours later, gasping – reaching frantically for
the moon to take my hand and pull me out of this dark
crevasse. Leafy waterdragons ripple under a glittering
membrane of sky, and the world is alight in blue and violet
prism fire. I am wrenched by their claws, shaking me like
a doll, pulling me up by my guts. The woman with the white
hair is coming with her birch broom to sweep me up, out to
sea. The oaks are alive, and straggle their witchfingers out
to trap tangles of cloud, moon-shadows. The next day I am
calm as glass, humbled, tabula rasa. Let me hold the hands
of those I love, let me look in their eyes and thank them for
all that they do. It’s time to shake awake, rekindle the heat,
dance like a manic child, unabashed. I’m ready for the stars
to swaddle me, to be blanketed in milk and wake in a field
of crystalline frost flowers. Sleeping in the hills and dreaming
for days. Let me come back to town with some wisdom in my
pockets, some release in my bones. Ease the passage of those
travelers, let their journeys be tranquil – but keep the others
close, don’t let any more slip out the back door before their time.
It’s never enough time, I know that – but please help me spend
it with more love. Keep me there, against your breast, my arms
encompassing each of my myriad darlings. Keep us safe, heal
our hearts, wash our eyes so that we might see. Please, please.

(Photograph by Minililimi)

Give us the memory of diving into fountains of petals, the knowing that there
will be green tendrils and rosy afternoons again soon. For now we have fairy lights.

(Photograph by Sofia Ajram)

May all of our brightest wishes be true, may our work be sweet.

(Photograph by Jostein Walengen)

Give us reverence for the night, for the winter, for death.
Remind us of the tiny wonders, mysteries, magic everywhere.

(Photograph by Kate Young)

Breathe in blue, breathe out black.
Whisper goodbye to this hard old year,
and stand tall to receive the tiny seed
that will be our new one. Open hands,
open everything. I wish all this for us.

✶ New Year’s Redux

✶ Stargazer Honey

✶ Blue Moon

✶ Lone Grove New Year

✶ Pink Moons

✶ The New Year

✶ Lucky Stars and Garters

✶ La Nouvelle Année

Darling Amanda Stone – this is my favorite picture from the whole night.
Her wings seem to be fluttering with light! What a beautiful + loving elf.

La bella Alita!

Pandora and her beloved Auntie Doreen made beautiful lanterns
to carry the memories of their muertos, which they set aflame by the river.

Ladybabymiss aka. Miss O.

Ryan Rossi representing Krewe du Poux!

Calamity! So divine.

I have forgotten this lovely beastmaiden’s name,
though I was so captivated by her ensemble.

Isn’t she amazing? Here’s the view from the back.

Calavera girl down by the water…

At the river we sang a dirge for all the loved ones lost,
and people cast their memories and ashes into the great
Mississippi. Some brave fools waded in, and crossed over
to a sandbar, looking for all the world like dead souls dancing
in the mist, on the other side of life. It was surreal and magical.

This dogpuppet danced on the drummer’s shoulders all night.
A kinetic effigy built in honor of his departed canine companion.

Kozmo + Boo

Me + Jay (Rusty Lazer)

Oops + Grapetta

My love + I drinking hot toddies at Pravda.
My teeth had all rubbed off from snot-faucet nose blowing,
as I was sick as a dog! I ignored it, and kept on trucking, though!

Johna Goldenflame, Colin and Ratty’s disembodied head!

(Photo byRachael Eastlund)
Jonny Flee’s last Dia de los Muertos. Next year we dance + mourn for him.

(Photo by Sasha Kopfler)
So happy and full of life. Beautiful and defiant in the face of death.
Now he’s one of that bony krewe, waiting for us across the river.

The last photo of the night – because a good laugh will do us all good.
It was a booty-pumpin’, animal-screamin’, jambalaya-clutchin’ kinda time
at the Hi-Ho Lounge that night. I think this image just about sums it up.

✶ A Very Haeckel Christmas
“Ernst Haeckel’s 1904 “Kunstformen der Natur” [Artforms of Nature] is a classic
of biological illustration. What is less generally known is that the artist started as a
Christmas card designer. The book was originally simply an album of holiday designs.”
So cute. Three cheers to John Holbo for coming up with this.

Christmas dawns, cold and bright, and we rise and craft our morning
with a decadent brunch in a warm kitchen. Guava mimosas with good
champagne, and strong tea. A mincemeat pie and bubbly for dear Flee,
in hopes that his spirit is wandering for a bit from house to house, taking
part in any joyful rituals his loved ones might muster – and we must!
The weird ancient symbolism is not lost on me, and so I must limn it here:
this is the dark season of death, where we struggle to bring back the light,
rally in the shadows and make merry as best we can to hold back the dark.
Light your candles, sing your songs, drink your wine – and celebrate what
we have: each other, a warm place to be, and the bright memory of those
who have gone on before us. Let their ghosts gather close to us, leave
something sweet out for them if you feel them draw near. It’s all we can
do, and something tells me it’s essential that we try. In hopes of bringing
a little of that cheer (or at least distraction!) to you and yours, here are some
tidbits to stuff in your stocking, and some deep wishes that all of you have a
safe and cozy holiday. Reach out to the people you love, and let them know.

✶ “The Hooded Congregation” – The Christmas Service of the Dead – one of my favorite stories from the
Time Life Enchanted World series, lovingly brought back to mind by the
sere ladies at After Dark in The Playing Fields. Enjoy the shivers!

✶ What the Dickens? – A Spiritualist’s Take on the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present & Future

“Yule is a haunted time of year. Beneath all the feasting and gift-giving lurks the primal fear
of deepening dark and killing cold. In modernized society we are insulated by false light,
false heat, and a material wealth that our ancestors could not have imagined. Yet still –
there stirs on these drear winter evenings some distant memory, genetic perhaps, of the
nearness of elemental danger. A century ago, that nearness was felt much more keenly.”

✶ A much beloved Polacheck family hexmas tradition is to listen to King Hepcat Lord Buckley’s rendition
of Scrooge – presented here for your pleasure with trippy beatnik animations:

✶ ‘Twas the Night Before Pogo (Thanks, Ebert!) and another one of our family favorites – Deck Us All With Boston Charlie

✶ Reindeer & Other Animals Get High On Magic Mushrooms, Scientist Claims

✶ A Creepy Monster of the Forest: The Albino, Vampiric Redwood Tree

✶ merry and bright – Hexmas wishes from Mlle. Verhext, who always does it up just right!

✶ Holiday Greetings From Siouxsie and Friends at Coilhouse
One of my favorite Siouxsie songs – Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant

✶ Gruss von Krampus! This makes me super-duper happy:

✶ Ah, thanks Boing Boing! This is how I want my hexmas to be: Peewee Herman + Grace Jones, frolicking in the Playhouse!

✶ Billy Bragg + Florence Welch do Fairytale of New York:

Florence & The Machine – Fairytale Of New York (Live BBC)
Uploaded by Henrietta-Aime-Fumer_Tv. – Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Sitting near our magical tannenbaum, with my sweetheart’s head in my lap,
a fat cat snoozing on his chest, and our dogs pressed alongside us, I feel at
peace. I’m getting absorbed already in the copy of Patti Smith’s Just Kids that
I got for him and cracking up at finding pieces of smashed ornaments in the rug
from when he popped the champagne cork right at the tree. Everything outside
this warm room feels scary and fucked up, but for this moment – all seems right
with the world. We have to hold on to those fleeting moments, and to each other.
This is our great work, my friends: to walk tall through the fire, to keep on laughing,
and loving. Let’s all stick around for this next round, okay? I know we can make it good.

✶ My friend and most favorite songwriter Michael Hurley posted this winter wish today, and I
thought it too perfect not to share with all of you. It sums up my feelings exactly:

“Heretofor Here’s sending to all the people I know, both intimate and casual, and all the people
and all the creatures I don’t know who might receive it; the pure and healing love that thrives in
every heart rebounding and harkening the realms of all energies both terrific and terrible, and of
such as we are comprised; love in all the above, pure and going, one moment everlasting hello”

✶ Texas Hexmas

✶ Happy Hexmas!

✶ Imps of Winter

✶ send me your flowers of your december

Dark times, my loves. Dark days before the sun returns to us. Tonight even the moon
will hide her face, turn the color of blood, turn away. I’m ready to honor this solstice,
this turning, and bring back the light. The past month, and in particular this last week
has held so many bleak moments, more for those I love than for me directly –
but something about the nature of the various tragedies experienced by those
in my circle lately has been especially devastating. My heart hurts for my friends
that are hurting. I’ve been so sad for my ladies, especially. Something tells me we
need to stick close together through all this, be there for each other, and nurture
each other. I lit a pink candle inscribed with names of all my sad girls, my hurt
and wounded girls. Sometimes, it feels like what happens to one of us, happens to
all of us. I’m heartbroken for the violence against women that’s been happening so
rampantly in New Orleans of late. Men are the victims of muggings and shootings
there as well, naturally – but women are in a particularly vulnerable space there, and
there’s no real protection from the police. Someone I love a lot was raped recently,
and I can’t stop thinking about her, and what she must be going through. My words
fail me – I’m struck dumb and shattered when I try to process that information. It has
cut me to the quick, and made me so angry and sad that this could ever happen, to
anyone. I think of all my friends that have been raped, assaulted, or sexually abused,
and I realize with horror that very few of the women I know don’t have a story to tell.
It’s happened to me, too. I’m still working on how to talk about this, how to share my
thoughts, all these stories – but I’m glad to think that some of this pain might be the
catalyst for a space to come out and talk about this subject without shame, without
hiding. It feels important, to create that openness. I hope it will make for some healing.
I’ll post more as things progress. For right now, I also want to honor the life and death
of Magnolia Shorty – an amazing woman, and New Orleans Bounce queen, who sang
proudly and loudly about love and sex and what it means to be a powerful woman.
She was shot and killed today around 4pm. This excerpt from an interview she gave
when she performed in Austin during SXSW last year makes me so sad:

What inspires your lyrics?
My life, period. It’s about how women are towards other women, things that men do
to women that hurt them. I just give a woman a message that she can relate to.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I’ll be in Hollywood.

We need strong magic right now. We need to be together.

It’s so easy to withdraw, to curl inwards – I’ve been doing my share of that lately.
Hibernating, waiting for spring, for brighter days. It’s good to do, up to a point,
but as much time as I take to process, I must also try and spend in communion
and celebration with the people who make my life as amazing as it is. I am very
lucky to be surrounded by magical, beautiful people who are like a family to me.
I have to remind myself to come out of my cave, and see their shining eyes, and
hear the sound of their laughter, their singing. I realize that there are so many
out there who do not have what I have – the strong community, the dear friends.
So many people in this world live in such isolation. It’s not what we were built for.
We need these circles, these solid friends to share with – it is the most important thing.

(Photograph by Alicia Carrera)
I’m doing the work. Weaving the circles of protection and healing. Digging my hands in between
the roots, sending out green shoots of love and light to all those with trouble in mind. I want to
fire balls of glowing light to float over the bodies of loved ones who need surgeries, who need
their bruises to fade. I wish I could hold my hands to their brows, and wipe away their sorrows.

In half an hour, I will join a small circle of powerful brujas to honor the winter solstice,
the full moon, and later, to view the total lunar eclipse through telescopes. Tomorrow,
I travel out to the hills to continue that work, and to embark upon a spirit journey that
I hope will bring me some clarity and insight. I’m ready for more light, and for longer
days from now on. This is the time. I hope I can stand up to greet it bravely, serenely.

Ancient Origins: Winter Solstice

First Winter Solstice Meeting With Lunar Eclipse In 456 Years

The Winter Solstice in Prehistory

Lunar Eclipse – a great article from Mike Brown at Boing Boing

Pink, pink, pink moon.

Related posts from days of yore:

Winter Solstice – Messe de Minuit 

Winter Solstice – Dark Season

Who knew the Easter Bunny could be so damn creepy?
Related posts:
Happy Hexmas! (Creepster Eastern European Santas!)

(Photograph by K. K. Arora)
People wade through a cloud of colored powder while celebrating the Hindu festival
of Holi at Nand Gaon in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

(Photograph by Jayanta Shaw)
A girl with a colored face reacts as she is drenched during Holi celebrations in Kolkata.

(Photograph by Utpal Baruah)
Men smeared with facepaint and colored powder pose for a picture
during Holi in the northeastern Indian city of Guwahati.
(I love the man in the middle’s gaze. His face is straight from an ancient tapestry.)

(Photograph by Babu)
Girls smeared with colored powder are splashed with colored water
as they celebrate Holi in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

(Photograph by K. K. Arora)
Artists dressed as Hindu Lord Krishna (left) and his consort Radha are showered
with rose petals during Holi celebrations in the northern Indian city of Mathura.
(Isn’t this the best? Lord Krishna’s bored to tears, and Radha’s totally annoyed
by the proliferation of petals. Hilarious! I want to be showered in rose petals!)

(Photograph by Krishnendu Halder)
A child rests inside tomato pulp as part of the celebration of Holi in Hyderabad.
(I also now want to take a tomato pulp bath now, because this kid looks so blissed out!)

Found on Boing Boing: Springtime in Bollywood (Holi He!)
More:
✷ A gray day for Phagwah in NYC – really wonderful, go see!

✷ Even Gala Darling got splashed with color!

✷ Dogseat’s New York Phagwah set on Flickr

✷ I suggest you play this song, and dance around right now! – Festival of Colors – The Creatures

I was so bummed to miss Poux, especially since it meant not being given
one of the much-coveted commemorative handmade glass medallions,
a grand Poux-doubloon if you will. Lucky stars for me! My dear friend
Forest had kept one warm and close to his heart for me. Good thing
I went out Ash Wednesday, eh? So here are my treasures, which oddly
enough I never cared about collecting until the hurricane blew me west.

Typical Poux antics. I believe this is some sort of trebuchet, no?

Randall and Drew in their amazing ensembles. They make me so happy.

Tanya Solomon (aka Dr. Flummox) is a great clown. Not the bad kind. The good kind. Really!

Liser is the big bad wolf and little red riding hood simultaneously. It happens.

Ratty and Oops were the King and Queen of Poux!
This year they won their crowns again (yes, the
naked knife-fight!) and continue to reign triumphant!

Myrtle von Damitz III, odalisque-ing out with Drew’s giant neon head.

Laron + Kelvin, two of my favorite NOLA/NYC darlings.

Jock is the leader of the 9th Ward Marching Band, a gentleman and a great dancer.

Haley Lou Haden has a stick ‘em tattoo of toast, and I love her.

Hungry for more Lundi Gras Poux?
★ Here’s more photos from Lundi Gras 2009, just for you!
★ Lundi Gras Valentine
★ Lundi Gras (A pictorial essay on the nature of debauchery)
★ Vicissitudes from Cradle
★ Voila les petites creatures musicales qui se cachent dans les fleurs!

I love the shots he captured of our exploits with fireworks.
Dazzling! It was the first year in a while that we’d had some
rain, so the burn ban was lifted. How delightful to make our
own hanabi fireflowers – the green goblins were the best!

There were fears of a sparkler shortage, but in the end we prevailed,
and many fizzing wands were lit. You can’t have New Year’s without
sparklers! I don’t know who this tripled ghost is, perhaps it’s me?
I especially love the twilight trees along the horizon. So spectral!

One unhappy side effect of shooting off so many fireworks,
is that a few members of the canine party were terrified.
Our dear blind Thelonius wandered off into the thorny
wilderness in fright, and was missing for hours. The
land is riddled with cacti, rocky ridges, barb wire and
freaks with guns. A desperate search turned up not
hide nor hair, but much later in the night he found his
way back to camp from wherever he’d been hiding.
Oh, we were so relieved! Losing your dog in the
country is pretty scary, especially when he’s totally blind.

My Grampy Grover was a mechanic, and many of his project
cars decorate the field. I’m always envisioning alternate futures
for them – what if they could be transformed into sleeping bunks?
Or mini-parlours? Or I suppose we could try and get them running
again. They are so wonderful, these rusted hulks – mostly Morris
Minors and old Datsuns, and then of course there’s my sweet ride
Miss Gertie. One day we must get her up and running again!

Flip and Wolfie walking into a winter wonderland of tanglewoods.

Miss Amelia brought mint-scented bubbles!
Tonka not only tries to eat bubbles, but also
seems to have a taste for lit fireworks, sparklers
and any whizzing, flying thing. I’ve never seen
a dog try to eat colored fire like that- no fear at all!

Related posts:

✶ Corazones quebrados y perros ciegos

✶ Emergence

✶ Take a walk with me..