I highly recommend spending some time with this one if you’ve got questions about love and relationships: The Two Truths about Love: The Art and Wisdom of Extraordinary Relationships

Also, in the spirit of that sexy (now waning) full moon, and this fertile and lusty love festival, a beautiful love letter from Henry Miller to Anais Nin, showing us how it’s done: Now that is how you write a Love Letter

“Full Pink Moon – April This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.” – from the Farmer’s Almanac

Some rundowns on the celestial significance of this Full Moon and eclipse, from a few of my favorite astrologer/writers:

Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio April 25th 2013 from the always wonderful Mystic Mamma

Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio – April 2013 – Testing Times from Leah Whitehorse, who is a brilliant.

burn our souls, release the wicked VIII by Ailera Stone/Aistė Tiriūtė

Some history & lore of Beltane…

Beltane, and its counterpart Samhain, divide the year into its two primary seasons, winter (Dark Part) and summer (Light Part). As Samhain is about honoring Death, Beltane, its counter part, is about honoring Life. It is the time when the sun is fully released from his bondage of winter and able to rule over summer and life once again.

Beltane translated means “fire of Bel” or “bright fire” – the “bale-fire”.
– from witchvox.com

Chloe – Ellen Rogers I love Ellen’s work so, so much – she is magic.

One year, I hope to set up an actual Maypole for dancing around with ribbons, but until then singing around the bel-fire suffices nicely. We sang Hal-an-tow (the term “halan” means “calends,” or first of the month, and “tow” means “garland”.) and the Staines Morris song. Amy Annelle taught us the words and lead us in the singing of these sacred songs.

“The green calendar of spring has many songs. dances and shows, particularly around the opening days of May. Here and there are clear traces of old cults and superstitions (well-dressing against droughts, etc.) but generally their original meaning is lost. So the customs are transformed into ritual spectacles, festivities, distractions, opportunities for a good time, such as the old May Games that once comprised four sections: the election and procession of the May king and queen: a sword or Morris dance of disguised men; a hobby horse dance; a Robin Hood play. The Hal-an-Tow song was sung for the procession that ushered in the summer.”
– Hal-an-Tow

Hal-an-tow, jolly rumbalow
We were up long before the day-O
To welcome in the summer,
To welcome in the May-O
For summer is a-coming in
And winter’s gone away-O

Hexes – Ellen Rogers

“Come ye young men, come along
With your music, dance and song
Bring your lasses in your hands
For tis that which love commands

It is the choice time of the year
For the violets now appear
Now the rose receives its birth
And the pretty primrose decks the earth”
– Staines Morris Dance

– Shirley Collins – Staines Morris

Wonderland : The Pink Saint by Kirsty Mitchell

“Kirsty Mitchell’s late mother Maureen was an English teacher who spent her life inspiring generations of children with imaginative stories and plays. Following Maureen’s death from a brain tumour in 2008, Kirsty channelled her grief into her passion for photography. She retreated behind the lens of her camera and created Wonderland, an ethereal fantasy world. The photographic series began as a small summer project but grew into an inspirational creative journey.’Real life became a difficult place to deal with, and I found myself retreating further into an alternative existence through the portal of my camera,’ said the artist.”
– Woman, 36, who lost mother to brain cancer creates breathtaking fantasy land photo series in her memory

These two images call up the Queen of May for me, the priestess of all that is blossoming, and the wildness of sap rising, Persephone returned to the garden after months int he underworld.

Wonderland : The Beautiful Blindness of Devotion by Kirsty Mitchell

Richard Mosse: Falk Visiting Artist

I love this image of the Congo hills made pepto-bismol – Mosse’s work is really amazing:
“Irish photographer Richard Mosse is known for his restraining and highly aestheticised views of sites associated with violence and fear, such as his 2008 depictions of the war in Iraq, and his large-scale photographs of aeroplane crash sites. For his new series, Infra, Mosse used Kodak Aerochrome – an infra-red film designed in the 1940s to assist the U.S. military in detecting camouflage – to photograph the people and landscape of the Eastern Congo. The film reveals a spectrum of light beyond what the human eye can perceive, turning the lush, green landscape of the Congo into a bubblegum pink. The photographs investigate the severe circumstances within which the people of the Eastern Congo live and draw our attention to the complex social and political dynamics of this region of the world.”

The Bleeding Heart Flower Spirit

Who knew that inside this flower exists a magical being? Well, now you know!

My friend Lily Rose Love wrote this today, and it was too wonderful not to share here:

“On May first when I was a little girl my folks and I would make up baskets and baskets – lots of little baskets of flowers and drive the seven miles into town to surprise old ladies. I don’t know if they made up this tradition, or if anyone else did this, but we would go up to the houses where we knew little old ladies lived all by themselves, leave the bouquets on the porch or hanging from the doorknob, ring the bell, and then run and hide in the bushes. Sometimes they were confused, sometimes they seemed to be expecting it, but they were always so happy and all smiles when my dad and I popped up out of their hedges with our matching blonde curls. Happy May Day.”

Gail Skoff, Ann, 1974. – found via my beloved Mlle. Helms at sighsandwhispers

Dance in the gardens, lovelies. Hop over the bonfire and make a bright wish. Take your lover by the hand.

Here are a few choice soundtracks for doing just that:

Hexentanzplatz from ghoulnextdoor on 8tracks Radio.

L'Amour Fou from bloodmilkjewels on 8tracks Radio.

The melody, at night from fabriziopaterlini on 8tracks Radio.

Beltanes and moons of yore:

FULL MOON IN SCORPIO

FLORALIA

LA REINE MASQUÉE DE MAI

Rebecca Havemeyer

Raven

I forget who these guys were! But they were really funny!

Me and Lester

Lester

I found pie, and then a little bee found me. She wouldn’t leave my finger for the longest time…

Frank of Jean Eric

Rach Huck

Sassy Delure

Release the bats! BITE!

Erica Nix

Corinne Loperfido

Big Freedia the Queen Diva

Freedia + Lester

Colin + Freedia

Rusty + Corinne

Lisa + Sienna

Cuppy + Ruthie

Maia + Eli

Franks + Karen of Jean Eric

Unicorns!

Bobby Johns

Christeene

Katey Red + Melissa McWilliams

Rusty + Corinne

Shakin’ it for Freedia

Raven + Francesca

Lester

The full set of photos is here: GAY BI GAY GAY 2011

And more, from The Gay PlaceGay Place: Gay Bi Gay Gay Day

Here’s the piece I wrote about GBGG that I wrote for Coilhouse a few years back:
Gay Bi Gay Gay

And some articles about this year’s Gay Bi:

from The Austin Chronicle – The Gay Place: Family Tradition – The fall and rise of Gaybigaygay

GayBiGayGay Line-Up Announced! Here’s what we know about the line-up at the annual free post-SX gay fest

99th birthday altar for my beloved Grampa.

Memorial dim sum.

We always used to celebrate our birthdays together with a big family dim sum feast…
It was so strange gathering this year without him.

R.I.P. Charles Lessing Polacheck
January 19th, 1914 – February 27th, 2012

My father set The funeral song from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline to music, and sang it at the memorial last year.
At some point I’d like to record his version of that and share it here as well, but for now, here are the powerful words:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
    Nor the furious winter’s rages;
    Thou thy worldly task hast done,
    Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
    Golden lads and girls all must,
    As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
 Nothing ill come near thee!
    Quiet consummation have;
    And renowned be thy grave!

GOODNIGHT, GRAMPA

CHARLES LESSING POLACHECK, R.I.P.

WAVES

In the coldest months, the weakest animals in a pack get picked off, get left behind – eat or be eaten. You are either predator or you are prey. Your vulnerability is a liability, and fight or flight is the only choice. If you’re too tired to fight, and have nowhere to run, you just stop, freeze, forever. “The weak are meat the strong do eat.” Kill or be killed. A sacrificial lamb, a scapegoat, left desolate in the snow, the boot on your back, teeth at your throat, felled beneath a pitiless victor. The rapacious hunter whose hunger knows no bounds, so empty inside that no amount of flesh can fill a belly that’s just fur slung over bones. Hunger makes creatures cold-hearted and crazy, makes them turn against their own. This is the way of the world, the way of nature, I know. I can sit with it, I can look, and look and take it in. I won’t look away, but instead turn my gaze to the images that make my soul crumple, that speak to the bleak desolation of grief, the howling heart, alone in a vast landscape, crying in the bitter wind. Victims of severe frost, halted mid-motion by prisons of ice. O, innocents, wandering lost in the snow – death draws near with an icy scythe, to cut you down in one white instant. Winter is brutal, and all we can do is huddle together. The only way to survive is to help each other, to stay with your pack, to find your tribe. Our communities are all we have: our lovers, friends and family. The ones who keep you close, keep you warm at night. All we have is each other, so why do we hurt one another? Where does this capacity for cruelty come from? What is it that inspires kindness, the small acts of tenderness that make life possible even in the direst times? I’m coming to understand that our ability to experience grief and move through it can make us more kind, more compassionate to others. That awareness and empathy for suffering is what gives us the strength and love to extend compassion beyond ourselves. This can be a vicious world. Every act of grace and gentleness counts. Kindness changes everything. I’ve been rereading Cloud Atlas for the dozenth time, and have been thinking a lot about the themes that run through that beautiful book: of slavery and subordination, of the currents of love and bravery that triumph in the midst of the horrors we humans can inflict on each other.

“Our lives are not our own, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”

I’ve also been delving into The Places That Scare You – A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, by Pema Chödrön recently, and finding much wisdom there. This book contains major teachings for me, and has given answers and solace in deep lessons that I feel I have been searching for for many years. The quote in the beginning of the book, and the explanation of bodhichitta pulled me in immediately:

Confess your hidden faults.
Approach what you find repulsive.
Help those you think you cannot help.
Anything you are attached to, let it go.
Go to the places that scare you.

– Advice from her teacher to the Tibetan Yogini Machig Labdrön

“An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic; sometimes to anger, resentment and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.”

I read the chapter on cultivating compassion today, and it brought everything together for me so profoundly. Everything I’ve been struggling to write about for months is right here:

“For arousing compassion, the nineteenth-century yogi Patrul Rinpoche suggested imagining beings in torment — an animal about to be slaughtered, a person awaiting execution. To make it more immediate, he recommended imagining ourselves in their place. Particularly painful is his image of a mother with no arms watching as a raging river sweeps her child away. To contact the suffering of another being fully and directly is as painful as being in that woman’s shoes. For most of us, even to consider such a thing is frightening. When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.

To Practice: Choose an image that enables you to contact the suffering of another. If you find this too difficult or painful, recognize the teaching in your response.

Many of the following images depict death and sorrow in a graphic and deeply affecting way. If pictures of dead animals or profound grief are upsetting to you, you may not want to continue, though I attest that they were not chosen gratuitously. I have kept some of these images archived for years, not fully understanding why I needed to look at them, why I needed to make myself feel so deeply for them. Now I understand. I hope you will, too. Also: I was unable to track down the original provenance for many of these images. If you are the source, or if you are aware of who made the image, please let me know and I will ascribe it rightfully.

Untitled – Erick Swenson

No Comment – Idiots

Snarling Wolf, Ely, Minnesota, 1998
“A remote-controlled “carcass cam” captures an inside view of a gray wolf fiercely guarding its meal at the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota. Wolves at the center are provided with food, but wild populations generally hunt in packs. After a large kill, a single wolf can consume more than 20 pounds of meat.”

Yuri Kozyrev – Beslan, North Ossetia Sept. 5, 2004
I wish I could find a clearer version of this one. Somewhere I still have the scrap of the original cut out from a magazine when the tragedy at the Beslan school happened. I meditated on the pain and longing of the woman in the photo every day for a long time. Every fiber in her being outstretched, seeking her lost beloved one. The empathy and sorrow of the people surrounding her. The hands holding hers. The heart cries out.

Marcel Harasimowicz – Zdobycz kruków (Prey Of Ravens), 1888

“Kazimiera Mika, a ten-year-old Polish girl, mourns the death of her older sister, who was killed in a field near Jana Ostroroga Street in Warsaw during a German air raid by the Luftwaffe.

The child looked at us in bewilderment. I threw my arm about her and held her tightly, trying to comfort her. She cried. So did I and the two Polish officers who were with me…”

I had this photograph tacked up to the wall next to my bed all through my adolescence. Every night laying in bed I would look at it and feel so much love and sorrow for this girl grieving over the body of her sister. Even though I had not yet begun grieving my losses, I understood what it meant. I needed to look at it, at their faces.

Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev

“An orphaned rhesus monkey and white dove that seemed to have lost its mate forged a special bond at the Neilingding Island-Futian National Nature Reserve in China. The monkey was born on the island but had strayed from its mother. Luckily, it was taken in by work staff in the protection center and became friends with the pigeon that had lingered there after possibly losing its mate.”

Photograph by Eugenio Recuenco

Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev

Kindness

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

– KINDNESS
by Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

The full Snow Moon in Virgo challenges us to release ourselves and others from judgement, from the critical mind that seeks to find fault, lay blame. We are all imperfect, fallible, messy beings. We make mistakes, we hurt one another, consciously or blindly. We are all doing the very best we can. This full moon I seek to open my heart up to true acceptance and forgiveness, for myself and others, and to let go of all my resentments, frustrations and grudges. They have been a very heavy burden. I don’t want them anymore. They do not serve me well. I am ready for peace. This is a time for healing. The Moon in Virgo opposing Chiron, The Wounded Healer, activates and shines a light on doing this work first in your own heart, and then with an eye towards service and helping others. The lesson I have been given recently is to make myself “incapable of disappointment” – in order to do that, I must give permission to all things to be exactly as they are. This is hard work, and I am trying. Snow Moon, help me to be kinder, gentler and more patient – to myself as well as others.

“Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.” – Sri Chinmoy

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” – Henry James

FULL SNOW MOON IN VIRGO

Full Moon in Virgo: Into the Dark Woods

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

Mardi Gras morning starts with the Skull & Bone Gangs clattering and banging on trashcan lids with bloody cow femurs, making a frightful racket to wake up the living for the big day of misrule and wildness. I’m always occupied with my costuming, so I’ve never seen the bone boys doing their thing at dawn, but maybe one year they’ll come bang on my door, saying, “Wake up, wake up, do not be late. It’s Mardi Gras Morning. Go celebrate! Young and old got to go. Make your move to change your life now, or else you will become like me. YOU NEXT!”

THE SKULL AND BONE GANG WAKES YOU UP ON MARDI GRAS DAY…

Skull and Bones Gang channels spirit of Mardi Gras

If the Bone Gangs get you up and at ‘em, you can go out and chase some Mardi Gras Indians, first thing. This year the Young Seminole Hunters were looking very pretty indeed. Don’t know what that’s all about? Check out this piece I wrote a few years back: Who are the Mardi Gras Indians?

Here’s the full set of Porché West’s Mardi Gras 2013 photographs.

Some of his most amazing work can be seen here, and here also:
NEW ORLEANS COLOR

“Mardi Gras Skeletons” Royce Osborn

Dr. John, the Night Tripper – Mardi gras day

Fat Tuesday morning dawns in a flurry of last minute costuming: bustles being strapped on and wigs pinned down tight before heading over to Clouet St. where the Krewe of Sainte Anne has traditionally gathered. Marcus Fraser is an antique dealer (and owner of Le Garage) who has opened his exquisitely appointed home and magical garden to the revelers to meet up at before parading forth into the bright day. There is no better backdrop to photograph your costumes in first thing (before the threat of anything going awry or major fashion malfunctions have the chance to strike!)

A remnant from yellow fever days…

The lavatory was decorated with an amazing collection of medical antiques long before that theme came into vogue…


Mateo Hinojosa as a splendiferous phoenix.

Jonathan Straus in his fabulous rooster costume

Jenny Singsaas-Straus as a Mardi Gras Marie Antoinette

I was an Elizabethan Kitsune Queen!

Attaching a Victorian taxidermy fox head to a wig was quite a feat of engineering, I must admit.

Gordon was visiting from Taiwan – he surprised and amazed us all with his Amazonian dancer ensemble!

Miss Angie designed her gorgeous costume on the Taiwanese aboriginal story of the girl who fell in love with a stag.

She is so beautiful!

Gathered together before heading out into the fray…

Perfection!

Miss Foxglove

Mr. Foxglove

Pandora Foxglove and Lester as Hanuman

Raven was a pond sprite water spirit

Nina was a weathervane

Incredible revelers

Salamander and his krewe of rainbow sex-clowns

Andrea the Tiger Prince

Crystal Blue Persuasion!

This little goatee lady was one of my favorites… I don’t know who she is, though!

Marcela and baby Ruby!

Possum Man!

A bunny and a bean!

Allyson Garro as an electric Valkyrie

A cute bunny and someone bloody

Those cute cockroaches got a king cake!

Only Jamie Gandy could make a palmetto bug into something cute!

Who’s that under there?

It’s Mr. Shade!

Watching the parade go by on Royal St.

Saint Anne processes onward…

A random grafitti wall popped up in the middle of the street.

Family portrait

Loveys

Shannon Brinkman

This articulated dragon was truly mind-blowing…

Raven’s waterlily crown from above

Down by the riverside…

Foxes whispering sweet nothings

On Mardi Gras day, you see so many magical things – like a beautiful rooster perched on a sidecar down on Chartres St.

My full set of photos from the day can be found here: Mardi Gras 2009

I also had the honor of being featured in National Geographic Traveler Magazine’s article about Mardi Gras I need to sit down and scan the original issue, but here’s the Dutch version:

Photograph by Krista Rossow

Here’s an excerpt from the article by Janelle Nanos, from the January/February 2010 issue of National Geographic Traveler:

My bearings are off. It feels as if I’m in a maze of fun house mirrors. I’m standing at an intersection in New Orleans and before me is a blue-skinned Vishnu, the Hindu protector of the universe, none of whose many eel-like arms seems to point me in the right direction. Behind me, a rooster crows. I turn and realize it’s a man wearing a gold beak and blood-red cockscomb. Above, ribbons dance like spotlights against a bright blue sky, and people perched on wrought-iron balconies flap their arms like sparrows. A masked woman—or is it a man?—rides by on a dragon. This is Mardi Gras? I wonder. It seems like an alternate universe.

This parade—put on by the Society of St. Anne—is not the boozy, Bourbon Street Mardi Gras you hear so much about. It’s an unofficial event held in the Bywater, a bohemian enclave—one of 16 distinct neighborhoods in the Crescent City—that’s a world apart from the throngs in the French Quarter.

“Laissez les bon temps roulez,” reads Marie Antoinette’s hat. Jenny Singsaas of Burbank, California, has made her costume for the five years that she has attended the Society of St. Anne parade. “The most wonderful thing happens on that Tuesday,” says Singsaas. “There are people you only see once a year, that day, in costume, but you recognize each other and are great friends.”

Wandering into Marcus Fraser’s backyard in the Bywater neighborhood on Mardi Gras morning is a little like falling down the rabbit hole. Costumed revelers mill about, catching up with friends and complimenting each other’s elaborate ensembles before the Society of St. Anne parade begins to wander down Royal Street towards the French Quarter.

And finally, some videos from the day from Jenny Singsaas-Straus + Jonathan Straus of House of Straus:

This little dog named Underfoot was trying to fight my fox head. He was so confused by it!

Frenchmen St. – Mardi Gras Afternoon
“Things to note in this video: Angeliska & Underfoot obviously – what lovers. Adorable Pandora, nuff said. I’m starting to feel my alcohol as my laugh has morphed into a chicken cluck & brawwwwk and I’m unconsciously moving like a chicken to whatever music is playing. Jenny caught James spanking people with his fox’s gloves – which he giddily discovered and then undertook as a civic service to everyone who passed. And lastly the gorilla that first notices the camera and then apes for it. No video is complete without a gorilla. “Qui pe resist un gorille?”

Go, go, go, you hot struttin’ coq!

Perchta – Derived from an early Germanic word meaning “bright or “glorious”. Perchta is famed for her dual nature. Her grim aspect is known as “Perchta the Belly Slitter”. Perchta is alternately described as kind or violent, as a monstrous hag or a willowy maiden.

Perchta is typically veiled and clothed in white and is often portrayed with the horns, shaggy fur and hooves of a goat. The Medieval Church wrote of “sinners” who would leave food for Perchta in the “Night of Perchta” to obtain prosperity and well being in the coming year, as well as commanding the people to surrender their belief in “Frawen Percht”, and complaining of locals who would rather chant of “Domina Perchta” than say their prayers to the Virgin Mary.

Perchta is associated with the spindle and with spinning. When the shepherds brought flax to her in the summer, she blessed their flocks, and they would often see her walking along the steepest slopes around twilight, with a golden spindle in her hand. The spindle is strongly associated with fate and fortune and is central to traditions of girls’ puberty initiations. Perchta oversees the timely completion of the season’s spinning – if you don’t get it done on time, Perchta might curse you with bad luck in the next year, or even cut open your stomach, pull out your entrails, and refill you with rubbish!

Perchta is associated with the Wild Hunt in folklore and is often said to be the one leading it. The Wild Hunt is held by the Forest Gods in the deep winter months, and may be dangerous to humans; being in the path of it can be deadly. Perchta’s victims are typically portrayed with their bowels trailing behind them. This symbolic evisceration implies a profound examination of the self.

Perchta is a major figure in the winter holidays throughout the alpine world. She is widely held to be the female counterpart to the devilish Krampus, and will often accompany him on his hunt for naughty children on December 5th. Perchta is particularly associated with Epiphany, starting the night of January 5th and going on to January 6th. This holiday is sometimes referred to as “Perchtentag”, meaning Bright Day, Perchta’s Day, or Perchten’s Day.

“Perchtenlauf is an ancient Pre-Christian ritual where young men dress in costumes with frightening “Perchta masks” going from house to house frightening away the evil spirits of Winter that wander the countryside seeking to harm humans. This procession was traditionally done on the winter solstice. This is the longest night of the year where the sun shines the least. It is also the beginning of when the Sun begins its return trip and shines for longer periods bringing the warmth of Spring. Perchta was summoned on this night to frighten away the long cold winter and make room for the brightness of spring. Hundreds of years ago when the threat of death during the cold winter months was very real for the Teutonic tribes people, it was necessary for people to be given hope of the coming spring. Perchta was the goddess who fought back against the darkness of winter not only in the external world but in the hearts of humans. The ritual of Perchtenlauf no doubt has roots extending into pre-historic ice age shamanic rituals of the proto-Teutonic people. Surprisingly, the ritual of Perchtenlauf has been continuously practiced in the Alps up until the present.

Perchta shows dual faces at this time. To the faithful, she appears as a beautiful goddess of light who blesses humans with health and prosperity. To the evil hearted, deceitful and wicked, she appears as a ferocious demon with horns and fangs. In this depiction, she is strikingly similar to the east Indian goddess Durga who alternately appears as the nurturing mother of all and the frightening Kali Ma who devours demons and drinks their blood.”

– From Perchta: Protective Goddess of Light and Dark by Thunderwizard

…”the Krampus was believed by alpine Germans and Austrians to accompany Saint Nicholas on his rounds, but rather than just stuffing lumps of coal in a naughty child’s stocking, the Krampus – who, by the way, was depicted as a very tall, very shaggy, goat-like man — would inflict corporal punishment on the boy or girl with a cluster of sticks. If the child was particularly naughty, he or she would simply be thrust into a basket and taken away, one supposes, to whatever horrible place the creature came from — a place we can be quite sure was not Christmastown. Such a fate must have been one of the more effective threats leveled on a badly-behaved medieval child by his angry parents. Better than the ‘no presents’ approach, certainly. (Although in fairness, one must wonder exactly what presents a poor village child would have been expecting. Perhaps imagining terrible punishment from an other-worldly goat creature, and the avoiding of the same through good behaviour, was simply a natural anthropological response to having no upside at Christmas.)

Frau Holda‘s wrath, however, was mild compared with that of Perchta, the south German variant of the same goddess. On her festival day, she expected celebrants to eat only fish and gruel, which was considered fasting fare. The penalty for failing to do so, wrote Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Myths, was ghastly: ‘whoever has partaken of other food on her day, she cuts his belly open, fills it with chopped straw, and sews up the gash with a ploughshare for a needle and an iron chain by way of thread’. In Swabia, her role was believed to similar to that of the Krampus – though more lethal — as ‘with hair all shaggy she walks round the houses at night, and tears the bad boys to pieces.’”

– From In the bleak midwinter, an excellent article by I. Garrick Mason at sans everything

By s.stegh

From CRUSHEVIL:

Masked figures from the ‘Wilde Jagd’ Christmas folklore festivity in Salzburg, Austria. These festivities originate through the Perchtenlaufen custom, a period when the fearsome witch Perchta, who envies happily married couples, roams the villages. Processions of horribly masked figures armed with sticks and clubs meet throughout the festivity to chase the witch away.”

This picture is from Masks, Face Coverings and headgear by Norman Laliberté and Alex Mogelon

These headdresses are maybe the most captivating examples of folk ritual costume I have seen – in a long time. I would love to see them in person, in color. There’s got to be some crazy alpine museum in the mountains where some of them still exist, wouldn’t you think? I must find this place.

Some of the masks worn by Perchten Dancers of Salzburg.

I discovered this amazing article via the marvelous digital history project. It was originally published in the Wide World Magazine, September 1908. I’m reposting an excerpt here, but the whole thing really is just too fascinating, so please do go read all about it.

The Perchten Dancers of Salzburg Austria Tyrol Pinzgau
By MRS. HERBERT VIVIAN.

Amongst the mountains of the little Austrian Duchy of Salzburg dwell peasants who still mingle religion and mythology in a curious jumble and observe many remarkable customs. Perhaps the most extraordinary of their festivals is the Perchten dance, which is performed only at very infrequent intervals. Mrs. Vivian was fortunate enough to witness the latest celebration of this unique function and secure a set of striking photographs.

The noblest of the “beautiful” Perchten wear bird head dresses. These are large pieces of moss covered board, and on them are fixed every rare bird that has been shot in the neighborhood by the Perchten and their friends. The “tafel,” as they are called, are really most striking and artistic. On the top comes a large bird with outspread wings, in this case a huge peacock with a gigantic tail. Naturally these head dresses are of a terrific weight; and have to be supported and steadied by an iron rod which is fastened to the back at the waist. I should think the poor fellows suffer for being beautiful, as the strain and the heavy load must con­duce to violent head­ache. The back of the erection is usually covered with canvas and painted with a pastoral scene, such as the Almfahrt. A good part of the toilette of the Perch­ten had to be done in public, and it was rather amusing to see their wives fussing round them doing up buttons and tying strings.

This song isn’t really related to Perchta, and is Finnish rather than German, but I’ve become obsessed with learning it, and have been playing this entire album all through the winter holidays. It was only recently that I discovered the meaning of the lyrics, which are quite bleak. I love how happy and lilting this little lullaby is, only to have its deeper meaning revealed – if you can understand Finnish… A dual natured kantele seems fitting for Frau Perchta.

Eriskummainen kantele (The bizarre kantele)

Soitto on suruista tehty, (But no, music is made from grief)
murehista muovaeltu: (and moulded from sorrow)
koppa päivistä kovista, (– its belly out of hard days)
emäpuu ikipoloista, (its soundboard from endless woes)
kielet kiusoista kerätty, (its strings gathered from torments)
naulat muista vastuksista. (and its pegs from other ills.)
Sentä ei soita kanteleeni, (Therefore my kantele will not play)
ei iloitse ensinkänä, (nor will rejoice at all)
soitto ei soita suosioksi, (music will not play to please)
laske ei laatuista iloa, (give off the right sort of joy)
kun on huolista kuvattu, (for it was fashioned from worries)
murehista muovaeltu. (moulded from sorrow)

There’s a great article about what we’re putting together at The Gay Place:
12th Night Austin Rolls Out – The official, traditional kickoff to Mardi Gras comes to town

The celebration of Twelfth Night dates back to medieval England, and marks a turning point between the midwinter festival that begins with Halloween and ends as the Carnival season begins to fire up. Carnival means “farewell to the flesh”, and is a time of wildness, indulgence and celebration leading up to the final day of ultimate decadence before the austerity of Lent: Mardi Gras Day! Saturnalia and Bacchanalia were both celebrated in pagan Rome as lusty and decadent free-for-alls that involved excessive quaffing of wine, rich dishes, costumery, and all sorts of naughtiness. The darkest part of the year, in ancient times, required much merrymaking and fun to keep spirits bright during harsh winters that often brought much hardship. The twelve days of Christmas begin with Christmas day, and end on the Twelfth Night, or Epiphany. The end of the Winter Solstice season is ideally celebrated with a sense of triumph – that we made it through, that we survived to see another year! What better excuse for dressing up and dancing in the streets? Eat, drink, and be merry was their motto – and we’ll be trying our best to celebrate by that maxim, along with the Cajun French phrase you hear around Mardi Gras time in Louisiana: Laissez les bons temps rouler! – or: Let the good times roll!

In New Orleans, Twelfth Night is celebrated with king cake parties and, on a larger scale, Masquerade Balls. It is the night that the big Mardi Gras Krewes crown their King and Queen. On a scaled down version, house parties celebrate their own “king,” depending on who finds the plastic baby hidden in their slice of king cake. Tradition has it that the person to find the baby in their cake is rewarded with good luck for the year to come, and also is obligated to host the next king cake party before the season is over. Before plastic babies came into vogue In times of yore, a bean or a pea was hidden in the cake – the Bean King and the Pea Queen preside over the year’s festivities. It was custom for this day to be a time for everything to be turned on its head: to crown the peasants as kings, and for the royalty to run rampant in rags. On Twelfth Night, the Lord of Misrule dictates that everyone must come as they are not – the practice of dressing up in costumes or hiding one’s true face behind a masquerade mask is really a kind of ritual mummery that is practiced in ceremonies and magical rites in many cultures. When we dress in costume, we are given the freedom to become someone else – to enact fantasies, totems or characters from the deepest recesses of our psyches. It may seem to be nothing more than frivolity, but in truth, mummery can be a powerful form of catharsis for our spirits. Also, it really is a whole lot of fun!

Parades and processions have long been part of this celebration – taking to the streets in wild ensembles with noisemakers, instruments, pots and pans to bang on, (or even better – a marching band!) is another symbolic way of turning our every day sense of reality around. Houses and businesses that we might walk or drive by on any normal week are suddenly made more mysterious and special when we dance and frolic past them in a wild parade. It’s a form of reclaiming public space, of taking back streets and sidewalks that are usually only used in typical workaday fashion, and celebrating there. There’s something very magical about gettin’ down to a brass band in the middle of the street – a certain kind of freedom that’s not quite there in an enclosed space, or a venue dedicated to that purpose. We want very much to share that experience with Austin, and create a new tradition to help us all bring a bit more magic, dazzle and joy into our city!

La Jeunesse de Bacchus (1884) – William Adolphe Bouguereau

I’ve been reading Dancing in the Streets – A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich, which is a wonderful look at the history of parades and public celebrations through the ages. Parading is such a huge part of the way I love to express my lust for life: I am fascinated by the history of festivals, costumed processions and ritual mummery, and this book really delves into why we, as humans have always felt the need to celebrate in these ways.

I discovered the artwork of Harvey Dinnerstein via Matthew D. Innis’s excellent art blog, Underpaintings, and I am so grateful to him for introducing me to Dinnerstein’s work. I bought both books of his paintings after reading that article! Also, Innis has collected some of my favorite paintings with a processional theme in his post – the Alma-Tademas and James Gurney dinosaur parades I adore especially. One of Dinnerstein’s masterpieces, Parade, was painted in 1972, and I have found myself completely captivated by it.

From Underpaintings:

Of creating Parade, Dinnerstein said, “I had in mind a processional image, somewhat like the reliefs of Roman sarcophagi, related to Reubens’ development of similar themes. I have a memory of an experience viewing Delacroix’s Death of Sardinopolis at the Louvre. When you place yourself at a distance from the painting, so that the range of your vision encompasses the width of the image exactly, there is a dazzling effect of movement, and I hoped to arrive at some of that kind of energy in my painting.

and

With his work, Parade, Dinnerstein sought to emulate the grand allegorical paintings of the Renaissance, but from the Naturalist viewpoint which made up his training. He found in the political demonstrations of the sixties, a use of symbolism and myth by the protesters from which he could create his own epic image. From his own notes and sketches made during his personal observation of that tumultuous time, Dinnerstein engineered this spectacular piece.

A parade is a reminder to sing and dance while we may! I plan on doing as much of that as I can in this life, and I can’t think of a better way to ring in a new year and the start of Carnival than by celebrating 12th Night! If you’re in Austin, please do join us, and if not – well, get yourself a pan to bang on, a banner and a band and start your own parade wherever you may be!

This year was a fierce thing: it burned away everything that could not last.
I am asking for a more tranquil time: to focus on fluidity, on being open, on peace.
Dragons and snakes, circles and ladders, mountains and pits, shadows and stars.

Come, let’s light the foxfires.

New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji, 1856-1859
by Ando Utagawa Hiroshige

A Japanese woodblock print of Hiroshige from 1857 depicts fox Fires on New Year’s Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji. According to Japanese legend, trickster fox spirits gather once a year at night at an old tree at the Oji shrine, bearing torches, to receive their orders for the following year. One of the two trees depicted can still be seen.

Hiroshige was a favorite of my Grampa’s. He gave me several books of his prints before he died.

Ouroboros (Uroborus) with lamp by Leo Reynolds

The Ouroboros or Uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.
The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end (compare with phoenix). It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. The Ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist’s opus. It is also often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism. Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros as having an archetypal significance to the human psyche. The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego “dawn state”, depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual child.

“The armadillo girdled lizard possesses an uncommon antipredator adaptation, in which it takes its tail in its mouth and rolls into a ball when frightened. In this shape, it is protected from predators by the thick, squarish scales along its back and the spines on its tail. This behavior, which resembles that of the mammalian armadillo, gives it its English common name. This behavior may have inspired the mythical creature Ouroboros.”

Ouroboros – The Lion and the Snake by Wiertz Sébastien

“Plato described a self-eating, circular being as the first living thing in the universe — an immortal, mythologically constructed entity.

In Gnosticism, this serpent symbolized eternity and the soul of the world. The Gnostic text Pistis Sophia describes the disc of the sun as a 12-part dragon with his tail in his mouth”

Sergei Sergeivich Solomko (1867-1928)

I want to sleep and dream in the crook of the changing tree. I’m ready to become a different kind of bird. I feel like this coming year is already sparkling and crackling with possibilities.

Ouroboros – by Jason Brammer

The Orphic Egg

The egg symbolizes the belief in the Greek Orphic religion that the universe originated from within a silver egg. The first emanation from this egg, described in an ancient hymn, was Phanes-Dionysus, the personification of light. In Greek myth, particularly Orphic thought, Phanes is the golden winged Primordial Being who was hatched from the shining Cosmic Egg that was the source of the universe. Called Protogonos (First-Born) and Eros (Love) — being the seed of gods and men — Phanes means “Manifestor” or “Revealer,” and is related to the Greek words “light” and “to shine forth.” An ancient Orphic hymn addresses him thus: “Ineffable, hidden, brillian scion, whose motion is whirring, you scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and through this world you brought pure light.”

This year, I’m headed back out to Lone Grove, to the place where I traditionally prefer to ring in the New Year.
My dear friend Chip Warren is a wonderful photographer who captured so much magic during our celebration in 2011 –
he made this fantastic video to give you an idea of what it was like that year.

His full set of New Year’s Eve 2011 photos are here:
Lone Grove New Years 2011

More words of wisdom from my comrade Dr. Caraway: Ambling in the new year

Some musical mixes from myself and from Lau to honor the turning of the year:

The New Year from angeliska on 8tracks Radio.

the twelve dragons from lau on 8tracks Radio.

More to read from New Year’s Eves of yore:

✶ FUCK THE PLAN 2012
✶ AN EPICALLY EPIC AND FAIRLY TARDY YEAR IN REVIEW – OR, HOLY SHIT: 2011!
✶ A Bright Blue Wish
✶ New Year’s Redux
✶ Stargazer Honey
✶ Blue Moon
✶ Lone Grove New Year
✶ Pink Moons
✶ The New Year
✶ Lucky Stars and Garters
✶ La Nouvelle Année

I found a wonderful book recently that has been very inspiring reading as I’ve been preparing my celebration. I’ve included some illustrations and excerpts from it here in this post:

The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas
by John Matthews (with contributions from Caitlin Matthews).

I love this excerpt from the introduction:

“The Solstice is a time of quietude, of firelight, and dreaming, when seeds germinate in the cold earth, and the cold notes of church bells mingle with the chimes of icicles. Rivers are stilled and the land lies waiting beneath a coverlet of snow. We watch the cold sunlight and the bright stars, maybe go for walks in the quiet land. . . . All around us the season seems to reach a standstill — a point of repose.”

From the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry – one of my favorite things in the whole world.

“At this point we shall discuss the order of the steps by which the soul descends from the sky to the infernal regions of this life. The Milky Way girdles the zodiac, its great circle meeting it obliquely so that it crosses it at the two tropical signs: Capricorn and Cancer. Natural philosophers name these ‘the portals of the sun’ because the solstices lie athwart the sun’s path on either side, checking farther progress and causing it to retrace its course across the belt beyond whose limit it never trespasses. Souls are believed to pass through these portals when going from the sky to the earth and returning from the earth to the sky. For this reason one is called the portal of men, the other the portal of gods: Cancer, the portal of men, because through it descent is made to the infernal regions [to life on earth]; Capricorn, the portal of gods, because through it souls return to their rightful abode of immortality, to be reckoned among the gods.”

– From A Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, written by the medieval scholiast Macrobius (5th cent AD) The Dream of Scipio was a cosmological section of Cicero’s work, On the Republic, which did not survive as a manuscript, but was found beneath heaps of tomes in the Vatican library in the 19th century. What was found, however, did not contain the Dream of Scipio, which is only preserved in the commentray by Macrobius. Alas.

Santa was a bear shaman, y’all.

“Shaman, will the sun be reborn? Will we have a good harvest? Will we catch enough fish, will there be enough meat to eat, will the reindeer drop enough offspring to keep us through another year?

You are the bringer of gifts, the protector, the magician, the future is yours to see, the sack on your back carries the gifts of the future and the past — tell us, shaman, tell us.”

– Alison Mcleay

The psychedelic secrets of Santa Claus – Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans.

Animal disguise is part of many ritual Solstice dances and performances…

“The many animals that throng the Winter months are particularly present during the Twelve Days of Christmas, those days in which guising is performed, when we walk between the worlds, masking and veiling our features so that animal spirits can moves through us and among us, bringing their gifts and challenges. These customs embrace us all, for we are all still animals and are all part of the pattern of ancient ‘wildness’ that threads through the celebration of Midwinter.

This is itself a reflection of a once powerful but now neglected sense of oneness between human beings and the natural world that was our environment before we began to build cities and gather together in amorphous groups. That this ancient wildness is still there, only a little but below the veneer of our civilized lifestyles, is apparent by the number of traditions still in practice that involve dressing as animals and performing ancient rituals.”
– John Matthews

Medieval Mummery! We’ll be engaging in lots of this sort of thing this season, since we are celebrating through 12th Night with a glorious parade!

“On those days the heathen…put on counterfeit forms and monstrous faces.  Some are clothed in the hides of cattle; others put on the heads of beasts, rejoicing and exulting that they have so transformed themselves into the shapes of animals that they no longer appear to be men… furthermore, it is those who have been born men who are clothed in women’s dresses…and effeminate their manly strength by taking on the forms of girls, blushing not to clothe their warlike arms in women’s garments; they have bearded faces, yet they wish to be women… ”
– Caesarius of Arles, 6th century A.D.

The King of Winter & an ice nymph. They are coming tonight to touch everything with frozen fingers, laughter echoing like icicles shattering.

“If a cosmic tree points the way to heaven for us every Christmas, Santa Claus undertakes the magical flight of the shaman. He is sometimes said to be responsible for erecting the Christmas tree sky pole himself. Descending vertically down the chimney Santa returns by the same route back to the roof. Our chimneys, like the cosmic axis, carry him from one realm to the other…”

– E.C. Krupp, Beyond the Blue Horizon

May your Winter Solstice be full of magic, hope, and wonder.

“Hope is at the very core of the Winter Solstice.  There will be hunger, darkness, fear, loneliness, grief and suffering.  People die, cities crumble, rivers freeze and green things wither away (except for evergreens, of course, which is why we treasure them) – and throughout it all we go on hoping that better days will come, even if we can’t imagine what those days might look like or where on earth they will come from.  We go on hoping, tending the hidden suns deep inside of ourselves even as our bodies freeze, our stomachs grumble and our hearts break. We go on tending that tiny flame even after it seems reduced to nothing but cold grey ashes.  We go on tending that tiny flame as if our very lives depend upon it – and you know what?  They do.  Our lives do depend on tending that little flame, that hidden sun.  They really do, and in order to tend that flame we have no choice but to wait with it in the darkness from time to time.”

Before There Was Christmas – A Sermon by the Rev. Aaron McEmrys, delivered to the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, December 20, 2009

Related posts from winter solstices of yore:

WINTER SOLSTICE – BLOOD MOON

Winter Solstice – Messe de Minuit 

Winter Solstice – Dark Season