mumma yaga

We have returned to the vineyard at last. Rocky is content. He can wander about without a collar, and visit his friend Blackie when he likes. He has been lying on the grass, often in the sun, for hours on end. He likes the porch too, lies near me while I sit at my desk. Fox was eager to get reacquainted with Rocky. First thing they did was run off together to see the witches. It looks like the rain is over. We received 70 mm on our hill. I hear that Toronto got about 100 mm. Monday night we had thunderstorm and rain through the night. Rocky does not like a storm and crept up beside me on the pillow for much of the night. Last night I drugged him, so that he'd settle through the night. He has bad anxiety in Toronto, and then he began having pain in April, so he has trazodone and gabapentin scripts. He's been getting a shot for pain, and after K came home he stopped needing the anxiety meds., but I needed to sleep.  The foliage growth is not so evident here (I remarked that it wa...

 I see that my grandson is looking at making some business cards, on the dining/all-purpose table in the front room, which is where I work, as well. There are small cardboard rectangles in a pile, with markers and pens at the ready. Perhaps that is what I need: a new business card, since I am not fulfilling my function as Mumma Yaga these days. Or I must make more effort to step up my game! (Pretty sure you're not supposed to start a sentence with "or"!)  This is the longest I have ever left my blog unwritten! April 8th was my last post: three months ago now. I have neglected so much. I did not perform a solstice ritual. When was the last time I did any sort of ritual? It is easy to do them, and one is not relying on their significance, when all is well. But at a time like this, which by the way seems novel, as if it is my first go-round with burden, perhaps it is the rituals that hold together the pieces. We did not celebrate our anniversary. I decided that I did not wan...

 April the eighth: What a sense of expectancy in the air. There is no wind, as if the world is holding its breath. But the clouds are covering the sun, so we may see nothing of the eclipse. Tamar, Nick, and the chidren, have headed towards Hamilton to catch totality. But most of the Greater Toronto area is doing the same, while here in the city we are just outside totality. Perhaps they will all park right on the highway and watch. How cool.  (I am reminded of Day of the Triffids . [Everyone went blind from watching a sky show.] ) * I was blessed! For a few minutes, just as totality was ending and the world was dark and the streetlamps came on, the sun appeared (a tiny sliver of it, actually) in a patch of blue sky barely bigger than itself, and I saw the shadow withdraw from the orb of the sun. My "eclipse glasses", although they were not "certified", showed nothing until more than a sliver of the sun was uncovered. I did not watch for long however, just to be safe...

 March 15, 2024 It's one of those days. I can't wait until tomorrow, I have to get a perm today. It's like when you need to get a new piercing, or, perhaps for the tattoo person, it's that.  I have not stopped to look at this before, this "do it now" obsession that grabs you. It has to do with stress, for sure. But what makes it a magic bullet? (What kind of a ghastly expression is that?!) Magic may be involved, yes - a spell to change the water, to cleanse the well. But not a simple spell, this has to be a physical thing, like a bonfire. Burning something, changing an element - from wood to heat.  ***** I find these temporary waters interesting; the stream that runs across the middle field, this pond that forms for several months of the year. It is partly that, as mundane as they are, in the middle of a city hydro field, they are nevertheless, somehow still magical waters.  Each spring I see young duck couples hanging out in these ponds. Are they aware that i...

 March 11, 2024 Our first crocus: ***** It has been four years since the Covid pandemic started. It has now been declared over, by the World Health Organization, and by most of the world. But we are again under mask mandates at hospitals. I never stopped wearing a mask in all indoor public spaces, except on the few occasions when I have dined inside a restaurant or cafeteria. Although hand sanitizers have begun to disappear from store entrances, I carry some in the car. I wonder if it is a thing, that when a threat becomes too big and ubiquitous, that people start to blot it out. If a dragon moved in to the neighbourhood, you might just start pretending it wasn't there. Covid is more than a flu. It can leave you with long-term health impairments, including effects on the brain, other organs, and the immune system. Its effect on our health care system now and in the future is a huge problem which will continue for decades, perhaps, as people with long-term conditions continue to nee...

 March 08. 24 Took the QEW home from Mount Sinai, while K was there, a familiar drive for me, but so many more high-rises along the way. A thing about being old, that places change, they become a future world. "driving west late afternoon edge of the frozen lake pale clouds grey over grey ice waves lock the breakwater the city drives the freeway electricity in its veins"  (excerpt from a long ago poem that's been knocking at my brain) ***** I am angry. I am angry about the sloppy work some of the nurses and doctors do. The first orthopedic surgeon who saw K when his brace plate was failing, did not give us the full picture about surgery, that it could be a good and permanent fix, instead they sent us home with a brace that did not support the plate, so it broke in two pieces, one end of which stabbed K in the leg muscle while the bone was disintegrating. Then they had the gall to say WE had refused surgery. We took THEIR advice, not knowing how it might solve everything. ...

March 4, 2024 The cooper's hawks are not around. Their nest is only begun. Please let it not be abandoned. I remember that in other years the couple has gone off for a honeymoon, usually a couple of weeks, so I am counting on them returning soon.  The witches are so far away, sleeping the winter away, robed in white, or naked and black against the hills. Sleeping, they dream the snowstorms, they dream of spring and new apples. I feel as if they listen, as mothers for their children, even as they sleep, for murmurs of prayer, for the singing of the turning seasons, the spinning of the earth around the sun. I will call the witches then, even from here. Just now I feel as if I could reach them with my voice, the breath I release pushing against their branches. A butterfly wing tipping the earth just a little. To write, it has been knocking at my mind for days. Today's words of wisdom: do not stop getting stronger each day. Exercise, walk, lift weights, and babies, stretch and curl...