Season's Sneezin's

I can't believe I didn't publish this silly poem to this blog last year when I wrote it! One folkloric detail that you might not know is the belief that the faeries were known to use stems of ragwort (locally ragweed) as horses to fly around with. In anticipation of the "cold" front coming this weekend, please enjoy:

Season's Sneezin's

achoo!
(bless you!)
atCHOO!
(bless you!)
AT-CHOOOOO!
(bless you!)

is all i ever know about this season
'cause when winds of change blow summer into fall
those winds set my nose to sneezin' !

when day's as long as equals night
you count on me a horrible sight
leaf drop and nose drip
stuffy head eyes of red!
a lovely season, if it was not
for the gallons and gallons and gallons of snot!

what enemy mine, what foe is this?
to assault my sweet autumnal bliss?

now there they go, my nemeses,
riding out upon the breeze
that indomitable species
the ragweed.

ragweed it's true may be nothing to you
useless to men except for the green
made from record sales of antihistamine
but according to legend and according to lore
the faeries knew what ragweed is for...
the fae, they say hurray!
grab a ragweed stalk so as not to walk
leap upon quick and give it a kick
now that's no inanimate stick
nor leafy weed, but now a faery steed!
they can ride into the air
with devil-may-care

they go where they please,
i stay here and sneeze.

who knew that these airy faerie horse's droppings
would cause so many miserable nose stoppings
or that as they fly by it would so tickle the eye
now we wonder if they do it for sport?
faeries snicker while humans snort
we blow our noses while they cavort

or perhaps it's revenge, they demand ablutions
for our own iron horses' exhaust pollutions
and it's true that where the ragweed grows
is where the plastic grocery bag blows
and auto runoff down creek flows

we wonder thus if we made peace
with faery, creeks, land, and trees
would the fae forgo their assault,
their horse born jousting at you?
then in the breezy season of fall
we'd no more hear achoo! at-choo!


copywrite princess poysen ivieee 2004

Storm Surge

The storm surge of a hurricane usually means the wall of water that washes inland causing flooding and destruction and then washes back to sea, again taking its toll. But here in Austin, we have a human storm surge, which is not so much in a hurry to roll back to the coastline, even if they could. I have two "Lost Boyz" from Beaumont on my sofas. One just found out that his house is still there. The other is from further south of Beaumont, and as yet he has no word on the existance of his house, place of work, life, etc.

Later on, I will entertian a Katrina evacuee who may end up being my new housemate, paying rent with FEMA money.

Especially last weekend, when all of Houston was here, Austin was like one great big slumber party. Until we start gunning each other down, that is. As if jobs were not hard enough to come by before, now we have a sudden uncensused population surge, and I just wonder how this is going to be played out in the housing and employment markets when those $2000 check cards stop paying out.

My guests are really great guys, we have been having lots of fun and their impact on the houshold has been very positive. I even offered them first dibs on the room to be vacated end of the month. They admit that they are dazed, though. Austinites are accustomed to the funhouse affect of this town, the endless events and the party that moves from house to house to lake to creek to springs to Tex-Mex restaraunt and on it goes. But if you are displaced and out of work, or from a town where not much is ever happening, I bet Austin could become the acid trip that never ends.

So far, Texans have put aside their usual racism, classism and zenophobia, and their generosity and hospitality is of heroic proportions. Is it going to be a lasting change of temperament? This storm season could really mark a new way of life for us. I hope we have the imagination and grace to make it a permanent character development.

How Will I Die?

You scored as Gunshot. Your death will be by gunshot, probably because you are some important person or whatever. Possibly a sniper, nice, quick, clean shot to the head. Just beautiful. Natural Causes 67% Gunshot 67% Disease 67% Posion 60% Cut Throat 60% Suffocated 40% Disappear 40% Stabbed 40% Bomb 20% Accident 13% Suicide 7% Drowning 7% Eaten 7% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

Burlesque Relief

Sat. October 1st RELIEF, RESTORE, REBUILD
Benefit for Hurricanesurvivors in the Natural Magic Backyard, aka Club Majic. Natural Magic is located at 701 E 53rd St. in Austin, TX
Noon to 7pm FAMILY FESTIVAL
Fortune tellers, magic, food, fun, vendors, live music, and more...Mask contest? Parade? Jail? Two can/two dollar donation.

Sat. October 1st 7-10pm BOURBON STREET BURLESQUE
Nonstop sizzlingperformance with fire, charity gambling, live music, and the*naughtiness* of the BSB exotic performers. ADULTS ONLY $5 cover, andbring XXXtra cash for treats and sideshows.Proceeds will be donated to American Red Cross and Capital Area FoodBank. We have openings for venders and performers still. We need somehelp preparing the property for this fundraiser; especially thebackyard stage needs to be rebuilt. And bring us your Mardi Grasbeads! We intend to raise a lot of money and spirits here, folks.Call us at 451-4491 for vending and entertainment information.
And you can always see the rest of Natural Magic's schedule at:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturalmagicevents/

Too Terrible

I am so sorry. When I first saw the radar pictures of Katrina in the gulf, I was awed by the beauty, the raw force of nature. Raised on the Gulf Coast myself, a BOI, growing up with stories of the 1900 storm, which my great grandmother survived to tell, and tell...and telllll....and TELL about over and over again, I developed a fondness for destructive weather. I dreamed of tornadoes and The Big Wave, and of drowning, over and over, all my life. I was actually acutely disappointed that for my first 18 years of life there I never got to experience a full force hurricane (unless you count Carla which hit while I was still in the womb). The storms we get here in Central Texas thrill me with electricity. In a post last year I even published a friends poem that fantasized the eradication of Houston by way of hurricane. But I even said to friends that this romanticism would end only when such powerful destroyer forces of nature killed someone or something beloved to me.

When I saw Katrina pointed at New Orleans, I knew that the dream was over and I wept for the nightmare that was to begin. For the first time ever, I prayed for a storm to weaken, and even though it did, what I did not know was how this government, and George W Bush had worked to weaken New Orleans' defenses against the storm that was sure to come, eventually. I am able to forgive myself for my fantasy because I never had the power to cut the Army Corp of Engineer's funding for levee mainenance, nor the power to emasculate FEMA. It took a president in thrall of rightwing conspiracy anti-public-good wingnuts to do that. I might have Wizard-of-Oz dreams of storms, but these people are actually, idealistically, seriously willing to use one to kill a whole lot of people as a result of bringing about a fascist state where government is all about who you can't have sex with or what you can't smoke and all against basic functions of public service.

If Bush et. al. conspired to launch a premeditated genocide, how would it look so much different? As far as I can see, his response has been to let a a lot of mostly poor, mostly black people die. There is blood of thousands (more) now on his hands, and I hereby name George Bush "The Man Who Killed New Orleans." Or tried to, if WE THE PEOPLE have anything to say about it.

The rightwingers who continue the keep the wool on say lame ass stuff like "Now is no time to point the finger of blame." Well I sure am proud of how the American people are rushing to help. But I am afraid that blame and punishment are a part of justice, and that you do not get to kill a bunch of people with incompetence and not stand trial for that. This is not hidden away on Gitmo, this is live on TV and when all is said and done, the whole neocon conspiracy has to explain their actions and inactions. They are not going to get away with it this time.

Please refer to PastPeak in my sidebar. Jonathan is really putting the case together about this.

As a professional Witch and potioneer, I and my kind owe a tremendous debt to the magical and spiritual traditions of New Orleans and the Deep South. If you start prying apart the ingredients of even the simplest of mojos, what you find is a lot of history encoded in these traditions that in many ways tells more than any history books. History of slavery, racism, survival of spirit, and even hidden and open cooperation among classes and races. I became interested in this a few years ago, and I found LuckyMojo and Cat Yronwood who has done a lot of this research already, interviewing old root hoodoo practitioners and transcribing rural blues lyrics to find the pieces. How does it come about that the story of High John the Conqueror, an African slave, who uses a root native to Mexico and used religiously by preColumbian Indians there, in ways traditional to ceremonial magicians in the European Western traditions using (Jewish) Kabbalistic structures of magic? You begin to suspect that many different sorts of people were talking and trying to help each other in a dire situation where slavery threatened the moral fabric of society.

It is really now a time for some kind of transformation, here ther is a direct order from God, if you will, for us to look at our racism and the deep scars that slavery has left on our souls, and beg for mercy and the grace it takes to heal. It is now time to admit to ourselves that racism is not about "nigger jokes" and that those words and feeling eventually add up to killing people. In magic we teach that "thoughts are things" and "words have power." Eventually a lot of racist (and misogynistic) thoughts, words and actions/inactions will come together in murder, in tragedy, where we are forced to look at the carnage, hear people screaming "Help Us!" and realize, "There is a part in me that did this." It is too terrible, but we have to do it. I hope George Bush and Co. are willing to do this sort of scary soul-searching, and if Love can not motivate Reparation, maybe Guilt will. Time to pay for the sins of our ancestors. Time to say "I Am So Sorry," and do everything you can, and give all the money you can to prove it.

In a few days I will talk about my own confrontations with racism, how it has come through my family line, and how we have dealt, or not dealt with it.