Stick Book

In the long ago times, Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, marked the beginning of winter and the darker half of the year. The Celts believed that on this night, the border between our world and that of the spirits merged, and those otherworldly beings were free to step over our thresholds and have a look around, scaring the wits out of sensible souls.

I must admit that Halloween has always unsettled me. Even when I was a girl, it was spooky out there on those dark, windy October nights with the clouds racing above the bare trees and all those ghosts and goblins on the loose. The candy was some compensation, as was the novelty of dressing up as a gypsy or a hobo, but I was quite happy to return to our well-lit living room and bite into the prized chocolate bar amid the boring caramels and candy corn.

That said, as I get older, the idea of being a year-round witch is quite appealing. I like wearing black, lots of fluttery layers of it; I like the dreamy idea of taking off on a broom for a midnight ride to anywhere; I like knowing I have access to secrets and feeling at home in mysterious places like deep woods, ancient castles, lonely moors.

I would be a good witch, albeit mischievous, and use my powers sagely. Since of all the witchy skills the casting of spells holds the most allure, I would specialize (there are spells for money, weather, health, home & hearth, success, etc.) in the genre that interests me most: love. For years, I have had in my possession a tattered little handmade book of Love Spells but never knew the name of the witch who gave it to me. Here are a few of her notations:

*If two people eat a four-leaf clover together, mutual love will result.

*To have a dream of a past love, eat a few caraway seeds before retiring.

*If you hold a catnip leaf until it is warm, then hold your lover’s hand, he will go anywhere with you.

*Apricot pits can be included in sachets to attract love. Orris roots, as well.

*Serve a rhubarb pie to your love to help mend a quarrel.

There are many others, and I agree that serving a homemade rhubarb pie will have almost any desired effect.

On this October’s final night, I will wear a sprig of thyme to make myself irresistible, don a diaphanous black skirt, bring the broom out from beside the wood pile, and see what happens when the wind picks up and the moon rises.

Dress in Prism Light

If I can figure out a way to make magical dresses, I will, and for a while at least, this is all I will do.

I will make these dresses out of wrinkled secrets and cobwebs and prism light and the crickets’ black songs, out of dark photographs of stonewashed streets after midnight. I will stitch them with threads the mourning doves drop by mistake. The little Husky Star sewing machine wll buzz and whirr into the wee hours with only the Pleiades for illumination. All of the cats who have left me: Dylan, Harvey, and Carlie will curl up on the rickety sewing table and tell me about heaven and what they are served there for breakfast and cocktail hour, what the chairs are like, also the saucers and the spoons.

Magical dresses journey to imaginary places far away from the grocery store and the mechanics’ garage, far away from the unmade bed and the dust under the dresser, from pots and pans, and the routine morning toilette. These dresses have a life of their own whether you wear them or not, making a ruckus in the closet, shimmering on a wall, turning a hall tree on its head, knocking over the bread basket.

You probably only want one because that’s all you need to captivate a handsome fellow and at the very least, compel him to declare his love forever.

In fact, each dress will come with a tag replete with caveats: never wear when the moon is full or when the wind picks up; never wash with water, only with blue ocean air; watch out for humming birds who may nest in your hair; tread gently in gardens or parking lots; wear with great caution on birthdays or the solstice; and above all, pay attention, don’t drift off into reverie or once-upon-a-time or heaven knows where you might end up, since these dresses are already inclined to wander.

When a dress is complete, I will take it out for a twirl in the backyard (keeping my wits about me, of course). And I will listen to what it has to say about itself and the whole wide Universe and the person it is looking for. Magic is indeed looking for us; I didn’t know this until the dresses informed me that magic is incomplete until it is shared…kind of like pancakes and pizza and love.

They’re out there, these dresses, and when you pull one over your head or step into it, you’ll look in the mirror and discover someone you barely recognize but know you’ve met once in another chapter, another country, another lifetime. One of these dresses will call your name in a strange language you’ve never heard before but manage to speak fluently. Magic is like this: a palm outstretched, holding a quite impossible world. Ours for the taking.

Witchy Shoes & Bare Trees

This is a photo taken by my friend David a while ago when we journeyed out to the Berkshires and stopped to see the selected works of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison at the Simon’s Rock Gallery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. When I saw this sculpture, I stood transfixed, knowing I would be possessed by these shoes forever. Quite simply, because I love them.

They combine three of my favorite things: witchiness, shoes, and bare trees. But the thought of putting them all together could only come from artists with exquisite and edgy imaginations, which this couple has in abundance. You can see more of their work at www.parkeharrison.com.

I once wrote a poem about witchy shoes: shoes that have enticing eyes and are not afraid of thunder or dark alleys or stepping on toes. They can easily cast a spell on the innocent, like the unknowing man behind the seafood counter. Witchy shoes are always cool and haughty; they hunger for the night, for the stars, not salmon, not mackerel, not even scallops at $16.99 a pound!

Imagine having a pair of witchy shoes with bare trees sprouting out of their eyelets! I’m in a swoon, just sitting here, my chilly fingers in their fraying gloves racing across the keyboard, trying to consider what a day would be like wearing shoes with bare trees. It would be foggy, of course, and the wind would blow salt off the water, and the crows would be completely understandable, sharing their secrets about buried treasure down by Town Dock and who is currently courting whom.

Wearing such shoes, I would hear poetry recited everywhere, even the surly man at the Transfer Station would be spouting sonnets one after another and the dentist would be savoring the delicious words of Keats. My house would recount stories of all who who have lived here before me, their favorite windows and places to read, what they enjoyed for breakfast.

I would easily find my way in the fog, the shoes clickety-clacketing down the misty road’s pale yellow line all the way to the shoes’ ultimate destination. And once there, dangling above the clouds, I would hold my breath, carefully cross my ankles, and watch the stars tangle in those bare trees like a song.

Stories to Tell

Shall I start with this black crepe dress I found hanging rumpled and discouraged from a bent hanger in the basement rummage of Barnstable’s Saint Mary’s Church?

Shall I start by wondering who chose it brand-new from a rack of store dresses long ago? In my imagination, she had long arms and was probably tall and had straight hair and wore reading glasses. She no doubt had a silver tea set and believed in long walks, fresh air, and good manners. She may have summered along the New England coast.

I am certain that beneath the patrician veneer, there was a mysterious, even otherworldly aspect  to the prior owner of this dress, though carefully guarded and only allowed out in dark, playful moments.

Shall I start by believing that she knew about the worlds beneath the senses, beneath her carefully ordered life? The worlds of clouds and deja vu, shadow, and memories of memories? There were spirits in her driveway; her cats had eyes like stars; the wind roused her heart; the broom twitched in the corner; the moon begged for her glance. Now and then, she woke up at first light and wondered if she had made it all up: the night, the wind, the moon, the pounding of her heart, the voices filled with songs of all she had been before the tea set, the beautifully set table. Before the church dinners, the library sales, the sensible shoes.

I put on the dress. It is October. The leaves are dry and raspy from September’s hurricane, and the air is full of golden smoke. The little neighborhood cat at the back door meows when she sees me, and I swear the broom by the fireplace quivered once or twice. I shall have a cup of tea by the fire. I shall listen for the clink of silver and the wind in the brittle leaves and the stories I know this dress can tell.

Crow in Bare Tree

I have a puppet crow named Ravinia that perches on the spindle of an old platform rocker in my workroom. There are also crows on the mantel: one with real feathers from Friendship, Maine; one little woolly one that’s wearing a shawl; and two small ones in a nest that I found at a yard sale. I often ask for their opinions on such things as remodeling and matters of the heart, and they always give sound advice.

Ravinia is also the patron saint of my writing workshops, where she lands on a candlestick in the middle of the table, in the middle of the papers and the pens, the beating hearts, the minds boiling over. It sends her…all this energy…to a sort of corvine Elysian Fields where there are shiny things, secrets, wing chairs, and much to crow about. I like to think that the writers are transported there too.

Most of my friends know that the crow is my favorite bird, and they often accuse me of dressing like one (it is true that my closet is a melange of black, and it is true that my maternal grandmother looked quite crow-ish). They are the most marvelous of birds: they take care of each other; they’re resourceful; they’re great at clean-up; they’re majestically beautiful walking across snow; they can perch at the very top of a pine with grace and aplomb; they’re smart enough to gather when the four o’clocks descend and collaborate about a nice, safe, warm place to sleep.

It’s true that the crow can practice a bit of thievery now and then, and apparently the Greeks thought the crow a bit gossipy. There’s other dark stuff, of course, but most of those rumors were spread in the Middle Ages, when darkness prevailed. For the most part, the crow is sacred, a guide and a protector. I know that when I look up and see a smattering of them hanging out together in neighboring trees, chatting away about the weather and the best spot for lunch, I feel deeply reassured.

All’s well. Just caws for delight.