Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I'm still here!

We've had simply the most lovely weather, here in the nation's capital, for the past few days and, well, that's my excuse. I've been outside, in the garden, too much to blog. Life is short; there are a finite numbers of perfect days poured into each life. You can't waste them inside.

Go look at these amazingly gorgeous images of women over at Moments of Grace. I love lots of them, but the bored, little, punk angel may be my complete favorite. It says so much about how the aesthetic of Victoriana translated into the Goth movement.

Lunea's musing about tribe. What's interesting to me is how, these days, tribes span the globe. I feel lots closer to folks all over the world than I do to, say, my wingnut neighbor across the street or to my sister the idiot.

On the other side of the planet, Aquila qua Hecate is celebrating the feast of Brighid, a time for burning out the dross. In a way, for me, that process begins at Lughnasadah. I begin yanking out the stalks from the dead day lillies, watch the tiny yellow birds clean the seeds off the lovely, twisted branches of woad, continue yanking out bindweed, start watching for falling leaves and acorns. More and more stuff is "done" and the dross can be yanked and thrown into the sacred compost pile And the process goes on through Mabon -- eat it up now, it will spoil later -- through Samhein -- let's celebrate the dying that's happening everywhere around us right now -- through Yule -- clear, clean, crystal, not much organic mess left -- and on to Imbolc -- burn out the remaining mess, we need to get ready for the life that's coming!

Picture (and lots of other v interesting stuff) found here.