Hosting of the Sidhe | Weeknotes 9/30
Comrades-
Art and magic are not separate from everyday life: paintings are the alchemy of crushed stone and water; the angels listen on tenterhooks to each half-finished song; a balcony garden changes the world.
We are in this world and of it. Our bodies are places of understanding and joy. Ecstasy is fully joining your body with the world, to become aware to the unending reaches of sensation. This is a newsletter about embodied experience.
BANHE is the Kesh (the descendents Ursula Le Guin dreamed in Always Coming Home) word for understanding/wisdom, acceptance/inclusion, and female orgasm. It's the whole body lightning flash of knowing. It's ananda: it's bliss.
We honor our influences: Ursula Le Guin, Gordon White, Peter Grey & Alkistis Dimech, Daniel Lavery, Seán Pádraig O'Donoghue, Sarah Anne Lawless, Lydia Davis, Kim Tallbear, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Leonor Fini, Catherine Ariel Worlow (who could write a fucking blog), Casey Johnston, Clement Duval, Jay Springett, Maria Popova, Robert Bly, Charles Eisenstein. We honor any saints and rebels that stepped fully into love.
We're leaving social media behind. We want to share letters, not collect likes. We want to give you something to sit with.
Expect a Friday post of what sparked us in the week.
Expect random longer thoughts when they're fully baked.
Oh, and there's two of us. There's a Jess and there's a Brian. Because everything is better with friends.
EARTH
I made these winter marinated olives to celebrate my beloved friend Brenna's graduation from her herbal apprenticeship. Adapted from Unicorns in the Kitchen.
2 cups green olives
1.5 cups finely chopped walnuts (use less if you use black walnuts -- their flavor is stronger)
7 cloves minced garlic
1 cup chopped mint-family herbs (mint, lemon balm, catnip, etc)
0.5 cups pomegranate molasses
5 tbsp olive oil
Rinse olives thoroughly and drain. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and add sea salt to taste. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. -J
"Like most deeply magical women, she looked like a librarian and wore sensible shoes." Susan Aberth on Leonora Carrington.
I loved the idea that the French eat radishes for breakfast, sauteed in butter with pepper and salt on bread so much that I added them to my fall garden. And even if this spoilsport says that's not true, I still believe. it. You can't tell me there isn't one beautiful Frenchman in a striped shirt eating radishes for breakfast over his copy of Apollinaire. -B
I bought my first pie bird, and now is excited about the infinite tchostke potential of vintage pie birds, which come in many non-bird shapes, such as toad, octopus, Snoopy in a witch hat, and the three magi. I am not the only one excited about this. -J
SKY
WITNESS: a documentary on the history of Pendleton blankets and their meaning to the Native community. My Pendletons are constant companions, for camping, for ceremony, for cozy nights. -J
I just INHALED this chat with James Nestor and Patrick McKeowan on breathing (you can't stop me, J, I'm making the pun right before we publish). -B
SEA
Jeffrey M. Kantor on if he could only ask one question as a healer: “What’s your hot button and what happens when it’s pushed?” Listen to the whole interview.
I feel like the world demands Florence and King Princess singing together or at least I do. Some ask and ye shall receive magix. -B
I fell in love completely with this dance battle from RRR (shout out to Lindsay Starke for knowing I would love everything about this). -B
You know you’re a weird kid if this image evokes DEEP memories:
The Hosting of the Sidhe
W. B. Yeats
THE HOST is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;
Caolte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.
The host is rushing ’twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caolte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away.