The delay in this newsletter has largely come down to not knowing how name and write about a new (at least to this newsletter) kind of work rhythm.

Its the rhythm of coming home rather than getting ready to go away. Its mot a rhythm where projects get started, and its not a rhythm where ones get finished either. All the things I could be doing jump out at me, and all the things left undone weigh down on me.

There are ways in which I have not adapted to aspects of my own life—for instance, my life is scheduled by the day or by the month and not really by the week or year. This isn’t likely to change and I honestly love getting to pick up and go when I want, knowing a few months a head something will happen but not knowing where I’ll be next January. Living this way will help me say yes to more things while keeping my own healing going. But I haven’t yet found a way to schedule at these cadences that isn’t a lot of work. I’m sure one will come but still.

So of course returning to its regular course brings some of those frictions to the fore. And, also, I seem to always forget that the daily Maintenance of my body and energy is a lot of work all the time, not just when I’m away from home.

I struggle to write in months like this one for the same reasons they also frustrates me: There is too much I am excited to get back to, but I need to sleep more than I need to act. There is so much I want to share with you, but each time I sit down to write I expend all my energy in a few paragraphs.

So, a new name for a new type of work log. This is a cross section of small tasks and incremental steps I have taken in my art practice since last we spoke:

Dreamworker’s Riot Shield:

I found this piece of MDF in our apartment building’s free pile, it was originally a pretty cheap drum pad who’s drum head was peeling off. It told me it wanted to be a shield and it sent me a complicated dream I do not yet understand, or perhaps the dream sent the shield. I don’t know what the design is—only that it will be ceremonial regalia of some fashion and that it will be carried on day by one who works with dreams.

This week I took it out of its place propped against the back of our living room TV, cleansed it, primed it, and smoked it out with eastern, river sage, rosemary, tobacco and incense. Each type of smoke I offer, I light separately with specific intent and waft over the surface. I smoked it before each layer of priming, so hopefully the gesso will lock some of that protection in. I’ll probably do more specifically protective herbs between future layers of paint and sealant too.

Other “Priming” Work

Thanks to my mom I picked up this Japanese tailored jacket at a strip mall good will. Its going in my closet of “blanks” or good bases for regalia design work. I have a vision for it already forming, something honoring corn painted all in white so it doesn’t overpower the lines of color running through the fabric.

Because I’m excited about that design work I wanted to prep it for work. So I cleansed it with eastern cedar and smoked it the same combination of herbs I used for the dream shield. I asked it to revel what it wants to be for to me and for its surface to prepare to take my ornamentation.

Speaking of Smoke

I refilled my quick access incense shelf from my stash today. Its just a bungee cord that holds the boxes upright stretched across a shelf of a wire organizer, but I’m inordinately proud of it. It really makes regularly offering incense, or setting the mood for a piece of work much easier. I had been putting this task just because its kind of annoying. Now its done.

Speaking of Plants for Burning

I started drying two bundles of common Mugwort this week. One is from my grandmothers overgrown garden at my great grandfather’s house in the woods (the titular “Country” for which this newsletter was jokingly named). The other is from the edge of the forest on public land I have been building a relationship with.

The two samples are pretty different. The one from near my house is growing much taller. Its stem is much more woody than the garden sample, even on the stalks which were similar in height. The garden sample is much more aromatic than the other. I wanted to dry both as test and so I could compared them dried and further firm up

I think in the end ill leave the stand by me be. Its mildly invasive but is good at trapping carbon and doesn’t spread easily by seed to create new populations. There are more aggressive fish to fry in the waste land around me. Its too low quality to pick, and too little bother to exterminate.

The mugwort growing in Grammie’s garden has spread, thanks to us not touching it in ten years, over all the river stone paths. I think my first step in putting that garden to work will be a harvest of all the mugwort that isn’t growing in the beds. It will be my first harvest on that land.

If you work with the plant and want some when its dried let me know. Ill have lots.

Yours,

Weaver

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