I’m too tired for a title

[From this afternoon] *sigh* Looking out the window, I just caught sight of two robins attempting to look for food. Digging through the snow, and tossing up leaves to get them out of the way. They’re living dangerously being on the ground where I can see them…Though I don’t see any signs of cats…Did hear the kittens in the crawl space…But those are Shredders babies…The robins are about two or three times bigger than those babies. *laughs*

I bloody well hate snow…And it’s seemingly all over the place. *pouts* Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! Dobby offered to take it this morning…Tried to tell Grim he had to come and get it and take it home with him…Told Raya she had to come get her share too…Sure, they all say they want it…But none of them will come and get it. *sigh* Sucks!

I had to send the Critters to school with two ‘coats’ today, as I don’t have warm ones for either of them. But we did find snowpants to fit them both this afternoon. It’s not quite that much snow yet…But Harley will need them tomorrow for his field trip, since it’s going to be outside. *shudders* Brrrrrrr…

It’s just not suppose to snow in October! I don’t want snow for Halloween! I want nice warm weather!

I’ve got to get to work on Sonja’s dress for her costume…She’s going to be some kind of princess…That’s about all I do know…Not sure if she’ll be needing wings or what not.

The Critters are going to start riding the bus next week. Which is good, as I have to go to the orthadonist Monday, and I’ll need that bus ride time to get back in time. The left side of my wire that runs behind my lower teeth came undone. The receptionist informed me that if I lose it, it’s $110 to replace! It’s a stupid little wire! Come on people…Why so much?

Got looking at the on-line place that I found the Herbalist course through, and found they have a creative writing one too.

Herbalist      

Creative Writing       

I’m tired already…So I’ll leave you with this, that I typed up out of an old almanac

What Is a Wicked Witch
by Elizabeth Hazel

The wicked Witch is an intriguing character. Her ugliness, threatening manner, and maliciousness are uncontestable, yet there is more substance beneath the obvious and hideous outer shell. Following many threads of literature, film, and art, I’ve sought to find the truth of this character behind the tattered robes and striped socks.

A Quick History of the Wicked Witch
In the early literature of the Greeks and Romans, Witches were young and sexy and got away with murder, literally. The tales of Medea’s brews and incantations, and Circe’s allure to seafaring men, make for fascinating reading. These two were dangerous, tricky, and sometimes evil, but they had absolutely no warts on their lovely noses. The Greeks and Romans had a fuller appreciation for powerful women, possibly because they were still conversant with various forms of the Goddess.

But time and religion distanced Western culture from a healthy spectrum of feminine images. By the fifteenth century, wicked and ugly Witches began to appear in primitive woodcuts. They are angular an grim, yet paradoxically they engage in lascivious activities with a goat-like master. These surreal persentations seem silly until the next page reveals a picture of a Witch being sizzeled at the stake. THey must have been very, very wicked, indeed. 

Some Ideas about Wickedness
What is wickedness exactly? Is it the embodiment of malice and threat in feminine form? Or is it merely a derogatory label for women who did what they bloody wanted in spite of pressure to conform? A legacy of religious persecution passed from the Romans to the Inquisitors, and many dissenters and heretics were burned. But the loss of the full spectrum of feminine images caused Witches to elicit an especially fierce variety of harassment.

The traditional Anglo-Euro wicked Witch is a specailized offshoot of the dark feminine image portrayed in the folklore and myths of many cultures. This feminine image, once respected in early civilizations, became demonized in a culture obsessed with virgins. Literature from the Middle Ages to the current era paints her as the enemy of the lauded hero. She is his polar opposite. Her blood mysteries and ecstatic wildness are anatherma to his pristine, rational, masculine persona. She evokes a crisis, an imperative mission for the knight to defeat or overcome her traps, lures, artifices, and spells. The hero must mobilize his resources and allies to win.

The Grimm Bothers wrote many tales that follow this plot line, only varying to the extent that a couple of snotty older brothers run into her first and go down hard. The irony of Grimm is that the hero often possesses his own magic to put and end to the Witch’s design. Apparently it is accesptable if the heroes use it, but not Witches. That is, being wicked evidently isn’t about the magic– so it could only be about two things; thwarting the hero, or being a woman.

Modern Witch Visions
Contemporary works presents the full flowering of the wicked Witch. In The Wizared of Oz, Frank L. Baum created the Wicked Witch of the West, whose winged monkeys terrorize the skies of Oz and good old Dorthy. Dorthy joins forces with the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, and destroys the Witch. The Witches in Disney’s Snow Witch (1952) and Sleeping Beauty (1959) are also out to kill the title characters. Disney drafted the tales from Grimm and Perrault, but crafted a modern view of wicked Witches in animated films. Snow White’s stepmother is conniving and trecherous; but Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty is a maelstrom of evil powers. She can teleport, curse, terrorize, abduct, engulf an entire cast with thorns, and finally morph into a dragoness of monstrous proportions. Disney make clear the line between good magic and bad in his films. His Witches have no redeeming features, and are obstacles to true love in both stories.

In these tales, the juxtaposition of the dark feminine with bright masculine reaches its greatest extreme: as the hero gets brighter, the Witch gets darker. Yet in modern literature, the pendulum of bright and dark becomes more muted. In Gregory Maguire’s book, Wicked (1995), the Witch character is attempting to restore justice by combating a tyrant. She is angry, defiled, and trivialized, and blooms into magnificent vengeful rage. Yet Maguire gives her the burden of inexorable fate, writing: "When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are most themselves are the victims."

Perhaps Maguire is correct. The individual driven by righteous fury is soon catapulted ino ego oblivion. The wicked Witch can arise, but her vengefulness leads to a doom of her own making–a sacrifice for the forces of light. The wickedness that is her greatest strength is also her greatest liability, leaving her vunerable to the socially acc

eptable hero.

In a culture of youth and beauty, the wicked Witch, the old hag or crone, is the antithesis of desireability. She is unwanted by men and feared by all. Her capacity for poloarizing the hero archetype is decried as evil, but who else will activate his destiny? The wicked Witch antagonizes human intellect into motion, single-handedly compelling a protagonist into asserting his courage. She makes a man into a hero, but is not thanked for it.

The lonely exception to this attitude is found in Carlos Castaneda’s wicked Witch, La Catalina. She stalks Carlos, and attempts to kill him. Don Jaun points out to Carlos how he should appreciated her efforts on his behalf. Carlos screws up ever encounter with her and barely escapes through dumb luck. Jaun tells Carlos, "There are some people who are very careful about the nature of their acts. Their happiness is to act with the full knowledge that they don’t have time; therefore, their acts have a peculiar power." Carlos is not allowed to indulge in hatred toward his opponent. Don Juan insists that La Catalina is necessary for his development as a sorcerer.

Much like Maguire, Castaneda blurs the lines between wickednedd and nonwickednedd. They have found a place and a meaning for the dark feminine image, shifting away from revulsion and rejection to a more thoughtful assessment fo the wicked Witch’s role. They are not liked, for no amount of storytelling can change a wicked Witch into a lap cat. But they are respected as a source of causality, a mechanism of greater destiny. Perhaps this is a sign that Witches have come full circle, back to the place they held in the days of Homor some 3,000 years ago.

The wicked Witch cannot be released with impunity: her realm of authority is fearsome. Her actions result in heroic efforts, a battle for survival. To encounter the wicked Witch within the pysche unleashes seething emotions from the restraints of ethics and rationalism. Opposing the wicked Witch is a catalyst for resourcefulness, ingenuity, and bravery in the face of danger. Both are exhausting experiences, but without her the wheels of fate cannot grind on toward the goal.

Each October, the wicked Witch resurfaces in the mass consciousness as Samhain approaches. Cartoons of the hag in black on a broom appear on doors and in yards. This commercialized image obscures her real meaning and power. But this year I’ll see those images with new respect, and honor her for the part she may play in a life filled with mundane chores and daily grinds. When she is doing her worst she is at her best. She is the hard corner around which glorious fate turns.