Tag Archives: witch

by

Cauldron

2 Ways to Manage the Emotional Cauldron of Anger
Freud’s Theory of the Unconscious Mind

So, the iceberg graphic is wrong, wrong, wrong. Am I right? Icebergs are about 90% below the surface, which is NOT what the picture shows. Regarding the first article, preset timeouts? I think when two people are losing it, that may go by the wayside. My strategy is, “I have to use the bathroom.” It might take a while if I am really upset and want to rip the sink off the wall. But, it lets me cool down, cool off and not say terrible things. Let them stay inside my head until I am calmer and realize how stupid and nasty I wanted to be.

But let’s think about cauldrons, yes? A stew of emotions? Our culture still has little respect for emotions. Just think if we were all nice on the surface all the time and never showed any other emotion. Bunch of AI robots, I think.

Cauldron

It’s not so surprising to look up the emotional cauldron
and have it be about anger. Anger in couples, but the cauldron itself
brings up witches and therefore women. Women in black
women with cauldrons, women boiling angry.

I vacillate between thinking that black men are treated the worst and then, no,
women are treated the worst. Assumptions, useless, toys, pretty, be nice,
true that women don’t get shot as much, but our country found a black man acceptable
in the white house, but not a woman, black or white.

Anger is not nice, I am told. But anger is appropriate at injustice, when people
are discriminated against, treated badly, pushed from homes, jailed, hung and shot.
Much of our country reveres guns to protect homes, a man’s home is his castle,
and what is left for women? Not the workplace, the public, the home.

How dare they take the cauldron as a symbol of anger stewing?
The truth is that men fear women’s anger and rightly. They fear the people
who are enslaved, discriminated against, shot and dismissed, rising up.
Rising angry, anger not in a cauldron, but hot as lava and righteous.

A sermon about fear and abuse and the minister says, this is where anger can be understood
and is right. Anger at the abuse and at the fear, letting people break free.
Energizing a person to leave abuse, to leave an intolerable situation
and no reconciliation without the abuser taking responsibility.

What the cauldron really holds is greed, the people who think they deserve
more than others, more money, more women, more adulation, more more more.
Greed, gossip, lust, and all the other sins. Anger at mistreatment is not wrong
though it may not be safe to show it. Let it be conscious even if not expressed

and fight on.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: emotional cauldron.

The photograph is my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, in 1945. She was seven. I have photographs of my daughter and me with the same expression. Not anger, thought. I cannot credit the photograph because I don’t know who took it.

And to lighten the mood, both sexes are profiled.

Not all anger is right, though, and it’s often because of different interpretations, different frames of reference or misunderstanding.

by

The Witch and Silk

This is part of a series called The Witch of Fourteenth Street. I wrote it when I was hanging out with someone very very inappropriate. After another pneumonia, so I can blame that. Inspired by Louis Carreras’s story: Covert.

The Witch and Silk

The Witch is hanging out at the Giant Shed, watching the Cave guy work. She admires his muscles. She is listening to him talk, sort of.

“Men’s group meets tomorrow night.”

“A men’s group?” said the Witch, disbelieving. These guys are hyper conservative. “You play drums and beat your chests?”

“No!” says the Cave guy. “We meet Tuesday nights. We are learning skills for the coming collapse. You know that civilization as we know it is going to collapse. Spengler said so.”

The Witch has the book now, but hasn’t it read it. She doesn’t care. “What sort of skills?”

“Lighting fires last week.”

“What, with a bow and wood?”

“Do you know how difficult it is? Wait, how do you know about starting fires with a bow?”

“Another set of kids’ books. Earnest Thompson Seeton. Also tracking and snares and shelter building.”

The Cave guy rolls his eyes. “KIDS’ books. This week we are building rabbit cages. Rabbits for meat.”

“Ok.” says the Witch. “Can I come?”

“NO. THIS IS MEN’S GROUP.”

“Ya’ll will need some women when civilization collapses, though. Unless ya gonna be the last generation.”

“What skills do you have for the collapse? You must be prepared.”

“Two major ones.” says the Witch. “One: I am a physician. That is hella useful. Two: I know 500 or more songs, all twelve verses. I am entertainment when the televisions go dead. Very valuable.”

The Cave guy is silent, glaring. “Humph.” He goes back to the purpleheart.

The Witch grins. “Well, have a good Men’s night. Build those cages. Can I build one in the daytime?”

“All right,” says the Cave guy. He shows her the pattern.

The Witch watches the men come and go from the Giant Shed, where the Cave guy holds court and works as a Shipwright. The teen boys are there too, the mountain bike racing team, the Flying Monkeys. This is all ripe for someone to come in and use them, thinks the Witch. For something covert. I mean, it’s perfect. They are conservative, paranoid and listen to Fox News all the time. I’m surprised no one has already used them.

“My son and I are building frames.” says the Cave guy.

“Frames?” says the Witch. Frames are not boats.

“My friend Silk, the computer expert. He wants us to build them because he doesn’t want to source from China. They are our enemies.”

Oh, thinks the Witch. Oh, wow. “Uh, what sort of computer expert?”

“He says he can make any sort of money on the internet. He’s made his pile. Bitcoin early adopter.”

“The silk road? Are you sure you want to be involved?”

“Oh, he didn’t sell drugs!”

The Witch meets Silk. He is small and quiet and has a wife and a three year old. His house has a high earth berm to hide everything and a sheep that is about to die from not being shorn. Poor sheep, thinks the Witch.

“Silk is turning one of his computer programs over to me!” says the Cave guy. “Easy money!”

“And what are the frames for?” says the Witch, but she’s already scoped it. Black frames. For fake certificates, of course, which Silk is turning out. Silk has moved from a big city and perhaps had a different name. Well, thinks the Witch, Silk is busily setting up the Shipwright to take the fall for the fake certificates and the “easy money” computer program. The Shipwright is six foot 5 inches and apparently thinks his size means he’s smarter than Silk and also thinks that he’s leading the group. Silk is happy to be low profile. Silk takes the Shipwright along when he cashes in a huge amount of Bitcoin, as a body guard. And or fall guy, but there is no raid.

The Witch doesn’t think that Silk is as smart as he thinks either. Well, perhaps with computers. His escape plan is not so good. He takes the cash and a boat and his wife and his three year old and heads for Panama. “He’s taking his three year old daughter there right in the midst of Zika?”

“Silk knows what he’s doing,” says the Cave guy.

“No he doesn’t,” says the Witch. “Um, he may understand computers, but not infectious disease!”

“Zika is all hype, it’s not real.”

“Guess they will find out, won’t they.” And the Witch is not sorry for Silk. Only for the daughter.

___________________________

The photograph is of another project that is not a boat.

by

The witches out

The witches are out in the Halloween Parade downtown. Many are belly dancing.

The smallest children are not quite sure what to make of the witches. All of the monsters and demons and dinosaurs and witches are here replenishing the legends. The smallest children aren’t sure about me either.

One small child looks at me and says firmly, “Cwab.” Another one stares at my claws until he is led out of sight. I think he is wondering if humans can have claws for hands and WHY? Others are from the east coast: “LOBSTER!”

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: replenish. A friend took the picture of me.

by

Dating Scream

Happy Halloween, darlings, and let’s make you scream.

I am the Witch of Fourteenth Street, at least, I take a woman over on Fourteenth Street on Halloween. I can’t control her year round, but once a year at midnight, she is mine. Mine, mine, mine.

There is only so much evil one can do from midnight to one am once a year, but THIS year. Oh, darlings, this is so much FUN. She already identifies as a feminist. I can’t make many changes, but I can get away with one. A dating screen. Or a dating scream, if you prefer. While I am in her brain, I tweak a neuron here and a neuron there: just a little. If you mess with too much, they go all schizophrenic on you and some witches have been trapped in brains. I’ve been delicately tweaking this brain for years. Just a touch and then out and wait for the results.

Delightful.

So she wakes on November 1, and does she notice? No. I have to tweak lightly, so my touch doesn’t even go into effect right away. In fact it takes months. She is just having the result now.

“I have a new dating screen,” she says to a male friend. “Have you ever read a trashy romance?”

“No. Why would I?” says her friend.

“That’s my new screen. All these guys I know say “I don’t understand women.” If I ask them if they’ve read a romance, they act all insulted. They say why would I do that? The conservative ones act like it is beneath them.”

“Um.” says her friend.

“But if these guys are interested in women, why aren’t they interested enough to study women’s culture? Romances show exactly what our culture is packaging for sale to women. Bodice rippers. Harlequin Romances. And so forth.”

“Well, I’ve read two articles in Cosmopolitan about women.”

“The truth is that most men think women’s culture is beneath them. It is unimportant. They scorn Harlequin Romances, knitting, women’s work, women’s culture. And guess what? I don’t want to date some jerk who thinks he’s superior to me. Men expect women to respect male culture, but they have no respect for women at all.”

“Hey, not all men.”

“Yeah? Will you read a romance?”

“I have a long list of important reading.”

“Oh. I am disappointed. I would like to discuss a romance with an intelligent male. Never mind.”

“Uh, well… Um, maybe you could pick one that would get your point across.”

Oh, darlings, aren’t I the greatest witch in the world? I primed my victim with quotations. “Women’s virtue is man’s greatest invention.” Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901 – 1979). “In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman.” Nancy Astor (1879-1964). “I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). My victim has been thinking about the quotations and has reached a conclusion.

And darling, do you think she will find anyone to date?

Shall we start a pool?

(Evil laughter.)

by

I am the princess

I woke this morning thinking about a poem my sister wrote, titled I am a princess guarded by dragons snorting and grumbling and rumbling in wagons.

I am the princess guarded by dragons snorting and grumbling and rumbling in wagons

I am the princess guarded by dragons
snorting and grumbling and rumbling in wagons
I am the princess surrounded by briars
with wretchedly nasty folk starting briar fires
I am the princess with long, tangled hair
I cut it myself and I climbed down from there.

I am the princess, asleep ’til a kiss
woke me, he shoke me, all after was bliss
I am the princess who sat at her wheel
spinning, my fingers bled, hating the feel
I am the princess for whom you fought wars
Raggedly, jaggedly, murderous spars.

I am the princess, a wildvirginqueen
commanding with glory that none had foreseen
I am the princess who made wild things grow
I fought for my daughter, in winter below

I am the princess, I wore a great gown


Now cowboy pjs, I’d rather dress down.

by Christine Robbins Ottaway

________________________________

I did not want to be a princess when I was a girl. It seemed like a dead end career. The happiest day of a girl’s life was when she got married and what happened after that? Well, in the Disney animated movies, all adult women were either evil witches or evil stepmothers, or dead in childbirth. Until recently there were no live adult women on the throne who were not evil. And certainly the Queen in Frozen II has been attacked mercilessly by the Internet for being a woman without a man. Perhaps it would be okay if she were named Elizabeth.

I wanted to be a superheroine, not a princess. A secret identity was great and Spiderman had just as much angst as I had. I could be myself AND a superheroine. Princess seemed impossible and you had to be nice all the time and you had to talk to mice or spin straw into gold or be the daughter of a king. I did not want it.

Once I went to the Unitarian Church and my minister gave a sermon on each of the four types of Unitarians. That day was about mystics. I thought “Mystics, what hooey!” but by the end of the sermon I thought, oh, I’m a mystic. And a secret romantic. How exactly do I square that with my refusal to have anything to do with Princesses.

My sister was much more comfortable with the Princess Archetype than I was. I wanted a career that would support me and children, because even if my wedding was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, I still noted that half of marriages ended in divorce. And what about men? Almost no one celebrates the virgin male and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything about marriage being the happiest day of a man’s life. What is the story there?

My version is titled: I am the princess

I am the princess guarded by logic
By science, degrees and words pedagogic
I am the princess staying in school
seeming obedient to misogynist rule
I rack up a degree, residency next
study the landscape, study the texts

I am the princess who longs for a kiss
various frogs taste worse than horse piss
I am the princess flaying a man
who was already dead, to learn what I can
I am the princess, no wars fought for me
I fly under the radar, no one can see

I am the princess, perhaps I’m a queen
hide in a small town, nearly unseen
Treating my people while staying awake
Try to avoid being burned at the stake

I was a princess hiding from most
raising my offspring, I’d rather not roast

__________________________________________

The photograph is from the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race and is not me or my sister.

My sister’s blog: https://e2grundoon.blogspot.com/2009/01/chemo-not-in-vain.html

by

Upstage

I am reading Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius, A Guide for the Poet Within, for a class. In the chapter about cliches, she suggests choosing a cliche and playing with it. The first example on her list is “A sudden fear gripped me”, so she inspired this:

Upstage

A sudden fear gripped me by my nipples
I hear my mother: Colder than a witch’s titty
Why must the witch’s titties be cold?
Must they dance naked even in the bitter winter?
Can a witch retire at a certain age
Sit warm, clothed, with her cat and tea
By a fire with enough fuel for winter?
You’d think they’d get pneumonia dancing naked
In any weather; yet witches are usually old.
Maybe it acts like jumping in to cold water
To dance around a Beltane fire; maybe witchery
is hot work and they aren’t cold at all.
Maybe a witch’s titty is warm all the time
And meanwhile the fear is gone, upstaged by titties.

by

art installation naming contest

Ladies and gentleman and others, my friend Liz wants help naming the art installation that she put in my yard!

Who can tell me about the chain?

The hat is clearly from either a witch or a which, I’m not sure witch.

Have at it. Let’s see, the winner will receive a prize which Liz and I have to figure out…..

by

Phoenix Rising

P for Phoenix, for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. This post is for Amanuensis Sobriquet-Reverie. Her poem today “Burn the witch” brings up present and past difficult memories. Here is the poem I wrote about it in 2003.

Phoenix Rising

Set a torch to me
Why don’t you?

It’s not the tearing sound of fabric
A small rip
And now a tear
That I feel

It’s the torch

I’ve been here before
A job where the idealistic came
As moths to the flame
Self-immolation
Because they had ideals

I watched and burned and rose

It’s the torch
The flames that rise
As the witch is burned
Tilts back her head
In ecstasy and knowledge
Eager to learn what she can
From these burning brands

In the burning we learn
In pain we learn
If we can remain open
Ashes fall to the ground
Buckets of water
Wash any remains to grey mud
Gone, punished
Relief for the frightened
An example has been set

No but what stirs at night
Moon or none
What rises from the mud
The ashes
Takes form
Takes flight
Laughing

Set a torch to me
Why don’t you?
And see what is created

a local bookstore
previously published on everything2.com