The magic of a good read

I'm just about ready to re-read for the 8th time. Thank you Charles de Lint for this great treasure!

purging fears

i am happy I got to share a great cleansing ritual today with a group of people i consider my folk, my peeps, my ohana, my clan, my kin, my cousins... i think i scared myself though when i sang a song that i've never had any inclination to sing outside of blood and outside myself! ha ha ha! as a person raised in a church ( against my own will, of course ) i've always had a love/hate relationship with the church construct.  (pictured, purging our fears in the backyard)
i come from folks (american blacks,caribbean blacks & mvskoke creek) who have : gone to "church" in the woods and/or given their lives up to the idea of jesus as the great white hope and the ideals of a judeo-christian ideal and/or gone to ritual on saturday & church on sunday. it's not that i don't like church, per se, i love old-time, backwoods church i do. i especially love the singing. it takes me to a most safe and serene place. that's where the comfort is.

when you sing, they all come. they are your folks. your ancestors. the ones who make you who you are. some are long gone from this world and some are right with you. every step of the way. that's why i sang the song i did.

i hope that my kin here, in this present, find that comfort,joy,solace,happiness,gratitude,understanding & patiencePLACE. together we can. i know we can. coming home from this circle i felt a little bit of peace. i hope that my kin take care of themselves and their loved ones approaching the holiday season and remember that better environment makes better people. 
ashe' & a'ho

In the land of DIXIE

Tuskegee, Alabama. Confederate soldier on the square. I always hated this statute. But it reminds me of the place....click the photo and read why

When looking for a home...

                             ( Photos top to bottom of page , New Orleans, Key West, Key West, Oakland )


I wonder if people, when looking for a place to settle down or settle into think about the history of that environment. I wonder this because my husband and I are looking for a house and I'm OFTEN drawn to Victorian and Colonial/Antebellum style homes. I'm always photographing them wherever I go. Key West, New Orleans, South Carolina, Georgia, San Francisco, Oakland.... As we look for a home though I thinking more about : " Do I wanna move into a house with new or old ghosts/haint/spirits? "

People should really consider these things. For real. I mean I'll take a old haunt over a new one anyday. Some of the modern homes ( post WWI ) really have pain in the ass ghosts. Like ones you can't get rid of. Young spirits who sometime just wallow. We've been in a lot of homes in the past couple months and it's amazing the different energy from home to home. Animal ghosts are the craziest and when I feel'em hanging out in a home I know I don't wanna live there. They tend to have a manic & sneaky energy about them. A liitle spooky? yea i know.

Tall Tales

I used to live in an old house near Gautier Street. It ran right through the center of town straight into the square. There in the square stood a bronze statue of some long forgotten confederate soldier and an elaborate fountain that contained everything except water. A sparse but beautiful wrought railing wrapped the balcony of the Rexall Drug store near the corner. Whether a windy autumn day or a still summer night, the black and orange metal sign would bang against the underside of the porch.
On Thursdays at 11:00AM sharp, the businesses around the square would shut down for an hour. This included the bank, courthouse, a couple of local eateries and the ABC State Store. Apparently, this moment of silence was supposed to be in memory of the thousands of slaves that were sold in the town square just a couple hundred years prior.
I still cannot figure whether this sort of homage was fitting for such an event of our time.

The house was located just beyond the town square on the road headed towards Eufaula.
The road was long and two-cars wide. In the spring the scent of gardenias and magnolia trees filled the warm, humid air. People could be seen working outside on their yards for most of Saturday. Southerners have always had love affairs with their lawns and southern towns are famous for these main drags. Usually they are the streets with the largest homes, great cascading landscapes and giant oak trees that flank the edges of the streets. Their thoroughfares seem massive in comparison to city-sized streets because the homes are setback quite a ways from the road.

I remember when I saw the house for the first time. It was a gorgeous spring day. Every bird was out of its nest and every lawn was freshly cut. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed it, as I rolled down the car window. Coming at the house from the side, I could faintly make out an enclosed porch near the entryway. The color was a muted coral with dark green, almost black, wood trim. Two visible chimney stacks stood at opposite sides of the house. Along the front, there was an arched plate glass window and a small portico at the main entrance into the house. This was all it took. With this one glance, I was in love. I needed to be here. Days later I dreamed I was sitting on the side porch in a giant, white wicker chair, with a pot of tea reading my favorite book, Castle of Otranto.

an excerpt from Bottletree Diaries, Chapter 4:  Tall Tales

a very cool website

the moonlit road is a GREAT website. if you like folktales and ghost stories, check it out!

you can read as well as have a story read to you! i think that's awesome. storytelling is all about the storytellers and the delivery of the content.