#poison path

“Venus eclipsed— enraptured by the evening, glimpsed by the morning, an Earthen queen of adamantine desire wielding hidden knives. Untamed, uncaged, fierce Protectress of her Plot.”

Datura inoxia blooms in my garden.

A Wormwood harvest on the Dark of the Moon—

“Of these worts that we name Artemisia, it is said that Diana did find them and delivered their powers and leechdom to Chiron the Centaur—.”

Nothing like the smell of nightshades on a rainy autumn day. Gathering what I can before the next frost hits.

Datura inoxia, stramonium, and wrightii seed pods.

I spent the full moon cleaning and cleansing bones. I find that winter is the perfect time for it. It’s the season of the Bone Mother, it’s when the Cailleach brushes her bony fingers along the harrowed fields and leaves them frozen and rendered, when Boreas swiftly descends from the mountains of Thrace with the cold north wind in tow.

(Pictured above: Sirius, being 19 years old, is an expert assistant at all things necromantic.)

In my personal practice, as with many others, the nature of my work often coincides with the season. The Light Months of Summer are filled with Life: the chickens and the goats graze in the grass — newborn chicks and kids in stride — and I tend to my witch’s garden of deadly nightshade, datura, castor, yarrow, henbane, mandragora, tobacco, aconite, vervain, mugwort, blue lobelia, American ginseng, black cohosh, and much more. The Dark Months of Winter are ripe with Death: dried herbs from the summer months are worked into charms and poppets, their sleeping roots woken from their black cloths and fashioned into manikins, alrauns, or spirit boxes. Things dead are given new life, and this applies to none more than bones.

Fiyero passed away in the summer of 2018 and was left buried for over a year. For those of you who don’t have the stomach for bucket maceration, or if you wish to give a proper burial as with Fiyero, I recommend the earth. It’ll take longer than bucket maceration for the bones to be cleaned of flesh and fur, but it gets the job done just as well.

The bones were separated and laid out on a cloth atop a butcher’s block. The air was thick with a chthonic and funerary incense of myrrh and juniper tips: Smoke as offering, smoke to mask the scent of moist earth. The din of drums and violins tangled with the smoke, the atmosphere heady and hallowed.

To clean the bones, I add hyssop and burdock root to spring water. Any number of cleansing herbs can be utilized here (sage, vervain, rue, etc.). It’s become a staple for me to also include a few splashes of Florida water — not only is it used to purify or as offering, but the floral notes sure do make a bucket of dirt and decay smell a hell of a lot better. The more stubborn bones are left to soak, while others are cleaned with the cleansing water and a brush. To sing is to heal, so a song to the spirit that resides in the bones is an effective way to appease them, especially if their death was less than pleasant (if they were hunted, killed for sport, or a number of other ways).

The bones can be cleaned and returned to the earth as an act of respect, or if the spirit wishes only to rest. If they’re willing to work with you, then a number of things can be done, from working them into charms or jewelry, made into art or decoration, or if you wish to consecrate them, they can be enlivened as fetiches or spirit houses. As for other remains, such as hides, I often have those made into drum skins for ritual drums.

(Note: I’ve had people ask where I get my bones. The majority of them come from livestock that have passed on our farm. They live long lives, and after they die, they’re treated with high respect and the parts of them that can become something new, do. Other sources include roadkill or humane bone collectors in the area.)

Portland Button Works and the Spiral House Shop update 11 February 2022!

• The Witch’s Cabinet: Plant Lore, Sorcery and Folk Traditionby Corinne Boyer
• Grimoire Silvanus Zine Issue 5
• SATOR Square Design (available in multiple sizes as a button, magnet, hand mirror, or bottle opener key chain)
• ABRACADABRA Design(available in multiple sizes as a button, magnet, hand mirror, or bottle opener key chain)