midwinter dogbane

Do you know that feeling—

—when after weeks of cold—

—dark—

—foggy¹—

—compelling—

—grey—

—sink-into-able days—²

—you’re suddenly dumbstruck—

—by a jolt of blue?

Moments when, all unprepared—

—you’re nevertheless out of your nest and off on a jaunt— ³

—before you’ve even had breakfast?⁴

Off to a place where there are sticks to chew—⁵

—and sticks to scrape—⁶

—and sticks to admire?

A place where—

—freshly released—

—everyone glows?⁷

Gosh, I hope so.⁸

1. In some places around here the tree canopy is so thick it seems that hardly any snow hits the ground—and what does melts quickly when the weather is slightly warm. At any rate such was my surmise when, mid-snowy-walk, I came across this bit of woods. But maybe it’s actually Lothlórien and the snow doesn't fall here at all?

2. The grey fiber in the tiny basket is winter-retted Milkweed gathered last spring.

3. A jaunt to a place with no trees, for I didn’t want to miss a single drop of the glorious golden Sun. That there was also no snow was a surprise as the fields closer to town are mostly still covered.

Also—sorry to put the video here in the middle rather than at the end as usual, but somehow it fit.

4. Cousin to Milkweed (both are in the Apocynaceae family), Dogbane is traditionally gathered in the autumn, so this mid-winter foray is by way of an experiment for me.

5. Beryl chewed Driftwood not Dogbane as, being a dog, my boon is her bane…

6. This is just a very light scrape to remove the outermost dry bark. Too deep and you risk scraping/cutting the delicate fibers underneath. Some stalks (and their fiber), seem to respond well to this. Others—not so much. Each has their own makeup. Some plants will have long and accessible fibers on one side or end of a stalk and offer up almost nothing on the other. You never know. Or at least I don’t. And that’s not surprising as there is always more to learn about the delights of working with undomesticated beings who factor neither consistency nor human ease into their lives.

7. Sun or no sun, the breeze was not warm.

8. Or perhaps your jolt is the other way: days of blue punctuated by one delicious damp foggy one, or an unexpected snowstorm that turns everything magically white? Or??

Also—this candle! I used blown-out eggshells as molds and filled them with my collection of beeswax candle stubs melted in a beer can in a water bath. A surprisingly successful experiment. Blowing the eggs was especially easy as one of the holes has to be big enough to pour in the wax—and thus also big enough for the egg to come right out when blown from the much smaller hole on the other end, the hole through which I fed the bottom of the wick —knotted on the outside and then sealed with a little blob of wax before filling).