Friday, April 16, 2010

Abominably Awesome

image copyright 2010 Karl Kerschl

Unrelated to either herbs or my own travels, I'd like to spread the word about another, equally goofy adventurer who's journeys I've been vicariously (and religiously) following for the past 2 years. Karl Kerschl's Eisner-nominated The Abominable Charles Christopher is, without a doubt, one of the most stunning web-comics out there. It's made me laugh, it's made me cry, it's made me hunt around for internet access when it was massively inconvenient to do so, all so I could follow the adventures of some of the best-written and gorgeously illustrated characters I've ever come across - and years after certain events have faded in his readers' memories, Kerschl brings them back in vivid detail with the tiniest of touches so it seems like they just happened yesterday.
Kerschl just announced that the first (really awesome looking) CC book is at the printers, and since he's self publishing, I figure that's an accomplishment worth sharing - go Karl!

Although I absolutely recommend reading it from the beginning, here are a few choice comics to get the ball rolling - enjoy!


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Archways, Art & Echoes of Escher

Today's random photo comes courtesy of recent Central American explorations... enjoy!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Poem o' the Day


image courtesy of the Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida

Compiling old songs and poems to see what's accumulated since I started this whole vagabond herbalist shindig... this one's from last September in Baton Rouge.

Satsuma

Pin oaks and tea roses and low-winging sunlight
So fierce
It enters as it coats
And I
Stand beneath the satsuma tree,
Fruit so ripe it collapses
In paroxysms of juice and yielding flesh,
Palate and bone and tongue
Vising and clamping fallen, lifted sweetness while
Thumbnails of forgotten skin
Dry swaying on their stems.

The sky holds me pinned,
Warm light silhouetting citrus leaves and leavings and
I am reminded of that orchard day
When you smiled and I came to you
Through appleweighted branches,
Parting our red sea curtain
Like divinity and death,
Like some raised-armed priestess calling down the mists.
Smile trained on you like sunlight,
I was drunk on the moment
Of bees and rot and beauty
And you
May have missed it entirely
But I don’t care;
It is still my favorite of all the memories I hold of you
And now I’m picking tea roses,
Viciously seizing petals and
Stripping stamens bare,
Their neighbors’ blossoms raining with each tug.
Mosquito needletips lance my flesh;
I am
Sweet as satsumas to their tastes,
My skin as thin and frail.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Instructions and other F.R.S.

So I was taking a break from my own living story and poking around on my favorite blogs in an idle search for random Fairytale Related Stuff, when I stumbled upon this particular...
...Key.
Secret.
Dreamportal.
Cheat code (if your metaphors are so inclined, and as discussed yesterday, who am I to judge?).


Talk about magic...
the idea of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess collaborating on anything is enough to send me running for my cloak and basket of tincture bottles, ready to venture out into whatever Wood happens to be nearest. But this...

There's a small, wistfully indignant voice coming from the vicinity of my left elbow that wants to know where this book was when we were starting out on our adventures, but she's answered by another, warmer one in the back of my throat, who reminds her that we didn't need it.

And she's right.

Still, if anyone feels like gifting their favorite young (or old) adventurer with the best consolidated set of Instructions I've come across in - well, in forever, really - here's a link to pre-order it from Neil's online store. I also recommend Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles (aka the "Dealing with Dragons" books), anything and everything by Tamora Pierce and Jane Yolen, and Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising" series.

I have a strong desire to venture out into the rain and mist right now to the local library and curl up cross-legged between the wooden bookshelves in the exact same spot I spent hours in as a girl, reading and rereading all my favorites. I bet it smells exactly the same as it did twenty years ago. I bet the carpet's still scratchy and the painted bricks are still peeling and the librarians are still busy helping awkward, imaginative kids find the myths and role models that will shape every one of their amazing adventures from childhood on. I bet it's still the most magical place in this tiny, little town.

I wonder if they've got room for another book?

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Aaaaand, we're back!

...And utterly grateful to be here.

After almost 2 months, 2 countries, poverty and decadence, ghettos and jungles, close encounters, sticky situations, spiritual epiphanies, flayed-open
fears, the kindness of strangers, homemade ice cream, illegal taxis, thirty foot cacti, moonlit skinny dipping, sweat lodges, street food, sick dogs, scorpions, Cuban cigars, fresh papayas, salsa dancing, emotional revelations, flirtations, prayers, songs, the hard-earned bones of a long-awaited book manuscript, and more blisters than I thought possible, I'm back in New England.

Tanned. Bruised. Pummeled. And finally -thankfully- humbly... whole.

I have apologies to make.

For the times I've looked down on simple pleasures I didn't understand, or let my fears trump my love. For the many times I thought love meant holding others to my standards, or holding myself back. For trying to do too much, too hard, because I was scared that the things I knew I could do would never be enough.

For assuming that anybody else's Path would look like mine, just because they happened to overlap.

I had my ass and my heart handed to me on this trip, and one of the things I learned was how much joy there is in appreciating other people's pleasures. So go out there and do all those things that make you happy, and know that if I didn't get it before, if I rolled my eyes or lost my patience or had some snarky reason why I wasn't going to join in...

...there's a good chance I still won't understand. But I'll do my best to love that it brings you joy.

There's more to follow, as I sort through laundry, memories, and the random odds & ends of the past two months' adventures. And of course, now I've got the next stage of my journey to plan. Feel free to come along on as much of it as it serves us to share; it's gonna be a doozy...

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