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Samhain dinner, dorm edition

Planning a tiny Samhain dinner with my roommates next weekend. Nobody else is a witch, but everybody misses somebody, so it works. The plan: one empty chair at the table, a photo of each of our grandparents on the windowsill, LED tealights (approved by the RA, in writing, I have the email), and my grandma's pumpkin bread, which I have failed to make correctly three times so far. We'll go around and each share one story about the person in our photo. That's the whole ritual. I think it's enough.

Setting the ancestor table a week early

Samhain is a week out and I've already started the ancestor altar, because if I wait I'll be doing it at 11pm on the 31st with a flashlight again. This year: Nan's reading glasses, a tin of the butterscotch she always kept in her coat pocket, my uncle's terrible fishing hat, and a photo of a friend from my old coven who crossed in spring. One white candle in a deep glass holder on a ceramic plate, well away from the curtains (lesson learned in 2011). For the night itself I'm planning a dumb supper: one empty chair, that plate served first, and the whole meal eaten in silence. If you've never done one, it's stranger and gentler than it sounds.

My grandpa died two years ago today. My family isn't religious and we've never really marked it. Tonight I put his harmonica on the windowsill, lit a candle (in a jar, on a plate, I read the safety threads here), and just told him about my year, out loud. It felt silly for about thirty seconds and then it didn't. I don't know what I believe. I'm not sure I need to yet. I just wanted to tell someone it happened.

Every so often someone at the mosque teases me and asks me to interpret their dream. My name is Yusuf, after the prophet who read the king's dreams, so I suppose it's fair. I am very bad at it. I mostly just make tea. But I'll share one of mine. We're taught to tell a good dream only to people who love you, and this place has started to feel like that. My grandfather, who died when I was nineteen, was pouring tea in a garden I've never seen. Tulips everywhere, which he never grew. He handed me the glass by the rim, the way he always did so I wouldn't burn my fingers, and said nothing at all. I woke with the smell of bergamot in the room. I don't need it to mean more than that. He was well, and he was still looking after my fingers.

Henri and the butter

Lucid again last night, which for me means about 11am. Night-shift baker problems. The trigger was the clock in the bakery. It's a big ugly Hobart clock over the proofing cabinets, and in the dream it had no hands, just a smooth white face. I've done reality checks for so many years that my body knew before I did: no hands, no time, you're dreaming. Everything went sharp at the edges, the way it does. And Henri was there at the bench. He died in August, and I've dreamed of him a few times since, but never like this, never with the light this clear. Sleeves rolled the way he always wore them, one higher than the other. He was laminating croissant dough. I didn't ask him anything big. I'd planned to, I keep a list for exactly this, but when it came to it I just stood beside him and watched his hands. He tapped the dough and said, in that flat Lyonnais way, 'You're rushing the butter. Cold butter, warm heart, not the other way round.' Then he laughed at his own joke, which he also always did. I woke up with the smell of flour in the room, which I know is probably just my hair. I made the croissants slower tonight. Waited an extra ten minutes between folds. Best batch I've turned out in months. Take that however you like. It's going in the journal as a visit.

Getting ready for the Gede (no, it's not the movies)

In about a week our sosyete in Brooklyn celebrates Fèt Gede, and the prep has officially taken over my life. Purple and black fabric on every chair. A shopping list with coffee, peanuts, cassava bread, a frankly irresponsible number of hot peppers, and sunglasses. The Gede like them with one lens popped out. Don't ask me to explain fashion to the dead. Because it's October and everyone is watching horror movies, a gentle bit of myth-busting: Vodou is not pins in dolls. That image comes mostly from Hollywood and tourist shops, not from our temples. The Gede are the spirits of the dead, with Baron and Manman Brigitte at their head, and they are honestly the funniest, most irreverent guests you will ever host. They tease the proud, they comfort the grieving, and they remind everyone that death does not end a family. What I can share of the day itself: a lot of singing, a lot of food, everyone in purple and black, and time set aside to honor the dead of our own families too. My grandmother in Jacmel used to say the Gede make you laugh so you remember you're still alive. That's most of the teaching, really. The rest stays in the peristil, as it should. But if you've only ever met Vodou through a movie screen, I hope this gives you a truer picture. Bon fèt Gede a little early, everyone.

Walt in the calendula

Six years this November since my husband Walt passed. He was not a witch, not even slightly. He called my herbs 'your weeds' and built me every raised bed I ever asked for anyway. Two nights ago he was in my dream, standing in the garden in his green barn coat, pointing at the calendula. Not saying anything. Just pointing, the way he used to point at a fence post he'd decided I needed to look at. So the next morning I went out in my robe and muck boots and looked. The calendula is usually finished by now up here, we've had two frosts, but there were seed heads all along the back of the bed that I'd completely missed. Those little curled crescent seeds, dozens of them, dry and ready. I sat on the edge of the bed he built and cried for a good while, and then I collected every last one. I don't know exactly how these things work. Forty years at this and I know less than I did at thirty. But I know that man always did want me to save seed instead of buying it. Come spring, every calendula in this garden will be from Walt's bed, and all five grandbabies are getting a packet.

Pappa's day, by our calendar

Our calendar has no leap years, so Pappa's anniversary creeps a little earlier through the English calendar every few years. This year it fell yesterday. The proper ceremonies were done for him by a priest at the Zoroastrian Centre in London, and I watched on my phone propped against the bread bin, scarf over my hair. At home I did what I know. Fresh oil in the divo (steel thali, nowhere near the curtains, as ever), a jar of white tuberoses, a cup of tea made the way he took it, far too sweet, and the Ashem Vohu and Yatha Ahu Vairyo for him, slowly, the way he taught me when I was six and fidgeting. He used to say prayers aren't for asking. They're for keeping the line open. So I kept the line open for an hour. Then I drank his tea, because he would have been offended if I'd poured it away.

Tía Nena and the white flower

Sunday night my tía Nena came to me in a dream. She passed in March. She was sitting behind me on the porch steps of her old house in Hialeah, braiding my hair the way she did when I was little: too tight, and with a lot of commentary. When she finished, she tucked a white flower into the braid and said, 'Don't forget me on Mondays.' I don't forget my eggun on Mondays. But I've been rushing, I'll admit it. So yesterday I took my time. Fresh water, a white rose just for her, her name said out loud and slowly. Some of what that dream means I'll take to my godmother, and that part stays in the room. The braid and the flower felt fine to share. She'd want people to know she still fixes my hair.

Testing a sunstone in Oregon fog

The sagas mention a sólarsteinn, a sunstone, that could show where the sun was on an overcast day. Plenty of researchers now think it was Iceland spar, clear calcite, which splits light in two and can help you locate the sun through cloud if you know what you're doing. As a blacksmith I love things that actually do something. So I bought a chunk of Iceland spar and took it out on the grayest morning this week. Looked through it at the sky, rotated it slowly until the two faint spots evened out, and marked the direction. Checked it against my phone compass and the sun's position: off by maybe ten degrees. My ancestors crossed the North Atlantic with tools like this. I can barely cross my driveway. Hail to the navigators.

In our house, dreams are mail

Hollywood taught a lot of people that anything involving Vodou and dreams must be frightening. In my family it's the opposite. Dreams are mail. Grann would ask us at breakfast, 'Who visited?' the way other grandmothers ask whether you slept well. Last week I dreamt of her lakou in Jacmel: the yard swept so clean you could see the broom lines, the mango tree, her voice calling my name from the kitchen in the tone that meant food was ready and I was late. I told my manbo, because that's what you do. What she said back stays between us. But I wanted to share the swept yard and the mango tree, because that's what Vodou looks like most days. Family, memory, and somebody calling you in to eat.

The botanica owner who said 'not this one, mija'

Went into a botanica last week for candles and picked up a beaded necklace I thought was beautiful. The owner, a woman in her seventies, gently took it out of my hand. 'Not this one, mija. This one you receive, you don't buy.' Then she walked me over to the saint candles and the herbs and showed me what was there for anyone. I could have felt embarrassed. Instead I felt taught. Eclectic doesn't mean everything is mine. Some practices are open, some are closed, and plenty sit in between, held by communities who get to decide. My job is to ask, listen, and admire from the doorway when the answer is no. I've also started asking my dad's sisters about the old Igbo stories. Some aunties laugh, some change the subject. One sent me a voice note that is forty minutes long. I'm on minute twelve.

Before the drums, the prayers

People are always surprised when I tell them a ceremony in our house starts with almost an hour of prayer. Catholic prayers first, then the Priyè Ginen in Kreyòl, French and langaj, the long litany that calls the saints, the lwa and the ancestors, everyone in their proper order. My knees know exactly how long it is. Nobody is sticking pins in anything. Mostly we are praying, singing, feeding people, and asking Papa Legba to open the gate so the conversation can begin. Last Saturday my goddaughter led part of the Priyè for the first time. Her voice shook on the first line, and then it didn't. In the corner an old manbo closed her eyes and nodded. That nod is worth more than every movie version of us put together.

Monday. White flowers and a clear glass of cool water for my eggun, a cafecito poured the way my abuelo liked it (far too sweet), and their names said out loud. Five minutes. It anchors the whole week.

Chrysanthemum tea for Double Ninth

Double Ninth was yesterday, the ninth day of the ninth month. Nine is the most yang of numbers, so two of them together is a lot of yang, and the custom is to climb somewhere high and look after your elders. I took my father, who is 81 and insisted on carrying the thermos himself. At the top of the hill in the park we drank chrysanthemum tea: a small handful of dried flowers, five or six goji berries and one lump of yellow rock sugar, steeped in hot (not boiling) water. Watching the flowers open in the cup is half of it. My father says they look like old men waking up from a nap. He would know. We poured a little on the ground for my mother, who loved this festival, and walked down slowly. Water wins by yielding. So do knees.

Winter Nights in the rain, as is tradition

Winter Nights blót this weekend. Oregon delivered its usual sideways rain, which honestly feels right. The old calendar marks this as the turning toward winter, the time to honor the dísir, the ancestral mothers, and the land-wights who put up with us all year. We kept it small. Me, my wife, the two kids, and my brother-in-law, who isn't heathen but has never once missed a meal. We stood at the edge of the back field under the big Douglas fir. I forged the stand for the horn myself this summer, so of course it leaned. We hailed the land-wights first, since it's their place and we're the guests. Then the ancestors by name, as many as we could remember: my farfar Olav who fished out of Bergen, my wife's grandmother Ruth who taught three generations of her town to read. The kids poured apple cider from their own little cups and each said one thing they were thankful for. My daughter (8) thanked the wights for the blackberries. My son (4) thanked them for "the mud." Can't argue. The mead went round the horn once and the rest went onto the roots of the fir. Afterward we had a fire in the iron bowl with the hose already uncoiled beside it, because a blacksmith who disrespects fire doesn't stay a blacksmith long. Nothing dramatic happened. Nothing needed to. The rain eased right as we finished, which my daughter has decided was the wights saying "you're welcome." I'm not going to correct her.

Café con leche at 3am

Monday I refreshed the flowers and the water glasses on my bóveda for my eggun, like every Monday. White carnations this time, because they were on sale and Abuela Cuca would have approved of the bargain. Woke at 3am to the smell of café con leche. Strong, sweet, scalded milk, exactly how she made it, with the pinch of salt nobody believed was in there. Nobody in my apartment drinks coffee after noon. The kitchen was dark and cold. I didn't go looking for anything. I just said, 'Bendición, Abuela,' and went back to sleep smiling. This morning I put a little cup of café on the bóveda for her. Sweet, scalded, with the pinch of salt.

The month without gods

In Japanese the tenth month is Kannazuki, the month without gods. The story goes that the kami from all over the country travel to Izumo to meet, so they're away from their local shrines. In Izumo itself they call it Kamiarizuki, the month with gods. My grandmother said not everyone leaves. Ebisu stays behind to look after the house and the business. So every October she set an extra cup of sake on the kamidana for Ebisu, as thanks for staying home and minding things. I live in Seattle now, in an apartment where nothing about the season matches Nagano. But the extra cup went up this morning. It felt like her hand on my shoulder.

Eight years crowned

Today is my eighth birthday in Ocha. What happened in that room eight years ago stays in that room. But I can share the prayer I said at my front door this morning, in Spanish because that's how it came out: Gracias por mi cabeza, por mi casa, por mis muertos y por mi gente. Que nunca me falte el agua fresca, ni la humildad. Thank you for my head, my house, my dead and my people. May I never be without fresh water, or humility. Then I called my godmother, who cried, and my mother, who asked if I'd eaten.

The red bird on my old route

Thirty-one years I carried mail, the same route for the last nineteen. My Loretta packed my lunch every one of those days, and there was always a little note in the bag. Mostly scripture. Sometimes just 'Don't forget the Hendersons' dog bites.' She passed in March. I retired in June because I couldn't stand opening that lunch bag. Now, folks around here say when a cardinal comes close, it's somebody you love paying a visit. I always nodded at that the way you nod at your aunties. Polite. Last week I drove the old route, just to see it. Stopped by the Hendersons' place (the dog is gone too, God rest him). Got out to stretch my legs, and a male cardinal landed on the mailbox. Not the fence, not the dogwood. The mailbox. Looked right at me and tilted his head the way Loretta did when she was about to tell me I needed a haircut. I stood there so long Mrs. Henderson came out to see if I was alright. I told her yes ma'am, I was just getting my mail. I'd put a dime in my shoe that morning like my uncle taught me, and said Psalm 23 like I do every day. But I'll tell you, I said it a little louder on the drive home. I don't know all the whys of this world. I know who packed my lunch for thirty-one years. And I know she never could stand me being sad for long.