THE BLANKET AND THE BURIAL MOUND

 

 

This is my special blanket. It has the Elder Futhark Rune alphabet on it and these beautiful ravens, and a hood. It is double layered and has a fluffy lining.

 

Midsummer I was out in the middle of the night, undertaking a Northern practice called Utiseta, or sitting out. Traditionally, the magical practitioner sat on a burial mound overnight, although after the practice was discouraged by the church it took place just in secluded areas. It is a way of contacting the dead, or in my case divining through the Night. I once was told that every place is an urupa, the Maori word for cemetery. On every inch of the earth someone has died, so every part of the earth is worthy of attention. All places have spirit. So I can make my own place of power, or sit in an actual cemetery, whatever.

 

I will say little about the night, except that when I left the sitting place to go have a piss, the cloud cover dissolved momentarily and I saw a shooting star for only the third time in my life.

 

I was under a maple tree, and to get there and back I walked through a field of dry grass up to my hips. Of course I had my special blanket with me. I won’t do that again.

 

Afterwards, there was so much grass in the blanket. Over the following weeks I tried to pull out all the grass seeds. At first they were just annoying. My gorgeous blanket! After a while I began to have some respect for the grass and the seeds. Each seed was winged and barbed like a fantastic missile. Each seed burrowed its way into the blanket, to plant itself between the layers. Each seed needed to be individually pulled out, and boy did they resist me. And there were different grasses, I noticed over time. Some were burrowers, and they burrowed through the top layer of blanket. Some were nesters, and they tangled themselves within the fluffy bottom layer. Nesters and burrowers. Each seed has its way, had its purpose, its impetus to grow.

 

I am not great at detail and patience and perseverance, but if the seeds taught me anything it was those calm and underrated virtues. In the end, I washed the blanket and hung it, and stood and pulled and pulled and stroked and teased and pulled and detangled.

 

Grass just evolved that way. Natural selection has made grasses super successful. We humans have been creatures of steppe and plain. We like grass a lot. But also this:

 

Grass seeds have voices too. Seeds told me about need, and earth, and how to hide and grow in the hiding. Seeds made me patient and slow and focused. Seeds changed my state of consciousness.