Effy Bird Wild

…witchy as she was, to leave us on the dark of the moon. I had a feeling yesterday, given that I woke up with a terrible case of the shakes, that it wasn’t going to be long, and I was right. Sookie spent the morning in bed, fairly relaxed, in and out of sleep while I worked and puttered and checked on her every fifteen minutes or so, but at some point she came into the studio to lay down at my…

TW – Pet Loss My Sookie is taking her last long walk home and I’m sitting with her while she does it. Today, she’s very quiet, in and out of sleep, no signs of distress, but no interest in anything, either. Her sister, Salem, has been curling up *near* her but not *on top* of her like she usually does (jealous little thing). Sybil has been visiting now and then to touch noses. It’s been very…

1968 – I will rail against the wreck in the only way I know how. I will howl. I will howl. 1970 – I will assume you don’t really mean to wreck me, but that there is something in me that needs wrecking. I will run my finger over the fontanelle of my baby sister’s skull and wonder as you, saying “Gentle, gentle”. Does this mean you want to wreck the impulse to harm in me? I would do no harm, but…

Them to me: “The way you just name names and cut people off when they betray you. It’s scary! It makes me uncomfortable being your friend!” Can we talk, for a moment, about the way you tell on yourself when you say shit like this? (You know who you are, I see you there with your cheeks burning because damn, you said that/thought that/implied that, you did. I know. You know. We know. Anyway…) I…

An actual picture of me as a journal artist. 😀 I began my healing journey in earnest in a journal, free writing my heart out every day. That eventually shifted so that I poured my heart out every day in an *on line* journal, though I still kept a written journal on and off throughout the years. Then, I started writing poetry. Then, I got a wicked case of writer’s block and I found art journaling.…

There are friends who will witness you in your deepest darks (crying in a towel with wine stained lips or whatever your deepest darks look like) and love you and never betray your trust, and then there are “friends” who will witness you in your deepest darks and use it to try and ruin you as soon as you don’t deliver what you never consented to deliver in the first place and I’m here to tell you…

I had this amazing exchange with Staci Jordon Shelton the other day that culminated in this gem: “…gaslighting ourselves in the name of “compassion” is a no.” – Staci Jordan Shelton I have done this my entire life up until very recently. Twenty twenty was the beginning of the end of that for me because the pandemic and all that came with it for us globally and for me personally sent me spiralling…

There are some things I’ve learned over the last three years or so that are just now feeling “integrated”, like they’re trickling down from my brainmeats down into the place where deep knowing resides. One of them is that a lot of how I’ve been managing my life (and business) is reactive and not responsive. I have no plan. I do everything by the seat of my pants (and the skin of my teeth). I am…

I’ve long been aware that the socials are designed to be addictive, and I’ve become pretty careful about how much time I spend scrolling these days. I quit TikTok pretty much altogether and only head over there when one of my kids sends me something they want me to watch, but I only do that when I feel strong and capable of watching ONLY what they’ve sent without getting sucked in, and that’s not…

I am an all or nothing person. I think this might be a trauma response but until I know, and until I’ve managed to be less of a trauma-respondy person, it’s become important to me to make this work in my favour. If I don’t keep moving, I will stop cold, and getting moving again is *very difficult*. Here’s what that looks like. If I don’t write every day, I stop writing. If I don’t do the dishes…

If you know me at all you know that I’m just now coming out of a very long period of what can only be described as OMGDOOOOOOM. For three years or so now – pretty much since the pandemic started and my kid went off his meds (so, June of 2020), I’ve been in a very dark place, and by “dark”, I do not mean the rich, moist soil where I’m putting down roots kind. I mean that I was looking into the…

The thought that keeps arising lately is this one: I am living in the liminal. I’m surrounded (and encroached upon) by the binary. The good or bad. The rich or poor. Love or hate. The right way or the wrong way. Perfect or imperfect. Light or dark. Him or her. Easy or hard. Healed or wounded. Ordinary or enchanted. Sacred or profane. This is, I think, by design. I think we are being funnelled by…

I took delivery on a hammock chair after having my inner covetousness activated by seeing it in action (and yoinking it from Kimi for a bit) and instead of leaving it in the box for a year like I might have not too long ago, I unpacked the thing and took it on a test drive in my front yard. I loooooooooove it, though I will admit, it’s a bit of a trial to get in and out of the bag and set up –…

I wrote a poem and someone commented “Somewhere out there, Mary Oliver is smiling…” and that made me cry because she is my matron saint and so much a part of my literary and spiritual lineage. I felt so seen. Someone who used to make me really uncomfortable and doubt myself and feel like I didn’t belong now has the exact opposite effect on me and I am shocked by the amount of tenderness I feel…

I do not understand time right now. How is it already April 11th? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I feel like a kid on a merry-go-round – hanging on for dear life while the thing spins me into a state of panic and vertigo, and I know I’m not alone. I keep opening this little portal of light with my fingers hovering over the keyboard, but everything I want to tell you isn’t quite ripe enough to share yet.…

If you read my last post, you may have noticed a sneak peek of a painting in progress. It was just a drawing in black paint with black hair at that point. Here it is again in case you missed it. I had a couple of classes to attend the day after (thankfully with camera & mic off) so I splashed around the entire time and ended up with this. Back when I was still in school I had a teacher who told…