The Summer Solstice, also known as Midsummer or Litha, marks the longest day and the shortest night of the year. Since ancient times, people have gathered to celebrate the summer and honor the Sun. The days are warm, the flowers are blooming, and light reigns. Summer Solstice has also long been associated with fairies, those strange wee folk who play tricks and give gifts, according to their moods. (Think of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.) Therefore a good way to celebrate the Summer Solstice is to make a fairy house. Construct a tiny house out of anything you want — paper, twigs, leaves, cardboard, even plastic. Decorate it, furnish it, and hang it in a tree or hide it in a bush in your yard. Put an offering of tiny cookies or seeds in the house. See if the fairies gather. If they do, will you let me know?

I go to Cornwall in England and sit on a rugged crag overlooking the wild sea, and I think I hear the mermaids calling me. I go to Cornwall to walk on Bodmin Moor, an even wilder place where ancient magic still lies thick, floating in the air like pixie dust. I stand in the shadow of the Cheese Wring and I touch the Men-an-Tol for good luck and long life. I poke in the gorse bushes and find the jawbone of a long-dead sheep, gleaming yellowy-white against the olive drab thorns of gorse. The sheep doesn't need it anymore so I take it with me when I go home to America. I go through customs with the sheep's jawbone wrapped securely in my middle-aged underwear, because perhaps it is illegal to transport animal bones and I don't want some officious customs agent taking it away from me. I go home to my studio where I clean and scrape and polish the jawbone until it is purely white, no yellow left, and then I paint it with deep blue spirals and make it into an object of holy mystery. I go to my altar and give the jawbone a place of honor between a rock shaped like a breast complete with nipple, and a hawk's feather I found in my herb garden. I go there to meditate when I feel that life is just too much to understand, and the now-holy jawbone comforts me with its message of art after death.

Meandering and browsing through the trivia and minutia of my life – I can’t forget to buy dog food, remember to email Pat today, oh gosh I gotta get my hair cut soon – can this really be writing?  Tell the truth, Kim, isn’t it just listing? When I teach Writing as a Spiritual Practice, I boldly tell my students that it’s okay to list, as long as they keep their hands moving across the paper, they are still writing. It’s all compost, I say, someday you will find a tulip or a turnip growing there, I promise. But some days I don’t believe my own crap, you know? My listing compost won’t grow anything, it has no rich meaty red worms squirming with hunger, or slimy banana peels thick with mold. There are no invisible bacterial creatures brutally colonizing the muck like Vikings landing on the unprotected shores of England. No no, my listing compost is made of flattened dust balls and year-old barbecue ashes that deaden anything they cover. This is when I suspect my Muse of hiding out in her bathroom, sitting on the toilet and idly thumbing through a magazine, thinking her own thoughts and crapping her own crap, and withholding both from me. While here I am knee deep in dust bunnies and breathing the stale and stagnant air. Sometimes writing ain’t no fun, you know?

I have written before about my previous tussles with woodpeckers, bats, rats, squirrels and rabbits who have invaded my human territory. (See the article "Three Days of the Bat" on the website.) Here's another chapter about my latest go-round with yet another bunch of hooligans who live in my backyard — this time genius raccoons (raccoonus einsteinus).  This is a true story.

My cat Morgan has recently developed the highly annoying habit of peeing in the house when she's too lazy to go outside (and if you'd seen Morgan lately, you'd know just how lazy that is.) I have tried many methods to get her to change this habit, but nothing seems to work. So I decided that Morgan would just have to be an outside cat from now on. She did not take kindly to this idea, but then I don't take kindly to cat pee-stained floors.

So I blocked up the cat/dog door that leads onto the deck off my living room, and banished Morgan outside. If I want to let my dog Goody out or in, I have to open the door for her. Goody didn't like this either. She would have preferred the house to smell like cat pee. In fact, I think she might like that odor. She's a beagle and likes strong smells. Too bad, I said.

My living room deck is off the 2^nd story, and the cat and dog reach the ground by means of a specially-built ramp from the deck to the fenced-in area of the yard. It took a lot of time for me to train the cat and the dog how to use this ramp – cajoling, praising, bribing, rewarding. It took Goody a few days to get the hang of it, and as for Morgan the pee-er, it took weeks.

So, back to the raccoons. Morgan now lived outside, and only outside, I said strongly. (I have spoken! I am the boss here! I do not have to live with cat pee smell! – I said to myself while I listened to her piteous meowing to be let in.) I moved her crunchy food dish outside onto the deck.  That was in the afternoon. That night around 2 am I was awakened (the deck runs past my bedroom window) by yowls and growls and a strange clicking noise.  I turned on the light, got up and looked out the window.  Yes, a raccoon was on the deck. (It was the origin of the clicking noise.) Morgan was on the deck railing, back raised, every hair erect, and yowling at the top of her lungs. The raccoon gave me a casual glance and then lumbered easily down the ramp. 

The next morning I see that all the cat food on the deck is gone. Well, okay, I think, I’ll feed Morgan canned cat food instead of crunchies, watch her eat it, and then remove the food dish. That way there will be no cat food smell. I fill the crunchy dish with water instead. Morgan obviously thinks I should let her back in the house but I’m determined she shall not pass.

That night (again around 2 am) I am awakened, again by clicking and yowling, and also by a crash. I leap up and see outside on the deck, not one raccoon, but two. I think I recognize the smaller one as the prowler from the previous night. The crash is because one of them has picked up the crunchy/water dish and thrown it across the deck. Maybe they were pissed off to find water instead of the crunchies they were expecting. The larger raccoon is now tearing apart a plastic garbage bag filled with leaves and fir needles that I had swept up earlier. Suddenly I remember that also in the garbage bag is an empty Doritos bag. Surely he isn’t after Dorito crumbs?

Morgan continues to yowl as the big raccoon rips the bag to shreds and both raccoons totally ignore me yelling at them to get off my deck.  Goody now rushes into the living room and up to the sliding glass door. She frantically paws on the glass and begins barking her head off; although beagles do not bark, they howl. Especially when they see small animals they’d like to kill.

I get a broom and wave it out my bedroom window, trying to scare the raccoons and encourage them to leave. I’m afraid that they will attack Morgan and kill her (although she pees inside I don’t want her to die, and I especially don’t want to be a witness to her murder.) I don’t think my broom-waving has any effect, but the raccoons see that there’s nothing else here now, so they finally leave. After they go down the ramp, Morgan crouches at the top of the ramp, making defiant cries and trying to show what a brave and ferocious cat she is. I wonder what the neighbors are making of all this.

The next morning I take Morgan’s cracked crunchy/water dish inside. I tell her, you can come inside to eat, but then you have to leave again.  But after she eats, she runs away and I have to try to catch her.  Chubby as she is, she is still a lot faster than me (I am chubby too, which may have something to do with it.)  Finally I get ahold of her and toss her outside. I also go and remove the garbage bags from the deck and put them in the garage where they belong. Then I sweep the deck again to make sure there are no smell sources left. The only thing left on the deck are benches, a couple of flower boxes, Morgan’s warm bedding underneath the eaves, and her litterbox (she has to have a litterbox otherwise she uses the flower boxes. You may have gathered that Morgan is not what anyone would call a good cat.)

That night I am very tired because of the two previous raccoon-filled nights. I go to bed before 9 and expect to sleep until at least 6 am.  But no. Around 2 am, I am again awakened by clicking and yowling. I say at least 17 very bad words. Out loud. Then I get up and I am not in a good mood. My nature-loving philosophy has been eclipsed by a strong pull toward violence. Suddenly killing innocent raccoons doesn’t seem so very reprehensible to me.

I look out the window. Morgan is again on the porch railing, hissing and spitting and yowling, back and tail bushed out as far as they will go.  Clustered beneath her on the deck in a semi-circle are five raccoons, clicking like mad and staring right at her. Their intention is obvious. Since I have refused to provide them with crunchies, they are going to eat Morgan. They are going to rip her chubby flesh right off her bones, I can see it in their masked and glittering eyes.

So despite the fact that the raccoons were actually offering me a way out of my dilemma with my house-peeing cat, I could not let this happen, especially right in front of me on my deck. Diseembowelment seemed like rather a harsh punishment for wayward peeing, and besides, think of the clean up! So, muttering a hasty prayer that none of raccoons had either rabies or a death-wish, I again armed myself with my broom. Then I locked Goody in the bathroom, rushed into the living room, opened the sliding glass door, and ran out onto the deck, swinging my broom wildly and uttering blood-curdling cries that I hoped would terrify those murderous greedy masked thugs. I was wearing red plaid pajama bottoms and nothing else, and I’m sure I looked like something they would rather not see again.

Well, as you can tell, the raccoons did not kill me. Indeed, they didn’t even put up a fight. They scampered down the ramp as soon as I appeared on the deck. But the last one down the ramp looked over his shoulder right before he went down, giving me an Arnold Schwarznegger look that promised, “I’ll be back.”

Arnold didn’t lie, and maybe the raccoons aren’t lying either. Maybe they will be back. Maybe tonight there will be ten raccoons, or fifteen, twenty. But if they come, Morgan won’t be out there.  I have unblocked the cat/dog door, and she is free to come and go as she pleases.  I’ll try to be vigilant about her peeing-habit, but if you come to visit me please don’t sniff in the corners. 

My biggest concern now is that the raccoons will figure out the cat/dog door. I know they’re smart enough. What will I do then?

I am the wild hair of anger. I frizzle like I've been cooked by a too-hot curling iron. I am angry because my mother is old and forgetful and because she is steadily disappearing in front of my eyes, as if she is related to the Cheshire Cat and on her way to the dark side of Wonderland. I am angry because she has not invited me to come with her — look, there she goes, blurring like a watercolor painting left in the rain. She dribbles and chuckles at jokes no one else can understand. I cry, "Mom, come back," but after 50 years of listening to every word I utter, now she has stopped listening to me. I think she's even stopped seeing me, and now it's as if I do not exist, so that's why I'm so angry. If you do not exist to your own mother, then where are you? Lost in Wonderland, along with the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter and that furious ranting Red Queen. "Off with her head," screams the Queen, and sure enough the Cheshire Cat appears and steals Mom's head, leaving only her timid smile fading into nothingness.

February 2nd, Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhog's Day, marks the first stirring of the seeds, deep within the womb of earth. There is a sense of freshness is the air, and a feeling of possibility. This is the traditional time to set new intentions and begin new projects for the coming year. Here's a great activity to help you seed your intentions. I call it Intentional Beans.

You will need a small pot, some dirt, a packet of seeds (I recommend Scarlet Runner Beans, as they are easy to grow), marker pens or paint, glue, some beads or feathers or ribbons, and a little slip of paper.  Decorate your pot however you want with paint, beads, etc. Simple or elaborate, make it beautifully yours. On the little slip of paper, write your intention — such as good health, get an exciting job, buy a new house — or any of a zillion others. Roll the little paper into a ball about the size of a seed. In the pot put your dirt, your intention "seed" and one or two bean seeds. Put the pot where it will get natural light, and water it.

Watch your intentions grow. When warm enough, plant your beans outside. Every time you look at your bean plant, you will be reminded of what you intend to make manifest in your life.

A Compost Post, straight from the weeds of my mind: I don’t know nuthin, I say with a sneer and a grin. I don’t know and don’t blame me, I say while trying to hide, don’t ya know I’m stupid?  I don’t know and don’t care either, I say finally, in an attempt to convince others it’s a waste of time to confront me on what I don’t know. I don’t know, say my children when I ask them what they think they’re doing, even though I don’t know what I’m doing either.  I don’t know what I’m writing but I’m writing anyway because I said I would. I don’t know what good this all is, perhaps none at all because I’ll die anyway and my ignorance won’t matter any more, not that it ever did. I don’t know and wish I did, but perhaps it would spoil the surprise of heaven.

I had enlightened parents. They worked hard at it. My parents were proud of their modern parenting skills, so different from their own parents. Their parents believed in original sin that must be harshly eradicated in children; that children should be seen and not heard; and that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. I have no idea how my parents survived my grandparents, and not only survived, but somehow learned better parenting techniques.

My parents believed in praise, and lots of it. So I should be happy with my parents, right? Well, I am happy, at least sort of. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they didn’t ignore me or beat me, but my parents’ positive attention always took the form of praising my potential. And the shadowy underbelly of potential, which I was fed in lethal doses, is that to be told you have potential is to be told you are not enough right now. Potential is something you never reach.

My parents’ expectations set up impossible platforms that they expected me to attain. I can see their happy smiling expectant faces, encouraging me, secure in their belief that they were going to have the smartest, most successful, maybe even famous, daughter of all time. If I wrote a poem about a cow who mooed too loud, they wondered (aloud) if I was the successor to Shakespeare. If I got an A in math, they speculated (again, in my hearing) that I might become the female Einstein. If I bandaged up my little brother’s scraped knee, they bragged that I had the makings of a brilliant doctor.

Of course I never argued with them — I wanted to be smart and successful too. They believed in me – how could I complain? How dare I complain when some people have parents who neglect and abuse them? As a matter of fact, why am I still complaining?

Because complaining about your parents is a time-honored activity, practiced by all of us at one time or another. I just want to know: where can the fortunate go to complain?

I want to write about my Great-Great-Aunt Julia, who according to family legend and a somewhat vague reference in a letter she wrote to her mother, nursed Winston Churchill through pneumonia when he was a young man. This must mean that Great-Great-Aunt Julia is one of the saviors of the modern world, for if Winston Churchill had poor nursing he might have died, and then “blood, sweat and tears” might never have been said. Along with a few other things he accomplished.

I would write about Great-Great-Aunt Julia’s steady eyes and stern mouth, and how she pulled her hair into a chignon every morning and kept the part in the middle a perfect straight line. Did Great-Great-Aunt Julia ever mess up her hair, pretending she had a lover whose greatest delight was running his hands through her curls and making her sigh with pleasure? Did Great-Great-Aunt Julia give up the hot-blooded promises of her youth in exchange for the sterility of a London hospital and the powerful title of Sister?

No one knows much about Great-Great-Aunt Julia now; everyone who ever knew her is dead, and so is she. All I have is a studio portrait of a straight-backed woman in a nurses uniform, and that one surviving letter dropping the name of Winston Churchill.

Maybe that’s enough.