white, coating the dark wilt of the rhododendron, the beige suede of my boots. white, mirrored above by more white, tinged with a flat gray.

white lying on the planes of roofs, limning bare branches, dancing as moths in front of the bulb of the streetlamp. a cast of the shovel unites whiteness with a hillock, but the roaring wind throws it back, crystals on a white face.

now is the time for the Hearth Mother -- Brighid, Vesta, Hestia, Tabiti -- the speaking flame around which we huddle to tell tales, to ink our lives on the white that threatens to erase us with its sameness. to share sustenance and laughter, or to curl up in the white blanket of solitude, letting hunger hallow us as it hollows -- an aeolian harp played by the winds of winter, a flute to the mouth of Marzana.

and so. i praise the Hearth Mother that fires the furnace and feeds the belly, that holds back the tide of winter within four walls. flickering flame altar-dancing, the hum of necessary machinery, the smell of baked goods, the white crescent of the cat on the lap. Hearth Mother, i praise you.

ever think that students of ancient cultures read far too much into mundane phenomena?

this occurred to me while i was reading Alwyn and Brinley Rees' Celtic Heritage. in their chapter on "Numbers," they discoursed on the numbers they believed were sacred to the Celts. three and nine, certainly (we knew that), but also five, occasionally seven, seventeen, thirty-three, and even a passing reference to fifty. this is based on the numbers of buildings on an estate, cantrefs, women in mythical households, times it took Finn to uproot a tree, ad nauseum.

and my mind flashes ahead a few millennia, to some uncertain future on a faraway planet. our long-lost descendants are sitting in a cafe, sipping some sort of glow-in-the-dark beverage and bitching about relationships whilst watching the third moon set and the second rise over the hovering streetscape.

in this world, anthropologists have written articles and dissertations about sacred numbers in North American culture. nine, reflected in the number of Supreme Court justices and the members of many city councils. seven, as the number of Harry Potter books and, ultimately, Rambo sequels. but the most sacred number of all seems to have been 50 -- plus or minus a few additions -- based on the ancient practice of dividing land into sacred states, each known for its unique character.

and in this world, the new age movement have read said anthropologists and devised an astrological system based on the fifty states, plus the two territories of Guam and Puerto Rico to fill out the year (which, oddly enough, is based on the Terran year, although it bears no relation to those alien skies. old habits die hard, i guess.)

it leads to conversations such as these, between an astrologer and her client:

Xenala52: Your name is Susan? How old-fashioned!
Susan: Yeah, my parents were big into old-earth history and culture. so, you've read my chart? should Gaf'Ael and I get hitched?
Xenala52 (pressing her fingers to her temples to get her internal visioning-screen operational): ah, there's some problems. (she whips out a tiny Blackberry-type device and shows Susan the screen.)
Xenala52: You see, your moon is in Alabama and his rising sign is Oregon. You'll have a lot of conflicts over family values and the like. also, see, his fifth house -- that's relationships -- is ruled by Alaska, the coldest and farthest away of the states, and his moon sign is in Guam. while Guam is warm, it also is far away. it's also a staging area, which means he's always looking for something other -- another place to land.
Susan (sighing): Yeah, i can sort of see that.

Well, can't be any worse than the faux Celtic tree horoscopes, no? (Confession: I'm always classified as hawthorn in those.)

Holy Brighid, bless this day with the fires of inspiration. May you drive the engines of my work, and cull what is unneeded from my profession, my life and my creative endeavors. Holy Brighid, may my words flow as sweet as honey and shoot as straight as the truest arrow. May the work of my hands and the work of my tongue be crafted in truth, and for the betterment of the web of life.

before the beginning, the tales tell, there was one-in-many and many-in-one. two-sexed, many-sexed, hands caressing, opening, closing, each finger unfurling, a flower in flesh. vines, we curled into each other, over and under, the fronds of hair and limb, fruiting and sweet.

what there was not was all-one-ness. what there was not was desire.

for what was desire, when every fruit we dared pluck dangled in reach, nodding sweetly, for the tree limb was part as we were part? when the river that was our blood rose up for us to drink? what was desire when we were always in embrace, always touching, making love, one flesh? what was desire when every need was met before our asking by every other part?

some say the Gods were jealous, lacking our worship. that they took sharp sticks and pried our bodies apart, separating us as so many worms squirming in the dirt. and they bade us build temples and churches to them, to offer up the necessary sacrifices with the holy fire so that they may be fed by our hunger, loved by our lack, our need.

but i do not believe so. for they had created that eternal coupling, of which they were part, as we were part. so one would assume -- but it was long ago.

whatever force pried us apart, the act was done. for the first time, we shivered, cold after half or more of our flesh had been sliced, excised, surgically removed. we felt hunger, as the trees were no longer part of us, and no longer bowed their boughs. the river no longer anticipated our thirst, and we learned then to cup the water with our strange paws -- a bundle of flimsy sticks, fragile, a strange whimsy.

thus was born the individual.

and we turned, seeing each other then, for the first time -- amputated limbs all, bled dry by the surgery. we opened our arms, rushed into embrace, crying always, "will you make me whole again? will you make me whole?"

thus was born desire.

but the barrier of flesh was too strong, and skin thrust us back. we rebounded, atoms in orbit. the moments of merging were just that, moments only, half-swathed in illusion or homesick memory. and the cruel gates would crash shut inside us, all iron and rust.

but we could not help asking; the question drove us, a wicked engine, coals under our soles. "is it you? you? will you make me whole again? will you make me whole?"

asking, we embraced one another and then turned away. we built their temples and churches, made the sacrifices. we built schools and hospitals, empires and engines of war with our asking hands. with the lathe of our being, we turned all we could touch into the image we thought would fulfill us and wept -- secretly, in darkness -- when it did not.

and so. i sit here, curled with cold, wanting what i cannot have, giving in to the malaise of my hunger. perhaps it is the memory, half-faded, in all our genes.

the headline mentioned a woman who "gives birth to her own grandkids."

cynical me snorts, "must be in Appalachia."

a long pause, in which i remember the official map and the legal definitions.

"crap. I live in Appalachia. and i probably own more Appalachian instruments than June Cash."

and somewhere, in the Otherworld....

there is a knock on my vintage 1930s glass and wood door in between the weekend chore round. on the porch floorboards stands a Tony Soprano thug, all black leather jacket, heavy gold jewelry and slicked-back hair.

"Hey, I'm here to repossess your credentials. You don't need 'em any more."

Me, covered in garden dirt, with a strand of hay in my hair from the mulch: "What credentials? Do I know you?"

"Your Jersey Grrl credentials. Seeing as you live in Appalachia, you don't need 'em any more."

What would you do with a thug at your door? Sighing, I opened the latch door of my heart and dug them out, pushing aside philosophies and idols and books. They were a bit worn around the edges, and attached to a cheap metal chain that swung as i passed them across the threshold, then frantically stooped to catch the cat slinking toward the aperture.

"Where do I get new ones?"

"New what?"

"New credentials."

"Sorry, hon. You'd have to move back for that," he said, getting into a waiting black Camaro.

"Do they have credentials for here?"

"Beats the shit outta me."

Slam! The exhaust spews Jersey air down the street, and the mockingbird on the line coughs.