here & after

So, Halloween is over and the cracks between the hereworld and the afterworld have sealed once more. Or have they? 

Do you feel the ripples, the tremors, a brush of fingers across your cheek, a tap on your shoulder, a breath from out of thin, frosty air? 
Did you hear the whispers from disembodied voices, a bump, creaking, a scratching, footsteps? Did you feel a shiver coursing through your flesh, creep along your bones, curdle your thoughts?
Did your heart stop beating for longer than it should?

So, All Hallows has once again been lost to the avarice of time to sleep a deeper winter-fed sleep, beyond the flicker, beyond the living, beyond the dying, to surrender, submit, be subsumed, be consumed, be entombed.

Light is lost to dark.

I find myself wandering shadowy corners of this second life, invited in at every turn to find more than meets the eye. I walk in wary expectation, anticipation, looking every which way for what may be lurking, stalking, what may be waiting, lingering, what may be hungering, thirsting, for just such the likes of me to, in all innocence, wander past.

The longer nights draw out apprehension, percolating fear from every pore. At any moment  something, anything, could come forth, exude, weep from unbeknownst slumbers and grab me by the ankles, wrap itself around me, cling to my clothes and skin, peel away all semblance of self and will and resistance, beckon me to crumble, to surrender, submit, be subsumed, be consumed, be entombed.

“Give up, give up, you know you want too, give in, give in, and follow your desires, give way, give way, let you whole self crumble, mind, body and soul.”

… this is what they say, bewildering me, but not in words I recognise, a feeling unearthed, disinterred.

Wintertide’s a time of not just receiving, but giving, and I must give, give, give, more and more and more, let the season feed on all my emotions, let the winterland grasp me ever closer into its embrace. Give, give, give, a hunger that won’t easily be sated. I’ll fall, let myself fall, taken and awakened. I become an offering for others to receive. It’s what I really need, they say, despite my nervous uncertainly. 

Yuletide, Advent, Solstice, Christmas, all that’s holy, all that’s pagan, all that is unholy residing and colliding within me and without.

Don’t be fooled by baubles, tinsel, dancing lights, all the temptations of the long night. Although, I may not have a choice, I do not have a choice, choices made long before I was even born. All paths lead to the same point of origin with an unerring yearning that’s long been impossible to refuse.

© Anan Eebus 

fallen for autumn

 

I’m coming out of the cupboard because autumn is here, my favourite time of the year, definitely my favourite season.

I can’t say I am missing those baking hot days of summer, being of vampire skin, i.e. burns easily, I for one am pleased we’ve lost more than a few degrees as autumn, or Fall, depending on your preference, seeps into our days and our bones. Yes, it’s chilly, yes it’s a bit damp, yes it’s a bit more breezy and yes, possibly a bit more rain but not actually worse than summer rain as when we had it just made for flooding. So I welcome autumn with open arms as I always do.

And SL is all over autumn too, well, mostly. Or perhaps just where I visit as if you’re in the southern hemisphere then I know it’s not autumn for you but the beginnings of spring. Isn’t that just weird, you think, being on the same planet and yet here we are having not just different seasons but polar opposite ones. But I guess that’s what the poles are there for, to be poles apart. So now, as in RL I seek out Autumn in SL where also the colours are just so vivid and alive, even though technically they symbolize a slowing down, even death, as leaves change colour and drop to the ground to dry shrivel and decay, or get squirrelled, or wormed, away by worms underground, as that’s what worms do. Although I have to see if that’s also true in SL: do worms sneak leaves underground?

In fact, is there even an underground in any real sense in SL? We talk all the time about the ‘sea’ or the gap between sims where nothing exists, the Void Ocean, as it’s called, but rarely do we think about what’s under our feet. A bit like RL really, few ever wonder about what they’re walking on and what goes on down there which is just as much or even probably far more than what goes on above ground. An entire world out of sight and out of mind.

Anyway, here are some photos of my SL autumn travels. I hope to post more over the season, at least before winter gets a fingerhold.

~x Anan 

 

 

 

winterlines

           I love winter. 
            It’s the darkness, the long dark nights when I can hide, not be seen, pretend the rest of the world is far, far, far away or maybe doesn’t exist at all. In its absence it offers so much, it’s an absence of light but a presence of temptations that dare not come out during the day for being ostracized or bullied.
            A time when shadows are no longer distinguishable from not-shadows, when there are merged or swallowed up by the all-encompassing, as I feel I am when night comes in tracking across my skin, darkening me, reshaping me, remaking me. Every night I feel I’m being rearranged and during the winter there’s longer time for this indulgence to be indulged.
            The sun’s very lethargic during winter, almost to the point of ailing.  Or is it saving it’s energy for longer days?  Even the sun needs a rest after all the work it’s done during the spring, summer and to some extent even autumn, it has to take its toll a little bit and leave it feeling more than a little weary, weather-worn, ragged around the edges.  Hence winter, a time for it to take the time for itself leaving us to our own devices largely, leaving us to face the dark for longer and longer, encouraging us not to ignore that side, the darker side, our negative.  Colourless it may seem but rich in shades and subtlety that light can only dream of and rest on its laurels of spectrum overload to make up for what it lacks in tone.
            The winter embraces, draws me in with offering and often comes through with its tantalizing treats.  Moods are different in the winter. They become secretive, some become agitated, some tetchy, but others become reflective as though looking into the pitch dark lets is see so much more than the exposed glare of a midsummer’s day.
            Others abound also during this time. The normally hidden, forgotten, ignored, rejected, things discarded as myth, as imaginings, hallucinations.  These things exist but need the right conditions to feed and thrive, conditions that winter offers in abundance.  An uneasy balance is struck between unlikely alliances during these forbidden, and for some forbidding, months, the world beyond, or even worlds beyond, are never very far away and the fabric between so thin that merely brushing against it could cause a tear through whose frayed edges nocturnal natures may seep.
             I love the winter, precariously-balanced on the edge of the year.
  © Anan Eebus (16th January 2018)