Theresa Crater

I woke up to the news that my granddaughter, Ashley, is in labor. Her baby is a girl and they’re naming her Taylor. New baby soon!

Samhain is upon us. Halloween. All Hallows Eve. The beginning of the Celtic New Year. The day out of time in the Celtic calendar. The night when the veils are thinnest. The cross-quarter holiday between autumn equinox and winter solstice. The opposite of Beltane or May Day. The day when the Pleiades shine the brightest at midnight.

Samhain is also the third harvest. We harvest meat on this holiday. Not a pleasant time, like harvesting the grains at Lammas (August 1) or the fruits at Mabon (autumn equinox). This harvest may have contributed to the gruesomeness of Halloween costumes and movies.

My grandmother tried to teach me how to be a responsible consumer of chicken and kill what I eat. She was unsuccessful.

It was an ordinary summer day. She didn’t pick Samhain to teach me, since she was a Christian, a German, and not familiar with Celtic lore. She asked me if I wanted chicken for lunch and I said yes. I was about five. Maybe older. I can’t really remember. She told me to go pick one out in the chicken coop. Not understanding what was to come, I went out and picked a pretty hen.

“Not that one. She’s a good layer,” grandmother said. “Which one looks good to eat?”

It was then it dawned on me. “You pick.”

“No, if you eat chicken, you have to learn how to kill them and clean them.”

I dawdled. I picked the scrawniest one.

“There’s no meat on that one. Let it put on some weight. Pick a plump one.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Come on, now. I haven’t got all day.”

Chicken picked, Grandmother made me catch it and told me to wring its neck. I tried, but I couldn’t make myself do it. She kept telling me to wring it harder. “Just snap it. Don’t make it suffer.”

I tried. My chicken ran off, head cocked funny.

“Now you’ve hurt it.” Grandmother grabbed it and snapped its neck quick. “You need to kill them quick. They shouldn’t suffer,” she instructed.

Then I had to pull off its feathers. But I just sat in the dirt and cried. Cried and cried, while she plucked and plucked. “See how pretty the feathers are? Don’t you like chicken?” I cried harder. I’d never realized the cost of liking chicken.

She cut up that bird and fried it, and I have to say it smelled great. Then she served lunch. She gave me vegetables and milk and bread. No chicken. As much as I begged, she wouldn’t give me any chicken. “If you can’t kill it, you don’t get to eat it.”

Then suddenly her shoulders slumped. “I’m tired of this,” she said.

I imagine she was. She’d taught every one of her nine children how to kill a chicken, and several of her grandchildren. I guess I was the last straw.

She gave me some chicken to eat. I ate it. Feeling guilty, but not enough to declare myself a vegetarian at that age. I did become a vegetarian for a long time. Then I became a lapsed vegetarian.

I’m still an irresponsible chicken consumer, but at least I buy cage free birds that have been fed organically. I have yet to kill a chicken myself.

Today is Mabon, the Fall Equinox. The day and night are equal. The sun rises due east and sets due west. This is the harvest of fruits. Lammas (August 1st) began the harvest season with harvesting grains. In Greece it was the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a major initiation. It’s also my granddaughter’s birthday, and she’s bringing us a new life next year!

I remember watching my grandmother and her daughters can during August and September. She had a wood stove, so this was quite an undertaking. Someone stoked the fire, another cleaned the jars, another put the jars in the big pot to sertilize them. Then others were cutting up vegetables or fruits, putting them in the pot to cook just a bit. Then there was getting it in the jars, a touchy business. My favorite was waiting for the tops to seal with a wonderful pop. I was very young then, always underfoot until Grandmother decided to put me to work keeping the fire in the stove burning. It was hot in that kitchen, before air conditioning.

It’s harvest time. Time to enjoy the fruits of your garden, trees, writing, work and life.

I recently received an email asking me if I was the same Theresa Crater who talked to Richard Nixon about the Beatles. I answered yes and asked how s/he knew (Lee P). This little piece of the past had floated up from the Seattle Times and been reposted:  Could Beatles Become Issue in Campaign?

One Sunday my father took me to the Greensboro Airport because Richard Nixon was scheduled to be coming through. This was February 3, 1964 and I was 13 years old. When he arrived, I noticed that people were walking up to him to ask questions. I thought that’s what we were all supposed to do. I didn’t realize these people were the press. So, I asked him about what was uppermost in my mind. “Mr. Nixon, do you like the Beatles?”

Everything stopped. He paused and waited for the press to gather close. Then he told me he didn’t understand them, but his daughters liked them. I thought he was a bit dense not to understand the Beatles. Now I realize I may have been partly responsible for Nixon’s political come-back. For that I offer my sincere apology.

Suddenly everything got busy. I just finished edits for the new edition of Under the Stone Paw, which will be published by Double Dragon in April.

I’m in the middle of finishing edits for Beneath the Hallowed Hill, also due out in April from Eternal Press. The cover art for Hill is just fantastic. I’ll show you as soon as I can. I’ve also written some promotional material for The Aether Age:  Helios.

 On top of all this writing stuff, I just found a second cousin who’s living in Denver and a friend is in from out of town. Then there’s work, full of papers and exams to grade and curriculum packets to read. Plus all the regular work of just life.

Not to mention all those revolutions to keep up with. Must be all those planets moving into Aries. Are you busy, too?