Laura Morrigan

I wanted my dog to have something nice to wear for Lunar New Year, not that she appreciates it. She likes being naked.  I decided to embroider a simplified Chinese dragon onto a bandana cut out of a scrap of velvet. I used two different shades of yellow embroidery thread as I did not have gold. I think it turned out really well, although you can't really see the dragon's head when the dog is wearing it.  Wishing you a belated Chinese New Year, as this post won't come out until February! Gung hei fa choi Xīnnián hǎo

Part One here Part Two here PART THREE It had been so long since I had seen the men of our village, I had forgotten them. How large and coarse they were, how they stank of sweat and alcohol, how they swore and laughed and beat their wives and children. And my father, leader of them all. Taller, and crueller than the rest. I had almost forgotten the feeling of his beatings. I had almost forgotten the sound of his voice. “Katya, come out! We know you are in there!” “Yanuschka! It has been over a year, how did they find me?” Yanuschka put her hand to her mouth. “Blood calls to blood, Maraya. Whether you like it or not you are tied to him. Remember?” It was such an innocuous thing, a silly accident over a week ago. I was cutting beets for dinner when I was distracted by a bird that had got into the house and was now being chased by Vanya. There was a sharp pain, like heartbreak. I gasped in horror at the finger lying on the cutting board, among the beets. Blood was flowing from my finger,

I did a little video of what I got from the online store Flora and Fauna which sells vegan and cruelty free products for the home, cosmetics and snacks. This video is not sponsored.

Read  Part One here PART TWO   We were digging in the vegetable garden behind the house the first ti m e we kissed. We worked with our hands, feeling the earth beneath our fingers and between our toes. I thought that maybe I could feel the life that she talked about, an energy in the earth. Sometimes I thought I felt sparks of it, tingling against my fingertips. The earth’s life force. The purest magic possible. This was Yanuschka’s magic. She wove it, strengthened it. Guided it into the plants to help them grow. She never took more than she gave back, she always respected nature.   Some say it’s a woman’s job to tend the garden. What they don’t understand is that it’s not about gender. It’s about intuition, communing with nature. Women are closet to the earth, to life and death. Men can find it too, though, that closeness. Most men and women, though, are blind to it. They don’t care to understand. They kill the earth with bad farming practices, not allowing the earth time to renew. Ya