Weekly Zephyr #90: Hibernaculum

January 08, 2020

Casey Roberts, half-light and hidden away, 2016

I fell in love with the word

hibernaculum many years ago, on a random dictionary spree, gathering some new words

This was when I thought I might be a singer-songwriter you thought what nowyes, I thought I might move to brooklyn and sing songs at one point when I was feeling lost I composed plinky little songson dinky keyboards and wondered how a person does it legit
do it, keep doing it, be meant to?anyway

I saw hibernaculum and gasped. It starts to sing itself, right? the rhythm!  hi-ber-NAC-u-lum and I wrote a song with that title that I only partially remember the song's dead in any case and I am not a singer-songwriter

but great news: the word lives!a person can still use it, doesn't have to be in song.

I don't know what you picture when you read hibernaculum but I see a miniature ice mansion in the middle of a tree trunk, tricked-out and intricate and cozy, like Jeannie's bottle from "I Dream of Jeannie" but ice-themed, for animals and whoever else can fit.  If they're something else, that's just rude.

They are something else, can you believe it.  If you google-image hibernaculum don't get your hopes up  get them DOWN   
C.R., bonsai pair w/loose-weave rug, 2016

I say we take the word back from snakes* and bears. Fuck 'em, they don't read this newsletter, they won't know.

 *snakes in particular, clearly actually just snakes

 Here in the dire times, we need a retreat. We need nests, we need ice mansions to hole up in.

 quiet place, 2017

ICY BUT COZY LOOK I'M NOT A DOCTOR, THIS DOESN'T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE

or a LAWYER

that's not the way to make friends, 2010

I have a few things for you and your hibernaculum.

learn about texture, and the necessity of circles in your square and rectangular rooms, and about properly too-big lamps, and clusters of lamps, and dark-colored walls, and see her dogs, Wyrtle and Monkey

  2. The Splendid Table suggests the best way to make a baked potato. Better than our old technology for that? What if this is true. This involves brining and painting.   3. <URGENT> Pen15 on Hulu </URGENT> it's perfect. it's so funny. sweet. beautiful. so funny. there's one perfect season and another one is coming along later.      and finally with remorse that I used the word "urgent" already

 although laughter's not *not* urgent

4. for Australia's animals

If you're a person who sews (even a little) or knits, you can get involved in this and I hope you will, or pass it on to your friends and loved ones who do sew and knit: 

Note: The graphic here makes it look at a glance like koala mittens and bat wraps with pillow are the most urgent items, with those check marks, but note that they're not needed. The red things are what they need the most.

   I haven't spoken in here about the fires in Australia yet and I barely have elsewhere. My psyche was unwilling to grapple with this reality.    (My husband is Australian, we lived there together, his family is there, etc—and I hasten to add that they're fine.)  But that's over even if I'm beginning haltingly.   World Wildlife Fund, Australia   How to Help Australian Bush Fire Victims

flower island
            
p.s. the last line of the "hibernaculum" song was
I'm not waking up until I feel an animal springtime in my heart