"It is at this point that the chronicle of events becomes a matter as much of speculation as of documentation. Particularly in the glutinous dark of that 'first night,' the testimony of eyewitnesses is often the most misleading source of all. For many of those not directly involved in the events, those hours were spent huddled in the dark, alone or in groups, listening to the chaos outside and waiting for the end of the world. . . . For the first couple of hours the residents of 2312 Honeymoon Avenue were no different. A boarding-house operated by Mrs. Michelle Ortega and her sister, Ms. Thomasina Chigira, 2312 was mostly inhabited by singles who worked the afternoon shift at the famous 'UnCannery' up the block. . . . The UnCannery was a processing plant of sorts (although it might be more accurate to call it a de-processing plant), established by a group of entrepreneurs to address the widespread problem of adulterated or simply transformed foodstuffs which had been emerging from sealed cans since the day of the Exile. These went far beyond simple cases of botulism. Cans claiming to contain vegetables might produce instead BB pellets or decorative soap pebbles; sardine tins had been known to produce live grasshoppers or poisoned darts. One unlucky man lost both his arms after finding a live grenade in a can of pork and beans. . . . By some estimates as much as 8% of the canned food left in the city at the time of the Exile was adulterated in some way. The UnCannery began operations in the late '60s, trading scavengers meal tickets for their cans and then opening the latter under controlled conditions; the safe food was then served to suppliers, employees, and paying customers. . . . The relevance of the UnCannery to the Day of Two Nights is this--for the two and a half years he had worked there, Mr. Joao Scharf, a boarder at 2312 Honeymoon, had been stealing a can a week. Instead of opening them, he piled them under his bed. Later Mr. Scharf stated that he had no particular reason for his theft. 'I just felt like it,' he told a reporter. . . . How Walter Wenstrup, then-Sorcerer Supreme, discovered what Mr. Scharf's cans contained, and how he made his way to the boarding-house under the blanket of darkness, may forever be a mystery. Wenstrup was never the most forthcoming of men, and of course after the Day of Two Nights there would be no opportunity to question him. . . . As Mr. Scharf tells it, he was on his bed, listening to the 'rainmonsters' in the streets and on the boarding-house roof, when he heard something under his bed. . . . 'I was hoping it was just a rat, but then it starts talking to me. Asking me if I have a can opener. I had one of those pocket knives, you know, with the puncher? So this guy grabs me and drags me out of the apartment, and up the stairs, talking about walruses and hyper-evolution and a clog in the dimensional pipeline. I'd never even heard of Walter Wenstrup. I thought the guy was crazy.' . . . (It should be noted that there is no empirical proof that this was Wenstrup; it is only through later reconstruction that the probability of his intervention here was established.) . . . The two men stumbled through the darkness of the third floor to the roof access ladder, and before opening the trapdoor Dr. Wenstrup said a few words in a language Mr. Scharf could not understand. 'Whatever it was, it really pissed off the rainmonsters on the roof. They started screaming. It was like . . . like a waterfall after you stabbed it in the kidney. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but that was what I thought of.' . . . Once on the roof, Dr. Wenstrup handed a can to Mr. Scharf and asked him to open it. 'He told me to shut my eyes. I said it was already dark, what did it matter? And he said that if I didn't want to go blind I'd keep my eyes shut. So I started opening the can. Takes a while with one of those type of openers, you know. Longer when you can't see what you're doing. But as I got going I started to see the glow, even through my eyelids, and when I got that last bit off it just popped right out of there on its own.' . . . 'It' in this case was a tiny sun, imprisoned in a can of creamed corn. It rose over 2312 Honeymoon, driving the rain and the living darkness back to the city's crevices. This daystar would shine for only a few hours, but it granted the city's defenders a crucial reprieve. . . . When Mr. Scharf regained his equilibrium and his sight, Walter Wenstrup was gone, and he had only his story to tell. Two days later he was fired from the UnCannery for theft, though he was never prosecuted." (p.418-20)

(promise the next one will be a Slow year confession) About this secret: Herb lore, healing with common plants, monastery gardens. That is what I am talking about. I’m not brewing evil potions and putting hoodoo spells on people, looking into crystal balls cackling while I crush bats bones in a cauldron and the woo-woo Wiccan stereotypes that are so blasphemous. (Though I was born on the day Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, just a couple hundred years later.) Seven years ago in a remote part of Portugal a girl from Ireland, a feisty red headed cat-fight crazy kind of gal told me that I was a witch and she meant that as a compliment. She told me how she could cure ring worm with the power of her hands—that that was her family’s cure passed down to each generation. She lived in a remote area in thatched roofed house and survived on potatoes so I believed her plus I didn’t want to fight her! A month later back in California, my new roommate’s mother, an elderly Swedish beauty who seemed to have a halo of pure light about her at all times told me, you have the power and handed me a book. Not even a week later at a trade show, I befriended a fun loving, voluptuous, curly brown-haired, spunky mother of three and we hit the town together where she dazzled every man in the room. She told me after the first drink, you are a witch like me. I promise, that I never broached the subject with any of these people. They took it upon themselves to bring it up. So, yes, they are right. Thanks to that first book and my subsequent ardent studies which have been thorough (and are never ending), I was able to free myself. I started listening to my intuition and inspiration and healed myself. I also lifted a malicious spell placed on me in a dark foreign land by a bitter woman who was the daughter of a famous shaman. She, in fact was the first one ever to tell me, you are a witch and she didn’t mean it as an accolade. I used something that you would find in your backyard and one of the most common ingredients in the world. After two years of very bad, no good, horrible bad luck with love, money, life, sorrow and pain. I was freed and astonished a doctor in Beverly Hills who was out 300 bucks, because I removed a wart myself with a potato. With in a month, I met Benji. On our first date, he said, you are a witch, right? And I said yes, a good one. He replied, I know. The rest is history. I brought ALL my herb lore books and herbs with me but most of them I can grow or find in the woods, in my own backyard with mother nature. Susan Weed says it best: A Green Witch is a woman of power, whose religion is her life, whose life is her art, and whose art is the wise use of the green. ~Susan Weed