It’s Been A Heavy Day, But I Have Things To Tell

I have just realized that it’s been a week, A WEEK since I last posted. That was not intentional, the last seven days were just everywhere and my routine was thrown off-kilter. Today I’m going to let you know about the things that have been getting conjured up creatively and what’s been going on in other corners of my life.

If I seem a bit off, it’s because today has been heavy. There’s been much to take in and consider and I feel a little battered. I also feel as though I can identify with the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood when he had his belly sliced open and filled with stones. I should have left my mother’s homemade cheesecake well alone.

A Hex On Your Head Was Launched 

A while ago, I said my Cave Mouth bandmate Meghan and I were going to launch A Hex On Your Head, a blog celebrating the dark musical oddities that inhabit our skulls. 

Well, yesterday the blog and our first post went live, along with our very first Hexlist featuring the likes of Varde, Slegest and Walknut. If you like your metal black, you’re going to love what we have to share with you.

If you do find yourself wandering over and lurking around, please make yourself known, we’d love to greet you. We’d also very much appreciate it if you’d Commit Your Soul i.e. your email and follow us on what’s going to be a musical journey of the oddest, darkest, but also really god damn enjoyable kind.

My Photography Website Had An Overhaul 

After putting it off for an age, I finally got around to sprucing up my photography website. There are quotes from people who like my work and everything! I just wish I could have thought of a fitting pseudonym. Katie Metcalfe doesn’t quite conjure the dark mystery I wish to exude.

I’m Going To Be Practising Ayurveda

This is hard to write because I don’t know what I’m talking about yet, but I’ll give it a go. My body is a state. My face is doing alright (I’m happy with the shape for the first time in over twenty years and can finally look people straight on when I talk to them) but the rest of me is bony, flat, dried up and showing signs that, if I continue the way I’m going, I could enter early perimenopause. (Always fun to hear when you’re thirty-four.)

My mother suggested Ayurveda (a form of holistic medicine focused on promoting balance between the body and mind) and I made contact with a practitioner, whom I’m now working with. Over the past few days, we’ve spent close to four hours going through all the difficulties I’m currently having with my body and head (I told you I was a state) and she has begun to teach me how I can use food as medicine to heal myself.

Things that did make me a bit wary about Ayurveda were the mention of yoga and meditation, quite an intrinsic part of the practice. I’ve never been one to embrace either. (I’ve always viewed them as a waste of precious time, the time I could be using to write or read). But my practitioner has started to, little by little, lower my guard and I feel that perhaps I could, slowly, slowly introduce them into my routine. I mean, my diet is soon going to be unrecognizable, so why not go the whole hog? And I can always put on some black metal while I’m doing it I guess…

I Was Essentially ‘Told Off’ For Portraying The Wendigo ‘Incorrectly’

I feel a bit awkward writing about this, but it’s been bothering me and if I put it down here, I might just be able to leave it alone and move on.

The featured image is one of my portrayals of a Wendigo. I was aware, when I was taking the photo, that it didn’t live up to the original perception of a Wendigo’s appearance (I’ve been reading about the Wendigo for a long time and know multiple, varying accounts of what it looks like exist) but I didn’t let it stop me and I had a LOT of fun (I’m not sure I’ve ever used the word fun on this blog before) throughout the process of creating it. I didn’t think for a moment that someone would call me up on it and say I’d got it wrong. 

Basically, someone said on some social media site that I hadn’t bothered to get my information from actual native sources and had instead preferred to use sources written by settlers for inspiration. I found this to be quite cruel and unnecessary, especially because this same person had, a few months previously, commented on another of my photos damning my interpretation of the figure I was portraying and questioning my research sources. And someone else on yet another social media site pointed out that a Wendigo doesn’t have antlers, but they also said the photo in itself was good, which was decent of them.

I’m not going to let it slow down my creative output because I want to be 1000% SURE I’ve got the interpretation of what I’m portraying ‘correct’ to the last detail, but this bitching just feels, a bit, well, unnecessary, you know?