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I worked hard today. I finished a small piece, and mounted and framed four pieces. Mum – I trimmed the edges of the two I brought home from your house, and stitched the edges so they are a little tidier. I think I owe you one big lovely piece, that is all yours that I will not ever, ever take away.

I'm not sure why I work harder or longer in rainy weather. I think it is the ongoing feeling that the horses deserve time off when the weather is ugly, and it helps me focus on things inside.

Today's circle is more owls. I like that they are a shape that can be so easily stylized or made more realistic. So I made three very stylized owls.

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Epona is associated with horses, and (possibly only in my mind) with white horses. Probably because I think of the Connemara ponies as being important in that part of the world, and all of my favorite Connemara ponies are gray.

It was an exciting weekend. On Saturday I met some people who only existed online, and then ate out and then went to see the Valley Light Opera version of Patience. I have a deep and inexplicable affection for Gilbert and Sullivan, particularly local versions of it. This version of it was costumed from the 1960's with some very vibrant color combinations, but the rest of the production was solidly and joyfully recognizable.

On Sunday we celebrated Pre-Thanksgiving. Originally designed as an excuse to eat turkey with our family of choice, and feed starving graduate students, it has evolved over the years to the closest thing I'll get to longitudinal survey. We've been doing this since 1981. Since then there have a been far too many post-graduate degrees, a lot of marriages and only a few divorces, and many babies, the earliest of whom have graduated college and started their lives. None of us are grandparents yet (which is good – we are all MUCH too young!!)

So today was dedicated to sleeping late and running errands and returning Aerin to school.

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I think it is funny that I accomplished less in October than in August when i was on vacation. In my own defense, I got struck down with a bad back, and then had a panic about finishing work in time for a show. I do like the sugar skulls at the end of the month. If I'd thought of them sooner I would have tried to wedge more of them into the middle of the month. They can be very freestyle kinds of things.

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"Oh what a tangled web we weave…" which turns out to be Sir Walter Scott. And actually spiders are the least tangled web weavers I know. So maybe that is not the precise quotation for this one. I rather like spiders in the abstract – and they take good care of the bugs in my house in the summer. But I just had a major cobweb removal frenzy (after Halloween the cobwebs aren't really decorations any more) and I was feeling guilty. So have a spider!

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My friend Els, who reads this blog, sent me a card when I sent her a circle, and it had this lovely little owl on it. It looks like a hand carved stamp, and I love it. So I traced it (carefully) and made this owl circle, which I think I am sending to a friend South Africa, another internet friend.

Which shows you something about community and imaginary friends and the internet.

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Bats are good luck in China, a fact which startled and delighted me because they seem to be regarded with suspicion (or hunger) in most cultures around the world. Apparently the word for bat is close to the word for luck, thus fu bat.

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I may need to revisit owls. This one looks remarkably dyspeptic.

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Very sketchy, but elegant – the eagle is one of the few psychopomps that isn't fundamentally mysterious.

I just realized I stitched the top wing backwards….

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The more I look at creatures that are considered psychopomps, the more I think it is just animals that people find mysterious for one reason or another. Take bees – their social structure is almost recognizable, but not really. Their use of flowers and construction skills are much the same. They were thought to be able to fly between worlds by some cultures.

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Hathor, one of the oldest goddesses in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, was called "the Goddess of the West" and believed to welcome the dead to the afterlife.

November was originally going to be all the presidents but I got so overloaded on politics, and so interested in skulls and Day of the Dead celebrations and the idea of psychopomps that I changed my mind I did think briefly about embroidering skulls over all the various presidential portraits, but that didn't seems correct. Or polite. Psychopomp is an ugly word for entities that guide the spirits of the dead to the afterlife. They are also ways the unconscious communicates with the conscious mind, and an aid to creativity. Depending on the culture, psychopomps range from gods and goddesses to animals and angels.

I like the idea of someone meeting me after I die, so they are kind of a compelling concept for me.