In The Mind Of The Beholder

When I was a kid I was fasinated by stories about Head Hunters.

My favorite was one about an Island where the trees were so thick that the sunlight never reached the ground and the people that lived there were so firece that Soldiers and Pirates to this day leave the Island off their maps and if they sail by it for any reason they make sure everyone is awake when they do.

Now in this particular story I learned the important part in taking your head was the Hunt- it was very important that you never see the Hunter coming, that you never see your body falling away from you, it was important you never realize you were dead.

After a month of prepartions ( you never do realize you’re dead ) the Head Hunter would  take your shrunken head and hang it from a tree that is grown especially for this sort of thing.

For a little while if anyone walked under your freshly shrunken head they would be abe able to see hear your nightmare or dream people walking around under the trees lost and calling for their dreamer so they could go home again.

Eventually the person who took your head could wake you up and your dream people when they wanted to- it was like turning a radio off and on.

The Head Hunter, when he or she got bored with you, could use your dreams to find other heads and it was bad news for you if one of those Head Hunters found you because it was only a matter of time before you ended up on that Island under those trees where the sun never reached the ground.

Like I said, it’s just a story that I learned when I was about six years old from my Grandfather.

” What did the Head Hunters want from those heads? ” I asked once.

” They wanted what was inside of them. ” he said.

” Their brains? ” I asked.

” No, what was inside their brains…their stories. “

I considered this and then asked, ” so if you have lots of stories? ” I asked with my hand up near my neck.

My Grandfather looked very serious and said, ” the Head Hunters have lots of stories too- if you are brave enough to go and take them. “

In case you’re curious

I am

anita marie moscoso

Sylvester

This is Sylvester.

Guess what we talk about.

Okay.

I’ll tell you.

I’ve been visiting Sylvester at Ye Olde Curiousity Shop in Seattle on Alaska Way  since I was about five years old ( I’m almost 44 now ).

Sylvester knows all about me:

When I decided to become a magician at age 8, I told Sylvester. When I started to write a year later I told him about that too, when I got my license to drive guess who I visited first…

and when I become a Mortician guess who heard all about it.

Now asI write my short stories, as I work on my book it has not gone unnoticed that I visit Sylvester a lot more then I ever have before.

And we still talk.

I do it because I still think he listens.

I know I do.

a.m.

Sylvester at the Shop HERE

Science and Sylvester HERE

Visit Ye Olde Curiosity Shop HERE

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop Ghost Tours HERE

In Regards To Tansy Arvensis

In a glass case, on a shelf in a jar, is all that remains

of a woman named

Tansy Arvensis.

How is it that Tansy

– you might ask-

who once performed as

a Fire Breather, a Sword Swallower and Trapeze Artist for a Traveling Circus ended up in a jar on a shelf in a museum?

– In addition –

you might wonder

how is it that all that is left of Tansy is a head in jar with a single horn sprouting from the side of her head?

And you may question

why is it that Tansy’s eyes are sometimes closed and sometimes opened and sometimes her mouth is twisted in rage and her neat white teeth and her dark red lips are pushed up against the glass and at other times she is facing the wall?

How would someone like me

-you might wonder-

an unremarkable woman, living an unremarkable life in an unremarkable town called Mountlake Terrace ever have known a person like Tansy?

and

how is it that this unremarkable woman came to know what happened to Tansy

on that night Tansy lost her head?

What a silly question.

You should really be asking why is it that an unremarkable woman living an unremarkable life in an unremarkable town

isn’t the one

whose head is in a jar. 

If You Could

If you were to go

through these Halls

alone

and if you could walk under these empty eyes

as they watched your every move

all by yourself

Somewhere in this place

Where death stands in every corner

and waits along the walls

you would find Rosalia Lombardo

who has been here since

1920

and it will occur to you

as you looked down into her glass topped coffin,

that it is still 1920 for Rosalia

and

She will always be two years old in this place….

 forever.

 

Note below from Famous Embalmings

Rosalia Lombardo, who died at age two on 6 December 1920 and was one of the last corpses to make it to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily before the local authorities banned the practice. Nicknamed the ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Rosalia’s body is still perfectly intact. Embalmed by a certain Alfredo Salafia.

 

More on the

Capuchin catacombs of Palermo

below

:::  KING’S CAPUCHINS’ CATACOMBS OF PALERMO ITALY:::