Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Of Poppyseeds and Megaliths
During the Yule baking, a friend/covensib came over one morning to make potica (that's poe-TEET-suh, for those of you who didn't happen to grow up speaking Slovenian): a sweet filling (poppy seed, walnut, chocolate, apricot) rolled up spiral-wise in a nice, flaky dough, and baked to golden-brown perfection.
When sliced, the cross-section couldn't help but remind me of a carved orthostat from the Neolithic tomb Gavrinis (ca. 4000 BCE) in Brittany.
At a distance of 60-some centuries, any resemblance between the two is surely fortuitous: a random convergence, no more. Not even my well-honed storyteller's ability to draw a line between any two given points is managing to come up with a possible connection between the two. Attribute it, if you like, to the intrinsic suchness of things.
In this season of wonder, though, it sure does make you wonder.
Coda
From Aubrey Burl's Megalithic Brittany:
"Even more dramatic are the ill-named 'shield idols' (10), which are probably formalized carvings of a female figurine. These have rectangular frames with a round top at the centre of which there is often a tiny, knoblike projection. Some have arcs radiating from the upper part like hair in shock. Sometimes there are distinctive loops on either side of the body. These austere squares have been called bucklers, cooking-pots, even octopuses, as well as shield-idols, but when one compares them with the human-shaped stones standing in the chambers of other passage graves, they seem more likely to have been abstract depictions of a female 'goddess' or guardian watching over the dead. Such anthropomorphic art, in various forms, is to be discovered all through the Breton Neolithic" (p. 15).
One could make a case that the carved orthostat shown above represents a compound "shield-idol": i.e. the fruitful Mother.
In which case, maybe what we're seeing here is the Mother's inherency in all that is.
Well. Thank you, Aubrey Burl.
Comments
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Wednesday, 01 January 2025
Poppy Seed or Walnut Filling
Beat 3 egg whites until stiff. (Use yolks in dough.) Mix whole egg with 1/2 cup honey, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 pound ground poppy seeds or walnuts. Fold this mixture into beaten egg whites.
Apricot Filling
Use a good-quality apricot jam.
Wishing you a good Yule and a sweet New Year! -
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I looked up potica on Google. There are a fair number of recipes out there but I don't see any with poppy seeds and apricots. Could you get your friend to share his recipe for potica with poppy seeds, walnuts and dried apricots?