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.

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The Cherry Tree Wassail

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

                                        Sweet or tart, cherries are the bomb | Health Beat | Spectrum Health

I don't own a cherry tree myself, but I've got the next best thing: picking rights on a neighborhood tree.

(“Hi, I'm the guy that's been stealing your cherries,” I said when I finally met the couple that “own” the tree. They laughed. “You're the third person that's told us that,” they said. “Take all you want.”)

This year I harvested about two gallons of cherries. Some became jam; most went into the freezer to be baked into pies in the deep pit of Winter when you're starting to think that Summertime is just a dream, and eating the fruit of July becomes an act of sympathetic magic.

Meanwhile, there's the cherry vodka.

As a neutral spirit, vodka absorbs flavors beautifully. The color, the fragrance, the flavor on the tongue: cherry vodka is Essence of Cherry, Summertime in a glass.

As we do every Yule, this year the Mother Berhta Guerrilla Wassailers will once again be making our annual rounds to do some socially-distanced, doorstep wassailing to deserving households. This year, as one does, we'll be wassailing the cherry tree as well.

We'll gather around the Tree and sing to it, thanking it and asking for more of the same next year.

We'll pour a libation of cherry vodka from the tree's own cherries.

Then we'll toast the tree in its own vodka.

(In the Old Ways, this is what passes for religion. What's not to like?)

It's been a dark year, folks. It's time to make some light: “Summer in Winter, Day in Night.”

Wassail!  

Here's to thee, old Cherry Tree,

here's to thee, old Cherry Tree.

Well mayst thou bud, and well mayst thou blow [=bloom],

and well mayst thou bear of cherries enow [=enough].

Hats full, caps full, good bushel sacks full,

my pockets too.

Hurrah! Wassail!

 

 

 

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Tagged in: prodea Wassail Yule 2020
Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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