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It's my longstanding gnosis, which begun as novel gnosis but was later confirmed in the current universe, that the goddess Hel likes blue agave. Thus, tequila. Thus, mojitos.

A mojito is made of tequila, mint leaves, sugar syrup, and lime juice. In the summer season, I have fresh mint in the garden, so I pick it fresh. I usually put in some flavored sweetened syrup instead of simple syrup that is only made of sugar and water. One of my favorites is elderflower tonic, which I also use for vodka cocktails. Hel doesn't seem to care what else is in the tequila as long as it's Patron. Patron the drink is a pun on patron god, and was novel gnosis from my unpublished novel Some Say Fire. I didn't realize until much later that it was more than a symbolic pun and she actually does like it, but if you have a different relationship with that goddess you might toast her with a different kind.

Who would expect to be confronted with a theological conundrum upon walking into a supermarket? Welcome to the Wonderful World of Paganism.

I've gone over to my neighborhood Asian market to pick up some tofu. (At a buck-fifteen per cake, it's still the best deal in town.) Just inside the door, in his little shrine on the floor, sits Weng Shen the Door God. Flanked by electric candles, he scowls as good door-wards do. Before him burns a bowl of electric incense.

The porcelain bowl filled with gravel looks just like a real incense bowl, if you ignore the electric cord that runs through a hole at the back of the shrine. Even the “sticks” of incense—I assume that they're plastic—could almost pass for the real thing, if it weren't for those uniform glowing red electric tips.

So here's the conundrum. Is a symbolic offering still an offering? Does electric incense “count”?

I suppose that the answer to this question depends upon what you mean by “count.”

Every year I've made the Northern Lights Goddesses Brew, I've added something to the recipe to honor additional goddesses. This year I added something for Hel and something for Sunna. This year's batch is going to taste similar to last year's, but sweeter. I think. I can never be sure how it will come out until I taste it. This is a story about the internal mental process by which I arrived at the ingredient to add for Hel (also called Hela.)

So there I was in my kitchen. I had all the usual ingredients out on the counter, ready to start this year's batch of brew. I had not decided on an ingredient to add for Hel yet. I usually like to plan ahead, but I had an hour of time to myself when I was not likely to be interrupted, and no more pressing task to accomplish, so I had decided it was time to get the brew going. I needed to figure out what to put in to honor Hel, and started considering and rejecting various ingredients. Nothing seemed quite right.

There's an Old English riddle from the Exeter Book that is part of a long tradition about the abuses of alcohol through the ages. While there is much to celebrate in the joy of drinking, there is a dark side, too, that many have fallen prey to over the years. The poem goes like this:

Biþ foldan dæl     fægre gegierwed
mid þy heardestan     ⁊ mid þy scearpestan
⁊ mid þy grymmestan     gumena ge streona ·
corfen sworfen     cyrred þyrred
bunden wunden     blæced wæced
frætwed geatwed     feorran læded
to durum dryhta     dream bið in innan
cwicra wihta     clengeð lengeð
þara þe ær lifgende     longe hwile
wilna bruceð     ⁊ no wið spriceð
⁊ þōn æfter deaþe     deman onginneð
meldan mislice     micel is to hycganne
wisfæstum menn     hwæt seo wiht sy.

As keeper of the coven temple, it's my responsibility to make the daily offerings and to pray for the well-being of pagan peoples everywhere.

The prayers are simple:

May the people have life.

So mote it be.

May the people have food.

So mote it be.

May the people have beauty.

So mote it be.

My Northern Lights Goddesses Brew debuted at Yule 2016, but it can be used for any occasion when one wishes to honor the heathen goddesses. It's an extract of herbs in grain alcohol. Because it uses fresh lavender, I can only make it when lavender is blooming in my garden. The grain in the grain alcohol honors Sif, goddess of wheat and corn. The herbs honor other goddesses, as listed below. I first extract and then strain the fresh lavender, which takes between one to three weeks, and then extract the other herbs from commercial tea, which takes about a week. 

Grain for Sif