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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in food offerings

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
By Jove! A Spell for Wealth

On any Thursday or new moon, light your altar candle at midnight and burn frankincense and myrrh incense. Make an offering of a golden fruit, such as apples or peaches, to Jupiter, and anoint your third eye with a corresponding essential oil, such as myrrh, frankincense, apple, or peach.

Pray aloud:

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Does Electric Incense “Count”?

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.”

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Honoring the Gods Where I Am

I live in the southwest of the USA, in the Mojave Desert, in Nevada, in Henderson, in Green Valley. This ecosystem is nowhere near the origin point of the heathen group of faiths, of which Asatru is one, which was in Northern Europe. Some things don't change-- the moon is the same from any place on Earth-- but proper times to celebrate harvest are very different here. Also, I live within a very different culture even from today's Europe, let alone the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, or even the Viking Age.

Yet, I think my simplest rituals are not too different from what the ancient heathens did. Even here, in this very different place. Even though I'm speaking modern English. Even when my perception of what is special and unique enough to be fitting to give to the gods is filtered through a modern understanding of science, as when I became excited and awestruck over a chimera pear and decided to eat it in honor of the gods.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Erin Lale
    Erin Lale says #
    Sounds delicious!
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    Earlier this year I bought a persimmon tree and a pawpaw tree from Edible Landscaping. They are both still alive and growing tall
Edible Luck: German Traditional Foods for the New Year

As with any holiday celebration, food plays an important role in New Year's Eve and Day traditions around the world. Many people eat pomegranates, that sacred fruit of Persephone associated with rebirth. In Spain, since the turn of the 20th century, it's been the tradition to eat twelve grapes -- one for each month of the coming year and for each toll of the midnight bell. In Charleston, SC (and across the American South), hoppin' john is considered good luck -- the beans symbolize coins -- a tradition originating in African American culture. While waiting for the New Year's ball to drop, my family has always shared a platter of crackers, summer sausage and ham, and a variety of cheeses with champagne for the adults and sparkling grape juice for the kids (we always called it Kinderwein, thanks to our time living in Germany and our partially German American roots).

In addition to pork and ham, Germans also make and eat Glückschwein, marzipan confections in the shape of pigs. The Germanic veneration of pigs goes back a long way to pre-Christian times. Remember that boars are associated with Freyr and Freya -- the golden-bristled Gullinbursti and the disguised lover Hildisvini, respectively. That tradition continues today -- pigs are lucky animals in German culture, symbolizing wealth and health. The term Glückschwein means just that: "lucky pig."

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Tyger
    Tyger says #
    I grew up in Switzerland. On New Year's Eve at the dinner-and-dance clubs, they used to bring a baby pig at midnight and let every
  • The Cunning Wīfe
    The Cunning Wīfe says #
    Thanks for sharing these traditions! I remember the pigs with clover from parts of Germany, too. The piglet tradition is new to me
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    Greens were supposed to represent folding money, but dad would always turn the heat up to high and scorch them. The kitchen stank
  • The Cunning Wīfe
    The Cunning Wīfe says #
    Sounds like you're from the Carolinas! I love those food traditions. Thanks for sharing!

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
What Do You Say to an Angry Lake?

Red Lake is Minnesota's largest lake.

Two months ago, two fishermen were drowned there. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.

In traditional lore, when a lake takes a life, this means that the lake is angry.

Why would a lake be angry? Because people take too much.

Since the drownings, there has been no fishing on the lake. Local media has mostly reported that the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe banned fishing on the lake, but that's not entirely accurate. In fact, there was no top-down pronouncement; people simply stopped fishing because that's the traditional way. Everyone knows what the deaths mean, and what you do and don't do in response.

Since then the Band has held a series of potluck feasts at the Lake. Each time, they have set aside food for the lake. When you take, you need to give back. That's the Old Way.

Each time, the elders have burnt sage and spoken to the lake. I don't need to tell you what they said.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Life, Food, Beauty

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.

 

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  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    So mote it be.
  • Ian Phanes
    Ian Phanes says #
    O firstborn, bring us to harmony. O naturekin, sustain our lives. O ancestors, guide our paths. O immortals, bless our world. O ou

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
10 Things Overheard in a Witch's House
  1. Where’s my sage?

  2. Where’s my pendulum?

    ...
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Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Taffy Dugan
    Taffy Dugan says #
    Good one! I'm always loosing my matches - which is not as funny as those on your list.

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