Walk the World between the Worlds...

This year I plan on going all out and making something magnificent with foraged herbs and flowers—so I’m beginning research now.

In the past I’ve used fleabane, tickseed, black-eyed susan, queen anne’s lace, sedge, honeysuckle, and prickly pear.

Czech midsummer věnce are most usually made with nine herbs, though the number can vary from region to region. I plan on using nine since that is the most common, plus the number nine shows up symbolically in other Czech traditions such as the nine strands in a vanočka (braided Christmas bread).

“The nine St. John's herbs are suitable not only for a wreath, but also for your green pharmacy, from which you can draw all year round.”

“Girls were supposed to collect St. John's herbs in nine places, without looking back or speaking. The bouquet was placed under the pillow, but a věnec was also made from the flowers.”

“The nine St. John's herbs varied by region, but the most common among the meadow flowers were thyme, St. John's wort, comfrey, wormwood, daisy, cornflower, ergot, blín, stonecrop, and tears of the Virgin Mary, as the pretty pink carnation was called.”

“But all sorts of meadow flowers are suitable for věnce, traditionally they were also important medicinal plants—including, for example, yarrow, plantain, black elderberry, or linden.”

“The herbs are definitely not to be thrown away and will come in handy all year round. Herbal mixtures made from the nine flowers are used for digestion, relaxation, and even for colds.”

“Yarrow, common pennyroyal, and wormwood will promote good digestion, to which you can add nettle, common sage, and sage.”

“Elderberry, linden, thyme, plantain and yarrow help with colds, and thyme and chamomile can also be added.”

“To calm down and fall asleep, use St. John's wort and St. John's wort together with lemon balm, yarrow, or daisy.”

I’ll be doing more research into the medicinal and magical properties of plants that I forage before deciding on a complete list of my nine. I know I’ll want to use sheep sorrel because of my personal connection to the plant, and I usually use honeysuckle vine as a base. If the sunflowers growing under the feeder are blooming I’m sure I’ll use them to represent the sun—same with the prickly pear.

@graveyarddirt obligatory ping because—vinok!

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When I started researching sorrel I found that in parts of Europe the plants are considered favorites of the Fae.

Today I decided to make a protection charm utilizing it. Ever since I ran across an article (which I failed to bookmark) in which the author said his children called sheep sorrel leaves “fairy spears,” I’ve wanted to work some magic with them—because of my name.

My names, when broken down to their original languages’ meanings:

First name = black/dark

Middle name = fae/fairy

Surname = spike/spear

So today with the intention of personal and household protection I made a “black fairy spear” charm/amulet.

Before I began work on the actual charm I made a pot of Czech sorrel soup. I was reading an article on the Slavic versions of sorrel soup that mentioned running across a Czech American recipe for the soup that had apple in it. I loved this quote from the article, “Sorrel soup is a pale green thread that runs through the cuisines of Eastern Europe”

So, I added apple to include the idea of some sweetness and abundance in the working alongside protection; lord knows we could use some.

I have written before about foraging, cooking, and eating being a huge part of my practice at this time of year as an act of communion with the land. In this case I wanted a physical act of communion before working with the sheep sorrel in the charm.

I also asked Děduška (our version of the Domovoy)to join me in the meal and to lend his blessings to the charm.

When it came time to actually make the charm, I utilized the sheep sorrel for the blade of the spear (four leaves, one to offer protection from each of the cardinal directions), wild garlic for the staff, and black thread to bind it.

I haven’t found a true primary source yet, but all the online chatter points to sheep sorrel being used in protective and healing folk magic.

Garlic, of course, is well known in protective magic.

And again online chatter says black thread is used to banish negative energy and keep bad things out.

Since today’s project was personal and not a recreation of anything from a particular culture, I decided that folk meant magic of the common people and that online chatter was an ok source for this project alongside my intention and will. I channeled my inner Granny Weatherwax down to earth attitude on this one.

Although the charm itself isn’t from any particular culture I did use bits of my ancestors’ cultures in the actual working. Having asked Děduška for his help, I also included the use of Czech hátová salt to consecrate the charm as I recited a Gaelic incantation.

After the ritual was over I offered Děduška milk and bread in thanks for his blessings. After leaving the offerings on the kitchen altar for a period of time I gave the bread to Marcy (our dog whose idea of protection is to bark at a bicycle riding down the road as well as howling at Perun as he thunders across the sky 🤪), drank down the soup myself, and went out to the sheep sorrel patch to give the milk to the sheep sorrel and any fae allies who might hang out there. Again, acts of communion.

Sfanta Luni, eldest lady of the week, guide and patron of beginnings.

Luni(Monday) is the eldest sister of the 7 ladies that personify each day of the week in Romanian mythology. Depicted as either a very old woman or a strong man* holding the keys to heaven, she is believed to point the way for souls both when they enter this world and the next. As the world began on her day, she is the patron of all beginnings, so she could be either the luckiest lady or the worst one depending on how things go for you on her day. If you find joy on Monday, joy will follow you all week, but if you start with sorrow that’s how you’ll be all week. She is also a day associated with angels when fasting gives strenght to your angel to help you with your struggles and if you fasted all Mondays they will have enough strenght to carry you to the gates of heaven when you die.

This super cute figurine is from aprox. 2900–2400 BC, and one of the handful known figurines from the British Neolithic.

The figurine got its name when it was rediscovered in 2016: “Buddo” is an Orcadian word, a term of endearment and isn’t gender-specific. In the Neolithic most human figurines represented the feminine, often believed to be the goddesses of fertility and/or beauty, so this figurine is quite unique as it doesn’t have gendered features!

There’s a hole on each side, so it’s most likely that it was suspended (inside the home or as some kind of body ornament).

Its purpose is widely argued, some beleive the figurine to be a child’s toy, but it easily could’ve been an ‘idol’ or ‘fetish’ (= meaning it had a ritualistic and religious role).

Source for my summary:

ukeri” ’s opening shots are as breathtaking as they are strange. In an office space, hulking figures with tall, cylindrical heads stand motionless, almost brushing against the ceiling. They are covered all over with hair that seems too long to be called fur, and they look as if they’re waiting—for what, we’re not sure. In the shots that follow, we see more of these beings: gathered in a structure that resembles a spaceship made of stone; standing in the snow, staring back at us. A score composed of swelling, overlapping voices lends an air of spirituality. Onscreen, text informs us that “Kukeri is a centuries-old Bulgarian tradition intended to drive away evil spirits.”

The film’s director, Killian Lassablière, told me in an e-mail that he wanted to re-create “that enigmatic and otherworldly feeling I got when I first discovered the tradition.” He’d stumbled on it one day while looking through a series, titled “Wilder Mann,” by the French photographer Charles Fréger. The project featured striking images of masquerade rituals throughout Europe, many of which have pre-Christian roots; the Kukeri tradition, with its imposing costumes, in particular caught Lassablière’s attention. Every year, as winter gives way to spring, men in Bulgarian villages don giant costumes and dance together, whirling and clanging bells to chase off unfriendly spirits and welcome a fruitful year. In one of Fréger’s photos, the hair of the dancer’s outfit—often goat or sheep fur—is caught mid-movement, as the Kukeri twists and thrashes in a dance. In others, toothed masks, peppered with horns, hide their faces, and we can see the heavy bells they hang around their midsections. Lassablière spent months planning, visiting villages in Bulgaria, researching, conducting interviews. By contrast, filming was squeezed into five days in late February and early March, 2022, during which the director and his team hustled to seven different villages and met with more than forty Kukeri. “Everywhere you turn, your camera seems to have a story to tell,” the director wrote, of the experience. Deserted Soviet-era monuments punctuated the landscape, as did “countryside houses filled with life and texture.” For interviews, many Kukeri invited Lassablière and his team into their homes, where masks and bells hung on the walls, and there was “always a bottle of homemade rakia”—fruit brandy—“on the table.”

Throughout the film, there’s a determined focus on the concept of legacy. “If you do not believe in something,” one of the interviewees says, in voice-over, “it cannot exist.” Traditions survive by being transmitted from generation to generation, like genes. Contained in this idea of passing things on is the concept that one can outlive oneself—of life not as finite but as part of a continuum. And there is some truth to this; the Kukeri custom extends back centuries, so far into the past that its origins are obscure. Lassablière said that he wanted to reflect that in the film’s audio. The thrumming, skittering soundtrack is inspired by “The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices,” an album that features recordings of Bulgarian folk songs. “There’s something visceral about it,” he wrote, of the traditional style of singing. “It feels sacred.” Paired with the importance of legacy is the importance of togetherness—in one section of the documentary, we see old Kukeri and young Kukeri, girls and boys, stand or dance onscreen, together, all clad in their fur-drenched outfits—“leathers,” as they’re called in the film. A woman describes what it is, exactly, that Kukeri try to scare away with their dancing: “Evil is poverty,” she says. “No wheat, corn, potatoes to eat.” She says, also, “Evil is when we don’t want to be together.”

The Scorpio Full Moon mixes the chthonic and regenerative aspects of Scorpio with the influence of the Watery aspects of the Moon. It is to be noted, however, that Scorpio reflects a fiery aspect of water. Fixed signs are generally associated with the capacity to transmit the energy of the cardinal signs over lengthier periods of time, reflecting Scorpio in the Death Card as Psychopompos, leading the soul to its destination even after the excursion of illusory death.

This association makes sense with emotions being more intense. In contemporary astrology, Scorpio is ruled by the transformative nature of Pluto whereas traditional astrology ascribed it to Mars. One might note that it then shares the fiery and transformative aspects of Aries with its planet. One thing I have noted is that while Aries demonstrates the outward expressions of fire, Scorpio takes this fire inwards. This is most often noted with the stereotypical form of Scorpio as holding grudges and being notably inclined to acts of passive aggression and manipulation.

Since Scorpio often reflects martial and chthonic aspects, it would make sense that its transformative energy with the Moon would result in a sort of miniature Tower-Death moment with exposure to patterns and concepts that have been continued in the Psyche despite seemingly been pushed aside. The Picatrix makes associations between Scorpio and dubious sexuality but also makes clear that Scorpio rules over seemingly destructive or upheaving aspects of society. The first face of Scorpio, for example, is associated with the concepts of settlement, ill will, and hatred.

One might then associate the Satyr with Scorpio, associated with the ideas of fear and madness such as with Pan. Pan, interestingly enough, is also associated with the Dark Night as a means of liberation and could theoretically be applied as a method of transgression. That is to say, in line with Pan as All, it is the full acceptance of self, including those aspects deemed unsavory.