Dandelion: Magic & Medicine

It has been several months since I have written anything online, because I fell very deeply into a fictional story that I am writing, but I am very pleased to pick up where I left off with some practical folk lore.

Today’s lore is inspired by a friend who woke up in the middle of the night with cramps and a UTI from a complicated systemic candida infection, which for those of you who have experienced this, understand how painful it is. So, she looked up the normal home remedies, but due to her doctor prescribed diet is unable to utilize quite a few of them. So, today I am going to make her a fresh leaf dandelion detox tincture. My own recipe, that I adapted from a similar fresh leaf tea my mom used to make me.

To get started here is a bit of lore on dandelions!

This precious flower, now crossed off as a weed, was a gift to the new world by the French, it is said. The break down of the name “dande-lion” is translated as lion’s mane. Modernly treated with horrible pesticides, this stubborn plant refuses to die off. A lesson to be learned from one would think. It has many wondrous healing properties including: liver and kidney detox, natural dye, tincture (tea), roasted leaves make a tasty caffeine free coffee replacement for a healthy morning pick-me-up, anti-bacterial milk from the stem can be applied on the go for playtime scrapes, they enrich your garden soil with acidity necessary for plant growth, it is a natural anti-depressant, it can be used as a diuretic, and no part of this plant is poisonous. You can eat the leaves in a salad, and then have the roots and petals in a complimentary infusion with honey afterwards.

I have even seen a video on youtube of a woman making a dandelion wine. (Awesome.)

Perhaps, I will make a video and a demijohn of homemade dandelion wine myself!

According to occultist and author Sarah Anne Lawless, “Dandelion belongs to Hecate and is mainly a chthonic plant associated with the underworld and necromancy. It is beloved by bees, goats, pigs and is considered a toad plant (all have a certain underworld nature), with bees sometimes acting as psychopomps in old folklore. Dandelion is also a very Mercurial weed associated with the air element explaining its use in aiding in communication with the dead and increasing psychic ability. Drink an infusion of the dried and roasted roots to enhance your psychic abilities before performing divination or summoning spirits of the dead. Medicinally, Culpepper writes that Dandelion has an “opening and cleansing quality… it openeth passages”. This can be applied to sympathetic magic, meaning this weed is excellent for walking between realms and communing with the spirits that reside.”

You can read more about this on her site, where she has a written piece about the growing, and usage of dandelion in magical practices: http://www.sarahannelawless.com/2010/10/16/weeds-for-witches-part-iii-dandelion

For me personally, being an herbalist in the making, I find it pure joy and magically profound that this tiny, underestimated, and forgotten flower has so many incredible traits just waiting to be tapped in to, yet it is ever to often written off as a nuisance. Let this be a lesson about following the common opinion. Just because it is said to be true by the masses, doesn’t make it so, not in the slightest.

So, here is the recipe for the Dandelion Detox Tincture

Firstly, start with two large bunches of organic dandelion greens. These can surprisingly be purchased at a grocers like Sprouts.

Wash lightly in cool water, and cut off the long portion of the stems and set aside. Start boiling 2-3 quarts of water on the stove and add the stems. (I do those first because they are more fibrous and therefore harder to breakdown.

Boil for 15 minutes.

Then take hand fulls of thee greens and twist them into halves and then quarters with your hands, adding them to the mixture as you go.  Stir.

When you have gotten all of your greens in, let boil until they are soft and pliable, much like spinach.

Here is where you can go a couple of different ways. Because we are in Texas and its summer time, doing a traditional tincture just didn’t sound that appetizing. However to make one, you simply strain out the green remnants, and serve hot like a tea.

What we did is this:

Throwing all of the greens and juice into a blender we added a lot of ice and lime, and then pureed it until mostly liquid. Grab a straw and a bit more ice to your glass and you have a very healthy detox smoothie.

-Dandelion Picture Photo Credit to Louise Docker

Samhain: A Night to Honour…

All Hallows Eve is a contemplative night for me and my household.

It is a time for joy and tears as the veil is now quite sheer. On this night we light candles and make a large feast of stuffed mushrooms, brown sugared carrots, rosemary potatoes twice baked, and roast salted pork, we throw open all of the doors and windows so that none may be left out, be they man or spirit. We wear masks for protection. We drink wine, mead, or beer, offer sweets for security, and most importantly we hail the honored dead.

This is a night of holy reverence to acknowledge the lives and deaths of those that came before us.

My extended family has let this tradition go for many years, giving into Protestantism, but the ways of our ancestors have come around full circle into our not so modern little house. The snake has bitten its tail, and so I will say the prayers long neglected, and light our hearth after midnight to usher in the new year to come.

As we light it I will say,

” Save. Shield. Surround,

The hearth, the house, the household

The eve, the day, the year.

We honor & thank you.”

For you see, as Celts, the onset of Winter is the birth of our new year, which is actually entirely optimistic. The hardest part is the beginning, Spring is born, matures into Summer, and before you know it, the year wanes…and you have come full circle.

So on your Hallowed Night, make a circle and say a few words of kindness, let it all go, tell raucous stories about family members present and past, for this is the heart of our wild selves and this is the tradition of our people.

I really felt like this poem by Fredrick Manning well represents my heart this season:

“Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,
And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,
And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.
Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,
Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,
And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.

With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,
And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,
With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,
She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;
While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware
Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.

The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;
There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.
Nor any mournful music in her streams:
Only I saw the shadow on her brows,
Only I knew her for the yearly slain,
And wept, and weep until she come again.” 
― Frederic Manning

The Blood/Hunter’s Moon: Tonight’s lunar eclipse & full moon

Tonight the moon will wax full again. The sun and moon will be in perfect balance across their ecliptic longitude, meaning that they will be exactly 180 degrees apart and on the same line, causing full view of our Earth’s constant companion.  Being the first moon after the Harvest Moon or Autumnal Equinox, this moon is called the Hunter’s Moon by the Native people of the Algonquin Tribe.

According to http://www.earthsky.org, it was called the Hunter’s Moon by the Algonquin because, “ In the days before tractor lights, the lamp of the Harvest Moon helped farmers to gather their crops, despite the diminishing daylight hours. As the sun’s light faded in the west, the moon would soon rise in the east to illuminate the fields throughout the night. A month later, after the harvest was done, the full Hunter’s Moon was said to illuminate the prey of hunters, scooting along in the stubble left behind in the fields.” 

The effect of such a moon has held its sway over mankind longer than time can reveal. One modern song by Gregory Alan Isakov called, “That Moon Song,” is a new take on a feeling that I am sure the ancients could easily relate to.

According to many British and Celtic sources the full moon occurring at this time of year is referred to as the Blood Moon. This was common because of the killing of excess livestock that took place at this time per annum. To conserve winter resources, it was necessary to slaughter all but ones breeding stock in the fall leading into winter. This way you would maximize the food supplies one would have for the best part of the herd, and ensure that you and your neighbors had a supply of meat for the winter months.

This poem reflects well upon our time during this moon:

AT A LUNAR ECLIPSE

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon’s meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven’s high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

By Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

American Ghost Story: Kate Batts, Witch & Poltergeist

THE ULTIMATE POLTERGEIST

So to prepare for the onset of All Hallows Eve, I have found for you a tale most intriguing. This juicy local lore hails from the south, deep in the history of Tennessee, from a small town called Adams.  It’s about a witch, whose name was Kate Batts, and about her grudge-match with the head of a family by the name of Bell.  The Bell family was comprised of what has been recorded and acknowledged as, “good folks.” The torment of the father, Ol’ Jack Bell, as the witch spirit called him, was shared by all of his loved ones on the estate, but especially his daughter Betsy, who was forbidden by the ghost to marry  the man she had planned on. It was said that the witch ghost, was a woman who had been cheated by John Bell, and was hell bent on revenge and planned to act as executioner.

The Goodspeed brothers wrote a local history in 1886, and it said the following:

“A remarkable occurrence, which attracted wide-spread interest, was connected with the family of John Bell, who settled near what is now Adams Station about 1804. So great was the excitement that people came from hundreds of miles around to witness the manifestations of what was popularly known as the “Bell Witch.” This witch was supposed to be some spiritual being having the voice and attributes of a woman. It was invisible to the eye, yet it would hold conversation and even shake hands with certain individuals. The feats it performed were wonderful and seemingly designed to annoy the family. It would take the sugar from the bowls, spill the milk, take the quilts from the beds, slap and pinch the children, and then laugh at the discomfort of its victims. At first it was supposed to be a good spirit, but its subsequent acts, together with the curses with which it supplemented its remarks, proved the contrary.”

For four years the family of John Bell was forced to endure what has come to be called a “noisy spirit” or poltergeist of a type which was unique
when compared with similar events documented before or after it. Developing the ability to speak, the spirit soon began to call itself “Kate”, after an odd local woman named Kate Batts. People in the community  referred to it as “Kate Batts’ witch”, though its physical form, if any, was never truly identified. The center of the unseen entity’s activity was John’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth (Betsy) Bell, a very attractive girl, who suffered from physical abuses brought on by the spirit which included merciless beatings, scratching, slapping, and constant mental anguish brought about by the spirit’s seemingly inexhaustible mischief and verbal harassment. It consistently ridiculed the choice of Joshua Gardner as her future husband, and induced in Betsy, and her father, a sickness, the symptoms of which included odd physical disturbances that eventually resulted in the death of John. The spirit could read the thoughts of those around it, describing in great detail the backgrounds of total strangers. It could accurately describe simultaneous events in other areas of the world within moments of being asked. Kate could move objects, sing, preach, and accomplish the most baffling pranks without detection. Its knowledge of the universe was astonishing, yet curiously incomplete in many details. Upon being exposed to both Baptist and Methodist doctrines, Kate began to display violent and contradictory behavior resulting, no doubt, from the many differences of those philosophies. Perhaps the spirit’s most astonishing manifestation occurred when four other spirits named Blackdog, Mathematics, Cypocryphy, and Jerusalem appeared briefly during the later years of the haunting. All seemed to be subservient to Kate and were invisible as well. It was during this period that the spirit’s mischief grew more intolerable with each passing day. Its evil hatred was often matched in kind with benign understanding and kindness, making it, in essence, a great paradox in the spirit realm, and an unwelcome guest in the intensely religious community it had chosen to haunt. (http://bellwitchlegend.blogspot.com/)

There were many superstitious people in the country who believed the witch was a reality, something supernatural, beyond human power or comprehension, which had been clearly demonstrated.  This is the way many reasoned about the mystery.  Kate arrogantly claimed to be all things, possessing the power to assume any shape, form or character, that of human, beast, varmint, fowl or fish, and circumstances went to confirm the assertion.  Therefore people with vivid imaginations were capable of seeing many strange sights and things that could not be readily accounted for, which were credited to the witch. Kate was a great scapegoat.
The goblin’s favorite form, however, was that of a rabbit, and this much is verified beyond question, the hare ghost took malicious pleasure in hopping out into the road, showing itself to every one who ever passed through that lane.  This same rabbit is there plentifully to this day, and can’t be exterminated.  Very few men know a witch rabbit; only experts can distinguish one from the ordinary molly cottontail.  The experts in that section, however, are numerous, and no one to this good day will eat a rabbit that has a black spot on the bottom of its left hind foot.  When the spot is found, the foot is carefully cut off and placed in the hip pocket, and the body buried on the north side of an old log. (http://bellwitch02.tripod.com/index.htm)

As the story grew in popularity people would come to visit the witch and people would travel hundreds of miles to come and see the effects she had on the Bell family’s life. Until one day in 1820 when the witch spirit accomplished her task! John Bell died.
At his funeral it was aid that she danced, laughed, and made quite  spectacle of herself. It took a while for the strange things to end though, and it is still said that her spirit took up residence in what is now referred to as the Bell Witch Cave. Others believe that it is the point from which she entered the world.  Regardless, after John’s death, she said she would be back in seven years….and she was.

In 1828, Kate Batts reappeared. She visited the home of John Bell Jr. She conversed with him about the past, present, & future as well as making some predictions. She also said that there was a reason for John Bell Sr.’s death, and that she would return once again in one-hundred & seven years hence. That places a re-occurrence in 1935, of which nothing that I know of has been found. But there are those who say that after her second return, that she never really left, that her spirit, mischievous, still lingers on, and that if you go to the Bell Cabin site or the Bell Witch Cave, that you are certain to get a little pinch!

Movies made based on the lore:

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Bell Witch Haunting (2004)

An American Haunting (2005)

Bell Witch: The Movie (2007)

The Bell Witch Haunting (2013)

For more information on the Bell Witch lore,  you can check out these sites:

http://www.bellwitchcave.com/

http://www.bellwitch.org/story.htm

http://bellwitchlegend.blogspot.com/

August Poem and Hollyhocks

Summer declines and roses have grown rare,
But cottage crofts are gay with hollyhocks,
And in old garden walks you breathe an air
Fragrant of pinks and August-smelling stocks.
—John Todhunter (1839-1916)

Hollyhocks, or alcea, are colorful garden plants with long stalks that often reach up to eight feet high and produce flowers in white, pink, yellow, and crimson. Each stalk typically grows 7 to 12 flowers. Among the 60 species of hollyhocks, the alcea rosea, alcea pallida, alcea biennis, and alcea sulphurea are popular with home gardeners. Hollyhocks are biennials, which means they produce leaves in July and August of their first year and flowers the second year. To maintain healthy and vibrant plants, you’ll need to grow fresh hollyhocks each year and maintain them well against pests and disease. Most hollyhocks survive from 2 to 3 years.