Saturday, July 03, 2004
Yarrow
I just learned some interesting bits about yarrow from Kim at The Furious Spinner, writing about her Bloody Full Moon. For example:
We have the white variety growing in several places, but we also have the orange and yellow ones in our English cottage garden. Kim says that yarrow is good for menstrual problems. I've had few of those -- one of the blessings for which I'm grateful. I'm hoping to be done with the whole thing entirely any year now!
This morning, some old yarrow tea, along with about twelve other flavors, went into a paper bag. Teas that have been hanging around the teapot for about four years, unused. For seven years, women came here to drum every month, and tea drinking was a part of the ceremony. Drummers brought teas and incenses and candles, and when the drum stopped several years ago, we had quite a collection of tea, more than the two of us and occasional guests could drink. We gave some away, but this morning, when we set up the new coffee pot (drips into a thermos!), we decided it was time to simplify the whole coffee/tea/cocoa collection.
One corner of our kitchen is now simplified, and the paper bag of teas is on the front porch, ready to go out with us for our next magical working around a back-yard fire, where these teas will be honored and their energy and the power of their aroma devoted to a good cause.
|
I looked yarrow up in a couple of my herb books. It was called "Supercilium Veneris," which means the eyebrow of Venus.
According to Susanne Fischer-Rizzi in Medicine of the Earth, "Yarrow was included in the sacred bundle of herbs carried by women on the ancient pagan day of the Goddess."
In China, yarrow sticks are used with The I Ching.
According to Susanne Fischer-Rizzi in Medicine of the Earth, "Yarrow was included in the sacred bundle of herbs carried by women on the ancient pagan day of the Goddess."
In China, yarrow sticks are used with The I Ching.
We have the white variety growing in several places, but we also have the orange and yellow ones in our English cottage garden. Kim says that yarrow is good for menstrual problems. I've had few of those -- one of the blessings for which I'm grateful. I'm hoping to be done with the whole thing entirely any year now!
This morning, some old yarrow tea, along with about twelve other flavors, went into a paper bag. Teas that have been hanging around the teapot for about four years, unused. For seven years, women came here to drum every month, and tea drinking was a part of the ceremony. Drummers brought teas and incenses and candles, and when the drum stopped several years ago, we had quite a collection of tea, more than the two of us and occasional guests could drink. We gave some away, but this morning, when we set up the new coffee pot (drips into a thermos!), we decided it was time to simplify the whole coffee/tea/cocoa collection.
One corner of our kitchen is now simplified, and the paper bag of teas is on the front porch, ready to go out with us for our next magical working around a back-yard fire, where these teas will be honored and their energy and the power of their aroma devoted to a good cause.
|
Friday, July 02, 2004
top 20 antioxidant foods
The US Department of Agriculture has just released its new list of the "Top 20" antioxidant foods:
1) Small red beans (dried).
2) Wild blueberries.
3) Red Kidney beans.
4) Pinto beans.
5) Blueberries (cultivated).
6) Cranberries.
7) Artichokes (cooked).
8) Blackberries.
9) Prunes.
10) Raspberries.
11) Strawberries.
12) Red Delicious apples.
13) Granny Smith apples.
14) Pecans.
15) Sweet cherries.
16) Black plums.
17) Russet potatoes (cooked).
18) Black beans (dried).
19) Plums.
20) Gala apples.
Antioxidants fight free radical molecules that attack cells and may be responsible for heart disease, cancer and aging. This might be a useful list for kitchen witches and those doing health magic for self and family.
For the record, though, Ronald L. Prior, a USDA nutritionist and co-author of the list, cautions that:
READ THE WEB ARTICLE
|
1) Small red beans (dried).
2) Wild blueberries.
3) Red Kidney beans.
4) Pinto beans.
5) Blueberries (cultivated).
6) Cranberries.
7) Artichokes (cooked).
8) Blackberries.
9) Prunes.
10) Raspberries.
11) Strawberries.
12) Red Delicious apples.
13) Granny Smith apples.
14) Pecans.
15) Sweet cherries.
16) Black plums.
17) Russet potatoes (cooked).
18) Black beans (dried).
19) Plums.
20) Gala apples.
Antioxidants fight free radical molecules that attack cells and may be responsible for heart disease, cancer and aging. This might be a useful list for kitchen witches and those doing health magic for self and family.
For the record, though, Ronald L. Prior, a USDA nutritionist and co-author of the list, cautions that:
...just because a food has proven to be antioxidant-rich in the USDA's lab, that doesn't mean all those nutrients will be successfully absorbed by the human digestive tract.
"As we learn more and more, we're finding that, depending on the chemical makeup of antioxidants in different foods, some of them aren't apparently absorbed as well, or else they are metabolized in a form where they are no longer antioxidants," he said.
Whether a food is eaten fresh, frozen, processed or cooked can also affect its antioxidant potency — for good or ill, he said. Blueberries are best when eaten fresh rather than cooked in a pie, for example. On the other hand, research has shown that gentle cooking raises the antioxidant power of tomatoes, he noted.
Although experts are working hard on the project, ongoing efforts to come up with daily dietary guidelines for antioxidant consumption will be "a long process," Prior said.
"How antioxidants behave, how they act within the body, the dose-response — we just don't know enough about it," he said.
"As we learn more and more, we're finding that, depending on the chemical makeup of antioxidants in different foods, some of them aren't apparently absorbed as well, or else they are metabolized in a form where they are no longer antioxidants," he said.
Whether a food is eaten fresh, frozen, processed or cooked can also affect its antioxidant potency — for good or ill, he said. Blueberries are best when eaten fresh rather than cooked in a pie, for example. On the other hand, research has shown that gentle cooking raises the antioxidant power of tomatoes, he noted.
Although experts are working hard on the project, ongoing efforts to come up with daily dietary guidelines for antioxidant consumption will be "a long process," Prior said.
"How antioxidants behave, how they act within the body, the dose-response — we just don't know enough about it," he said.
READ THE WEB ARTICLE
|
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
pagan temple / pagan sanctuary
Temple or sanctuary? Two sides of a coin I keep tossing and tossing in my spiritual life. I've spent a lot of time with what are clearly temple groups and programs, though none have yet manifested a bricks and mortar temple.
I'm both fascinated with the idea of, and worried about the reality of, a temple community. Appealing: the idea of living and working in a spirit-focused, self-sustaining community. Worrisome: the human track-record for handling institutional power.
A year ago I had a temple dream, one of those dreams so visceral that the line between waking and dreaming reality is quite thin. In the dream, I was walking through the warehouse/barn behind my house (and of course, there is no such building), getting ready to go into the house for a weekend spirituality intensive, when I saw the warehouse in a fresh light and realized "Everything we need to create a temple is right here." That meant "right here" inside this huge warehouse, but it referred more specifically to "right here" at the tips of our fingers: I was looking at my hands at the moment of realization.
I'm an everything is possible kind of a Sagittarian, so on waking I realized the truth of that dream (nonexistent backyard warehouse notwithstanding): All the resources needed for temple-building are within our reach. Many scenarios came to mind over the next few weeks -- practical steps a community of folks could take to make a temple happen.
So powerful was the dream and the visions that followed it that I organized a series of discussions in my community(s) and explored both the idea of a priestess-organized, priestess-centered temple (with the potential for services/space available to many flavors of gendered mysteries -- men's mysteries, women's mysteries, polarity-based mysteries, transgendered mysteries) and the idea of a temple organized and facilitated by the broader pagan community (again, with possibilities for all pagan faith groups to serve the temple and use its spaces in group-only and community-wide rites).
We had several meetings with good discussion and some fine visioning, but our discrete and disparate ideas, and I think heavy doses of can't-do (or at least, can't-do-it-that-way), eventually spelled the end of our discussions and visioning.
What's moved my thoughts around to this topic today is this snippet from the BBC's Pagan temples page:
I live in a truly beautiful spot of heaven on earth, and this has been a particularly beautiful season, with a cool and rainy spring lasting through June; waves of Virginia bluebells on the hill behind the house in March, followed by a cheery swarm of swamp buttercups and then a thick spread of wild geraniums in the little thicket on the east side of the house, between us and the lake; after six years of only three trillium, several outbreaks of them here and there -- must have been the rain; the ever-widening, mystical community of mayapples; the sweet-scented lilies of the valley at the foot of the oaks; the English cottage garden we put in last year with its bloodroot and pulmonaria, its evening primrose and lilies, its forget-me-nots, yarrow and soon-to-bloom beebalm, its promise of purple coneflowers to come and sedums for color in the fall; the gentle harebells, proud liatris, vivid spider wort; the new and glorious rose-garden-in-the-round in the front yard.
As I listen to the birds this morning and sit with windows open and a sweet breeze traveling through my study, I contemplate an afternoon swim in the lake and experience another shift in my temple-vs-sanctuary mindscape: Of course there is no warehouse/barn in the backyard in which to build a temple. There is, however, an informal, though well-tended, nature sanctuary all around me. I feel how deeply satisfied and profoundly happy my (primarily) Celtic DNA is to be living in this bowl of oak trees, on this little quiet street, on the edge of this small, out-of-the-way village, in this remnant of mixed hardwood forest, with this lake and the delightful mix of cultivated and wild beauty all around me.
Where I live? It's a sanctuary. Maybe that's temple enough.
|
I'm both fascinated with the idea of, and worried about the reality of, a temple community. Appealing: the idea of living and working in a spirit-focused, self-sustaining community. Worrisome: the human track-record for handling institutional power.
A year ago I had a temple dream, one of those dreams so visceral that the line between waking and dreaming reality is quite thin. In the dream, I was walking through the warehouse/barn behind my house (and of course, there is no such building), getting ready to go into the house for a weekend spirituality intensive, when I saw the warehouse in a fresh light and realized "Everything we need to create a temple is right here." That meant "right here" inside this huge warehouse, but it referred more specifically to "right here" at the tips of our fingers: I was looking at my hands at the moment of realization.
I'm an everything is possible kind of a Sagittarian, so on waking I realized the truth of that dream (nonexistent backyard warehouse notwithstanding): All the resources needed for temple-building are within our reach. Many scenarios came to mind over the next few weeks -- practical steps a community of folks could take to make a temple happen.
So powerful was the dream and the visions that followed it that I organized a series of discussions in my community(s) and explored both the idea of a priestess-organized, priestess-centered temple (with the potential for services/space available to many flavors of gendered mysteries -- men's mysteries, women's mysteries, polarity-based mysteries, transgendered mysteries) and the idea of a temple organized and facilitated by the broader pagan community (again, with possibilities for all pagan faith groups to serve the temple and use its spaces in group-only and community-wide rites).
We had several meetings with good discussion and some fine visioning, but our discrete and disparate ideas, and I think heavy doses of can't-do (or at least, can't-do-it-that-way), eventually spelled the end of our discussions and visioning.
What's moved my thoughts around to this topic today is this snippet from the BBC's Pagan temples page:
Celtic sanctuaries - Most such places were little embellished. They were left largely to nature, with perhaps no more than a boundary ditch, an open-air altar, and a crude wooden image of the god. Evidence for actual buildings is rare. Roman writers confirm the impression we have from archaeology: they refer to druids, idols and sacred groves, but we hear nothing of temples. In the Iron Age (700 BC-AD 50), Celtic deities seem to have thrived in the open; it was the Romans who shut them up in temples (AD 43-410).
I live in a truly beautiful spot of heaven on earth, and this has been a particularly beautiful season, with a cool and rainy spring lasting through June; waves of Virginia bluebells on the hill behind the house in March, followed by a cheery swarm of swamp buttercups and then a thick spread of wild geraniums in the little thicket on the east side of the house, between us and the lake; after six years of only three trillium, several outbreaks of them here and there -- must have been the rain; the ever-widening, mystical community of mayapples; the sweet-scented lilies of the valley at the foot of the oaks; the English cottage garden we put in last year with its bloodroot and pulmonaria, its evening primrose and lilies, its forget-me-nots, yarrow and soon-to-bloom beebalm, its promise of purple coneflowers to come and sedums for color in the fall; the gentle harebells, proud liatris, vivid spider wort; the new and glorious rose-garden-in-the-round in the front yard.
As I listen to the birds this morning and sit with windows open and a sweet breeze traveling through my study, I contemplate an afternoon swim in the lake and experience another shift in my temple-vs-sanctuary mindscape: Of course there is no warehouse/barn in the backyard in which to build a temple. There is, however, an informal, though well-tended, nature sanctuary all around me. I feel how deeply satisfied and profoundly happy my (primarily) Celtic DNA is to be living in this bowl of oak trees, on this little quiet street, on the edge of this small, out-of-the-way village, in this remnant of mixed hardwood forest, with this lake and the delightful mix of cultivated and wild beauty all around me.
Where I live? It's a sanctuary. Maybe that's temple enough.
|
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11
I still haven't seen it yet, but an interesting and credible article by Philip Shenon (New York Times / International Herald), FACT-CHECKING MOORE'S POLITICAL BROADSIDE, is a great before-you-go preparation.
It places the film in its proper journalistic niche:
And as for the facts being right, Shenon says:
He also says that Moore has hired outside fact-checkers with impressive credentials, has consulted attorneys about the possibility of bringing defamation suits against those who make false accusations about the film, and will be refuting lies on his website.
Moore says:
Last night while channel surfing, I happened on Moore's 1998 The Big One -- a "docucomedy" about his Midwest book tour to promote his book, Downsize This -- where he takes on downsizing as corporate greed and economic terrorism, and also corporate welfare (did you know our government gave 11 million dollars to Pillsbury to promote the Doughboy overseas?).
What has any of this to do with Goddessing? Everything, naturally....
|
It places the film in its proper journalistic niche:
"This is an Op-Ed piece, it's not a news report," said Dev Chatillon, the former general counsel for The New Yorker, adding, "The facts have to be right, yes, but this is an individual's view of current events."
And as for the facts being right, Shenon says:
After a year spent covering the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, I was recently allowed to attend a Hollywood screening. Based on that single viewing, and after separating out what is clearly presented as Moore's opinion from what is stated as fact, it seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in "Fahrenheit 9/11" are supported by the public record.
He also says that Moore has hired outside fact-checkers with impressive credentials, has consulted attorneys about the possibility of bringing defamation suits against those who make false accusations about the film, and will be refuting lies on his website.
Moore says:
"The most important thing we have is truth on our side.
Last night while channel surfing, I happened on Moore's 1998 The Big One -- a "docucomedy" about his Midwest book tour to promote his book, Downsize This -- where he takes on downsizing as corporate greed and economic terrorism, and also corporate welfare (did you know our government gave 11 million dollars to Pillsbury to promote the Doughboy overseas?).
What has any of this to do with Goddessing? Everything, naturally....
|
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Archaeology in the News: Chalk Down Figures, Southern Britain
Last Wednesday in Brighton & Hove there was a news item about the date of the chalk figure, the Longman of Wilmington. In a search for more information, I found the excellent article, New work overturns date for chalk Long Man of Wilmington (October 2003, University of Reading).
There's been a lot of speculation about the origin of the three well-known chalk figures -- the Longman in Sussex, the Uffington White Horse, and "the great phallic Cerne Abbas Giant" in Dorset.
Of the Longman, Christine at Mirabilis.ca says
Carved into a steep slope on the South Downs in Sussex, the imposing figure has been claimed as an Anglo Saxon warrior, a Roman folly and an Iron Age fertility symbol.
The University of Reading archaeological team, assisted by local archaeologists from the Mid Sussex Archaeological Group, found, to the contrary, that this possibly 5,000-year-old figure was actually created in the 16th or 17th century CE, as was the Cerne Abbas Giant. Most other hill figures in the area date to the 18th or 19th centuries, with the exception of the Uffington horse which is the only truly ancient chalk figure in the area, dating to the Late Bronze Age.
|
Celtic Sacred Hours (3, 6, 9, 12 am/pm) Healing Practice:
What does my body need?
What does my spirit need?
Where is the flow? What wants to happen right now?
