#cuz this weekend was Special™

[fiddlepickdouglas]

Tired of knowing whether I should eat or not because if I consume the Wrong Thing (Unknown/Random) 20 minutes later I'll just throw it up 😣😣

And now I'm staring at this burrito I bought like "well now what." And it's not even the culprit.

[thegodthief]

Old Lammas 2022: Keri Has A Jar

Having seen all of y'all Old Lammas 2022 posts, I feel like Netherworld Post's teeny bat holding up a tiny skull in offering to the grand and enormous moon. "I hope this is enough. I hope I am enough."

So the call went out and the theme was honey, local preferred. How serendipitous then, than I received an offer for quality honey drawn from bee colonies local to my state and even some from my area! A bit pricey, but the company has proven their quality time and time again, and hey, it's for something special, so why not?

I figured I was going to be in for a ride when the honey shipped with a target date of 10 business days for arrival but it arrived on Day 3.

Yay! I have honey! Now what?

Hmm. No. Really. Now what? This is a Christian holiday after all, and I'm still working through some baggage from my experiences. Is this even a holiday I can jump into?

It's no secret that I've been siting with Christian elements again. Heh, that's a polite way to say I've been pushing my luck with certain folks from the Christian pantheon. (I'mma blame Saint Cyprian cuz he's smug af about it.) But I always worry about taking things too far.

(The fact that I exist is a step too far, but this is not the venue for that villain origin story monologue.)

So I did as some Christians are wont to do, and laid it at the feet of the Virgin Mary [VM]. I know how easy it is for me to get caught up in having the Perfect™ preparations which means having the Perfect™ material which means doing everything Perfectly Right And Good™ which we all know is impossible is this universe if not all possible others.

It was VM's prodding that made me pay attention to graveyarddirt's Lammas posts in the first place. And VM's (warm and generous) approval of the honey as acceptable even though it was purchased and jacque shitte was gathered by me. And VM's (soft and merciful) patience pointing out that there was a seat at that metaphorical table for abused and feral creatures like me. So... okay.

I have honey.

That honey was not cheap.

I am not spending another dime on this, [Mother]. If this is so important that I am compelled to participate one way or another, then reveal to me how I'm supposed to join in without wrecking my budget yet again.

That was Monday prior to Old Lammas weekend.

Tuesday, a coworker showed me flyers from a local craft fair with wheat woven corn dollies. "Isn't this neat! They're having a workshop where you can make your own! I'm sure you could do better like the over achiever you are!" I declined.

Wednesday, the restaurant near where I work ran out of honey for a special later in the week and lamented that there wasn't any at hand good enough to use. "All I need is just one cup of good artisan honey! I can stretch that flavor across the entire batch but there's nothing in the stores here and I can't justify the cost of shipping! Hey, you're good at finding last second things! You wouldn't happen to have some artisan honey at home that I can buy off you, would you?" Sorry, no, everything I have is spoken for, but have you considered a run to [specific store 60 min drive away] that I know stocks artisan varieties in pint bottles? (They immediately went out to that store and came back with a dozen bottles for less than the cost of two plus shipping.)

Thursday, I started to despair. I needed to have something ready by Friday evening, and all I have is a pint of precious honey. For whatever reason that still escapes me, I felt that I needed three things for Old Lammas weekend. Honey, plus two others. I had a pint mason jar in my cabinet already clean and set aside. But I had no idea what to do next. I made peace with the idea that I was chasing someone else's ideals again and declared that if Old Lammas arrived with nothing for me to do for it, that I would sell off the honey and never bother with the Virgin Mary again.

Thursday night, I couldn't sleep. I went to the kitchen and took stock of everything in the cabinets. By this time, I had seen so many Old Lammas preparation posts and I was very disheartened to see so many pretty tables and clothes and arrangements and I know better than to compare myself with them, but... fuck.

I am an insignificant bat in the middle of a shadow-smothered night. A scarred mongrel at the back gate. There is nothing here of worth to see, or to show.

Eventually, I did fall asleep. And because I was so exhausted, I dreamt of sleeping deeper still! I remember I was lying on an old cloak that had been softened by time and wear. It was comfortable to rest against. No bedding of thousand-thread cotton sheets would ever be as comfortable as this old cloth that smelled of soothing comfort. The scent even had a color to it: Blue.

Wait.

I opened my eyes and looked at the cloth I was lying on. Marian Blue.

Behind me, half covered by the cloth I was lying on, was a thick shrub in full bloom. Now that I was "awake", I realized the exposed flowers were covered by bees going to and fro. Half of the shade on me was from the shrub and half was from the cloud of bees busy at work. Their hum reminded me of the absent-minded humming of a mother rocking her child.

The wind shifted and instead of blowing away my discomfort, it now drew the scent of the shrub over me. Rosemary. I was snuggled up against a hedge of rosemary.

There was no one to be seen. Blowing dust raced around the sheltering hedge obscuring any sight of what lay beyond. But here, in this pocket of calm, I was safe under the rosemary and the bees. I resolved to untangle the symbolism when I fully woke up, and placed myself in the care of the old cloak, falling into a deeper sleep.

Friday morning, Old Lammas Eve, I'm driving to work and pondering the symbolism that I had literally slept through. That the bees were a reference to honey was blatant. The cloak was her cloak, but why was it snuggled under a hedge of rosemary? Oh, duh, what is it called again? The Rose of Mary! That's her herb! And I do have dried rosemary in the kitchen... but what else? I need three things and I only have two.

"Medicine."

I heard the word between my ears but no voice spoke it. I demanded an explanation but none was given. I continued the commute to work in silence, pondering what the hell could be in my pantry that could fit the category of medicine?

Honey is a carrier and a preservative (of sorts, don't sic any agencies on me, this is not medical advice you pedantic nerds) while rosemary is a blessing and a curative. My stock of individual spices is as thin as the time I have available for cooking.

At work, just as the despair begins to set in again, a conversation with a foodie coworker turns to flavoring honey jars. I express my concern about "an experimental jar" using dried herbs steeped in honey and how to balance flavors in it.

"Oh! Are you making a Medicine Jar?" I could hear the capitals as they asked. "My grandma made one every summer so it would be ready in the winter for flu season! She would take raw honey, and put dried ginger and rosemary and mint in it to steep for months! And come winter, all the dried stuff would be soft enough to chew on if you had to, though the honey would have all the flavor, and she would put a spoon of honey in a cup of hot water or tea. And let me tell you, that ginger taste! If the taste alone didn't cure you then the honey would at least make your throat feel better! She didn't always have dried mint, but she always had ginger one way or the other."

Ginger.

I have that.

I have a BIG bag of dried ginger. Probably a lifetime supply as potent as those pieces are.

The rest of the work day came and went as I considered how I use ginger already. I have a big bag of candied ginger that I use for general upset stomach and to chew on because it's yummy. I snap off pieces of dried ginger to put in my tea in the winter as a general cold medicine and because I like the taste of it. It's something that has been in plain sight all this time and was overlooked because of how common it is to me.

Okay. I have three things to put into the jar: Honey, rosemary, and ginger.

Don't ask me why I waited for sunset before beginning the actual work of putting everything together. It just felt right to wait for darkness to catch up outside. That's what happens when you're so used to being alone, I suppose. But wait I did.

Nothing fancy about what happened next, to be honest. I took pictures each step of the way, but now that I'm sitting here (two weeks later) and looking over them choosing what to post and what to leave out, I don't have anything to show off.

But, here, have some progress pics anyway. Such as this one of a pint mason jar with a whole bunch of shredded (as best as one can shred dried ginger anyway) dried ginger pieces inside and one piece that I was compelled to set aside and not break up.

I didn't measure shitte. It was all a matter of feelings, fears, compulsions, and restraints. I tore apart dried ginger for the jar until it felt right to stop.

And then I started shaking out the dried rosemary on top of that.

Again, I didn't measure anything. I just kept going until it felt right to stop.

And then, the honey. Twelve ounces of it, to answer a question that no one asked.

Throughout all of this, I was praying. I had started the endeavor with Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Gloria Patri after assembling the containers but before opening any jars for actual use. From then to this point, it was a continual muttering stream of appeals to the Virgin Mary that I was actually doing something useful and not just religious theater. That this Medicinal Jar would be a salve not only to my throat later in the year, but to my spirit that was feeling everything except spiritual.

Feeling inadequate is a bitch, ya know, and seeing so many people having their shit put together enough that they didn't have to wait to receive their blessing chapped my ass. It seems I'm always playing catch-up, I'm always last to know and last to do. I'm always one foot at the back gate, ready to run away before I'm thrown out.

And all these feelings came out in assembling this jar. But with it, came a soothing solace. That some wounds take time to heal, and some medicines take time to create, and while that I don't have a house or a nación or a community to belong to, I am still Myself foremost and always.

And I am loved.

Even when I don't understand it.

Especially when I don't understand it.

It look longer to get the pictures together than it did to assemble everything. The only thing left to do that Friday night, was to offer a prayer from José Leitão's translation of the Precious Apothecary. Specifically, the blessing of new fruit (pg 311) because of the honey and how it was collected.

And so I did.

The jar immediately went to sit at a certain spot where it was prayed over and tumbled each night until Sunday. That Sunday, it was opened and stirred while praying the Rosary. The rosemary had already softened but the ginger was being very resistant to any change. The honey had hints of rosemary and ginger in the taste, but it was clear to me that this jar had a long way to go before being ready for anything other than show.

I suppose there is a life lesson there, but I'll be damned if I see it. (Pun possibly intended.)

There will be no new pictures of the jar. Once the jar was seated in its spot, it became Precious™.

I have the feeling that while I may open the jar to give it a good stirring from time to time, it is not ready as Medicine™ until some point in December. As I know almost nothing of Catholic Holidays and/or Liturgy (I'm one of those depraved magicians, remember), I'm just going to have to keep an eye on the calendars of others and note which ones ring a bell for me.

I apologize that for all my words that I have so little to show. I know some that would say that the fact that I showed up is important in itself, and on the one hand, I would agree with them. But on the other hand, the night is so large and dark and I am so small and pitiful.

I hope it is enough.

I hope I am enough.