Fishy stuff, cleaning, and herbal applications (spirituality)

[urocyon]

Today has been a better one, as I'd hoped.

Poor Old Ingvar ended up making a second trip out yesterday, after fishy meds. I added a dose last night, and Sugar had not responded by today. Last time, he did respond in that time span--the formalin/malachite green combo must have knocked back the parasites very quickly. This made me think it might not be a repeat, after all; I'm still not seeing excess slime coat, either.

He was still bottom sitting, and generally acting under the weather, so I mixed some Kanamycin in with their breakfast. The guppies wound up in the goldie tank temporarily thanks to a "Mirrors knocking over the CO2 yeast bottle" incident, with cloudy nasty water which killed Polynomial in spite of frequent water changes to get the sugary gunk out. So it might very well be some bacterial problem, which came in with the gups. I also stewed up a small batch of all-veggie medicated gel food (mostly because we were out of suitable fish), which they've had for lunch. I figure I can supplement it with frozen bloodworms or something. Thank goodness Sugar is still eating like a workhorse, at least once he struggles up and over to the food. I dropped some lunch in next to him, in the back corner, which seemed to be appreciated. We'll just have to see what happens. All the other fish are acting fine, so far. *crossing fingers*

I've also been trying to get started on some more cleaning around here. I still haven't gotten caught up with not much seeming to have happened while I was gone. :/ Between the allergies and the EF, I'm just not very good at it. This is another drawback to nuclear family living, when neither of the two people present is particularly good at cleaning! I've been trying the "start with one corner of one room, not to get completely overwhelmed" approach, which does help. I am trying to focus on removing actual obstacles to make it easier to get things done around here, rather than beating myself up over not doing it in spite of real difficulties which can be worked around. Getting the place cleaned up will probably reduce my overload level, too, so I won't just keep looking at the clutter and getting more worked up.

Yes, the baseline allergy load will surely be better once this place is cleaner, but stirring up the dust, mold spores, and dander in the process can be a pretty daunting prospect. I'll put on a mask when I get to more obnoxious areas--I'm working on the kitchen now, which is mostly just cluttered up. The place needs a good early spring cleaning, and we'll just have to find somebody qualified to deal with the nasty black mold from that shower leak, before too long. :( It's a little scary, and visions of strange fungal respiratory infections keep dancing in my head.

Trying to get motivated/in decent shape to clean this place up got me thinking again. Largely to motivate myself, and encourage myself to get some of the obstacles out of the way, I fumigated the place with cedar (to cleanse) and sage (to attract welcome things--I'll be glad for any help I can get!). I couldn't help but think that this may not be the most appropriate combo for Essex. I mean, Barbara Mann made an excellent point about well-intentioned Pan-Indian (a.k.a. Lakota Lite) practices not always working well in the East--with the very different uses of sage as an example, not to mention the connotations of eagle feathers! *shiver*

Now I'm finding myself in a very similar position to that discussed by CR types in North America. I glossed over a lot of those discussions before, since (a) I was very firm on the appropriateness of considering myself to be completely at home, and (b) the ways I had learned of relating to the place, and its spirits, seemed to be working just fine. This was one of the reasons I held back from considering myself to be doing CR per se, in fact, though it looked more accessible at the time.

These days, I do feel like a guest, and try to adapt what I'm doing in a respectful frame of mind (e.g., not offering tobacco here, but finding other things that work better). I'm much more comfortable with this place, and feel like I've gotten to know it a lot better, after a number of years. Still, I occasionally find myself automatically doing things like sage-and-cedaring up the place, when I actually had to get somebody to mail me the cedar! (I had too much on my mind when I was back, to harvest any to bring along. I actually forgot to bring several bags of herbs I'd gathered, including some wild carrot seedheads I'd really like to have. :/) This does not feel completely appropriate. It would surely be better to use native plants, or at least ones from closer to this part of the world.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to which kinds of more local plants work well for this? What has had traditional use in similar ways? It seems to be a strange gap in my knowledge. I could (and will) do some reading, but would also appreciate info from people who have experience with this, if they wouldn't mind sharing some.

Comments

[caitriona-nnc.livejournal.com]

Saining with the smoke of smouldering juniper is traditional in Scotland. Marian McNeill mentions it a few times in The Silver Bough, and I believe it's also mentioned in Campbell/Black's The Gaelic Otherworld.

There are other ways of saining as well (with water, spoken or sung charms, etc) but for cleansing/blessing with smoke, it's juniper.

The main uses that have been recorded are burning it in the spring (Easter or Spring Equinox/Latha na Cailliche) to bless and protect the livestock, and filling the house with the smoke on New Year's to cleanse and bless for the coming year. Outdoors, boughs were thrown on bonfires. Indoors, it was burned in a cauldron. Very much associated with new beginnings and Spring cleaning.

Whether my blood ancestors burned it for clarity, blessings and prayer every morning the way I do... we don't know.

I usually use a shell or bowl with earth in the bottom (to insulate from the heat). As a Celt, fire arising from water is a key image, and for me the shell is appropriate for that. As it's one I dived deep into the ocean to retrieve in Provincetown, it's also special to me. It's not abalone, it's just a simple oyster shell, white and thick and sturdy. I've used it this way for 24 years. With the earth in it we also have a "two realms, with the fire and smoke reaching up to the third" thing going on. But I also keep a bowl with earth handy for those who have the cultural belief that fire and water ceremonies have to be kept separate. For me it's not fire vs water, it's three realms together; but I'm flexible when it matters to someone in the group.

I no longer burn sage. I used to, believing it to be universal to the spirits here in the US. But I more recently learned it's not universal here, and there are even prohibitions against burning it by some Indigenous peoples (including the ones I'm most closely allied with). So, yeah, that combined with the fact that my ancestors didn't burn sage and I'm sticking to juniper for saining purposes.

*edited to add more detail*

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I did recall something about juniper being used elsewhere in Britain, at least, and have considered harvesting some J. communis locally. J. virginiana, which I've been using, isn't really that different, but the native species might be better.

Yeah, I have a big freshwater mussel shell retrieved from the lake which is now on top of my mom's family's land--actually from near a surviving bit of a stand of dewberries my Papaw showed me, where he used to pick them as a kid. That, with some salt in it for insulation, is a lot more personal than a generic abalone shell. AFAICT, not a lot of abalone shells made it into the Ohio drainage, anyway. I'm also going for the three realms/worlds imagery (one of the things that works well in both traditions).

Interesting about the sage. I guess that further difference in approach isn't surprising, though. Around home, it's been used to attract certain types of spirits, though mostly in cooking these days. :) (The Mediterranean culinary stuff does substitute OK, though it might not elsewhere. I know some folks further west are very specific about the white sage.) I am wondering if lavender might work similarly here; though it's not native, it's been here a while by now. I may try this and see what happens. I've been taking even more of an "explain what I'm doing and why" approach, paying good attention to apparent reactions. The sage just doesn't seem to do much here.

I appreciate the reply, and the help filling in the strange knowledge gap. :)

[caitriona-nnc.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of help :-)

The Cherokee have a three realms tradition?

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

AFAICT, it's a common cosmological approach among most nations that were part of Mound Builder and Mississippian cultural complexes, up to around the Great Lakes and further west, with Siouan speakers. (But, then, I'd look at Ho-Cak/Winnebago to fill out what's left of the Tutelo language; on the edges, they were supposed to be mutually comprehensible fairly recently.) That includes Tutelo, Cherokee, and Haudenosaunee. The best description I found, on short notice is here (http://books.google.com/books?id=5BzSkvwNOD0C&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=native+three+realms+sky+water&source=web&ots=7D9V2Zrx-q&sig=WErl5y-z-PXWcmDk7oyeUa4vCho&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA148,M1). Wikipedia is actually not too bad on cosmology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex#Cosmology).

One quibble I have there--at least with the cultures I know reasonably well--is that dualism does not have to be oppositional, though it's apparently easy to assume this if the oppositional kind is what you're used to seeing. Complementary Twinship for balance is what you actually get with Cherokee and Haudenosaunee, with more triune thinking among the Tutelo/Saponi (not sure about other Eastern Siouan groups). Then again, the triskele (http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/3110569) is still a pretty common motif, so I don't know about not-so-public ideas among some of the other folks. I keep meaning to ask Barbara Mann about this, among the Haudenosaunee at least.

So, yeah, I had actually assumed that a number of ideas I'd grown up with were probably Celtic imports, but apparently not. Yet another reason certain groups of people got along so well, I guess!

[ivy]

J. communis works like the above, for me. I haven't tried J. virginiana, but some of the import creeper junipers seemed to be much more "protect the house", which I found funny. (The garden center says they're invasives. Protective invasives!)

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Back in VA, we had a couple of overgrown nursery junipers by the front door, which turned out to be different varieties as they got bigger. We planted them when we moved in. One looked like J. communis, while the other was lower growing. They got pretty gigantic and not very conventionally decorative within a few years, but just occasionally got a pruning when they tried to take over the porch steps. The main reason I let them be was that they did have a strong protective vibe there. And just because I liked them. :)

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, the protective vibe was just enhanced by their threatening to shoot out a prickly branch to wrap around human legs that approached the steps. *g*

[caitriona-nnc.livejournal.com]

Heh. Some of ours is by the door, as well. Feng Shui people would not like that, but for this Celt it's just fine ;-)

[caitriona-nnc.livejournal.com]

Of the two big bags here that we were using when you were here last, I'm pretty sure J. virginiana was one of them. I don't recall which type you have in the box, though.

[ivy]

What she said! I don't personally use a shell; I generally just hold it, and it generally goes out before it gets to the point of burning my fingers. Remainders go into my compost heap, with thanks and recycling-like "live, burn, die, renew, return" like thoughts and meditations. (That's sort of a Danu thing for me, but 100% my UPG.)

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

I don't actually use the mussel shell that much, just for a specific purpose. (More ancestral-type stuff there.) I was burning sprigs of sage in my fingers, but burned myself enough that I started using a couple of other containers--depending on focus--with coarse salt in there. I'm tempted to start using Maldon salt (http://www.maldonsalt.co.uk/) for the extra local factor. Salt is mostly convenient, and easier to clean up than dirt if/when I drop it all over the floor. *g*

Speaking of UPG (and a bit of syncretism), one of the incense/smudging containers is a Buddha head candle holder. *chuckles* It's probably good that the main thrust of what I'm doing now adapts itself well to different approaches and outer trappings.

[caitriona-nnc.livejournal.com]

"live, burn, die, renew, return"

I don't know if there's a specific Carmina or OI poem with that gist, but it's certainly in the spirit of some I've seen.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Cedar is still fine here - for sources, look to former church land; you'll often find it growing near yew - both were planted in churchyards. Mountain ash (rowan) is also appropriate; and I second the mention of juniper.

Wild carrot is native to the British Isles too. I don't know what other herbs you are used to using, but there will be native equivalents.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

The "cedar" I was using is really Juniperus virginiana (Eastern red cedar), but I think I'd rather try some native J. communis when this gets low. It seemed to do the job, but I may just save some for colds and coughs--don't know if J. communis is similarly good for that. Thanks for the other suggestions. Some proper cedar is worth a try, and I've noticed some nearby. I remember reading traditional use of rowan berries and branches, but it works burned as well?

The sage was what just didn't seem to do much. I am guessing that it just doesn't work in the same way here. As I mentioned in the other reply, lavender occurred to me as a possible substitute. It's worth a try, at least, maybe along with some mugwort.

Yes, I was hoping to get out and pick some Daucus carota locally, in season. I just happened upon a hillside covered with D. pusillus while I was back. :)

[caitriona-nnc.livejournal.com]

Something about burning Rowan feels off to me. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the close connection with the Folk of the Mounds. I'm always careful with it so as not to piss anyone off.

Once I peeled some fresh bark off a cut sapling I later used for ogham féanna. I made a tincture of the bark. Haven't used it for much, but the fumes from bark operation resulted in heavy-duty visuals of the local nature spirits, and then a splitting headache. Oh. I think the bark had grown some sort of mold.

Trad uses of Rowan are stringing the berries like beads on red thread to wear for protection, and making equal-armed crosses tied with red thread, usually placed over doors or carried on one's person. Best if in all these constructions no metal is used. Neither of these things have given me a headache.