WTF? Do you, as a witch, eat squirrel?

I don't find many pagan books during my thrift store shopping, so when I do, I tend to buy on sight. This time, for 50 cents, I got Gerina Dunwich's Candlelight Spells: The Modern Witch's Book of Spellcasting, Feasting, and Natural Healing.

There is a recipe, page 37, for the main Lammas feast centerpiece, BAKED SQUIRRELS

Baked squirrels! The first ingredient listed is "13 skinned and washed squirrels". I can't even tell you how ridiculous the directions read. (They begin, "Dredge squirrels in flour mixed with the yellow pollen of cattails collected in early or midsummer...") This is like some fucked up Mad Libs recipe where "squirrels" was the plural noun that my niece picked to be funny.

Now, obviously it is just as gross as if it said, "Baked Chickens", but really--this is feasting for "the modern witch"? The modern witches I know mostly live in urban or suburban settings, shop in grocery stores, and rarely, if ever, have access to 13 dead squirrels.

Eww. Just eww.

I'm going to have to come up with a post-modern witch's Lammas menu.

(I don't have a squirrel icon. Let this chipmunk's look of shock be admonishment enough.)

The H Word

Leave me a comment and I will give you a letter.
Then, write 10 things that you love starting with that letter.
Post the list in your journal.
Give out letters to your commenters in return.

mermaiden gave me the letter "H".

1. Horses
I wasn't fortunate enough to grow up around horses, but I grew up immersed in stories of my mom's childhood horse adventures and those fictional ones I could find in the likes of The Black Stallion, Black Beauty, and The Saddle Club. Every horse book in the library, every book at the used book store that had anything to do with horses, I read over and over again. I memorized horse care manuals and confirmation standards in my free time. I collected and loved on My Little Pony, Breyer, and even She-Ra and Barbie's noble, crayola-hued horses. The best part of moving to Florida when I was ten years old was that it afforded me the first opportunity to ride, at a trail riding livery stable. I cannot think of an animal on this earth that I love and feel more of a soul connection to than the horse. I was also born in the Year of the Horse. :)

2. Holidays
I love celebrating holidays as holy days, days where my focus can shift both inward and outward, where the small details of meals and decoration and clothing become imbued with care and love in a way that I don't always remember to do in my day-to-day life, and where I'm given free rein and ample excuse to give gifts to those I love.

3. Hearts
I love hearts. I love them as a symbol for love--romantic love, familial love, world love, compassionate love, perfect love. I think, for me, that the heart is a sacred symbol and a very happy one besides. :)

4. Happiness
For me, happiness is a state achieved when I'm properly grounded, acting in accordance with my moral and spiritual compass, and living life in a grateful, optimistic way. I strive for happiness, even in crappo situations, and try to surround myself with people who have the same kind of emotional, energetic wiring.

5. History
If there was room for a number 11, I'd have added "humanity". I love history because it is the fascinating story of people--both in groups and singly. I'm interested in material culture and I'm interested in the ways in which our religious mores inform our societies' unique developmental paths, but I'm most interested in history as a window into the soul, collective and singly, of humanity.

6. Homemade
Food, gifts, clothing, bath products, paintings. I love the artisan-joy of homemade things. I love buying them and knowing that somewhere, that purchase may have made someone's day or reaffirmed in them a sense of their own creative worth.

7. Heroes
I love people whose hearts are filled with compassion, who are steeled with courage, who do the uncommon thing to make the world a better place. They inspire me and I celebrate their vision and commitment.

8. Hiking
I love to be outside, I love to see new places, I love to take walks--so really, hiking is the best of those worlds.

9. Harmony
Both musical and interpersonal, for me harmony is about creating something beautiful by balancing both my own individual needs, wants, and talents with those of someone else. I'm a Libra sun sign, so I find I have a lot of yearning to reach a state of harmony and balance with those around me. I do believe the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, if working in natural, supportive concert together.

10.Hummus
Daniel introduced me to hummus when we first met and beyond into a whole slew of international, vegan-friendly cuisines. So, I guess hummus is not only really yummy as condiment, but is also a symbol of that opening world of mine where I moved to being happily, globally vegan.