Communing with Morana, Děduška, Our Lady of the Root, and the Ancestors Through Kitchen Work
We are having company in a week and a half and the room I use for my drying trays and bunches needs to be turned into a guest room. I still had herbs drying from mezi matičkama this morning and I knew I needed to dig in and get all my plants stored for the rest of the fall and winter months.
I started with my flying dragon (trifoliate) oranges. I had juiced half of them last week and made jelly and hadn’t decided yet what to do with the rest. For now the juice is in the freezer and the peels are mostly dried (I had them in the oven all afternoon—it smelled divine), I’ll lay them on drying trays to make sure they are done and pack them up right before our guests arrive.
I plan on using the peels to decorate my first polaz, an old Czech Koleda/Christmas decoration that represents the sun.
Next I removed the leaves and flowers from the goldenrod and produced a nice big jar of tea. I’ve been enjoying it so much that I may gather some more though. I enjoyed it with the sassafras syrup this afternoon while I was working.
I removed the berries from the sumac bunches and powdered them so they will be ready for more za’atar or other Levantine recipes.
I broke the sasssfras leaves up so they’ll be ready for tea, or if I decided to make more syrup (so good with club soda and to sweeten teas).
Lastly I pulled the petals from the purple cone flower seed heads and then tossed the seed heads along the hedges to see if I can get any to pop up here next year (I had gathered these at my moms).
It was a very pleasant afternoon communing with Morana. I don’t talk about her too much in these public journals (other than the popular drowning and her outfit changes on the altar), but the bulk of the work I do with the land is in communion with her and Solntse (or Sunna, or Saule). Though most people who work with her these days think of her as a winter and death goddess, to me she is a deity of all the seasons. If you look hard enough in the folklore, this isn’t a thought original to me.
The immense amount of foraging I’ve been able to do this year has also brought me closer to my ancestors. Gathering the first spring greens to make the Easter soups and then at Rusalia/Pentecost, midsummer, and mezi matičkama gathering the plants when most magically potent has been a beautiful rhythm.
