Summer Amulet Bags
It was my intention to fill these bags and seal them on the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, invoking St. Peter in locking in the solar energy and joy. But, I forgot that the midsummer night herbs would need a couple of weeks to dry first.
So I ended up doing the ritual last night, still invoking Saint Peter.
The embroidered design of the first bag is a nod to the acorn I asked from the Council Oak, in Dardanelle, Arkansas. While there are a lot of conflicting reports about whether the Cherokee signed over land there 🙁 on The Trail of Tears, it is supposed to be the biggest white oak in Arkansas and is thought to be between 400 and 500 years old.
In addition to the acorn I filled the bag with a pinch of each of my now dry Midsummer foraged herbs: heartleaf wood nettle, horsemint (beebalm), mountain mint (clustered), red clover, elderflower, narrowleaf plantain, yarrow, passionflower, and St. John’s wort. The bag is dedicated to Oak, Perun, and St. Elijah. I plan on returning to the Council Oak on St. Elijah’s feast day later this month to charge the bag completely.
The second bag celebrates the joyful month of May and the height of summer in June. It is two-sided, with Our Lady of the Ozarks depicted on one side and a mashup of bloodroot and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the other.
We made two casual pilgrimages to nearby Marian sites in May, the traditional month for such events, and at both Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Altus and Our Lady of the Ozarks shrine near Winslow, I collected plants in wild places bordering the grounds. In Altus I gathered common mullein and thistle, and in the Ozarks, moth mullein, plantain, and wood sorrel. Some varieties of thistle are associated with Mother Mary, as is mullein (common names include Our Lady's Candle or Our Lady's Flannel), plantain serves as a symbol for the humble faithful who walk the often-difficult, well-trodden path toward salvation, and the wood sorrel I gathered for its trifoliate leaves.
If I’m to be completely honest, I actually asked wood sorrel for her leaves in a flowerbed on the shrine grounds, but she was obviously growing wild and not intentionally planted. According to widespread Christian and Irish folklore, Saint Patrick used the trifoliate leaf of the wood sorrel (the original "shamrock") to explain the concept of the Trinity—three distinct persons in one God. The single stem binds the three distinct heart-shaped leaves together. The leaflets of this yellow wood sorrel are distinctly heart-shaped. The unfolding and folding of these leaves (which open in the morning and close in the evening) serve as a daily reminder of the unfolding of God’s love and the Passion of Christ.
I did not include the dried thistle in the bag, though it was included in the ritual—thistle is traditionally a protective plant in Slavic folklore and I’m using it to guard my yarrow stalks that I use syncretically with the I Ching to speak to the ancestors.
The bloodroot was gathered in the Ozark-St. Francis forest on Walpurgisnacht. I only gathered the one root when I gathered a couple of leaves for my Walpurgisnacht protective bundle. Though the bloodroot is abundant where I gathered her, in other regions she is a vulnerable and even endangered species. Though it is not illegal to gather in Arkansas, in some states it is. I made her an offering, vowed to never ask for any other physical piece of her, and promised to honor her with a stitched bag.
As she was nearly dried near June (the month of the sacred heart), I incorporated the sacred heart iconography into the pattern—the flames erupting from the heart could just as easily be rays of the midsummer sun, so I honored the sun maiden as well with the bag and included a sprig of St. John’s wort gathered on his night.
Both bags are intended to harness the energy, joy, and abundance in summer and will be used to honor the beings they are dedicated to and assist in rituals in the dark half of the year when that extra energy is needed.
