New Beginnings Challenge Entry
This is yet another boring, simple entry for a challenge on my part, but with everything going on in the US and the world, and planning a trip abroad, I honestly don’t have much energy to do anything too exciting or crazy.
For this challenge, I’m going to keep it simple and get back to basics. As mentioned previously, I am currently on the path of a Braucher/Hexenmeister, I am going to take the time to go through one of the most important texts of Braucherei: The Long Lost Friend.
I decided that I am going to go through it entry-by-entry and really taking the time to break down the charms and workings to reconnect deeply with the roots of Braucherei. I am using an 1850s edition of The Long Lost Friend, as well as the heavily annotated Daniel Harms edition.
So far, I’m really glad that I’m finally getting around to breaking down the text. I don’t know why I didn’t think about doing a deep dive until recently – you’d think it would be the first thing one would do when committing to a specific tradition! I’m a few charms/workings into the book so far, and I’m realizing how useful the entries are. Obviously things change and ingredients and methods are no longer considered safe or acceptable, but I’ve had a lot of insight into how I can adapt the workings and make sure that I can employ herbal codes instead of taking ingredients such as the right eye of a wolf literally. In addition, I am finding multiple other potential uses for the workings other than the one specified in the working.
For example, there’s a working titled “A remedy to be used when any one is falling away, and which has cured many persons” that is – when taken at face value, as written – used for numerous illnesses that cause weakness and weight loss. In it, the illness is transferred to the egg through being boiled in the afflicted person’s morning water (i.e., the person’s first urine of the day).
Let the person in perfect soberness and without having conversed with anyone, make water in a pot before sunrise; boil an egg in this urine, bore three small holes in this egg with a needle, and carry it to an ant-hill made by big ants; and the person will feel relieved as soon as the egg is devoured. (page 9-10)
The illness is then “eaten” and transferred by the ants who eat the egg; as the ants consume the egg, the illness leaves the person. In addition to being an illness-healing working, it can also be used to remove curses/hexes (think of the concept of using one’s urine in a “witch bottle” for protection and to rid oneself of a curse). The uses don’t stop there: it can also be used as a working to help relieve (no pun intended! [urine humor… I know… I admit, I’m immature sometimes :P]) other conditions like depression and anxiety.
Long story short, I’m going back to the beginning of the foundational texts of the practice of Braucherei.