While driving across the country to get back home from visiting my family, I took a particularly rural route, which had me spending my nights in several isolated little towns. One of these nights happened to fall upon the Dark Moon, beneath which I am oathbound to undertake a Chthonic Eucharist of sorts in the name of the Bone Mother. I normally carry out these Lunar Rites within the bounds of the Yarth—our ritually Sanctified Boneyard—but found myself having to play things by ear this evening.
Once night had fallen, and the nowhere-town I was in was well asleep, I allowed my feet to carry me towards a liminal place—an open field with two poplars at its center, looking like a gateway or a set of ancient pillars. Trusting in my instincts, I made my way to this Place Betwixt and gave a humble offering in the name of Holy Death.
Strange though it may have been, this ceremony actually proved a particularly powerful one for me. There is something so very wisht about prowling the overgrown lots of an alien town under cover of the Dark Moon, with only my shadow to keep me company.
o flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, dispel with glorious splendour the darkness everywhere; true man, yet very god, from sin and death now save us, and share our every load. – es ist ein ros entsprungen [a rose has sprung up]
My first rosary strand - from foraged petal to handmade bead. 🌹
Vernacular names : dog rose, wild rose,rosehip (name given to the fruit of the dog rose), in France we call it “gratte-cul” literally “itching-ass”, it evokes hairs in the red fruits which can cause itching. Also call cynor®hodon, kunorhodon (greek) : Dog Rose, Rose du Chien.
The name “dog rose” comes from the property once attributed to the root of this plant, which was supposed to cure the bites of rabid dogs.*(I will talk about this property further when I will translate extracts from Fournier for the botanical properties of the plant.)
The rosehip is a shrub which, in France, has always had great magical properties.
Suspended from the door or from the ceiling of houses, its branches protect against diseases and spells (North); they prevent cow’s milk from drying up, especially after a curse has been cast on it (Limousin).
To cast or “lift” a spell, one uses a rosehip root that one will have picked up in a cemetery on a full moon night. (Languedoc)
The magical and formerly sacred character of this shrub appears in certain prohibitions (taboos), mixed with fear and respect, noted in the 19th century :
you must be careful not to insult it, otherwise the culprit will be affected by an illness that will only go away when he apologizes. (West)
the young girl who picks a rosehip flower will see her marriage delayed for a year.
if this same young girl (mean virgin) touches the fruit of the dog rose, she will fall from the “high-disease” (old name given to epilepsy.) (Drôme.)
laying rosehip flowers on a grave brings bad luck to the family for entire generations.
-
According to a Breton legend, it’s the devil who designed the rosehip while trying to make a rosebush.
-
Magical Medicine:
you must cut a branch of wild rose the same size as the patient and put it to dry in the fireplace. When the branch is completely withered, the patient is cured.
various skin problems can be treated in the same way.
certain healers in the Gard treat their patients by pulling up a rosehip at sunrise, a gesture accompanied by magic words. Healers must then walk away backwards.
Sometimes an excrescence that looks like a sponge grows on the dog rose (it is called “rose scab”). It has long been used to dissolve kidney stones and has long been attributed with all sorts of marvelous properties. It protects against toothaches, it brings good luck (if you find it without having looked for it, or if you can’t remember where you put it in your clothes)(Loiret), as a poultice on the kidneys it soothes the pain of menstruation and calms the influx of blood.
( *wikipedia + Fournier.)
[abstracts arranged by me from Delmas, Fournier, Thiers.]
Vernacular names : dog rose, wild rose,rosehip (name given to the fruit of the dog rose), in France we call it “gratte-cul” literally “itching-ass”, it evokes hairs in the red fruits which can cause itching. Also call cynor®hodon, kunorhodon (greek) : Dog Rose, Rose du Chien.
The name “dog rose” comes from the property once attributed to the root of this plant, which was supposed to cure the bites of rabid dogs.*(I will talk about this property further when I will translate extracts from Fournier for the botanical properties of the plant.)
The rosehip is a shrub which, in France, has always had great magical properties.
Suspended from the door or from the ceiling of houses, its branches protect against diseases and spells (North); they prevent cow’s milk from drying up, especially after a curse has been cast on it (Limousin).
To cast or “lift” a spell, one uses a rosehip root that one will have picked up in a cemetery on a full moon night. (Languedoc)
The magical and formerly sacred character of this shrub appears in certain prohibitions (taboos), mixed with fear and respect, noted in the 19th century :
you must be careful not to insult it, otherwise the culprit will be affected by an illness that will only go away when he apologizes. (West)
the young girl who picks a rosehip flower will see her marriage delayed for a year.
if this same young girl (mean virgin) touches the fruit of the dog rose, she will fall from the “high-disease” (old name given to epilepsy.) (Drôme.)
laying rosehip flowers on a grave brings bad luck to the family for entire generations.
-
According to a Breton legend, it’s the devil who designed the rosehip while trying to make a rosebush.
-
Magical Medicine:
you must cut a branch of wild rose the same size as the patient and put it to dry in the fireplace. When the branch is completely withered, the patient is cured.
various skin problems can be treated in the same way.
certain healers in the Gard treat their patients by pulling up a rosehip at sunrise, a gesture accompanied by magic words. Healers must then walk away backwards.
Sometimes an excrescence that looks like a sponge grows on the dog rose (it is called “rose scab”). It has long been used to dissolve kidney stones and has long been attributed with all sorts of marvelous properties. It protects against toothaches, it brings good luck (if you find it without having looked for it, or if you can’t remember where you put it in your clothes)(Loiret), as a poultice on the kidneys it soothes the pain of menstruation and calms the influx of blood.
( *wikipedia + Fournier.)
[abstracts arranged by me from Delmas, Fournier, Thiers.]
Normally my Savior Day spreads are quite elaborate with homemade food, homegrown produce, and personal projects all artfully arranged around icons and fresh flowers (from my container garden) in one of my foraging baskets.
Things have been a little different this year.
I’ve spent most of my devotional cycle stripping feasts and celebrations down to essentials, focusing more on what they’re about and what I’m trying to achieve instead of funneling huge amounts of effort into creating aesthetically pleasing altars and displays.
There’s a definite charm to minimalism - this year’s been a good exercise in simplicity and mindfulness - but I still prefer my flavor of unrestrained abundance.
Pictured: homegrown poppy seeds, Scottish sea salt, locally produced blossom honey, homegrown garlic, homegrown plum, homemade First Fruits crumb bar, and a bundle of locally grown standing stone barley.
Had a few folks interested in how I made the patches I posted for Solarpunk Aesthetic Week, so I thought I’d give y'all my step-by-step process for making hand-embroidered patches!
First, choose your fabric and draw on your design. You can use basically any fabric for this - for this project I’m using some felt I’ve had lying around in my stash for ages.
Next, choose your embroidery floss. For my patches I split my embroidery floss into two threads with 3 strands each, as pictured. You can use as many strands in your thread as you prefer, but for the main body of my patches I prefer 3 strands.
Next you’re going to start filling your design using a back stitch.
First, put in a single stitch where you want your row to start.
Poke your needle up through the fabric 1 stitch-length away from your first stitch.
Poke your needle back down the same hole your last stitch went into so they line up end-to-end.
Repeat until you have a row of your desired length (usually the length of that colour section from one end to the other). Once you have your first row, you’re going to do your next row slightly offset from your first row so that your stitches lay together in a brick pattern like this:
Make sure your rows of stitches are tight together, or you’ll get gaps where the fabric shows through.
Rinse and repeat with rows of back stitch to fill in your patch design.
When you’re almost to the end of your thread, poke your needle through to the back of the fabric and pull the thread under the back part of the stitching to tuck in the end. Don’t worry if it looks messy - no one’s gonna see the back anyway.
This next step is fully optional, but I think it makes the patch design really pop. Once your patch is filled in, you can use black embroidery floss to outline your design (or whatever colour you want to outline with - it’s your patch, do what you want). I use the full thread (6 strands, not split) of embroidery floss to make a thicker outline.
I use the same back stitch I used to fill the piece to make an outline that adds some separation and detail. You could use most any ‘outlining’ stitch for this, but I just use back stitch because it’s just easier for me to do.
Once you’re finished embroidering your patch, it’s time to cut it out!
Make sure to leave a little border around the edge to use for sewing your patch on your jacket/bag/blanket/whatever, and be careful not to accidentally cut through the stitches on the back of the patch.
If you have a sturdy enough fabric that isn’t going to fray, you can just leave it like this. If not, I recommend using a whip stitch/satin stitch to seal in the exposed edges (I find that splitting your embroidery floss into 3-strand threads works best for this).
And then you’re done! At this point you can put on iron-on backing if you want, or just sew it on whatever you wanna put it on. Making patches this way does take a long time, but I feel that the results are worth it.
Thanks for reading this tutorial! I hope it was helpful. If anyone makes patches using this method, I’d love to see them! 😁
GREAT tutorial on patches. sharing is caring, my friends.
Ms. Graveyard Dirt is an Aries (with Pisces and Mercury in her moon and Leo as her ascent) born at Resurrection Hospital during the year of the monkey. Almost nun, devil worshipper, ecstatic harlot, maenad, sacred whore, virgin bride and unrepentanting, semi-feral wild woman. Witch; the fairy tale, man-eating kind.
♠ COPYRIGHT
Original Contents Copyright 2009-2017, Ms. Graveyard Dirt All Motherfucking Rights Reserved. Beware the devil woman.
reblogged from lailoken
