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Branwen

824 posts

Re: Votive offerings

Sep 05, 2009, 13:30

I'm a pagan, and this sort of thing gives us a bad name.

Degrading over time is the whole point of the ancient practice. You took a small piece off the clothing you were wearing and tied it to the tree, and the more it degraded, whilst wearing the item it had been taken from, the better your illness got. So the smaller the piece you rip off, the quicker you got well. The ideal thing, then, would be to pull out a single thread and tie that to the tree. It's called sympathetic magic. It doesn't work if anyone else can read your wish, or hears it spoken. Part of the discipline is to keep it between you and the tree. Invisible. Like blowing out candles.

As for tea lights, the flame is supposed to be accompanied, your ritual is to stay with it for as long as it burns. You take the empty bit with you when you go. People are too lazy to sit with a flame for hours these days I suppose.

Asking for something you didn't need to survive was something that brought bad luck; like wishing to be rich would only make you poor. The Cloutie Trees were also known as Faerie Trees after their guardian inhabitants, and the faeries are always contrary when it comes to wishes. One man in Scotland wished that he could become "the best singer I've ever heard in the whole of Scotland". He got his wish. Except, he was the only one who heard himself singing beautifully, to everyone else he sounded like a banshee wailing, and he never got a single gig out of it. Beware what you ask for with faeries is ALWAYS the rule, and NEVER offend them by ruining their home. If you seriously believe in this stuff, you have to seriously accept that leaving something unwelcome or asking for something un-needful is gonna seriously ruin your weird, not improve it.

The other thing about Cloutie trees is that it isn't just any old tree at any old ancient site that has the power to heal or grant wishes. There are a whole list of things involved. The type of tree, which way it faces, it's proximity to a spring or well etc.....

I live in Scotland, and tell stories like the one above to people thinking of leaving offerings. I don't tell them to stop. I just point out uf they really believe in that stuff, they are about to make a HUGE mistake. I then offer the acceptable ancient alternatives. Tieing one thread and doing healing rituals if someone is sick.

Sometimes it's the pool or well itself that is the focus of the wishing. Offering an alternative to silver coins which was done here going back who knows how long is this. You hunt for three white stones, at the site, and offer those, with an explanation of the origin of such things, and how they deteriorated into simple wish making. You can wish for one thing needful for yourself, one thing needful for another, and one thing needful for the place you are wishing. It highlights thinking about the place and what its needs are.

I personally don't think it's a misunderstanding of ancient lore so much. I've offered to tell people of the origins of the custom to stop them tying plasic dolls to trees and they say to bog off, the angel-spirits-of-light like it (so and so author/guru/teacher revealed it to them for £14.99) and are nothing to do with paganism, which is a fake religion, and we are just trying to rob THEM of THEIR customs. I said fine, you won't mind if I come back later and stick pins in your doll then, will you?

As for stone circles, the perambulation of the sacred ways is the only way to improve the "vibe". How much easier to sit on your fat ass after tying a barbie doll to a tree than to walk three times sunwise round a henge?

Our spirituality is being Macdonaldised, like everything else. Some dont care about ancient practice or real origins, or extra effort, they just want bigger, better, faster, easier, cheaper, NOW. The only way to stop it is to fill people's needs another way. At the Edinburgh dungeon people were leaving offerings to a ghost all over the place, so they built one huge box, incorporated the ghost story into the tour at the box, and told people the ghost of the little girl would appreciate the dolls and teddies left there, and they would be given to the children's hospital once a year.

These sites need a board detailing acceptable rituals put on a notice board at the main access point if it is becoming a problem. If you are gonna clean up these sites, try putting on a yellow hi-visibility jacket and carrying those sticks with the grab bit at the bottom, people are more likely to assume you are on a regular tat patrol then. You can ask at your local police station, and they will say if you hand in the items you remove, it isn't illegal, but if you keep or throw them away, it is "theft by finding". The police become sick of being handed these bags of "lost property", and make an effort to have signs put up, I've heard. At the very least, they say to you it's litter, and you have an "out" if someone does call the police and they actually come, unlikely as that is to happen.

In reply to:
Re: Votive offerings (goffik)

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Re: Votive offerings (Rhiannon)

Topic Outline:

Votive offerings – Littlestone, Aug 31, 2009, 20:48


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