September 25, 2009
Harvest Home Altar (Dark)
Filed under: Rituals
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The picture above is my ancestral altar where I'll be plying my recently - and not so recently - deceased ancestors and relatives with food and drink throughout our harvest celebration. (Because I'm somewhat estranged from my family I don't have any pictures of anyone except for my mother, and even THAT image is the only one I have of her.)
Tonight's menu? Leftover yogurt soup (I made fresh stock using frozen bones from last year's Christmas goose and dumped in carrots, baby corn, potatoes, rice, roast duck and grilled sirloin steak marinated in miso soup), cubes of cornmeal spoonbread (it's a Ukrainian thing) and homemade garlic bread.
The bowl to the right contains Mabon's first meal - an oatmeal breakfast using PROPER pinhead oats, whole milk, a shredded apple, nuts, plums from outside, whole milk and honey. (Everyone in the house - including the rats - had a bowl before we began harvesting on the equinox.) On top of it is an offering of a glazed donut (REDUCED TO CLEAR GLAZED DONUTS? YES PLZ!) and an Italian cookie. (<- I continuously add whatever we're eating to their altar so they don't miss out on anything.)
Below are a few blurry candlelit shots of our main harvest home altar, thanks to baking bread all day (FOUR RISES? WHY DOES UKIE BREAD ALWAYS NEED EXCESSIVE RISING?!) I'm dead tired so I'll skip out on explaining shit until I have better quality pictures. (There are A LOT of skulls and A LOT of food and A LOT of Slavic kitsch.)(It'll look a billion times more impressive with some light. Honest for real.)
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