Dear Friends,

So for the last several days Tropical Storm Debby has been sending (much needed) rain to the City Beautiful specifically and Central Florida in general… I had a couple of days of Monday and Tuesday and so was sitting around the apartment Monday morning waking up ans sitting my coffee.  Catching up with archive of the Pagan Values Event for this year, and reading the blogs and otherwise winding up to do something…

Now recently I’ve been reading Seba over at Southern Fried Witch, she’s a righteous writer and a fabulous cook… and she has recently started posting again after the chaos of a sudden but blessed move to new digs.

I realized that I was feeling the need to nest, maybe do something a little protective of my home in light of the ongoing rain and winds and potential for tornado activity (witches and tornadoes rather famously don’t mix well after all) and also feeling the need to get in touch with the Spirits and Holy Powers…

So I started by getting myself in the mood by cranking Flying Off To Brocken, one of my Pandora stations.  I started lighting candles, including Hestia’s Oil burner… adding some of the White Truffle Olive Oil since it was evolving into an occasion and all… and Brighid’s Candle from that Imbolc… I tasted salt, and drank water, and kindled a flame, and rang a bell… climbing up the symbolic shelves of my Altar and going through the elements as they align with the Chakras…

I opened a bottle of wine, poured myself a glass and spent a few moments in thought…

I started blessing Water and pouring Libations…. The Household Spirits, The Great Goddess, The Witchfather, Hecate… all of Them got water… then the Ancestors were served some of the Wine…

It felt right to change up the normal order of things because of the storms… something in me remembered that in a lot of the Celtic stories one traveled between the worlds by traveling into or under the Ocean… somehow I had this sense that a Tropical Storm is some sort of Limnal time where the Walls Between the Worlds thin… so I wanted to Honor the Ancestors but I wanted to Welcome some of the other Holy Powers before inviting The Beloved and Honored Dead to the party.

So having said hello to everyone I then lit some incense… first some Dragon’s Blood and then a little while later the Satyr’s Blend that the Fabulous Jonathan and I made a while back.  Then I turned to the recipes… Cooking something seemed to be the order of the day… something to enjoy, something decadent.  I alternated sipping coffee, and Cabernet, as I prowled through the cookbooks and recipes and cabinets and converted-bookshelf-pantry.  Finally I decided I wanted Veles‘s Cookie…

…ok, WOW that reads much more glamorously dirty than I mean it too..

What I should probably say is that I wanted to make another batch of those cookies that Veles had given me a recipe for…

Veles’s Chocolate Devil Cookies

1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp- Instant Coffee
1 pinch Cinnamon
1 pinch Black Pepper

1/2 Cup (1 stick) of Butter
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Combine Dry Ingredients. Incorporate Wet Ingredients and mix well by hand. Form teaspoon size balls and flatten. Bake for 7 minutes in a 400 degree Farenheit oven…

I had made them once before and had been wanting to make them again and try a few variations on the recipe, so for this batch I decided to use 1/2 cup Sugar and 1/2 cup Splenda and use 3 or 4 shakes of the shaker of Cinnamon and Black Pepper and also som Paprika none of this pinch stuff… then I added a couple of teaspoons of the Cabernet… although I could have probably added a couple more…

They turned out decadent and delicious and the home felt, well, more like Home and a little safe and secure.  The music and imbibing continued as I cooked up some Polish Sausage for me and the husbear for dinner.

Tonight I am taking some of the few cookies left and giving them to the Land…

What do you do on a rainy day?

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey