Re-Post: "Life's So Sweet"

from January, 2014

 Ever since my last visit to New Mexico in 2012, I’ve had really strong, nostalgic feelings for the desert. That trip was healing for me in a lot of ways, giving me the chance to reconnect with family and friends, to really feel and experience the energy and magic of the landscape, and to really appreciate the land, the culture, and the people in ways I hadn’t been able during my depressing teenage years. That trip home even inspired me to write a short little article for Witches & Pagans magazine for their Element of Fire issue, and I've even begun to honor the desert in my own personal practices.  

You can’t go home again, and I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to. But I do like having home come to me, in little things like Hatch chilies, Kokopelli all over my house, and most of all, with food. Food is so tied to culture and place, and it can be hard to get good southern New Mexican style food in this area. Luckily for me, though, since my sister has been here she has made green chili stew, sopapillas, and bizcochitos. Oh yes.

Bizcochitos are the state cookie of New Mexico, and these little guys date back to the Spanish colonists of the region, hundreds of years ago. They’re made of lard and wine and anise and are really just amazing, and can be very similar to ginger snaps. My sister made them for the 2013 holiday celebrations – Yule, Solstice, Saturnalia, Christmas, New Years, etc. They’re often eaten during the Christmas season, but also popular for baptisms, funerals, and weddings.

What’s great about these little cookies is that they bring with them the magic of place. I’m not in New Mexico, but I can bring New Mexico to me. I may not be the descendant of a Spanish conquistador, but I am New Mexican, and I can share this unique culture with my North Carolina friends and family.

Some people don’t care for anise, but it really is a wonderful herb. Anise is great for the cold holiday months. It brings the properties of youth, protection, and purification. It spreads greater awareness and happiness. These are perfect for the time of the birth/rebirth of the sun/son, for shelter and security during the uncertainty of winter, and for bringing in the New Year. Anise brings with it mindfulness of flavor, of place, of being, and it is tangy and unique and sweet and joyful.

As many know, cooking and baking can be magical acts. My sister was so excited to prepare bizcochitos, and she made them with love and nostalgia, remembering her own experiences back in the desert. She was adorably eager and nervous to share these regional cookies with my friends here in North Carolina, but we figured that even if people didn’t like them, that would just mean more for us.

So even here on the cold and wet east coast, we can enjoy the taste, flavor, and memory of the desert. I was honored that my sister wanted to share these cookies with me, and we were both happy to share them with others as well.

 

Bizcochitos

1 ½ cup lard

1 ½ cup sugar

3 eggs

3 teaspoons anise seed

6 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup sweet white wine (plus ¼ extra if needed)

½ cup sugar + 1 tablespoon sugar

Plus plenty of cinnamon and sugar

Cream together lard and 1 ½ cup sugar. In separate bowl, beat the eggs and wine together. Add the lard and sugar and mix well. In separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry and wet mixture together. Your dough should be slightly sticky. Divide the dough into three large bowls and keep in the fridge overnight. Preheat your oven to 350. Roll the dough into little balls and roll these balls into a cinnamon and sugar mixture. Cook the little balls for 10-15 minutes in the oven. After they are done cooking, roll them again in cinnamon and sugar so you get a double coating. Enjoy!

(My sister doesn’t remember where she got this recipe. It’s written in her journal. But if you own this recipe, let me know and I’ll give you credit! Other recipes and variations can be found all over the internet, and they’re really super easy to make!)

Re-Post: "All God's People"

Re-post from my Super Duper Social Worker blog, honoring my Blessed Dead, October 2012

Grandma Val passed away not too long ago. I don’t think she and i ever met until after Mutti and Chris got married. I remember coming home from college to visit my family over the Easter holiday, and I had Easter dinner with my newly mixed family. I had been nervous about meeting my mom’s new in-laws because as with all families, there had been some tension and I can sometimes be defensive of my mother.

Val was shy, and maybe a little introverted. She might not have been overly outgoing when I was there, but she made sure everyone was well fed, and she even surprised me with an Easter basket. This immediately made me feel like I was part of the family, even though I hadn’t lived at home for many years and even though this was the first time I had participated in a Morris/Hanson family event.

And every time I went home to New Mexico after that, we’d have Sunday dinners with Grandma Val and the family. She’d make a point to take out the good dishes, the wine glasses, always made sure that there was red wine in the house because she knew I liked it, even though she didn’t drink. Grandma Val helped my little sister plan my New Mexico wedding shower, and that meant a lot to me, too. It was a beautiful day, the food was great, and the companionship was even better.

Sometimes we’d all go out for pizza, and we’d get green chili pizza and Dr. Pepper. My all-time favorite story of Grandma Val is over pizza (with green chilies!) and she said she and Pop-Pop would buy this meal every Friday night and watch Star Trek. I said “oh, Steve and I are watching Star Trek, too. We’re on the episode when Picard does such and such.” And she looked at me and said, “No, Amanda. Star Trek. The real Star Trek, with the real Captain. The only Captain.”

The Friday night after Grandma Val passed away, we ordered pizza. I drank Dr. Pepper. We watch Star Trek. The real Star Trek. With the real Captain. 

Val had cancer, very terrible cancer. It was hard on my family when she was sick because they had just gotten over the shock of our Grandma Johnson's long fight with cancer as well. But they took care of her, sat with her until the end, and prayed for her when the local priest would not. I found out about her passing while I was at work, and after my shift I went to the Duke Chapel and spent some time in there after lighting a candle for her. Later, a bishop friend of mine performed a mass in her name, and assured me she is at rest, at peace, and at One.

I have some of her jewelery, some penguins, and a lovely mauve/purple colored ceremonial communion chalice of hers that I claimed last time I was in New Mexico.  This Samhain season I honor her by including her jewelery with that of my blood grandmothers, who get a special bowl of jewels on my altar every October.

Grandma Val was a friend to my mother, a grandmother to my sisters, and a strong matriarch to the Hanson/Morris clan. I'm sad I wasn't able to spend more time with her, but I'm glad for the time we did have. I'm thankful for her in that she took care of my family when I was not there to do it. She loved her family very much, blood and otherwise. She is an example of the saying I grew up with, "mi casa es su casa".

And after a long, extremely painful fight, I'm glad she is at rest. Blessings, love, and honor to Grandma Val!

Dreamer's Ball: St. Patrick's Day

Dreamer's Ball - a St. Patrick's Day Repost

a repost from Pagan Blog Project 2013 - Week Twelve- F #2 – Fairies

This is a continuation of my post Sweet Lady for week eleven of the Pagan Blog Project (2013)
 

Even though the lineage of my family isn’t the most formal (like, no one is passing down heirlooms or great heroic stories or anything like that) my mom was great about fostering new traditions with me and my sisters. She kind of hates holidays, but she always went all out for us kids. That always meant a lot, especially now that I’m an adult and I feel similar now to how she has always felt about holidays. I can look back and see how hard it must have been for her. But, I’d like to think that St. Patrick’s Day is one holiday that she actually enjoyed.

From very early on she encouraged a sense of magic for this holiday. I remember being in kindergarten and she made a point to make me wear green to bed or the leprechauns would get me. I tried to argue with her, of course, insisting that I was going to wake up that night and get them and their gold. She laughed, tucked me in, and let’s just say that night I had a dream that, to this day, I still remember quite vividly. In all honesty, it shaped my world view concerning magic, St. Patrick’s Day, leprechauns, and fairies.

So, a tradition was born and I went to bed every March 17 wearing as much green as I could. And when my sisters came along, sharing this blooming family mythos with them was quite easy. When they were old enough I started telling them leprechaun and fairy stories, too.

One of my favorite things to do with my kid sisters was to take them on leprechaun hunts. They’d be different every time, continuously evolving and changing, each year more exciting and detailed than the last. I’d take them through creek beds, following scavenger hunts, cryptic letters, chalk drawings, maps made from notebook paper stained with coffee and teabags, making traps out of glitter and shoe boxes, following clues and trails left by my friends. It didn’t matter, because it was something magical we could share together. 

And after taking them on a chase around town or in the desert, the trail would always lead to home, because maybe even then I was trying to teach them that true magic was in the most mundane of places, even if that place was in low income housing or a trailer park or in the poor part of town.

Darling Niece and Spoiled Sister, 2013

One of the best moments of my life was when I was away at college and my mom called me up to tell me that my sisters were taking my step-siblings on a leprechaun hunt. My heart could never be any bigger than it was at that moment, knowing that our fairy tradition was being passed down to a new generation. And now that my sisters have started reproducing, I hope that my nieces and nephews get to go on leprechaun hunts, too, that the fairy magic of my family is passed down to them. 

And of course, my sisters and I now have a healthy respect and fear of fairies. Like the year that they heard the banshee wailing at the high school bleachers, or the time that the banshee caught my friend Patty behind the house, or the time that my little sister swore to me that she saw a leprechaun in her bedroom and to this day I can’t tell if she’s trying to pull my leg or she’s telling the truth. (both are equally likely)

So this is my experience with fairy magic. It’s family traditions and fun. It’s a healthy experience of blurring fantasy with reality. It’s about finding something to laugh and shriek about, of reclaiming a time and tradition for you and your loved ones. It’s making magic in the mundane, which is as real and genuine as this stuff can get, anyway. 

Éirinn go Brách!