Barmbrack – Sweetness and Synergy

Today’s card is “Barmbrack – Sweetness and Synergy” from the Halloween Oracle. What a lovely cozy card this is. The barmbrack loaf has just come out of the oven and it smells so delicious. Also, the lit Jack-o'-lanterns are adding their sweet smell of slightly roasted pumpkin to the lovely fragrance of freshly baked bread. A barmbrack is an Irish sweet bread filled with raisins.  It is also called a bairín breac - a speckled loaf (due to the raisins in it)
“The Halloween Brack traditionally contained various objects baked into the bread and was used as a sort of fortune-telling game. In the barmbrack were: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin and a ring. Each item, when received in the slice, was supposed to carry a meaning to the person concerned: the pea, the person would not marry that year; the stick, would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the cloth or rag, would have bad luck or be poor; the coin, would enjoy good fortune or be rich; and the ring, would be wed within the year.” Wikipedia
Although the fortune telling part of this bread is quite an interesting fact, today I want to focus on the magic of baking bread. When we gather all ingredients for baking bread, it doesn’t  seem as they have much to offer us by themselves but when we put them all together in a bowl and mix them thoroughly the dough comes to life even after beating it up again harshly, it will rise again. And then after we have baked it in the oven all the ingredients have come together and created something so utterly delicious, it is almost unimaginable.

Yes, a loaf of bread is a beautiful example of Aristotle's phrase: “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”.

Son of swords – Keep your sword sheathed

My card for today is the Son of Swords from the Wild Unknown Tarot.  It feels like this card is warning me to keep silent when emotions are running high. And let’s be honest, these coming days emotions will easily get over heated and perhaps even explosive.

  

Tomorrow M. and I are going to bake two loaves of our traditional Christmas bread, and one apple pie. If we are emotional balanced it  will almost look like we are dancing around the ingredients and the loaves will be the final accord of the melody. But if we want to be right and do this how we think is best we will collide and might even hurt each other with our swords.

So what  is the advice we need for tomorrow. Ten of Cups. It seems like all the ingredients are coming together for a lovely baking day with delicious loaves of bread en  beautiful pie as result. Look how the cups are pouring their colors into one and other. Each cup is beautiful in its own way but together they are creating a rainbow rhapsody. So let’s keep our swords sheathed and let’s dance!

Dreamer two - Half-Moon Truce

To be honest I didn't feel like blogging today. Yesterday was our 28th anniversary and today my husband is coming over to celebrate this. A lot of mixed feelings are whirling through my mind but most of all I am determined to make this visit a success. Especially for him and hopefully for all for us. So some of my feelings has to be put on the back burner for today. But when I was playing with my tarot decks just for fun and relaxation, I noticed I kept drawing a version of the two of swords. I thought this was so significant I had to write about it. The first two of swords I did pull this morning was the one from the Tarot of the Sidhe. We see a face in the sky, half black half white.  It is a quarter moon, half full, half darkened. At the bottom of the card a magpie spreads it wings; showing his black and white feathers. Everything points out to a stalemate situation, a temporary balance.

“Now the Mind is split in twain

The glorious whole is seen to wane

And two thoughts must find a path

To bring both peace and conquer wrath”

Emily Carding

This is a very timely card for today. On one hand there is this profound sadness and on the other hand joy and festivity are in place and expected. M and I have made a delicious cake with walnuts and chocolate. This will certainly heighten the mood. For tonight I am going to make my husband’s favorite meal: leek pie, kidney beans and salad. So now I am going to prepare the leek and the dough for the pie and I will put in some extra love as “secret” ingredient. 

Our home baked Easter wreath

I wanted to share our traditional Easter baking. It is a roll of yeast dough filled with cream raising, hazelnuts syrup and apple  and formed in the shape of a wreath. We have just had our first serving and it was delicious!

The card says "Happy Easter!"

Our Palm Sunday Rooster Bread

Today is Palm Sunday.  The Christian community celebrates the entry of Christ in Jerusalem. It is an old custom in some regions of the Netherlands for the children to participate  in a procession with a homemade Palm Sunday pole. My daughters have been attending the Waldorf school in their childhood, were this custom also was being kept alive. 

Of course we’re not making the entire pole any more but the rooster on top is so delicious, we kept the baking of this rooster as a  family tradition for Palm Sunday.

An example of  the Palm Sunday pole

Although the church has attached their own interpretation to the symbols of this pole (as they have done with many customs of the our holidays), I’d rather see this as the a version of the May Pole which is a kind of fertility pole. This type of maypole originates from the Germanic custom to carry around a decorated pine with a rooster on top which was the rooster Gullinkambi (Old Norse for Golden Comb) The Rooster is a symbol for the coming of the light which he announces every morning.  The pine was a symbol for Yggdrasil, the world tree.

 The habit of using bread in the shape of an animal dates back to the period in which they no longer sacrificed real wild animals.

After this small dilatation I just wanted to share we had a lot of fun  with the baking and shaping of our rooster. My son in law thought it looked more like a dragon than a rooster but it tasted wonderful J

Baking our Traditional Christmas bread: “Kerststol”

Every year the day before Christmas my youngest daughter M. and me are baking a Christmas bread. I’ve baked it myself for about 25 years now and as soon as she  was able to assist me she has done so until she could bake it herself. We still do it together though as a tradition.

After the final shopping has been done we weigh the ingredients and mix them all together.  

  It is a very rich bread with raisins, walnuts and almonds. At the moment it is rising in the oven (about 35˚C) for about an hour and a halve.

Originally this bread is a pagan midwinter sacrifice for the Germanic Gods to ensure the people of the returning sun and the fertility of the land and the animals. It used to be only made of white flour since that was more difficult to get than whole wheat flour.  Nowadays it is just yummy but I like to  be aware of what it once really was meant for.

As always something went wrong. The bread baking machine didn’t do what is was expected to do and we had to switch to another mixer. So everything lasted longer

And now at a quarter past four our “Kerststol” is finally where it’s supposed to be: in the oven!

After an a lot of excitement we finally have our Christmas bread ready for tomorrow. It smells delicious!

Merry Christmas!

The day after Halloween

Halloween/Samhain in Holland. Not so spectacular as in other part of the world..But we have managed to have our own little festivities at home

In the afternoon my youngest daughter and I have been making a hug pumpkin cake. We have used our own muffin recipe (With raisins cinnamon apples oatmeal and sunflower seeds) and filled  a large pumpkin mold with the dough. This was the first time we’ve tried this so it was a very exciting moment when we had to remove the mold……

Pumpkin cake

 It tasted beautiful as it looks in this picture. I am sure we’ll do this more often.

After the baking we sat down to carve a pumpkin. Well my daughter did the carving and I was watching her being crafty. (Notice the matching nailcolor J) 

Carving our pumpkin

When our jack-o-lantern was finished he got a beautiful spot in the windowsill:

Carved pumpkin

And last but not least to our great surprise, in the evening when it was all already dark outside, the doorbell rang and there were three children all dressed up for trick or treat. Luckily we had some candy to give them. This was was the first time in my life ever I had trick or treaters at my door J

So slow but surely  the spirit of Halloween is hovering over the Low Lands…..

Happy Mabon

Happy Mabon everybody. I hope you all have a wonderful day. My daughter and I have baked an apple-pie together. It’s always fun to bake something with her. Sometimes we quarrel because both of us wants to take the lead, but this time it went smoothly. The pie is in the oven right now, so I have to wait to post this until it is ready, because I want to add a picture of . Yay, it smells so good!

homemade apple-pie

I have pulled my card for today; 21 September:  what stands out in my life at this moment; the dark or the light, or is there balance?

I’ve got “The mend a broken heart fairy” Healing from Heartache.

Oracle of Shadows and Light - Lucy Cavendish and Jasmine Becket

This card emphasizes the darker side of life for me. But with a door open to the lighter half. It is true that although things are getting better, I still need some healing for the sadness and grief that is inside me. I wish it was as easy as putting a bandage on the most painful part. It’s good to experience the love of my daughters now that my neck is injured and to see that they do more around the house. That is comforting. But it’s also important to give some healing to myself. This is the most difficult part for many of us: Being kind, loving and patient with ourselves. How often do we think that is has been long enough; we have to go on and get over it. But we do need to give ourselves time and attention, otherwise feeling like sadness and grief can fester. So I’m going to make myself a nice cup of tea and  think about what kind of healing I can give to myself. (starting with a piece of pie :D)