Los Angeles is Burning - a Climate Scientist's Important Words

 

I mostly grew up in Los Angeles, and certainly was shaped by California culture there and in Northern California as well.  I celebrated my birthday on Malibu beach,  went dancing up in Topanga at the Topanga Corral, hung out at Alice's Restaurant on Malibu pier, skated on the Santa Monica boardwalk.  My mother grew up in Pasadena, and always talked about the Rose Parade there.  My grandmother on my mother's side grew up in what is now MacArthur Park in downtown L.A., a very fashionable neighborhood at the turn of the Century.  Her mother lived there too.  

I sit here in a state of shock, to see Los Angeles burning.  So much suffering, so many people who have lost their homes, so many animals and wildlife suffering also, such devastation. I don't know what to do.  What can I do?  

It seems like things are falling apart rapidly.  In my previous post I shared Laurie Anderson's powerful "The Barbarians Are Coming" because, well, they are here.  The American experiment in democracy, from my point of view, is being deconstructed into an authoritarian oligarchy right before our eyes, televised.  Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and Trump rants and blames from his golf resort  while Los Angeles burns.  It seems the omens are not good as this reality star "leader" prepares to be inaugurated.  Catastrophic fires in L.A.  Monster hurricanes in the South.  Mass killing in New Orleans.  Hard times, and right now, many of us stand in shock, unable to go forward.  The Barbarians are in Washington, blindly chanting "drill, baby, drill", and Mother Gaia is raging because the planet is changing.  

I've tried to mostly make this Blog about Art and Women's Spirituality, but I find political and environmental realities overwhelm my thoughts these days. Art, and the Return of the Divine Feminine are not apart from those realities, indeed, Patriarchy has something to do with it.  But today, as L.A. burns, I am deeply saddened, and deeply frightened, and mostly incoherant.

Here is a passionate voice from a man who knows what he's talking about.  I want to share it, because it's not only important what he has to say, but it's the truth.  America, wake up.  Please, wake up. 

https://youtu.be/mMYvuY_MLMQ?si=ISlvOv5TJyP6dciI

The Barbarians Are Coming...................

Laurie Anderson

"In every creative life, in every life of passion and purpose, there comes a time when the animating spark grows dim and the muscle of motivation slackens, when you come to feel benumbed to beauty and abandoned by your numen, suffocating in the exhaust fume of your own exertion, ossified with the tedium of being yourself."

Ah, yes.  Here I am in my personal  horse latitudes.  4 am (the so-called witching hour, although I sense not one molecule of magic at the moment).  The above currently perfect quote by Maria Popova, from her marvelous Blog The Marginalian, is, currently, perfect.  I feel "ossified with the tedium of being myself".  It seems rather hard to move when in that Nigredo, ossification mode. 

I may not be alone in this.

                             "so what's the point?  The Barbarians are coming". 

When I was a child of about 11 my family lived for a while in Italy.  My mother was fascinated with ancient Rome, and we went to many ruins and museums of that great Empire that featured what seemed to me as endless statues of Generals, Gods, and Orators.  Each and every one of them had no nose.  I used to wonder about that, until I thought about the Barbarians, riding into Rome as it fell to loot, rape the Vestal Virgins,  destroy the culture created by Patricians, artists, orators and philosophers,  set fire to the Senate.......... and knock the noses off of every statue they encountered.  I used to imagine that, horse riding  men with bronze swords, joyfully banging off marble noses in an orgy of desecration as Rome fell at last.  And, following in the footsteps of Ceasar years before,  the Barbarians also finally crossed the Rubicon. 

                                                 "The Barbarians are coming."

Very soon, the Whitehouse will belong, again, to Trump and his wife (who still hasn't learned much English). They are crossing the Rubicon.  Is it, like Ceasar's march, a point of no return?  

And our centers of government are in soon to be in the hands of, well,  Elon Musk, seen dancing around in glee as they make a whole new Department, just for him.  He might as well have a tee shirt that says "We own you".  Meaning the Oligarchy.  And, presumably at the helm, Trump, ever ready to turn the U.S.A. into his own private reality TV show.  Soon to be our President, the very same guy who tried to start an insurrection 4 years ago, one in which several people died, our elected officials had their lives threatened, and violent, gun toting "Trumpsters" stormed the capital, screaming "hang the Vice President" when they weren't waving Trump flags.  And here we are again:  Almost Inauguration Day.  Trump and Company utterly triumphant, and proving once and forever that now days you can get away with anything.  Because he has. Now what? 

                                                   "The Barbarians are coming".  

I think this brilliant performance by the amazing Laurie Anderson is going to resonate in my mind for quite a while.  It seems so very true to the moment.  And I am very pleased, thanks to UTube, to share it here.  

 https://youtu.be/rI15W-BBhrw?si=lrYA3E7L3LN3gQV8

New Year 2025: Poems and Remembering Source

 

This is an image I have made over and over and over since, I guess, 2007.  The "rooted hand", woven into a great Fabric of nature, reaching up to flower and leaf and create.  This "rooted hand" is my personal Icon to remind me of belonging, and to invite the spirit of nature to express through me, my art, through what I create and imagine.  

It's almost New Year 2025.  And I've been struggling with grief about the prospects for this year.  No, it's not the future we imagined, my friends and I as young idealists at Berkeley in say, 1975.  We grew out of the idealism and optimism of the Kennedy years, and for all our activism, that was the Matrix we believed we could continually change, make better.  Most of those friends are gone now, and here I am, still here, and it is 2025. 

It's not the America we imagined, this cynical and corrupt Oligarchy that cares nothing for democracy, or for that matter the future of life on this planet.   All they care about is an unquenchable lust for power. 

Even so, this is the image that is arising in my mind, and I want to post it here again, as an Affirmation, indeed, as an Invocation of Gaia, of Nature, of the Soul of the Earth.  The profound Ecosystem we are a part of, indivisibly, interdependent, woven.  That we are all, past, present, future, human, animal, fungi, tree-root, sky, sun, snow and leaf....... that we are each a part of it all.  That's what I want to hold to as this New Year begins.

I guess I'll begin with a poem I wrote in October, 2001, shortly after the fall of the twin towers in New York, while I was on the beach in Mendocino.  I made an affirmation then, as my own girlhood memories flowed past me on that long ago beach, an affirmation that still rings true for me now.  Oh.......... and I want to share some of the beautiful poetry of Nancy Wood too.  That's my Affirmation for the New Year 2025.  What I don't want to forget, what I want to hold to.  

         ON THE BEACH 

One month after the world ended

The little island world we,

the privileged few, could pretend

was safe, forever, and righteous -

The fallen towers, fiery messengers

of unfathomable destruction yet to come.

Tourists walk barefoot on the familiar beach.

They came here, I imagine,

as I have, not to forget, but to remember.

To remember driftwood and high tide 

a red dog and a yellow-haired child

as they enter the water -

their cries of goodly shock and honest forever's

always new, always cold, always blue.

A white heron,

balanced in perfect equanimity on one leg.

Wave forms overlay my feet......

transparent hieroglyphs of infinity.

Her way of speaking.

Gaia.  Her manifest, unspoken words.

A brown man lies beside the mossy cliff,

spread-eagled between sky and sea and land.

Sand sunk, leaf-molten,

blackberry thorn,

into the green:  

toes, fingers, flesh

reaching into the green

redeeming Earth.

He is rooting himself.

He is taking himself back.

I lie down in grateful imitation,

a stranger in companionable human proximity

sharing this rite of remembering.

I  see her now,  I see a girl

walking on this very beach.

Yesterday, and 40 years ago.

Sourcing, she is 

sourcing the one who lives here

a river Goddess with no name.

She has made a mermaid offering

of sticks and sand and seaweed.

Companions arrive, offer shells,

and return to Berkeley.

To Vietnam, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall,

the war, the wall,

the war, the walls.

The war,

and the summer of love.

("the revolution will not be televised")

A generation to end war, raise hell,

raise consciousness,

raise Atlantis,

and raise the new and Golden Age

("the revolution will not be televised")

How did we get here from there?

I call you back, girl,

I call you back.

I am at the other end of this life now

yet your footprints 

touch mine beneath the sand,

I follow them.

On the beach

your sand prayers

ring here still,

The Earth

is my witness.

Lauren Raine, Oct. 11, 2001 

Nancy Wood, who passed away in 2013,  found a deep sense of spiritual  belonging in nature among the natives peoples of New Mexico, and much of her poetry was a celebration of that belonging.  Her poetry is about listening, listening to the voices that become One voice of the Earth.   I've always found renewed Balance when I return to her poems. 

Hold on to what is good

even if it is 
a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.

From Hollering Sun (1972)

Blue lake of life from which flows everything good

We rejoice with the spirits beneath your waters.
The lake and the earth and the sky
Are all around us.
The voices of many gods
Are all within us.
We are now as one with rock and tree
As one with eagle and crow
As one with deer and coyote
As one with all things
That have been placed here by the Great Spirit.
The sun that shines upon us
The wind that wipes our faces clean of fear
The stars that guide us on this journey
To our blue lake of life
We rejoice with you.

In beauty it is begun.
In beauty it is begun.
In peace it is finished.
In peace it shall never end.

My help is in the mountain

Where I take myself to heal
The earthly wounds
That people give to me.
I find a rock with sun on it
And a stream where the water runs gentle
And the trees which one by one
give me company.
So must I stay for a long time
Until I have grown from the rock
And the stream is running through me
And I cannot tell myself from one tall tree.
Then I know that nothing touches me
Nor makes me run away.
My help is in the mountain
That I take away with me.

From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979

Earth teach me stillness

As the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
As old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
As blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
As the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
As the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
As the ant who crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
As the eagle who soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
As the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
As the seed which rises in spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
As melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
As dry fields weep with rain.

from Hollering Sun, 1972

Asherah Re-visited

"Asherah V", ceramic mosaic, 2024 by Lauren Raine

ASHERAH:  THE ONCE AND FUTURE GODDESS

                                                         By Lauren Raine MFA

“The Divine Feminine aspect of God was deleted from the image of deity. The only place where the concept of the sacred marriage survived was in the mystical Jewish tradition of Kabbalah, known as the “Voice of the Dove.” The Divine Feminine was not only banished from Judaism, but also from Christianity which took its image of God from Judaism. Islam also had a sole male creator god. The end-result of this cosmology was that life on earth was split off from the divine world; nature was split off from spirit.”

 Anne Baring from A Crucial Time of Choice (2020) (1)

Since I was a child I've made images of women who were trees. I'm not sure where it came from, certainly I had not heard of the Tree of Life, or Goddesses associated with trees. I had never heard of Goddesses. But women with roots and leaves became a personal iconography for me. In early drawings friends somehow grew leaves. In later lithographs  there She was.   A 9-foot-long painting I called "Gaia" (1986) for my MFA program showed the Goddess as a Trinity before the barron Tree: I wanted them to confront the viewer with the loss, destruction and disrespect our civilization has wrought on the Tree of Life that sustains us. And there are many other works that show female figures rooted and, importantly for me,  intertwined within the Earth.  

I realize now it was Asherah, the Great Mother, I was seeking. Asherah who was banished from the Judeo-Christian Bible. Banished from what became the religious underpinning of Western civilization as the Patriarchs of Jerusalem created the first monotheistic  religion – which uniquely featured a solitary male deity with no female counterpart. 

Yet it is not easy to eliminate half the human race from sanctity, although the his-story of  Western religion demonstrates a long and continuing effort to do just that, sometimes by erasure or demonization, sometimes by mythic co-option.  It is interesting, for example, to note that the ubiquitous ancient “trinity” of a 3-part Goddess, such as the Greek  Persephone/Demeter/Hecate, a Trinity that represented the cycles of nature as personified within the ancient Great Mother. This Trinity re-occurs, probably as a result of Patriarchal re-assignment, as the masculine Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva Trinity (Creator/Sustainer/Destroyer) in Hinduism. Certainly, the European Pagan Trinity was absorbed into Christianity, masculinized as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

Climate change has brought, along with globalization and the possibilities of nuclear war, the great evolutionary Crisis of our time. And that, I believe, is why the Great Mother is arising from the depths of humanity's collective unconscious, from shards and archives of the deep past, from the violence and erasures of patriarchy. Her time has come. And the Tree of Asherah, with its inter-woven roots deep in the dark Earth, and its seasonal leaves  and sustaining fruit, is Her perfect metaphor. 

Anthology by Girl God Books becoming available in 2025

Asherah, the ancient Goddess of pre-monotheistic Judaism, has very early origins.  Certainly among the Canaanites and neighboring civilizations, and possibly going back as far as Samaria. Sacred Groves were planted for Her. She was called “the Wife of Yahweh,” the Feminine aspect of God. Ubiquitous  "Asherah poles" (ashirim) mentioned in the Old Testament may have been made of wood, possibly cut from  trees dedicated to Asherah. Asherah poles were apparently household icons meant to invoke prosperity and fertility. (2)

The reforms of King Josiah’s reign in Jerusalem, along with the later reforms of the Prophet Jeremiah, revised and centralized  Judaism to have only God, Yahweh. All other Gods and Goddesses were banned. Asherah was called “the great abomination.”  Thus women became diminished and disempowered, as they were also Biblically blamed for the now monotheistic  God’s wrath. In the Old Testament we read that   Asherah poles were banned,  dedicated groves cut down, and Yahweh now had no wife.

 With the early advent of Gnostic Christianity, Asherah, the feminine face of Deity,  returned in the form of Sophia (which means “Wisdom” in the Greek language). The great Basilica in Istanbul, for example,  was named Hagia Sophia (Holy Sophia – Holy Wisdom). The emblem for Sophia was a dove – a symbol that Christianity retained to this day when it created the Trilogy of Father, Son, and “Holy Ghost.”  Replacing the Divine Feminine (Sophia) with the ambiguous “Holy Ghost”  once again erased Sophia/Asherah from Patriarchal Christian theology. 

"Asherah III" by Lauren Raine 2009

In their 2019 book When God Had a Wife: The Fall and Rise of the Sacred Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition  (3) Authors Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince provide a well-researched, convincing  argument for the catastrophic consequences of the suppression of the Goddess from the great Western religions of Christianity and Judaism, revealing how we have longed for the return of the Sacred Feminine for millennia. As happened before in Jerusalem, the evolving Christian Church rewrote his-story to eliminate the feminine side of deity. 

A whole lot of co-option and re-mything can go on as religions evolve. Especially, it seems,  if theologians are determined to get rid of the Feminine for millennia!  But the Goddess resides in the collective, often unconscious, heart of humanity, and will not ultimately be silenced. For myself,  I would  never have associated the Tree of leaf and root, a vision that has infused my artistic and spiritual vocabulary for more years than I remember,  with an unknown ancient Goddess named  Asherah had I not had a visionary experience years ago.  

I went to see a Reiki practitioner because of some health problems I was experiencing. As she worked with me I entered into a kind of trance, and with my eyes closed I vividly saw a white dove. But it was not a literal kind of bird - it was a sacred emblem such as  one might see in a church. I thought of the "Dove of Sophia" which I had vaguely heard of (Many years later I learned that Sophia  was another name for the earlier Asherah).  Associated with this image of a “Dove Icon” in that visionary moment was, I remembered, also a backdrop of branches and tree roots. 

After our session was over the healer told me she saw a Goddess form present during the healing. She said that she heard what sounded like “Ashara". I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but later I learned it was the name of the Hebrew Goddess. Asherah/Sophia. And I’ve been dedicating myself to Her ever since.

We are living, right now, in a crucial time indeed. The Paradigm that is trying to arise in this time of Evolutionary Crisis is, I believe, two-fold:  the collective “return of the Divine Feminine” to re-ensoul a fragmented humanity, and the urgent need to envision  a sustainable civilization that will have to be founded upon the inter-dependency and spiritual ecology of, well, everything.  

That’s our challenge now, to restore the Tree of Asherah. Roots below, Leaves touching the sky.

Lauren Raine MFA

(This article will be included in  a forthcoming Anthology ASHERAH:  Roots of the Mother Tree by Girl God Books.   Edited by Claire Dorey, Janet Rudolph, Pat Daly and Trista Hendren with a Preface by Miriam Robbins Dexter, Ph.D.  Cover art by Lauren Raine, Scheduled for 2025.)

 Reference: 

(1) Baring, Anne Ph.D. Excerpt from  “A Crucial Time of Choice “,  talk given for Humanity Rising August 11, 2020  www.annebaring.com

(2)  Wikipedia, “Asherah Poles/Asherim”  

*Deuteronomy 16:21 states that YHWH (rendered as "the Lord") hated Asherim rendered as poles: "Do not set up any [wooden] Asherah [pole] beside the altar you build to the Lord your God" or as living trees: "You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make"………..King Josiah's reforms in the late 7th century BC included the destruction of many Asherah poles (2 Kings 23:14).  Exodus 34:13 states: "Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherim [Asherah poles]." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah_pole

(3) Picknett, Lynn and Prince, Clive,  When God Had a Wife: The Fall and Rise of the Sacred Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition , Paperback – Illustrated, December 10, 2019, Bear and Company publishers

For the Winter Solstice, 2024

 

luminaria on Serpent Mound in Ohio

You, Darkness

 

You, darkness, that I come from

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything –

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them! –

powers and people –

and it is possible 

a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke

December Moon

 

Before going to bed

After a fall of snow

I look out on the field

Shining there in the moonlight

So calm, untouched and white

Snow silence fills my head

After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn

When I look down again

The whole landscape has changed

The perfect surface gone

Criss-crossed and written on

Where the wild creatures ranged

While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?

Why did I hear no sound

There on the snow-locked ground

In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go

When the December moon is bright,

What worlds of play we'll never know

Sleeping away the cold white night

After a fall of snow.

 

May Sarton

Pledge of Allegiance

 

I pledge allegiance to the soil

      of Turtle Island,

and to the beings who thereon dwell

      one ecosystem

      in diversity

      under the sun

With joyful interpenetration for all.

 

Gary Snyder

Wassailing

 

Although I very far from any apple trees in the American Southwest, I still like to make Wassail around this time of year.   And then there is also the Pagan tradition of Wassailing, which I cherish (even though there aren't any apple trees).  

"Wassailing" participates in the notion of living in a  “conversant” world for me,  something I've so often thought about as I read about folk traditions, mythologies, and old customs.   Instead of seeing "nature" as "other", or a "resource",  earlier times and peoples often had a mythic, friendly and "reciprocal"  relationship with the extended community of life they inhabited.  

Although Wassail is a spiced cider drink, often with brandy added and served hot, originally it's presence included the  Yuletide custom of  singing to the trees, in particular, the orchards  of apple trees from which the celebratory drink came.  The spiced cider was offered  to honor the trees,  and  traditional wassail would be prepared – soaking pieces of bread, cake or toast in it – and Wassailers would travel from apple orchard to apple orchard singing carols to the trees, in order to demonstrate appreciation for the harvest being enjoyed.  Wassail-soaked pieces of bread or toast were then left at the trees’ roots or hung in the trees’ branches to appease the tree spirits and feed them well until the next harvest.

When we talk to the trees, the  animals, even stones, and celebrate their generosity………..we might just  notice that we get a response sometimes!  For example, there is the old English custom  of “telling the bees” when someone has died in a farm family, and there are actually documented cases of a swarm of bees turning up at the funeral.  Who is  to say that the apple trees don’t enjoy being part of the Christmas festivities? How would our world be a different place if we saw apple trees as being our generous friends, or inviting bees to the funerals of those they have lived among for so long?  From that perspective, one walks into one's garden or orchard or forest finding friends of all kinds - the world becomes "re-enchanted".

Like the Romans'  offerings on small farm shrines dedicated  to the "Numina", the spirits of place that assisted them with their crops and orchards (the indigenous Roman Goddess Pomona, whose name meant "apple",  originated as a Numen of the orchards), this custom, which is still practiced with a lot of good cheer  in some rural areas of  England, reflects that ancient pagan sense of "reciprocity" with an intelligent, spiritually  inhabited natural world.

From a lovely Blog about Wassailing in Somerset, UK about Wassailing in Somerset, UK, I take the liberty of sharing this:

"Wassailing dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, traditionally taking place on Twelfth Night (originally the 17 January, before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752). The centuries-old ritual has Pagan roots and is intended to awaken the apple trees from their winter slumber. This involves blessing the orchards, reciting incantations, dancing, singing traditional songs and clattering pots and pans to scare away evil spirits and secure a bountiful apple harvest come autumn.  ..........Traditions vary slightly from place to place but usually, the wassail starts at dusk and is sometimes led by a Wassail King or Queen. Branches of the trees may be hit to frighten away evil spirits, cider is often poured on the roots of the oldest tree and pieces of toast, cake or bread are put into the branches to feed the good spirits or entice robins – believed to be the ‘guardians of the orchard’.   Afterwards, the trees of the orchard are serenaded with songs, Morris dancing and tasting the wassail drink."

And here's a description I found about Wassailing in Whimple, Devon, England that takes place annually:  

 Our ritual follows the traditional well-tried and tested ceremony of our predecessors with the Mayor in his robes of office and the Princess carrying lightly toasted bread in her delicately trimmed flasket, whilst the Queen, wearing her crown of Ivy, Lichen and Mistletoe, recites the traditional verse. The original Whimple Incantation has been retained:

Here's to thee, old apple tree, that blooms well, and bears well.  Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full, an' all under one tree!  Hurrah! Hurrah!

Her Majesty is then gently but manfully assisted up the tree in order to place the cider-soaked toast in the branches whilst the assembled throng, accompanied by a group of talented musicians, sing the Wassail Song and dance around the tree. The Mulled Cider or 'Wassail Cup' is produced and everyone takes a sample with their 'Clayen Cup'.

I read recently  that our habit of "toasting" may go back to Wassail revelries.  "Waes hael"  revelers would say,  from the Old English term  meaning "be well".  Eventually  "wassail" referred less to the greeting and more to the drink.  The contents of the Wassail bowl varied, but a popular one was known as 'lambs wool'. It consisted of hot ale, roasted crab apples, sugar, spices, eggs, and cream served with little pieces of toast. It was the toast floating on the top that made it look like lamb's wool.  The toast that was traditionally floated atop the wassail eventually became our "toast" -  when you hold up your glass and announce, “Let’s have a toast,”  or  ”I’ll toast to that,” you’re remembering this very old ritual of floating a bit of toast in spiced ale or mulled wine or wassail in celebration.

Wassailing – visiting neighbors (and much appreciated, friendly trees), singing carols  and sharing warmed drink – is a tradition related to the Winter Solstice with ancient roots indeed.  

I share a Wassail recipe below, which I soon will make to the best of my abilities.  I probably won't be going out to sing to the Saguaros for the Solstice,  but who knows what I might end up doing if I drink enough Wassail with some brandy added.  Bring in the pipes and the Bards!

I'm sure the Saguaros wouldn't mind the attention. 

Photo by Martin Beebee

 

Apple Tree (and why not Saguaros too?)  Wassailing Chants and Rhymes

Compiled in The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton

From the South Hams of Devon, recorded 1871: 

Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud
And whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full! Caps full!
Bushel--bushel--sacks full,
And my pockets full too! Huzza!

From Cornworthy, Devon, recorded 1805:

Huzza, Huzza, in our good town
The bread shall be white, and the liquor be brown
So here my old fellow I drink to thee
And the very health of each other tree.
Well may ye blow, well may ye bear
Blossom and fruit both apple and pear.
So that every bough and every twig
May bend with a burden both fair and big
May ye bear us and yield us fruit such a stores
That the bags and chambers and house run o'er.

Cider apples on the ground in orchard in Somerset, United Kingdom
(image courtesy https://downsomersetway.co.uk/best-places-to-take-part-in-a-somerset-wassail/)

 Yield: 10-12 servings,  Prep Time: 5 minutes, Cook Time: 4 hours

Wassail Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon Apple Cider
• 4 cups orange juice
• 4 hibiscus tea bags
• 10 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp. whole cloves
• 1 Tb. juniper berries
• 1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, cut into slices
• 1 apple, sliced into rounds
• 1 orange, sliced into rounds

Directions:

1. Place all the ingredients in a slow cooker and cover.
2. Turn the slow cooker on high heat and cook for 3-4 hours, until the color has darkened and the fruit is soft. Remove the tea bags and serve hot.