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Holy feasting and "hot dish"
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Rev. Jaimie Zaugg at the Barbarian Feast, EHG 2008.
One of the founders of the Mentoring Elders Forum in St. Paul, Volkhvy, made a study of how traditional cultures function for years. He told me he came to a conclusion that one activity that these cultures had in common that ensured their success was simple: sharing meals together.
It doesn't seem like it should be as simple as "the family that eats together stays together", but, especially in Paganistan, there is something so powerful about feasting and sharing food as a force that holds the community together. And there is something about gifts of food and drink that are considered heartfelt, sacred, and magical.
Larger public and church rituals in Paganistan inevitably involve potlucks; many festivals have community feasts. At the Earth House Midsummer Gather, in keeping with tradition, members of the camp who are farmers slaughter and donate a lamb, which another member spends the day slow-smoking for the annual Barbarian Feast. (Despite the name, it's actually a pretty classy potluck.) At Harmony Tribe's Sacred Harvest Festival every August, participants in the days-long ritual intensive, the Hunt, end their spiritual ordeal by processing back to the camp where the entire community presents them with a feast -- a welcome gift after a full twenty-four hours of fasting.
Nearly every coven has a recipe for "Sabbat cakes" -- essentially biscuits or cookies made with blessed ingredients that are consumed in ritual communion -- and many gifts of food and drink exchanged between Pagans are made with the same magical intent. A mead brewer whose craft I've had the pleasure of enjoying over the years makes offerings the the landwights, spirits of the land, as he does his brewing. Many of us are convinced it helps.
Willowsong, a friend of Harmony Tribe, makes a homemade macaroni and cheese that is so tangibly filled with love that riots practically break out from people wanting a spoonful on their plate. The rave reviews clearly make her happy. Many of us state, not entirely jokingly, that her mac-and-cheese is itself a religious experience.
The mysteries of life, death, and rebirth have been immortalized in Pagan myth for millenia as agricultural, hunting, husbandry, and sustenance metaphors. Many Gods and Goddesses in these ancient stories are not just symbolically depicted as the wheat, corn, the stag to be hunted, the cattle to be slaughtered, the grapes pressed to wine, the dough baked to bread, the barley turned to beer... the Divine are those things, and the cultivation, harvesting, comsumption, and replenishing of food are ways that Pagans participate in Divine relationship.
The importance of food and drink to Pagans, interestingly, does not take the form of shared dietary restrictions, as it can in some other religions. Some Pagans are vegetarian or vegan. Some are hunters. Some are farmers and gardeners. Some live on pizza and potato chips. Some drink alcohol, some abstain. What is acknowledged by all is the sacred source of the food -- Earth, rain, and sun -- and honored are the hands and processes unseen that bring the food to the table. Whatever form or variety it takes.
It's a traditional Wiccan, now generally Pagan, blessing: may you never hunger; may you never thirst.
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