Sweetening Jars are an old folk-magic charm to 'sweeten' lives- rather like a cosmic attitude adjustment. The basis for a sweetning jar is a sweet syrup- it can be honey, molasses, corn syrup, cane, maple, burnt sugar... you pick the syrup on what you want to do- think about the color, the taste, where it comes from, the viscosity. The comparison of sweetness and labor and love. Then you put into it things to 'push' it in the desired direction- rose hips or mint, butterfly wings, jobs tears, red peppers... finally your wish is written out and tucked inside. The whole is sealed and the sweetening can begin.
My jar is made from honey and rose hips, a wish written on pink joss paper, sealed with bee's wax. Honey is the labor of the bee, food for the queen, a natural sweetener and healer that needs no refinement from man in order to be perfect. Rose hips are the fruit of the rose, what lasts after the bloom is blown and scattered, the essence of the rose condensed into the ripe red hip. Joss paper comes from China and is used in their celebrations that provide gifts for the afterlife- this paper is a dark vibrant pink, glowing and fragile, thin as a ghost. The jar itself once contained artichoke hearts, the soft heart hidden in a prickly core of leaves and bristles.
A jar to sweeten my heart.
Does magic work? or is it just a psychological key to understand our selves better? Are we what we wish for? It doesn't matter much the how or the why of it- what is important is that sometimes it takes us to the places we need to go.
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