Latest / Sasquatch & Sourdough / Ep. 42 | The Banshee & the Bread of Heaven | Sasquatch & Sourdough Podcast

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Ep. 42 | The Banshee & the Bread of Heaven | Sasquatch & Sourdough Podcast · Sasquatch & Sourdough

0:10
SPEAKER_00: The forest wakes slowly here in the hollows of the Appalachian Hills.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Mist clings to moss draped trunks, weaving through roots that twist like old stories beneath the soil.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Every step is softened by the carpet of needles and leaves, and the air hums with unseen things.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: The quiet pulse of life that moves just beneath the surface.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Long ago these woods were alive with whispered knowledge.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Women walked their paths carrying herbs tucked into pockets, hands calloused from tending gardens, eyes sharp with observation.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Sage, thyme, and rosemary.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: They knew each plant by scent, by shape, by the way its leaf seemed to tremble when the wind shifted.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Some called them witches, others healers, but they all understood one truth: life could be melded in small, patient ways, and God's grace often hid in what seemed ordinary.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: A hearth glows in a cabin just beyond the tree line.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Smoke curls up the chimney in lazy spirals, carrying the scent of rosemary and simmering broth.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Flour dusts the table like early frost, and a loaf rises slowly, quietly, under the warmth of patient hands.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Here, in the rhythm of stirring and kneading, of pouring water and tending fire, the sacred moves.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't announce itself, it whispers, it waits.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: And in these moments, even the broken are made new.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah wrote of it, He gives beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, a garment of praise for despair.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Every small act, a prayer muttered over a pot, a loaf broken for the hungry, an herb tucked into a wound, becomes a thread in that hidden redemptive tapestry.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Christina, and welcome in to the kitchen tonight.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Guys, I'm really excited about this episode.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just been really, I've had like a really big spiritual whirlwind sort of happening in my life.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I've had a lot of personal stuff going on.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: My prayer life has been kind of wild.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: So I've been really excited to just kind of hunker down and do an episode for you guys.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Before we jump in, I wanted to say thank you so much to all of the new listeners.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I've seen a little increase in numbers and it's been really exciting.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: So welcome if you're new here.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to give a shout out to uh a Spotify listener, Sam from New Zealand.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your comment.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I also wanted to shout out uh my friend Joe from Tales, Trails, and Taverns.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Joe, thank you so much for your encounter.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put that on the encounter map at some point in the next few weeks.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I've been really bad with all the admin side of this podcast because fall is in full swing around here.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you guys, but it seems like it's just been harvest festival after harvest festival.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I am not complaining.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like my favorite time of year.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Recently, I've really just had this interesting burden on my heart to pray against witchcraft.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you've been here for a while, then you know my story basically started with witchcraft in my youth and in my 20s.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And in 2019, I was radically saved by Jesus.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a cool story, dark and stormy night.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Just kind of got down on my mudroom floor and was really just tired of living the way that I was living, trying to do my own thing.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And I just called out to God and he answered in a way that really just was for me.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of like, you know, just a little touch of my testimony.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: But somewhere along the line, long ago, a seed had gotten planted in my heart.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of felt that if I prayed hard enough and believed strong enough that God would, you know, not only incline his ear to me, but he would answer my prayers.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And if he didn't, it was because somehow I wasn't enough.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's just a lie um straight from the enemy.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: But it's funny because that lie is like the foundation of witchcraft, at least in my own personal witchcraft.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm still actually fighting that today.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I I've I've figured that out.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Actually, today I was in my office and I had an opportunity to sit and talk with a spiritual mother who's fantastic.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, I absolutely love her.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was telling her about this burden that I had about, you know, to pray against witchcraft.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of realized in talking with her that it was a prayer to really that to realize that I was doing it myself.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to manipulate my own prayer outcomes and God's hand to still do what I wanted him to do.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: So I might, it was kind of like, you know, my own faith just wasn't what it should be.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Um and that's kind of just where I where I am right now.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of wrestling in this weird space where, you know, I have all of these big prayer burdens, but then a lot of that burden is not for me to carry.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: So I need to be trusting.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you guys have ever experienced that, but that's just kind of where I am right now.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a weird spot to be in.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was just interesting that God, like the Holy Spirit, really just kind of prompted me uh to pray against witchcraft.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's funny because as a believer who used to practice witchcraft, I always assume that when I get this burden, it's some sort of external attack.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Like somehow some coven has tracked me down, uh, you know, or someone is sending an owl as a monitoring spirit or like astral projecting into my dreams uh in order to like sabotage my thought life.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And the all that stuff happens.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Like we know that.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: As a listener of the show, and I'm sure of many shows, uh, I'd imagine that you have heard all of this before and probably believe it, and you probably have experienced it yourself.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And I don't doubt that, but it's just, I don't know, I feel like it was it was actually kind of weighing me down this um this burden.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And then when I realized through talking with my my spiritual mother and also like just praying and really listening, taking the time to listen to what God was saying, uh, it was me.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Like it was no doubt, it just I'm living like in this increasingly weird time, like we all are.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: But in this particular case, like the witch was me.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've experienced the same thing.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: If you are someone who has come out of witchcraft and has found Jesus recently, and maybe this is something for you, I'm not sure, but I just kind of felt compelled to share, you know, a little bit of a personal testimony.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: But for now, let's get into the episode.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: In the misty hills of 12th century Germany, a young girl named Hildegard was born into a world that demanded obedience but stifled imagination.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: From the very beginning, the divine seemed to whisper to her differently.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: When she was just eight years old, visions came to her, not frightening or strange, but luminous, filled with fire and light, a language of the cosmos speaking directly to her soul.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Her family, unsure of these gifts, entrusted her to a convent, a place of stone walls and quiet prayers.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: But within those walls, Hildegard discovered not confinement, but freedom, a sacred space to explore the mysteries of creation.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: She walked among the herbs in the cloister garden, noting the curves of leaves, the scent of time, the healing properties of rosemary.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: To her, the plants were not mere flora.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: They were letters in God's living script, each one a whisper of the creator's design.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: By the time she became abbess, Hildegard was not just a leader of nuns, she was a visionary, a healer, a composer, and a theologian.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: She wrote books of medicine, prophecy, books of song that rose like prayers into the vaulted stone of her abbey.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Physica, her treatise on natural science, described the medicinal powers of plants, stones, and animals, blending observation with divine insight.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: She believed that all of creation, down to the smallest leaf, pulsed with God's light, a concept she called veriditas, the greening vitality of the world.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Even her letters, sent across Europe to kings, popes, and clergy carried the same fierce, compassionate energy, a call to justice, to care for the sick, to see the beauty in what others overlooked.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: She healed not just bodies but hearts.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: She reminded the world that holiness and wisdom could emerge from the humblest places, the garden, the kitchen, the quiet cell of a devoted soul.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And yet Hildegard was deeply human, aware of her own fragility, doubts, and fears.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Her visions, her teachings, her music all were shaped by her recognition that humans are broken, and it is only through God's grace that healing and wholeness emerge.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I first this is just absolutely perfect for fall, but I first came across uh really understanding who um Saint Hildegard was because she basically invented she basically invented pumpkin spice.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: So I know that sounds crazy, but according to her lore, uh she there is a pumpkin spice refers to a blend of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, first described by the 12th century abbess uh Saint Hildegard of Bingin, who called it spices that bring joy.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: And yes, yes, it does 100%.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Um pumpkin spice everything, please.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know, if you go on the ridiculous internet, it's gonna say, like, no, she didn't invent pumpkin spice, you know, like McCormick, obviously.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: She didn't brand it.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she did combine nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves to create a spice blend she called the spices that bring joy.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how best you can describe pumpkin spice other than spices that bring joy.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: So yes, I'm saying she did.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: She was a Benedictine abbess, and uh she was a writer, a composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, like it goes on and on.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: She was a medical writer, um, basically a doctor.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: So she found in monasteries.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: She also wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: I think what inspired me, besides her pumpkin spice recipe, was her spirituality.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, so from early childhood, before she undertook all of her publ like missions and work and things like that, she had a spiritual awareness that was grounded in what she called um the reflection of the living light.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And she wrote a letter um at the age of 77, and she describes uh her experience of this light.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And you can find this, you know, I'm not doing a deep dive here.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: You can find this on Wikipedia.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she says, quote, from my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I had always seen this vision in my soul.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Even to the present time, when I am more than 70 years old, in this vision, my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Although they are far away from me in distant lands and places, and because I see them in this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by a combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake day and night, and I am constantly fettered by sickness and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: But God has sustained me until now.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: I can measure neither height nor length nor breadth in it, and I call it the reflection of the living light.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in the water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form from me and gleam.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: I just thought that was amazing.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Like that's just wild to me.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: It just sounds like to me, that is just like a connection to the Holy Spirit.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: That's just amazing.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: At the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God to write down that which you have seen and heard.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Still hesitant to record her visions, she became physically ill.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: The illustrations recorded in the book, uh, so it's her first.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: So she wrote a theological text called uh Scavias, Know the Ways, and she describes her struggle within.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And she goes on to say, quote, but I thought I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness, but in the exercise of humility until laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness, then compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct, and of that man whom I had secretly sought and not found, as mentioned above.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: I set my hand to the writing.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural expos exposition, and raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close, though just barely in ten years.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart, or that any other or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God, I heard and received them in the heavenly places.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: And again, I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Cry out therefore, and write thus.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: End quote.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, that is incredible.
15:48
unknown: St.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Hildegard.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: In the hollows of Appalachia, where the mist drapes itself over moss-covered stones and twisted roots, there are stories older than memory.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: One is of the Banshee, a spirit neither cruel nor kind, whose song drifts through the night like smoke on the wind.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: She appears at twilight, hair flowing like silver river water, eyes hollow yet infinite, her lips trembling with a wail that chills the bones.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Some say she heralds death.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Others say she mourns only those tied to the land, those whose families have lived in these hills for generations.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Her cry is both warning and remembrance, a bridge between the living and the unseen.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Walk quietly through these forests at night, and you might hear her voice in the sigh of the pines, in the ripple of a hidden creek, in the hush of the hollow.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: She moves unseen, threading the ordinary world with something older, something alive, a pulse of old magic that has nothing to do with spells and everything to do with the tension, memory, and the fragility of life.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: The banshee reminds us that life is fleeting, that grief is a part of the landscape, and that the unseen threads of the world are woven with both sorrow and beauty.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Even in our brokenness, in the shadowed corners of these hills, there is a rhythm we can follow, a heartbeat of creation echoing through the mist and stone, calling us to notice, to listen, and to respect the mysteries that have always been here.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so as I was kind of going on this little journey of like, I don't know, I don't even know how I got here, honestly.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I came across this really interesting book.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I feel like every time I do some sort of dive into, you know, mysticism, witchcraft, all of that sort of stuff, it always takes me back to Appalachia.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And I know you guys, once we start getting into the folklore, that's kind of where we end up.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I found a really cool book.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: It was actually, let me see here.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: It's called Uh Backwoods Witchcraft by Jake Richards.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's really well done.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it has a lot of his own kind of personal story accounts that have passed been passed on uh in his family.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I was so surprised when I was going through this book that he has a story of a banshee.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's like pretty fantastic.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna read uh the quote here, and this is on page, it starts at page 14, and it says, Other stories of the cliff tell of banshee cries in the area.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: It said that a man and his pregnant wife lived in a cabin along the river, two miles away from the nearest neighbor.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: One night the man heard a sound coming from down the river and mistook it to be cries of a bobcat.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: The old man experienced expecting to get a new pelt, wandered down the riverbank following the sound.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: As he wandered, he noticed that the sound didn't seem to be getting any closer.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And at one point, the sound seemed to be coming from the other direction.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: After hours of searching, he gave up and started back to his cabin.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: When he arrived, he found his wife in labor.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Hours later, both his wife and his baby had died.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, that's awful.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the author goes on to tell, um, I have a personal experience with this.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: My grandparents lived up on a hill near a wooded area that led to a graveyard.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: One day, while playing in the forest, I heard a cry.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: It was odd because it sounded like a cat, but also a woman's scream.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: It didn't happen in the usual pattern ascribed to an animal in heat.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it sounded like an alarm.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Within the week, my grandfather died of a severe heart attack.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, now the banshee didn't kill my grandfather, and it didn't kill the woman and her baby in the other story either.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: On the contrary, banshees are considered a type of little folk that came over with European immigrants, and they are one of the few spirits of who care for humans.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I can't speak to that, but that definitely is tracking with the folklore of Banshees.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: So then, of course, I was like, all right, I gotta dig into Banshees.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And so, what better place to start when I'm looking for weird folklore than where the footprints end?
20:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm holding it up.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: You guys know this is like my favorite book.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, Timothy Renner, shout out to him.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Please buy this book.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: It is awesome, it is just filled with incredible folklore, and they tie things together so nicely.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and everything somehow ties back to you guessed it, Bigfoot.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, so this is actually uh from which volume is this?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is Where the Footprints End, High Strangeness and the Bigfoot phenomenon.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: This is uh volume one folklore, and this is called Fool's Fire.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: UFOs can be many things, but typically fall into one of two categories: anomalous lights or structured craft in the sky.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Quite often it is difficult to separate the two, as one may transform into the other without a single report.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: For these complicated reasons, terrestrial sightings of Bigfoot, accompanied by anomalous lights or structured craft, appear in where the footprints end of volume two, purely for organizational sake.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: A few thoughts are worth mentioning presently, however.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Long before they represented extraterrestrials, strange lights and glowing orbs were presumed to be spirits like ghosts or fey folk.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Anomalous lights appear to this day around Irish fairy forts, and some fairies, like the Banshee, displayed glowing eyes, a feature persistent in Bigfoot sightings.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: That is so interesting.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: The Will of the Wisps, uh, ghost lights, ghostly lights flittering through the forest are a global phenomenon closely associated with fairy lore.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so this is fun because I didn't even know that there was a folklore collector named Worked S Worked S.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Sykes, high over the garden wall.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Wort.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Um.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so he writes, let's see here.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: So he kind of like, this is weird.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: They call it Jack-o'Lantern and describe it as a hideous creature five feet in height with Google eyes and huge mouth, its body covered with long hair, and which goes leaping and bounding through the air like a gigantic grasshopper.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: This frightful apparition is stronger than any man and swifter than any horse, and compels its victims to follow it into the swamp where it leaves them to die.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I've never heard of that before.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it says Psych's description brings together so many disparate threads, anomalous lights, UFOs, fairies, and Bigfoot.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, some indigenous American lore also associated with large hairy hominids with ghost lights.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Southern California's uh Maricopa and Tacik people held.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh Kaihomar was simultaneously a fireball demon, cannibal, and giant ogre.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Among the Midwestern Ho Chuk, Bigfoot was partly physical and spiritual, manifesting as mists, shadows, or lights.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's really interesting.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so they have another sort of tie-in, not really an account in uh where the footprints end, of a kind of like banshee lore.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, it says Washington researcher Datis Perry claimed to have seen Bigfoot 12 times.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: In ufology, such individuals were once dubbed repeaters, branded lunatics, liars, or hoaxers.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: However, as decades of evidence mounted, ufologists began speculating specific individuals are encounter prone, suffering lifetime, uh lifetimes of interactions and abductions, just as banshees plagued families, or how some people were more likely to see fairies than others.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of fascinating.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And then it goes on to say it was commonly believed fairies led witnesses off their path, rendering surroundings unfamiliar.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: This was called being pixie-led.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, modern alien abductees describe impulse impulsively driving to abandoned areas areas prior to an encounter.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Bigfoot witnesses sometimes report some disorientation.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: While briefly separated from his hunting partner in autumn 1992, a man in Somerset County, Pennsylvania had his cheek brushed by a nine-foot-tall, hairy creature.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: He was so disoriented he required his friend's guidance to leave the woods.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: So that is absolutely wild.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: I've never, I mean, honestly, like it makes sense, right?
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Especially given like all of the lore with fairies and specifically, I feel like the ghost lights are like the the will of the wisp.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Like that, that is just all always kind of like leads people astray.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it's fascinating.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: I found this a really awesome article online.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Um it was uh it's called Granny Witches Mountain Shamans Haunts, Witches, and Jesus: The Complex Spiritual Consciousness of Appalachia.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Guys, please find this.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna link it in the description.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: This was uh it's by a gal named Kristen Hutchinson.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: It looks like it's her master's thesis uh paper that she wrote.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's pretty recent.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, she wrote it in April uh 2024, Shepherd University.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's so well researched, and it kind of sheds a lot of light on this um, this really interesting, interesting area of um spirituality that I just I don't know, I keep coming back to it.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: I really just kind of enjoy it.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: And she goes through all the history.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a really, really good deep dive.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like, you know, for me, it's kind of one of those things, right?
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Like we were trying to find like the balance and kind of getting back to my own personal experience is um, you know, not trying to over supernaturalize everything, but then also trying to find the balance of, you know, what do what am I in control of?
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, right?
26:20
SPEAKER_00: So I need to give it all to God and how hard that is while also trying to, you know, live in this world.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's just, I think it's just a matter of, you know, really understanding who God is and and who you are in Him.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: But so she goes on to say, um, in in this, in her um, in her paper, there's a whole chapter or paragraph rather, called Superstitions and Incantations for Work.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Life was hard in Appalachia, and there was nothing more ubiquitous than work.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Although these practices all have an element of the supernatural and magical in them, they likewise served practical purposes at the same time.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Nature, lore, and farming superstitions were very important for people who relied on an outdoor work for living and the survival of crops and animals to feed their families.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Before 1920, Appalachians had no radio and very few daily newspapers.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: The only way to know what the day would bring was to rely on knowledge preserved through oral traditions for generations.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: The Appalachian people thus leaned on to interpret the language of nature.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Crops were planted based on phases of the moon, and there were rules for planting, harvesting, preparing, preserving crops, particularly with long winter months.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so she has a she has some examples of superstitions.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Hold your breath and bees will not sting you.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: When lightning strikes twice in the same place, there is mineral in the ground.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Frost will never kill peaches that bloom in the dark of the moon.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Plant flowers with the sign.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Wait, plant flowers when the sign is in the sign of the flowers.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Um keep a goat in the barn, and there will be no sick animals there.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Never peel the bark of a tree in the old of the moon.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Make all pickle stuff in the light of the moon, and the brine will rise quickly to cover it.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Kill the first snake you see in the spring, and no snake will bite you.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Plant corn when the white oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ears.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: If you want tobacco to if you want tobacco to cure well, cut it during a new moon.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I this is what I'm talking about.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel like there's just so much more that I want to say that I just don't know how to articulate when it comes to, you know, what we think of as witchcraft, what we think of as superstition.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: I I just always feel like there's just so much more to it and that it's not so black and white.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: And this kind of stuff just really lays it out for you, I think, in such a way, because you know, I had this conversation with Tim Constantine.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'll probably have to put that in the description too.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: If you guys don't know, uh Sixth Sensory Podcast, go over and check him out.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: He does great work.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we kind of had this conversation when I shared my testimony and then just kind of said, like, you know, it's not always so black and white.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Like we use the the awesomeness of creation, you know, in our daily life, but it's not to honor that, it's to bring glory to God who created these cre these things.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is really interesting.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Healing power was believed to come from a person a personal relationship with God.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Healing would always come first come through prayer and then through the healer's body as a vessel for the Holy Spirit to work.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Healing could be understood as the ideal of removing sickness from the body, but it was also accepted to come through death.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Healing was aimed at making the body whole, which would facilitate getting well, but would often only come from being returned to God.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: The Appalachian acceptance of healing was much more expansive than the traditionally accepted ideas of modern medicine, where the only way to heal is to get better physically.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: In Appalachia, the biblical standard of thy will, not mine, be done.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's just, I don't know.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm so, I'm so happy that I found this um paper.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: It just it's such a it's a great paper, but it's also like a great like homage to Appalachia.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining me, guys.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna do it tonight.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this weird episode.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, thank you for letting me be vulnerable and share some of my own personal encounters and testimonies with you.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you have an encounter or testimony that you'd like to share, please send an email to sasquatchandsourdough at gmail.com.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: You can send me a DM on Instagram, or you can check out the website, sasquatchandsourdough.com.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: You can put your encounters there.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Just get a hold of me.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear some more feedback from you guys.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and if that's you, maybe in your quiet prayer time, remember God is never so far and so far away that you can't reach him.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: So just reach out to him.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: You can call out to God, you can call out the name of Jesus wherever you are.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: He is not far from you.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: So until next time, guys, remember the truth is out there.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: God is with you, and everyone always ends up in the kitchen.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Sasquatch and Sourdough is so much more than just a podcast.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: We are a community of kindred spirits, united by our curiosity and fascination with the extraordinary.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And we want to bring you into the conversation.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: So whether you've had a brush with the unexplainable, seen something that you can't quite wrap your head around, this is your space.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: We invite you to join us as we break bread and break down the barriers between the known and the unknown.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: If you want to share your story, you can email us at saswatch and sourdough at gmail.com or send us a DM on Instagram.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember the truth is out there.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: God is with you, and everyone always ends up in the kitchen.