The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

I know something somewhere has been written about this before, but I apparently suck at finding the right search terms. After half an hour of failing to find the article, I decided to just ask a quick question.

I usually offer incense, candles, solid objects, or a rose (which dries and can stay there forever), but last night I offered wine for the first time, and now I have no idea what to do with it.

How long do you leave a perishable offering, and how do you dispose of it when you take it down?

(As a side note, I don't think I can do the digging a hole and burying it thing, because I have nowhere to do that at my current place, it's f#$%&@$ cold, and the ground is frozen solid... and I don't have a shovel.)

I know something somewhere has been written about this before, but I apparently suck at finding the right search terms. After half an hour of failing to find the article, I decided to just ask a quick question.

I usually offer incense, candles, solid objects, or a rose (which dries and can stay there forever), but last night I offered wine for the first time, and now I have no idea what to do with it.

How long do you leave a perishable offering, and how do you dispose of it when you take it down?

(As a side note, I don't think I can do the digging a hole and burying it thing, because I have nowhere to do that at my current place, it's f#$%&@$ cold, and the ground is frozen solid... and I don't have a shovel.)

 
I think it's...Cloacina? Who is a deity of sewers. Nothin' wrong w/chuckin' it down the sink path permitting.

I know something somewhere has been written about this before, but I apparently suck at finding the right search terms. After half an hour of failing to find the article, I decided to just ask a quick question.

I usually offer incense, candles, solid objects, or a rose (which dries and can stay there forever), but last night I offered wine for the first time, and now I have no idea what to do with it.

How long do you leave a perishable offering, and how do you dispose of it when you take it down?

(As a side note, I don't think I can do the digging a hole and burying it thing, because I have nowhere to do that at my current place, it's f#$%&@$ cold, and the ground is frozen solid... and I don't have a shovel.)

 
I drink most of my libations. (So, are they really libations then?) Some libations of water get poured into the bamboo plant I have on my shrine. In Kemeticism, you do this thing called "Reversion of Offerings" (RoO). When I'm doing a Daily Rite, the RoO happens basically at the end of the rite. Otherwise, I leave whatever I'm offering at the shrine for as long as I feel necessary.

I've also been known to just throw stuff in the trash. But if it's something I can eat or otherwise use, I have a tendency to eat it/use it. I live with my mother, who pays for most of the groceries. She'd be ticked if I wasted good food,  especially things like fruit and meat. We're not exactly well off and food's expensive in our neck of the woods.

By the way, maybe you would like this topic from the archive boards? How to "dispose of" offerings

And this one's Hellenic in nature, but I thought it might be okay anyway: Help With Disposal of Food Offerings

I found these links by going to the archive boards and putting "offerings" in the search bar.

How long do you leave a perishable offering, and how do you dispose of it when you take it down?

I have a lot of different answers to this based on my experiences.

1. With the goddesses that I would offer perishable items to, I would leave it out for about a half hour before I would ingest them. This was common in ancient Egyptian practices, which is why I did this. It was only as time went by that I realized I was getting sorely tired of picking out my breakfast items at five in the morning. (Long story.) So, I stopped doing this. When I give them food items now, I revert it to the earth.

2. With the lwa that I serve, they are left out until they tell me otherwise. This means that things rot. After they finally give me permission to remove said items, they go in the trash.

3. With the beverages, they just stay there. Period. Whether it is for the goddesses or the lwa, it sticks around until it evaporates. (The only difference is the coffee I offer Papa Legba every morning since I give him a new cup every morning. I pour out the previous day's coffee offering when I switch it out.)

How do you handle the smell? Have you ever offered milk?

 
I've offered milk to my two goddesses, so it was either drunk down or reverted to the earth. They liked it.

Honestly? The smell isn't an issue.

Really? I decided to leave the little bit of wine on her altar for three days, then dispose of it, but I walked in after feeding the horses today and it was like, " *sniff sniff* what is that SMELL?? Oh..." Maybe it was just that kind of wine?

Ok, so the milk wasn't left. I was thinking that I would never be able to offer milk if I had to leave it there to rot, lol.

 
Wine makes some interesting mold patterns if you leave it for too long.

Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything.

(:ange:)

Really? I decided to leave the little bit of wine on her altar for three days, then dispose of it, but I walked in after feeding the horses today and it was like, " *sniff sniff* what is that SMELL?? Oh..." Maybe it was just that kind of wine?

Ok, so the milk wasn't left. I was thinking that I would never be able to offer milk if I had to leave it there to rot, lol.

Well, firstly, the only beings that want me to leave offerings out for an indeterminate amount of time are the lwa, specifically Papa Ghede. They need the sustenance that I provide in order to manifest. It's essential to everything that they are to give this offering. This is why it's around for as long as it is because they'll take every little particle that they can get from said offering. And since I offer it to them, they also have a tendency to keep things longer than you would expect.

For example, I gave Papa Ghede some peanut butter toast with hot sauce on it. And after a week or more, it still hadn't started to mold. He was done with it prior to it molding, but still. Now, of course, it's possible that his altar space just didn't have the right conditions for molding to start to happen right away, but I'd like to think that it had to do with him and his desire for said offering.

Secondly, I should have been more specific when I said that "beverages just stay there." What I meant was in regards to hard liquor, not milk or juice. I've never offered beer or wine so I couldn't say what the shelf life is on that. FWIW, the lwa love the hard liquor and my goddess, Sekhmet, is a big fan of tequila. You can always ask Epona if she'd like to try some of the harder liquors out there, or if she'd like to keep up with the wine. If after three days you started to smell something, and since it was Epona who wanted this offering as opposed to a hard-talking, joke-making lwa spirit, then I would think about reverting said offering on a daily basis. The gods of the sewers are your friends.

The only beings who have ever asked me for milk has been the gods and in that, rarely. With the goddesses, I'm given permission to whisk away offerings a lot sooner than I would be with the lwa. Also, I really do try to handle the offerings that I give to each entity in a different context, based on what they want or what they've said they want at any given moment.

The gods don't require the offerings in the same manner as the lwa spirits do, either. It's more of a "hey, you're great; lemme show you with this food that I give you" as opposed to "I need this nourishment" kind of a thing.

If I give milk to Hwt-Hrw, she'll ask me to revert it within a few hours of it being left out and replaced with something else... tea or a girly drink. (She likes cocktails.) Or some other form of service. If I give milk to Sekhmet, the time period is about the same, and I'll replace it with something like her tequila, or the promise of some form of service. Also, if the gods decide that they want to have milk around on a regular basis, I can use items of the offering to give to them. (I think this is a sympathetic offering... I can't remember. Darkhawk, Nehet, and Devo are a veritable founts on all of this, if you're curious.) So, say they want me to give them some milk and then just leave it there. In their cases, if I'm overly worried about rot (and I would be with milk), then I can get a dollhouse scale item of a jug of milk or something and utilize that as the offering.

Like I said, the gods need and the lwa need for offerings are on two different scales. And it's an odd learning curve.

How long do you leave a perishable offering, and how do you dispose of it when you take it down?

 
I usually place my offerings outside to the Fae and other spirits. What they don't take, then the birds and wild animals will.