The Amber Wines Of Heaven

It is now near enough to the astrological cross-quarter indicating Spring is arriving, for those in the Northern Hemisphere.

Incorrectly, those who think they know about Western, especially British Isles, witchcraft, use the word 'Imbolc' for this moment, and will tell you this is the word witches use...

'Im-machst' however, is the Old German phrase, and it means something is made (macht) within the deepest dark of Winter. When some German-speakers say 'mach' it does sound a lot phonetically like 'molk.'

Red-gold candles... important colors for this

As modern-esque Christianity took over as the major public form of religion in the West, this season that has its specific ancient rites and rituals, began to be called 'candlemas' and in fact the idea that candle light has some ritualistic involvement with this date simply, as you all know, became absorbed into the standard Christian practices for 'candlemas.'

But we don't need to worry about all of that - we want to go a little into the matter of the drinking of wine, as a spiritual thing, according to ancient texts. As you also know, Abraham got drunk with these 'divine beings' he met, Noah planted a vineyard after the flood, made wine and got terribly drunk afterwards, Jesus made wine when the young aristocratic couple were fixing themselves in the carnal world, he drank wine with his associates when he was about to leave, and - so the story goes - he drinks wine with them in some other place not of this world. And for Eternity, no less. 

The nursemaid of the God of Wine, Dionysus - Ambrosia - gives her name also to a fermented, sometimes hardened, form of honey, which is highly entheogenic. This goes along with the Divine type of drink - nektar ('stops Death'). The blood which flows through the veins of the gods - ichor - possesses the same qualities that nectar and ambrosia have, namely, they can, in some circumstances, cure disease, halt death, heal wounds and all of that. But in all events, you can see that the gods are more or less steeped in wine. Albeit it is their kind of wine. 

Slovenian amber wine

Further, there is another kind of flowing, bubbling water, that is also associated with the gods and their wine - and this is the fountain of youth, which can usually only be drawn from by the goddess Hebe, the cupbearer (or one of them), to the gods.

Recently, it has become a thing, among the wine cognoscenti, that 'orange' (colored) wine, or amber wine - which is more like what it is - was likely the sort of wine that Jesus turned the water into, because that was what wine was like back then. This is on the theory that in those times wine-makers were using just the grape flesh and not the skins where the reddish color mostly is, for their wines. The result being that even from the darkest, blackest red grapes, the juice was more amber than red.

In the same way that modern witchcraft is a superficial method derived at best from a few books and some more or less urban and rural legends, so to is Christianity not much more than that - and when I say these things this is not to suggest both are not filled with complicated rituals and all kinds of peculiar narratives. But what I am saying is that neither can modern witches actually fly on broomsticks, any more than modern-day Christians can turn water into wine.


This is also, still the two-week Chinese New Year 'season.' In this tradition, it used to be that those living atop high mountains, would burn a pillar of fragrant smoke, along which up and down, fairies could descend. If the weather were really stormy, you could close all the windows in a darkened room, light a single small candle, and nonetheless create the smoke column procuring the same result. Then you drink Chinese plum or cherry wine. And fermented honey.

I don't know anything about these things, myself.

For me, I know that Shiraz from which the alcohol is removed, is sold in retail stores, and this is always made from the grapes in which the juice has the most sugar - because otherwise people won't buy the stuff. And, a very standard inexpensive actual Shiraz wine, is usually made with a lot of the grape skins and stems - thereby imparting very strong color and some tannin but not too much because these wines are not matured long enough. And if you mix the two, you will get a consistently amazing result, probably a lot better than, well, I'm not going there and saying what... But hey, if you throw in a tiny bit of well-made brandy as well...  

Real aged entheogenic honey is very expensive and takes around fifty years to ferment. There are still Russian or Slovenian 'Medovukha' honey wine products around, virtually at all ends of the styles of fermentation processing. The best is old and rare and expensive. A bit like best Hungarian Tokaji, really.