Hey y’all!
A question that’s always bugged me is when you make offerings of food or drink to spirits/deities you work with, how do you properly dispose of those materials?
For example: making an offering of milk and bread. Milk would spoil after some time and bread would harden/attract pests. However I don’t think it’d be appropriate to consume the bread myself the following day or wash/flush down the milk. My gut makes me feel this is very wrong for reasons I can’t really explain.
I’ve looked everywhere for answers and haven’t really found a concrete way to do so. I’ve seen digging a hole and burying the remains of offerings but I can’t do that on my property.
What’s a witch to do?
I have the same question. I've only done it once with fruit, after a couple days I just threw it somewhere easier for animals to find. But it feels a little awkward so now I'll just use candles or incense as offerings
Honestly I feel the same. There's not much in a suburban area as far as leaving out an offering. Like, I like to do/make things and give them as offerings to the Gods I work with, but I feel like I could do so much more, like making food or drink or something. But I also have to constantly have to remind myself that these small offerings of incense and candles ARE enough. It's recognition and it's a form of gift and so it's still appreciated. There's nothing wrong with it.
Good question. I add the fruits, vegetables, and grains (anything that's solid but not meat or cheese) to the compost heap. If you don't have one, you could bury them. I pour liquids on the ground. If you live in apartment, condo, or other place where you don't have an "outside," I guess you'll just have to consign "used" offerings to the garbage disposal or trash bin. (That's what I would do with meat and cheese, in any case). You can visualize the items eventually returning to Mother Earth -- albeit by way of garbage truck and city dump -- and thank them for the role they played in your Magick. Hope this helps!
The garbage thing is exactly what I do since i live in an apartment on the third floor with no yard LOL
What I do with offering is a little different. I follow a mostly Egyptian pantheon and the ancient Egyptians had no problem eating the offering food after the deities had their fill of them.
There are methods that prepare the offerings to be suitable for the deities to enjoy and others to revert them back so we can also enjoy them. In some ways, it is comparable to sharing a meal with the gods.
Like the burnt (barbecued?) offerings of the Old Testament. It makes perfect sense -- the gods imbibe the spiritual essence of the offerings and we mortals take care of the earthly husks.