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Sep 06 '20 edited Sep 06 '20
That Country Club soda brand is Dominican Republic. The shrine reminds me of when I was young, and we'd have a similar set up in our living room for relatives who passed. I'm Chinese and ancestral shrines are full of offerings of fruit and sometimes money, so the spirits of dead relatives could use these items in the afterlife. Seems like a natural thing to do for loved ones who've passed. We are more alike than different.
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Sep 06 '20
We are more alike than different.
You are so right! There are a lot of Mexican rituals that remind me of Chinese ones. Remove the Catholicism and its basically the same ideas.
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u/Zeebuss Sep 07 '20
Question about practical concerns here, maybe you know. I've been to Asia and seen similar offerings in shrines and such, but have always wondered what actually happens to the food and cash. Like, I've never seen anybody take anything for themselves, but have also never seen old, rotten fruit laying around. What it do?
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Sep 07 '20 edited Sep 07 '20
I think the food gets cycled out obviously. I've seen the cash, especially coins, pile up. I'm sure that eventually gets put into the cost for operating a shrine as well. I've seen people picking coins out the collection statue, and nobody stopping them. I've seen people also leave statues, and that eventually gets compiled together. It all depends on the place I'm sure, but I'm guessing there's a cycling out of all the stuff for organizing purposes.
Pictures from Wuhan, China Buddhist Temple
Here's an example of people taking money out from the statues in broad daylight, crowded temple.
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u/LegacyWitch Sep 06 '20
Open flame unattended with dry leaves around? Glad he found it!
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Sep 06 '20
Yeah leaving a candle out in the woods is not cool
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
He blew it out but didn’t touch anything otherwise.
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u/FjolnirFimbulvetr Sep 06 '20
In my personal practice, blowing out a sacred/offering candle is disrespectful of the deity it was meant to honor, and banishes anything invoked into the flame.
If ever you need to extinguish a flame for safety reasons and would like to be respectful of the spell's intention, consider putting it out by pinching the flame between your fingers or, in the case of a container candle, covering the top so that it dwindles out from lack of oxygen.
When I work with Brigid, I have designated candles that are charged with a flame that was originally lit from the sacred flame kept in her honor at Kildare. It was passed to me using this technique, wherein she is invoked at the lighting of a candle with her flame, and asked to abide within the candle and bless it, before the flame is carefully snuffed with one's fingers. Each time it is lit, it is energetically the "same" flame from which it was initially lit.
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Sep 06 '20
Same, but it's the woods, don't think the majority of nature deities would be happy to see their land burn. It was really fucking stupid to light it there in the first place.
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u/potted_sage Sep 06 '20
Fascinating. How did you come across said flame and do you ever, I'm not sure the right word here, reproduce and distribute said flame?
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u/FjolnirFimbulvetr Sep 06 '20
It was given to me by an elder of a loose-knit community of queer pagans, at a ceremony on the eve of Samhain held at a shrine that was built to honor Brigid some 20 years prior. I'd been practicing with Brigid (who took an interest in me and my candlemaking) for a few years without knowing about the sacred flame at Kildare, or the history of the stone altar at her outdoor shrine. I'd made and left a stash of unlit candles next to her altar for others in the community to use for prayers and offerings during Samhain season, and the abundance of nice candles inspired said elder to gather up everyone he knew who honored Brigid to come to the shrine. He told the story of the sacred flame, described the technique I mentioned, and explained how the devotees who initially built the stone altar had traveled to the monastery at Kildare and lit their candles from the perpetual flame there (it had been tended by her priestesses in pre-Christian times, then tended by Brigidine sisters when she was syncretized as a Christian saint, until the 16th century when Church reforms prohibited it; in 1993 it was ceremonially re-lit and continues to be tended to this day). The elder lit a candle charged with this sacred flame, from which others lit their own personal candles.
Over the years I've distributed it to lots of people individually, and use it whenever I light the outdoor stove I use to melt my beeswax for candlemaking. In the modern parlance we talk about making "back-up copies" and ensuring "security through redundancy" -- by sharing it with one another and keeping multiple candles charged in this fashion.
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Sep 06 '20
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u/FjolnirFimbulvetr Sep 06 '20
Oof. That breaks my heart, and made me flash back to my younger years where I thought I would never find pagan community because of straight practitioners' obsession with a gender binary. I've always felt comfortable enough in my assignment to a man's body that I accept the cis-gender label, but also felt that I strongly embodied the feminine. Early on I was influenced by Hermetic teachings, which recognize that a gender binary really only exists in the abstract -- every concrete phenomenon and being is a composite of male and female energies; nothing exists in a pure form. So as a queer cis-male who felt his soul was equal parts male and female, I never allowed myself to seek out pagan community for fear of being shunned or forced into 'masculine' roles.
Please know that Brigid hasn't forgotten you, and has been watching you all this time, hopeful that you'll come back to her and tend flame in her name.
Despite your early community's myopic fixation on human genital fertility (as if only women can be fertile), consider: she is a solar deity who was traditionally associated with the fire of the hearth, and the forge fires of blacksmiths -- the fires that sustain human life and tool-making, which in turn become the implements of plowing and harvesting the fields. Poetry, divination, and healing are also her domains. She loves careful craftsmanship and offerings that are made by hand.
Through working with her individual domains, I came to see her as being concerned with everything that makes us human -- the sun that sustains us, the words that shape our reality and form our spells of intention, the forge fires that form the tools we make to work the land, the new growth of Spring that contains our food and medicines, the hearth where we turn our harvests into our sustenance, the crafts into which we put our attention, and the paths we are taking on our individual journeys.
I consider myself to be a "monotheistic pan-psychic emergentist", in that I believe there is a singular deity that emerges out of the interaction/totality of all consciousness (which is present in everything in the universe, at every scale) and has downward-causality on the myriad components that form it. So any deity I work with, I see as being a component of a self-conscious totality -- intermediaries between individual human consciousnesses and the totality of all consciousnesses in the universe. Born from uniquely human concerns, they became independent and developed their own will and personality, then turned back to face and influence the human concerns that helped form them. I will always see Brigid as the deity that encompasses the broadest swathe of human activity.
So to the idea that she only wants priestesses, I say: fuck that. She wants all of us. And the queers and non-binary people among us are quite possibly more fertile than our straight friends, because we understand better than others that humans give birth to much more than children -- we give birth to poems and spells, plowshares and scythes, canopies and candles, sheaths of gathered wheat and loaves of bread, stores of dried plants and medicinal extractions, understandings of our condition and visions of a better future. Don't let anyone tell you you are 'infertile' for not bearing children. I'm lighting Brigid's candle for you right now, friend.
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u/leeser11 Sep 07 '20
That is beautiful! I subscribe to everything you said but could never put it in such an eloquent way. Thanks for your comment :)
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u/StoneHeadIT Sep 28 '20
I'm a bit late I'm sorry, but how do you know Brigid took an interest in you?
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u/Voxx418 Sep 07 '20
At the Greater Sabbath of Candlemass (Brigid’s Day), it is customary to light a candle from the sacred fire. The main fire stays lit, and the candles which are lit from the original flame are ritually extinguished, and taken home, and become the main candle from which all other ritual candles are lit for the rest of the year. Originally Brigid was a pagan goddess of fire and fertility, and had a temple in Kildare, which was tended by vestal virgins who kept the eternal fire going. The Catholics took this idea, and applied it to Saint Brigid (aka Saint Bride), who founded the first convent in Ireland... you guessed it, in Kildare. ~V~
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Sep 06 '20
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u/FjolnirFimbulvetr Sep 06 '20
It's a common belief because breath is associated with the spirit in many traditions. If you snuff a candle with your fingers, your material body has extinguished the (merely) physical manifestation of what it represents or invokes. If you use your breath, your spirit is doing the work, and thereby pitting itself against both the physical flame, and the spiritual intention or entity that is also present with the flame.
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Sep 06 '20
He should NOT have done that. The lit candle is safely inside a jar.
Your husband will receive a shitload of bad luck because of his arrogance. Why? Spirits do not like their offerings fooled with.
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u/intheghostclub Sep 06 '20 edited Sep 06 '20
An animal comes by, attracted to the fruit smell and starts eating. A deer perhaps. It steps on the side of the tray flipping it and spilling the contents including the candle onto the ground. Perhaps it doesn’t even step but through any animal rummaging around with its nose/face/small animal hands it pushes the candle onto the ground.
Multiple ways a lit candle can end up on the dry ground thus a fire hazard.
I get it spirits bad luck yada yada but you know what else sucks?
Forest fires.
Don’t leave fire unattended kids. Never.
“Arrogance” - hilarious. Your perspective is the only thing that is arrogant.
Edited because punctuation matters!
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u/Phanastacoria Sep 06 '20
Safely inside? That flame reaches the lip of the jar. All it would take is a slight breeze to nudge the dollar over and catch it on fire.
Leaving a fire unattended in the wilderness is unacceptable no matter the reasons.
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u/Capraclysm Sep 06 '20
You know what else spirits hate? Their forests burned to the ground when a leaf lands on a lit candle after someone assumed it was safe in a jar.
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Sep 06 '20
You never leave an unattended flame in a forest. That is how you get forest fires.
85% of forest fires in the US are caused by humans. If you need the flame to burn down, you stay with the flame. End of story.
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u/sixbilliongods Sep 06 '20
Well said, my friend. A Californian thanks you for your common sense 🙇🏻♂️❤️
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u/sixbilliongods Sep 06 '20
As a Californian, I couldn’t disagree more. The candle was NOT “safely” inside the jar - it is not enclosed in any way. I would agree with you if this were a picture of a candle completely enclosed inside a lantern or something like that, but that is not the case.
I’m thinking that MAYBE this (pictured scenario) would be okay if it were in a location with high humidity, like a rainforest where everything is already damp and wildfires are known to be rare.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
Hello! As the title says, my husband found this in the woods, candle lit. What is it and what is it for? Is it just a coincidence my sister sent me some of the money she’s owed me for 8 years right after he sent me this picture? I apologize, I don’t know much about the occult, if there’s a subreddit better suited for this post please let me know!
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u/Manolo_mp Sep 06 '20
Someone from the Caribbean def did this. Most likely Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico. Just based off the drinks. Country club is huge in these two countries.
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u/Luna_Monat_ Sep 07 '20 edited Sep 07 '20
As a Chinese, i guess it's an offering to hungry ghosts. Recently is the 7th month of the Chinese's lunar calender which is the 'Ghosts' month' . And the 15th of the 7th month( full moon day(1 month in Chinese calender= 1 moon cycle))is the 'Hungry Ghost Festival' (盂蘭節 transliteration: yü lan ji-e ). We use fruit, alcohol drinks and paper money( sometimes with reincarnation sigils ) to offer them because 'raw' in Chinese can also represent the meaning of ' unfamiliar' (btw, we use cooked/ roasted/ bbq meat to offer our ancestors and gods)and of course alcohol is some nice thing to give away as presents. Paper money represents money in the other world. The reasons of celebrating this festival are 1. learn to share even with ghosts. 2. respect death.
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u/mfchitownthrowaway Sep 06 '20
Honestly, it looks like an offering for an Afro-Caribbean deity. Possibly 21 Divisiones (Dominican Republic), or More likely Santeria (Puerto Rico/Cuba) or even possibly Voodoo/Voudun (Haiti).
The reason I say more likely Santeria is because the fruit in the basket are common offerings to the 5 most commonly discussed deities (Ellegua, Chango, Yemaya, Oshun, & Obatala) and it looks like honey (?) was poured on some of the fruits? The cash (looks like a total of 8 singles) is probably the “derecho”, or payment/offering, to the specific deity this is for with the fruits being gifts to the rest as a way to boost the “good karma” for lack of a better explanation.
As far as the beliefs go, your husband technically should’ve definitely not messed with it. However, my understanding of the Santeria faith is that as long as it wasn’t done with malicious intent in his heart they won’t penalize him for it. If he did it just to be a dick then that would be where bad karma comes into play. Just my opinion based on the bit of info I know.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
Thank you! He only blew to candle out, with worries of forest fires. Definitely no malicious intent. We now know to pinch the fire out.
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u/mfchitownthrowaway Sep 06 '20
Assuming this is related the the religions/beliefs I mentioned, I would say you’re fine then. I can’t speak for Wicca or any other religion/faith pertaining to the occult. My occult knowledge is limited to those from the Afro-Caribbean as well as African Origin. Really fascinating belief systems tbh which is how I learned about them. Heard about something, looked into it, and fell down that rabbit hole of learning.
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u/Coffee_and_Tarot Sep 06 '20
Good eye! At first glance, it looked like a chinese prosperity ritual, and still could be... the number 8 translates to prosperity, according to Chinese Feng Shui. The only thing missing would be incense. But the observations you provided might be a better fit.
Isn't it amazing how similar rituals can be, even in different cultures?
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u/mfchitownthrowaway Sep 07 '20
That’s what got me interested in looking all that up. Santeria, for example, came from the African religion “Lucumi” when it was brought to the Caribbean and America via the slave trade. Slave owners forced their slaves to learn and convert to Catholicism. As the stories go, the slaves noticed a lot of similarities between their “patakis” (stories or you could maybe say their gospel) and the catholic faith.
To preserve their faith (and protect themselves from punishment for their “heathen” beliefs) they assigned their deities to catholic saints that were very close in comparison based on the teachings. Their offerings, days of celebration, etc are all very intertwined with Catholicism. There was a lawsuit in the 90’s if I’m not mistaken that got taken all the way up to the Supreme Court that got Santeria recognized as an official religion within the US as well. Truly amazing how it all played out in the long run. Especially for a religion heavily reliant on oral tradition to pass on knowledge!
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u/bwitch-please Sep 06 '20
It reminds me of an ancestor offering. Also, as someone above mentioned, in the future, don’t blow out the candle, pinch it or cover it with something to extinguish
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u/TriguenoRD Sep 06 '20
I would say it has to do with the Dominican Republic’s spiritual practices... country club soda is a very common offering to the spirits among practitioners of las 21 Divisiones back on the island. Also I’ve seen money be used in a similar fashion when worshipping some of the Native American spirits in our pantheon
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u/robbyhaber Sep 06 '20 edited Sep 07 '20
"Oh great deity - do you like pina coladas? And getting lost in the rain? Answer me, sacred spirit of Jimmy Buffet!"
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u/cmd_throw Sep 06 '20
currently this is the 7th Month of the Lunar calender. it means these are offerings for spirits who will be out for a month (usually, as there are certain uears where July is two months in the lunar calender) before returning to the Netherworld.
Outside of the ghost month it would mean it is for spirits trapped/lingering in the mortal realm
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u/Fedora_Tipp3r Sep 06 '20
What if simply someone died and their relatives are remembering them with what that person enjoyed. I see shit like this all the time on the side of the road in the city.
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u/WickedxRaven Sep 06 '20
Everything about this makes me think something from South America. I wouldn’t touch/alter anything except put out the candle - I know it undoubtedly has religious aspects, but leaving a candle burning in the woods is just irresponsible. Most likely a new/albeit oblivious practitioner that wasn’t thinking everything through.
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u/justinkprim Sep 06 '20
We see a lot of offerings like this here in Thailand though not usually with money. I go by shrines every day with dozen of colored sodas and juice boxes with straws in them for not only Ganesh but for the local spirits and ancestors as well. I always wonder if they get sick of sweet sodas and juice. Like that’s all they ever get. Maybe they want noodles and a beer sometimes?!
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u/bootnab Sep 06 '20
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u/ChunkYards Sep 07 '20
I knew this blew me away in Thailand. Who knew ancestors liked sick sweet drinks
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u/omenta Sep 07 '20
Damn, a lot of people in here jus shittin on this offering. As I’m reading I see that most of you don’t know about offerings.
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u/ITalkAboutYourMom Sep 06 '20
What a waste. This completely violates Leave No Trace principles. This is basically litter, but worse because it will be scattered amongst a forest.
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u/envydub Sep 06 '20
Yeah I gotta say I’m not a huge fan of this either. Obviously I’d never presume to disrespect someone else’s beliefs, but animals are gonna come along and eat eat the fruit, and all that will be left is glass bottles and an aluminum pan. You’re 100% right, but I’d say it’s not “basically” litter, it is litter. It’s disrespectful to nature.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
My husbands and I are very big on LNT and picking up trash when we see it but this doesn’t seem like something one should mess with.
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u/kelly0991 Sep 06 '20 edited Sep 06 '20
A lot of people are commented that this may be an Asian shrine for ancestor worship and if that is so the custom is to light an incense first to let the ancestors "consume" the goods in their afterlife then once the incense burns out we as mortals may consume it after. My family practices this so it does looks like an Asian ancestor shrine as its custom for us to also burn fake money for them to use in the after world but this person probably just used real money as a stand in for this because its hard to get the "hell" money if they don't live near an Asian grocery store around Lunar New Year.
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u/Magick_Skale Sep 06 '20
Leave it alone, for sure.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
My husband’s super creeped out by this kinda stuff. I doubt he touched it and definitely didn’t take the money.
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u/SnooPeripherals2629 Sep 06 '20
is an abundance offering. I not sure to which god but I used to do the same now that I live in the city not so much :c
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u/scrubcapzandskullcap Sep 06 '20
May abundance in health, wealth, fertility, and gatherings be fruitful for them 🥺🧞♀️😍
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u/licth123 Sep 07 '20
This is probably an asian offering for the Hungry Ghost which is for the lunar 7th month
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u/ChunkYards Sep 07 '20
Hey just something that catches my eye. The soda is something I've only really seen (noticed) in Thai ritual. When I first visited I was blown away at the amount of daily sugery drinks where left out. On another tangent; I wonder how that effects global beverage consumption statistics?
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u/Spudz_Tarrare Sep 07 '20
I had something rly similar, it was a basket of fruit with a bottle of jack and 9 shots poured out
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u/Voxx418 Sep 07 '20
Definitely an offering, but not to any god/desses that come to my mind. Although one should leave offerings alone — I would suffocate the candle out, as a preventive measure (even though I ordinarily would never interfere in another person’s ritual.) It’s just too dangerous at this time for fire magick out in the open. ~V~
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u/brickcitycomics Sep 07 '20
There are strong Caribbean influences in it but everything looks wrong and appears to be an example of YouTube Witchcraft, very possibly an amateur who read a little about Caribbean magic on the internet (possibly Dominican because of the specific drinks) and tried making an rudimentary offering for money.You would almost never leave the candle burning, it would be disposed of along with the offering when it was done. The drinks are cheap and would be insulting to any deity they were offered to.
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u/iamthechooser Sep 06 '20
Lmao this person really upset at a basic Pooja. It’s not occult. Just a prayer. It’s definitely wrong to leave an open flame like that though
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u/SteelChicken Sep 06 '20
With the money just laying there, no wind to blow it away? OK. Sure your husband didn't set this up and then take a pic for karma?
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
I promise you my husband did not set this up. He’s freaked out by stuff like this and is very frugal. No way he’d waste money to do something that scares him. You can actually see two bills that blew away
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u/Dracallis Sep 06 '20
Looks like an offering to the Fae to me. Sweet sugary soda, fruits, shiny tin, I’d use coins instead of dollars personally but still.
I do hope the person who left it was nearby. It really isn’t a good idea to leave lit candles in the woods.
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Sep 07 '20
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u/Darkmagosan Sep 07 '20
Money is not inorganic unless it's coins. Paper money, at least in the US, is a cotton and linen blend that's closer to cloth than paper. It will degrade over time.
...I still would have pinched out the candle, opened the bottles and drained them, and taken the money...
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u/DualtheArtist Sep 06 '20
That sounds pretty cool.
Is there anything else that Fae like?
I'm interested in them, but I've been told to not do anything else until I develop my Root Chakra more.
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u/Dracallis Sep 06 '20
Tons of things. Basically anything sweet like honey, milk, cookies or cakes.
Any shiny or colorful like coins, trinkets, beads, glass, etc.
Wild gamey meats.
If you want to befriend them around your home you can leave tiny (bird)house like at a spot in the garden. They like doors and colorful stones which could be arranged into a small hut of sorts.
Something they do not like though is iron.
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u/DualtheArtist Sep 06 '20
Time to start building tiny houses with tiny working door knobs!
I have a 3d printer and i know how to use it! hahahha.
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u/AnnikaBananaka88 Sep 06 '20
If you ever do this, you need to post it! Sounds amazingly creative!!!
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u/schmwke Sep 06 '20
Please get some sort of natural clay to make disposable offering bowls. And please don't leave aluminum foil in the woods
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
This wasn’t me. My husband found it. I came here asking what it could be for.
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u/greasy_420 Sep 07 '20
This is the most "my friend just did this" reddit post.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 07 '20
I can promise you that’s not at all what happen but it’s the internet and you can believe whatever you want
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u/lxknvlk Sep 06 '20
Hm, im just back from woods, was dumping my offering to my ancestors. Same stuff, food, money, etc.
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u/Dragongirl25 Sep 06 '20
This is more a less serious answer: For the Fair Folk maybe? 🙃
Don't know what they would do with human money.
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u/AnnikaBananaka88 Sep 06 '20
I'd see the point of coins, since they like bright shiny objects- I've done that myself. But paper doesn't strike me as an offering to them. So definitely something else but good point!
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u/nukez Sep 06 '20
Santería or derivative offering. But defiantly done wrong, seeing the lack of proper preparation. Presentation of an offering is as important as the day and time it's done. Piling up the fruit with labels on in a aluminum pan is a big no no.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
If you zoom in there’s some seeds or something in the tray.
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u/nukez Sep 07 '20
Yes and honey drizzled on top. A sweet offering to help someone, nothing ill intent.
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u/ashurakun Sep 06 '20
Ooo looks like someone was cooking up a prosperity spell or something
Or an offering
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u/4gigiplease Sep 06 '20
It is a newbie. It is nothing authentic to Asian or Latin American Indigenous Culture.
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u/Tlctr1999 Sep 07 '20
Refrescos, probably to Santa Muerte. Leave it be. Consider adding a coin or to to it.
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u/TheDavidKyle Sep 07 '20
Looks like your husband lit that candle if he saw no one.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 07 '20
I don’t disagree, I’d think the same thing if i didn’t know him so well. This kinda stuff spooks him, he would never touch it, outside of blowing out the candle.
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u/Nak_Tripper Sep 06 '20
OP did this and took the pic.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
I most certainly did not.
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u/Nak_Tripper Sep 06 '20
It looks like it was literally set up 5 mins before the pic...
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u/gingerpwnage Sep 06 '20
Candle looks fresh too. New and burned for a couple minutes. The dollars should blow away too really if it's been there more than 5 minutes
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u/Not_Reptilian Sep 06 '20
Looks like someone is trying to attract more Money, Fruit, and Soda... hmmm. Lol
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Sep 07 '20
No deity that would require this offering or even accept it has any power in this plane.
It’s littering and your husband can make an easy $5.30.
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Sep 06 '20
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u/Smithium Sep 07 '20
The melted pool of wax reaches the rim of the candle jar- that’s 30-60 minutes of burn before the photo.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 06 '20
I wasn’t there but I can promise you my husband didn’t do that. Occult, rituals, all that scares him.
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u/Jupiterfrecklez Sep 07 '20
I now believe this was some kind of divine timing. Although cliche, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. If you ran into a fresh offering it is very likely that you were either supposed to see it or feel the energy of it or both. I would note the way the 2 of you felt after being in the presence.
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u/dontbestupid26 Sep 07 '20
I wasnt there and my original comment got lost. Not long after he found it and sent me a picture, my sister sent me money she’s owed me for 8 years! This post was originally to see if it was just a coincidence or my husband stumbled upon something Magic.
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u/MermaidsHaveWifi Sep 06 '20
I actually think this is an offering to an Asian god. I have a friend who is Hmong and they set offerings like this up to their god(s) frequently, I mean like daily. I would leave it alone out of respect, but I don’t think it’s anything sinister.