Someone recently requested a concoction similar to my Toad Salve but for birds instead, specifically crow and owl, to be used for shapeshifting and flying (astral travel, hedgecrossing, etc). So going through my previous experiments and considering the request I came up with a recipe using delicious golden duck fat, shaved Barn Owl bone, ashes of Crow feathers, various herbs for astral projection, a copious amount of balm of gilead buds, and mandrake root, the entheogen the person requested. After I put aside their portion I added some belladonna to the remaining fat mixture. This post is for the reader’s amusement only as the preparation methods and quantities are very important – so no recipe will be given – as lovely as my wonderful witchy readers are I know there are others on this world wide web who might foolishly try to make it without proper research first or use it outside the proper context to “get high” – and stronger is not better when it comes to psychoactives my friends!
First I rinsed my lovely fat duck in cold water to wash away blood and then I set to work removing all the fat but leaving all the meat using my butchery skills (I’m sure my former Chefs didn’t have this in mind when teaching me butchery!). If you’ve never quartered poultry before let alone painstakingly removed just the fat, I don’t recommend trying this without someone showing you how to do it first and testing yourself a few times on less precious chickens. I collected all of the fat into a pot and then portioned the remaining meat and cut up the carcass to save for making soup stock.
Then I put the fat on the stove on low heat for about 4 hours until the skin the fat was attached to was golden and crisp and any liquid not fat had been evapourated. Then I strained out the skin and bits and added the herbs, bird bits, and entheogens and let the fat mixture simmer on the lowest heat for another 3-4 hours. The smell of the flying ointment filled the whole house with the rich luscious scent of duck fat and balm of gilead – it should seriously be an air freshener scent! I can’t even describe it to you, you’d have to smell it!
After this was ready I strained it twice, once through a medium sieve and once through a fine one. The fat from one duck renders down into about one and half cups of pure golden liquid. Then I added beeswax and portioned the Aves Salve into two ounce jars to set. Once left overnight I’ll be able to label them and will list some in the Botanica after testing it out first to make sure it won’t scare anyone (too much). With luck the effects will be mild but very useful. Entheogens which have been made fat-soluble have been shown to increase the production of melatonin in the pineal gland (the third eye), and create the most vivid waking “dreams” – in effect opening the door of your third eye while awake. I think the witches of old knew quite a bit more than they let on and modern scientists are just figuring this out…
On modern witches salves from Witchcraft Medicine:
“…despite the fact that none of the ‘modern witches’ themselves have any experience with the plants, they warn about the poisonous additives. In this literature, which is as superficial and empty as the elaborately fashionable themes of tantra and shamanism, it is considered trendy to brew ‘modern flying ointments, guaranteed to be not poisonous.’ The recipes are nothing more than ineffective rubbish.”
Hey, Sarah, put me down for a jar, please and pretty please! And thank whoever asked you for this specifically as it resonates so well with my own working.
I’ll be sure to give some to my lovely apprentice for you after it’s been tested out
Hi Sarah,
I’m very very interesting about ointment, in witchcraft but also on a historical and anthropological way.
I was wondering how i can find details about proportions ?
I’m not sure i would believe a recipe on a book.
Can you suggest me some articles or book or… ?
Hi Althéa! I’ve yet to find any real recipes that actually give proper proportions – most just give the ingredients. The book I quoted in the post is a good source of information on flying ointments as well as other uses for magical salves. Otherwise I would recommend Erowid to learn proper proportions for different psychoactive plants: http://www.erowid.org/
Dear Sarah,
Your a genius! I really admire your painstaking process and you have inspired me (once again!) to get back over the cauldron and get down and dirty (in the best of ways). Many thanks!
Hmm tasty. something very delicious about authenticity. Are you able to ship herbal products to New Zealand? Im tempted to place a reservation given the avian form of one of my familiars, however Im not sure if customs would allow it. durring recent escapades with sacred substance, I effrotlessly fell into the shape of a large toad, but was unable to move in toad shape. what to do? Is it a matter of stability of astral awareness (ie foccus).
blessings
New Zealand customs are very scarily anal about animal and plant products entering the country – they open every international package. I had a friend there who got her incense from me confiscated! But you never know until you try.
You were probably still attached to your body, you need to learn how to gradually let go and jump free – it’s not necessarily something you’ll be able to do right away, but might have be built up to. Always have a safeguard or some method to make sure you get back to your body and so you remember you’re not really a toad as well – such as giving yourself a time limit or a word that when you speak it you must return to your body and human form.
yes new zealand customs are very anal. *pouts* i think more about actual plant matter such as seeds or organic matter that may carry bugs etc in it. salves that are cooked, should theoretically be ok. maybe if it was sent as handcream? still it is cooked.. thus any bugs or seeds that may be in it should be ‘inert’ in the eyes of bio security..
i found the customs website.. http://www.customs.govt.nz/importers/Prohibited+imports/default.htm but it is umm.. not so helpful
*frowns at NZ customs*..
you should see the fuss caused when trying to get athemes in to new zealand.. its like they think we are going to run around and stab people with the pointy bits etc etc..
*skips about*
Wow… I bet that smelled amazing!
Yeah, you are totally an inspiration! Never thought of carving up a duck (or chicken) before to cull the fat as use in an ointment! But, I’ve never been able to tolerate eating meat off the bone–the flavor has always made me quite ill. That’s why it’s always boneless for me! ;o) However, for those ill-experienced with trimming a fowl, might I suggest developing a relationship with your local butcher and requiring his trimming, instead of allowing them to go to waste? But, then again, there’s just something so satisfyingly frugal about trimming the fat from a duck you’re gonna’ be serving for dinner, anyway, and making an ointment or soap from it!
BTW, I wish there were cottonwood trees that grew thickly in Iowa (I don’t even know the location of one!), but I *have* seen seen an infusion of Cottonwood Oil before, and it was definitely as orange as your pots of ointment! Hmmmm….I think I may have a book with Cottonwood folklore in it if you’d like me to e-mail the passage to you sometime!
My neighbour has two giant jars of the stuff in oil on his windowsill and they’ve turned a rich orange. Poplar buds have long been used in flying ointments as they were used for mainly used by everyday folk for healing not just by “shamans” to fly. Balm of Gilead is a wonderful all purpose healing herb – there’s not much it doesn’t do!
Hmmm…I wonder whom I could contact to see where poplar buds might most likely grow in *my* area? ;o) Oh, if only Iowa had some actual FORESTS in the west-central local.! Would def. love to experiment with my own formula for Flying Ointment with Cottonwood buds, some other ingredients, including some Diviner’s Sage and Cinquefoil I have growing… I also grow some belladonna and aconite for ritual incenses and Altar flower-arrangements (Martha Stewart has nothin’ on me! *G*). Though, I am understandably leery about using them as entheogens…I’ve simply not studied them as such at the moment.
Take care,
Wade
BTW, a great study of Flying Ointments is the book, “How Do Witches Fly?: A Practical Approach to Nocturnal Flights” by Alexander Kuklin (DNA Press, 1999). I am not, however, impressed by ONE direction this book took, because he decided that the animals bits employed in ointments and potions were actual hallucinogenic critters, instead of code-words for herbs (eg. the Hiera Magica calls Chamomile the “Blood of Hestia”). Other than that, it’s a great book! And, you have obviously read the work of one of my favorite Anthropologists, Christian Ratsch (I hope his book on Beltane is published in English, soon!!!).
Thanks everyone for your comments! Now for one with pig fat…
Perhaps one with bearfat?
Personally, I must admit that I cannot support any harm to either bears or wolves, considering their numbers. Heck, by the Middle Ages, they were officially hunted to extinction in Britain. Perhaps a deer-fat salve associated with the Horned One would be an interesting idea, however. Perhaps even a pork-fat salve for Cerridwen or Demeter (some have speculated that ergot–a grain-fungus–was an entheogen that featured as a facet of her Mystery Cult in Greece.
The number of bears varies with species and location. If a bear is shot legally, I’d still take any parts of it with great thanks although still trying to preserve the species as a whole, since those parts would go to waste if I didn’t use them.
Sarah, that looks so pretty. Does the balm smell like it did while you were preparing it?
It does! It smells prettily of balm of gilead. I had witchy friends over yesterday and got them to smell it and they didn’t believe a flying ointment could smell so good!
Thanks for the website it helps me a lot !
The Aves Salve is now available in the Botanica in 2oz jars
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=44624238
Was looking for flying ointment recipes for an herbal class. Great preperations info. Thanx!