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#bottle tree
jaubaius · 1 year
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The most exotic nature & wildlife on Earth - Socotra Island ( Yemen)
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sitting-on-me-bum · 4 months
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“The Bottle Tree Portal”
Socotra, Yemen.
Photographer: Benjamin Barakat
Milky Way Photographer of the Year
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sixminutestoriesblog · 7 months
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witch balls
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When I was a child visiting little tiny New England towns was different than it is today. These days when I walk down a carefully curated Main Street in some wind swept, coastal town you can barely smell the salt in the air anymore and every shop you step into is pristine air-conditioned and smells like a department store used to, all faint traces of new plastic and underlying pungent scent of whatever it is they paint large shipments of clothes with to keep them during shipping. Most of them are still set up to look old, in fact many of them are in old buildings, but the weight of all those years isn't really allowed to show through. It's all ocean cottage core now, neat and white painted and artistic sea glass and sandpipers in simplified wooden statues, wire legs frozen instead of blurring with motion. Don't get me wrong. I love ocean cottagecore. I would decorate my whole house in it if I had the money. And the little shops, pristine and pretty, absolutely have a sweet appeal to them, not willing to give up their personality for the sterilization of 'Big City' box stores. I do miss however, what tourist shops in those same little towns used to be. Less plastic magnets for the refrigerator shaped like whales and sweatshirts of labrador retrievers declaring them a specific colored Dog and more -
half forgotten not-quite-antique shop, hidden down some narrow salt smelling alley where the stones that make up the road are uneven and there's a dusty smell to the cracks of the wood floors that never goes away. As a child going to a 'tourist shop' in one of these towns was like walking into a magic shop, a true magic shop, with books of breathtakingly beautiful paper dolls as detailed as any old fairy book illustration, imitation scrimshawed whale teeth, old time candy, books about lady pirates and clever glass marbles full of painted fish. The things those old shops offered felt local, magical, impossible to find in any other town in the entire world. Childhood colors everything more vivid than it probably was but I still think of longing and a child's minor spending money in a world of treasures when I remember those shops.
In one of those shops, as a child, I saw my first glass fishing float.
At the time it was being sold as a Portuguese fishing ball, a better buoyant for nets and lines than cork or wood. I remember, distinctly, the surprising weight of it when I picked it up. I was used to glass being fragile, light, airy. The fishing ball was none of those. It had a weight to it and a solid feel to it that said it was fit to ride the choppy waters of the icy Atlantic and do its duty, tide in and tide out. Storms weren't going to break and drown this glass. It would ride the waves forever and when it finally broke free of its net, it would find the shore, in itself or in pieces as polished sea glass. These balls were sturdy and I fell in love with them. The first time I could finally afford one was a triumph and the rare times I managed to find them in shops, as the years and the advance of more proper 'souvenirs' advances, I snatched them up even if it meant my spending money for the rest of the trip would be lean. Finally, eventually, the balls disappeared from the last shop and I thought my meager hoard was all I'd ever see of them again, an old relic that was already being phased out before I'd even discovered them as a child.
Imagine my surprise when, years and years later, a friend, helping me fix my bathroom from some water damage, saw one of them where I had it hanging in the window and seemed surprised to recognize it. He called it a 'witch ball'. I corrected him but he was adamant. And so, thanks to the internet, I rediscovered my glass fishing floats - with a new name and a new story to go with it.
Witch balls are hollow glass balls. They can range in size, I've seen some as small as rounded shot glasses and the older ones seem to be about as large as my fishing balls, which is about the size of a cantaloupe. Like fishing balls, they're not made for perfection, in fact, the bubbles and imperfections in the glass blowing process are considered part of their selling points. They tend to range in colors, with modern day witch balls being an absolute riot of colors or a beautiful gradual shift from one color to the next. They've been around for quite a long time as well. There are accounts of witch balls hanging in English houses, especially sea-faring ones, as far back as the 17th and 18th century, though they were often known as 'watch balls' back then and not quite as riotously colorful as modern ones, tending to be more often made of green or blue glass. Sometimes they would have salt or herbs put in them before they were sealed but the main thing witch balls needed were stands. In fact, something I just learned, the way to tell a kugel (friendship) ball and a witch ball apart is to look for the glass strands inside the ball. Witch balls need those strands to be effect. Witch balls are, after all, created to be traps.
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The idea was that you hung your ball inside your house, often in an eastern window but sometimes from the rafters or set on top of a stand. Than, when evil things tried to enter the house in the night, they would be distracted and then captivated by the way the light of the moon played against the glass of the ball. Sometimes, the evil had to touch the glass, sometimes being ensnared simply happened automatically once their gaze was fixed on it. Either way, the evil would find itself pulled into the glass, trapped in the maze of the strands inside and unable to escape. There it would remain either until the morning sunrise burned it away or until the glass ball was broken, freeing it to continue its harm. Not all witch balls worked that way. In some cases, the glass was made to be more reflective with the idea that evil things, as we've already read, didn't have reflections and couldn't bear the reminder or that the glass would turn aside the evil gaze and reflect it back on its creator.
There is some speculation that glass Christmas ornaments may be tied into something similar as well, although, humans also simply like hanging sparking objects up for no reason but 'pretty' as well.
Bottle Trees serve the same general purpose and can still be found in parts of the Southern US, a tradition brought over from the Congo during slavery times. The belief is that blue bottles hung on tree branches will entrance and capture evil spirits inside their depths and hold them there where they can't cause any harm until the morning sun burns them away with its rising.
As a last note, I should point out that calling my collection 'fishing balls' wasn't necessarily wrong. While some of my later purchases did have strands in them, my early ones from childhood didn't. Apparently there's a very invested set of people who collect Japanese fishing floats on the West Coast of the US and Canada as well.
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ncwortcunning · 3 months
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Haint Tree - North Carolina.
Blue bottles hanging from a tree are an old protection against devils and evil spirits. It is said that the bottles will trap these supernatural pests whereby they will be burned up in the sunlight. A Haint tree in your yard can protect your home from unwanted supernatural guests.
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pamwmsn · 25 days
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📷: Brandon Coffey
"Thought to have originated in the Kingdom of Kongo on the western coast of Africa, bottle trees have a long and storied history. When enslaved people were transported to America and the islands, they brought their traditions with them. Just like much of Southern coastal cuisine originates from slavery times, bottle trees do as well. Brightly colored bottles are placed on tree branches for the sake of attracting evil spirits who would then become distracted and trapped in the bottles, protecting the home in the process. This one was found outside of St. George, South Carolina."
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conjuremanj · 1 year
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Bottle Trees & How To Make One & How To Know If You Cought One?
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Have you ever been driving through Louisiana, or any other southern states, and noticed a tree with colored bottles either hanging from it or stuck onto their branches? Natives of Africa have hung hand-blown glass on huts and trees to ward off evil spirits ( negative energy) since the ninth century, and maybe even earlier.
The Legend is told that the spirits are attracted to the sparkling color of the bottles, blue ones seemingly more enticing to spirits. The moaning sound that the bottles make by the wind is proof that a spirit ( Negative Spirit Energy) is trapped within.
Where Did Bottle Trees Originate:
Bottle trees originated in the Congo of West Africa and date back to at least the ninth century. Very soon after European colonizers noticed the practice in Africa, bottle trees were also observed in the Caribbean in Black communities comprised of people brought there from West Africa via the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Bottle Trees are traditional for a African Diasporic religion or practice like voodoo or hoodoo.
These early accounts the bottle trees were used to ward off a variety of dangers that could destroy a home, such as thieves, evil spells and bad spirits. If you hung bones and bottles in your mango tree, for instance, thieves wouldn't touch the fruit. Basically seeing the tree like this and not knowing what it is we're scared a person off the property.
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Hoodoo and the Tradition of Bottle Trees:
Bottle trees are a practice in Hoodoo. The idea behind bottle trees in the Hoodoo tradition is that the world is full of marauding spirits, usually up to no good. In the south of of Louisiana where I'm at, we believe they can enter your house if you're not careful, wreaking havoc — However, these evil spirits are very interested in spangly glass bottles. If you hang them on trees outside your house, the spirits will check the bottle out and become trapped inside, and in the morning when the sun comes up, they will be destroyed in the bottle by the sunlight.
If you're not sure the light of day has really done its job, you can cork the bottle, take it to the river and throw it in the water. A bad spirit (Haint) has no chance against the river because, according to legend, they absolutely hate water. (In mist religions dark energies and or spirits don't like nor can cross running water)
What Are Haunts? Now you herd me mentioned the world Haint. A haint is a restless ghost (spirit) who has not left the world, but has remained behind to haunt the living with trickery that is most often harmless, but there are some that can be more sinister in nature. Due to the vengeful and tricky its intentions of haunts, warding them off is understandably a priority. Hoodoo, sometimes referred to as rootwork, conjure or even lowcountry voodoo, would offer protection from evil. But at night, the boo hag would shed the skin and go looking for a victim to "ride," depleting the victim's energy or possibly even suffocating them.
Make Your Own Bottle Tree:
Turn a tree in your yard into one. The bottle should be placed upside down with the mouth of the bottle facing the trunk. You can also hang them from branches.
Where can I get a bottle? Bud Light platinum bottle is the haint blue.
Do I Need It In A Tree? No you can have in a bush well. Some also place them on the ground.
How Do I Know If I Caught One? The bottom will tip over or you can light a incense around it and if the smoke flows into the bottom you cought one.
Bottle Trees Are Used to Honor the Dead:
Bottle trees also have a special connection to the venerated dead. " The distinctive blue bottles were placed on tree limbs to capture the energy, spirit and memories of ancestors." Important and beloved relatives and community members and when they died, their tombs would be marked with large bottle trees, all sorts of vessels — bowls, cups, bottles, pots and pans — as well as knives, forks and bracelets.
How Do I Know If I Caught One?
You will here a whistle sound like the wind blowing into it.
The bottom will tip over.
You can light a incense around it and if the smoke flows into the bottom you cought one.
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mia-seth-adventures · 9 months
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🤎 Bottle Tree (cool angle shot)
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photozoi · 2 years
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Bottle tree
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3rdeyeblaque · 1 year
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December 2023 on The Hoodoo's Calendar features: Blue Bottle Tree
12/1 Prince Keeyama D-Day [recognized]
12/10 Red Cloud D-Day
12/15 Sitting Bull D-Day
12/26-31st Kwanzaa
12/29 Sister Thea Bowman B-Day
12/31 Freedom Eve/ Watch Night
🌘Waning Moon on Tuesday, December 5th 🌑New Moon on Tuesday, December 12th 🌔Waxing Moon on Tuesday, December 19th 🌕Full Moon on Wednesday, December 27th
🌱Root(s) of the Month: Sugarcane
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cgclarkphoto · 2 days
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Grows on a tree -  cg photography
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indigo-a-creeping · 4 months
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boltedgarlic · 5 months
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05/06/2006
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Australia - Outback Impressions
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conscbgb · 7 months
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Beautiful bottle trees from the island of Socotra - Yemen
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Photo cr. BBC Earth
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maureen2musings · 4 months
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benjaminbarakat
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despite-everything · 2 years
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just found the funniest stickers to put on my car
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