Hey Boss Warlock:
You're the keeper of the Minnesota Ooser. How did you consecrate it, and what word should I be using instead of “consecrate”?
Musing in Molline
Dear MM,
I think that the word that you're looking for would be “hallow.”
So, how did I hallow the ooser?
Well, actually, I didn't.
(For the sake of the reader who didn't grow up speaking Witch at home, let me mention that an Ooser—which, by the way, rhymes with bosser, not boozer—is the name that witches give to the wooden mask worn by the Horned at, among other occasions, the Grand Sabbat. Of these, there are a number across Witchdom at large; I myself am privileged to be the current keeper of one such, the first New World Ooser.)
No, I didn't hallow the Mask. It came to me from the hand of the artist with the god already upon it. To anyone who knows the artist, a master carver of deepest heart—who in the old style, I might add, wishes to remain anonymous—this will come as no surprise whatsoever.
But, with an eye to the future, let me apply your question more broadly: How would one go about hallowing an ooser?
Well, one gives it to the god. That's the meaning of “hallow.”
What you give to a god should, of course, be whole, and it should be clean. Wholeness, of course, is a function of the thing itself, and standard procedure is to cleanse with water and smoke.
Next you enliven the mask, but that's part of keepers' lore, and I can't talk about it here.
After that, most importantly, in the old Witch way, you hallow it by use.
With the ooser—in a sense (but this is a mystery) there is only one—as with anything else, use hallows.
Top o' the May,
Boss Warlock
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