DUGNAI*

 

(for Pogacha Lunarela Grain Harvest, Lammas, August 1^st)

 

Blessed be those Slavic women

For creating the goddess Dugnai

It was she they prayed to ages ago

For the rising of the dough

 

Women’s work was always trivialized

Yet earliest recorded history shows

Bronze Age women’s flour fabrications

Containing the secret of fermentation

 

Baking and then beer-making was the domain

Of the sacred art of women

So to move from flatbread to loaves

Is an act of alchemy arcane

 

But oh, sometimes the dough did not rise

And women needed a successful guarantee

A household spirit named Dugnai was invented

To keep the dough safe and sour-free

 

Dough was a food but also a medicine

Infants were wrapped in fever-reducing flour

Since unable to afford twelve fever demon dolls

Baked twelve pies to defeat illness’s power**

 

But here I am diet-baking and un-fermenting

Because flatbread is lower in calories and surely

Those wonderful women once praying to the house spirit

Are the ghosts I hear frantically dissenting…

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGES: Slavic Bread

 

 

 

HEALER’S TALISMAN

(USE IN CASE OF FIRE)

 

Ptolemy’s library burning

48 BC

And a young woman

Slides a thin manuscript

Into the pouch of her cape

Novice healer

Rescues this irresistible grimoire

Bearing the strange name

“The Black Pullet”

Describing a talisman

Representing the universal medicine

Of all the minerals and vegetables

Defining their virtues and properties

Everything that is needed

To cure the world

Of its ills

Smuggling it into her chamber

She pries up a piece of mosaic floor

Opens a hidden box

Containing a blank medallion

And etching tools

She has memorized the manuscript

And patiently carves the symbols

Until she hears her parents’ voices

Hides the prize

And opens the door

Trying to control her impatience

To gift the ill

Creating a safer world

And from an early age

I hear the voice of

Ray Bradbury, the oracle

Writing in 1953

“Fahrenheit 451

The temperature at which

Paper burns”

Because this story takes place

In the future

And I think,

“No! Not here will it occur!”

 

Books burned

People torn to pieces

Hypathia in 391 AD

Mathematician and Astronomer

Gifting the astrolabe

An ancient astronomical instrument

Used to determine the altitude of

Celestial objects above the horizon,

The calculation of time, latitude and longitude

Beloved teacher accused of Witchcraft

Murdered by a riotous mob

While the Serapeum--

Part of the previously burned

Library of Alexandria--

Succumbs to arson

Destroying the manuscripts

But out of the flames

Her students rescue

Countless important truths

Including the words of

The Black Pullet

Hiding them for centuries

As book burning continues

Around the globe

 

And from an early age

I hear the voice of

Anne Frank, angel of the diary

Hiding from Nazis in 1944

"In spite of everything, I still believe

That people are really good at heart"

Oh, Anne, lost to us

Because Time and Place

For you, was misplaced

And hell on Earth

Would destroy your loving face

 

Burning books is nothing new

On and on the mind it abuses

As the darkness of centuries

Endlessly continues*

  

As the granddaughter of

A Drabarni/Healer

Good health is my concern

So I search survived manuscripts

From ancient times

To glean lost information

 

I hear Paracelsus’ voice

Father of Toxicology and

15^th Century Pioneer of the Medical Revolution

Finding glaring errors in the

Texts of the time

"The patients are your textbook,

The sickbed is your study"

Yet. He dies under mysterious circumstances

At an early age

 

And I hear St. Hildegard of Bingen’s voice

A sublime herbalist

Writing Physica

Her classic work on Health and Healing

Abbess, musician, polymath of the 11^th Century

Balance and Harmony the key

"All things in moderation

This is the vital juice

The very breath of all training and education."

 

And in medieval times

I hear the voices of midwives

Begging the doctors

To scrub the blood

Under their finger nails

Blood from corpses and other births

Spreading germs of puerperal fever

Postpartum Infection

Doctor as Grim Reaper

 

I hear the anonymous voice

Author of the Black Pullet

Rescuing one of Napoleon’s officers

Bringing him into an Egyptian pyramid of wonders

One of which includes the

Healer’s Talisman

Claiming:

“It gives the wearer knowledge

Of all minerals and vegetables

And the universal medicine of healing

All sick persons, helping us to connect

With the Healing Wisdom of the Ages”

 

Is this true?

I don’t know

But there are truths

Contained in the book

Now available for anyone to read

I discount his instructions to

Enslave demons and angels

But how to separate the

Fiction from the Non-?

 

To me, the secret is to read

Read the theories

Practice herbal cures on yourself

Start cautiously

Will plantain mixed with Golden Seal

Draw out splinters?

Break up crusty dark spots on skin?

Will cayenne pepper stop bleeding?

Will water on a washcloth

Snorted up each nostril

Do a safer and quicker cure

Than heavy-duty sinus medicines?

Read, experiment, but remember

Psychoneuroimmunology

Everyone’s body is different

Not all allopathic medicines or herbs

Work the same way on everyone

And always look to your diet

Less sugar

Less salt

(My favorites!)

But all in moderation

 

Most importantly

Treasure our books

Because we need revisions

As time reveals modern technology

Because we need verification

And how can we have those simple necessities

With missing information

If the books are burned?

 

I am with the banned

Are you?

 

© 2025 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGES: My banned books T-shirt & Healer’s Talisman