Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 1: It is Saturday, and in this classic episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing lightning, struck Wood, and the Rowan. This
Speaker 1: originally published twelve ten, twenty twenty four. Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And hey everybody, I got
Speaker 3: to apologize right here at the start for my voice
Speaker 3: and my brain. Possibly today I am wrestling a pretty
Speaker 3: nasty cold, but we're plowing right through. And today we're
Speaker 3: going to be talking about a topic. We're actually returning
Speaker 3: to a topic we talked about a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 3: the subject of sake trees. In that previous episode, Rob,
Speaker 3: you talked about the giants Equoia of western North America,
Speaker 3: arguably the largest tree in the world depending on how
Speaker 3: you measure, and we talked about the history of how
Speaker 3: people regarded these massive plants with reverence. And I ended
Speaker 3: up talking about the Ohea, the Hua tree of Hawaii
Speaker 3: and a lot of interesting, beautiful ways that it interlocks
Speaker 3: with Hawaiian religion and traditional practices. In some cases it's
Speaker 3: the physical embodiment of a god. In other cases it's
Speaker 3: like a tree beloved by the gods in storytelling and
Speaker 3: so forth. But when we were researching that episode, we thought, man,
Speaker 3: there are so many interesting angles on sacred trees that
Speaker 3: we could come back to. So that's what we're doing today.
Speaker 3: Here's a new installment. I'm sure this is something we'll
Speaker 3: probably return to again in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a good month for it, since we're
Speaker 1: into December here, and a lot of December holiday traditions
Speaker 1: center around a sacred tree. I guess one of the
Speaker 1: things I think we both encountered it in the last episode,
Speaker 1: especially in this episode. It's the thing about sacred trees
Speaker 1: is that it's never just a case of like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this tree around and at one point
Speaker 1: there's a group of people that thought it was sacred
Speaker 1: and then they stopped. You know, No, the trees have
Speaker 1: been around a long time, and human cultures enter into
Speaker 1: these areas where these trees grow, develop these ideas about them,
Speaker 1: and build upon those ideas, pass them down, and the
Speaker 1: trees remain and So you start pulling the threads on
Speaker 1: some of these beliefs, and you know, those threads connect
Speaker 1: across different peoples, you know, into neighboring territories, and oftentimes
Speaker 1: there is far flung as a particular you know, it's
Speaker 1: the range of a tree species itself. So before long
Speaker 1: you realize, oh, well, this isn't necessarily just a look
Speaker 1: at one particular tree and or one particular folk belief
Speaker 1: or mythology, but you can easily touch upon like a
Speaker 1: dozen different folk beliefs and mythologies concerning the same tree.
Speaker 2: M h.
Speaker 1: Which is to say, we're not going to pull all
Speaker 1: We're not going to pull all those those threads today.
Speaker 1: We're going to pull some of those threads, and we're
Speaker 1: going to find some, I think, some very tantalizing, very
Speaker 1: interesting things to say about a couple of different topics
Speaker 1: related to sacred trees.
Speaker 3: That's right. So to kick things off today, I wanted
Speaker 3: to explore something interesting I came across in a book.
Speaker 3: The book is called European Paganism The Realities of cult
Speaker 3: from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, originally published in the
Speaker 3: year two thousand. I think the edition I was reading
Speaker 3: was from maybe twenty thirteen, but from Rutledge Press by
Speaker 3: an author named Ken Dowden, who was a professor of
Speaker 3: classics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This
Speaker 3: is a book about the religious practices of European cultures
Speaker 3: before the introduction of Christianity, and then also those pagan
Speaker 3: religions interacting with Christianity once it was introduced. And these
Speaker 3: religious beliefs and practices were, of course not all the same,
Speaker 3: though there are some themes that kind of emerge repeatedly,
Speaker 3: so you can kind of make some rough generalizations about
Speaker 3: pre Christian European paganism, but they don't apply in every case.
Speaker 3: And one is that a lot of pre Christian European
Speaker 3: religions saw sacred dimensions in the features of the physical land,
Speaker 3: like rocks, waters, and of course trees. But there are
Speaker 3: many different ways to understand the sacredness of trees. Now
Speaker 3: down and actually begins this section of the book with
Speaker 3: an ancient passage describing something that's a little bit of field,
Speaker 3: but I thought it was so interesting I wanted to
Speaker 3: throw it in here. It's describing one way of showing
Speaker 3: appreciation for trees that's kind of hard to classify. It
Speaker 3: doesn't seem exactly right to call it a religious practice,
Speaker 3: but it definitely goes beyond, like, Oh, look at the poplars,
Speaker 3: they're so nice. This is a translated passage from Plenty
Speaker 3: of the Elder that reads as follows. On a hill
Speaker 3: called Corna in the suburban part of the land of Tusculum,
Speaker 3: there is a grove in a ancient reverence dedicated by
Speaker 3: Latium to Diana. And that would be by the way Diana,
Speaker 3: goddess of the hunt of wild animals in the moon,
Speaker 3: sort of a wilderness goddess. The ranger of the party
Speaker 3: Plenty goes on. The foliage of the beech forest is sheared,
Speaker 3: as though by topiary. In it. An exceptional tree was
Speaker 3: loved in our times by Passienus Crispus twice Console, the orator,
Speaker 3: later more famous thanks to his marriage with Agrippina, through
Speaker 3: which he became the stepfather of Nero. He was in
Speaker 3: the habit of kissing and embracing it. Talking about the
Speaker 3: tree kissing and embracing it, not only of lying under
Speaker 3: it and pouring wine over it.
Speaker 1: Literal tree hugging here.
Speaker 3: Yes, So this tree is interesting in the example here
Speaker 3: because it is in one sense a literal sacred tree.
Speaker 3: In a religious sense, it's part of an ancient sacred grove.
Speaker 3: And I guess one thing we could talk about is
Speaker 3: a distinction between sacred trees, as in, like a type
Speaker 3: of tree or a tree species has a religious significance
Speaker 3: within a particular culture, versus an individual tree like this
Speaker 3: tree right here has religious significance of some kind, versus
Speaker 3: a collection of trees have some kind of religious significance,
Speaker 3: a sort of expanded version of this tree right here,
Speaker 3: this forest right here has significance. And there are a
Speaker 3: lot of those in pre Christian European religions, sacred groves,
Speaker 3: sacred forests throughout the continent. But so in this case,
Speaker 3: it is a particular sacred grove, a forest of beech
Speaker 3: trees that are in honor of the goddess Diana. So
Speaker 3: these are the trees of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.
Speaker 3: But this Roman politician isn't necessarily worshiping Diana. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe he is, but it's not discussed in the passage here.
Speaker 3: He's not just honoring the sacred forest as a whole
Speaker 3: in its relation to the goddess Diana. It sounds like
Speaker 3: he is in erotic love with one particular, very special tree.
Speaker 3: Hard to think of a parallel to this, I just
Speaker 3: thought I thought it worth mentioning. But anyway, From here,
Speaker 3: Doubtan goes on to a section where he sort of
Speaker 3: thinks about the implicit logic of our relationship to trees,
Speaker 3: especially in our desire to think of them as persons,
Speaker 3: as like a symbol of a person, or as containing
Speaker 3: the essence of a divine person, and he notes an
Speaker 3: interesting parallel between trees and humans which has been observed
Speaker 3: by a number of scholars of religion. It's not unique
Speaker 3: to this book, and that parallel is in the form
Speaker 3: of posture. Humans are mostly unique in the animal world
Speaker 3: for our verticality. What appears to physically differentiate humans from
Speaker 3: other animals is that we are a column a standing
Speaker 3: straight up, compared to most other animals, which tend to
Speaker 3: position their bodies in a more horizontal fashion. You can
Speaker 3: think of a few little counter examples here and there,
Speaker 3: but for the most part this does really hold true.
Speaker 3: Humans appear to be different from all other animals in
Speaker 3: that we stand straight up. And what makes a tree
Speaker 3: different from a bush or a shrub or lots of
Speaker 3: other plants. Is that it is also a tall vertical column.
Speaker 3: So it's true of both trees and humans that we
Speaker 3: take the form of a vertical column. We grow taller
Speaker 3: as we age, and when we die, we fall down.
Speaker 1: That's a good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So with this kind of knowledge just sort of
Speaker 3: operating in our minds all the time, it seems very
Speaker 3: natural to think of the tree as the sort of
Speaker 3: human analog within the alien kingdom of plant life, except,
Speaker 3: of course, trees grow much larger than humans, and are
Speaker 3: much tougher than humans, and often live for hundreds of years,
Speaker 3: so in a sense, you can think of them as
Speaker 3: something that has always been here. So it's I think
Speaker 3: quite natural to start thinking of them as like superhuman
Speaker 3: super persons. They are gods.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, these are great points. Yeah, it stands tall
Speaker 1: like a human, it has the verticality, and then you know,
Speaker 1: lives before and after us and on this different time
Speaker 1: scale than we are.
Speaker 3: So that's just sort of one theory as to why
Speaker 3: we're sort of primed to see godhood in the form
Speaker 3: of trees. But Doubtin also emphasizes that many trees are
Speaker 3: integrated into religion, not simply by their nature, not by
Speaker 3: being trees, but in a specific sense, by being connected
Speaker 3: directly to myth or to history, as in like this
Speaker 3: plane tree at Delphi was planted by Agamemnon and that's
Speaker 3: why it's special. Or when Io was transformed into a
Speaker 3: cow by Hera and tied to a tree, it was
Speaker 3: this olive tree right here. Or this tree was the
Speaker 3: source of heracles first oak leaf crown, or this tree
Speaker 3: is where Helen of Troy was hanged after she fled
Speaker 3: to roads. So in those cases you might say that
Speaker 3: these physical existing trees are sacralized by way of intersections
Speaker 3: with stories, and whether those are like sort of founding
Speaker 3: ethnic stories, like founding histories of a people or a nation,
Speaker 3: or myths about the gods. On one hand, you have
Speaker 3: a physical object that is right here, right now, this
Speaker 3: tree we're all looking at, And on the other hand,
Speaker 3: you have the story we all know. And so by
Speaker 3: connecting the to the tree, the physical object makes the
Speaker 3: story more real, and the story makes the physical object
Speaker 3: more meaningful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like eventually we'll come around to talking about
Speaker 1: the body tree in this series. The Bodhi tree, of course,
Speaker 1: in Buddhist traditions, is the tree under which the Buddhist
Speaker 1: sat when he attained enlightenment. You know, it is the
Speaker 1: place where it happened. Yeah, yeah, so yeah. We see
Speaker 1: versions of that in various different myths and religions.
Speaker 3: But one example I really wanted to focus sun for
Speaker 3: a minute because I thought it was so interesting, was
Speaker 3: something Dowdin brings up in this chapter. That is the
Speaker 3: idea of a sacred tree struck by lightning. Dowtan writes
Speaker 3: that the ancient Romans had a practice of enclosing a
Speaker 3: tree after it was struck by lightning, so like after
Speaker 3: a tree was hit by lightning, that it would be
Speaker 3: subject to a type of sacrificial or religious immurement. The
Speaker 3: enclosure for a tree would sometimes be what this author
Speaker 3: identifies as a puteal put el pleural would be putealia,
Speaker 3: which usually refers to a well head. So this would
Speaker 3: be the raised stone structure around the opening of a
Speaker 3: water well. Now, in the case of a water well,
Speaker 3: usually you have a wellhead raised in part to prevent
Speaker 3: the well from simply being a hole in the ground
Speaker 3: that people can fall into. You know, it's like a
Speaker 3: wall for safety. In ancient Rome, these well heads were
Speaker 3: often made of marble and decorated with carvings or with
Speaker 3: bas relief. I've got a picture from from a well
Speaker 3: headed venice for you to look at here, Rob, so
Speaker 3: you can see, you know, it's a there's a cap
Speaker 3: on it right now. I think it's a it's an
Speaker 3: iron cap. I don't know what the original material of
Speaker 3: the cap would have been, possibly iron, you know, hundreds
Speaker 3: of years ago or thousands of years ago as well.
Speaker 3: But in this case, you know, you could open it
Speaker 3: up and imagine looking down into the well, but then
Speaker 3: down on the wall around it, we've got I don't know,
Speaker 3: some kind of creepy dancing god babies who are thrown
Speaker 3: around some what do you what do you think that is?
Speaker 3: Is that grape leaves or olives or something?
Speaker 1: Yeah, some sort of like wreaths and leaves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. But as Dowdan says in this chapter, sometimes
Speaker 3: a poute al would be built not around a water well,
Speaker 3: but around a tree or really any spot that had
Speaker 3: been touched by a bolt of lightning. So a lightning
Speaker 3: kissed location like this was called in Roman times a dental.
Speaker 3: And I was reading about this in an older source
Speaker 3: from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William
Speaker 3: Smith from the nineteenth century. This reference book goes into
Speaker 3: sources from ancient history describing what the bidental was and
Speaker 3: what its religious significance was. And so it says that
Speaker 3: the Bidental was named after the fact that you would
Speaker 3: sacrifice a sheep here after lightning struck. It would be
Speaker 3: a two year old sheep called a biden, which means
Speaker 3: two tooth by DN like dental, and the sequence would
Speaker 3: go like this. So lightning strikes somewhere and people witness it,
Speaker 3: and whatever was struck, be that a tree or a
Speaker 3: person or just the earth, whatever is there is buried,
Speaker 3: in some cases burned, in other cases not burned, but
Speaker 3: is buried by priests in the ground in that very spot.
Speaker 3: So if you get struck by lightning and killed in
Speaker 3: a rome where these bidental priests are operating, you are
Speaker 3: not Your body is not transported to a cemetery and
Speaker 3: is not cremated. You are buried in the spot where
Speaker 3: you fell. And then the two year old sheep is
Speaker 3: sacrificed and added to the lot. And then that spot
Speaker 3: is in some sense sort of walled off from human contact.
Speaker 3: It is capped with an altar and then enclosed in
Speaker 3: some way by a fence or in some cases by
Speaker 3: a poutel a marble wellhead, and thereafter it is made taboo.
Speaker 3: No one may walk there, no one may touch it,
Speaker 3: no one may even look at it. And if a
Speaker 3: person were to violate this taboo, like to remove the
Speaker 3: well head or the altar, or in some other way
Speaker 3: violate the prohibition against treading there, they would be subject
Speaker 3: to swift, violent punishment by the gods, and this connects
Speaker 3: to the original action there. Lightning was often thought to
Speaker 3: be the weapon of the god. It's an ancient Rome,
Speaker 3: particularly of Jupiter, so a place struck by lightning was
Speaker 3: both terrifying and holy. It was a sacred point of
Speaker 3: connection with divine power and a conduit of divine wrath.
Speaker 3: So as one example of a puteal which may once
Speaker 3: have covered a tree made wholly by lightning, Dowdin mentions
Speaker 3: a fig tree attested in ancient sources in the area
Speaker 3: of the Committium of Rome. The committium is an ancient
Speaker 3: public meeting space in the city center, and this fig
Speaker 3: tree was known as the Ficus romanaalis, which literally means
Speaker 3: the ficus of suckling. Though experts apparently debate whether that's
Speaker 3: its original meaning or how it should be understood. But
Speaker 3: there are actually a couple of sacred objects said to
Speaker 3: be in the vicinity here. One thing is this tree
Speaker 3: the ficus room analyis. But there is also a stone
Speaker 3: which was said to have been cut in half with
Speaker 3: a razor by the ancient Roman augur Attus Navius, and
Speaker 3: the story goes that he cut the stone in half
Speaker 3: in a display of his powers when he is in
Speaker 3: the middle of rebuking a legendary king of Rome who
Speaker 3: was sort of arrogantly trying to expand his own glorification
Speaker 3: at Us. Navius was rebuking him and saying, like you
Speaker 3: go to far king, And in their conflict, he's like,
Speaker 3: I better show how strong my divinatory skills are and
Speaker 3: the kind of power I can command. So I'm going
Speaker 3: to cut a stone, cut a wet stone in half
Speaker 3: of a razor.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I guess it worked.
Speaker 3: It did, according to the story. So you've got this
Speaker 3: split stone here, and then you've got the Ficus tree.
Speaker 3: And here Doubdan again quotes a passage from Plenty of
Speaker 3: the Elder describing the site of the tree and the
Speaker 3: sliced rock. So Plenty in translation rights, a fig tree
Speaker 3: growing in the actual Forum and Committium of Rome is
Speaker 3: revered sacred because of the lightning bolts buried there, and
Speaker 3: still more to commemorate the fig tree under which the
Speaker 3: nurse of Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of
Speaker 3: empire at the lupercal. It is called ruminalis because it
Speaker 3: was beneath it that they found the she wolf offering
Speaker 3: her RuMIS. That is what they used to call abreast
Speaker 3: to her babies, a miracle commemorated nearby in bronze, as
Speaker 3: though the wolf had of her own accord crossed the
Speaker 3: Committeum while Adis Navius was acting in his role as Auger.
Speaker 3: Nor is it without significance when it dries up and must,
Speaker 3: through the efforts of the priests, be replaced. So I
Speaker 3: thought this was interesting in that the way Plenty tells
Speaker 3: the story, the way he understands it, at least this
Speaker 3: fig tree is in part sacred because of an intersection
Speaker 3: with legend, like we mentioned earlier. So you know, much
Speaker 3: like you might say this tree was planted by Agamemnon,
Speaker 3: in this case you would say this tree is the
Speaker 3: site where Romula and Remus were nursed by wolf Mother,
Speaker 3: and then also by proximity to the site where Adis
Speaker 3: Navius split the stone. That's another connect intersection with legend.
Speaker 3: But then according to Plenty, it's also sacred because lightning
Speaker 3: bolts are buried beneath it. And then here Dowban also
Speaker 3: mentions a possible connection of the legend of the ficus
Speaker 3: from Analys to the interesting sort of botanical fact that
Speaker 3: the fig tree produces a sap like secretion, which I
Speaker 3: believe is part of an anti predator strategy that is
Speaker 3: said to look like milk. So, like you, if you
Speaker 3: wound a fig tree, the ficus will we'll leak out
Speaker 3: this white milky substance that is said to be quite
Speaker 3: bitter and I think is supposed to deter things from
Speaker 3: munching on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we used to have a fig tree, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I can attest to.
Speaker 3: This, And so Dowbdan's saying, you know, so you have
Speaker 3: a place where, according to these ancient texts, you have
Speaker 3: a stone which is interesting because of its shape it's
Speaker 3: like a split stone. And then you also have a
Speaker 3: tree which has interesting sort of biological features. This tree
Speaker 3: appears to leak milk and then can be kind of
Speaker 3: attached to myths, and so he writes, quote the tree
Speaker 3: is tended and when necessary renewed by the priests. If
Speaker 3: it is surrounded by a puute al, then originally this
Speaker 3: may have been understood as a place where lightning had struck.
Speaker 3: And the wet stone, that's the stone that was apparently
Speaker 3: split in the story. The wetstone might have been considered
Speaker 3: a thunderstone.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is all really fascinating and fascinating to me,
Speaker 1: especially when you think about the idea that, like the
Speaker 1: world tree in myth is often situated as this thing
Speaker 1: that connects Earth to the heavens and lightning as well.
Speaker 1: Is this momentary connection between Earth and heaven that leaves
Speaker 1: like a physical sign. You know, we see it and
Speaker 1: then we can if we can find where it hit.
Speaker 1: We have evidence this contact between like a lightning and
Speaker 1: the earth, between storm clouds and the earth, but on
Speaker 1: another level, between the divine and the mundane world totally.
Speaker 3: And you know, one thing I like is the kind
Speaker 3: of ambiguity of the is this good magic or bad magic?
Speaker 3: The way you know that you can have a place
Speaker 3: where a tree is struck by lightning and it becomes
Speaker 3: in some sense sacred. But it seems to me rather
Speaker 3: there's a kind of ambivalence, like is this a place
Speaker 3: that is cursed and dangerous and will hurt you? Or
Speaker 3: is this a place that is in some way blessed
Speaker 3: and is showing off the power of the gods or
Speaker 3: God's power in a way that can be celebrated and sacralized.
Speaker 1: There's almost kind of a U curve, right, It's like
Speaker 1: this the place is so sacred or it is so
Speaker 1: cursed that it essentially amounts to the same thing, and
Speaker 1: that is no trespassing. Sorry, you can't visit it, you
Speaker 1: can't touch it. Well, that is all really fascinating. And
Speaker 1: another cool thing is that it does lead directly into
Speaker 1: the tree that I'm going to talk about here, the
Speaker 1: Rowan tree. I was looking at several different sources on this,
Speaker 1: one of which was I didn't spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time with this source, but there was an older article
Speaker 1: titled the Folklore of Trees by Lizzie M. Hadley. This
Speaker 1: was published in the Journal of Education back in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, and it's very short, little kind of wordy
Speaker 1: right up touching on various sacred ideas of trees, but
Speaker 1: the Rowan tree is mentioned in passing and just a
Speaker 1: few ideas connected to it or thrown out, including the
Speaker 1: idea in some European traditions that the tree grew from
Speaker 1: a place where lightning struck. That's like the origin of
Speaker 1: this tree.
Speaker 3: That would be interesting in the So remember the phrasing
Speaker 3: plenty uses is that lightning bolts are buried there where
Speaker 3: the tree is. So it's like when lightning hits the ground,
Speaker 3: it's almost like a seeding of the ground, like it
Speaker 3: plants something when it hits. And so you could imagine, well,
Speaker 3: if what it's planting is some kind of seed, what
Speaker 3: grows it could be a type of tree, that's right.
Speaker 1: So why did I pick the Rowan tree? Well, I
Speaker 1: recently had the opportunity, in the privilege, to to go
Speaker 1: on a little tour of Whales with my family, and
Speaker 1: I was enraptured by the haunting beauty of its rolling hills,
Speaker 1: these dramatic valleys and in some cases hilltop ruins of
Speaker 1: which there ghost stories about. So I thought, well, I
Speaker 1: should I should cover a tree that is sacred within
Speaker 1: Welsh traditions. There's obviously going to be a lot of
Speaker 1: overlap with other sacred trees in the British Isles and
Speaker 1: and so forth. But yeah, I wanted to pick something
Speaker 1: that had significance in Whales. And I realized I was
Speaker 1: already talking a little bit about Welsh tradition and mythology
Speaker 1: on the monster fact, and I should go ahead and
Speaker 1: drive home. If anyone's not familiar Wales as a country
Speaker 1: in western Great Britain, it is part of the United Kingdom,
Speaker 1: but it boasts its own distinctive culture and language. We've
Speaker 1: touched on Welsh Welsh mythology before, which of course shares
Speaker 1: various ideas with other cultures of the British Isles. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if we'd really if we've ever really
Speaker 1: stopped to just talk about the idea of Whales and
Speaker 1: Welsh tradition and Welsh language in any degree of detail.
Speaker 1: Maybe we haven't. I forgot about it, but I just
Speaker 1: wanted to bring it up again. So again, it's the
Speaker 1: Rowan tree or sorbus occuparia, also known as the mountain ash,
Speaker 1: though it is not closely related to either true ash
Speaker 1: trees or a particular tree. This is Eucalyptus regnums this
Speaker 1: is the plant that you find in Australia, so obviously
Speaker 1: a good ways away from Wales in Europe, but that
Speaker 1: one is sometimes called a mountain ash, but it is
Speaker 1: not related to the tree we're talking about here. No,
Speaker 1: the rowan tree is actually a tree or shrub of
Speaker 1: the rose family.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So according to the UK's Woodland Trust, which has
Speaker 1: a nice little overview about the species here, a rowan
Speaker 1: tree can reach heights of fifteen meters or nearly fifty
Speaker 1: feet in height. The trees bark is smooth and silvery
Speaker 1: gray and leaf the leaf buds are purple and hairy.
Speaker 1: I included a close up image here for you, Joe,
Speaker 1: But everyone out there, if you do a search, you
Speaker 1: can find like rowan tree buds. You'll see these. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it has this, as is often sometimes the case with
Speaker 1: like the little details, especially with budding of trees. You know,
Speaker 1: there's almost like a velvety appearance to it. It almost doesn't
Speaker 1: look like tree flesh, but more like you know, it's
Speaker 1: like part of a deer growing out of the tree.
Speaker 3: Or so I was gonna say, like like a little
Speaker 3: fallen's ear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, when the leaves develop, it's gonna have the serrated
Speaker 1: leaflets and groups of five to eight it produces white flowers, which,
Speaker 1: following pollination, develop into vibrantly scarlet berries. Sometimes I've seen
Speaker 1: various photographs, and of course, you know, color, you know,
Speaker 1: details of color kind of vary depending on the exact
Speaker 1: photography in question. But yeah, sometimes they look more scarlett,
Speaker 1: sometimes they look a little more orange, but it's a
Speaker 1: vibrant color. And yeah, you can get into a discussion
Speaker 1: about it. What is red, what is orange? Anyway? At
Speaker 1: any rate, it's bright. It catches the eye, and that's
Speaker 1: going to be important as we proceed. And how long
Speaker 1: do they live? Well, a rowan tree apparently can live
Speaker 1: for upwards of two centuries according to the Woodland Trust,
Speaker 1: though a source I'm going to side in a minute
Speaker 1: put it more at about one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, you know, not the longest lived
Speaker 1: tree by any stretch. But still they tend to live
Speaker 1: longer than humans. So they still have that kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, mythic connotation. They stand outside of our
Speaker 1: short time on this.
Speaker 3: Earth, always been here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they're native to the cooler parts of the
Speaker 1: northern Hemisphere, mostly western and northern UK. That's or at
Speaker 1: least that's one of the key areas that where they grow,
Speaker 1: and that's where we're going to be talking about here.
Speaker 1: So you'll find them not only in whales, find them
Speaker 1: in the highlands of Scotland, and they're they're pretty far flung.
Speaker 1: Another source I was looking at was a Journal of
Speaker 1: Ecology ride up on the species. This was by all
Speaker 1: Olivier rasp at All titled just Sorbus Occuparia l and
Speaker 1: this article pointed out that one of the British isles,
Speaker 1: you know, are certainly a place where you can find them.
Speaker 1: They're present through most of Europe, from Iceland to northern Russia,
Speaker 1: though not into Arctic Russia, down into Spain, Portugal, Italy, Macedonia,
Speaker 1: and it seems limited by poor drought tolerance and a
Speaker 1: necessity for a short growing season and a cold requirement
Speaker 1: for the bud burst. This source, also, this is the
Speaker 1: one that puts the age at more of like a one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty year range, So I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it's one fifty or two hundred, you know, it depends.
Speaker 1: I guess you know where you want to fall on that.
Speaker 1: But It's also been pointed out that the sorbus species
Speaker 1: here seems to have perhaps originated in Southeast Asia and
Speaker 1: gradually spread. Now, another interesting thing to think about trees
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, having a sacred nature is that,
Speaker 1: of course we make use of trees, We do things
Speaker 1: with trees. Trees, you know, produce wood that we may
Speaker 1: use for various purposes depending on the quality of the wood.
Speaker 1: They produce leaves, they produce berries, they produce flowers, and
Speaker 1: so forth. So they are also this like font of
Speaker 1: materials that we might make use of, and I guess
Speaker 1: you don't always know exactly how that's going to fall. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, there are plenty of examples of cultures where
Speaker 1: the things that make the mundane world possible are in
Speaker 1: and of themselves sacred, you know, be it a food
Speaker 1: product or whatever. Like, just because you interact with it
Speaker 1: every day, it doesn't mean that it can't be sacred.
Speaker 1: It may be very sacred within a tradition because it
Speaker 1: is part of your survival mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then of course our lives are full of things
Speaker 1: that we don't really give sacred connotations too, because they
Speaker 1: are just part of the mundane world. So what do
Speaker 1: whom humans use it for? Well, the wood of the
Speaker 1: rowant is usable. Apparently, it's hard and tough, but not
Speaker 1: super durable. And my understanding of this is that basically
Speaker 1: it means you maybe wouldn't want to build a house
Speaker 1: out of it or use it for like really like
Speaker 1: high stress situations.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't build a car out of it.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's super fragile, like, because you can
Speaker 1: make furniture out of it, craft works and even tools,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's like, I guess it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not so fragile that you could make a tool
Speaker 1: out of it. But just again, I guess maybe not
Speaker 1: a house, though perhaps there are examples of such usage
Speaker 1: as well. But that's that's what the sources were saying.
Speaker 1: And as far as the berries go, I think we
Speaker 1: were talking about Mike earlier you asked me, well, can
Speaker 1: people eat the berries? Apparently, so now I want to
Speaker 1: add the caveat here. Anytime we're talking about eating berries,
Speaker 1: please do please do additional research before you eat berries.
Speaker 1: But my understanding is that they are edible for humans,
Speaker 1: but they are quite tart, and that means that jam
Speaker 1: is one of the most common culinary uses of the berries,
Speaker 1: you know, So, you know, typical jam making scenario usually
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sugar added or some sort of
Speaker 1: sweetener added, there's a you know, a reduction taking place,
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of steps in place to
Speaker 1: take something that is otherwise quite tart and make it
Speaker 1: consumable and you know, and appealing to the human palate.
Speaker 3: So cooked rowan thumbs up, raw rowan question mark, right.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, the sources I was looking at,
Speaker 1: they did say that, you know what they've the rowan
Speaker 1: berries have long been a part of the human diet.
Speaker 1: There's evidence from like southern Sweden from around six thousand
Speaker 1: years ago that that gives us evidence that, yeah, like
Speaker 1: people have been eating the rowan berries. So as to
Speaker 1: I didn't get into details about ancient preparations of rowan berries,
Speaker 1: if they were cooking them or if they were just
Speaker 1: eating them raw, but it seems like when you get
Speaker 1: into more modern uses, and not even just modern, but
Speaker 1: like you know, last several centuries, people were generally talking
Speaker 1: about taking the rowan berries and doing some sort of
Speaker 1: culinary preparation to get them to a place where we
Speaker 1: enjoy them. Yeah, and sadly, I did not know to
Speaker 1: look out for Rowan jam while I was in Wales,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if it's something I could have
Speaker 1: purchased or tried if i'd been looking for it. I
Speaker 1: did a quick look around the internet. I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure you can get in the States, so I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: If you have tried rowan jam and or you are
Speaker 1: familiar with all the things you can do with rowan berries,
Speaker 1: do reach out to us. Email us. We'll have that
Speaker 1: email at the end of this episode and we will
Speaker 1: gladly share your rowan berry experience in the future edition
Speaker 1: of Listener Mail. Hey.
Speaker 3: In fact, this connects to a project that's been on
Speaker 3: my mind lately. I have never made jam at home,
Speaker 3: but for some reason, I've got a hankering to make
Speaker 3: homemade raspberry jam. Not exactly sure why, but it's in
Speaker 3: my mind and it's not going to leave until I
Speaker 3: do it. Jam makers, right and let us know what
Speaker 3: are your tips? How do you make the best jam?
Speaker 1: All right now? According to rasp in that paper I
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, if you if you look around in Poland,
Speaker 1: the fruits there are used to flavor vodka. Now, another
Speaker 1: source I was looking at does mention a Welsh spirit.
Speaker 1: This is in a book titled Rowan by Oliver Soffel
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. This is a erect on book. I
Speaker 1: think that they have a number of books related to
Speaker 1: different species. Reference to at least one of these a
Speaker 1: book on squid in the past on the show. But
Speaker 1: there's apparently a traditional Welsh spirit called dia grioval and
Speaker 1: this was made by steeping crushed rowan berries in water.
Speaker 1: Though I have to add here nobody offered me a
Speaker 1: diaudriaval while I was in Wales. They offered me beer,
Speaker 1: they offered me cider, but they did not offer me this.
Speaker 1: So if you have experience with this spirit, do reach
Speaker 1: out to us on this matter as well.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So there's a ton of more botanical information we might
Speaker 1: get into with the tree. That is, you know, ultimately
Speaker 1: this far flung and there are a lot of cultural
Speaker 1: interpretations of the plant that we're not going to get
Speaker 1: into because we're dealing with so many different cultures across
Speaker 1: a considerable period of time here. But one of the
Speaker 1: really interesting things about them is about that the tree
Speaker 1: itself is that it is considered a sacred tree, and
Speaker 1: it's considered a sacred tree not only in Wales, but
Speaker 1: throughout the British Isles and of course into Europe as well.
Speaker 1: Mainland Europe. The berries seem to be a key part
Speaker 1: of the tree's sacred appeal. That bright color, that red,
Speaker 1: that scarlet, sometimes looking more like a deep orange in
Speaker 1: some of the photos I'm looking at. At any rate,
Speaker 1: this is a color that stands out. It catches the eye,
Speaker 1: and we know that it resonated with people in this
Speaker 1: part of the world going way back. In fact, this
Speaker 1: is something that Suthel brings up in his book. You know,
Speaker 1: if we look to the Red Lady archaeological find, we
Speaker 1: see the importance of the color red. This is something
Speaker 1: that actually came up during my tour. This was an
Speaker 1: Upper Paleolithic partial male skeleton that was found buried in
Speaker 1: Whales and the bones are dyed not with rowan berries,
Speaker 1: but with red ochre. But it does give it this
Speaker 1: red coloration. Is the remains I believe are dated to
Speaker 1: about thirty one thousand BCE, and Suthel, here inciting this
Speaker 1: says that it stands as quote indication of the early
Speaker 1: sacramental importance of the color red in Northern Europe. So
Speaker 1: just a little taste of the importance of red in
Speaker 1: the region. Though I think we can all sort of
Speaker 1: speak to the experience of seeing red, you know, as
Speaker 1: if we see red in nature, it stands out to us,
Speaker 1: It calls to us. It is communicating something to us,
Speaker 1: certainly about the natural world, but perhaps about the unseen
Speaker 1: world as well.
Speaker 3: It's a high salience color in nature, as opposed to
Speaker 3: you know, you're browns and greens, which are more kind
Speaker 3: of background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so in Wales and throughout the British Isles,
Speaker 1: one of the most widespread folk traditions concerning the rowan
Speaker 1: is its ability to keep evil away, particularly certainly in
Speaker 1: later interpretations getting into the Christian era, is the idea
Speaker 1: that it will keep away witches and it will stand
Speaker 1: as a deterrent witchcraft. So it has a long standing
Speaker 1: role in protective magic. Amulets made out of rowan or
Speaker 1: somehow incorporating rowan wood or other elements of the tree.
Speaker 1: These have been employed as charms against witchcraft, though ironically
Speaker 1: it several points out this was itself considered witchcraft by
Speaker 1: the church, you know, so you get this weird you
Speaker 1: see this, of course, you know, all over where the
Speaker 1: Christian Church was also dealing with well, you know, folkloric
Speaker 1: traditions and over pagan religion. Religious ideas is that they're
Speaker 1: warning them about the dangers of the devil, and then
Speaker 1: they're like, well, this devil thing seems pretty serious. Of
Speaker 1: course I'm going to use all the tools in my toolbox.
Speaker 1: And then the church is saying, no, not all the tools,
Speaker 1: only the tools.
Speaker 3: You could hear this reminds me of In October, we
Speaker 3: did a couple of episodes about the demons of ancient Mesopotamia,
Speaker 3: and we were talking about the demon Pizuzu, which features
Speaker 3: in the story The Exorcystem, written from a Catholic Christian
Speaker 3: Catholic perspective in which this demon is sort of the devil,
Speaker 3: one of the denizens of Hell, a servant of Lucifer.
Speaker 3: But in fact, looking into it, we found that Pazuzu
Speaker 3: was often used as a protective entity against worst demons
Speaker 3: in ancient Mesopotamia. So yeah, yeah, one person's guardian angel
Speaker 3: is another person's devil, I guess.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's worth driving home there apotropic magic
Speaker 1: is ancient. It is it has been a part of
Speaker 1: human culture since time out of mind and of the
Speaker 1: use of Rowan based apotropaic magic also naturally predates Christianity
Speaker 1: in the British Isles, but it comes into sharp focus,
Speaker 1: according to Sothal, during the age of the Reformation, solidifying
Speaker 1: in this perceived modern struggle between the Christian faithful and
Speaker 1: which is in league with the devil. And of course
Speaker 1: we've we've talked about like the witchcraft persecution before, and
Speaker 1: it is interesting how you know, it's easy to think
Speaker 1: about witchcraft persecution. You think Monty Python, the Holy Grail,
Speaker 1: you think firm Middle Ages, and a lot of what
Speaker 1: we talk about when we talk about the persecution of
Speaker 1: quote unquote witches, and which often boiled down to the
Speaker 1: persecution of non Christian ideas, of people who didn't fit in,
Speaker 1: of women in general. This was largely more of a
Speaker 1: of a Renaissance idea. You can really, you know, tease
Speaker 1: that apart in various ways, but you know, it is
Speaker 1: the it's not so much, you know, to use a
Speaker 1: popular description, it's not so much a part of the
Speaker 1: demon haunted world, but is the world is illuminating and
Speaker 1: there's a need to find those demons again, like like, no,
Speaker 1: there's less darkness, there's less place for me to imagine
Speaker 1: the demons, and I need to see them, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we could go on and on about that.
Speaker 3: Or you could see it as a kind of lashing out,
Speaker 3: an attempt to get control during times of disruption and disorder,
Speaker 3: which you know was certainly going on in Europe during
Speaker 3: the Reformation. You know, there's so there's undermining of the
Speaker 3: traditional dominant institution. There are schisms and factions and wars
Speaker 3: that follow, and and you know, there's all the kind
Speaker 3: of chaos that comes with that, and people are trying
Speaker 3: to get control and they demonize somebody to make sense
Speaker 3: of everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and then on another level, it's worth noting that, Okay,
Speaker 1: so it comes into sharp focus here, and certainly there's
Speaker 1: a lot of writing for this time period that references
Speaker 1: it as people are using rowan then as an ambulant
Speaker 1: against the devil and or which is in the surface
Speaker 1: of the devil. But of course again it's an old practice.
Speaker 1: People are pulling out old practices even as this you know,
Speaker 1: modern threat is explained to them. And in you know,
Speaker 1: in the pre in pre Christian times and even into
Speaker 1: Christian times of course, because you know, different belief systems
Speaker 1: can can, and often do stand alongside each other. It's
Speaker 1: not always devils and witches you're trying to keep it bay. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: of course, it is the fairy folk, you know, the
Speaker 1: the original unseen threats. And you know, we talked in
Speaker 1: our episodes from I think what the year before last,
Speaker 1: we talked about elfshot. We talked about the idea that
Speaker 1: the uh that these invisible folk are out there potentially
Speaker 1: targeting your cattle, your live stock, with invisible missiles that
Speaker 1: will make them sick. And and so there's this long
Speaker 1: standing tradition then of using rowan to ward off not
Speaker 1: only magical harm to your home or you know, your
Speaker 1: family and so forth, but to prevent magical harm to
Speaker 1: your live stock. And not only live stock, but you're
Speaker 1: like your milk, animal products that might be corrupted by
Speaker 1: the invisible fairy folk, that they might harm like the
Speaker 1: crucial element in the milk and either make the milk
Speaker 1: bad or you know, or or not nutritious, or make
Speaker 1: butter making possible, all due to magical attack.
Speaker 3: I recall passages about this in the Secret Commonwealth of Elves,
Speaker 3: Fawns and Fairies, which if you've never looked into that's
Speaker 3: that's a great cool historical book. It's from the late
Speaker 3: seventeenth century, sort of an anthropological study done by a
Speaker 3: Scottish priest named Robert Kirk is from the sixteen nineties,
Speaker 3: and he went out and like talked to people about
Speaker 3: what they believed about like elves and fairies and stuff.
Speaker 3: And I recall a concern of it being that elves
Speaker 3: we're gonna come make your cow's milk sour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that means, you know, not only might
Speaker 1: they make the milk taste bad, they might like destroy
Speaker 1: something very beneficial about it, and they might prevent you
Speaker 1: from using it in other products and so forth. So
Speaker 1: it's like it's you know, it was seen as a
Speaker 1: sensitive time right after the milk has been collected, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to you have to apply these protections. And
Speaker 1: that might mean rowan would rowan berries and so forth.
Speaker 1: By the way, reading about this was also pointed out.
Speaker 1: This is in the Soulful Book, but I've seen this
Speaker 1: pointed out elsewhere as well. Is that if you take
Speaker 1: a rowan berry, pluck it from the tree and you
Speaker 1: look at where the stem was attached, you will see
Speaker 1: what is sometimes described I think, I think very with
Speaker 1: a fair amount of flourish, as a cross. It's not
Speaker 1: really cross. It looks more like a star. I've also
Speaker 1: seen it described as being pentagram like, again, vaguely like
Speaker 1: a star. I think it's maybe a stretch to say
Speaker 1: it looks like a pentagram, but still I guess it
Speaker 1: does have a novel shape. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: we see this in a lot of berries and fruits
Speaker 1: and so forth.
Speaker 3: I've never looked at one myself, but you've got the
Speaker 3: pictures here, and I'm looking at a five pointed star. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, when I look at it next to an
Speaker 1: image of a pentagram as presented here, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I can see it. But all of this,
Speaker 1: you know, all of this energy around the row in
Speaker 1: these traditions of the tree having some sort of sacred
Speaker 1: protective property to it, this continues again to holdsway during
Speaker 1: Christian times and in Rowan trees were then planted, for instance,
Speaker 1: in Welsh graveyards and churchyards to ward away evil. And
Speaker 1: this is another case where I wish I had known
Speaker 1: to look out for one of these trees, because I
Speaker 1: got to roam around in a Welsh graveyard at one point,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was very it was very neat.
Speaker 1: I was looking at frozen spiderwebs. It was pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know to look for these trees. So
Speaker 1: maybe there was one there doing all this protective work
Speaker 1: and I just didn't know about it. The Woodland Trust
Speaker 1: website also points out that they're often situated in front
Speaker 1: of homes in Ireland, and then in various traditions where
Speaker 1: you want to protect that milk, you might have some
Speaker 1: sort of an implement made from rowan wood that is
Speaker 1: used to stir the milk. So like a direct interface
Speaker 1: between the sacred wood and the substance you were trying
Speaker 1: to protect from the fairy folks.
Speaker 3: Hmmm interesting, Yeah.
Speaker 1: To prevent the milk from curdling, for example. Also, the
Speaker 1: Woodland Trust website mentions the idea of also having a
Speaker 1: pocket charm made from rowing wood to protect against rheumatism,
Speaker 1: so you know, there are various uses for it, also
Speaker 1: using it to make divining rods, so you know, you
Speaker 1: can get into various examples of where the wood is used.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's used in a tool to make a tool,
Speaker 1: and maybe that tool is you know, less a practical
Speaker 1: tool and more of a supernatural tool to you know,
Speaker 1: find things hidden in the earth or to magically stir
Speaker 1: your milk to protect it. I guess one of the
Speaker 1: other things worth noting about the row and tree, though,
Speaker 1: we need to start talking about, like where it's planted
Speaker 1: and its protective properties, is that again it is as
Speaker 1: it's a widespread tree, and it is widely planted they
Speaker 1: point out as a street or garden tree. So there
Speaker 1: are gonna be plenty of examples where a rowan tree
Speaker 1: is just around and it doesn't mean that someone's you know,
Speaker 1: protecting the local coffee shop or gas station. There just
Speaker 1: happens to be a rowan tree there. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess one has to avoid getting too two into
Speaker 1: the idea of them being planted strategically to protect against evil.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it does seem like it was,
Speaker 1: at least in some instance definitely planted as a form
Speaker 1: of protective magic.
Speaker 3: Oh, it couldn't hurt. I mean, you don't want to
Speaker 3: be at the gas station and have an elf shooting
Speaker 3: in and souring your gas.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and I also want to throw this out just
Speaker 1: a quote provided direct quote about the consumption of rowan berries.
Speaker 1: The Woodland Trust does right quote. Rowan berries are edible
Speaker 1: to humans when cooked. They are sour but rich in
Speaker 1: vitamin C and can be used to make a tart jam.
Speaker 1: So I'd say, let's let's leave it at that. Then
Speaker 1: that sounds okay, that's that sounds it sounds good to me.
Speaker 1: Look up how to cook rowan berries before you eat them.
Speaker 1: And then I should also point out, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: obviously we don't have time to go into all the
Speaker 1: but I was reading a little bit about how there
Speaker 1: also are medicinal properties to the berries, often used as
Speaker 1: is like a laxative, you know, uses usages like that.
Speaker 1: So there are going to be various traditions in these
Speaker 1: different European cultures that also involve uses for rowan berries
Speaker 1: and so forth. They're going to help with some sort
Speaker 1: of ailment. So again we get into the idea of
Speaker 1: that the sacred tree is this thing that may have
Speaker 1: you know, symbolic power, but then also it has these
Speaker 1: various you know, mundane uses that may also take on
Speaker 1: qualities that are sacred. It may have medicinal uses that
Speaker 1: could also take on qualities that are sacred as well.
Speaker 3: Can't think about the word Rowan without thinking about the
Speaker 3: name Rowan. Can't think about the name Rowan without thinking
Speaker 3: of who am I going to say? Am I going
Speaker 3: to say the mister bean guy? No, I'm thinking of
Speaker 3: the wicker Man. That's the name of the kid that
Speaker 3: the detective is looking for.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, that that I haven't looked in to it.
Speaker 1: But that that can't be an accident, right, I mean
Speaker 1: that seems like that. That seems like a film that
Speaker 1: was very concerned with folkloric traditions and and so forth.
Speaker 1: So be a mighty coincidence. Yeah, the kid wasn't named
Speaker 1: like Bill. We may have to come back to the
Speaker 1: wicker Man on Weird House Cinema at some point. That's
Speaker 1: that's a that's a big one.
Speaker 3: That's a favorite at our house.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the full Car Royalty right there.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of great Christopher Lee out there, but
Speaker 3: that is peak Christopher Lee.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: close out this episode. Again, this is a series we'll
Speaker 1: likely come back to in the future. We already have
Speaker 1: some notes about some other Sacred Trees, so you'll be
Speaker 1: on the lookout, and if you have any suggestions for
Speaker 1: future Sacred Tree episodes, right in let us know. Likewise,
Speaker 1: as we said, if you have experience with anything we
Speaker 1: discussed in this episode of or feedback on it, we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 1: is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema. If you are on Instagram you
Speaker 1: want to follow the show, find us at st b
Speaker 1: y M podcast.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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