Ear Candling and Kombucha

There is conventional medical wisdom that says, "never stick anything bigger than your elbow into your ear ."

I first heard this working as a nurse in Casualty where each morning we would look forward to seeing our inevitable daily ear-bud victim. The problem with ear-buds is that they are simply not intended to be stuck into the ears - the buds sometimes come off, you see.

I once saw an unfortunate man with a moth stuck right in his ear and a 4-year-old child with 5 snails up his nose. My all time favourite was the 5 year old boy with a beetle in his ear who gleefully told me that he'd come to hospital because in his words, "I've got earwigs!"

All that being said, however, Adam writes mentioning Hopi ear candles so I inevitably had to go out and buy a couple. I only bought the two because two vanilla scented beeswax covered paper hopi ear tubes, bought from the shop with crystals and unicorns and fairies in the window that smells of Sai Baba incense cost me...NINE BLOODY QUID!!!

But apparently sticking the candle into your ear and lighting it draws out the nasty "toxins" from your lugs so it is surely well worth it. And just to prove the point, the evidence of all these "toxins" is of course to be found in the collected goo that is left in the base of the tube after the candling session is safely over.

So, lying on my bed on my side, I inserted the candle into my left ear and using the mirror for guidance, lit the damned thing. The effect was a mixture of curiosity, a strange crackling noise from the little sparkly bits in the candle burning and the awe inspiring fear of a devastating house fire.

I could foresee the possible headlines: "Ex-nurse survives self administered colonic incident only to die in ear-candling tragedy."

Purification by fire has an interesting and somewhat chequered history - from the mystical Masonic qabalistic interpretation of INRI ("The King Shall be Renewed by Fire"), the rebirth of the Phoenix, through to the burning to death of convicted witches. I once dated a Professor of Law who also had a keen interest in the history of crime and punishment. She told me that the burning of witches was not designed to be barbaric to the devil's consorts, oh no, far from it - to burn them alive was to actually be doing them a favour, as it would literally burn the devil out of them to free their mortal souls for salvation by the Lord.

Cheery thought, that.

However, burning down the house would be a very bad idea as The Official Housemate is still reeling in shock since she found the Kombucha brew fermenting away in the airing cupboard safely secured amongst her expensive embroidered linen.

I had to explain what it was:

"You drink it." I explained.
"It looks and smells like shit." She retorted.
"Try some." I gestured.
"I'm moving out." She countered.
"When?" I asked.
"As soon as I bloody can." She quipped.
"Buh.." I attempted. But it was too late.

Women!

Anyway, after this unnerving experience I checked to see what had collected in the tube. I looked carefully - not ash, nor toxins and not even grotty ear wax. The tube was completely clear. Maybe my energies are all properly aligned and my ears are just spiritually clean. Either that or all the ash from the candle is now lodging in my previously squeaky clean ear canal and will come back and haunt me with an impossible itch closely followed by serious dose of otitis externa.

I'm keeping the second tube (currently valued at £4.50) for that time that Ear Candling appropriately relocates to a different and better suited orifice. I might sell it on Ebay.

I Hear.