A shorter path to Easy Street?

I learned from Robert Stuberg* that the only acceptable reason to abandon your dream is the birth of a better idea.

I've abandoned several plans in the course of my life. The first one was a dud: a religious conversion in my teens turned out to be just an excuse to hide under the bed for a couple of decades – which is why you didn't hear about me twenty years ago.

Another religious conversion finally freed me to follow my conscience and my heart, so the changes I've made since then have been course corrections rather than dead ends. I've been homing in on the beacon fired by my appetite for mystery and service.

As I proceed on my course, I begin to suspect that the path to Easy Street is shorter than I thought.

When I first began working with the Law of Attraction, I was inspired to dream big; to call into my life exactly what I wanted in a house, a vocation, what have you.

But as the road opens up, I begin to suspect that it's shorter than I thought. I don't mean to say that it's easier; just that I'm getting so much joy out of my rickety mobile home that I may not need my own replica of the Gamble House after all.

If I can deliver solid service to my clients, maybe I don't need worldwide fame.

Maybe an annual trip to my mentor's place is as much fun as trips to Europe.

Maybe my little garden is as much fun as an antique collection (but I really need a few nice pieces of furniture and art glass for proper comparison, I think).

*By the way, try to get Creating Your Ultimate Destiny used if you can.

Songs for the altar

Everybody knows there's power in music. It's just as powerful at the altar as anyplace else.

I'm developing a soundtrack for my altar time.

• Surely He Died On Calvary by Rev. James Cleveland (not sure why, except that it makes my hair stand on end; it's partly the wailing harmonies in the background as Rev. Cleveland sings. But the rest of it is: Jesus knows.)
  
  
• Satan, We're Going to Tear Your Kingdom Down by Shirley Caesar
(I like to add: Black candles gonna burn your kingdom down!)


• "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?" - haven't selected a version yet, but it's a good old spiritual with a proud universalist message.
  


• Lord, Do It by Rev. James Cleveland (...while this candle's still burning, Lord!)
  

I'm still considering:

• You Can Make It by Shirley Caesar - pay close attention to the lyrics.


• How I Got Over by the Clara Ward Singers
• Or maybe by Mahalia Jackson
  
  
• And something by the Swan Silvertones or the Golden Gate Quartet, haven't made up my mind yet.
  

My next wish...

I really need a cell phone with a camera in it. I'll just put that on my "treasure map," shall I?

Because when I went to the health food store to buy altar candles, I stopped on the way home at the feed store/ice cream parlor and had some mushroom ice cream. Honest to god, made with candy cap mushrooms. Looked like vanilla-with-speckles, tasted like maple nut. Great stuff, and only available a few weeks a year.

And I don't have any pictures to show you.

Well, I wonder. But it makes me smile

While I was tending to my justice altar (also "Jesus altar") just now, I saw this:

Now, I must tell you, that it struck me as a lucky omen.

Here's a closeup (right), just so nobody misses the connection. I call your attention to the caption on the picture.

Now, what say you? Is this a sign that my work is blessed, or a call to further service and attention to detail? Or (most likely) both?

"You still play music?"

I just saw a wonderful YouTube clip that illustrates perfectly the quest for spiritual power and connection.



For me – and, I know, for some other spiritual workers – acting in the spirit world, outside the familiar five senses, is just like a deaf girl playing great music. You don't get the same feedback the angels and ancestors get. You must learn to value signs and omens to find your road to miracles and wonders.

That is all.

(Thanks to Anne Naylor at the Huffington Post.)

Preaching to the Soloist: Get in the tub!

Friends, I'm here, again, to testify to the power and value of spiritual baths. It's something that I keep putting off, because it does require some "trouble."

• You need to get up early so as to leave some of the bathwater at the crossroads around oh-dark-thirty, or anyway right before sunrise (especially true for cleansing baths, not so much for other kinds).
  
• You have to air-dry, which means you can't use a towel, so as not to wash off the blessing or dilute the cleansing.
• You have to put on clean clothes, not yesterday's, so you have to plan ahead.

Friends, do it anyway, and do it right.

See, a couple of days ago, probably because of some enemy/justice work I was doing, I had one of the worst poverty tantrums I've had in years. Even an invitation to apply for AIRR membership didn't turn me loose. Friends, I was sure that not only would I starve, but I would never do any effective altar work again, and never had. It was bad.

So I resolved to bathe in ... I was out of hyssop, so I settled for a little Cast Off Evil oil in warm water ... and took it to the funny-shaped crossroads a few minutes' walk away from my house, along with the remains of the enemy candle I burned.

Peace returned as soon as I stepped out of the tub.

By the end of the following day - yesterday - optimism returned in full flood. I returned to my altar work with zest and eagerness. I'm building a new justice altar, as a glance at my tweetstream will show you.

So, I'm telling myself as much as I'm telling you: never, ever hesitate to take a spiritual bath. Do it right, or as close to right as you can. Attention to detail is the better way, of course, but sloppy is probably better than not at all.

Here's something I've been meaning to do for a long, long time

Today I fulfilled a promise I made long ago: I placed an apple spell in the bottom of a planter.

This is a traditional conjure spell; it serves the same purpose as a honey jar. It is based around the name papers and candle wax from a spell I did for President Obama during the presidential debates last year. I also added patchouli, yarrow, borage, thyme and other herbs for protection, courage, attraction and wisdom.

While I was praying over it, I remembered an old English rhyme, which I improvised on:

Remember, remember, the fourth of November,
the end of treason and plot.
I see no reason why return to reason
should ever be forgot.

Here is the loaded apple at the bottom of the planter,













and here is the basil resting comfortably on top.

"Evil can't be where basil has been," so I have been taught. I will plant a little sage and yarrow in there later.

Taking negative cards seriously

I'm learning to take negative cards seriously in love readings. Just turned down a case on the basis of the following:

• Ace of Cups Reversed
  
• Queen of Swords Reversed
  
• King of Cups Reversed
  
• Four of Cups
  
• Magician Reversed
  

Now, this wasn't the whole spread – I pulled about a dozen cards – but every layout contained at least one nasty card like this. She begged me to bring him to her, but that would have been like voting for Bush. Twice.

Yes, I believe this stuff. I trust these cards.

Ever since the day when a card fell out of the deck while I was shuffling, indicating my next client had some kind of love problem. "Why, no," he said, but twenty minutes later he told me how he'd been having trouble dreaming lucky numbers ever since his ex-girlfriend replanted everything in his yard. (Underneath a plant is one of the best places to hide spellwork.)

I just finished a case like the first one I described here. And again, in every spread, I got at least one card indicating the man was a no-account trifler, one who could only be kept at home by main force. A classic, time-tested spell to bring him back to her brought nothing but a couple of phone calls from him.

Reconciliation work is hard, often – but not always – because people start too late. And often – perhaps more often – because people are trying to keep someone who isn't good enough for them.

How to tell mojos apart when you have more than one

Nowadays mojo bags are often color coded: yellow for court case, red for love, purple for success or mastery, green for money. Red was the most traditional color, though, because it is powerful and because red flannel was commonly available, back in the day. I prefer red for all purposes, but I may rethink this.

Like many conjures, I put charms & symbols on mojo bags to tell them apart. I have metal dollar signs, crowns, hearts, and little blue "evil eye" beads. But today I was putting together two protective mojos: one "Leave Me Alone or Die" and one "Protect My Car." And no skulls or cars in my charm collection. No embroidery thread either.

But my daughter is an artist, so...

I just asked her to draw the skull for this "Leave Me Alone or Die" mojo bag.

Naturally, this Protect My Car mojo was even easier. (It'll get an Evil Eye bead, too, as soon as the last remaining ingredient arrives.)

And here's a honey jar for someone else who needs the Housing Authority to treat them right.

Thank you, O.L.K.

(Twitter, my shiny new tech toy, is down at the moment; it is to laugh! So I'll just post here about today's adventure.)

I have two mojo bags almost assembled and ready to go, except they need graveyard dirt; this person needs strong protection, and there's no stronger spiritual protection than a spirit who has passed on. So I went to the graveyard, to where the military graves are. Plain white stones with clear black lettering, so that no matter how old the grave is, the stone is absolutely legible. As I stood at the foot of that section - sort of like reviewing the troops, I thought - I saw several promising names: FARMER, RICH, BULLIVANT (for protective work, maybe?). And I was about to introduce myself to Mr. Bullivant when someone else - O.L.K.- caught my eye. I won't reveal his name here, because people deserve their privacy. But his seriousness, interest (and, I confess, the fact that he was a World War I veteran) commanded my respect. So I introduced myself, explained the situation, and paid him for the two spoonfuls of earth I took from his grave.

It's been raining since last night, so that earth is drying in a very slow oven right now.

I don't post nearly often enough, I know.

Would you like to be able to look over my shoulder, kind of, in something approaching real time?

Well, I'm on Twitter.

And this is for comments that are longer than the 140 characters Twitter allows. But they're automattically linked to Twitter as soon as I post them anyway.

So, yeah, I guess this blog is mostly for philosophical and historical ruminations now; and for posts that really need more than one illustration; TwitWall will only allow you to post 1 per entry.

I haven't quite figured out how to link Twitter to this blog yet.

Willits Cemetery

Well, I had to take something to the graveyard. I'm always a little nervous about a new cemetery - it's not the dead that bother me, it's the living caretakers; I just worry that one of these days I'll get the stinkeye or be chased off. Didn't happen this time.

It's a beautiful place, though. We took some pictures.

Cleansing: what, how, why? Part 2 of 2

All right, my thoughts turn from "sin," however defined, to "cleansing" and "purification." The questions that arise now are these:

• What, precisely, is being removed, dissipated or banished? (And is "precisely" even a useful word in this context? :))
• When the cleansing takes place, how is your life changed?
• What is being restored?
• And what, if anything, does all this have to do with repentance?

Maybe it's time for some visual aids. We can at least get a grip on the first two questions:

• A Wiccan cleanses her house of ghosts (except for lilac, the herb attributions she uses are European, and long ago entered into hoodoo; ditto the use of Christian prayer. Don't let the ominous soundtrack scare you off).
• A Mayan curandera cleanses a foreign journalist of tension and wards off misfortune (no, not hoodoo at all, but very instructive. Spiritual work starts around 2:17).

More later, perhaps.

Reversing candle

A client of mine needs a reversing candle right now, but there are none of those nifty half-and-half ones to be had in this lovely town.

So I made one the old-fashioned way.

The process moved much quicker than I expected, so we begin with the program already in progress:

I melted some yellow wax in the oven, sprinkled it with money herbs, and rolled these green candles in it.

Here you can see a closeup that shows a little of the yellow wax.

Next, I broke up some black wax by cutting up a small taper.

The purpose of cutting up the taper - on the diagonal, mind you - is to free it from the wick, which I discarded.

Next, the wax is laid on a foil-lined cookie sheet, which is placed in a 350°F oven.


Five minutes later, the wax is removed from the oven and sprinkled with harsh protective herbs. The green candle is rolled in the wax.
Voilà - a black-over-green reversing candle to "bounce back" financial bad luck, back to its source.

Cleansing: what, how, why? Part 1 of 2

Well, I delayed this post because I was chasing a literary reference, and I'm not prepared to read all of Karen Armstrong to find it.

At least I think it was Karen Armstrong (in The Great Transformation) who said that, back before the Bronze Axial Age, sin didn't really mean evil conduct or have much to do with morality at all. It really meant "anything that got between you and the experience of divine power" - or, in more concrete terms, "anything that spoiled the ritual." Offering a badly prepared sacrifice was a sin; killing somebody was a good reason to run you out of town.

In the old Levitical holiness code, "uncleanness," including such ordinary events as menstruation, wet dreams and childbirth, had to be atoned for ritually. Now, I was taught to include hyssop in many uncrossing and cleansing tricks, because of the strong Biblical association with cleansing. Note the reasons given for cleansing with hyssop: mildew, a death in the house. Uncleanness, once removed from the sufferer, transferred itself to the priest, who was unclean only until sunset.

In short, these common occurrences were "disturbances in the force," if you will, which required a trained expert (a priest); not the same thing as cackling narcissistic evil, not at all.

And yet the Holiness Code of Leviticus includes "Love your fellow as yourself."

There is more, much more, to be said about it, but I haven't digested it all yet. More later, I promise.

Is it dementia, or philosophy?

Well, I'm finally old enough to lie about my age, so I've been coming to terms with little gaps in my memory, of the "where did I put my keys?" variety.

And I've always had a touch of hypochondria, so I've been entertaining dark thoughts of Alzheimer's, diabetes side effects – "Why, yes, Paranoia, I'll be happy to pour you a fourth martini. And your little Black Dog, too."

But I think it's something much more benign. While I was washing dishes, I was deep in meditation on inchoate thoughts about the connections between blame, responsibility, purification, sin, moral failures ... and what the Bible word translated "sin" used to mean, back in the day, and why sacrifices actually worked to ...

You see where I'm going with this? I can't remember why I left the living room and went into the bedroom, because I'm trying to figure out how spiritual purification baths work.

I really am thinking hard about this subject, too; watch this space.

"Don't let her wash your clothes!"

One of my clients told me that her husband was taught that – "Never let a woman wash your clothes!" Why? Because she can put stuff in your laundry!

You can even work this trick on yourself, whenever your spiritual cleansing, luck, or prosperity need a touch-up.

It's a fine old time-tested method for influencing people, and the easiest way to do it is to put things in the laundry rinse water. A few drops of oil, some bath salts dissolved in water - it's easy.

Especially in This Modern Age, when you can soak a washcloth in it and pop it into the dryer, just like a dryer sheet; or pour it into a Downy Ball, walk away and forget it.