I've had a few emails and conversations lately that lead me to believe I might be accidentally giving off the wrong vibe lately.

Regular readers know I haven't been around quite as much, and regular customers know that I'm not currently offering "always in stock" stuff on ebay (so oils, powders, bath salts, and mojo bags are only available on the website for now - ebay only has the unusual or more limited stuff, or stuff that isn't on the website yet).  Regular clients know I am not taking on much new work now, certainly nothing with tight deadlines, and new clients are getting referred to other workers.

I have not gotten mortally ill or injured - I have had some ongoing back and hip problems for a long time, and they have been flaring up the past few months, but I have been in physical therapy for a bit over a month now and that is finally really making a difference.  So that contributed to my "stepping back" a bit, but that's not something that's a huge worsening problem (but thanks for your concern, y'all are sweet), thanks to my genius of a physical therapist.


In fact, I have had quite a few projects going on, despite my scaling back lately:

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What's up, then?  I am working on a PhD (a full time, residential one) and I'm in my third year. This is the year I have to take and pass a giant, intense, stress-inducing exam, with both an oral and a written component, on almost 1,000 years of history, philosophy, and literature, spanning many languages (four of which I have to read in the original rather than in translation).  That exam is coming up this semester.

I took the ebay store down a notch and stopped taking on new clients because my success or failure on this exam is one of the single most important determinants of - well, the rest of my life.  This test is a big hurdle to clear.  I had originally thought I would be taking it at the end of this month, but there are some scheduling issues with my committee members, so the date is still up in the air - but it will be within the next couple of months, definitely.  So I have been telling people that I will be back to "regular business" sometime in February, but right now I'm not positive that that will be the case.

But I have not gotten "burned out" on rootworking, I am not mad at anybody, I'm not "closing up shop."  I'm not going to stop doing rootwork (that would be kinda like not breathing), and there is no Great Worrisome Event, Conflict, or Secret behind my stepping back a bit lately.  I just have a Huge Event on my horizon towards which I have been working for a very, very long time and towards which I am finally approaching at sort of frightening speed.

So what does this mean for you?

It means that I am not taking new clients for rootwork right now for anything more than mojo bags and light settings.  I am more than happy to refer you to a colleague of mine, though, if you want a recommendation.  I can recommend quite a few wonderful workers and conjure doctors.

It means that I still strongly discourage clients, new or old, from booking full readings with me. I am currently booked out for about 8 weeks, as I can only do about one full reading a week, and there are so many other good readers out there that it's a shame for anybody to wait on me that long.  I can recommend some to you, if you want.

It means that most oils are still available only on the website (though my web designer is working on making the site easier to use and glitch-free).

It means that I am not online every day, and it is not humanly possible for me to return all the emails I get within 24  hours. Lately, it's not even possible for me to return them all within 48 hours.  I have been trying to play "catch up" on Friday nights, but I'm only human.  So if you have an emergency, please, please let me refer you to someone else. I can personally recommend quite a few colleagues who can take good care of you.

I don't know when things will be "back to normal," but you can be sure I will post when I pass that exam!

***

Finally, I updated my blog a week or two ago with some new links to some blogs and sites; you may not have seen them if you read this via a reader or on your friends' page. So click on over and pay some of these folks a visit - there are some great conjure blogs out there!

I have posted quite a few things on eBay policies and Detailed Seller Ratings over the past year, in an effort to educate eBay buyers about the complicated and often misleading Detailed Seller Rating system - that little "star" system they ask you to leave ratings in after you leave your regular Positive, Negative, or Neutral feedback.

To nutshell some of the major issues by means of a vivid example, here's a for instance: If you are leaving a rating, and you hover over the Fourth star out of Five, the system will tell you that the Fourth star is a pretty good rating.  Works like this:


                                                 one star                          two                       three                        four                        five

Description                            very inaccurate              inaccurate          neither*                    accurate                very accurate
Communication                    very unsatisfied            unsatisfied         neither                     satisfied                very satisfied
Shipping speed                    very slowly                     slowly                   neither                     quickly                   very quickly
Shipping charges                 very unreasonable       unreasonable   neither                      reasonable          very reasonable

[* the middle column consists of such mysterious possibilities as "neither inaccurate nor accurate," "neither satisfied nor unsatisfied," "neither quickly nor slowly," and "neither reasonable nor unreasonable."]

Now, one might think that four star ratings are good - the buyer is satisfied and considers the shipping fees reasonable, etc.  BUT, while the language of these four-star DSRs may sound like "good" ratings, eBay punishes sellers for receiving them. Remember how in school, a 3.5 GPA might've got you on the A/B honor roll?  So a solid mix of As and Bs was considered a good report card, got you a quarter from Grandma, maybe even got you on the Dean's list in college?

Well, a 3.5 GPA on eBay is BAD NEWS.  eBay considers that sellers receiving less than 5 star ratings are not satisfying their customers.  If ratings fall below 3.5, even if they're all accompanied by positive feedback, eBay has a number of nasty fee hikes, search listing downgrades, and other surprises in store. The bottom line is that you if you are satisfied enough with the seller to consider doing business with them again, and you are not interested in seeing their eBay shops or listings shut down and them out of business on eBay, then a Four Star Rating is the equivalent of a bad rating.  Anything below a four star rating sends a clear message: "I am dissatisfied."  Many sellers realistically see anything below five stars as a message along the lines of "I will not be shopping with this seller again."  And there's a very real contribution to a very likely consequence, which may be summed up thus: "I would not mind seeing this seller gone from eBay." 

Anything less than a 5 star rating is a punishment for your seller.  If you do not have it in for your seller, then please consider contacting him or her if you are less than "very satisfied" and giving him or her a chance to address your concerns.

None of this is news to any of you who have been reading this blog for a while, and if you are a regular eBay shopper, it's probably not news to you either, regardless of whether you read this blog.

But here's something newer that you might not know about.  Before, eBay confined itself to raising sellers' fee rates, lowering their placement in search results, and similar tactics designed to punish sellers who get less than 5 star ratings.  Now, however, PayPal is in on it, in some cases taking money out of sellers' hands and holding it until the buyer leaves positive feedback.

For larger sellers, those industry giants who sell thousands of dollars' worth of items a week or month, this might not be a big deal. They have bigger "cushions" in their bank accounts and it doesn't make them suffer as much to have to ship an item before they have received their funds.

But picture a smaller seller, someone who sells handmade items or gently-used electronics, for instance.  Imagine you buy a heavy piece of electronics equipment from that seller, for $200, and the shipping fee is $70.  If PayPal chooses to freeze those funds pending your leaving positive feedback, then the seller not only does NOT get paid for the item yet, he or she also has to find $70 from somewhere in order to pay the postage on your item.  In some cases, the seller might not get reimbursed (in the form of having the funds released into their accounts) for weeks.  If you are not the kind of buyer who leaves feedback right away or at all, your seller may have to wait 21 days to have the funds released.

There are several factors involved in PayPal making a decision to freeze funds until the buyer had given evidence of satisfactory receipt of the item, but DSRs below 4.5 are in that short list of reasons.

Obviously this makes eBay a much bigger risk, suddenly, for smaller sellers who are just getting established, for occasional sellers who scour flea markets to bring a few unique and interesting items to your desktop, for folks on fixed incomes who sell on eBay to have enough money to buy a new book or new area rug for their apartments once in a while.

Bottom line: less than 5 star ratings will drive sellers like this off of eBay, meaning that eBay will increasingly be dominated by mega-sellers.  Goodbye, internet flea market and funky gift shop, hello Online Strip Mall.  Goodbye, pleasant discounts and surprising "steals," hello smaller sellers' item prices skyrocketing because buyers must now purchase their own insurance, pay higher listing fees, keep enough money free in their PayPal or banking accounts to cover fee freezes and pay shipping out-of-pocket, etc (I could go on about how much more it costs to run an eBay store than it used to, but just trust me - it's a lot).

For those of you who have noticed it's harder to find cool, funky, unique gifts on eBay at a reasonable price, or gently used clothing at a fraction of the mall price, or whatever it is you used to shop on eBay for, you may find that your sellers are leaving eBay and going to places like the following (and sellers, if you're frustrated with the way eBay and PayPal are treating you as a small seller with a low profit margin, then you might want to check these places out):

Etsy.  "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade."

Bonanzle: "Find Everything but the Ordinary."

Bidtopia.

eBid.

OnlineAuction.com

Webidz.com

More on this later, I'm sure, but this is a newer development that has probably affected your favorite smaller eBay sellers, and you need to know.

Master soap markers Heart and Dart have used Karma Zain's proprietary Uncrossing formula, added their own special herbal soapmaking touch and knowledge, and produced a wonderfully-scented, long-lasting bar of goat's milk Uncrossing hoodoo soap.

Bars are gentle on skin and made with the finest herbs and essential oils using Karma Zain's twenty-plus years of herbal rootwork knowledge and Heart and Dart's teacrafted soap-making process. Bars are fully cured and contain no cheap detergents or perfumes, just real herbal hoodoo goodness.

Hoodoo bar soaps are perfect for using as a touch-up in between regular spiritual cleansing baths, or for giving as a gift to someone who won't take a full spiritual bath.  Keep these soaps around for sneaky tricks, for work that has to stay on the low-down, and for travel when you can't carry a liquid soap and/or don't have time to mix up bath salts in your hotel room shower.

Happy New Year, folks!

I'll be opening the ebay store back up on January 7th, but no oils, salts, or powders that are available on my website will be available there through at least the end of the month, possibly longer.  Only stuff that is not on the website will be available at the ebay shop for the time being.

Also, I just discovered some problems that came up when I changed hosts for the site, and any email sent to one of the karmazain.com domain addresses (info at karmazain.com, orders at karmazain.com, karmazain at karmazain.com) may not have reached me.  We're in the process of tracking down any lost messages (including some from my BANK, sigh), but in the meantime, if you sent a message to one of those addresses, or through the contact form on the website, in the past two weeks, you might want to resend just to be on the safe side. If you haven't heard back from me by next week, definitely resend.

Sorry about that. I hate this domain/server mess, but I suppose it will all be worth it when everything gets up to speed. In the meantime, the best way to get in touch with me is at karmazain at gmail.com for non-ebay issues, and via ebay for ebay issues.

I'm still "on vacation," but wanted to post a heads up about the email problems in case it's affected any readers. I'll be back to answering emails regularly by Thursday night.

Happy hoodooing,

Karma

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***

And some reminders and maintenance stuff:

• I am not taking new clients for new altar work, consultations, or readings until the end of January, exact date TBD. I have some major deadlines coming up, a couple of heavy-duty, time-intensive client cases right now, and some major other things going on and besides - a burnt-out and bitchy Karma Zain is not on anybody's Christmas Wish List. i will handle light-setting requests and mojo bags for new clients in January, but that's it. (If we have already worked together on a situation of yours, you are not a new client, though I may refer you to someone else for very complicated or time-sensitive work you need in January).

• There's a new FAQ up on the website to answer common questions about shipping, communication, and reading turnaround times.

• If you have a question about an ebay item or issue, DO NOT EMAIL ME OFF EBAY without prior approval. I could list the numerous reasons why, but the one that is most pertinent to you is that emailing me off eBay increases the chances that I will mess up your order after I go to two websites and three email accounts to make sure I have gathered all the pertinent details in one place. There are other reasons (including the fact that the email address associated with my eBay account is NOT checked by ME, and I can't change it to my current client contact addy because of one of eBay's arcane rules). But the bottom line is please, please, please dont' email me off eBay for eBay issues.

• If you have a non-eBay issue, you can contact me at info@karmazain dot com, or use the contact form at the website.

• AIRR has a new page at facebook (to replace the former Group settings). Drop by and become a fan to get the scoop on our members, get an inside look at some rootworkers' altar spaces and shops, and get to know your favorite readers and rootworkers better.

And last but not least, thanks for making 2009 a great, memorable, and educational year for me personally and for the shop.

So Happy Holidays to all you happy hoodooers, and y'all all have a safe New Years! Don't forget the black-eyed-peas!

Karma Zain Spiritual Supplies will be closing for the holidays on December 20. I will reopen the store on January 6th and begin taking new clients again in late January. Any light setting or altar work needs to be contracted before Sunday December 13, or it will have to wait until I am taking new cases again, at the end of January.

Limited edition, extra-strength Goofer Dust contains all the usual herbs, minerals, and curios, but this special batch also contains:

powdered rattlesnake
powdered scorpion

This is nasty, nasty stuff. Please handle with care, keep away from eyes and mouth (and children and pets), do not burn as incense, and take a spiritual cleansing bath after you use it.

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St. Peter's Keys to Heaven necklace in leather, brass, bronze, and pewter
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St. Dympnha and Sacred Heart bracelet
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Several auctions to keep you guys busy while the store is closed :-)


New Orleans Voodoo Dr. John rosary necklace

St. Benedict rosary bracelet with rattlesnake vertebrae

St. Benedict rosary necklace and matching earrings

Virgin Mary rosary necklace with crystal beads and vintage medals

St. Peter's Keys necklace - road opening and success

Virgin Mary necklace with vintage medal

Virgin Mary necklace - glass and vintage medal

Erzulie Dantor charm bracelet

Guardian Angel necklace with leather, vintage cross, medal

Erzulie Dantor scapular

I hardly ever post auctions, but I want to see how these vintage medal pieces do, because if there is interest, I am considering a small line of vintage and antique reproduction jewelry pieces in sterling silver, with sterling and cast bronze findings, sterling split jump rings and clasps, sterling chain, etc. I hate to make the investment and have higher-end pieces not sell, but I have had some great ideas (at least I think they're great!) for a while and am really itching to try them. So with these auctions, I may be able to get some idea of how such pieces centered on vintage and antique saints' medals will do before I make a huge investment in the precious metals and saints' medals I would need for this line. Then again, since the auctions are largely not precious metal-based, they may not tell me a darned thing about how such a line would do. Well, we'll see!

All shopping cart codes for mojo bags, light settings, and chicken feet are now functional on the Altar Work page of my website.

All codes for Oils, Powders, and Bath Crystals are working on the Oils page at my website.

Karma Zain Spiritual Supplies will be closed from Nov 20-Nov 30. I will never get caught up with emails and consultations if I keep answering new ones, so while I will still be in town until 24 November, I will not spend much time in front of the computer. My priority right now is to take care of in-house orders, readings, and consultations - those that have already been placed.

Karma Zain Spiritual Supplies will be closed from Nov 24-Nov 30 Nov 20-Nov 30. If you need lights set or any other work done very soon, the order needs to be put in by 9 am Nov 19, Eastern time. Otherwise, I will begin it when I return. I will NOT start new light settings or altar work that spans more than a day if the order is put in after 9 am Nov 19.

If you already have an order in, it will go out before I leave town next week.

If you have been waiting on an email or candle report from me, I am scurrying to get caught up. I officially had my Busiest Week Yet over the last seven days, and my bad back picked this week to start bothering me again. I am still filling orders and doing work - the standing is not the problem. The sitting for a while is a problem. So the typing is a little slower than usual. But I promise i have not forgotten about your candle reports or consultations.

On ebay, limited edition, customized Condition Oils, containing real 24 K gold and real diamond dust:

Ultimate Attraction Oil
Ultimate Money Drawing Oil
Ultimate Fast Luck Oil

( Read more... )

Ultimate Gambler's Oil -- contains rare curios that I am not allowed to advertise on ebay, though it is legal to possess and sell these curios - ebay's just picky about certain things (yes, I'm talking about bones. This bottle of oil contains a whole bone of the appropriate type). I will make a total of two 2-dram bottles for the time being. If I make more down the road will depend on a few things. One two-dram bottle of oil plus shipping is $40. Currently: two one available. One reserved for K.Y.
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Extra Strength Black Arts Mojo Bag - contains rare curios that I am not allowed to advertise on ebay, though it is legal to possess and sell them. When we talk about Black Arts, we're not necessarily just talking about cursing and jinxing, though that's certainly part of the power that Black Arts products are designed to amplify for the owner of the mojo bag or user of the formula. But Black Arts also refers to necromancy, the ability to communicate with the dead and with ancestors, scrying, conjuration of spirits, and the power of reversing hexes (and sending them back "with interest" which veers over into Revenge rather than simple Reversing). Contains one whole bone of the appropriate type among other items. Comes with a one-dram bottle of Black Arts Oil (regular strength) to dress the bag. Bag plus shipping is $50. Currently: two one available. SOLD OUT. One reserved for T.V. One reserved for K.Y.

For more information, inquire with a comment, or write me directly at karmazain@gmail.com

I have been resisting writing this post for a long time, and I'll tell you why. In part, it's because there is already so much information easily available out there, that my writing anything is redundant. Furthermore, there are tons of ways to use oils, and my giving "instructions" is akin to my giving instructions on how to wash your hair: seriously, rub the oil on something. Those are the instructions. The details are up to you, how complicated you get is up to you, what object you rub the oil on is up to you.

But lots of people ask me for instructions, and get upset with me when I tell them to Google it, so here you go.

Dressing candles

I personally use the method outlined in Henri Gamache's Master Book of Candle Burning. Not all rootworkers do this - there is more than one way to skin a cat. But this is what I do. In this book, which you can get very inexpensively and which is a good investment if you are interested in candle-burning magic, he outlines a theory of "polarity" for candles. Imagine your candle has a North pole (the top) and a South pole (the bottom). Gamache recommends that candles be dressed by rubbing the oil from the center of the candle to the North pole, and then the center of the candle to the South pole. He writes, "the candle is never rubbed in both directions toward both poles."

Now, here is where my methods (and the methods of many rootworkers) change a bit. When I'm dressing a candle with oils for the purposes of drawing some influence, I rub the oil from the North pole (wicked end) to the center, so that I'm rubbing towards my body as I'm holding the candle in my hand. Then, I turn the candle so the wick is facing me, and then I rub from the end with no wick to the center. Since I"ve turned the candle, I'm still rubbing *towards* me. And I've gone from top to center and then bottom to center with my dressing.

When I'm dressing a candle to get rid of an influence, I reverse this process, dressing from center to wicked end, then turning the candle, and then dressing from center to non-wicked end.

Do you have to do it this way? No. There are other theories and other practices. But it's what I do.

ETA:

Some sites that discuss ways to use condition oils:

Dr. E on how to use condition oils (note that his method of dressing candles is slightly different, but equally valid)
cat yronwode at Lucky Mojo on condition oils (I will return to the issue of skin safety later)
sources for candle-dressing philosophies at the Lucky Mojo forums (see? many ways to skin a cat)

To be continued...

coming up next: dressing mojo bags, amulets, human bodies, etc

Cat doesn't want me hijacking her post any more, I'm sure, since it's not actually about the history of powders, but this has been on my mind for some time now, and her post just gave me the excuse to finally write about it. You'll have to read this to understand the conversation.

my response:

Ok, I posted originally to make this linked argument: Talc is not necessarily cheap filler, pure herbs are not necessarily better, talc and other mineral bases in powder are deeply traditional hoodoo whereas pure herbal powders are not, and there are several reasons other than "cheap filler" for using non-herbal bases. You have swayed me somewhat on point 2 and not at all on the other points :-)

To point 2: you seem to be saying that if one can get ahold of pure herbal powder, there are both health-related and magical reasons for preferring it. I don't disagree, except in cases where mineral additions are not magically inert. I personally believe that talc was likely, in some strands of practice, originally a substitution for African-rooted practices involving white minerals that were not easily available in new cultural and geographical contexts, but I also concede that whatever active and conscious connection may have been there at one point has pretty much been lost over the generations. Your use of the word "anymore" won you big points in that round :-) ("talcum is a later inclusion, and one that I feel does not fit anymore").

All the stuff you say about health, etc is true, but has no bearing on my primary claim, which is that talc is not necessarily a cheap filler. I don't use talc myself for precisely those health reasons. Furthermore, I think it's worth noting that making real talc-based sachet powders is actually a very expensive and time consuming process, assuming the product contains real herbs and essential oils and not just fragrance. It's much, much easier to use plain old powdered herbs, even if you're powdering them yourself (and backing over your J the C root with a car before taking a hammer to it, 'cause you can't powder that shit with a coffee grinder). Manufacturers who make talc-based powders (with real herbs and oils) do so because of long tradition and customer expectations, not because it's easier and cheaper.

I am also, personally, severely anti-talc. I do not use it and I will not make it, for many of the reasons you list. You don't have to defend the stance of being severely anti-talc to me. I'm not arguing against it nor trying to change your mind. I just felt obligated as a rootworker, born and raised in the South, whose clientele includes a significant number of older people born and raised in the South, to raise some objections to what I saw as some of the underlying premises floating around your post - not because I think you're wrong/evil/bad/etc, nor because I think you're trying to rewrite tradition based on purely personal whim, but because I get a lot of client and reader questions from folks who want to toss out tradition without examining it, and along the way manage to be very insensitive, ignorant, dismissive, and finally deeply disrespectful of the very culture and the very people that have kept these traditions alive. When I get people saying "but pure herbal powders are better," the implicit or not-so-implicit accompanying verbiage sometimes gets close to "and people who use talc-based powders (or whatever - it's not just powders I get this about) are being tricked/are benighted/are not intelligent enough to know better or ask for any better."

I am NOT saying you said that or that you implied it. But I feel very strongly that changes to tradition - and I hold again that pure herbal hoodoo powders with no mineral element whatsoever are extremely rare prior to the 60s (including prior to the drugstore era) and thus are a change to tradition - should be interrogated and the theories and wherefores understood. That's really all I'm saying. You say that there are sometimes good reasons to change tradition, citing copper sulphate (old-time bluing. copper nitrate is a completely different chemical, though it's also blue). I do not disagree. But that does not invalidate my major claim.

I think you're really onto something with the regional thing, too. The first few years I was making hoodoo products, nobody ever ordered my powders. People who were not from the South had little to no idea what they were for and had no need for them in their regular spellwork. People who were from the South didn't like them because they weren't talc-based, and thus they were grittier (you can make a fine powder with an orris root base, a very fine one, and it has the added bonus of being a magical ingredient in its own right, but it doesn't do the same job as talc as an item to be worn on the body. It will absorb some oil but will never help with "lubricating" the surface of the skin in the same way that talc does - because it's not a mineral). In Southern rootwork, sachet powders were very often *worn on the body.* Wearing pure herbal matter on the body is preposterous if you live in the South - in an hour you will look like somebody made dumplings under your chin and armpits.

Does that mean everybody should use talc-based stuff? Nope. But sachet powders are the way they are for more than one reason, is all I'm saying, and I think you're right that some of that is hard to really grok if the regional and cultural variations are big enough. "If we have the technology to omit it, then why not omit it?" Ok, no argument there, as I mentioned at the beginning. But that isn't evidence to support the claim that talc is cheap filler - it's just evidence to support the claim that it should be omitted if possible, the latter of which I am not going to argue against.

Re. colored talc-base being a mail-order/cosmetic industry addition, sure, no argument. But that does not invalidate my major point. Pure herbal matter stronger? Well, that depends on one's theory of powders. Within a certain cultural milieu, no, they are not stronger. They are *different,* and they are for different things. If you use powders mostly for altar work and sneaky deployment, they're probably *better* for your uses. But I have had to "educate" quite a few newcomers to hoodoo who tell me they want powders made to order because pure herbal powders are "stronger," and they don't want filler, and I have to find a way to politely tell them that they don't get to rewrite generations of hoodoo tradition because they are comparing apples and oranges. A mineral base in hoodoo powders is deeply traditional and has much more going on than "cheap filler." And even a non-mineral, other-than-leafy-matter-derived base has many reasons besides cheap filler. Are talc powders a "later invention" than non-talc powders? Yes. But there is no "pure origin" to which we can return to find the organic, unadulterated Ur-sachet powder (foot track powders are a different class - more below). Are the uses of talc-based powders all uses that are still relevant or even desired by many modern practitioners? Nope. But that doesn't change my main argument.

Finally, and this could have its own post, foot-track type powders and sachet-type powders are really not even coming from the same place, and the principles of combination are not the same. Foot-track type powders pre-date sachet powders as they're currently used by a long, long, long time. I would argue that before there was Pryor's (tm) hot foot powder, there was parched foot track and manure. But before there was drugstore Love Me powder, there was nothing (powder-wise). It didn't replace anything - *as a standalone powder item.* It's its own thing. So absolutely no argument against your statement about talc being "later" - but also not germane to my original claim. "ashes and dirts and things" were indeed the original powders. And the original powders were not deliberately worn by people wanting to draw a new lover. Is the distinction I'm trying to make even making sense? I'm up past my bedtime, sorry :-)

"If we want to be uber-super-traditional, why not go back to the days when we didn't use talc at all?" Then we would be going back to days when powders weren't often knowingly applied to the body for all the reasons they are now applied to the body. We'd be going back to a day when powders did a different job, in general. That's all I'm saying. Talc is relatively new, compared to pepper and manure and foot-tracks, but so is Black and White ointment, Florida Water, two-dollar bills, and my great-grandmother. I'm not saying things don't change over time and that talc's inclusion was not one of those things. I'm also not saying that maybe the sensible next change for people who use powders like you do is in fact to move away from any base at all, to pure herbs. All I'm saying, I guess, is that it's a hell of a lot more complicated than "cheap filler," and I feel a sort of - I guess moral! -- obligation to explain why I say this - not because I have an axe to grind with you in any way, shape, or form, but because people without your understanding of the social and cultural history of hoodoo can draw some pretty ignorant and disrespectful conclusions from the plain statement "talc is cheap filler."

Now I will shut up :-) Thank you for a provocative and engaging discussion! I'm sorry for hijacking your post with a discussion I think you wanted to end, but aside from the "moral" considerations :-), this has to do with ritual deployment as well, I think. The more people understand about *why* things are the way they are, the more sensible their proposed changes and alterations will be, know what I mean? Need to dust your lover with something that looks like a cosmetic and hate talc? Orris root powder will do the job as 1. a base, 2. a stabilizer for your essential oils so they will last when kept in a cosmetics container, and 3. still be in line with "hoodoo theory." Need to disguise the tell-tale color of goofer dust?  Mix it with local dirt.  It will do its job and still be in line with "hoodoo theory."  I am absolutely not arguing that we should cling desperately to things simply for the sake of clinging, even if technology, science, the internet, coffee grinders, whatever have given us better, more efficient, or healthier ways to do things.  I'm just arguing for understanding the wherefores before changing stuff, is all.  Overall, I think I agree that the days of talc are waning. Most of my customers that prefer it have grandchildren who do not, and the "incoming generation" is going to make its own changes, as it always does. Nighty-night :-)

The Original Ninja Cat blogs about Live Things In You, deviating from recorded spells, and other tidbits of interest to a bunch of y'all. Herein, she and I get into a (very cordial and imo, educational) disagreement about hoodoo powders.

A reader asks:

Q: I've heard that working a few spells at around the same times would "divide" my intent and energy.. So how long would you recommend to "rest" between spells?

A: In my opinion - and this varies by person, so this is only my opinion - I think this is largely rubbish. Of course there is such a thing as spreading yourself too thin, or of not seeing the forest for the trees and worrying small things to death when you could be working on the larger things. And of course it will depend on your own knowledge of where your limits are. But in general, as long as you're not losing sight of "the big picture" of your life and you're not getting obsessive/compulsive about working magic to where it's interfering with your ability to deal with issues in other ways, I don't think there's any particular need to "rest" between spells just for the sake of resting.    I mean, hoodoo is very, very practical. And it developed in a culture in which there isn't a big divide, as there is in Wicca and Ceremonial Magick, between "high" and "low" magic.  It's designed to solve problems. And in real life, people's attention *is* divided, every day.  You spend some time on one thing and some time on another and you keep all your plates in the air.  The idea that magic or spellwork energy is finite seems a terribly limiting one to me that doesn't make much sense in the context of root-and-herb-based folk magic.  YMMV.

[on the need to wait an interval between doing a honey jar on a lover and also doing a mojo bag - would you need to wait between doing these things?]

A: Absolutely not. They're all smaller components of one larger, long-term work, in my opinion - the relationship.  Practitioners often keep honey jar spells going for months or years, so you can imagine that the idea of "taking a break" between spells doesn't mesh with honey jar traditions. The honey jar is a central and long term part of a work that you might add specific things to over the course of time.

There's no need at all to "take a break" between doing a honey jar and a mojo bag on the same situation.  I think it's true that there is such a thing as "overdoing it" when it comes to work, esp. with relationships/love, in that it can be dangerous to keep throwing magic at something without giving what you already have going time to work.  It's a danger when people get impatient and decide that if one spell is good, five is better, or if three herbs are good, thirty herbs are better.  However, I do not think that a honey jar and a mojo together is too much.

Today, Nov 4, is the feast day of St. Charles Borromeo, a Protestant Reformation-era saint who became bishop of Milan at the age of 25.  In a time when the clergy were not especially known for asceticism, he himself gave all of his income to the poor and fed many who were dying of hunger during the plague year 1576.  During this plague and famine, he is said to have walked around the streets of Milan barefoot, with a rope around his neck, offering himself to God as a scapegoat on behalf of the sins of the people in order that they might be spared.  A patron of learning and the arts, he is invoked against stomach disorders and is the patron saint of seminarians and spiritual leaders.

Probably because of the rope iconography, he is associated in some Vodou houses and temples with Bossou, the bull loa.

Hello happy hoodoo-ers,

I am down with a stomach bug. Sorry for the TMI, but if I've been slow to respond since last night and you're waiting to hear from me, I wanted you to know why.  If I'm not caught up with correspondence by tomorrow night, this is why, and I promise I will finish all consultations in queue and return all emails just as soon as I can sit in any other room of the house besides the bathroom for more than fifteen minutes.  One of the joys of parenting is the little presents they bring you home from school - I think I will start Lysoling my daughter as she steps off the bus in the afternoons...

A client asked how I "got so good" at Tarot (which is awfully nice of her to say):

Twenty years of practice, is probably the best answer :-)  I'm a word-and-story person (I have an advanced literature degree) so Tarot works for me - not really even because of the symbols - different decks have different symbols, but I can pick up any deck and read with it (heck, I can read with a set of bar coasters, or a deck of Uno cards, actually) because I can "read" or "see"  the story that the cards are telling.  It's like seeing a whole different level "underneath" the cards, maybe is one way to put it, even though that's not quite accurate.  It's less the symbols and more the interaction of the cards with each other and the story that comes out.  After a while, all that "seeing" and "putting together" happens so fast that it translates as a "feeling," or a "flash," or a "knowing," but I'm not sure it's not the same process I used or had or went through twenty years ago. It's just now I'm much better at "reading" it fluently and then conveying it fluently (on good days anyway!) and so the picture assembles itself more quickly for me now.  Or something like that. 

I mean, some people say folks are either gifted for this kind of work or not, but I'm not sure about that.  I think there are people who are more gifted than others, just as there are people who are more gifted musicians or artists than others, but everybody can learn some basics of divination, and improve, just as anybody can learn scales (even if only by rote, because they're tone deaf) or improve their drawing abilities with practice.  Some days I'm not sure it's a gift at all, and I think it's just a skill, like learning another language - some people have a knack for it and can do it easier, but anybody can do it.  Not everybody will be a great writer or orator, but anybody can understand and make themselves understood. But I'm speaking of myself only - there are people out there who are clairaudient and the like, and I'm not sure if I could teach myself how to do that at all. That kind of thing might be a gift you either have or don't, I don't know.  But divining with a tool like a Tarot deck? I think anybody can learn the basics.

Some people aren't word-and-story people, though, and they might approach Tarot differently, perhaps relying more heavily on symbols or images (if they're visual people) or on numerology (if they're number people).  So I think a lot of learning to do effective divination is learning what divination style suits you best and picking the right tool for the job.  The Tarot is particularly rich because it does have all the associations with numerology, cabala,astrology, etc - if you learn all that stuff, you will find your "vocabulary" greatly enriched.  It's a hell of a lot of info to sort out at first - which of a bajillion various possible meanings could these two cards next to each other have when you take all the influencing traditions into account?! - but you eventually internalize that stuff, I guess, if you use it, and it's just "available" to you.  But maybe some people don't read this way at all.  I can only speak for myself.

In my opinion, practicing on oneself is also not a very effective way to learn how to read (though it's a good way to get to know a deck).  A deck of cards or a set of runes is a system unto itself, with a vocabulary, and maybe even a typical syntax.  You learn the rules of the system and then you will get more and more fluent and putting them together, and being able to "Translate" the messages into English for your querents.  'Cause memorizing a book of meanings so you can say what each card means is like memorizing the alphabet - you need to know it, but it's only the very beginning.  And getting feedback from other people that can help you see how the cards or runes bear on their issues will help you learn the "rules" of syntax for your chosen divination system.  I'm not sure if that makes sense, and I'm also pretty sure it's not the way some people would put it, but it's been a fairly decent analogy for me over the years.  Again, though, that's probably because I'm a "words and stories" person.  I can read with runes, but I find them more laconic than I like and it's harder for me to read at a distance with them, and I can do charts, but I find that the math and numbers and "two-dimensional" way of representing charts turns the reading part of my brain off - the other parts have to work too hard and the part of me that can see stories and make them into English for people gets drowned out, if that makes any sense at all!

Anyway, practice practice practice is my best advice - and get other people to let you practice on them, too.  After a while you find yoru comfort zone with a deck - and experience will teach you that even though the book says "blah blah whatever," those two cards next to each other usually mean "long distance relationship," or when a certain card comes up first when you read for someone you don't know, it can be a warning to *you,* the reader! rather than a message for the client.  Stuff like that.  You just get there with practice and study.  Maybe some people can read without practice and study, but I suspect those people could read without any tools at all (and probably because they are at least somewhat empathic, and probably also because they know human nature pretty well, and the cards being there is rather immaterial.  For me, it pays to learn the ins and outs of any new divination tool and system, and the best way for me has been to practice on people and get feedback.  And oddly, I have found that over the last few years I really can sometimes read with no tools at all - or with tools that have no really formal system (like a pack of kids' go-fish cards or a stack of bar coasters) but I"m not sure I could have gotten to the edge of that possibility had I not spent the previous twenty years just plain doing divination and understanding what that "place where it makes sense" feels like and comes from, if that came out in English at all.  

Good luck!