Big Lucky Hoodoo

Again, no time for a real post, but a quick collection of notes about saints, sacramentals, scapulars, relics, badges, and the essentially-untranslatable usually-South-American but sometimes-European item called a detente, which is often what gets called "scapular" on sites like ebay and pinterest. These are links to some Pinterest pins in which I comment on a few examples. If all goes well, I'll elaborate with more examples when I'm caught up later this month (fingers, toes, etc. crossed, God willing and the creek don't rise, etc.)

Sacred Heart and Mother of Sorrows - this one has the word "detente" on it even.

eBay seller called this Sacred Heart badge a "scapular" and a "second-class relic," which is total rubbish since it's neither, but it's a beautiful piece.

Now this is actually a scapular.

Peruvian Sacred Heart detente.

Good example of handmade embroidered detente described inaccurately on eBay - I wish I'd captured the original seller notes since those are long gone and you can't read what I'm responding to anymore.

Beautiful hand-embroidery on this scapular, and it IS a scapular.

Handmade Peruvian scapular.

Even reputable sellers can give you bad info on relics, which can get quite technical and complex.

Silly rabbit! Relics aren't for kids! Bad Latin, no cookie for you!

I'd call this a badge, but you could make a case for detente (I'd want to see the whole piece, 3D, before I made my own call). It might be a relic - can't tell from the photo. But it's by no means a scapular.

Beautiful St. Rose of Lima detente.

I'll eventually get around to posting some info and definitions, history, and descriptions, but not this week for sure. I'll also eventually get around to finishing all my own examples I've started over the years, like the one below (which admittedly isn't my fanciest -- I made it very quickly as a gift so as not to hold up a package from shipping any longer than necessary). (And yes, many of mine merge elements of South American packet/package and bottle amulets -- like the ones I make custom for clients -- with elements of other sacred and religious folk art and sacramentals.)


front and back, (c) Karma Zain 2015

And here's one in progress, below - as you can see, many of the ones I've previously made or am making combine traditional saints' iconography and images with elements of that saint's manifestation or portrayal in religions of the African diaspora, like the below piece that features elements of the vodou loa Ghuede / Gede and will have St. Gerard on the other side.


(c) 2015 Karma Zain

Look for the next post on how to win a custom handmade badge/detente for the saint or spirit of your choice.

Still hustling to get some packages out and trying to fit in finishing some new pieces (mostly shrines and altar bottles, particularly some seasonal Day of the Dead, Ghuede, Les Barons, vodoun, Santisima Muerte, and Halloween stuff), but taking a moment to post a new coupon code (since every cent that comes in is immediately consumed by competing demands - labels to be paid for and printed and refunds to be processed - I am continuing to juggle all this as best I can and keep income coming in so I can keep packages going out).

Use code FALL20 at checkout to get 20% off any order totaling $50 or more (before shipping), good now through midnight on the 30th.

For instructions on using coupon codes, see the applicable heading in the FAQ.


Terms of Service re. shipping/handling and prep times apply.
Read the FAQ here, including instructions on how to use coupon codes if you need them.
Read the latest status updates, including matters affecting shipping, communication, etc. here.

Your use of this site constitutes your acceptance of our Terms of Service, including your understanding of our posted shipping, handling, and turnaround times; guidelines for contacting us about a current order or service; and instructions for how to request a trace on a shipped item.

The clock is ticking quickly away on my self-imposed deadline to get caught up, so I don't have time to make the post I want to make -- I happened across this excellent information on St. Benedict and his sacramentals, plus September features the feast days of a few of my favorite saints like St. Cyprian, Our Lady of Sorrows, and Sts. Cosmas and Damian, and *God* how I have missed writing about interesting things and posting cool prayers and images on this blog! -- but I still want to share a couple of links about St. Benedict anyway. I'll post again later about status update stuff and the latest coupon codes.

So here is a link about the medal of St. Benedict, its uses, and its authorized blessing formula.
And here's another, which explains the symbols on the medal in detail (with pictures).

I got one huge Tupperware box of packages safely in the hands of the postal pickup lady last week, and I am working on the next. Operation Backlog Deadline is moving forward, and if it's not moving forward as fast as I'd like (guess whose car went *back* to the mechanic last week, after dying on the way to a job site, meaning I didn't get to the job and didn't get a paycheck for it???), I do have to say that at least a couple of handfuls of folks will finally get their packages this week, along with some freebies by way of apology and a letter from me (longish, but don't just toss it unless you're totally done with me, because somewhere in there or on a card in the box there is likely a coupon code just for folks whose packages ended up in shipping limbo for a while).

I am running low on some herbs, butters, and oils I need to make some stuff for orders already in-house and need to order those this week, so I was absolutely right that I didn't have enough squirrelled away from my out-of-the-house jobs to get everything made and shipped in one fell swoop, as they say. (And besides the damned car breaking down again, just a few months after it needed a new transmission -- and before I got the personal family loan for that mechanical work paid off! -- I have quite a few nasty chunks of expense I can't avoid or delay any longer, such as getting myself, the offspring, and the dog to their respective doctors and dentists and such, retaining an attorney and an accountant to deal with some serious unpleasantness with a creditor and with the government, and dealing with some insurance and doctor billing stuff that got messed up a while back and that needs money applied to it to fix.) But I am whittling away at the backlog, and as funds trickle in to the Paypal account, which is blessedly no longer in the negative, I am continuing to print shipping labels. Everyone *will* get their stuff as soon as I can get it to them, and I am happy to say things are going at least a *little* more quickly now than they were.


I haven't made any real headway there beyond scanning quickly for new stuff or fires that need putting out, or going in to search for a specific message. I am prioritizing getting these orders out, but I'm trying to get some help on the continual challenge of sorting through, labeling, filing, etc. iwith the inbox so I know what's what and what needs what action instead of just dipping randomly into an undifferentiated mass of messages (and there are *hundreds* of them, many hundreds of them). This will take time.


See above and previous messages for why I am prioritizing tangible items over services. These are the next order of business after the orders are caught up, and some refunds will be involved, which will be another messy element affecting the speed of order processing and shipment. But I do still plan on offering free phone sessions to folks who still want the session and who have been waiting longer than their original estimated turnaround (which is pretty much everybody now). I will discuss teh details separately once I can actually start scheduling things.


Everything in this BOGO collection/category is "Buy One Get One Free." You don't need to do anything special  - when I see an eligible item in your order, I'll add the second item along with the first as I prepare your stuff. You do NOT need to leave a note to tell me which items are eligible -- I already know that -- and you don't need to add the second item yourself; if you are buying one 2-dram bottle of Attraction oil, add that to your cart. I will make and send TWO 2-dram bottles of Attraction oil if your order is placed while the sale is active. If you put two bottles of Attraction oil in your cart, the system will not discount the second bottle; you'll just get a grand total of FOUR bottles when you get your package and you will have paid for two of them.

Basically, anything appearing in this collection -- that's all regular condition oils, powders, and bath/floorwash crystals, excluding specialty and custom-made items -- is BOGO Free, so if you order one, you get two in your package. If your order also contains items that aren't eligible, you still don't need to do anything - I know which are and aren't eligible, so I'll add the extra freebies and skip the stuff that isn't eligible for a second item/bottle/package free.

Because there is no coupon code you have to use to take advantage of this offer, you can still use other available coupon codes with your order as well, so you can pile on the savings with this one.

Offer applies to orders placed between 12 am Sunday, Sep. 13 through midnight Sunday, Sep. 20.


My daughter agreed to sew another couple of treats for me to give away to two of you guys, whichever two are the winners of the random drawing that I'll hold after October 1.  You don't have to do anything separate - any order placed between now (Sep 13) and midnight on 1 Oct will be automatically entered to win. Given the backlog, it's possible that larger and/or custom orders will not be ready to ship until I've drawn the winners anyway, in which case I'd send the custom-finished prize with your order, but if you are identified as a winner after your order has shipped, I'll just send it along separately later.

I'll post more about this later, but I will have two mojo plushies (read more about them and about how this works in this post) to give away to winners. I have one small evil eye plushie as well (more info here), and the first prize winner can choose the plushie or the evil eye if s/he prefers that. If s/he wants the plushie, then the second prize winner will also have the same choice.


Use code SEP15 to take 15% off orders over $30 (before discount, excluding shipping). Use code SEP35 to take 35% off orders over $80 (before discount, excluding shipping). Both good through midnight Sunday, Sep. 20.

For instructions on using coupon codes, see the applicable heading in the FAQ.


Terms of Service re. shipping/handling and prep times apply.
Read the FAQ here, including instructions on how to use coupon codes if you need them.
Read the latest status updates, including matters affecting shipping, communication, etc. here.

Your use of this site constitutes your acceptance of our Terms of Service, including your understanding of our posted shipping, handling, and turnaround times; guidelines for contacting us about a current order or service; and instructions for how to request a trace on a shipped item.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've given myself a deadline for getting caught up with everything. Part of getting caught up is finding the funds to fill and ship every order that is currently in-house, which includes a jumbo-sized Tupperware bin full of packages that are ready to go except for their labels, along with a fairly hefty stack of orders that will be packaged up as soon as the bin is empty.

I am about to ship some of these, but I doubt I have the funds to send them all off, and I know I don't have the funds to fill and ship every order that is in here, so this is another one of those sales designed to turn some of this stuff -- these supplies and materials and jewelry and such that I have around -- into cash so I can ship everything sooner rather than later. That means deep discounts for you, because I am operating under the "a bird in the hand" principle: it really doesn't *matter* anymore "what things are worth" or how much time/money I have invested in them already, because the *only* thing that matters is fulfilling my obligations to my customers and clients.

So I need to turn stuff into money, period, spending any incoming funds on shipping beyond the minimum expense required to fill orders (I need more patchouli, for instance, to fill current orders, and will probably need plastic bottles too - stuff like that.)

I will be running some kind of special or another between now and October 15, which is the deadline I've given myself to get caught up. I will try to update more as things go, and there will be various coupon/sale options as I get things sorted out, including some more giveaways. And, if I can get some other bottles and boxes finished, I'll be adding some stuff as well.

For now, though, here's what I've got, which is all good through Sep 12 at midnight Central time. You can use the following coupon codes at checkout, good for any item or service in any store category/collection at all (though I don't recommend you try to book or order anything urgent, obviously).

code sep40 to get 40% off any order totalling $80 or more (before discount, excluding shipping).
code sep30 to get 30% off any order totalling $50 or more (before discount, excluding shipping).
code sep20 to get 20% off any order totalling $20 or more (before discount, excluding shipping).

For instructions on using coupon codes, see the applicable heading in the FAQ.


Terms of Service re. shipping/handling and prep times apply.
Read the FAQ here, including instructions on how to use coupon codes if you need them.
Read the latest status updates, including matters affecting shipping, communication, etc. here.

Your use of this site constitutes your acceptance of our Terms of Service, including your understanding of our posted shipping, handling, and turnaround times; guidelines for contacting us about a current order or service; and instructions for how to request a trace on a shipped item.

Between my starting the first draft of this post and finishing the version I’m actually posting, some things (as usual) changed. I’ll mention the changes in brackets within the text.

This turned out to be rather a long post. I've put it under a cut. The bottom line for readers is that I'm giving myself a deadline to be caught up - October 15th. If I'm not caught up by then, i'll be putting the shop on "vacation" until I *am* caught up. Since I'm officially job-hunting again as the outside work has largely dried up and since there won't be even the trickle of income from here in that event, I am not sure *how* I'll get caught up, but I have to do something, and that is what this post is about.

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As of earlier Thurs afternoon, www.karmazain.com was back up, and last time I checked it was redirecting properly to the shop in both Chrome and Firefox.

*DOMAIN/NAVIGATION ISSUES: ETA: Fixed as of Th afternoon (the 13th) -- and at least when I checked last, the site came up via the url karmazain.com on both Chrome and Firefox. That's progress!

My site is down. I don't know when the problem will be solved - I have been working 8-12 hour shifts 7 days a week lately at an outside job. But I'm posting to say I'm going to fix it as soon as I can, I'm not dead, I haven't gone out of business, and nobody needs to panic about their orders or their money disappearing. Things are just still slow for the same old reasons.

*ORDERS: Related to the above, as outlined in previous posts, I have had to scramble for income since I quit my university job and the very few orders that come in through the shop get swallowed up by the hole in my account and/or by required supplies, and so I have a slew of boxed up orders sitting here that I haven't been able to ship. Since my site has been a little wonky for a while (esp. for Chrome users) and I don't have the skills to solve the problem definitively/permanently, and since I have been out of the house so much lately and haven't been able to get anybody else to solve it, and since the shop and back orders are still in a total disaster state and I haven't really had much in the way of orders coming in anyway, there's no income there either. So I've been working overtime to earn some cash so I can eat, pay rent, and hopefully have something left over to ship all these orders sitting here. Part of my check that I just deposited is going to printing labels today, in fact. Since I still don't know when I can dedicate phone time to catching up on consultations, and since I am still not anywhere near caught up on the inbox and I am sure there are some refund requests in there mixed up with all the notifications from Shopify and Paypal about how shit is fucked up and some people are forcing their refunds to the top of the list with disputes and chargebacks, I am going to try to start refunding consultations too. Unfortunately, for reasons I've covered in previous posts, I have to handle the physical items orders first.

I feel terrible about this and I feel terrible about having to repeat how terrible I feel. ( Collapse )

I am going to try my best to update again once I can say anything definitive about the site fixes, about getting orders out the door, and/or about progress on the inbox (why no, I haven't had much lasting luck with any of the SIX assistants I've trained in the last 12 months, but the one before last who was really pretty damned good is back in town and I'm trying to persuade her to come back aboard). I have a LOT of stuff to chase down and solve, I'm already exhausted, and i have to fit 8 hours of outside-the-house work into this day somehow too.

But I wanted to say that I'm alive and aware of the site being down and am trying to fix all the things. I'm working on getting some orders out the door first, though. Because the site is down, I'm not sure if notifications through it will work properly, but once it's back up I'll manually update the order statuses

*DOMAIN/NAVIGATION ISSUES: There's still some sort of hiccup going on with some users navigating to the Karma Zain Spiritual Supplies site using Chrome. The hiccups do not appear to be affecting Firefox for reasons as yet unclear to me. I thought this was resolved after my last post mentioning it, but it apparently isn't, and fixing it is on a long, long list of things I need to have done yesterday, but it's had to take a backseat to getting these damned orders out and getting through the email inbox (more on this below). Anyway, my domain karmazain.com has NOT expired - it's registered through 2017. This probably has something to do with a change that Shopify made to how their domain forwarding/pointing works, and I'm still investigating, but in some cases users have arrived at a page that looks like my domain name is up for sale or something, and lately users are just getting a "can't resolve server" error, whether they enter karmazain.com or www.karmazain.com. Things are fine in Firefox though - it forwards you to the actual shop URL http://karma-zain-spiritual-supplies.myshopify.com like it's supposed to. I will figure it out at some point. Meanwhile, if you have the site bookmarked and are getting a blank page or error in Chrome, try Firefox and accept my apologies :(  You can always navigate directly to the Shopify location of the store, too, which again is http://karma-zain-spiritual-supplies.myshopify.com

**If you have not been following my updates here, you should probably read this post first to get up to speed on what's going on, why shipping is still delayed beyond the usual handling times, and why communication is still backlogged.**

*ORDERS: As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am in a hell of a Catch-22 with this shop situation. I can't close the store until I get caught up because chargebacks continue to come in, and in cases where they were credit card payments direct through the shop processor, I am getting screwed with those *regardless* of whether I can prove the item has shipped. As for Paypal disputes, once somebody escalates to a dispute, my only options for response are "I accept liabilty and will refund/have refunded" or "I can provide shipping info." I can't answer with "your order will ship as soon as I have funds in the account" or "it's set to go out next week" or anything else - so basically I hustle and try to get the package out, but I sometimes can't, and then I just have to accept the reversal/cancellation, even if I've already filled a custom-made or custom-finished order and have it sitting in a box waiting on a label.

I talked before about finally having adequate time to spend on/with the shop/altars after two academic years of working 80+ hours a week on teaching-related stuff, but the nasty Catch-22 here is that as long as I'm in the hole with the shop, all the time I put into it is not actually feeding me or my daughter (or my damned dog - more on her in a sec). So I have no choice but to work at another job as well, and I've been doing that right at full-time since the semester let out. I'm an independent contractor, in theory using the woodworking skills from growing up the daughter of two furniture craftspeople, but in practice basically doing assorted light construction for a couple of different clients, some of it woodworking but most of it just plain carrying, hammering, measuring, hauling, drilling, painting, and demolishing. It is physical labor, and while I come from strong, healthy peasant stock as I always say, I'm not in my 20s anymore (hell, I'm not in my 30s anymore, either, for that matter), and at the end of the day it's not as easy as it used to be to start a second shift of being on my feet (really a third, if you count the housekeeping/cooking/taxi-ing/similar unpaid but necessary work involved in being the mother of a dependent teenager and the daughter/granddaughter of folks who need help with things more often these days). So the hours I'd hoped to sink into the shop aren't quite getting sunk since I have to manage groceries and the power bill while I'm getting caught up. (The pay isn't all that great at this new gig, either, truth be told - in fact, it's miserable, but I'm working on remedying that.)

Ideally, my current work would involve more of this, which is a rolling "cart" for beer kegs made out of reclaimed 18th century French colonial wood and glass, made for a customer's wedding reception (and you wouldn't believe how heavy those antique doors are!)

But in practice it's a lot more of this, which is the underside/working end of a bar/restaurant we're remodeling:



As I've also mentioned, I got one final paycheck from my academic job, and I printed hundreds of dollars worth of labels as soon as it hit my account. It wasn't quite enough to get everything in-house shipped, but it was going to go pretty far, but then - because this is the kind of year I'm having - my 1.5 year old dog ate something she shouldn't have and had to go to the doggie ER at 2 am (where they charge you $100 just to walk in the door). Some blood panels and IVs later, my dog (whose name is Rocket for reasons that are immediately apparent as soon as you meet her in person) is fine, thank God, but the bottom line is pretty much that my dog ate your shipping label, or to be more precise, my dog's vet took all my money for your shipping label. (I'm also nearly out of ink, which is another expenditure I have to make before I can get the next batch out.)

But you can't stay mad at this face:




Then, as I've also previously mentioned, there are some ongoing family obligations related to being a member of a very large, close-knit Irish Catholic clan with some of the family elders truly getting on in years. There have been more hospitalizations and more traveling around for these types of things, and of course in the midst of all this my laptop died, mucking up any ability to stay on top of things while on the road, because -- yeah -- that is the kind of year I'm having.

Though I did get a picture or two of the old family homestead from my mother's father's mother's era: some land outside Bermuda, Alabama where the clan once dwelt, and then a shot of Burnt Corn Creek (you think that one's colorful - some members of the following generation settled on the banks of a creek called Turkey Branch!)



Anyway, I am steadily prepping and packing orders, but I am still behind, and I am still not flush with the business account. I've shipped a lot, but a lot of y'all are still waiting on things you expected before now, and I need to try to get the business account back into the positive again (yes, I had another chargeback this past week). And those of waiting on services are still waiting on me to get caught up with the tangible item stuff before I can dedicate time to those when I can be sure chargebacks aren't around the corner and I have enough in the bank to feed the hungry mouths around here.

I'm working like a dog, y'all, I promise (though not like my dog, who doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of anything resembling work), and I have not forgotten anyone or anything. I will make it right, and I am making progress -- just not as quickly as I'd have liked.

In good news, I have a new assistant, and let's keep our fingers crossed about this one, can we? She's just started training, her name is CK, and y'all be nice to her so I don't have to lose *yet another one.* I'm going to be nice to her too, which needs to start with paying her on time, so the pressure is on from all sides, for real. But we put in several hours tonight and will put in several more tomorrow, and have the eternal goal of one day seeing the bottom of the inbox in mind.


From now until midnight on Tues, July 14 (Central time), use the following coupon codes at checkout, good for any item or service in any store category/collection at all:

code july40 to get 40% off any order totalling $60 or more (before discount, excluding shipping).
code july30 to get 30% off any order totalling $40 or more (before discount, excluding shipping).
code july20 to get 20% off any order totalling $20 or more (before discount, excluding shipping).

For instructions on using coupon codes, see the applicable heading in the FAQ.

I plan to do at least one more sale and one more giveaway/drawing this month, later, too, but I don't know the details or dates yet. This 40% off digs deep, though, so I'm not likely to repeat that percentage in any sale offerings after this if I can avoid it. So carpe diem and all that.

In addition, you can enter to win a drawing for a free adorable thing that I don't have a name for, so I'm going with "evil eye plushie" right now. Just type "evil eye plushie" into the "Notes" box during checkout to enter; you can enter with any order at all placed now through midnight Central time on the 21st of July). More detail below.

As I mentioned before, my daughter definitely inherited the family crafty gene, and some of her creations lend themselves to spiritual ends, and I asked her to make something new and one of a kind for a giveaway/drawing for y'all and she came up with these plushie evil eye charm things.

  


The one with the beads already attached has already been gifted to a client, but the other two are up for winning - first prize will have first pick and second prize second pick. They are ready to have your custom herbs, curios, petitions, and/or personal concerns added, at which point they can be sewn up and have whatever appropriate/preferred beads, bells, feathers, mirrors, etc. attached before they come off my altars and make their way to the winners.

When she sews her little plushie things and fills them with hypoallergenic pillow stuffing, she leaves a little segment of seam unsewn so that you or I can add appropriate herbs, personal concerns, etc. suitable to your petition/intention. We can talk details via email once the winner is identified, but you could either send me things for inclusion or I can send you instructions for how to do the personalization part yourself.

Whether or not you use the July40/30/20 coupon code, you can enter to win this customized evil eye plushie by simply placing any order at the shop, no matter the amount or product/service type, and typing "evil eye plushie" into the "Notes" box. On the first or second page of the Shopify checkout system, you'll see a text box that says something like "Notes." This is the one I'm always telling you NOT to use when you want to give me more info about your order, because what you type won't print with your order and so I generally won't see it. (So you should never use it to give me customization info or leave me a note about an order or a question you want an answer to - I will NOT see it if you do this in ordinary cases.)

In this case, though, I have set up a quick and dirty workaround that will flag me when a note exists, so even though the contents of the note will not print, when I see that flag during this sale/offer, I'll manually go into the system the "back way" for the order processing rather than through the normal workflow, and I will check to see what the "note" field says. If you type "EVIL EYE PLUSHIE" there, then I will manually mark your order printout and, once, all entries are received, it will join those "in the hat" and I'll draw the winners at random
and contact them for customization details. One order equals one entry.

There will be two winners; each will receive ONE customized evil eye plushie. Please be aware of handling times for customized / custom-finished items per FAQ/TOS.


Terms of Service re. shipping/handling and prep times apply.
Read the FAQ here, including instructions on how to use coupon codes if you need them.
Read the latest status updates, including matters affecting shipping, communication, etc. here.


Your use of this site constitutes your acceptance of our Terms of Service, including your understanding of our posted shipping, handling, and turnaround times; guidelines for contacting us about a current order or service; and instructions for how to request a trace on a shipped item.