Adventures in Hoodoo – Spiritual Bath

SeeAdventures in Hoodoo – Candles for the first part of the adventure.

Yes. I got a candle to burn clear. I had an ‘in’ with a Santero, so now I was Head Hoodoo Priestess…yeah…no.

Although my protection candle burned clear, there was so much negativity around me, that it could only be removed properly with a spiritual bath.

Miss A, the experienced Santeria and Palo practitioner I spoke of in my other post, suggested I get a certain type of spiritual bath, one with Hyssop and other herbs. These come in several recipes; I was told to get the one that had 13 herbs.

I ordered it online. Of course, because I wanted it right away, it took forever to arrive.

When it arrived I was pleased. I was making plans to go home and take a bath after work. Once I read the instructions, I had to put the kibosh on that. There were procedures that needed to be followed to ensure optimal results.

• A spiritual bath should be taken before dawn
• This normally wouldn’t have been a problem as I get up at 5:20 am.  But my vacation would coincide with this.  The first few days were fine because I was going to work. The vacation days hurt.  Getting up at 5:20 am when I didn’t have anywhere to go literally hurt!

• A spiritual bath needs to be made at the time of cleansing (not the night before)
• Making a fresh batch every morning required me to get up at least 20 minutes earlier (5:00 am). These herbs had to be boiled for 13 minutes.

• A spiritual bath needs to be poured over the head
• If you hadn’t noticed…I’m black.  Many black women do not like to get their hair wet as it is very expensive to maintain. Luckily my hairdo was of the curly kind, so getting it wet wasn’t an issue. However, a way around this is to just pour from the face down, avoiding the hair. I did this both ways, but I noticed when I poured it on my face directly, it stung.  I’m not sure what herb was causing the stinging, but it was unpleasant.

• A spiritual bath needs to have a psalm recited while the water is poured over the head
• Because I was seeking a certain type of cleanse/form of protection, I was required to recite Psalm 37. Have you read Psalm 37? 40 Verses!  Impossible to memorize.  Imagine standing in the bathtub with one hand pouring liquid over your head while holding the paper with the psalm on it in the other.  I had to douse myself 13 times. Needless to say, I needed several copies of that Psalm before my 13 day cleanse was done. Backsplash is not cool.

• A spiritual bath needs to have its water collected and disposed of at the crossroads
• I didn’t need to collect all of it, just a tiny bit after each bath.  The collection was the easy part. It was the disposal that was tricky. I live in a neighborhood where there are not many crossroads.  The nearest true crossroad was one block from the subway. In the city, it is best to dispose of this type of water in a sewer.  I had collected it in a plastic bottle and had to open the bottle and dump it out. I was a little self conscious.

Regardless of all of these obstacles, I completed my spiritual cleanse after 13 days.

Some of you might wonder if I actually took a bath/shower during this time. The answer is yes.  I showered with soap each day prior to the spiritual cleanse.  I didn’t towel dry myself. I drip dried, which in the middle of December, is not much fun.

A few days later, I burned another love candle. This time there were no evil faces; nor were there any happy ancestors.  It was a clean burn from top to bottom.

So did it work? Well sort of.  I had to do some leg work, but I met someone. We dated for a bit, but after three months, it came to an abrupt end.

I am going to give the credit to my ancestors and the universe for that one.  He came in to show me that I have been cleansed.  He was removed because he was not for me.

 (To Be Cont'd)

Adventures in Hoodoo - Candles

Hoodoo is an American term, originating in the 19th century or earlier. One of its meanings refers to African-American folk magic.

I have no clue what I’m doing. Ha!

Now that you have that information…

I’m not new to candle magic. I’ve burned candles for years. I haven’t been consistent with it.  Last summer, during my “rough period,” I pulled everything out of my arsenal and candles made their reappearance.

I took a trip to a large and popular Botanica in The Bronx. I wanted a candle to draw love. The young man who dressed the candle told me exactly how to burn it, what to say, and all the necessary information.  He said, “When it is finished, bring it back so we can read it.”

It burned steady and constant.  It also left very black soot inside the glass.  I’ve had residue in my glass encased candles before, but  ¾ of the glass was black.  It also looked like there was a face of some kind.

I brought it back to the Botanica.  The head Santero read my candle for me.  

Santero: You see this? (he said as he pointed to the face). This is a spirit of some kind.

Me:  (stunned into stupidity) What kind of spirit?

Santero: Not a nice one. What was this for?

Me: Bringing love to me.

Santero: Well there was “something” stopping that, but it was caught in this candle.

Me: (Silence)

Santero: (He hands it back to me). Take this, wrap it up in that paper bag, and take it out and throw it in the garbage on the corner. (He points to a garbage can in the street that is in a far corner of the block). Then come back.

I stuffed it back in the paper bag that I brought it in and I placed it in the garbage can with the empty beer cans and McDonald’s wrappers.   I backed away quickly. I didn’t want to turn my back. What if the spirit came out of the glass, crawled out of the bag, took a leap across the air and into me? That’s the way it happens in the movies.

Once back in the Botanica, the Santero told me to get a plain white candle and burn it in the same manner as I did the pink one.  Except this time, I was to pray for protection.

I burned the candle, day and night.

I sat at work worried that my apartment was engulfed in flames because I left an open flame. I couldn't be sure if the spirit from the other candle would come back for revenge.  Was it angry I discarded it like an evil piece of trash?  

My imagination was in overdrive because nothing like that happened.  My apartment was still there when I returned and the candle just burned and burned.

This time, the candle burned clear and steady for most of the time.  When it got to the bottom 1/3 of the glass, something happened.  Figures started to appear.

It looked like a native tribe dancing and rejoicing

I took the picture, so I could show the Santero. I had a feeling that it would eventually melt away. I was correct.

I know what I saw, but I wanted someone else to see it. Someone who knew a thing or two about this stuff.  To me, it looked like a native tribe dancing and rejoicing.

I showed the Santero the photo and he was awed. He said he’d never seen anything like it. He intuited that it was my ancestors rejoicing and they are here to help me.  The candle itself had finished burning and was now clear from top to bottom, but the photo was proof that something else was going on.

I was told it was now OK to burn another love candle.

I was prepared to do so until I was told by someone very experienced with Hoodoo and Palo that before I burn another candle for love, I needed to do a spiritual bath. The harmful spirit(s) were not done with me yet, they were only waiting.

(To be Cont’d.)

Toxic People

The Cesspool

I don’t have many close friends. The number fluctuates. New ones come in, but most of the time I see the back of them before too long.

I have three friends. It has swelled to five and then shrunk back down to three. The same three friends year after year, but I’m not tired of them. I’ve tried to increase my circle of friends, but it never seems to work out.  I often thought there was something wrong with me.  I realized that there is nothing wrong with me, but that many people that I attract are toxic.

Toxic people easily latch on to me.  I don’t sense their toxicity immediately, it takes a while. Eventually I realize it, but I choose to swim in the cesspool regardless.  My go to excuse for not walking away is, “I see the good in him/her.”  This isn’t to say that there isn’t good in these people, just that these individuals are not beneficial to my spiritual growth.

I wanted to walk away many times, but I didn’t; I’m a wuss. It is good to know that The Universe takes care of fools – aka, me.

Loneliness played a role.  I wanted more friends and I put up with a lot of nonsense in order to keep the peace. I put up with things I didn’t like in their behavior or energy field.  I would think, “I’m never going to have any friends if I find fault all the time.” With all my efforts to keep them as friends, they were eventually removed.



You Get What You Think About Most of the Time

I would often ponder why I am friends with these people.  I would try to figure out a way to end the relationship.  I had a prepared speech in my head and reasons to back it up, but I never had the nerve.  I would think about it all the time.  Then the miracle happened; just as I was ready to pull the plug, they pulled it on me.

My constant attention on how to end the relationship brought the end to fruition. I didn’t do anything but think about it in an all consuming fashion.

I did not set out to think about it and have it happen. This was done by default.  In this instance, the outcome was desired.  We often create our lives by default and receive outcomes that are not what we want. (I will be discussing this in a later post).



It Can Be Hard

It can be hard to know who to let go and when.  Family members are especially difficult to let go of. They can be some of the most toxic people in our lives.  We may feel that we have no choice but to keep the peace.

“But she’s my mom.”

“I can’t not talk to my sister.”

These are people that we shared our lives with. We’ve lived with these people; cried with these people and have formed memories with them.  In the case of our parents, they took care of us.  This causes us to feel an obligation toward them.

My mother is one of the most toxic people I’ve ever known.  I love her very much, but being in her energy field is draining and disturbed.  For years I could not walk away.  She sacrificed a great deal to raise me, and she did the best she could with what she knew and she was a good mother.  For many years I could not see the dysfunction and it wasn’t until my brother was killed that this dormant dysfunction came into the light.

As an adult, my mother and I would argue and disagree sometimes, but I always gave in and we’d get back on the roller-coaster.

This relationship was all-consuming and I am surprised it took as long as it did for The Universe to say, “All right already!”  After a particularly nasty argument, she stopped speaking to me and hasn’t contacted me in years.

Several things happened after this incident:

• I became a happier person
• My finances improved
• Other toxic people fell away at a faster rate

It is often hard to see the toxicity when we are in the relationship.  It may take years before we can see that the relationship was harmful.  We just have to be willing to look.

Copyright © Liz Kelso. 2016. All rights reserved.