Milagro Roots and Readings

Milagro Roots Updates

Wow!  Can you all believe that we are already halfway through February?  I have been busy making updates and adding information to my various online presences to help out clients and the curious in their own magical doings.  For those who have not been by recently, check out the Milagro Roots Store.  I have added a bunch of inventory, including the wonderful Lucky Mojo Curio Co products that we all know and love.  Shipping has not been figured in yet, so if you place an order just know that I will add a few bucks to cover postage.  Right now I am working off the honor system, but I expect shipping charges to be programmed in within the next two weeks.  Also, three new pages have been added to the Milagro Roots website, with many more to follow!  You can now check out my advice on how to use condition oils in the hoodoo tradition, a page of FREE candle spells and recipes, and the ever-helpful FAQ's page.

Lucky Mojo Workshops--May 8th and 9th 2010

Many of you know that for the past two years the Lucky Mojo Curio Company has hosted two days of workshops on Conjure practices.  These workshops are sponsored by Missionary Independent Church and cover a wide variety of topics from love, blessing, and money drawing work, to old fashioned foot bathing, to the use of astrology in traditional Hoodoo.  This year I am honored to announce that I will be teaching one of the workshops--my presentation will focus on love and sex work in traditional conjure practice.  I will go over tips and tricks that I have picked up through years of specializing in this type of work and each participant will leave the class with a complete spell ready to be set on the altar and a ton of great ideas!  I have designed the class to be accessible for both beginners, adepts, and professionals, so if love work interests you in any way, please join us in early May!  To RSVP for the workshops and sign up for the wonderful class offerings available go here.  On a final note, I would like to mention that there are NO other workshop offerings like these in the world.  Traditional Hoodoo is gaining popularity in many different spheres but teachers that have been trained in the tradition are often hard to find and when/if you do find them, getting them to actually teach you can also be a trick.  miss catherine yronwode is known for her stellar course on traditional rootwork and her incredible product line of oils, incenses, herbal blends, bath salts, sachet powders, spell kits, mineral, herbal, and zoological curios, and metaphysical objects of all sorts--she has also taken it upon herself to organize these workshops in part so that this tradition of magic, belief, and folkloric practice is NEVER lost.  If you enjoy the benefits and blessings that rootwork has brought into your life, do yourself a favor and experience the magic of Lucky Mojo and the wonderful May workshops first hand.  Opportunities like this don't arise every day!

Ancestors Alive!

Most everyone who reads this blog will know about ancestor veneration and probably each of you have a graveyard that you especially like.  But for newcomers and a few folks, ancestor veneration might be something that you have "heard" of but never seen in actual practice.  In my experience many of the academic descriptions of ancestor veneration do not convey the playful, sometimes haphazard, and always warm relationship that the living have with their dead.  Having lived in Northern New Mexico, Northern California, and being a Native Texan I have spent most of my life around various Hispanic/Mexican/Latina/Tejano cultures and ethnic groups.  I have been heavily influenced by the religious devotion, language, food, colors, and music, and I have a soft spot for the cemeteries as well.  While I was out in West Texas last week my family and I stopped in the little ghost town of Terlingua, Texas, now most famously known as the site of the annual international chili cook off.  Terlingua is right outside of Big Bend national park very close to the border of Mexico.  It started its life as a mercury mining town, and for all of you who like the idea of having a drilled nutmeg pod for mercury, please note that the first graves in the historic cemetery were the victims of mercury poisoning.  While we were in Terlingua the historic graveyard caught my eyes and we went in to pay our respects and visit.  What I found was a riot of color and lots of activity and commerce between the living and the dead.  While I was walking around, talking to the spirits and snapping photos an older gentleman approached me and asked if I knew why there was money on so many of the graves.  I explained to him that making payments and offerings to ancestral spirits for work that they do and blessings that they send is a very common practice in certain places.  Fascinated, he thanked me and moved on, peering down at a particularly shiny pile of quarters placed at the top of a grave every now and then.  Hope you enjoy the pics and much as I enjoyed the visit!

A nicho in the stone entry gate to the cemetery, complete with Lady of Guadalupe vigil light and payment for the spirits.

Grave site: most of the graves were piled high with rocks, some were then decorated with head boards, foot boards or nothing at all.  Glass jars that held candles (probably from last Nov. 2nd if not more recently), money, and paper flowers were common.

 

 

 

 

 

Historical marker detailing the history and modern day use of the cemetery by the locals.

And then there are the un-traditional but enthusiastically remembered graves :-)