Hello Dear Readers,
Being so pre-occupied with all the astronomical happenings,
as well as family doings, I’ve not really had a chance to return and post more
information on my blog. And to top it
off we are having a “Hellacious” Heat Wave, breaking records all over the
place.
Well of course one need not get into the Eclipse and the
meteor showers, and some of the family members are helping out with donations
raising funds and things like clothing for the victims of Hurricane Harvey,
according to many weather folks, it has been the worst storm even more
devastating than Hurricane Katrina and Harvey has done damage again in
Louisiana.
Donating to the Red Cross is good, and I understand that
organizations like the Lion’s Club are helping out as well, do see if your
local church is helping by sending donations of clothing and food to Harvey’s
victims.
We have been busy at my home as well, family has been
gathering for family visiting before most of the children go back to school,
but this Labor Day weekend is going to be another big celebration, I and my
husband are great-Aunt and Uncle again to a beautiful Baby girl, a new addition
to the family, Mother and Daughter are doing fine, Daddy fainted, it is their first born. And even now since there is space here at
the house, preparations for a big family bar-be-que is now being set up. I do not have to do the work or the clean-up,
all taken care of.
But as I said in a previous post, my niece and another
family member have been “cataloguing” my books (author, title, subject---lots
of subjects) as well as news articles that I have clipped over the years on
different paranormal or bizarre events.
It’s nice to see things getting a bit organized, and what I find
fascinating is the fact they found some old library card catalog drawer cabinet
in oak, and can order from Demco and one other place the old style cards with
the hole to slide the holding rod through.
My niece confessed to me that it will be the only way to
keep the collection intact for those family members that are taking up the
practice. I do wish you could have seen
my eyebrows raise up to my hairline when she said that. I truly was not aware of such an interest
but it seems there is.
But what I was going to talk about is a stray page from my granny’s
writings that really is a preamble to how to dress candles for ritual
work. How it got separated from the
rest of the papers I don’t know, Gremlins or Trolls maybe.
But the minute I read it I was carried back to
when I was a child and Granny would tell me to get out the old white bowl,
prior to doing any candle dressing, I still have that bowl, but over the years
the reason for it sort of faded away until I read this paper notation.
Now I’ve got to make it clear, I did write information in my
4 part postings of the Art of Candle Talk, but this paper that got separated
from the rest is really the Preamble to Dressing one’s candle.
In Granny’s notes in this preamble, she referred to
cleansing one’s hands before anointing either oneself, or another or even
ritual candles, with a tea made of Hyssop.
Granny wrote: to make a tea by boiling fresh or dry Hyssop
in pure water, not water that has been run through a metal pipe (aka from the
kitchen sink) so it had to be water from a spring, river or lake or even rain
water. If you make enough of it,
bottle it and keep it refrigerated or on ice in your ice box (she wrote this
before we got an electric refrigerator), then prior to dressing a candle, or
doing an anointing, your hands should be rinsed with this tea to purify them
and to recite the 51 psalm as you do it.
If you are going to anoint someone substitute that person’s name instead
of saying “me”. If you are going to
anoint yourself prior to ritual work or before preparing a candle or installing
an altar or new ritual tool then use the correct word “me”.
Now I for some reason I fell into washing my hands using
oatmeal soap, before working with a candle or doing spell work and to wash the
hands in between if I was using different oils, to not confuse the oils.
But Granny wrote than in a pinch bottled drinking water from
a spring with slices of lemon floating in it will work just as well, especially
if obtaining hyssop is not possible.
And then after all the ritual work was done to wash the hands with
oatmeal soap. And toss the used tea onto
the base of a tree. Over the years I got it confused. I’m still putting the blame on trolls.
Well when I read that preamble it put a whole new spin on
dressing candles, especially if done in a ritual manner. And it makes sense really, for those who
practice witchcraft or Wicca, it’s important to properly clean yourself prior
to doing a ritual (a shower for instance)
but back then in doing “the work” it was not really practical to do a
complete body cleaning, there for it makes sense before doing “the work” it’s
best to make sure that your hands are clean and not contaminated with the daily
workings of the mundane world, and then sprinkle yourself with the hyssop tea
or Holy Water to remove any negative energy, Granny also had a dress that she
would only wear when doing “the work”, and I have a caftan for that same
purpose. Also when I needed to wash it,
it would be washed separately from the rest of the laundry.
So what you do is first make the “tea” with hyssop or if not
using hyssop prepare spring water with lemon slices, put this into a ceramic
bowl preferably either in white or blue, or clear glass, have it large enough
to immerse your hands into the water without it overflowing, rinse your hands
in this water and recite the 51 psalm, allow the hands to air dry a bit before
doing any anointing, dressing or ritual work.
After you do “the work” in plain water wash your hands with
oatmeal soap, this will help “ground you” back into the real world along with
sending any energies back into the ground after you thank the
(spirits/saints/God-dess/Orisha’s/ancestors, etc).
This cleansing makes sense because to confuse the magickal
workings with contamination of the mundane world can and could cause confusion
or delays in any magical results, of course you have to remember that sometimes
the Universe says to a person ‘that’s not going to happen’, in spite of all
your efforts, and it is not wise to argue with the Universe or Divine Presence.
Granny went on to explain what I could best describe as the
non-activation and the activation of candles through the anointing of it. This I was partly able to explain in my 4
postings on Candle Magic i.e. how to dress a candle. But she gave a further reason for it, again
that is why what I’m posting here what should be a preamble to your personal
section on candle rituals for any kind of work.
First off one has to remember, it doesn’t matter what the
candle color is, or if you’re lighting it at a certain phase of the moon, if
you do not activate it then it is just a pretty candle. And this is something that I mentioned in my
post about Dressing Candles because without properly dressing or magnetizing
the candle it has no occult or metaphysical use or virtue.
This is true because in several metaphysical shops I’ve seen
people come in and buy candles and ask the shop owners to dress it for
them, a friend of mine did that and she
did her spell work but it was a dud.
The next time we went into the shop I told her just to buy what she
needed and we’d dress the candles at her home, and this time the ritual
worked, and we at least washed our hands
with oatmeal soap.
Now I’m not saying that it’s wrong to ask the shop owners to
do the dressing for you, but you do need to be somewhat of an active participant
in it. But if you want to do it right,
then just buy what you need and dress the candle yourself.
And Granny was quite firm about how to go about dressing the
candles, and in her writing which
diverged a bit from what Louis de Claremont said, with a free standing candle
you do have a North and South pole, and
need to decide where is the middle of the candle.
Prior to using the ritual oil to activate the candle for the
ritual spell, you first have to “magnetize” it using what is called “magnetic
oil” and stroke the candle from the middle to the wick away from you and then
stroke it from the middle to the bottom towards you, in doing this you will have magnetized the
candle----but this is only for free standing candles.
Which explained to my aging memory why I saw
Granny anointing the same candle twice, the first was with the magnet oil the
second was the ritual oil or oil of purpose (love, money etc).
Now this makes perfectly good sense especially if you are
using double action candles where you have blunted the end.
But I’ve seen Granny when she was doing a major banishing
stroking a free standing candle only in one direction and that was away from
her, which also makes sense, you don’t want it, you need to get rid of it so
away it goes.
However in her preamble note she says to first
magnetize the candle (and this was after it has been ritually cleansed) in the
north and south direction and then with the oil of purpose or ritual oil stroke
it in the direction you want the energy to flow, you want money, stroke the
money oil from the wick to the bottom, you want to get rid of something stroke
the oil of purpose or banishing oil from the bottom to the top.
But with glass enclosed candles you cannot do that type of
stroking, so talk about doing some serious meditating on a hot day (we are
having a heat wave) I worked on visualizing what Granny use to do, and again it
was two oils, with the magnetic oil it was always clock wise to magnetize it,
then using a tiny amount of oil of purpose again going clock wise to bring
about something positive, but counter clock wise to banish something.
And I remember Granny using a clean square
nail to make a triangle of holes to put in a few drops of the oil of purpose
and then a little on her index finger in a clockwise or counter clock wise
direction again depending upon the purpose of the spell.
Now she did not write that down but I remember her seeing
her do it and between the different oils she’d rinse her hands in the hyssop
tea in the white bowl. So I told my niece what to write in addition
to what was already written by Granny.
But then I began thinking why did Granny push only 3 holes
in a triangle formation in the wax of the glass enclosed candles, was it to
save oil? Why not a pentagram, then of
course I had that “DUH!!” moment, because Granny wasn’t a Wiccan, she was
Catholic and was calling upon the Holy Trinity, and in a way it formed not only
a triangle but also a “tooth” and she was very particular about that especially
in protection spells. Which also
explained why her cloths on her altars were always triangle in shape and not
square or round or rectangle, and the candle was always in the center of the
triangle.
I dug out one of her altar cloths and was sad to see it so
fragile and nearly falling apart, but in each corner in small neat hand
printing there was words written in Latin with a water resistant paint although
flaking and faded, that said Patris et
Filii et Spiritus Sancti , the father and the son and the holy spirit, but one
word in each corner, and I always heard
her say and even I say it now when I light a candle in ritual in nomine Patris
et Filii et Spiritus Sancti (in the name of the father, the son and the holy
spirit) and she would also say “I also
call upon Mary the Mother of God, to help with this ritual”
So that tossed me back, if Granny was only doing “the work”
and it was not based on religion, but spell working, then why was she calling
upon the Trinity and Mother Mary? This
was a lot to think about on a hot evening, but I relaxed on that thought and
realized that it doesn’t hurt to call upon protection from a higher source, and
considering how she grew up and how Mom and I and other family members grew up,
it made sense to call upon them.
I recalled (Imperfectly) an article by Denise Alvarado that
mentioned in Early New Orleans a “Code Noir” in which slaves were instructed in
the Catholic religion which became intergraded in Hoodoo and Voodoo, she again refers
to the integration of Christian practices into it in her book the Hoodoo Voodoo
Spellbook. And I remembered that Mrs.
Washington who was from Louisiana as well as the other ladies also called upon
that opening phrase.
And Granny would also cover her box of cleaned candles with a
cloth that had a triangle on it with those words written on it. Sadly that particular cloth was lost when one
of my uncles who despised what Granny was doing burned it and several other
things of hers right after her funeral, but fortunately not everything because
my other uncles and my Dad stopped him.
BOY!! What a fight
that was!! It was like a “hell in a cell”
match from the WWE, and one of my other uncles trying to prevent the garage
from burning up. The whole neighborhood
was there for that, and they were helping to put out the fire, but they wanted
to see who would win the fight. But that is a memory for another time.
So are you going to have to do a double dose of oil to magnetize
your candles, I’m not sure, I know that I’m going to fall back on doing that to
see if it adds “Umph!” to the spell workings.
So how do you make “Magnetic Oil”?
Judika Illes wrote a receipe in her book Element
Encyclopedia of 5000 spells.
Here's how to make it:
Place either 7 or 9 lodestones in a mason jar.
Sprinkle them with
magnetic sand.
Cover the
lodestones with a blend of sweet almond and jojoba oils.
Close the jar and
let the lodestones rest for seven days, exposed to sunlight and moonbeams.
Pick up the jar
and swirl the contents around once a day.
After 7 days, the
oil may be strained and used.
Transfer the oil
to different bottles.
Feed the
lodestones with magnetic sand and use to make more oil.
But Granny preferred doing something simple.
She got two magnets that would attract each other cheap
kiddie magnets work or those that you use to hold a pizza delivery menu to your
refrigerator, put it into mineral oil
and add iron filings to feed it, put it
into a dark bottle, and she’d shake it and leave it to “marinate” from New Moon
to New Moon, then she’d pour a little into a small bottle for her to use,
keeping the rest in the dark bottle and adding a little more mineral oil as
needed.
So if you want to do the magnetic oil prior to using your
oil of purpose at least you know what to do.
Now I’m going to rest,
someone managed to bring ice cream and soda and I’m going to have a root
beer float this hot evening.
Bright Blessings,
Ms. Q
