It’s been far too long since I went to the candle shop for broken candles, so the back of my car was full of them when I went there last week.

I’ve been able to make some designs you never see, like the orange-over-purple ones pictured here. I’ve been able to correct colors, too: brown, not sickly-green-on-top; pink, not feverish fuschia.

These may look familiar to you from my posts on oil lamps. That’s the beauty of using durable label materials on candle glasses — these can be candles or oil lamps, depending on supplies, time, weather and inspiration.

I’m speechless, so I’m just gonna crosspost from the Caroline Dye Memorial Chapel blog:

Halloween and/or Christmas! " Caroline Dye Memorial ChapelFolks, I can't decide whether it's Halloween or Christmas here today!

via Carolinedyechapel

I can’t give you a complete report on this year’s workshops, because I only signed up for four of the twelve presentations. (If you attended any that I missed, please write about it in the comments!) And then again, I don’t want to steal my colleagues’ thunder. So just a few little tidbits here — lures to bring you to Forestville in a future year.

• The Sarayéyé cleansing/road opening got us off to a good start — banishing not only bad luck, sickness and death, but also legal troubles and other complex woes. Sophie the Portuguese Water Dog contributed a lively presence to the ceremony, jumping over the altar at one point — frisky but not at all inappropriate. I was told that Eleggua is the conduit of power from the divine to the material world & back, and that animals often channel him.
• After a very interesting lecture on Middle Eastern traditions and methods of trapping dangerous spirits, Conjureman Ali helped us make a simple and effective spirit trap — a witch-bottle similar to the British traditional type. He explained that a good spirit trap (like any trap, come to think of it) contains two elements: bait and snare. Since these traditions originate in desert country, water in a spirit trap functions as bait.
• Lou Florez took some of the Hollywood Ooga-Booga off Santísima Muerte so we could see some of her real magic. He brought red sugar skulls for each of us and gave us the recipe to make our own. She is most often called on for strong reconciliation work — we got an English translation of a novena for this purpose — but she is also a connection to our ancestors, and can help reconnect with unknown ancestors.  And just as sure as grandmas want grandbabies, she can work with your ancestors on fertility issues.

  The many varied images of her have different meanings: enthroned, Death as Ruler of life, because we all meet her; with an hourglass, to divine the hour of your death; with an owl, the traditional South American harbinger of death; there is even a joyous Santa Muerte, Alacala (google-fu reveals nothing; I’ll have to contact Lou Florezabout this).

  She is strong and hungry, so work with a protector, too, so she doesn’t eat you – some work with St. Cyprian, others with La Muerte’s sister the Virgin of Guadalupe — the life force — but your favorite protector can help you, too.  Keep La Muerte well fed with sweets, tequila, the sugar in sugar skulls, and — the spirits of your enemies!

• The Cursing Colloquium was a rapid-fire volley of methods for shutting down wicked people. I really don’t know how much of this I ought to pass on! I’m not sure I want just anybody to know what can be done with tar and feathers, a coconut and a baseball bat, or chili peppers and vinegar…

  But I will tell you that Miss Cat demonstrated a good old-time trick: whip your enemy’s footprints.  Get a literal whip — she used one of those many-thonged floggers — and whip their actual footprints while cursing them aloud.  Turn the air blue with your curses and hit those tracks hard!  That’ll run him out of town.Miss Cat put a lot of power into it. I didn’t think to see if the tent above her was singed afterward >:)

Miss Cat took a long running jump before she actually got to the subject of floor washes, colognes, and other liquid conjure formulas. She began with the different major theories of magical contagion — of spreading bad luck to others. In some cultures, they believe in what Mexicans call mal aire, bad air; in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean, the evil eye — an unintentional curse. This might go back to the Sumerians — they had eye charms but, apparently, they were not writing about it.

In sub-Saharan Africa, they believe that magical contagion is picked up through the feet; hence the use of powders thrown underfoot for people to step in. And this is where floor washes come in handy.

In the US, foot track magic is widely believed by African-Americans, and it survived because it crept under the radar of the dominant culture. When slaves were meticulously sweeping their yards and floors to clear away evil messes, their white masters saw nothing but ordinary cleanliness. Floor washes in hoodoo — and there are many, still made and still good — are a primary tool to combat perform foot track magic.

One of the most widely known is Chinese Wash — originally called Young’s Chinese Wash. Why on earth did conjure workers come to rely on anything called Chinese Wash? Well, Mr. Young, who wrote under the pen name Lewis de Clermont, was interested not only in hoodoo and its spiritual supplies, but in a wide variety of Asian things. The formula for Chinese Wash is very similar to Van Van, and in making it for sale, he may have found the herbs in New York’s Chinatown. It was there he also found ling nuts — which he sold as anti-witchcraft charms under the name bat nuts or devil pods.

After more romping among the history of the great hoodoo mail-order houses, Miss Cat began talking about ammonia. Even on a physical level, it’s a good cleanser — a powerful grease-cutter. It is also probably a “polite substitute” for urine, a very old-time ingredient in protection and cleansing baths: it marks your territory as yours — and that is older than humanity.

In addition, urine is sterile when it’s fresh, and it’s also antibacterial: soldiers know — because the military teaches them — to urinate on wounds when there is nothing else to clean them with. Sulfur, an antibacterial element, is what makes it yellow.

Many people, of course, would freak out when you mention urine as a floor wash ingredient, so you can always recommend ammonia instead. And ammonia, of course, is a byproduct of the decomposition of urine.

Florida water is popular these days in many magical traditions besides the Afro-Caribbean ones from which it sprang. Florida water is an inexpensive copy of the famous Eau de Cologne, which survives nowadays as a delicious perfume called No. 4711. It is cheap as fine perfumes go; a 4-ounce bottle costs only $30! Hoyt’s Cologne, which dates from the late 1860s, was the first decent inexpensive copy; it’s a darker, more earthy fragrance, very inexpensive and still rather nice.

Florida water is a still less expensive — and, when sampled right after the other two perfumes, is downright nasty! Miss Cat had bottles  of each on hand for us to sniff. The No. 4711 was mysterious and kaleidoscopic — different and equally wonderful every time we tried it. Hoyt’s Cologne was rather nice, and less subtle. By comparison, Florida water was bitter and flat. It was the same brand of Florida water that I have on my workbench at home, which is so demure and refreshing when I use it! It was quite a shock.

After that, we spent the next several hours making four cases — 48 bottles — of Peace Water. This is not the cheap white lotion sold by the careless, ignorant or willfully stupid, but a beautiful blue oil floating on a translucent white aqueous solution.

At the next table, other apprentices were making ravishingly delicious, ruby-colored Four Thieves Vinegar. At Lucky Mojo, this is precisely what it is supposed to be: an edible, savory, spicy protective tonic.

Downwind, a few brave souls were making War Water, a which has a potentially interesting fragrance with a faint similarity to patchouli — which will nonetheless turn your stomach at once.

After that, miscellaneous production labor of many kinds, and then the monthly Hoodoo Rootwork Correspondence Course homework party. There were 10 new graduates, the largest group I have ever heard of! Congratulations! You will soon know who you are.

Today was a straight production day; everybody was put to work dressing up candles for spiritual work. Note, I say “dressing up,” not “dressing” — because we started several steps before anyone got to the oils and herbs. I didn’t actually get any more hands-on experience with dressing candles; instead I spent the entire day cutting labels and pasting them onto candles which would be either fixed (that is, dressed) or sold plain for folks to dress at home. I really ought to ask my new friend Michael, or my colleague Miss Tammie Lee, about their candle-dressing experiences today.

As usual, I made a few mistakes — smaller ones this time — like everybody else. Working at Lucky Mojo does keep you on your toes. There’s a great deal of hand work required to make all those beautiful products, and the standards are meticulous. The thing with meticulousness is that it’s difficult to know when to stop! I was actually surprised at first to hear Sister Robin say, “Don’t fret, my pet.”

I also got to talk to my new friend Joan Cox and hear her story about petting the cows at the dairy farm. (Apparently, cows aren’t really into that kind of thing.)

Now I’m going to go crash for a little while before I pray over lamps my husband is lighting 80 miles away tonight.

Today was devoted to learning about and working with candles. The morning’s lecture was the usual delightful erudite ramble. Miss Cat started before the first century, by passing around a replica of an ancient Roman oil lamp. This was made of bronze or brass and embossed with the Chi Rho symbol, which she did not discuss or mention. And a good thing, too, because otherwise we might not have heard about

• the basic structure of black Spiritualist church services,
• how the jazz musicians Max and Joseph Spitalnik got into the spiritual supply business by accepting the rights to a book as payment of a gambling debt,
• the relationship of the quality of novena candles to the price of gasoline,

or any of the dozen other obscure wonders.

I was astonished to find how recent some of our most cherished and popular types of spell work are. The use of glass-encased candles, for instance, goes back only to the 1930s, and back then, it was the glasses, rather than the candles themselves, that were colored. (You can still buy candles with colored glasses in many places.) Candle burning as a magical method, in fact, seems not to have been very widespread before that time. It’s only in the 1930s that any kind of candles begin appearing in “novelty” (magical/spiritual supply) catalogs — and at first they were ordinary tapers and votive candles like you might buy in any drugstore or craft shop.

Figural candles started appearing in catalogs only in 1951 — just a few years before I was born! Miss Cat passed around a few figural candles from her collection. The ones from the 1950s were beautiful, clearly molded — I especially remember a crucifix with an open Bible in the center, a hand at the end of each horizontal arm, and flames at the base. She also had some very nice figural candles from Bolivia and Peru. My personal favorite was a very plump three-dimensional Valentine-heart shape embossed with a couple holding hands.

Lucky Mojo, by the way, has same-sex couple candles, made like wedding cake toppers, but each is a pair of brides or a pair of grooms. They are painted — with colored wax, I think — and I believe they are made in China. (They appear on the catalog’s figural candle page – “Bride and Bride Candle, Painted,” and “Groom and Groom Candle, Painted.” They’re listed alphabetically, not together. There aren’t any pictures yet.)

The afternoon was devoted to instruction and practice in candle dressing, the Lucky Mojo way. Among other important things, we learned that beauty is important! It shows you’re paying attention and respect your work and your client. Even the Saran wrap in which mail order candles are wrapped is kept in a decorated box.

Naturally, there is always something satisfying about a well-dressed candle. I believe the ones I made under Miss Cat’s direction are among the best I’ve ever done. There was definitely a lot of food for thought in the practical lessons of the afternoon, and I will certainly carry over some of the principles I learned into my own work.

There followed a beautiful dinner cooked by the shop manager, Robin Peterson — homemade tamales! Spinach salad! Homemade apple pie! All wonderful and indescribable.

Once again, tired and happy

No, today was not devoted to candles, as I erroneously said last night.

There were no lectures today — this was where we earned our keep by making products for Miss Cat to sell (and, of course, learning much). We spent the morning making two cases of 13-Herb Bath. These are the big bags of 13-Herb — a 13 day supply, but it’s actually much more; you will have enough for many weeks of baths if you use the pretty hand-turned wooden measuring scoop that comes with each bag. I have to tell you those bags are much bigger than they look in any pictures you might have seen. We prepared about — six or 8 pounds, was it? — of mixed herbs. Some of them needed to be cut into tiny pieces first — barks and tough leaves. We had to make sure that each bag got its fair share of different-sized herbs, and there is something of an art to that — it’s all in how you scoop it out of the big mixing tub.

The last step in this process is praying over the mixed herbs — Psalm 91, to be precise. Aura LaForest knows it by heart.

These herbs are, many of them, very strong smelling. I don’t have any plant allergies that I know of, but I was sneezing pretty steadily until I realized that there were masks to wear. My breathing mask was my good friend all day.

One of the advantages of doing constructive work in such a small group is that it’s possible to focus on one new person at a time. Yesterday, Aura LaForest was a major focus of my attention. Today, it was Joan Cox. She’s a quilter and a new employee at Lucky Mojo. she’s also pretty keen on astrology — but, compared to me, almost any magical worker is keener on astrology than I am. She has a gift for candle work — often gets powerful results from it.

After a gorgeous potluck lunch, we made more baths: one case of Gambler’s Gold and two cases of 9-Herb Bath, for changing your luck. The process was very similar — much breaking up of big pieces into little pieces, tearing apart clumps of herbs, and so forth.

I didn’t take part in making the batch of Gambler’s Gold, because sometime before that process started, I was put to work putting fire ants into little vials. It’s tricky working on such a small scale; I soon improvised a little paper funnel to herd those dried ants down the necks of those tiny vials. I really enjoyed this task, not least because these fire ants are the midnight red of pigeon’s-blood rubies.

I’m very happy and very tired. Goodnight

Well, here I am at the delightful Russian River Studios in Guerneville, CA.  And it’s 5:24 AM.

I don’t have to be up until 7:30, but I got to bed before midnight last night — unusual for me — and so at this pre-dawn hour, I’m as well-rested as I usually get.  Also excited.

One of the reasons I brought my computer and am grateful for Internet access is so that I can relay all the amazingness while it’s still vivid in my mind. Last year, I promised a series of posts from the workshops, but I suffered from coolness overload and it all compressed itself down to one or two blog-squawks.

I’m better prepared this year, — but I forgot my camera.  If I get a chance to borrow somebody’s iPad or something, there will be illustrations, but — I’m not much of a cadger.

Today, I’ll be listening to a long lecture on herbs in the morning, and harvesting in the afternoon. Lucky Mojo grows a number of their own herbs right there on the grounds.

Last night, we had a long and chatty dinner at a burger/sushi place here in Guerneville.  I’m not a connoisseur of sushi, but the yellowtail nigiri tasted clean and fresh.  I had a beer for the first time in ages.  The Japanese waitress listed the few brands available, and then decided for me: “You eat sushi: you drink Sapporo.” It was good, but I think I’ll go for the Heineken if we eat there again

So we got to Lucky Mojo in good time (Miss Cat has a low, low tolerance for lateness). We listened to 4 hours of talk about herbs. Specifically, the history of herbalists and herb books and the “drug trade” — that is, the medicinal herb trade of the 19th century; and why, for instance, it was dominated by German Jews (and she showed us an herb book that had a bilingual glossary of herbs in fraktur writing), and why those German Jewish pharmacists tended to run stores in black neighborhoods; how the authors of herb books built on each other’s work over the decades, nay, centuries; why we should respect Scott Cunningham and why everybody should read Maud Grieve; and a couple tidbits about how her own Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic came to be written.  All while showing us two or three dozen other books, most of which I need to read, apparently. My notes for today are mostly bibliography.

So, yes, the four hours flew by like minutes.

After lunch, there followed a tour of the property — I don’t think we’ve seen the farthest reaches — and some explanations of a few simple botanical concepts (the fruit and the flowers will tell you the most about how plants are related to each other; how to recognize monocots and dicots, and what those words mean; and a few scandalous things about Frank Meyer and how he screwed the USDA, and how he died, and why that was probably appropriate.

While she was showing us these baby steps in botany, she began explaining about some growth habits and peculiarities of some of the conjure herbs on the property. You don’t pick sappy growth — tender, juicy plants — for drying, because they just won’t dry.  You don’t cut the woody parts of sage or rosemary, for instance, because those are tiny trees — and that’s just careless pruning.

Well, it was when she was being very instructive about the life cycle of the forget-me-not that I took those baby steps down the path that led to my Mistake of the Day.  Miss Cat was explaining what a scorpionic raceme is, and also why you do not pluck an entire stem of forget-me-nots; those little buds all up and down the stem are not buds, but seed pods. If you pluck the entire stem, there go all the seeds on it, and there’ll be fewer plants next year.

Well, I thought she meant that when the blooms on those racemes aren’t all open, plucking them will reduce the vitality of the plant and its seeds.  So when we were sent to pick forget-me-nots, I was in despair because most of the racemes had only half their  little blossoms open.

It was late afternoon  before Miss Cat asked why there were so few forget-me-nots harvested, and I explained my trouble.  ”Those are the flowers you’re supposed to pick,” she said.  So at the end of the day I went back and picked some more, lots more, with a fellow-apprentice,  Aura LaForest. She’s a plant-maven and explained all about the seed pods and leaving the stem in place.

I’m going to be picking more forget-me-nots tomorrow, I believe, but tomorrow is mostly devoted to candles.

This is the Hotei Buddha. He began as a rice god and got conflated with a Chinese monk named Budai (who wasn’t actually a Buddhist at all, I don’t think). So the story started getting around that the little bag containing all his few belongings actually (als0) held rice plants for starving farmers, candy for little children, and anything poor folks might need or want … say, are those the peaches of immortality on that branch?

In front of him is a client’s prosperity honey jar, on which I burn green candles every night.

Two simple olive oil lamps being tested by Aunt Caroline Dye and Dr. José Gregorio Hernandez

Well, folks, I gave up on the use of oil lamps when I discovered how expensive lamp oil is to use.  For $20 or so, I could buy enough lamp oil to keep one lamp going for about ten days — or about two months’ worth of vigil lights!

And yet I’m not thrilled with the quality of vigil lights that I can get on a moment’s notice, so the experimentation with oil lamps continues (and you can follow the action on Pinterest).

After a little thought, I thought I’d start simple:  A pinch of herbs, a slug of olive oil, and a floating wick in a decorated glass.

I was a little nervous about the herbs in the oil catching fire — but the foil-covered cork keeps the flame above everything else, and the herbs find their own level below the surface of the oil.

I’m not really pleased with the way the wicks tend to drift off-center.  They’ll never lean against the glass and crack it, because of the cork float — but it’s less elegant than you and the spirits deserve.  So I’ll be experimenting some more.