Friday Reading: 06•08•2012

Queen of Pentacles (Inverse) • Knight of Pentacles (Inverse) • Magician

Hello, all. Well, I did up the Friday Reading for last Friday, as usual. But for some reason, I seemed to have left it in draft form, rather than actually publishing it, so it's just been sitting unseen on the blog, not doing anybody a damn bit of good.

This week's reading is for someone who has been having a severely difficult time, in terms of finances and material comforts. It's not pleasant, but you need to hear it.

Spread: The Queen of Pentacles, inverse; the Knight of Pentacles, inverse; the Magician.

The Queen of Pentacles, Inverse is in your past. The root of all the things you're facing down looks like a case of being stripped of your power by either bad circumstances or depression - possibly both. The Queen of Pentacles, Inverse is a card that about poor health, particularly of the emotional or mental variety, and a deep sense of melancholy.

Spiritual Washes 1: Taking a Spiritual Bath

Van Van Liquid Spiritual Wash

Spiritual cleansing is an extremely important part of hoodoo practice. So much so that it might be fairly said that it's the first step in any successful Work. One's power, one's mojo, is delicate. Like food ingredients, you need to be careful not to let it get contaminated, and to scrub it clean before you use it.

With that in mind, these are three ways in which you might use any Spiritual Wash for this purpose.

If you'd like to get your hands on a Spiritual Wash of some sort, just let us know at joe (at) crossroadsjoe (dot) com. We sell Spiritual Washes in every formula that we sell our oils in. Interested? Drop us a line. $5 for a 2oz. bottle of liquid or salts washes.

The Quick Bathing Method

Quick bathing is simple, involving using a liquid Spiritual Wash the way you would use any sort of liquid soap. Something as simple as just scrubbing down your body can be done with intention, of course, to decent effect - particularly if it's something you do every day. Of course, if you have some intentions in mind that are more than just passive in nature, I suggest one of the other methods.

A Grandmother's Dolls

One of my first encounters with a hoodoo and her mojos was as a child. It was deeply unsettling at the time, but now I look back on it with delight.

See, this old lady had a bedroom filled with dolls. There were two instances when I saw her go in there: when she was cleaning, and when she was upset. Both times, she went in there and bustled about, straightening up and dusting. But while she did so, she talked, non-stop to those dolls. She told them about her problems, and thanked them for their aid. She scolded one or two for "bein' lazy" and laid out praise to the high heavens on another.Both times I caught her doing this, she just shot me a look and then closed the door to this room.

Now, you have to understand that these dolls were...deeply unsettling. They were the sort that had stuffed dress bodies, and porcelain hands and heads, complete with staring, terrifying eyes and pursed judgmental little lips once painted pink but now faded and cracked. Their hair was matted with the dust of years and decades, and she kept them up on shelves, sitting pressed in close on one another, all staring down at you in the middle of the room.

As I said. Deeply unsettling!

I found out later that the dolls kept her mojos for her. She used them to "give a face" to the tobys she made, opening up the back of the doll, moving some of the stuffing around and putting the mojo in there, then sewing it back up. She'd go into that room, with its single bed for guests (I can't imagine ever sleeping there!) and its rocking chair, take one of them down, dab a little olive oil on its brow, sit and sing her favorite hymns and then whisper. She'd tell it what she needed, what was wrong, what needed fixing, and that little doll would go to work.

Friday Reading: 06•01•2012

Six of Pentacles  •  Four of Swords, Inverse  •  The Chariot, Inverse

Hello, all. Hope everyone had a great week, and here's wishing you a wonderful weekend.

This week's reading is for someone with a generous nature, someone who is very giving and selfless.

Spread: The Six of Pentacles; the Four of Swords, inverse; the Chariot, inverse

The Six of Pentacles is a lovely card, dealing as it does with generosity and selflessness. This is not just the careless generosity of someone who has always had a lot, but is the kind of generosity of someone who has worked hard for what they have, and have turned their pursuit of material security into a virtue.