Friday Reading: 2•22•2013

Last week's Friday Reading was a very specific question, which is good, because we can get a lot of detail and focus in on specific issues. But not all questions have to be. Sometimes, asking a very general question, leaving it up to your reader to fill in the blanks, is a good way to go. This week's Reading is along those lines.

Dear Crossroads Joe,

Will my love life change for the better in the next few months?

Signed,
Hopeful and Curious

Friday Reading: 02•15•2013

Welcome to the inaugural post of our new Friday Readings! In it, we take anonymous questions and concerns from our readers, provide a big of root doctoring spiritual diagnosis and prescription.

Dear Crossroads Joe:

My husband and I are wanting to expand our family. When that happens I am considering becoming a stay-at-home mom of sorts. This idea is counter to everything I've ever thought I wanted and actually makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable as I feel as though I wouldn't really be contributing or would not perceive myself as successful. However, I believe it would be really good for my family especially our kids. So A) Hubby needs a secure job where we can afford this. B) I need a confidence boost to follow this and let go of my preconceived notions of success/failure.

What are your thoughts?

Signed,
Cautiously Domestic

Candle Services

Many conjurefolk turn to the Candle Services as a means of doing good works. The simple fact is that everyone we know needs help and prayer in some way or another, and a rootworker motivated by Spirit to bring healing, peace and succor to his fellow men and women seeks a way to do that effectively, for as many people as possible, whether or not they can pay.

To that end, the Candle Service.

Here at Crossroads Joe's Ministrations, we're starting a twice-a-month Candle Service for exactly this purpose. The way we do this is simple.


The Basic Candle Service
For the Candle Service, we will collect prayer requests from those who are in need. Clients, family, friends and even perfect strangers who read these words. These requests will be printed or written up, and placed beneath a seven-day Vigil Candle, properly anointed toward the prayer work at hand.

Each Candle Service will be aimed at a particular condition that needs prayer: healing, love, prosperity and those other issues that come to us living in this difficult world. If you look to the right side of this blog, there is a list of the upcoming Candle Services, by date.

Simply send in your prayer requests to joe@crossroadsjoe.com and you'll be added to the appropriate Service. These prayers don't have to be just for you, however. Feel free to send in prayers on behalf of your loved ones and those who know who could use a little extra help.

Donational Candles

Donational Candles

If you would like a little more directed attention, we're happy to take a small donation to add a little extra to your prayer request.

With your donation, we'll dress and pray over a donational candle in your name, lit from the central Prayer Candle being used for the Candle Service.

Once that candle has burnt out, we'll add your petition back to the other petitions under the central Prayer Candle for the rest of the Candle Service's length.

Spiritual Washes 2: Hyssop & Psalm 51

Hyssop in bloom

One of my favorite cleansing baths is extremely simple, but very potent! It is all based around the use of the herb hyssop.

Hyssop: Biblical Cleansing Herb

Possessing a wonderful aromatic and slightly minty scent, hyssop is one of several herbs mentioned in the Scripture. Mentioned for its cleansing power, hyssop has been used for generations to accomplish just that. Medicinally, it is an expectorant and antiseptic with cough suppressant properties when used properly. Note that the hyssop essential oil can cause seizures, and so should be handled with care.

In conjure, we frequently use the plant itself in cleansing Work. Probably the most common use is in brewing up a "tea" with it, boiling a handful of the dried, woody herb in water until it darkens to a pleasant-smelling infusion. Then, this water is either added to mopping water for cleansing the home, or added to Spiritual Baths intended on atoning for sins, cleansing away bad habits or removing jinxes, curses and crossed conditions.

It is frequently employed in this way along with Psalm 51, below.

Household Money Pot: Bring the Wealth Home!

The Money Pot

The money pot is a term that's used in a variety of contexts in conjure (as happens in a generations-old syncretic craft found through a wide geographical area). Most of them mean roughly the same thing: a container used to draw wealth into one's life. It's the precise method of creating them, and how they are used that varies.

I'm going to share my preferred method of making a money pot, a technique I prescribe to all my clients who are dealing with financial woes that affect not just themselves, but their whole household (or just someone in the household who wouldn't likely take part in conjure work to improve their prosperity themselves).

For this work, you'll need: a container (a plate, bowl or jar), a fair-sized lodestone, a single paper bill of as high a denomination as possible, some Prosperity Oil or Lodestone Oil.

Firstly, using either a pen taken from a bank (or other financial institution) or one with green ink, sign your name under the "Secretary of the Treasury" spot on the paper bill, over the signature that is already there. That is going to give you the spiritual authority to control the flow of money through your home.

Place this bill in the bottom of the plate, bowl or jar. Place the lodestone on top of the paper bill, and then anoint it with a drop or two of the Prosperity or Lodestone Oil.

Finally, speak a prayer of prosperity and plenty. You can make this up as you go, or use a favorite one. Traditional conjure often uses the Psalms for this kind of work. I would suggest the use of Psalm 23, for abundance and prosperity. If you have need of financial gain fast - and only if there is actual need - then you can use Psalm 70 for a quick boost to this (or any, really) financial work.

That's it! Just let your money pot go to work for you. Put your money pot in a place where it can see your front door (or whichever door the money-makers in your household use when they leave for and come back from work).

As you can see in the picture above, our household uses our Money Pot as a place for our coins, letting them bask in the pull of the lodestone before going back out into the world. It'll train them to "come home" and bring plenty of their friends with them!

Once a month or so, anoint the lodestone again, and pray your prayer over it. Every couple of months, feed your lodestone with bits of iron dust or grit, to keep it good and magnetic. Other than that, let it do its work.

A Return to Our Friday Readings!

On Tapping the Roots, I did a variety of "undirected readings" on Fridays, in which I would do a general reading, trusting that Spirit would guide whoever needed to see that material to it.

Partially, this was to grant some measure of familiarity to my readers as to what they might expect when getting a simple three-card reading from me as part of a Consultation.

So, I'd like to return to our Friday Readings, only with a different flair this time! I'm going to open it up into a sort of Conjure-flavored "Dear Abby". I'll have folks send me their current problems, questions or concerns.

Then, on Fridays, I'll take one of those questions at random and present it anonymously. You get a free Consultation out of it, and my readers get the chance to see what a Consultation - normally a very personal and private affair - looks like in practice.

I will of course leave out any details that might identify you in some way, so understand that these Friday Readings will not be as in-depth and personal as one of my regular Consultations might be.

If you're interested, send me an email to joe@crossroadsjoe.com with the Subject: "Friday Reading Volunteer." State your question in such a way that will allow me to copy and paste it into the post that follows, and we'll go from there!

Buying Graveyard Dirt

Sometimes in the process of your hoodoo work - either as a conjurer or as a client - you're going to need to buy graveyard dirt.

The Best Dirt
Dirt, like herbs, stones, colors and all the rest of the correspondences out there modern occultists use, has associations. There is dirt that good for peace-tricks (hoodoo sometimes calls a spell a "trick"), some that's good for getting rid of people, some that's good for healing powder, and some that are good for goofer dust (a type of cursing that is supposed to result in the death of the one crossed).

How do you know what is what? It's simple: figure out who is buried in it. :)

The fact is, graveyard dirt as an ingredient for hoodoo is based extensively in ancestor reverence. According to folklore, a person stores their knowledge in their bones. Or rather, in their blood, but it accumulates in the bones.

So, knowledge and power is in the blood. This means that you can call on any of your ancestors at any time, and ask them for their help with something, because you share the same blood. You call on your Auntie who was a nurse in a war for help with healing, your Granddad who worked on the railroads for protection in travel, and your dear old dad, the world's greatest fisherman, when you need help getting something hooked on that line on your company fishing trip. No problem. But what if you don't know of any ancestors with the kind of know-how or mojo you need?

Well, the answer is simple. You use somebody else's ancestor.

According to hoodoo lore, as a body decomposes in a grave, its knowledge and mojo passes into the soil it is buried in. Thus, you can garner some of that mojo along with the physical component of the soil itself. It is a means of asking for the help of an ancestor that doesn't belong to you by blood.

But you can't just scoop some up, and then expect to get something good out of it. Like all things in magic, there is an exchange, and it has to be done properly.

Buying Dirt
"Buying Dirt" does not mean "going to a website or shop and purchasing little packets of graveyard dirt," though you can find some places that sell them. There's no mojo in those, I'm sorry to say - even if they did properly buy it at the graveyard, the mojo that's in it is for the person who did so, not you.

That said, buying graveyard dirt is pretty easy. You'll need a little container to store dirt in, something to dig with and two nice shiny (and clean!) silver coins (if in the U.S., you're talking dimes - preferably Mercury's Head dimes, because of associations with that psychopomp, or dimes minted on a Leap Year). If you want, bring along a little bit of whiskey, wine, beer or some other good libation, particularly if you know they liked that drink.

At this point, go to your grave. I was taught to pop the dimes in my mouth (see why you want them to be clean?) while I dug, but that's not ubiquitous to all of hoodoo. If you brought a libation, you take a swig of that liquid, and then pop the dimes in your mouth.

Dig up an amount of the dirt. Don't get greedy - no more than the amount that would fill both cupped hands, at most. Put it in the container, then lean over the hole you made and spit the dimes into the hole, then cover them up with the soil that's left behind. Try and cover the hole up as best you can - remember, the key is respect here, so don't leave the source of your new mojo's grave looking like it's been chewed by moths. If you brought libations, pour a little extra libation, drink a quick toast, and put your gravedirt away.

A Word of Warning: This can be considered defacement of a grave, which is illegal. Also, people can ask some awkward questions of you if they see you just digging up some dirt to take home with you. So, if you don't have the option to do this in privacy (like at night), there is another way, but it'll cost you a little bit.

Stop by a shop and pick up a nice potted plant of flowers to take with you. Then, not only will you be disguising the fact that you're digging up and keeping soil, but you'll also be beautifying the grave, which is an excellent and respectful thing to do. Just save the container the plant came in when you pull the plant out, pile your dirt next to the hole, drop the coins in all sneaky-like, then put the plant in after it, and scoop the dirt into the now-empty pot it came in. Easy, and pretty.

Storing Dirt
Graveyard dirt should be stored in an air-tight container. Make sure to label it, though do so in a way that you know what you got it for. You now have an excellent ingredient used in traditional hoodoo, ready for use in making powders and mojo bags.