"Never say never" has always been one of the mottoes I like to profess, but I'll be honest, there are some things I really did think would fall into the "never" category for me. And two of those are listed in this blog entry's title.
I have said more than once over my years of doing psychic readings, "I don't traffic in spells and curses". And I didn't, at least not knowingly. But I've always thought that a "spell" was quite similar to a blessing or a prayer.....a way of speaking out your intention and desires, and asking for assistance with attaining them. Regardless of your particular faith tradition or family upbringing, most of us do this in one form or another, and often the only thing that differentiates one from the other is the first line of it, in which we name the deity, saint, element, or guide from whom we are requesting assistance. So why get hung up on what we call this? Why not choose instead to focus on the similarities of these ancient customs, and what that common ground has to say about how we are all linked in both our wish to create a better life for ourselves and our loved ones, as well as in our innate understanding of the fact that there is something bigger than us, whether we choose to call that something God, Buddha, Allah, Goddess, or Gaia, or even simply universal force (personally, my favorite word for the divine has always been Providence).
With that openness of heart and mind, I decided to explore the teachings of some amazing practitioners of folk magic, who meet every year in November down in New Orleans. It was an opportunity to expand my knowledge of these areas, and hey, who doesn't love a week in New Orleans, right?? (Well, actually, I have a friend, Daniel, who's not a big fan of the Big Easy, but hey, there's no accounting for taste sometimes). I was heading down there with my friend and colleague, Jacki Smith, who had been the year before and loved the experience. This time around, her new book, Coventry Magic with Candles, Oils, and Herbs had just come out, and the trip was part of her book tour. By the way, I'm mentioned in her book (three times, if you count the index, which of course, I do!). Anyway, great book, such a fun read, and so we packed our bags and headed down. Boy, was I in for it.
By the end of the week I was wrapping a pair of panties around a jar of herbs for a spell called "Sugar in your panties, and spice in your britches", taught to us by Mama Sindy Todo (y'all should Google her, because she is a hoot, and super smart, to boot. Then you should have seen me scribbling notes in the workshop on curses and how to cleanse them! I just adore what Orion Foxwood, the presenter, said about curses and whether we believe in them or not: "A curse don't CARE whether you believe in it or not!" That about cracked me up. The brilliant thing here was that darling wise Orion was talking about the "curses" we all carry, often they show up in as part of a family legacy - for instance, in my family we have a lot of love, but HUGE communication issues, which can sometime make things crazy, chaotic, and seemingly very UN-loving. This has been a "curse" in my family for at least the past four generations. So, there are these ancestral curses, there are the energetic curses that land on us as a result of the negativity of others in our sphere, and well, there's more, but I don't want to bore you by going off on a ramble....
Point is, this girl who for so many years had no truck with such things, is now sitting down with clients and helping them craft their very own love spell, or prosperity spell, or helping them release old patterns of negativity and pain that have cursed them, often for years. These days, I'm not saying I pull out the chicken foot nearly as often as my tarot cards, but I will admit that I'm glad I never said never, because in this line of work, when you open your heart and mind to spirit, more WILL indeed, be revealed.
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