My sister sent this picture to me not too long after January started…….
I have this plastic black shelf. It used to be my main ancestral shrine and underworld altar. But I have a far bigger one. So I used this as my shrine to Persephone and Demeter. For the Eleusinian Mysteries.
It’s part of the shrines of the dead, but it’s also for the living. So it’s an independent shrine. The ghosts who live and sleep there are what I call Green Ghosts. Spirits of the dead who watch over nature. The Fae who live there are nature spirits that live side by side with the dead.
Look who decided to put their cocoon in there for the winter.
Fresh out of the cocoon
I interpret this to possibly mean we are getting an early spring after all. Which would explain the accelerated winter we’re getting right now. The darker forces of winter are being kicked out a little earlier this year. This can also mean that now is the starting point to create something good and positive. Despite all the negative forces around.
Oko (Croatian for “Eye”) a photograph by Marko Popadic, who took this photo the moment the butterfly entered the eye socket of this human skull. It is said that butterflies symbolize the soul. So this could have been the dead saying hello.
” O holy Persephone, leave now the underworld. And become Kore, the maiden of spring, once more. We need you in this world. Now more than ever before,
Recently, I performed a type of Latin American divination. I was able to diagnose a spell on a client. It’s called a Velada (vigil). This isn’t something you’re likely to find on the internet. So instead of adding this to the account I am going to share later, I thought it would be better to write about this separately.
This ritual is done with the picture of a person who is alive. The person either has a disease that no one can determine. Or they have a magical condition. And this is meant to call the person’s soul. What you call their Doppelgänger.
Half of our spirit is already on the other side.
Like our shadow selves. Our higher self or Ori in Santeria. The Ori lives in what you would call heaven. And is connected to your spirit guides. And many other versions of ourselves that live in the intermediate dimensions.
The picture comes to life, almost like a gif before the practitioner’s eyes
The way the vigil is done varies by practitioner. But the picture is always used. It is always a focal point. I have met those who use magic oils and herbs. Special prayers are always used.
Warning : Do NOT burn a candle near the image of a living person
That invites the dead and the forces of death, to kill that person. It’s used in a very nasty ritual called a fake funeral. Which is meant to kill a person who isn’t dead yet. If you need to protect a person or do a healing use anything else. You can even surround a person’s picture with a powder to keep them safe.
Or a line of salt. But never use candles. That’s strictly a funerary use. Or cursing to cause harm to a person. Also the ritual can backfire and kill the spell caster instead.
Sorry I had to mention that real quick.
The purpose of La Velada, is to call forth a person’s higher self. And ask this version of them, What is going on? Why are you sick? Then, wait for the Doppelgänger to answer the question. Usually, you start to see the picture moving on its own. Not the outer edges of it. The image inside.
It starts to look like an old fashioned movie reel with the image moving. And then, it speaks to you. Using its own image to as an avatar for itself. And it will begin to tell you what is wrong with the client. How does a person’s higher self know what their regular self doesn’t? The higher self is more enlightened.
It knows things about life and death and the universe as a whole. Things you don’t know. Couldn’t possibly know yet. Also because it’s up there in the ethereal realms, it sees things you don’t. The higher self therefore is in a better position to see and know what is wrong.
Often times, if a curse is really strong, you’ll get interference. Like something acting as a barrier to block the Doppelgänger from answering. Similar to a gag put on a person’s mouth to restrain them. And when that happens, you do a stronger calling. Then you wait.
See what happens next. The other side of the soul should answer. Because it knows based on the ritual, that this is magic meant to aid, not harm. This is like a life line thrown at a drowning person. So you know something is wrong if they won’t take the line.
I won’t disclose how I do mine. Because as I said, every version is unique to the practitioner. There are some who believe there is a set way of doing things. And some like me who believe it’s flexible based on the magic user. It’s called a vigil because you have to keep watch over the following days.
So you are ready when the living spirit of the client finally appears. Then reveals everything. In some cases the spirit will say it’s a disease and not a curse. And then more or less describe the ailment to you. And from there the person has to go to a medical doctor to handle the rest.
I thought this would be an interesting addition to the blog. Since I haven’t really seen others talk about this in English speaking websites. You might read about it in a Spanish site but that’s it. It’s a well used form of folk magic. Used by everyone from old wise men and women in the country side in Mexico.
All the way to the more modern practitioners in the cities. I haven’t met many people here in the US who apply this type of magic to their work. I thought it was sufficiently spooky for the time. And an interesting practice that I think Spanish speaking practitioners outside of our countries should adopt. Cuba doesn’t (to my knowledge) use this kind of magic.
I learned it from Mexicans practitioners. But I believe others besides Mexicans know how to do this. That’s all for now. I hope you have gained an invaluable tool for diagnosing your clients.
This account was so fascinating, that I decided to translate it myself from Spanish to English, the original article in Spanish is here.
Title
The sacred ritual with a hallucinogenic tea that rescuers used to find lost children in the jungle of Colombia
With little hope of finding the four children who were missing for 40 days in the Amazon after a plane crash, the indigenous people turned to ayahuasca, and one of them predicted:
“Today we find them.”
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The weary indigenous men gathered at their base camp. Among towering trees and dense vegetation that forms a green sea so immense it is disorienting. They perceived that their ancestral homeland — Selva Madre — was unwilling to allow them to find the four children. Who had been missing since their charter plane crashed weeks earlier in a remote area of southern Colombia. Indigenous volunteers and military teams had found signs of hope: a bottle, half-eaten fruit, dirty diapers strewn across a wide swath of rainforest.
The men were convinced that the children had survived. But the heavy rains, rugged terrain and the passage of time had dampened their spirits and drained their energy. The weak in body, mind and faith cannot get out of this jungle. Day 39 was life or death, both for the children and for the search teams. That night at the camp, Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest children, resorted to one of the most sacred rituals of the Amazon’s indigenous groups.
Yagé, a bitter tea made from plants native to the rainforest, widely known as ayahuasca. For centuries, the hallucinogenic cocktail has been used as a cure for all ailments by people in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. Henry Guerrero, a volunteer who joined the search from the children’s village near Araracuara, told The Associated Press that his aunt prepared the yagé for the group. They believed it would induce visions that could lead them to children.
“I told them, ‘ There’s nothing to do here. At first glance we will not find them. The last element is to take yagé, ‘ “ says Guerrero, 56. “Really the trip for us is made in very special moments. It’s a very spiritual thing. For us, it’s like the last resort.”
Ranoque took a sip and the men watched for a few hours. When the psychotropic effects wore off, he told them it hadn’t worked. Some rescuers were ready to leave. But the next morning, 40 days after the accident, an elderly man drank what little was left of the yagé. Some people take it to connect with themselves, cure illnesses, or heal a broken heart.
The elder Jose Rubio was convinced he would help find the children sooner or later, Guerrero said. Rubio dreamed for a while. Vomited: a common side effect. This time, he said, it had worked. In his visions, he saw them. He told Guerrero,
“The children, today we found them.”
The four children — Lesly, Soleiny, Tien and Cristin — grew up in and around Araracuara. A small Amazonian town in the department of Caquetá. That can only be reached by boat or plane. Ranoque said the brothers had happy, but independent lives because he and his wife, Magdalena Mucutuy, were often away from home. Lesly, 13, was the mature and quiet one.
Soleiny, 9, was playful, and Tien, almost 5 years old before the accident, restless. Cristin, then 11 months old, was just learning to walk. At home, Mucutuy grew onions and cassava, using the latter to produce fariña, a type of flour, for the family to eat and sell. Lesly learned to cook at age 8. In the absence of adults, she often cared for her siblings.
On the morning of May 1, the children, their mother and an uncle boarded a plane. They were heading to the town of San José del Guaviare. Weeks earlier, Ranoque had fled his hometown, an area where illegal drug cultivation, mining and logging have thrived for decades. He told the AP he feared pressure from people connected to his work, though he declined to elaborate on the nature of his work or his business dealings.
“The work there is not safe,” Ranoque said. “And it’s illegal. It has to do with other people… in a sector that, well, I can’t mention because I put myself more at risk.”
He says that before leaving, he left Mucutuy 9 million Colombian pesos (about $2,695) to pay for food, other necessities and the charter flight. He wanted the children to leave the village because he feared they might be recruited by one of the rebel groups in the area. They were on their way to meet Ranoque when the pilot of the single-propeller Cessna declared an emergency due to engine failure. The aircraft disappeared from radar a short time later.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday… The engine failed me again… I’m going to look for a river… Here I have a river on the right,”
Pilot Hernando Murcia told air traffic control at 7:43 a.m., according to a preliminary report released by aviation authorities.
“One hundred and three miles outside of San Jose… I’m going to aquatize.”
The Colombian military began a search for the plane after it failed to reach its destination. About 10 days later, with no aircraft or signs of life found, indigenous volunteers joined the effort. They were much more familiar with the terrain and families in the area. One man told them the plane made a strange noise when it flew over their house. That helped them outline a search plan that followed the Apaporis River.
As they walked the unforgiving terrain and took breaks in groups, ants climbed on them and mosquitoes fed on their blood. One seeker almost lost an eye to a tree branch and others developed allergy- and flu-like symptoms. They kept looking. Historically, the military and indigenous groups have been at loggerheads. But deep in the jungle, after food supplies and optimism dwindled, they shared water, food, GPS equipment and satellite phones.
Via Associated Press (in Spanish)
Sixteen days after the crash, with the mood low among all search groups, rescuers found the wreckage of the aircraft. The plane appeared to have plummeted: it was found in an almost vertical position, with the front down. The group assumed the worst. The men had found the aircraft and saw human remains. Guerrero said he and others began packing things from their camp.
But one of the men who had approached the plane spoke.
“Listen,” he said, according to Guerrero. “I didn’t see the children.”
The man slowly realized that when they found the wreckage of the aircraft, they had not seen the body of any children. He had approached the aircraft and saw the children’s bags outside. He noticed that some things looked as if someone had moved them after crashing. He was right. The bodies of three adults were recovered from inside the aircraft.
But there was no sign of the children. Or indications that they were seriously injured, according to the preliminary report. The army’s special operations forces changed their strategy based on evidence that the children might be alive. They no longer moved silently through the jungle.
“That’s where the second phase begins,” says First Sergeant Juan Carlos Rojas Sisa. “We went from the stealth part to the noise part so that they would already hear us.”
They shouted Lesly’s name. And played a recorded message from the children’s maternal grandmother. Asking them in Spanish and the language of the Huitoto people to stay in one place. Several helicopters dropped boxes of food and flyers with messages. The military also brought in trained dogs, including a Belgian Malinois shepherd named Wilson who did not return to his caregiver and is still missing.
On the ground, about 120 soldiers and more than 70 indigenous people searched for the children, day and night. They left whistles for children to use if they found them and marked about 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) with tape similar to crime scenes. Hoping the children would take the marks as a sign to stay in place. They began finding clues to the children’s location, including a footprint they believed was Lesly’s, but no one could find the children. Some rescuers had already walked more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) — the distance between Lisbon and Paris or between Dallas and Chicago.
Exhaustion was beginning to weigh and the military implemented a plan to rotate the soldiers. Guerrero made a call and asked for the yagé. It arrived two days later. On day 40, after Elder Rubio drank the yagé, rescuers combed the jungle again from the site where they found the diapers. His vision had rekindled hopes, but he did not provide details on where the children might be.
The groups deployed in different directions, but as the day progressed, they returned to base camp with no news. Sadness descended upon the camp. Guerrero told Ranoque when the teams returned:
“Nothing. We couldn’t… There is nothing.”
Then came the news. A soldier radioed that the four children had been found, 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the crash site, in a small clearing. Rescuers had passed between 20 and 50 meters (66 to 164 feet) from there on several occasions, but did not see them. The soldier informed Guerrero, who ran toward Ranoque.
” They found all four of them,” she said through tears and hugs.
A helicopter pulled the children out of the dense forest. They were first airlifted to San José del Guaviare and then to the capital, Bogotá. Each with a team of health professionals. They were covered with insulated aluminum foil blankets and given intravenous lines due to dehydration. His hands and feet showed scratches and insect bites. Ranoque said Lesly reported that his mother died about four days after the crash.
The children survived by collecting water in a soda bottle and eating cassava flour, fruits and seeds. They were found with two small bags of clothes, a towel, a flashlight, two telephones and a music box. Tien and Cristin had birthdays while rescuers searched for them. All four remain in the hospital. A custody fight has broken out, with some relatives claiming Ranoque was violent toward the children’s mother.
He has admitted to occasional verbal and physical fights, which he called “a private family matter.” He has also said that he has not been able to see the two older children. Officials, medical professionals, special forces and others have praised Lesly’s leadership. She and her siblings have become a symbol of resilience and survival around the world. The Colombian government, meanwhile, has highlighted cooperation between indigenous communities and the armed forces in their bid to end national conflicts.
“The mother jungle gave them back,” President Gustavo Petro declared. “They are children of the jungle and now they are children of Colombia.”
That’s true, Ranoque told the AP. But they were also saved by indigenous culture and rituals. He credits the yagé and the vision of the old man in his group.
“This is a spiritual world,” he said, and the yagé “is of utmost respect. It is the maximum concentration that is made in our spiritual world as an indigenous people. That’s why they drank the tea in the jungle, he said, “It’s like for the goblin, the cursed devil, to let go of my children.”
Adventures of A Mage In Miami 