New Years 2018 luck: flowers bath, florecimiento & more!

Hi everyone, I have been working on alot of things and with clients, so I haven't been able to blog or vlog as much as I would like. On my facebook page I try to stream Sundays at 6pm PST, 7pm MST.

Last year I described how to make traditional Christmas and New Years baths that you can do again this year if you like. I have seen some synthetic New Years kits go for $40 and up plus shipping, but I would like to tell you how to do your own at home. Many people do buy them prepared from a spiritual worker or performed by them, instead of a commercial source because they have more power.

                                             taken from autenticohechizosdebrujeria.blogspot.com

I thought to release how to do a different lucky bath for the new years. You should do a cleansing before you start these attraction baths.

It is a common afro-hispanic bath to use sweet herbs like mint, after a series of bitter herbs if you also want to check out that blog entry to do that, or use the sweet herb list to make a floorwash after you have swept the floor back to front. Important to note again is we do not usually add fruit or flower to leaves together.

Some people buy a new broom for the next year after they have swept out the bad, and smudged out your place with some palo santo, copal, or sage with other herbs. The house is cleansed, and the car, because that is how the next year is going to be.

Flower baths are a common sweet bath to bring the good in life, and for the new year. It is because flower or flora sounds like flourish, to grow and bloom the new opportunities. This bath is known as florecimiento. It is common to use 3 different colors of roses or flower such as yellow for money, red or pink for love, and white for general blessings. We almost always use fresh items because they have more energy, but you could use dried  flowers or a tea bag of chammomile,. This is a customary bath in many afro-hispanic countries and in south America. One mixed bouquet would be more economical, and the extra flowers can be given to your spirits. One color flower based on intent is also fine. To this can be added a sweet perfume like florida water or pompeya or water such as rose water if you cannot afford roses, orange water, or milks. Rice milk or water runoff is great, as rice is associated with purity, prosperity and the New Year. Honey, orange juice, holy water, champagne, cinnamon are other ideas to add. You can also added mushed up sweet fruits. Some make a version with boiled apples or a bit of applesauce. You can add water from your rose of Jericho bloom that can also be added to floorwashes.

Remember we always add odd number of things to a bath. I would do this for 3,5 or 7 days, sat in or sponged up the body to the head after a normal shower. (Always check with your godparents as some items are taboo for those who have crowned spirits). You will shred and mush the items with your hands, and put your intention into the mix, whether you want love or money or what you wish for the New Year. You will pray over it by laying on your hands, singing, or reciting psalms it is up to you. Cover it with an appropriate color cloth and keep it beside your spirits.

To recap a basic idea would be:
flowers, honey, oils/waters/perfumes, cinnamon and/or sweet spices.

I recommend you also use a sweet incense in the house such as coconut, vanilla, rose, cinnamon etc. Use a bayberry, bakery smelling, cinnamon or rose: sweet candle, or a white candle anointed with a sweet fruity or floral essential oil like orange etc, every day that you do your baths. You can also keep a prosperity, luck or love lamp.

Prepare a sweet drawing or refreshing floorwash, from the front of your house to the back, reverse to what you would do in cleansing. I would either use basil, parlsey, mint, lemongrass/Van Van/Chinese wash or just abre camino herb (bitter but opens the roads new opportunites in life) with a splash of holy water. It is a good idea to rearrange furniture and decor to get the energy moving, and throw out old and broken items and clothes. Some people wear new clothes and underwear on New Years. In Puerto Rico they wear new white undies, in other countries yellow, or based on what they desire. In Mexico red underwear for luck or others for strength power and protection. They also bathe in the ocean before the clock strikes midnight dunking themself 7 times. Others drop backwards into the wave at midnight to drive away evil spirits.

Many cultures all over the world have New Years rituals and customs. Many eat special foods such as black eyed peas for health and wealth or rice pudding. A gold ring in champagne for prosperity and love, or the festive coquito drank in Puerto Rico. 12 grapes for good luck are eaten under the table in the last 12 seconds to midnight for a good 12 months came to the new world from Spain. In Latin America a suitcase for business or for travel is placed by the front door with coins in it after running around the outside of the block with it. Clean out and fix your wallet or purse with dry beans or money drawing oil for prosperity. Some also fix their shoes, or put a coin in their shoe to walk into the new.

Some throw a bucket of water out of the window of the house to cleanse it at midnight or clang and bang pots and pans while opening the door and walking outside to rid the place of bad energy and spirits.

                                            Prosperity Lamp

                                         My Tata also has a spell using flat leaf parsley in a vase kept by the front door on a plate around which is arranged cut oranges and honey drizzled ontop the whole thing..

What will you be doing?

                                         Feliz Ano Nuevo! Wishing you health, wealth and blessings,
                                        Sancista 7 Crossroads

Magical concept: sweet & bitter, herbs and spiritual baths

You might want to read my basic blogpost of notes on spiritual baths first

Sweet or Dulce is attracting of the good things that are desired in life and generally blessing.

Bitter, Amarga or Amine is cleansing and removes the negative energy that can block new good things in our life such as a job, romance or healing, and thus a bitter bath, is usually done for a consecutive number of days usually 3 or 7, followed by the drawing in or sweet for the same number of odd days.

Also in cleansing baths is sour ingredients such as vinegar or acids such as coffee and limes or lemons. Bitter herbs are usually naturally high in sulfur and ammonia.

What is bitter is often called strong, "forte" or hot but not always. For example cinnamon is hot and sweet, perfect for love and money work. The heat adds force and quickness. What is sweet also can be cleansing by exceptions, but in general condition or drawing baths are not for cleansing. As you can see almost all flowers are sweet, so perfumes like Florida water while mildly cleansing or more accurately refreshing and used for the alcohol content, is also an attractant to spirits (2 handed) such as with the dead and ylang ylang or Kanaga water, as the sensitive part of the plant, so you must be clear with your intent on using it. Florida water and other alcohol based waters can be added to the bitter as an exception. I am talking about not mixing bitter and sweet leaf in general.

A bitter bath is no rival to cleansing. Usually 7 bitter leafs are used, the number of the forest and celestial, but for more important preparations sometimes 21 are used.
With sweet herbs an odd number like 3, 7 or 5 as the number of the sweet waters of the river. You could just as easily mash up sweet fruits and use this. My apprentice for a time would do dry candy cleanses, wrapped candy passed over the body and then thrown in the trash. We are working with our spirits either emissarios or misterios associated with those areas along with the power in the plant, and our own energy.

An odd number of ingredients and often of sacred significance is used. Ocean water and salt are considered bitter. There is a whole philosophy on bitter water such as of the transatlantic slave trade, diasporic removal from the african homeland and tears. The ocean is a life source as well as a watery grave. It still can be used for finance work, as in trade and ships coming in, and associations with spirits such as Agwe and the riches of the sea. Some consider material such as bluing or minerals of salt, sulphur, and dirt inert and neither bitter nor sweet in themself.

Because bitter is hot and removing, we for the most part do these baths neck down only to not heat up the head, and create hot tempered imbalances, nor embitter the area and disposition for spirits that are beneficial to us, more importantly if you have been crowned with your spirit guides and higher spirits, but also the claimed ancestors. Likewise I personally will avoid salt unless there is a big problem, because our good dead do not like it, as it leaches their energy to the earth until they are of enough elevation or progress spiritually.

There are many technical concepts when it comes to bath preparation. For example in general we do not mix sweet with bitter, flower or fruit with leaf. Root and leaf is generally ok.
There are exceptions to these rules but are general guidelines. Each plant has a sentient spirit that lives in it that can be prayed to and honored. Remember to give an offering and wild harvest responsibly the plants you take. We almost always use fresh herbs for the vibrancy and potency of energy, but the bath can have white rum or alcohol, bay rum, added to preserve a larger amount for a short time kept in the fridge or for hand passes like Florida water.

Alot of people do use dried bay, rue and hyssop though.

There is the disposal of the bitter leaf material away from the house with a payment say of 3 coins to the crossroad, each place having a significance to spirit, energy and number associated. The sweet bath remains usually are kept around the house, such as a floor wash. The bitter wash can also be used to clean the house and spiritual tools.

Certain leaves which are more tropical, in spanish are named to their function such as quita maledicion is bitter to stop evil, same as espante muerte: chasing the dead. leaves and sticks/palo with the name rompe means break negativity, lies and spells on you. We are taught not to put espante muerte on the head nor abre camino due to opening up of this area in which spirits have been placed.

We do not boil the fresh leafs but we mash it with our hands and sing and use prayer into the warm water and speak our intention. We may leave it next to certain shrines or altars with a novena candle inside.

The most important herbs in Sanse are probably
Tobacco: messanger Lwa and Taino cemi spirit
Major plant spirits hold leaves such as Loases Gran Bwa, the biggest tree of the forest and Ogu Osain.

Whereas some cultivated herbs would also fall under the agricultural Lwa Azaka, yet both also relate to the land and certain natural areas.
Rompe Saraguay (spell breaker and removes negative dead), bitter along with garden sage and rue
Basil can be cleansing but also blessing and very important, it is also a major exception and can be mixed with bitter such as rue and sage.
Ceiba tree, the silk cotton Mapou: our holy magic and world tree, bitter and blessing
Abre Camino to open paths, bitter
Copal as sacred to the Taino people and the dead, 
as well as Anamu bitter congo weed root a very useful medicine for many ailments such as arthritis and cancer. Anamu is taboo in some Ocha houses due to being poisonous to children of Obatala and toxic to children of Yemaya. It is one of the ingredients in our Taino Indio drink we infuse in alcohol.

Spirit-Blossom Ceiba Tree by Lisa Dunbar Solas

Below is a simple list that most people can find around that do not live in the tropics, which is much more extensive if you need to prepare certain objects and during initiations. Otherwise, there is not as much need to order from tropical botanicas, and you can use what is in your area following certain principles. There are certain plants that have to be used in those cases. Always follow your tradition and godparents guidelines. What is used in Palo is different than Lucumi. One list I saw had abre camino, avocado leaf, rosemary, altamisa and sage listed as sweet, I consider those all bitter personally. Another had mint as bitter and I consider that sweet. Of course there is alot to study about plants, medicinal use, safety and for magical use beyond these concepts.

SWEET LEAFS

Mints

Mejoram
Bee balm or Bergamot
Stevia
Parsley
Angelica
Lemon balm or verbena
Lettuce and watercress (but not dark leafy bitter greens)
Vervain
SWEET FRAGRANT FLOWERS OR ALL SWEET FRUIT
marigold, carnation, lily, lavender, chamomile, violet, rose, orange, jasmine perfumes etc attract 
mangos, oranges, apples, bananas, melon, tropical fruits: pineapple, papaya, guava

SWEET SPICES

Anise
Cinnamon

Sasparilla
Honey, molasses, cane sugar etc
Goat milk, coconut milk, almond milk, dairy milk, rice milk or water

BITTER

plantain (not the vegetable, the ground leaf next to drainage areas or grass in wetter northern climates)
white sauco elderflower/berry leaf
fennnel
purslane
black tea leaf

tobacco

fern

rue

dandelion leaf

epasote or epazote mexican cooking herb

sage: usually fresh garden or cooking sage

artemisa: wormwood, mugwort, motherwort etc

white morning glory leaf, datura leaves, but also purple bell flower leafs: morado

Laurel bay

nettle

corn leaf husk

eucalptus

spanish broom

horseradish leaf (not traditional but found it works)

vencedor: lilac tree leaf wins battles, triumphs

most tree leaf

thistles: milk thistle, blessed thistle

garlic bulb root, onion, tumeric root

BITTER FRUIT

limes, lemons, bitter melon gourd, coffee

I am going to write more on a major magic concept of hot and cool
But as I have been writing on spiritual baths of late, 
my next entry will be for the 2 Christmas and New Years Baths of Bain Noel and good luck Bon chance. This will be so those that want to make them can for Dec 24-26 or January 6th or 8th

I have a bunch of blog entries planned, such as for elevation after death, because I have alot of requests plus, it is that time of year for those to or who have travelled to the otherside of the veil. Contact me if you would like me to cover a topic you have not seen so far.

-Sancista 7 crossroads XXXXXXX