Weather witch: the rain maker

This blogpost is to chronicle work done during August 2017 and the ability to manipulate the weather. I put 5 river rocks that were taken with offering to put in this cherry tree that produced alot this summer. This is part of a Taino Caribbean Indio way to make rain. We are having one of the most dry and most wildfires here in the PNW in history. The smoke and air quality is very bad in some areas.  I sang to my Lwa Legba, Metrisili, Cachita Tumbo, Papa Sobo y Bade and Tindjo Alawe while harvesting peas for hours in the evening and my main 2 spirit guides on Sunday. I sang a song my spirits told me for rain. Thank you to my brothers and sister and native tribes doing drumming in western Canada, those who have prayed & assisted. I cannot take credit but I know they have helped us, and thankful to the Lwa & mercy of Bondye, I felt drops of rain when there should be none a few nights ago. There was no forecast for rain, now there is rain coming about 5 days to the day after I did ceremony, and they increased the forecast to rain all weekend for my birthday. My Lwa I am assured! Ayibobo! Cheeehooo its raining! our water was almost out I am on well and duck pond pump and rain barrels right now on this property. Did my rain dance song 24 hours ago. I am going to sing it again! And I always get headache before it rains. And its the thunder full moon just put my pot out to catch some!   look at the change in temperature too : Vancouver Island 29-32 degree Celsius down to 16! Wed Clear Clear 28°C  Precipitation: 0% Humidity: 77% Wind: 6 km/h Thu Sunny 29° Fri Mostly Sunny 27° Sat Scattered Showers 21° Sun Showers 16° Mon Cloudy 17° Tue Partly Cloudy 19° Wed Showers 19° Guess I owe Cachita Tumbo some yellow flowers and cigar to the river, My mother here is shocked haha, but she is a believer in curandero's too.I am not sure if this is a new inherited or latent now developed minor ability, I have only noted my connection to wind before. Perhaps due to my court or my Leo sun and Jupiterian Sag moon energies. When I was in Florida and walked to the botanica it was blistering summer: hot and clear. I was with my younger godbrother and began to sing for rain. He was in disbelief, until there were blessed welcoming cool rain drops...until we made it to be picked up by our godfather and godmother. Recently I have had to walk to work in the mountainous western area of the USA and it rains late winter and spring. I asked my spirits several times to hold off the rain until I could make it to work, and miraculously the weather obliged each time, with a few sprinkles only the one time! As to the relation between the offices of chief and rain-maker in South Africa a well-informed writer observes: “In very old days the chief was the great Rain-maker of the tribe. Some chiefs allowed no one else to compete with them, lest a successful Rain-maker should be chosen as chief. There was also another reason: the Rain-maker was sure to become a rich man if he gained a great reputation, and it would manifestly never do for the chief to allow any one to be too rich. The Rain-maker exerts tremendous control over the people, and so it would be most important to keep this function connected with royalty. Tradition always places the power of making rain as the fundamental glory of ancient chiefs and heroes, and it seems probable that it may have been the origin of chieftainship.....

The foregoing evidence renders it probable that in Africa the king has often been developed out of the public magician, and especially out of the rain-maker. The unbounded fear which the magician inspires and the wealth which he amasses in the exercise of his profession may both be supposed to have contributed to his promotion. But if the career of a magician and especially of a rain-maker offers great rewards to the successful practitioner of the art, it is beset with many pitfalls into which the unskillful or unlucky artist may fall. The position of the public sorcerer is indeed a very precarious one; for where the people firmly believe that he has it in his power to make the rain to fall, the sun to shine, and the fruits of the earth to grow, they naturally impute drought and dearth to his culpable negligence or willful obstinacy, and they punish him accordingly. Hence in Africa the chief who fails to procure rain is often exiled or killed. Thus, in some parts of West Africa, when prayers and offerings presented to the king have failed to procure rain, his subjects bind him with ropes and take him by force to the grave of his forefathers that he may obtain from them the needed rain. The Banjars in West Africa ascribe to their king the power of causing rain or fine weather. So long as the weather is fine they load him with presents of grain and cattle. But if long drought or rain threatens to spoil the crops, they insult and beat him till the weather changes. When the harvest fails or the surf on the coast is too heavy to allow of fishing, the people of Loango accuse their king of a “bad heart” and depose him. Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941).  The Golden Bough.  1922. page 86 http://www.bartleby.com/196/pages/page86.html The power of working with natural forces hits at the very core of harnessing nature. "Making it rain" has its connotations with sexual fluids, cash, fertility and abundance. Rain and water is part of the balance and requirement of life along with the masculine force of the sun and fire, without the combination we could not have rainbows or alchemy.... S7X

Pennies from heaven: gifts from spirit

Feathers and pennies are a well known sign around the world as spirit communication and gifting. Usually there is more meaning attached around the circumstances, such as the date.

This is two of my most recent gifts acquired from spirits.

I gave service to my indian spirits we call in the spanish way indios, spirit guides, as well as I honor my native ancestry. An offering was given of cooked corn, a wineglass of water, beer, cigar, and a green candle. Prayers of protection were recited, along with ones of peace, and acknowledging the people’s struggles, strength and courage. We prayed for particular people that needed to be liberated from negativity in their life. We perceptible got the message that they had left through the cracked front door and spread out to complete our request, and that we were heard.

The next day as I took out the recycling out the back door, I saw a weathered $10 bill against the left side of the door by the wall. There is a bar beside us, a block away, but that is no matter if someone drunk coming come down the alley could not have dropped it under the influence of not only alcohol but spirits. We needed the money at the time for groceries in between paychecks, but we still bought the indios more corn to give thanks.

The second story is that I have been keeping a statue of St Lazarus on the floor of my white table, which is like a boveda ancestral altar but also includes spirit guides. He is on the left near the congo section that I share with my husband. I originally bought the statue to use for the Lwa Sobo and Bade, twin goat humans who rule over wind and rain, crops in terms of drought, priesthood, warriors, misfortune, disease and healing. The statue is used to represent them as the brown and white dogs, however other saints can also be used for them, such as St Roque but perhaps that stronger represents Papa Sobo of the pair.

But that was not to be. My one congo warrior spirit came out of need and ritual calling before I was initiated, and confirmed by my Padrino who was puzzled at the spirit's presence in my cuadro, which is your spiritual frame or entourage that you are generally born with. Since I am part of a house with several traditions, and my husband is a Palero, I am around the congo based tradition of Palo Mayombe frequently. The spirits know me and although I cannot work with their Mpungo, I have had my life path reading and follow up in which Kobayende is likely my father, who is like the other religions spirits of Omulu or Babalu aye, or Bade/Badgessy or Sakpata, Heviosso. However their similarities they do of course have differences. They are of varying degrees of aggressiveness. Kobayende or Kaviunga is king of the cemetery but not the underworld. Bade unfairly is blamed for diseases, etc, but is only a messenger of ancestors who are mispleased, and in partnership with his brother, whose name Sobo or Sogbo is similar to this yoruban concept of osogbo, the spirits of misfortune, but magick and healings are also called sogbos by him.

In my second reading I was told to put the bitter melon herb around him for healing, as I was suffering an illness at the time. I keep a basket of beans to him as an offering and for cleansing , in which dollar bills go for health and protection, on a purple crown royal bag, tied with a yellow ribbon. The saint colors are yellow and purple, and white is a cooling peaceful color. I have not made his covering yet, a purple and gold beaded cape, with burlap on the inside. St Lazarus and some of these spirits likes to be covered, such as straw hat which flows over the body. So I have just tied whim with a white bandana, and given offerings of white wine, etc and have consecrated the statue. Palo does not regularly use saints for the spirits, especially if more african based, but I am an outsider. It is for my congo spirit to work with who I call Damien as a nickname. Damien does not have a statue yet, as I have a picture in my mind, but he does have a congo spear replica as his place marker.

Kobayende can protect you against the dead and disease, which is important for me as a spiritist and a healer. 

You can see in the picture his statue cracked in my backpack around his feet as I travelled back from Florida, from visiting my godparents. One of Kaviunga's epitaphs is "he who moves the earth". As Sobo represents lightening, these twins are also associated with the Lwa Agaou of earthquakes. I superglued it when I got home about 6 months ago and prepared some items in the perfectly made cavity, but now I see it has come undone, perhaps from the cold?

One day I noticed that a dried herb which was on the bookshelf about 3 ft away was in the basket. I asked if my husband put it there and he sworn he had not. Oh well, I thought maybe the overhead fan or a draft from the front door moved it. The herb is a yellow flower top called everlasting life. It was intended to make an oil designed for necromancy, as life to the dead.

About a week later, my husband found a feather tied with the yellow ribbon in the basket. I had noticed already that the ribbon around the basket seemed to be missing, but thought maybe it had slipped or moved under the items, from being moved, as it is in an area we keep supplies under in a cramped space. He mentioned it to me, and I said, I did not do it.

The feather has some blood or dark sticky substance on it, and could have come from a sacrificed rooster, the cardboard box with the Palero’s tools is often used to transport to and from ritual place he is using, the feather could have come unattached from items being fed and then placed back in its place. We have bags of feathers for item construction such as from turkeys, roosters, guinea hen, and parrots, but none like this one. The feather is not “perfect” crafting quality, it is black or dark brown with a brown stripe, and none of the roosters used had that color marking as far as we could tell.

The knot on on the quill is tied in such a way that is very strange. A sort of doubled over slip knot, but tied so tight it cannot move. One section is shorter than the other but able to be tied into a necklace to slip over the head. We both have no detailed knowledge on ways of knot tying.

This is something I could not ignore. I have seen and experienced some crazy and physical, tangible spirit contact, but nothing so solid, lasting and “real”.

Because we routinely work with the dead, avoiding the bad ones in the house, this anomaly made me concerned. I do not want random dead in my house, so I asked my husband to consult his shells for me. Everything else in our life seemed to be ok. Kobayende did not do it, but he directed it to be done, likely using a disincarnated human, and I was to wear this feather at certain times.

I gave him a small offering in order to thank him and do some bibliomancy with my congo, and as a prayer offering. The page that came up was to give thanks for a special favor obtained. "I would be unworthy to attribute them to casualty of happening or to my own merit....and to make out of it something against benevolency". I also consulted the Allan Kardec book of selected prayers for a sick person and up came the passage; I am hope: "I play with the breeze.....words which will console them.....I am with you when you are poor and sick".

Do I dare see a face?

When things like this happen they are to be taken seriously, and a good rapport with your guiding spirits, as faith that they will help you, and to follow their advices for their effort, so we may continue to receive their blessings.

Blessings to all, light and clarity,

Benediciones, luz y claridad para usted.

Sancista Siete Encruzilhadas