Jeudi: Root Work

Over the summer a very dear friend had a relative who was ill with an aggressive form of cancer. Illness hit my friend’s relative all of a sudden so to speak and, though she was not a young woman, she certainly was not someone of whom people would say “she had a long life”. My friend’s relative was ready to fight the invader in her body, and my friend wanted her to have every advantage possible.

My friend is herself a wise woman who practices a Wiccan tradition and of course she offered her work in the effort to help her sick relative. As anyone who practices magick of any tradition will tell you, it is advantages to call in a third party when the task seems daunting. Like prayer, spell work is only enhanced by the involvement of other spirits and minds linked to a common goal. My friend asked me to contribute something from my discipline to help the fight. I decided to send along a mojo bag with a bit of a twist that would draw in the ancestral energies of my friend, the sick woman and me as the root worker.

I first gathered my ingredients:

A white candle in a votive and a lighter
Two three by three inch squares of blue silk
A needle and gold thread
A piece of parchment and a pen
A chip of turquoise (protection, courage and healing)
A bit of myrrh resin (healing and protection)
A pinch of dill (healing, removes crossed conditions)

Next I found a quiet spot where I knew I would be undisturbed for an hour or so. Time to begin.

I sewed up a little bag of silk using the gold thread. I put aside six inches of the thread to close up the bag once it was filled. I then pulled out the white candle and, lighting it, spent some time concentrating on the health and well being of my friend’s relative.

(Note: this is the ephemeral part of the work. You have to connect with your spirits (regardless of your religious propensities) and draw that energy through yourself into the work at hand. Practicing simple focus with a candle, rock, card, piece of jewelry etc. can help you achieve this form of “trance state”. You’ll know it when you feel it; but it does take practice.)

Now it was time to rip off a little piece of the parchment paper and draw the protective Norse rune known as Algiz on it with the pen. Algiz represents "protection" and looks like this:While concentrating on healing and recovery, I slipped the parchment into the little bag, followed by the turquoise and the myrrh. I sprinkled these with the dried dill and then tied the bag closed with the gold thread, using three knots while reciting “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost” as is customary in hoodoo. (The Wiccan “so mote it be”, Druid “it is done” or any other “binding phrase” is equally appropriate here).

I held the completed mojo in my hands for a while and concentrated yet more on imparting health and vitality to it. Finally I left it with the candle which was allowed to burn out.

The mojo was sent off three days later with instructions to carry it near or on the person and, when healing had been achieved, to bury it in a far corner of the property where the person lived. If they live in an apartment or other rental, the bag can be buried in a houseplant or – in a pinch – burned.

I am happy to report that my friend’s relative is in remission now. Do I believe that my work healed her of its own accord? By no means. Most of that was achieved through her own effort. But, as another friend is fond of saying: “It couldn’t hurt”.

Header: La Virgen de los Doloros, 18th century mural from Pinacoteca de la Casa Profesa, Mexico City, Mexico