Peace Between Us

MAGICAL LAMPS  and NAME PAPERS

In the Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Southern-Style Conjure Tradition

A PEACE BETWEEN US MAGIC LAMP

Peace Between Us

Has a relationship disintegrated into discord?
Have friends been short-tempered or cold towards one another?  Has a family conflict dredged up old animosities and disagreements?  Have folks who once got along been sniping and quarreling?

Would you like to change this situation for the better?

This Peace Between Us Magic Lamp spell can help to improve and ameliorate difficult and contentious relations.  It can help to heal bruised feelings and soothe ruffled feathers.  It can be worked for as long as is necessary.

This spell is best initiated on a Sunday.  However, hoodoo is nothing if not practical!  If you find yourself in need of this work, you may perform it when needed, even if you do not have the luxury of waiting for the best day.

Doves are symbols of peace

Remember too that it is always to your advantage to work when trouble is relatively new, rather than waiting until problems have magnified and become entrenched.  Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today!

Focus your mind.  Magic begins when you first decide to do this work, and accelerates as you gather the materials and proceed.  Turn off your phone and eliminate any other distractions.  It is always best to work when you will not be disturbed.  Time your work so that you will not be interrupted.  This is necessary
if you are to fully enter the liminal mind-set where the best work is done.


For this spell, you will need the following ingredients:

·        Sugar

·        Holy Water

Olive carries the vibration of peace

·        Basil – dried herb

·        Skullcap – dried herb                        

·        Willow bark or leaves

·        Rose petals (pink or white are best)

·        Olive leaves

·        One bottle of Hoodoo Roots brand
    PEACE BETWEEN US Spiritual Oil
    or THICKER THAN WATER Spiritual Oil

·      Prepare a separate name-paper for each
   person involved in the conflict or trouble.
  

A basic way to write a name-paper follows.  Using a piece of brown paper bag is a tradition - I take these from light-weight lunch bags.  However, this is not a necessity, and you may use other paper if you wish.  Cut or neatly tear the paper into a square or rectangular shape.

On this paper, write the person's name three times in a column, as shown in this image:

Next, give the paper a quarter-turn.  You're going to write your intention or command for the person directly on top of their name, again in a column.  Find a phrase which is very succinct and which conveys precisely what you wish them to do.  In general, it is best to think for a while about the phrase you will use.  Words have power.  When I think of the right phrase, it has a "buzz" or vibration which is evident.  That lets me know that it's the best phrase to use.  You may find the same thing to be true as you decide which phrase to use.


Write your phrase two times more than the number of times you wrote their name.  In this instance, you wrote their name three times, which means writing the command five times.  I suggest using the phrase "Peace Kindness Respect".  Here is how your paper will look after you complete this step:

I feel it is important to completely cover their names when you write your intention.  By completely covering their name with your intent, your intention has a dominant force.  Writing your intention twice more than their name increases this even more.  Do not look at this as going against someone's will.  You are helping people to control themselves, and you are helping to manage a situation for the good of everyone involved.

There is some variation in how to prepare name-papers.  You won't necessarily always write the name three times, and you won't necessarily always write the command twice more than the name, but this is pretty basic hoodoo, and this method will serve you well for this and for many spells.  Make one of these papers for every individual you are trying to help.

We are here to love one another!  Give this a try!

Stir all of the herbs together and place them on a white or pale blue plate.  Sprinkle lightly with holy water as you pray for peace, tolerance, and mutual respect to reign.  Allow the herbs to dry.

I always recommend growing, wild-crafting, or purchasing organically grown herbs.  Pesticides should have no place in your spiritual supplies or endeavors! 

Dress the name-papers with Hoodoo Roots brand PEACE BETWEEN US Spiritual Oil.  If the conflict is between family members, our THICKER THAN WATER is the best formula to use.  As always, you may combine our formulas to customize their effect.

A cool head & a kind heart wins!

Rub each name with our PEACE BETWEEN US Oil or with THICKER THAN WATER Oil, concentrating upon needed change as you do so.  Sprinkle each name-paper with sugar, then fold it towards you.


Sprinkle sugar in the bottom of the lamp reservoir.  Scatter half of the herbs on top of the sugar, then lay the name-papers on the herbs.  Lightly sprinkle a little more sugar on top of the papers, and scatter the other half of the herbs on top.  You do not need a large quantity of herbs.  A teaspoon or two will be sufficient.

Thicker Than Water

Add several drops of PEACE BETWEEN US Spiritual Oil or THICKER THAN WATER, along with drops of whatever other of our Peace and Blessing Oils you may wish to include.

Fill the reservoir to within about 1/2” of the top.  Trim your wick, and burn at a moderate flame.  Pray PSALM IV and PSALM 23 as you work this lamp on a daily basis, at approximately the same time (at least; though you may work with it more than once a day) until conditions improve.

What does it mean to "work this lamp"?
Sit with it when you are not going to be interrupted.  Focus on peace.  Put your attention on each individual involved.  Call their name, and speak words of peace to them.  It often helps matters if you communicate to them that they are well loved, and secure.  Tell them that their behavior now reflects this.  Tell them that the conflict with whomever the other individual or individuals are is now resolving with mutual kindness and respect.  You are directly communicating with their minds and spirits.  Stay very focused.

You may place your hands around the lamp, or gently and smoothly turn it in a clockwise direction.  You may choose to slightly rock the lamp with gentleness and care as you declare the situation soothed and healed.

Throughout this process, call upon the blessing and healing power of the Holy Spirit to intervene in the conflict.  See the disagreements as being over.  See everyone getting along.  See love and respect being re-established.

Make new friends, but keep the old!  One is silver, and the other, gold!

Remember that just preparing a lamp and letting it burn without further attention may be insufficient if you wish to bring about change.  For success, actively work with the lamp until the parties have made their peace.


If you yourself are involved in the conflict, make sure that your own behavior is respectful and courteous.  Resist the temptation to be snarky.  Do your best to deal kindly with others.  Remember that every one of us needs tolerance and compassion.  This does not, incidentally, mean that you should enable bad behavior or that you should be a doormat.  There are other options between warfare and being a doormat!  Take the high road.  Disengage from hostilities yourself.  Lead the way.  Work the lamp!


Wishing you all peaceful, happy relations,

Dara Anzlowar

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© Dara Anzlowar and HoodooRoots, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The material on this site may be not be reproduced in print, electronic or broadcast media,
and may not be mirrored in whole or in part on any other internet websites, nor reprinted for distribution in any format.

The Roses of Love

Baronne Prévost hobnobs with the geraniums

I'm a shameless rose lover.   

I admit it!  My garden is full of these beauties, many of which are blooming now, nodding their pretty heads in the winds that blow down from the mountain passes.  The fine Gallicas, lovely old Damasks, perfumed, heady Bourbons,  Floribundas, Polyanthas and others, are all as fragrant and lovely as can be.

 

Can you tell I’m an antique rose aficionado?  These hardy flowers flourish in my garden with an absolute minimum of fuss.    

I minimally prune and never spray, yet they bloom their beautiful scented hearts out for me year after year, some of them virtually all year long  (yes, I live in USDA zone: Paradise). 

Roses with bird, mural detail, 1st Century, Pompeii

Their 19^th century, aristocratic names also charm me to pieces.  I can easily imagine a liveried head butler standing in my garden, announcing each member of the party with a suitably royal flourish:  Excellenz von Schubert!  Mrs. R.M. Finch!   Mevrouw Nathalie Nypels!  Archduke Charles!  Baronne Prévost!  Honestly, I’d love them for their names alone.

Here is my favorite source for old garden roses.  I have always been thrilled with the quality of the Antique Rose Emporium's offerings!  They ship in large,
2-gallon containers, and every rose I've
ever received from them has arrived in vigorous good health.

 

Redouté's Rosa centifolia foliacea

I also love their wilder sisters.  Wild roses make
their home in a wide range of habitats, from pond-side (where the red-wing blackbirds love to sing) and swamp to very dry terrains.  Wild roses are simple flowers, usually 5-petaled. Their brambly thickets provide safe perches and virtually impenetrable shelter for many small birds and animals, and their colorful hips provide food for woodland dwellers during the winter.

Cemetery roses are especially poignant; they all have stories to tell.  These beauties were planted with love, and often in loss and sorrow, for the ongoing remembrance of dear ones who had passed.  Seen today, it is somewhat haunting to realize that many were planted by people long since gone themselves - yet the roses bloom on, paying fragrant tribute to the dead.

Cultivated roses have a long and venerable history.  Sumerian records, written some 3000 years ago, describe garden roses.  China, the Middle East, India and Europe all offer ancient records detailing rose horticulture and trade.  

Mrs. R.M. Finch in all her showgirl finery

The oldest of the cultivated garden roses is Rosa gallica officinalis, the Apothecary Rose.  In the West, this rose was carefully tended in monastery and convent gardens, and carried to the New World.  It has always been prized not just for it’s beauty, but for it’s gentle medicine, as well.

Roses bring joy, kindness, and peace.  They lighten strain and depression, heal broken hearts, and soothe pain. They enhance beauty in all ways, and help to awaken the heart!  They intoxicate with their perfume, and are universally recognized as signifying romantic love.

Roses were held sacred to Aphrodite and to Venus.  The beautiful Erzulie Freda loves roses as well.  Additionally, they are deeply linked to the Virgin Mary, hence the rosary!  Astrologers believe they are governed by the planet Venus.  In every way, roses are truly flowers of the heart!

Here at Hoodoo Roots, I carefully dry the beautiful rose petals from my garden for use in my Spiritual Supplies.  The deep fragrant pinks, dreamy pale apricots, pure ethereal whites, cheerful yellows, pale ballet-pinks and ivories, and deep, emotional ruby red petals all have their personality and purpose.  Many of my Love and Sex formulas are made with these petals, as are many of the formulas in the Blessings and Spiritual Help, Healing, Family and Children, and Relationships Categories.

Bring flowers, including roses, to those who are ill, for their spirits will be lifted and thus their recovery strengthened.  Roses in the home grace and bless it’s inhabitants.  And what woman isn’t wowed by a bouquet of gorgeous roses?  You simply can’t go wrong!

The deliriously fragrant Madam Isaac Periere

Have you ever had Rose Jam?

This is a delightful treat, incorporating the beauty and fragrance of roses with sugary sweetness.  It is easy to make, too.  The important thing is to source your fresh roses very carefully – never, ever use roses which have been sprayed with pesticides or other chemicals, and do not harvest roses which grow close to roads or which may be affected by agricultural chemicals in runoff water. 

I favor those roses with a deep fragrance (Rosa damascena, or many of the Bourbons, for instance), for this adds to the delight of this magical concoction.  Roses all have a different scent – some are fresh and lemony, with a tea-note; others may have a raspberry scent, or smell faintly of apples; some are shy and sweetly tender; others lush and intoxicating.   

An old American Beauty blooming in the garden

Pick the roses on a sunny morning after the dew has lifted, but before the sun has become too intense.  If you wait too long, you will sacrifice fragrance, for roses are richest in scent early in the day.  You can use your organic garden roses, or if you prefer, wild roses.  Their color is a factor as well – your jam will be tinted by whatever rosy hue you select.   

SWEETS FOR THE SWEET 

A Simple Recipe

Some traditional recipes are extremely simple, calling for no more than a few handfuls of fresh red rose petals and a couple of cups of sugar.   Finely grind these together in a mortar into a beautiful, fragrant paste, and enjoy!

Beautiful Rose Jam

Another recipe I like specifies using just 1 cup of petals to 2.5 cups of white granulated sugar.  Some folks first cut the white bases off of each petal, so that only satiny color remains. 

          Into a blender place:

• 1 cup fresh fragrant rose petals,
• ¾ cup of water,
• the juice of one fresh lemon, strained, with seeds removed.

• Blend well.

• Slowly add 2.5 cups of sugar, a bit at a time, until thoroughly mixed.

• Separately, place another ¾ cup of water in a pot.
• And add one box of pectin (I have used Kraft's Sure Jell).






• Bring to a full rolling boil.  Boil at that level for one minute.

• Pour pectin liquid into your blender (where your rose concoction still is)
• Blend very well.  If you wish, you may blend in a drop of pure rose otto.  Be sure you have bonafide, true rose otto - a synthetic dupe will never do.  If you aren't sure, ask yourself how much you paid for it.  True rose otto is liquid gold.  It commands a royal ransom, as befits the Queen of the Flowers!

• Pour into small sterilized canning jars.  It fully sets up in a few hours. 
• Once set, keep refrigerated, and consume within one month. 
• Believe me, that will not be hard!  Serve with love to those you love!
  
  

This rose jam is so full of heart, sweetness, and pure love that it could easily be incorporated into healing or love spells.  If you think on this strongly while preparing your jam, you will truly have an enchanted condiment.

An inventive conjurer could go very far with this!  Mind the chemistry of the pectin jelling, but feel free to incorporate a very tiny trace of the one you love, or of yourself.  Sing a song under your breath to the jam as you prepare it, or simply state clearly what it's purpose is.   Pour into it your intense focus and desire.  Or not!  It is delightful and magical all on it's own, pleasing and charming all tasters.  Surely this is the preferred food of the fairies!  Try it and see what happens!

Another fragrant cabbage rose gracing the garden

As always, when harvesting, you will obtain the best results if you request the permission of the plant first.  Communicate exactly what your need is.  Listen to the response.  If you feel you’ve been given a green light, go ahead!  If not, don’t push matters.  Move on.

Do not harvest without appreciation.  Do not harvest more than you need.  Never take too much from any one plant.  This is especially critical with plants which are harvested for their subtler, spiritual qualities.

Never throw used plant matter of this sort into the trash, for doing so dishonors the plant, and your future success with it may very well be compromised.  Always compost.  If you live in the city, take it with you to the park, and leave it under a bush or tree.

When harvesting, it is polite to leave some sort of offering, as well.  This may very well help with future relations with this plant, no matter where you may encounter it.  A bit of tobacco is a famous offering, but it should not be offered to members of it’s own family, the nightshades.

Wishing you rosy blessings,                           

Dara Anzlowar

The first full moon of summer

Return to the HoodooRoots website
Visit me on Etsy 

© Dara Anzlowar and HoodooRoots, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The material on this site may be not be reproduced in print, electronic or broadcast media,
and may not be mirrored in whole or in part on any other internet websites, nor reprinted for distribution in any format.