to a whole new town with a whole new way

the first time, I was twelve and the sorcerer was a plump woman, but while on duty she was speaking for a male spirit, so you were supposed to call her hermanito, little brother. my mom sent me because she had the idea I was stirring up the animas with my sleepwalking, my nightmares and my watching at shadows. the little brother rubbed me from head to toe with an egg and then she cracked it in a glass of water. she felt over the glass with the tips of her fingers --she had her eyes closed for the whole encounter, and she spoke with the voice of a man--, mumbled something about insolent children and gave me a white candle with stars and other symbols, smeared all over with holy water and peppered with some ourfathers for good measure. I lit it at home, where the candle tipped over and bled wax all over my desk, leaving me a perfect empty husk of candle. I didn't feel especially enlightened after that.

the second time was when I was in college and this time they took me because I was seeing astral bugs, or what my doctor now lovingly terms 'sensorial spasms' brought on by my slightly irregular brain pulse. but at the time the sensorial farts were following me everywhere, brushing past people, whispering, startling the guests, cutting the milk, and just disturbing the peace in general. I guess my mom thought she'd better take her not so little regan to the brujos before the walls started bleeding or I started walking like a crab.

I actually visited this group quite a few times, because they tried to recruit me. there was no little brother with his eyes shut here, just a bunch of people, from a very old guy to a nine year old girl, and they did cleansings by pouring a ring of alcohol around the person and lighting it on fire. there was much chanting of blessings, incantations and holy maries. they cured illnesses by cutting away the pain with knives, and I must say that worked very well. I saw a bunch of weird stuff at that house; everything squirmed with gentle spirits. those guys had actually something real going on there, believe me or not. and now I can't really remember why I stopped going to their sessions, I guess I thought I had more pressing issues at hand.

and today I was once again taken to a hermanita by my progenitor; she went by herself a couple of months ago, because she was sure my crazy neighbour was bewitching her (hey, she had good reason; the neighbour (my brother and I call her madame mim) piles wood and stones around our house like the blair witch and she draws inverted crosses with rows of little beans pointing at my mother's car). my mom, after a wonderful streak of bad luck that included a dislocated kneecap, a freak crash in the highway, a stolen wallet --with the credit loss associated, an almost-dead man in the middle of nowhere and a mother with a broken hip, decided she'd had enough and that she needed divine intervention.

she went a couple of months ago and came back with word that it's unlikely that the neighbour is bewitching her, for she's only a really old lady with a lot of imagination and spare time and not a bit of malice in her, and that her bow of mysterious herbs had cleanly exploded during her cleansing, spraying the whole room with smoldering bits. little sister told my mother no one's bewitching her, but many people have been thinking ill of her and that negative energy travels until it sticks, but that her luck should be better from then on.

she thinks her hexes worked fantastically, so she took me with her today so I'd ask for luck for my new house. my mother thinks I'm being daft and that I need all the help I can possibly get. I agree with her on all accounts, so we linked arms and off we went to see the wizard. the sister this time was a pretty woman in her thirties, and she also kept her eyes shut our whole encounter. I sat across from her and told her that I'd just rented a house, that I needed work to keep up, that I'd appreciate any help in the luck and work areas, if she could pass the message. she said I'm going to be fine and my plans are going to work out fine, that the house is a good thing for me, and things are looking up; that she hears a lot of sadness in my voice, that I have to let go of what's over and face everything that's coming, because everything that's coming is good. he told me that The Male (that's what she said) is not going to come back, that our goals and paths are diverging.

her father then cleansed me, he gave me two lemons to hold in my hands as tightly as I could, he covered me with a white cotton sheet, fragrant with balsam water, and then brushed me with those boughs they use and passed the burner with the copal all over me. he gave me water to rinse me head and heart from all evil, gave me some oil to smear on my face and arms as a protective shield, and told me to have faith and be careful, because there are some people who envy me. then he smiled, making his face break into about a million kind wrinkles, and told me everything was going to be great.

they gave me three green candles to light for prosperity --which is strange, because I'd been contemplating doing a spell with green candles-- and a tall white candle for attracting the universal groove, and they're burning in my room as I type. I also think everything's going to be fine.