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The Final Harvest

Today is All Saints Day and I've spent it visiting the market for the last of the fresh parsley (to give to Saint Pancracio in offering) baking bread, pouring wine, lighting candles, splitting pomegranates, slicing apples, and taking photos. A lovely day it has been and I hope the ancestors and Saints have enjoyed their welcoming, and stay, in my home. A visit to the cemetery is on the docket for tomorrow to collect the year's last graveyard dirts. Soon, we will be covered in a blanket of snow and accessing graveyard dirt becomes rare.

These days of celebration bring sorrow too, of course. Sorrow that goes hand in hand with the memories we conjure up as we honor those past and sorrow for the summer gone. Yet today's photos will serve as tools to get us through the long, hard winter the Farmer's Almanac calls for. It also brings some joy as we revel in the turning of the wheel of the year-the wheel of life-which means letting go of some things...and some of those whom we love. The last harvest is so sweet; those vibrant colors, the sweetness in the air, the scents from the kitchen, and the smell of fresh cut herbs, and newly dug earth on my hands...

The Indian corn which served it's purpose of autumn decor for the past month, will be shucked and added to bacon rendering, then packed in oinion bags, to feed the birds this winter.

My largest arrowroot-she will be plenty healthy next spring and ready to harvest a few rootlets from.

Saint Christopher's garden, covered in leaves and ready for winter. Unlike many gardeners, I do not remove fall leaves but leave them as a blanket of protection for my herbs, and to serve as an organic mulch as they break down.

My home-made Kyphi being burned to invite, welcome and honor the spirits into my home.

The altar for All Saints Day; apple muffins baked by a coven sister, sliced golden apples, pomegranate, red wine, a candle devoted to Baron Samedi, parsley for Saint Pancracio, Indian corn, and kyphi.

These are Osage oranges or Hedgeapples, which grow natively here. The wood is wonderfully protective for balefires and collecting these brings back much nostalgia for me as my mother and I used to go collect them together when I was a child. There is one tree, way down in the swamps, that hangs over the road. As the apples fall, they are easily collected as most land right in the middle of the road.

To Baron Samedi.

This year's foraging of buckeyes led to discovering hundreds of them! Much better than last year, as I found just a few. I was too late and the squirrels had burried them all.

The season's last sunflower head-to be stripped and added to bacon renderings, to make winter food for the birds, as well.

The last three tomatoes. How sad it is! These were put in a brown paper bag and set on the window sill-an old trick my grandma showed me to get me through a bit of the winter:) Next year, I hope to have enough green ones still on the vines to get me through the whole winter! She said she used to be able to do that with her great plunder of green tomatoes, due to her vast garden.

The cinnamon ferns have gone to spore-I imagine I'll harvest these either for guerilla gardening 
or for some magic.

The cones from the echinacea-these will also be collected for guerilla gardening next year.

One of my arums. Fat, green and healthy-ready to make it past Old Man Winter.

The Day of the Dead is tomorrow. Graves will be swept, flowers left and candles lit...

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Have a blessed night!

Congo Square

Congo Square

Conjured Cardea has Moved!

Conjured Cardea is now located at Indiemade! Click here to visit the NEW Conjured Cardea!

Indiemade will allow me more freedom with the shop and the ability to provide you with more rare and unsusal supplies for your practice. The fees are also less, so the savings have been passed onto you with many items prices being lowered!


All items and listings have remained the same as they were in my previous shop.
You can still check out with either Paypal or any major credit card.
You can contact me directly via my e-mail by hitting the "Contact Us" button at the bottom of my page.
My blog and photos will now all be on one website, making information and accessibility a prioroty for my clients.
You do not need an account to purchase through Indiemade!
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Basically, the only difference is a new look and a more liberated feel to the shop. As always, you can contact me for free consultations and items recommendations or requests.

I look forward to you visiting your new Conjured Cardea and I hope to serve you soon!

Be blessed,
Moma Sarah

Nkisi and Working with Doll Babies

A while ago, I purchased a beeswax dollbaby kept him tucked safely away until I felt the need to get him ready to work.  The beeswax is a very good feature as natural materials are always best and full of the most ashe'. Beeswax also gives dolls a special weight and feel, almost flesh-like. Not greasy like synthetic waxes. This doll features a small hole in the bottom, making these dolls very suitable for workings because they are ready to use. I carry similar beeswax dollbabies HERE, if you'd like to develop your own repertoire of workings and power.

Doll babies and poppets are both forms of sympathetic or fetish magic. The gris gris and items you use in, and to dress the doll, would correspond with your goal for the target. By target, I mean the person (or type of person) the doll is to represent. A doll baby is usually solid-made of clay, dough, or wax-and a poppet is cut of cloth, sewn, and filled with gris gris.

One of the historical fetish traditions that correlate with this type of practice is from the Bantu of the Congo Basin and it is called "nkisi" and "nkonde". "Kiti" refers to a spiritual entity in Bantu. They can be made from  animal horns, clay vessels, gourds, ceramic, shells, and bundles of items-a practice our gris gris bags mimic. These statues or dolls are filled clay, hair, blood, and herbs-just as we fill doll babies and poppets with our own gris gris and bodily fluids. And, in the same fashion as doll babies or poppets can be used, they are used to house spirits. The Nkonde are used for protection, and often represent the protection of entire community. These statues feature a cavity in the abdomen and there may be cavities in other places as well. They are also covered with copious amounts of large, square head, iron nails. Each nail driven in repesents a petition, an oath, and/or a promise. When a nail is pounded into the nkisi, it was believed to awaken the spirit. Nkisi can be used for divination, healing, to punish and enemy, to protect and for a multitude of other uses. The tradition of Nkisi (Minkisi is plural) was carried here via the slave trade from Africa to the Americas.

A Nkisi on display at The Musée du Quai Branly.

A nkisi I had the pleasure of experiencing in New Orleans.

I began by retrieving my doll baby, whom I had kept safely in my hoodoo cabinet, near all of my dearest curios. I took extra care to not bump or knock him while working while he was waiting to be awakened. It is not time for him to have a place of his own until he is activated, or filled with ashe'. However I did not want to begin with a marred or damaged doll, as this doll is to represent someone we truly love, care for, and would never want to harm. Should the doll have been made to represent an enemy, I would have have thrown him in a dark drawer and left him until I was ready. I then collected the items I wanted to use to fill the cavity of my doll baby. I covered my work space with a large piece of brown paper, to protect from wax drippings and the grit of iron fillings on my wooden table. I gathered my lodestones, one small, square iron nail, a name paper, my choice of oil (which was my Come To Me Oil), a red candle to seal the cavity, and a few other bits of gris gris.

I inscribed my name paper (any slip of paper bearing a name), using a pen, with the name of the loved one. I then dressed it with my Come To Me Oil, rolled it up into a tiny scroll and sealed it with red wax. I made sure not to roll the scroll too tightly as I want to slip the iron nail down into the middle of the scroll to firmly attach this to the doll. The name paper was then tucked into the cavity of the doll baby.

I then dressed the iron nail with my Come To Me Oil and slipped it into the hole in the middle of the scroll. I  used my pen to push the nail as far into the cavity (and into the doll baby itself) as I could. This is one step in activating the doll baby, as you are firmly nailing the name and spirit of the person, as well as your intent, to the inside of the doll.

The cavity is now partially prepared and will be filled the rest of the way with oil, gris gris, bodily fluid, and my breath.

The cavity is then completely filled and sealed with red wax. Make sure to do this a few times as bubbles will arise from the cavity due to air needing to escape as the wax envelopes the contents of the doll .

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After carefully holding and breathing life into the doll baby, I set to work on creating a resting place for him. The resting place can not be made until the doll is activated and can communicate what it would like in a proper space. This will be saved for a post at a later time. I hope you all consider trying making your own and working with doll babies. Ashe'.

A Binding

I was contacted by my dear cousin a few days back about a concern of hers with the possible threat of harm. Of course, being family, I set to work immediately. Here is the working that followed and the process.

I first began my protecting my space with a hand made Archangel Michael incense. I also evoked Oya as she is the great protector of my home, family, and business. I then took a hand poured, Black Figure Candle and inscribed it with the name of the target. I did not load this candle because loading really imbues the candle with your ashe'-not what I wanted here since this was a binding working. 

The candle was then bound, from toe to head and back down again, with dark blue ribbon. This ribbon had been soaked in my Dark Arts Oil. 

I then poured pure palm oil over the representation. Just as you would bury a charm to protect your home in your yard, or just as you would add sugar to a working to sweeten what you want, I wanted to smother the representation. To cover the target so they keep to themselves and away from my family. A sort of symbolic cacoon or blanket to keep their energy and actions contained. This can also be done with mineral oil or motor oil but I don't recommed motor oil as it is toxic and can not be diposed of by buring or tossing into water.

I then covered the representation in crushed dirt dauber nest to seal the hex and also Guinea pepper to control the target. Dirt daubers ake there hard tunnel-like nests from thick mud. It completely encases them which makes this ingredient appropriate for bindings and hexes. The thick palm oil causes these to stick nicely to the representation.

A close up of the representation, now lit. Hexes followed for the next hour or so.

Double flames are a good sign in my workings and I recieve them often. In this case, I interpret the flame represents the seperation of the target from the circumstance. I also didn't mind the entire front of the representation then falling off and burning...

This is the final pool, which is still burning. The remnants will be taken to a swamp-a "dead" body of water rather than a "living" body of water. Living bodies of water, such as lakes, are typically used to imbue things with lively abundant energy. Rivers, though they are live, are often used to carry things away from you such as old partners or habits due to the fact that they flow away from us. A lake will always bring things back to shore so please take this into conideration when disposing of working remnants. Swamps are stagnant pools of water, few living things thrive in them, which is why I find them appropriate for binding workings. You can be certain that your representation will sink to the bottom and rot. They will NOT be washed back to shore.

Here are other Hexing Oils; D.U.M.E, Bat's Blood and Lost & Away