Author: Karma

At Karma Soup, I write about my chickens (badly-behaved), my gardens (reluctant), and my life trajectory (bewildering) in between researched pieces on family lore or regional history. And then I offer the odd handmade rosary, folk art shrine, spiritual cleansing floor wash, and/or salvaged/refinished end table in between DIY tips and various esoteric ramblings at the Seraphin Station site. Work on deGruy family and Conner-Tally family research continues as I have time. Projects: the deGruy-Glapion-furniture connection; children's book on family pet stories (need illustrator); family recipe book(s); children's book on Mae's scary neighborhood creatures.

New ebook for sale: The Oracle of the Dominoes (also updated prices for my other ebooks!)

One of the most generous, consistent, readable, and reliable scholar/practitioners working in Western Hermeticism today, imo. Go buy a PDF or two.

The Digital Ambler

This is a project I’ve sat on long enough, I think, and it’s high time I get it out to people’s hands in at least one form I can manage.

While it’s been a long time since I’ve bothered—I fell out of it after it started feeling like a slog and a drain—I recall how my now-defunct CuriousCat account got quite a lot of attention, and was a great way to come up with post topics or other points for discussion and research.  Starting around May 2019, I think, people really started asking me about dominoes in quick succession, as if it were some sort of joke picking up speed on the way to be a running one or something.  It all started, I think, when someone asked about a connection between geomancy and dominoes.  After all, the geomantic figures are combinations of dots, and so are the pips on…

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Slaying Dragons: Mars in Scorpio Community Altar Service (Oct 31-Dec 13)

My internet has been complete garbage the past couple of days, so I’m late posting this to various social media spots, for which I apologize!

Mars takes two years to make its journey around the sun, and as the planet of drive and action, it’s often described in terms related to the archetypal hero’s journey – the knight sets forth, has adventures, slays a dragon and all, and ultimately returns home different, having gained or learned something or grown in some way.

This two-year cycle began anew earlier in October when the sun conjoined Mars on October 7th. Then the sun entered Scorpio on October 23rd, heralding what is shaping up to be a pretty darned eventful “Scorpio season,” astrologically speaking. The sun is joined by Mars entering Scorpio for the first time in two years on October 30-31st (depending on where you live).  Scorpio is Mars’ domicile or home territory.

So there’s a LOT of energy here to be harnessed for growth and productivity. Mars has that penchant for action, even confrontation, and Scorpio brings a capacity for keen observation and careful examination so that action can be based on the most solid intelligence available, whether of the seedy underside of a public facade, the disavowed corners and closets of the personal psyche, or the unvarnished foundation upon which a potential colleague, ally, or partner has built their promises (so you can know whether you can trust them or not).

To put it another way, this isn’t the young, naive, overconfident knight riding forth thinking to make his reputation and finding in his first encounter that dragons are a hell of a lot bigger than he thought and this armor is actually *incredibly uncomfortable.*

Rather, this is the knight who’s sought and considered good counsel, who’s been training and studying, and who’s held vigil in the chapel the night before, praying, searching his soul, and ordering his thoughts. So he rides out at dawn fully aware that the task might be difficult and victory uncertain, completely accepting that this journey could involve discomfort and fear, but confident that the fight is one worth fighting and he’s been able to make an accurate self-assessment of his fitness for the quest.

Of course it doesn’t have to be so grand as all that with some epic opponent. That is, after all, just an analogy. But this sort of energy is useful in much more mundane and practical situations as well, and that is what this service is designed to help you with: 

  • if you need greater focus and clarity
  • if you’ve been struggling to make a tough decision or to take action on a complex issue
  • if a situation is so complicated you haven’t been able to see the forest for the trees
  • if an area of your life needs remodeling, reinventing, “curating,” or “deep cleaning”
  • if you need support in navigating and disarming your own psychological or emotional minefields that have held you back in the past
  • if you’re finally ready to “put your armor on” and go out to that dark old forest and fight whatever your personal dragon is
  • if you have a fixed rising sign, fixed moon, or predominantly fixed chart and need support towards the goal of getting through Scorpio season without Hulk-smashing the people and entities you will encounter who will obstruct your path or suggest that your emotions about your situation aren’t the most important thing right now

Some key points in the Mars in Scorpio timeline and what the service will be supporting or focusing on:

  • October 31st – Mars in Scorpio; Getting familiar with the woods in Scorpio season, seeing clearly, getting the lay of the land, assessing accurately, examining unflinchingly; taking action based on solid intelligence and accurate calculations.
  • November 5th – Mercury in Scorpio; listening to our intuition without ignoring or foregoing rational assessment of the possible courses of action we might take in response; not going off half-cocked despite our eagerness to *be there already.* 
  • November 10th – Mars square Saturn in Aquarius; not being defeated by delays, setbacks, and obstacles but rather accepting them as the specialized live training exercise Saturn is offering us to help us fine-tune our strategies; doing necessary maintenance on our “equipment and weapons”; restocking provisions and reserves.
  • November 17th – Mars opposite Uranus in Taurus; harnessing restless energy to direct it towards creative problem-solving and thinking outside the box; resisting shiny distractions and unnecessary side quests that take us off-course; staying the course in the face of frustration or the unexpected.
  • November 20th – Mars square Saturn backs the hell off finally; integrating and processing the lessons Saturn has imparted; getting our sights set clearly on the goal for the next stage of our journey, armed with this new wisdom and experience.
  • December 7th – Mars square Jupiter in Aquarius; acting on hard-earned confidence and courage without overestimating our own abilities or underestimating what we’re up against; looking really epic and having great lighting on our best side as we deliver a decisive blow, pass an important milestone, or land a significant achievement.
  • December 13th – Mars leaves Scorpio for Sagittarius; everybody gets a cookie. And by cookie, I mean a Crown of Success light setting to see them on their way to the next phase of their journey.

Learn more or book your spot now at Seraphin Station.

Recommended reading on reconciliation work

photo by LunarSeaArt at Pixabay

My colleague (and friend) Cat over at Cat’s Rants – Confessions of an Occult Mastermind has written a riotously funny yet oh-so-true post called Getting Back to Good – Reconciliation Spellwork Advice/Help with some advice for those undertaking or considering reconciliation work. Y’all, this kind of thing? It’s funny the way she’s written it, but she is not exaggerating one bit.

And all this advice and walking-through that she’s patient and generous enough to offer here (and elsewhere, many many times over the years)? Well, I don’t have that kind of patience lol, which is why folks contacting me for reconciliation work have a less than 10% chance I’ll take their case. 🙂

But this is highly recommended reading for anyone who might be considering undertaking love work involving an ex (and any serious student of hoodoo, for that matter). There is soooo much more to spiritual work than just what happens at the altar, and this post is a little insight into some of that.

Saints Clare and Philomena Candle Services and Novenas Begin Tonight

*While I normally ask that clients book one service per order and check out for separate services separately, in this case, since Saints Clare and Philomena are so closely associated in some traditions, I’m offering a bundled discount if you book both services together. To get the discount, you have to check out with both services at the same time.

Saint Clare Candle Service & Novena – Clarity, Wisdom, Insight, Clairvoyance

Have lights set and worked on my St. Clare altar in a nine-day community altar work service beginning the night of August 11th, the feast day of St. Clare of Assisi. There is some wiggle room and you can join up after the work starts as long as you see that there are still spots left and it doesn’t say “sold out.”

I will begin a nine-day novena and chaplet recitation to St. Clare on this same day, focused on petitioning her intercession for your stated intention, which will be included daily in my novena and chaplet work for the duration of the nine days along with appropriate offerings.

St. Clare is the patron saint of television, goldsmiths, and eye diseases. In folk Catholic practice, she is also petitioned for clear vision, literally and figuratively. Her devotees call on her when they need insight into a situation affecting their lives or guidance on how to make a difficult decision. Spiritual workers and diviners also call on her for aid in developing their clairvoyance.

In some houses and temples of vodou, St. Clare is served as the lwa Klemezin Klemay, who aids her devotees by helping clear away bad luck and negativity, and who is known to grant clear insight and the gift of dreaming true. I do serve Klemezin and have for many years, so I will accept petitions related to service of this lwa.

Learn more or book your spot at Seraphin Station.

Saint Philomena Candle Service & Novena – Lost Causes, Mental Illness, Health, Committed Love, Better Business

Have lights set and worked on my St. Philomena altar in a nine-day community altar work service beginning the night of August 11th, her feast day. There is some wiggle room and you can join up after the work starts as long as you see that there are still spots left and it doesn’t say “sold out.”

I will begin a nine-day novena and chaplet recitation to St. Philomena on this same day, focused on petitioning her intercession for your stated intention, which will be included daily in my novena and chaplet work for the duration of the nine days along with appropriate offerings.

Known as the Wonder Worker, she’s invoked by devotees for all kinds of things when other measures have failed and it seems pretty much hopeless. Some call her the patron saint of the impossible. In that respect she’s become something of a companion saint to St. Jude in contemporary folk practice.

Those who have formed a relationship with her have sought and received her help with everything from the conversion of unbelievers to fertility problems, healthy pregnancy and delivery, cure of mental illness, attraction of a spouse, and the sale of real estate. She’s said to have effected miraculous cures of injuries and illnesses ranging from heart defects to cancer. But officially, she’s the patron of babies and children and is considered the patroness of the living rosary. Padre Pio called her the Princess of Heaven.

In some houses and temples of vodou, St. Philomena is served as the helpful and pleasant lwa Filomez. She helps those who make their livings as market sellers, removes negativity and evil from the surroundings, grants the ability to have prophetic dreams, and aids her devotees seeking love. Some consider her related to Erzulie Freda, while others do not, but while the two lwa might appear to have a good bit in common, Filomez is not as demanding or haughty as Freda and doesn’t have to be handled quite as “carefully.” I do serve Filomez and have for many years, so I will accept petitions related to service of this lwa.

Learn more or book your spot at Seraphin Station.

The Blue Charm: Rustic Hoodoo Amulet Necklace

Seraphin Station

For this amulet necklace, I’ve basically deconstructed a classic rural Southern-style conjure bag, aka a mojo or toby, and made jewelry out of it.
This is backwoods conjure the way it used to be. It’s miles away from the shiny city general store with imported spices and soaps and fabrics. This is the part of the country where floorwash is made with chamber lye, not ammonia and certainly not Florida Water. New curtains come from recycled worn-out clothes, and those clothes come from recycled flour and feed sacks.

Old barn and field gear provides tiny scraps of leather. Copper, brass, and steel are scavenged from derelict machinery and buildings. Scraps of fabric — saved in an old cookie tin with thimbles and thread — tell 50 years of stories in a square inch: palest blue silk of a once-treasured gown; crisp white poplin once someone’s Sunday best; a thin strip of woven blue…

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How Folk Saints are Born

Santo Niño Huachicolero emerges as part of modern-day “folk bandit spirituality” in the state of Puebla in Mexico as the patron of huachicoleros – those who steal gasoline. His iconography is adapted from that of Santo Niño de Atocha, the Infant of Atocha, as shown here in this Instagram post if I can get the embed thingie to work:

The Catholic Church is obviously not happy about this, but this is vernacular religion in action, in direct response to social and economic realities when the official modes of religious observation and praxis do not meet the needs of the people. Thus Santo Niño Huachicolero joins the ranks of figures like Jesús Malverde and Santa Muerte who serve to fill those gaps.

Fiery Wall of Protection community altar service starts tonight

Seraphin Station

Fiery Wall of Protection community altar service starts tonight at midnight Central time. There is a little wiggle room and can join in late as long as you see that slots are still available.

Read more or book now at SeraphinStation.com.

Community altar work services focused on a particular goal or area and with a limited number of “seats” for each working are a great compromise between big workings open to any number of folks (inexpensive but with little customization available) and hiring a worker to do 100% custom, private services just for you (completely tailored to you but often considerably more expensive since the cost of time and materia magica are not being shared by more than one person).

If you’re interested in seeing a type of service or working that I’m not currently offering, please feel free to make suggestions. Some work I don’t generally perform as…

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Red Brick Dust – My Secret Family Recipe (with bonus tidbits on 18th century Louisiana Creole culture)

If the elaborate preparation rite’s too much for you, you can always just snag some Authentic Louisiana Creole-style red brick dust at Seraphin Station, instead.

Stumbled across a set of instructions for making red brick dust the other day. It had 10 separate steps and required a mortar and pestle, some rum as an offering, hand/wrist strength, patience, and a whole lot of praying.

Y’all, I’m gonna give you my secret recipe for red brick dust. And this is authentic — my ancestry on my father’s side is Louisiana Creole through and through. My father was the first generation in our lineage *not* to be born in Louisiana since my 5th great grandfather in 1752. New Orleans cemeteries are positively jammed with ancestors, on both my father’s paternal side (French Creole) and my mother’s maternal side (Spanish Creole, many of whom settled in Florida after coming through the port of New Orleans but ended up buried in New Orleans anyway given how the Catholic Church and its diocese system works – and one of these ancestors made her living in Pensacola by running a brickyard). [*]

And this is how we do it in my family. I’ve never shared this with the public before. You ready?

Continue reading “Red Brick Dust – My Secret Family Recipe (with bonus tidbits on 18th century Louisiana Creole culture)” →

internet

Seraphin Station

We have (mostly)* reliable internet again for the first time since March 23rd. Of course, now we have no hot water because there’s never a dull moment at Seraphin Station.**

Y’all, the backlog on email (esp. light setting reports, readings, and consultations), DMs/PMs on various platforms, and Etsy messages is freakin’ considerable. It’s about to storm, but I’m gonna get started on trying to prioritize all these messages in all these inboxes as soon as I get in from weather prep (protecting the more delicate and/or new plants and getting the chickens set up in case we get any flash flooding – there’s an advisory and we live on the edge of a swamp).

Let’s hope the internet still works after it rains again. (Storms are why it quit working last time.)

*This is still the worst ISP in North America and they still haven’t buried the DSL line, so…

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New Moon in Aries Road Opening Service

Booking deadline for New Moon in Aries Road Opening service is midnight Central time on the 10th of April.

This is a specific rite with a specific start and end time rather than a vigil light setting service. It’s designed to remove obstacles in preparation for new beginnings.

Visit Seraphin Station for details and booking info.