A reader writes to ask,
Dear Karma,
Why did you leave the curanderismo yahoo group?
A: I didn’t leave. I was removed. Upon Bryant Holman’s death, the moderators were made group owners. I had moderated the group for years, and was invited to do so by Bryant many years ago. Through a series of events I won’t detail and some thinking I won’t even pretend to try to fathom, one of the moderators took it upon themself* to remove me from the group. If you want the details, you’ll have to join the group and read the threads yourself – assuming they haven’t been removed. I’m not going to go into it here. Yes, I was invited to rejoin as a member, but I deplore the backhanded powerplay at work in this series of events and I will not participate and thereby give tacit approval of such antics.
Rest in peace, Bryant. I’m sorry things went down this way. God bless.
* I’m deliberately using bad grammar so as not to identify the gender of this moderator.
Another reader asks,
Dear Karma,
Why don’t you have regular hours where you answer your phone?
A: I have a full time job outside my home, and running my ebay store and handling website sales is getting pretty close to being another full time job lately. I am also a parent. I would have to have "open hours" from something like 9 pm to 1 am, and frankly, you don’t want to talk to me then. I have been handling my business by web and email since 2002, and I am just not set up to do otherwise. Besides, I hate talking on the phone. Hate it. I hate doing phone readings. I sell products only via web, so if people have product inquiries, they need to email me. If I were to ever have someone answer a business line, it wouldn’t be me anyway, so you just might as well email. I am able to return calls on Saturdays only, and I am about six weeks behind in returning calls right now – I can return only a fraction of the calls I have saved messages for each weekend, especially as I’m not here every Saturday. I’m often in the graveyard, doing work for my clients, or in my "work room" doing work for my clients and customers, or traveling to do spiritual work with my local "posse," or working on day job stuff, or taking a few hours to do something with my child. If you simply have to talk to somebody on the phone, I can recommend some folks for you, but if you’re waiting to talk to me, you could be waiting a seriously long time. The best way to get in touch with me remains email. That is not going to change in the near future.
Dear Karma,
Do you make incense powders?
A: Nope. I started making all this stuff because I lived in the backwoods of Alabama and mailorder or travel to get what I needed was getting too annoying and time consuming. The older I got, the harder it got to find local places to get stuff I could use, stuff that wasn’t mass produced, stinky Anna Riva shite. Plus I had the whole artsy/craftsy upbringing and already knew the nuts and bolts of herb gathering, candle pouring, potpourri making, sewing, beading, mortar-and-pestle-ing, and bone whitening. (I can also make a roux. And get a tick off a dog, and skin a rabbit, and am a sharpshooter). So I started making the stuff I used all the time. I pretty much only make stuff I use. Since I only ever use the loose herb-and-resin incense, the kind you burn on charcoal disks, that’s the only kind I make. I just haven’t had time, and don’t have the space now that I live in a place in a city, to take up another "craft." So if you want self-lighting incense powders, try Lucky Mojo or Black Cat Root Shack, who sell Lucky Mojo incenses.
Big Lucky Hoodoo 