Category: dreams

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.

bad dreams

A reader writes,

I was wondering if you knew of anything to rid of bad dreams? My boyfriend is always in a great mood before bed, but when he wakes up he is either depressed or angry and says he has bad dreams all night. Do you know anything that could be done for this?

I have to answer this from more than one perspective. 

On the one hand, there is always the good old “leave a glass of water by your headboard” cure for things that go bump in the night.  It is said to pick up any negativity and “trap” it.  (Other traditions would recommend things like protection amulets or dream catchers, which work on a similar principle.)  I have known people to have good luck with chicken foot charms for this, as well as a glass of water *under* the bed, and there are a number of herbs that are said to induce peaceful sleep among rootworkers, among them hops.  (These would be included in an amulet for hanging or to put in the pillow — I am not a medical herbalist and I don’t advise on consuming herbs unless they can be purchased at your local health food or grocery store as teas.)

However, from another angle, dreams can be seen as messages, from the subconsious about matters that need tending, or from the spirit world.  Thus I hesitate to try to banish them unless the sufferer feels that the message they are trying to convey has been heard yet still won’t go away (and dreams can in fact be unhelpful messages or even the sites for attack by a third party — “crappy sleep” is a helluva hex to put on somebody — or from the Invisible plane from another entity).  If the sufferer has trouble with recurring nightmares and/or anxiety dreams, he might consider a reading, or at the very least, a period of keeping track of the dreams to see what the patterns are. Dreamers can usually figure out their own dreams once they make an effort to keep track and learn the “vocabulary” and “grammar” of them.  But if he feels attacked by something outside of his own mind and subconscious, then protective mojo can certainly be warranted. But I would personally not attempt wiping them out without further inquiry into their nature, if I were in this position.  Protective measures could be taken to create “safe space” and keep out hags, third parties, and energy suckers, but if the problem is from within, these aren’t likely to work in the long run to solve the restless sleep problem.

And from a third angle, recurring bad dreams can sometimes be anxiety dreams, and working mojo for them would be something akin to treating the symptom but not the cause.  They can be indicative of a stress or trauma in the past or present that is not being properly handled or adapted to by the conscious mind.  Sometimes people suffer PTSD after a majorly traumatic life event, and this can manifest in nightmares.

Something as simple as dreaming of losing a beloved childhood toy can cast a pall over someone’s whole day when it hits the right (or wrong) chord.  Normally, this is nothing to be concerned about, if it’s not a regular occurrence. But if someone is having recurrent bad dreams regularly, I would investigate

1) life stressors and causes
2) psychic attack/spirit or hag attack

in that order.  The former is much more likely than the latter.  Just my two cents.