Who Will Cry For The Raccoons?

I have a natural gift for working with spirits of all kinds, including animal spirits. Not everyone who works with spirits works with animal spirits. In fact, some people are simply unable to. If you do have a knack for it, try to be mindful of how you connect with them. Using animal parts is a very old part of conjure, but the methods of obtaining those parts today is so very different from back in the early days of conjure. Whereas a "coon dong" (a raccon baculum, the "penis bone") would have been obtained via responsible hunting*, in which both the meat and fur were used, today most people buy them through marketers. The marketers obtain large amounts of these wholesale as cast-offs from the HORRIFIC fur industry.

I find it so hypocritical that people make a huge fuss and cry about how evil the black cat bone ritual is, then turn around and support an industry dedicated to that same kind of cruelty! In fact (and first let me tell you I am a cat lover and I work with Cat) because the black cat bone's purported gift of invisibility would be absolutely invaluable to an escaping slave, I see this indifference to the suffering, torture, and slaughter of animals by the fur industry and the people who support it as MORE evil. Who will cry for the raccoons? Who will cry for the foxes? Who will cry for the wolves? Who will cry for the coyotes?

There are many campaigns which aim to end the fur industry. Way too many people instantly think of PETA when they hear people about this kind of thing and instantly stop listening. The Humane Society of the United States has an excellent campaign one can donate to.

No animal should have to suffer and die just for you to have good luck at the casino or a spicier sex life. There are so many amazing plants whose roots, leaves, flowers, and other parts do an exceptional job at both of those things, and anything else your heart desires. Marketers need to be held accountable for their support of such needless, evil practices. They buy big wholesale lots of the bones, teeth, and fur of raccoons, wolves, foxes, coyotes, lynxes, badgers, and other fur-industry animals for pennies per piece, then turn around and resell them for a huge mark-up. It's all about money money money.

In my next post, I will show you many wonderful cruelty-free ways to connect to animal spirits and welcome their powers into your life.

*Please take special note of this important distinction. There are many people who hunt and use everything they kill. They are not trophy hunters. I am not opposed to people who utilize the skins and bones of their food. Humans are omnivores, and RESPONSIBLE hunting is far better than the nearly equally cruel factory farming industry.

Pet Peeve: "Cut And Clear"

I have been itching to write about this for quite some time. All over the internet hoodoo community, people are obsessed with various types of lemon-based lines of products called "Cut And Clear", taken from a certain marketer's original name for their line. The formulas all follow the same basic concept: using lemon as a spiritual cleanser. There's nothing wrong with that part, lemon is fantastic for cleaning up all kinds of messes. The part that I have a problem with is that people are being taught you can "cut" with this formula.

Let me say it loud and clear: IN CONJURE, CLEANSING IS CLEANSING AND CUTTING IS CUTTING. You might be about to argue with me that the "cutting" part is just a figure of speech, like when you "cut" or sever ties with someone. This is not so in conjure, where the concept of "cutting" is becoming erased because it's not something marketers can make an oil/sachet/powder/incense/bath out of and sell for a huge profit. In conjure, we literally use sharp objects (knives, axes, hatchets, scissors) to CUT away illness, pain, evil attachments, etc. If someone is sick in bed, you would place the sharp object under the bed to cut away the sickness. If a woman is in labor, you would place the sharp object under the delivery bed to cut her labor pains. To cut someone out of your life, you would literally cut all around you with a knife, praying to cut the ties between the two of you.

AFTER you have done your cutting, you can use all the lemony cleansing products your heart desires. The combination of cutting--totally breaking the hold of something--and then cleansing it away is incredibly effective. If you want to cleanse only, that's fine, but don't let others confuse and erase a very important conjure practice by calling cleansing "cutting".