Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour #08-07: Getting Rid of Long Standing Bad Luck (Miss Cat, Dr. Kioni)

[MissMichaele]

Dear Miss Cat and Dr. K.,

Today I pulled a few cards while thinking about our discussion on the radio
show Wednesday night (4/16/08).

The main question was: "If I do exactly as Dr. Kioni and Miss Cat told me
to, how will I prosper?" Well, I got the meanest cards I have ever seen
together. So I pulled some more individual cards, one for each question. I
do agree with you that it probably is my mother-in-law. When I asked, "What
have I done to you?" I got the 7 of Wands - "getting above myself" - like
the left-behind families of immigrants who curse their ambitious kin!

So I asked a couple questions about what it would take to make her relent
and only got more mean cards. What a tantrum! Finally, as I shuffled one
last time, I pleaded, "But, Helen, I was told to leave a peace offering at
your grave!"

IMMEDIATELY five cards fell out of the deck, in this order:

Past: 2 of Wands, reversed

Present: High Priestess, reversed (that's her again, I believe)

Future: Star!

Outcome: Empress!

5th (extra) card: Knight of Pentacles!

So, yeah, I think a little cake brought to her grave will be acceptable!

And the clouds are clearing already. After the show I checked my Hoodoo
Foundry email and discovered that someone - another student of Miss Cat's,
it turned out - had paid for a consultation. Not only that, but the
severance package from my ex-employer will come to almost $10,000, and I can
get the same amount from Workman's Comp if I want it. Suddenly we have
enough money to support us for over a year while we get our next act
together!

Thanks again, about a million times,

Michaele Maurer
Student #361

(I love success stories and good news, and this one is still on a roll -- 'cause Dr. Kioni and i are going to be working out the radio show transcription deal with you too, and that will not only get you some bucks, but it'll also get your name known. Also, there is the matter of how far you want to go as a reader and worker, and what will help you achieve that goal. --cat)

[MissMichaele]

LUCKY MOJO HOODOO ROOTWORK RADIO HOUR

April 16, 2008

LIVE SESSION: GETTING RID OF LONG STANDING BAD LUCK
with client Michaele

[MUSIC INTRO: Jug Band Waltz by Will Shade and the Memphis Jug Band]

[DR. KIONI introduces MISS CAT, client, and nature of case]

DR. KIONI: Tonight's guest is Michaele, and we're going to talk about
bad luck and things just not going right. Michaele, how are you?

MICHAELE: I'm just fine!

DR. KIONI: That's wonderful.

[MISS CAT and Michaele hesitate as they try not to talk over each other]

MISS CAT: Go ahead.

MICHAELE: We were just talking about the Hoodoo Astrology workshop
that we're looking forward to in May. And I was telling her that I
can only remember which way the sun rises by remembering a frame from
the Wonder Warthog comic books: a Japanese character is exulting in
his victory by saying, "The sun rises out of the East!"

[Laughter]

MISS CAT: Well, you know what I tell people when they say they don't
know which way the sun rises: I ask them if they've ever heard that
old blues song, "Tell me, man, tell me, man, which way the rising
sun?" The last line is, "It rises in the East and it sets down in the
West." It's a blues song that just tells you where the sun rises.

Anyway, we're looking forward to going to the workshop on May 4, and
I'll be giving the class on Astrology for Rootworkers. And of course,
on May 3, we're having our party here at the shop.

[MISS CAT gives particulars about the party]

MICHAELE: I will definitely be there.

DR. KIONI: Mm-hmm! We're definitely going to have a good time.

MICHAELE: My daughter is going to come, too.

MISS CAT: Wonderful!

All right, let's talk about your situation here tonight, and thank you
very much volunteering to be our little guinea pig here. And you're
going to get your reading and we'll prescribe some things for you.
Take it away, Dr. Kioni, because you're usually the person who sets
these things up for us.

DR. KIONI: Thank you, Cat [a few pretty compliments].

I have worked with Michaele over the past few years, off and on, as a
Conscious Creation Coaching client. Out of that sprang the Hoodoo
Foundry, isn't that correct?

MICHAELE: Yes. You told me the reason that several financial
opportunities had collapsed was because I was not following my true
vocation. I told you that the things that most inspired me were
conjure and poetry. I had been wanting to put together a hoodoo
website, and so I did: hoodoofoundry.com.

DR. KIONI: Mm-hmm! And so you began to exercise your gift, and do
that which makes you happy. That's what I tell people to do to
self-actualize -- to do what makes your heart sing; the thing that you
could do every day for the rest of her life, and if money were no
object you'd do it for free. Isn't that what we talked about?

MICHAELE: Pretty much.

DR. KIONI [laughing]: And now we're here because something's just not
quite right, correct?

MICHAELE: Yeah.

DR. KIONI: Well, you take it away and tell us what's just not quite right.

MICHAELE: Well, Hoodoo Foundry is -- well, I'll phrase it hopefully
and say it's a sleeping giant, but it is definitely sleeping. So I
have continued to work as a secretary in hospital. Mainly, I'm in it
for the insurance. But business has been declining in that department
for some time -- actually, a matter of years -- and it finally
declined to the point where I was only providing admin support for one
employee. She has just been moved to another department, so there's
nothing for me to do there. So my job ended on Monday.

[DR. KIONI commences shuffling cards]

MICHAELE: The severance package is okay -- and I am very glad to be
home every day. I'm enjoying being unemployed much more than I
expected to [Laughs].

MISS CAT: That's good.

MICHAELE: But the thing is, having been injured on the job --
permanently injured, but not entirely disabled -- prospects for
finding work elsewhere are pretty slim. They did make some effort to
find me another job elsewhere in the hospital and -- nothing!
Absolutely nothing. I applied for 11 jobs and got only one interview,
and did not get that job.

MISS CAT: Let me ask a couple of questions to clarify my mind before
we hear Dr. Kioni's card reading. You say the severance packet is all
right, you're doing okay, and -- you're getting some kind of
retirement benefit from them? How is this working?

MICHAELE: There is a retirement account with a few thousand dollars in
it. Some low percentage of -- and it matures eventually. I'll have
to talk to Human Resources about that. I did walk out with a couple
of weeks' pay in addition to the last three weeks' wages, and vacation
pay amounting to another five or six weeks.

MISS CAT: You're going to need, though, to find something else.

MICHAELE: Yeah. No, I can't retire; I can't never work again, not yet.

MISS CAT: All right. Well, let me ask another question. Now, you say
Hoodoo Foundry is a sleeping giant. This is (for those who don't know
you, or know what that is) a website where you're offering client
readings and rootwork for people.

Now, I'm going to say one thing first, which is: everyone I know who
gets into this work has some other work they are doing at the same
time. And I'm not going to call anyone's name or say anything about
anyone's personal finances; but most anyone who gets into doing
rootwork or magical work of any type, or operating an occult shop or
conjure shop of any type, or selling spiritual supplies on eBay or on
the Web of any type -- it usually takes several years before you can
give up your other job.

We have some of the best rootworkers in America who are working that other job, either because they want that retirement package or just to know their back is covered just in case nobody rings them on the phone. So we have people who do all types of work.

I know that in my life, getting to know other rootworkers and talking
to them, some of the best rootworkers were those who were retired, or
disabled and could work no other job, because they put in the most
time at it. But I still had a number of people, very good friends,
when I was young, that I would go to for readings on Thursdays and
Fridays, and they might work in the school system as a janitor. That
didn't make them any less good as a rootworker, but they wanted that
janitorial job to get their retirement. So there's no rule about
how you have to go full time in order to be a good rootworker; that's
never been the case. Reality is reality. This may be the opportunity
that you've been waiting for, but you need to take some initiative
yourself.

Let's see what Dr. Kioni has to say about the situation.

DR. KIONI: All right. Your timing, as always, is impeccable. I was
just turning the last of nine cards.

Michaele, this one is interesting! Going to see if we can connect the
dots, okay? First of all, this is domestic in its origins. This is
where the root of the problem is, and it is with an in-law. A female
in-law. An apology was expected but not received.

Past: Ace of Cups. Obviously this is a card that deals with lots of
emotion, the joining together of two individuals, partnerships, the
blending of families, a lot of happiness, domestic tranquility.
Contentment is associated with this card. A lot of emotions there;
good emotions, though.

Present: Ace of Pentacles, reversed. That's the downturn. Because
this [version of the] card that I'm using, from the Quest Tarot deck,
has locked in the upper left corner, this gives an indication that
this energy didn't just [now] manifest, okay? This energy has been
there for some time. As we move forward, we see the manifesting of
this energy:

Future: 10 of Swords. Eeuuugh! That's an ugly card to have in a
reading, whether it's money, relationship, career or whatever!

Outcome: The Lovers, reversed.

Now that's the first of four, of two sets of four plus a fifth card.
Shall I continue, or Cat, would you like to take it from here?

MISS CAT: The Lovers, reversed: how do you interpret that as an
Outcome card?

DR. KIONI: The dissolution of partnerships; breakups; two people going
to their opposite corners of the ring, so to speak; distance between
two individuals; definitely not harmony.

MISS CAT: All right, then let's go on to the next one.

DR. KIONI: Well, that first set of four said to me intuitively, right
away: This is a domestic issue. I was expecting, actually, outside
forces, outside the family, somebody you would know that got pissed
off at you, whatever. But that's what this says to me, with the Ace
of Cups coming into the picture in the Past and the Lovers reversed
in the Outcome.

Okay, next set of cards:

Past: Page of Pentacles. This is great balance of the yin/yang energy
and great possibilities of things being good, things being held in
balance, held in check. A lot of prosperity -- of potential, pardon
me. But it did not turn out that way. Whatever somebody was
expecting, it did not turn out that way.

Present: 6 of Cups, reversed. Here are the Cups again; and,
obviously, the opposite of happiness is unhappiness.

Future: 2 of Swords. You're just not having a good ... picnic here, you know? Somebody's not happy with the status quo and the way things are!

Outcome: King of Wands, reversed. This just told me that the
potential in the relationship, whatever the person was looking for, is
no longer there; there is no peace, there is no happiness.
Intuitively, I felt that this person said, "I am owed an apology," for
whatever reason; I don't know how you'll connect the dots on this one.

I asked then, finally, on a ninth card, "Is this a female relative?"
The answer was Yes. Prior to that, I had asked if the person was
blood or an in-law, and the answer was: in-law. So: here we have the
Queen of Pentacles reversed as the ninth card.

MISS CAT: Hmm!

MICHAELE: Okay. My mother-in-law is dead, and has been for years.
There is a former sister-in-law who may be angry with me, or hurt by
me somehow.

DR. KIONI:. All right. I'll take a look while you guys talk. And --
is that where you connect the dots with this? Former sister-in-law?

MICHAELE: Well -- either that or my mother-in-law. I was never very
fond of my mother-in-law, for -- fairly stupid reasons, actually; it
had to do with my former religion.

MISS CAT: I'm going to say something here, because you've had more
than your share of financial trouble in the whole time that we've
known you. I mean, there's ups and downs, but you've been under a
kind of floating dark raincloud for a while; it has come and gone.

I'm wondering if this is something that could have been put on by the
mother-in-law a long time ago and be buried with her (I mean
metaphorically buried with her). Was she the kind of person who would
have said something, set something in motion?

MICHAELE: She was a Pentecostal, and I'm pretty sure she would have
done nothing more down-to-earth than serious prayer. She wouldn't
have lit a candle on me or anything like that.

DR. KIONI [chuckling]: Don't bet the house on it!

[MISS CAT chuckles]

DR. KIONI: I say that, not to be facetious, but because -- and, Cat,
based on our experience with thousands of people, you know this to be
true -- that the person you least expect, oftentimes, is the culprit.

MISS CAT: Yeah. Well, I'm looking at these cards, and seeing a long,
long litany of negative cards. We are both seeing this, I'm sure, and
Michaele, you know enough about cards, too, to see this sort of thing.

MICHAELE: Yeah.

MISS CAT: The Queen of Pentacles reversed as the ninth card, in answer
to the question of who it was -- the Queen of Pentacles, of course, is
a woman of some abundance and some means. Reversed, she does not
control those means. And I see that there's something going on here
that is more than just bad coincidences. What I am seeing here are a
lot of what Dr. Kioni calls "ugly cards." It's interesting;
sometimes, we don't get such a clear picture, but this is -- it's
pretty clear that there's something going on. Now, my question is:
what are we going to do about it? if you believe that your former
sister-in-law could've been the cause of it -- do you believe that's
more possible than your mother-in-law?

MICHAELE: Well, we did not do anything that might have caused her hurt
feelings, until after an opportunity that she herself had offered us
collapsed. And we accidentally put her in some potential legal danger.

DR. KIONI: Who did you put in danger?

MICHAELE: The former sister-in-law.

DR. KIONI: Okay.

MICHAELE: And it was completely accidental. We put her at risk of
having to leave town suddenly, after she had just moved. Nothing came
of it. But we had already been poor for a long time, and my husband's
business had already folded, for reasons that had nothing to do with
technical skill or the market.

DR. KIONI: Question for you, MichaeleE: Was the mother-in-law deceased
at this time when the scenario played out?

MICHAELE: No, she only died a couple of years ago.

DR. KIONI: because I'm getting a positive hit on her as well, and that
does thicken the plot. As to what she actually did, I think that's
questionable. My hit said to me that there was witchcraft involved as
far as the two women are concerned. I get a strong feeling that they
probably acted independently of each other, but not necessarily so.

MISS CAT: Well, here's the situation, in either case -- if we are to
postulate that this is the cause of bad luck, if they felt that
something had been done wrong to them, or whatever: the one woman is
passed, she's gone; and the other is no longer a sister-in-law; I
presume she's no longer married to whoever she was married to that
made her sister-in-law, right?

MICHAELE: Yeah.

MISS CAT: Now you're dealing with two people whose effects it should
be fairly easy to put behind you, but it still hasn't happened.

Interestingly enough, as I was always taught, if a person dies, it's
always harder to take off any kind of a bad wish that they gave you
when they're dead than it is when they're alive, because you have to
go to more trouble to contact their spirit and get them to remove that
idea.

And people say that if it's buried with them in the coffin (and
they don't mean it literally), it's going to stay with you. So that's
probably going to be the harder one to take off, because she's passed,
but you have to mix some kind of appeasement there.

[DR. KIONI resumes shuffling cards]

MISS CAT: The sister-in-law -- the same way -- that's going to be
easier to take off. But what I'm concerned about is that you act,
sometimes, to me, like you were "born under a bad sign," if you know
that old song. There's a condition that is around you, and I will say
this, knowing you, that I don't mean any offense by this. Even the
most wonderful gifts that can be given to you, somehow things go awry
or askew; they don't live up to their full potential.

MICHAELE: Ha, ha ha ha.

MISS CAT: What do you mean, "Ha ha ha"?

MICHAELE: You just reminded me of my report cards all through
elementary school: "Michaele is not working up to her potential."
From, like, first grade.

MISS CAT: Well, these are the kinds of things -- there may be a whole
lifetime of that kind of thing, and you need to put that behind you
now; you need to say, "Now is the time I'm going to live up to my
potential."

Now, I'm going to try to be practical here for a minute, as well as
talk about spell craft.

You give so much. And it's interesting, too -- because I think most
people listening to this radio show know exactly who you are, so I'm
not going to be telling any surprises here: you give to us so much in
the Yahoo group, and we all know what you do. And -- it's kind of
interesting -- before I knew you were going to be on the show tonight,
I had planned to contact you. I was going to telephone you, but the
thing is, I looked at my database and I don't have your phone number
-- just your e-mail; I hate e-mail. But I was going to contact you in
the Yahoo group, saying, "Could you please give me your phone number
or contact me, because I need to talk to you." I was going to make
you an offer to pay you for all of those transcriptions you've done,
and put them on my website.

So there are people like me lined up to give you money, but for
whatever reason -- I don't know -- I didn't have your phone number.

But, you see, there's like a whole little force field around you that
keeps the money from being thrown at you, even when people want to
throw money at you. So when I notice something like that -- because
here I am, ready to write out a check, only I can't because I don't
have your phone number, and I'm not going to e-mail anybody; if I had
to e-mail somebody to save my life I might do it, but I hate e-mail ...

So, there's a little bit of something that I'm offering, but it was an
offer I was planning to make anyway.

So there's something about you, there's kind of a little hedge around
you, like you're a sleeping beauty; like you said, "Hoodoo Foundry is
a sleeping giant." You're like a sleeping beauty who's in the castle;
some bad fairy stamped her foot and said, "I didn't get invited to the
party, and I'm mad!" -- or whatever happened, you know. But all
that's put around you is not to stop your own power, but it's to keep
you hedged in in some way. It's to keep people from contacting you
who might want to contact you. It's to keep the serendipitous good
fortune from happening to you. It's not just that you're under bad
luck, as I see it. There's almost like a chill on your good luck. Do
you understand what I'm saying?

MICHAELE: Yeah.

MISS CAT: And yet, I'll give you another example: when you were out
here at my place last May, we had that party, and you said you wanted
some big old -- really big -- honkin' big lodestones. And I said,
"We'll have to go out to the barn to get them." And what did I find
you? I found you two lodestones that I would've paid hundreds and
hundreds of dollars for! I would've paid $500 for that pair of
lodestones. And I found them and I gave them to you.

I had them in my hand, and I was holding one and holding the other,
and I said, "Boy, both of these looks like hearts." And I balanced
them on my hand, and they went together! And I went, "Oh, my!"

And of course, my little heart goes pitty-patty, and I thought, "I'm
going to keep these for myself," but, "No, I came out here to give
them to her!" So I said, "Here you are: you have the best I can give
you, and here they are."

What can I say? There are people who want to give, and they want to
help you, but there's also some little stoppage there, some little
hedge keeps you from being known to the public. And I don't know what
it is yet.

And this is what I would ask Dr. Kioni. Let's not worry
about how we got there, because we know -- Michaele knows how to do
cleansing and she knows how to do protection. But what I want to know
is how to get Michaele to express her joyful inner nature, to make
people happy to contact her, to make people want to contact her. Do
you understand what I'm saying, Dr. Kioni?

DR. KIONI: Mm-hmm.

MISS CAT: I could recommend a lot of things, and I don't want to go
too far too fast, here. I want to make sure my thinking is in line
with your thinking, but I see a hindrance has been put in the way.
And that blockage has be removed. That blockage has to go, because I
hope and believe that what's underneath is a happy, competent, active
person, who just needs a chance to shine.

MICHAELE: I'm fantastic when I know what I'm doing, but I often do not
know how to start. I remember from my days going door-to-door trying
to convert people to my religion -- agonies of stage fright, until I
got the first few words out of my mouth. And then I could preach.
Nobody converted; I'm thankful now! But never mind that.

MISS CAT [laughing]: See, this has been a long-standing condition, of
a kind of a dustiness over you. You know what I'm saying?

MICHAELE: Yes.

MISS CAT: It's a dustiness; that's how my inner sight perceives it.
It's like a little bit of cobwebs and dust have been sprinkled over
you, the same way I talk about Sleeping Beauty. You used that phrase,
"sleeping giant," making a little punning reference to old -- God, who
was that? -- Richard Nixon or whoever -- oh, yes: he said "pitiful,
helpless giant," not "sleeping giant". In any case, these are words
that ring true with me. But there's this idea of the dustiness, the
sleepiness. Attention has been shunted away from you in the past, but
you have a lot to offer.

And you certainly know a lot; you've certainly picked up a lot. I've
seen the kind of work that you can do for people, so I know you are
capable of it. So I'd like to recommend to you -- and I'm going to
make this part brief, because we all know what I'm going to say next
-- I know you've done cleansing spells in the past; I know you've done
self-empowerment spells in the past.

I'm going to recommend that you do some work to lay to rest any one in
the past whom you have ever slighted or hurt in any way, or who feels
slighted or hurt in any way.

Since we can't really get at these people; these are people who are gone in the past -- dead, or no longer a family member -- I would even say it isn't necessary to contact the ex-sister-in-law. I would say to make an offering of peace to them.

Dr. Kioni said an apology was expected -- I don't know what would be
expected; you said you accidentally put the sister-in-law in danger of
having to leave town. It didn't happen, but that would be enough to
upset somebody so that they throw something at you one way or another.

MICHAELE: I'm thinking I could send the sister-in-law of little gift.
I think I have an active e-mail for her. A nice gift certificate and
a graceful little letter.

MISS CAT: Yeah. Something nice, you know, just wishing her all the
best. You know, "I think of you, and I'm just wishing you all the
best. Here's a little gift certificate." Because something went awry
there and the cards show it.

As far as the deceased mother-in-law, well, that's spirit work, and I
think you know how to do a little bit of that. Put out a little
offering, if you know where she's buried, or -- if you don't know
where she was buried, or her ashes were scattered, or whatever -- do
what has to be done. I know you know how to do this kind of work
fairly well, and I don't think I need to give you the minute details
of it.

DR. KIONI: Mm-hmm! Just let me know when you want me to kick in a
contribution here; I have a spell for her.

MICHAELE: As Cat was talking about appeasing those who have felt
slighted, I smelled anise -- like Psychic Vision Oil. My
mother-in-law was diabetic in the last years of her life. The last
birthday celebration I went to for her, they argued over whether she
should have a slice of her own birthday cake.

MISS CAT: Aww!

MICHAELE: Her daughter, who wanted her to have it, won out, and said,
"They can just give her extra insulin." But the next day she had a
heart attack.

MISS CAT: Oh, my!

MICHAELE: She survived it, but not for very long. I think --
something sweet offered to her.

MISS CAT: Well, it's interesting that you said anise. My late
grandmother and grandfather both loved anise cookies, and my late
grandmother was diabetic. She would bake the anise cookies, and say,
"Well, at least I can smell them," [laughing] because anise has such a
strong scent, you know. And anise is one of those psychic herbs, too,
so that might ... But make some sort of an offering, if you have a
gravesite that you can go to.

MICHAELE: I'm pretty sure that it's close by. She left four other
kids besides my husband, and I'm sure they'll know where it is.

MISS CAT: And how is he about all of this? How is Harry about all
this? Because you told me that he was having trouble financially,
getting a job, too.

MICHAELE: Well, his trouble getting a job is not financial. His
trouble is that his health has been bad for a long time, which is one
of the main reasons his business closed 15 years ago; his back went out. He also got some bad advice about taxes. But he's thinking of
reviving it again, in an updated form. He really understands both the
trade he wants to get back into, and the market for it. He's already
been doing a lot of research, and he's excited, actually.

MISS CAT: Oh, good. Okay.

MICHAELE: He's very hopeful. And he was [previously] able to support
us in a two-bedroom apartment -- the biggest house we've ever had -- 3
bedrooms, that's right! -- the business was able to support us for
eight years. He had a contractor's license and everything. You know,
he jumped through all kinds of hoops, and didn't have much trouble
getting that license, either.

MISS CAT: All right. Well, I've met him, and he seems like a nice,
sharp, presentable guy, so that's not going to be an issue if he's got
the enthusiasm. It's this layer of dust that I'm worried about, this
depressive, negative "set about with briars" thing -- that's what
needs to go away. Now, Dr. Kioni said he had a spell that he wanted
to talk about. Let's let him have his say.

DR. KIONI: I'm going to preface this with the story in the Bible, of
Lazarus, Jesus, Mary, and Martha. As you know, they were great
friends of the Christ. Lazarus died, and Jesus took his time about
coming when the sisters called to let him know Lazarus was sick.
Because of his delay, his friend died. By the time Jesus arrived, he
was told, "Well, he's been in the grave for three days already, and he
stinks! What can you possibly do?"

Well, there's a lot we can do with a little prayer and some juju!
Here's what you do, dear heart:

You make yourself a doll to resemble you. This is an intensive craft
project. We're going to resurrect you. You're going to make a doll
baby to represent you. You're going to wrap this doll baby in a
mixture of cheesecloth mixed with spiderweb.

MICHAELE: For the shroud.

DR. KIONI: Yes. You're going to mummify your doll. You are then
going to use plaster of Paris -- or flour and water paste -- to form a
cast around the doll, to entomb it in the cast -- because you have
been hedged in.

You're going to take this doll to an ancestor's grave, and, seeking
permission, the way we do it in hoodoo, ask to be laid to rest there;
and that the bad luck that has been with you, that has held you down,
that has hindered you, that has hedged you in, be left in the grave.

Include with that doll some life-everlasting, and encircle the doll
with eggs to absorb negativity -- but at the same time, to represent
new life born again.

Bury it.

Come back three days later and unearth it. Remove the cast and remove
the shroud. Carry that to a place that has running water. Or you
may burn it, if you please, and scatter the ashes, the remains of your
bad luck. It will be gone. So sayeth spirit.

MICHAELE: That is elegant.

One problem: I do not know where any of my ancestors are buried. I
don't know that any of them are buried locally.

DR. KIONI: Not a problem, dear! Think around it! Find a grave of
someone who is sympathetic to your cause.

MICHAELE: I know exactly who it is! A little of their dirt is on my
altar: Melville and Caroline Travis, whom I did not know in life --
but their grave smiled at me one day, when I was walking through the
graveyard.

DR. KIONI: As far as your detractors are concerned -- your
mother-in-law and sister-in-law -- you may use any kind of ritual for
disbanding your enemies, if you please, or to reverse the energy that
is being sent to you. But this is a resurrection ritual that I have
given you.

Of course, be sure to baptize the doll before you use it -- give it
your identity. When you dig it up, and you have unearthed it, baptize
it again, or bathe it with holy water, fumigated with Uncrossing
incense, along with yourself, and then set it a feast.

MICHAELE: Aha!

DR. KIONI: Mm-hmm!

MICHAELE: Like the prodigal son.

DR. KIONI: Well, as Jesus did with Lazarus, once they unwrapped his
grave clothes, Jesus said, "Give him something to eat." So set around
yourself there all kinds of precious fruits and things like that.
Now, finally, put a lodestone in that doll, so it can be your
surrogate and accept the hits from now on.

MISS CAT: You put the lodestone in when you start, when you first make
the doll.

DR. KIONI: Thank you. Cat, I kick that back to you, but that's fresh
off the grill.

MISS CAT: That's a beautiful spell, and I really like the way that it
proceeds. So, just to recap and make sure I understand what you're
saying here:

Michaele is to make the doll with a lodestone in it and baptize it
for herself. Wrap it in layers of cheesecloth mixed with spiderwebs
to mummify it. Plaster of Paris to entomb it. Go to the grave of the
ancestor or the friends or the spirit-friends. Ask their permission. Bury it so that the bad luck will be buried. Include some
life-everlasting, you said Now, would that be around the doll or in
the doll?

DR. KIONI: Around the doll.

MISS CAT: Around the doll. And you surround it with eggs -- raw eggs. Come back three days later. Pick it up. Take off the entombment and the shroud. Rebaptize it -- bring it back to life, in other words. Fumigate it, and then burn the --

DR. KIONI: Burn the shroud and the casing. And then use the doll from
that point on as a mini-me surrogate to take the hits.

MISS CAT: Right. And scatter the ashes in running water, and then
keep the doll baby. I've got it. I understand. That's very good.

Now, that doll baby will certainly keep you safe from anything of that
nature that happens again. It's happened in the past, but it will
protect you in the future if it has a lodestone in it to take the
hits. So that's a very good one.

DR. KIONI: You see, the grave is being used against you. And so it is
with the grave that we must fight to counterbalance the energy. Since
we can't literally bury you, we must bury a likeness of you, and it is then resurrected.

MICHAELE: Right.

DR. KIONI: And, ergo, a new life for you.

MISS CAT: and I like that a lot. Now, I'm going to say a few more
things as far as your sleeping giant [is concerned].

I know you have secretarial skills, because you've mentioned it.

So -- where is your eBay shop? You're home now; where is your eBay
shop? [Laughing] I know there are plenty of people who make their
living off their websites, one way or another.

I'll tell you why I don't have a website at eBay; because I've got too much work to do here.

But if I was unemployed, I'd be on eBay in a minute. You know
how to do that kind of stuff, you have those computer skills -- we
know you do. So think about ways that you can bring in money.

Again, you know how to dress your computer; we've talked about this
before. Something tells me that -- Spirit says to me -- get some
exercise! When you don't exercise, that's when you get more --
immobilized. I want to see you getting around to doing things.

I think that if you spend the eight hours a day that you would spend
at work -- if you spend those eight hours making work, then you will
have work. And I say this based on experience: like begets like.

It's not a spell in the sense of, "Oh, take so many pinches of this
herb or that herb," but -- I'm going to tell you something that
happened to me. I've probably mentioned this before --

At one point in my life, my partner left me with a small child, and he
went off to Trinidad to hunt rare snakes. And he said, "I will not
pay child support, because you have the pleasure and privilege of
having the child, and you can pay for it." And he left. So I had to go on welfare, because I just didn't know what to do.

While I was on welfare, I just felt so bad about it -- after all, I
was able bodied, I just didn't have a job and I had this child. She
went to school, and during the hours that she was in school, I did
work. And what I did was: I'd go up and down the road-sides and
highways and pick up trash, just like the convicts do. I picked it up
and put it in trash bags and got rid of it and recycled it. And when I got tired of doing that, I'd write articles for magazines that didn't have money to pay; I just sent them the articles. Some of them got printed.

Well, what happened was that, eventually -- no, they didn't hire me to
pick up trash; that wasn't what they wanted me for -- but, all of a
sudden somebody sent me $50 for one of those articles I had sent in
for free. In the next month they said, "Could you write another one?"

So I used the time that I would've been employed, had I been employed,
to make and do things just as if I were employed. And, lo and behold,
within two years -- and it did take some time -- I was off welfare and
fully employed. And it was a gradual thing. I went from being one of
those welfare-cheese mothers -- you know, standing in line for my
welfare cheese -- and I went on to having my own bank account, and then I went on to buy my own home.

So it's just a question of -- if the world says, "We can't use you in
this job," you just say, "All right: what job can I be in?" and you
start working.

I have a friend here -- you may have met him -- his name is Don. He
came to my place about 20 years ago, walked onto the property and
said, "Can you use help with your garden?"

I said, "No, I don't think I could afford to pay you," because I
didn't have the money.

He said, "Well, what is the going rate for gardeners?"

I said, "Well, they want $10-$20 an hour!"

He said, "How about five dollars an hour?"

"I don't think I even have five dollars an hour."

He goes, "Fifty cents an hour?"

I said, "Well, that's too little."

So he said, "So how much do you want to pay me?"

I said, "How about $2.50 an hour? I can afford that."

"All right," he said, "what do you want me to do for $2.50 an hour?"

So I said, "Why don't you dig up those beds and turn them over." I
had a bed where I had some potatoes planted.

So he dug them up and said, "I pulled up all your potatoes. Do you
want me to replant them for next year?"

"Oh, you know all about gardening!"

He goes, "Yeah."

"I'll give you five dollars an hour, because you know all about
gardening!"

MICHAELE [laughing]: You found the money!

MISS CAT: And 20 years later, he's still here! And he works for me
and does all the handy work around this place. But here's the point
I'm trying to get to: if he hadn't just walked in, and said "I'll work
for $.50 an hour," he'd probably still be homeless on the street.
Nobody would have hired him unless he went to someone's house.

MICHAELE: I noticed that when you just went out and made work, that it
was stuff that you loved.

MISS CAT: Oh, I can't say that I love picking up trash from the
highway! I was scared, I was afraid someone would hit me with a car,
you know.

MICHAELE: Yeah. But the other stuff was stuff that you loved. You
would have done it for free, and you did for a while -- yes.

My next plan is to go down to a lovely little local coffeehouse with a
volume of Hyatt to fill the time between clients, and a little sign
that says "Free Tarot Reading."

MISS CAT: That's good! That's good.

MICHAELE: I can do that at least three or four hours a day.

MISS CAT: And another thing, if you know tea leaf reading, a lot of
these fancy little tea places, tea shops and coffee shops, they would
love to have a little tea-leaf reader sitting there and doing
readings, if you dress nice and clean. But you know exactly those
kinds of things. And put out a little basket with a couple of
quarters and a dollar bill in it, and money will start to flow towards
you. Have your business cards printed; have them dressed.

And if they say, "Why are you doing these for free?" You say, "Well,
right now I'm doing this for free. You might come back sometime and
pay me a tip, but this is a get-acquainted offer." People always
wonder when something's free.

I have a friend, and you may have met him because he lives in your
town, and he was a Tarot reader for 25 years on the Avenue [Telegraph
Avenue]. He always wore a white suit; his name is Joseph.

MICHAELE: Yeah, I think I know him. I think I ran into him once. We
knew each other from another e-list.

MISS CAT: Right. Well, he's on several of these e-lists. He was a
Tarot reader for 25 years, and that was his entire income. Now he's
retired; he got a little inheritance. But it can be done, Michaele.
It really can be done, but you have to get up in the morning and then
you have to go out and do it. If you do that for three or four hours
a day -- and you work your eBay store -- I'm just trying to give you
some practical ideas here. I'm a Taurus. When people start talking
about money, I just say, "Get your plan together! Get up and do your
work."

Now, when you do your work, you want to dress your business cards with
Attraction Powder plus Money Drawing Powder. You can use a little
Look Me over, if you're going to be sitting out in public, to get
their attention. You might want to use a little Law Keep Away, too,
depending -- just to get them off your case.

If you work an eBay store, or sell things on eBay, dress the four
corners of your monitor, the four corners of your keyboard, and
certainly rub your hands before you go to type. Make yourself some
Money Drawing wash of some kind, with herbs -- a nice cinnamon-sugary
thing -- or you can use the Money Drawing oil, and rub it on your
hands. And spread a little bit over the tops of your eyebrows, and
say, you know, "Bring money to me, bring it in plenty," or say the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

You can also just say your own petition: "Bring money to me, bring it in plenty, bring it quickly, bring it with ease, bring it to me for a work, by my hands' work. And I ask this in the Lord's name, amen." And then you start typing.

That's what I do when I get up here in the morning. They have me
making all the oils for the shop. When I make an oil that's a
money-drawing oil, I take some of that and put that on me! There's no
money-drawing oil that goes out of the shop that I haven't dressed a
little bit on me, because I earn my living by writing; and then I go
back [to my office] and I type. (If I make a Break up Oil or
something ugly, I go wash my hands, because I don't want that to stick
to me.)

But you know how to do these things, hon. It's just a question of
getting up and doing it. I know you can. I know you'll have people
who want to work with you. That's my advice to you, is to keep your
own energy level up.

Nothing beats drinking water with a little lemon juice in it to keep
your energy up. I don't mean sugar and lemon juice; just a little
lemon zest.

MICHAELE: Yeah. It tastes good that way.

MISS CAT: That clears away the mental cobwebs. If you have trouble
thinking when you're going to write, just take a little of that lemon
water. It's a Cut and Clear on your whole mind.

So those are my suggestions. And you know we're all rooting for you
out here. We do care about you, and here I was ready to give you some
money already, for those transcriptions! So maybe after this radio
show is over, you can call me here at the shop -- that's where I am,
and we can talk about some money for that, okay?

MICHAELE: Okay. Thank you. And I'm also remembering Dr. Kioni's and
your tip about drinking a little bit of War Water. I was thinking
that I definitely need to stiffen myself, so to speak. A little bit
of iron --

MISS CAT: Yeah, some iron might be a good thing for you to take. You
can even just make water with rust in it, or rusty nails in it, and
drink that. I wouldn't put all the old swamp stuff in there. I'd get
an upset stomach about that one.

I'm just going to give you one more piece of advice. This is just
personal -- it may sound crazy -- but to an old hippie like you it may
mean something.

I don't know if you remember John Lennon, or if you remember the
Beatles. But John Lennon was a Beatle, and he had this book of dumb
poetry that he had made, called A Spaniard in the Works.

MICHAELE: Yes!

MISS CAT: And there was a poem in there that made absolutely no sense;
it was just his attempt to do some kind of a Lewis Carroll thing in
his own youthful way. And for some reason, it was just made up of
nonsense words -- "Streeze my everteeps!" That's just what he said.

MICHAELE: What was it?

MISS CAT: "Streeze my everteeps!" You can just read it --

MICHAELE: Ever … ?

MISS CAT [laughing]: Everteeps! I was just a kid when I read that, and I thought "It must mean something!" But it just stuck in my mind...

[MICHAELE laughs]

MISS CAT: And every time I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Oh, my back
hurts!" I go, "Streeze your everteeps!"

[Laughter]

MISS CAT: So it doesn't have to be a Psalm, it could just be something
that stuck in your head when you were a teenager, you know. It said
to me, "Do your thing," -- "Streeze your everteeps."

[Laughter]

MISS CAT: So if you ever find that poem, you can quote it back to me,
and see if I've gotten it right after all these years. I may even
have messed it up, I don't know. But it was something meaningless
like that.

MICHAELE: Do you still have a copy of the book?

MISS CAT: Oh, no. I don't have it anymore.

MICHAELE: Aha!

MISS CAT: I lost everything I had in that flood. But the point being
-- once you make a mantra yours, it becomes your mantra.

MICHAELE: Yeah. I got a bunch of them -- "I got a million of 'em," as
Jimmy Durante used to say.

MISS CAT [laughing]: All right. Well, what I mean is -- what I see
with you, and I do see it -- and I mean this in all the most sincere
friendship -- the biggest problem is inertia, at times --

MICHAELE: Yes.

MISS CAT: It's just a question of rooting for yourself, getting
yourself going. I know this is sounding pretty much like New Thought
here, I'm starting to sound pretty New Thought-y, but I do mean it.
Stand up and say: "This is the day that the Lord has made, and I am
going out to bring in gelt for the home!" Or whatever. That's how it
has to be. If you have a positive attitude, people will flock to you,
and they will -- heck, they'll want to buy you laser surgery, or some
other crazy thing!

[Laughter]

MICHAELE: Oh, from your lips to my life!

MISS CAT: Yeah, well, I'm still dealing with that one. You know,
people want to love a person who gives to them. I think your plan is
a wonderful one, to go out and have a table and a little sign, "Free
Tarot Readings." You'll find that people will want to be with you.

I know for a while you were selling at the Ashby Street BART fleamarket.

MICHAELE: Oh, no, I was not selling there. I did not have a table.
The process of getting a table was so flipping arcane -- you had to
stand on your left foot at five o'clock on a Thursday morning,
practically -- so I never actually had a table. But I did walk
through the market. First I passed out little flyers with [hoodoo]
tips on them. That didn't play so well. What worked fairly well was
tiny 1/8 ounce vials of oil, with a little card explaining what it was
and how to use it, in a plastic bag. I'd walk through the fleamarket,
addressing everybody who looked remotely interested in spiritual work
-- they tended to be African-American -- and I'd go up to them and
say, "May I give you some good luck today?"

MISS CAT: That's wonderful.

MICHAELE: I never did get any business out of that, but everybody had
a good time.

MISS CAT: Well, a thing like that -- you keep it up for a while, and
you will get business out of it. You will. Like I say, websites are
wonderful; they draw in people. And the other thing is, you know,
hon, you have graduated from my course, right?

MICHAELE: Mm-hmm!

MISS CAT: Now all you have to do is give me a reading, and you can be
listed as one of my readers, right?

MICHAELE: OK. Well, I have been holding off on that, because I want
to practice first.

MISS CAT: Well, all right. But if you want to do it, you've got to do
it. So, I stand here and say to all my graduates: if you can give me
a free reading, and I think it's a good reading and it makes sense to
me, I'll be glad to list you as a reputable reader, unless I get
complaints; [then] I'll take you down again. But, you know, God
forbid we should have any complaints! I think people who have
graduated from the course and who are readers should take advantage of
the free offer that I make to my students. So please take advantage
of that, too.

MICHAELE: Okay.

DR. KIONI: Michaele, thank you for sharing your life with the world in
such an open manner; and for those of you who perhaps joined the show
midstream, we have been talking about how to reboot that sticky, icky
cloud of bad luck that just won't go anywhere -- and in this
particular case, especially if a spell has been taken to the grave by
the person who originated the spell. Tonight we shared what I call a
resurrection spell with Michaele that will help her make a new start
and help her break free of the shackles and the tomb that has held her
down all of these years. Of course, Cat has talked about the mundane aspects of doing this work and having confidence in yourself, and also making sure that you cross all of the T's and dot all the I's, like
dressing your cards and dressing yourself, and all those things. And
having an idea and a plan and working it! That's all great! It's
really, really good.

I will say that Cat's idea regarding the transcripts of the Lucky Mojo
Hoodoo Rootwork Hour is a great idea. I'd like to be included in that
conversation, since the copyright does fall to me. And we do want to
make sure that you get compensated very well, Michaele, and that it
does become a stream of income to you. There's enough to share and to
spare and to go around. I'm looking forward to that, seeing how we can
help you jumpstart your business, okay?

MICHAELE: Thank you very much, both of you.

[MISS CAT and MICHAELE schedule a phone call.]

Station ID by Dr. Kioni

MUSIC OUTRO: Jug Band Waltz by Will Shade and the Memphis Jug Band]