Some Kind of Magic, Part I
An egg, a cleansing, and a flat tire.
My grandfather was a witch.
My grandmother used to say he put a spell on her to make her marry him.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that when my mother was a child, she saw Didio through the crack in his bedroom door one night, lit only by the candles burning around him, practicing some kind of magic.
This was in Brazil, and when I imagine it, I always picture them in a small wooden cabin deep in the jungle, a hot breeze fluttering sheer curtains in the thick, damp air. He’s holding a kitchen knife and a black rooster, about to slit its throat in sacrifice. But they didn’t live in the jungle and I’m pretty sure any chicken he killed would’ve ended up on the dinner table.1
The imagination itself is a kind of magic — the ability to conjure up a scene in the mind with such specific detail that it feels more real than reality itself.
Maybe my fascination with magic and the occult is something inherited.
It even carries into my chosen profession (or, more accurately, the profession that chose me.) At least it used to—back when people still loved experiencing a film in the shared darkness of a theater, and we still talked about the magic of the movies. Hopefully, we’ll find a way to bring that kind of magic back. But that’s a post for another time.
This one is about a different kind of magic. One that’s more embodied, more elemental.
Which brings me to the egg.
About a month and a half ago, I got my first egg limpia. For anyone unfamiliar, it’s a kind of spiritual cleanse in which a practitioner uses an egg to absorb negative energy. Afterwards, they crack the egg into a glass of water to read it and see if everything’s been released.
I went to see this curandero whose shop I’ve been going to for years. I’ve bought candles there and had him dress them for me many times, but I’d never had him do a limpia.
I went in because I was about to launch a new business venture, and I wanted him to do something to bring me good luck. He said he’d need to do the limpia and reading first—to see what was going on with me energetically—and then he’d light five candles depending on what I needed.
He started by tuning into my energy. He said that I had a lot of people bad-mouthing me—people who were jealous, who didn’t want me to succeed, people wishing bad things upon me. Which…okay. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true.
He performed the limpia, passing the egg over my body and telling any dark energy to go into it.
When he was done, he said, “It’s heavy.” He handed me the egg, and it sure was.
He cracked it into a glass of water and after a few minutes read the results. In a “normal” cleanse, i.e. one where there’s no negative energy present or in one where all the negativity has been released, the yolk sinks to the bottom.
Mine only sank halfway. The egg white had formed spikes topped with tiny bubbles emanating from the yolk, and two tiny horseshoe shapes floated near the bottom of the glass.
All in all, not a good reading.
The fact that my yolk didn’t sink meant there was definitely dark energy present, and not all of it had been removed. The curandero referred to the spikes as “nails” and said they represented people who wanted to do me harm, consciously or unconsciously. The horseshoes symbolized my luck — it had been taken away from me.
He thought it was likely that two women had put black magic on me (!), and he lit five candles to counteract it—three for uncrossing, one road opener, and one for money.
He said this would start to work, but it wouldn’t be enough to remove all the negativity. He wanted me to come back for more limpias.
Now, I really don’t like it when spiritual practitioners tell you that someone has hexed you and they are the ones who need to remove it. It feels manipulative. Devious, even. Not to mention the fact that I think I’m pretty powerful and capable of taking care of things myself.
But this guy has been in his same shop for 50 years—in Los Angeles, no less, which is no small feat—and I’d never gotten anything but good vibes from him before.
So I told him I’d think about it.
Later that afternoon, I headed out to the Mojave desert2 and all I did on the drive was think about it.
Did I really know someone who’d purposely put black magic on me?
Years ago, I saw a psychic who definitely shady and probably a witch. She told me someone had cursed me and she wanted me to pay her $7300 to remove it. I just walked out, obviously—but I wouldn’t be surprised if she hexed me herself just so she could then remove the hex.
Or maybe someone had unintentionally given me the evil eye. Someone who was angry at me and focused their energy on wishing bad things would happen. I could think of a few people who fit that bill.
And then, of course, there was always the good old ancestral curse. Maybe my grandfather the witch had pissed someone off, and they had hexed him—and his children and his children’s children…
It was dusk as I exited the 10 freeway onto Twentynine Palms Highway for the last leg of the drive up to Pioneertown. This was a wide stretch of empty desert road where the winds were savage and the cell service was spotty.
And that’s when I got a flat tire.
I am not kidding when I say that I have never in my life gotten a flat on the highway (or even just a road) like that. The tire didn’t blow or anything. I have a very smart car that told me to pull over because my tire pressure was dangerously low.
I got out to look.
Stuck in my tire was….a nail.
Just like the curandero had called the spikes in the egg white.
What did it all mean???
Until next time,
Tara
Read part two here. Subscribe so you don’t miss a post.
But maybe you can sacrifice a chicken and also eat it for dinner? Seems weird, but idk. It might depend on the deities you’re offering it up to?
I have a house out there that I renovated, maybe one of these days I’ll write about that if anyone’s interested.
I also can't stop thinking about your hex. Is the cause those two pissed off women? An inherited, familial hex? Calamity resulting from living among dissatisfied and jealous people? What kind of black magic times are we living in?!! And, curious if the hex puts you in a liminal space?