Roots and Ritual, Part 2: Danger Wrapped in Incense
After I began studying with Timothy Thayer, the world shifted.
He taught me the architecture of the unseen—the sacred geometry of astrology, numerology, tarot, Hermetic ritual. I was suddenly fluent in celestial mechanics and ancient rites. I could perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. I could call in spirits and name them. I understood the bones of high magic.
But I didn’t yet have the heart for it.
What I gained in power, I lacked in grounding. I had the tools to open the door, but not to close it.
And so they came—spirits, energies, presences—in ways that were no longer metaphor. They came at night. They came uninvited. They came into my dreams, into my body, into my home. And I didn't know how to send them back.
During this time, I had married, given birth, and left. I was a single mother now, raising my son Basil—my beautiful, psychic child—born in the veil, still encased in the waters when he arrived. They say babies born this way walk between worlds. Basil didn’t walk. He danced through them.
We were living on a commune then, in a strange and sacred in-between. One night, Basil began to cry. He said he heard a voice—laughing in his ear, again and again. The same night, multiple neighbors came to me, pale and shaken. They had all dreamed the same thing: that a spirit was trying to harm Basil, and they were standing watch over him.
This wasn’t imagination. This wasn’t intuition. This was contact.
And I wasn’t ready.
I had parted from Timothy by then. He was disappointed—hurt that I had drifted from my studies. But I was drowning in motherhood, haunted by entities, terrified by my own gifts. And I didn’t have the language, the lineage, or the elders to guide me.
I was deeply curious about Voodoo at the time. I could feel something pulling me—calling from my Creole roots, whispering through the blood. But I was afraid. I didn’t know where to go. I had never met a Voodoo priestess. I didn’t know if I was allowed. I didn’t yet know what was mine.
So I walked the edge. Alone. Tired. Open.
That time in my life was brutal and beautiful. I had a child who felt what I felt, who cried when the spirits came too close. I had power I didn’t know how to wield, and a heart that still thought it had to earn worthiness.
It took me years to realize that power without grounding is just danger wrapped in incense.
It took me even longer to understand that witchcraft without roots is just performance.
That ancestors don’t want you to impress them—they want you to remember them. To call their names. To speak their languages. To bring them offerings and mean it.
That’s when the work began to shift—from performance to prayer, from books to bones, from invocation to conversation. That’s when I started to learn the difference between being magical and being a keeper of lineage.
A Protective Spell: Sending Spirits Back
If you ever find yourself feeling haunted, watched, or unsettled by a presence that does not belong—this is what I offer:
Sit or stand quietly. Feel your feet on the earth.
Close your eyes and surround yourself in the love of Mother Mary—her soft hands, her infinite mercy. Feel her wrap you in a blue cloak of protection.
Then call upon Jesus, radiant with fierce compassion, standing beside you—not as a dogma, but as a protector. You do not have to believe in the church to call upon the light.
See a shaft of golden light open above you—wide, warm, and pulsing with divine intelligence. This is the way home.
Now speak clearly, out loud or in your heart:
"Spirits not of my highest good,
I release you from this space.
Look up.
The light is open.
The way is clear.
Go now, in peace.
You do not belong to me,
and I do not belong to you.
I am not afraid.
I am protected.
I am loved."
Pause. Feel your body. Let the light stay open for a moment, then imagine it narrowing gently, like a flame dimming to a point.
Sprinkle salt at your doorways, burn cedar or frankincense, and say thank you to the spirits who came to warn you—not harm you. Even fear is sometimes a messenger.
This was not the end of the story.
It was just the descent.
And from descent, we rise.