Marcus, my godson, has a big interview Monday, so tonight I brewed a strong pot of chamomile, let it cool, and had him wash his hands in it while he said out loud what he wants. Chamomile has always been a luck herb in our family, for money, for jobs, and for card games my uncles would rather I didn't mention.
He asked if he could drink the rest. I said baby, it's just chamomile, it's for whatever you need. He drank it, washed his hands again for good measure, and went to bed early. That's a win before Monday even gets here.
Feeding Grandmama's lodestones
In my dresser drawer there's a red flannel bag that used to live in my grandmother's. Inside, a pair of lodestones. Lodestone is natural magnetite, a stone that pulls, and in rootwork we keep them for drawing good things close: steady work, good luck, people who mean you well.
You feed them. Fridays I take them out, say a few words over them, sprinkle a pinch of magnetic sand so it bristles up on them like little whiskers, and dress them with a drop of oil. Then back into the flannel.
Grandmama said a fed stone is a working stone, and a hungry stone gets lazy. I've never once let them get lazy.
Sweetening things with my sister
My sister and I haven't been right since Mama's house was sold. Too many words at the closing table. We're talking again, but stiff, like two people who learned each other out of a book.
So I set a honey jar. I told her I was doing it and she laughed and said "go on then, do your thing," which is the most she's said to me in weeks. Our two names on brown paper, written crosswise, folded toward me, pressed down into a small jar of honey with a cinnamon stick and a few dried rose petals. I read Psalm 133 over it: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is..." Every Sunday I burn a little white chime candle on the lid, set in my cast-iron skillet on the stove where I can watch it till it's done.
Three Sundays in. Yesterday she called to ask for Mama's cornbread recipe. Slow is how honey works.
Reading the cards like my uncle did
Folks ask why I don't use tarot. Simple: my uncle Roosevelt read a plain deck of playing cards at his kitchen table, so I do too. Hearts for love and family, diamonds for money, clubs for work and worry, spades for the hard things.
He'd shuffle, have you cut three times toward yourself, then lay nine cards in a square and talk to you the way a good mechanic talks about your car. Gentle, but no nonsense.
Read for a young lady from church this week (she asked; I don't go offering). Nine of hearts dead center, the wish card. Ace of spades down in the corner. I told her what my uncle would have: the wish is real, the hard thing is real, and you're going to have to walk through the one to get the other.
She said it was the first reading that didn't just tell her what she wanted to hear. Uncle Roosevelt would have been pleased.