Stephanie's Studio

Friday Natural Healing Corner: Dying, Death and Mourning In many quarters of the globe, the word death seems to burn the lips, particularly here in the West.  To utter death, we move our lips in such a way that bitter feelings, gruesome thoughts and the pain of finality is wrenched from the depths of the soul.  This dance with death begins clumsily yet with practice it can become increasingly more graceful.  Those of us involved with Hoodoo deal with various realms, including the "other-side" on a daily basis.  A gift of Hoodoo is that within its domain lies a plethora of jobs, tricks, rituals and incantations, inspired by the wisdom of indigenous and rural people.  Death, dying, grief and its attending depression and depletion are processes without an easy solution.  Using elements of Hoodoo can help you come to terms with the inevitable.  Hoodoo conjuration keeps you in touch with the spirit realm affording opportunities to glimpse and interact ...

When my siren appears in my new novel, "Out of the Blue," it is not certain whether she is an angel, young woman, demon or spirit. I have had a long term fascination with water and everything within it--real, from the spiritual realm, folklore, mythology and tales stemming from the imagination. I also love thinking about the possibilities presented by angels. This particular siren that has called to me, is far from angelic. She is of the very old type, not a mermaid but more of a bird woman. What does she want, I wonder. She looks like La Sirene from the Vodou pantheon, being light skinned but not white. Today, I wait for her elusive spirit to return. I am conjuring her, so that I can carry on telling her dark tale in Chapter 2. If any of you out there in the blogosphere have any interesting tales about encounters with Sirens or La Sirene, I would love to hear from you.