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by catherineyronwode » Sat Feb 27, 2016 7:28 pm
I would like to add that i personally do not "set it and forget it."
Also, i fear that some folks are confusing DISPOSAL and DEPLOYMENT. Remember, DISPOSAL is for remains (old wax, ashes, etc.), which is what this thread is about, and there is DEPLOYMENT of work (which is NOT what this thread is about).
To DEPLOY work is to place it where it will be stepped over, touched, smelled, or otherwise brought into CONTACT with the person i am working on or will be CONVEYED to that person (e.g. by Ants or by the wind). Disposal is for remains -- DEPLOYMENT is the major way of effecting contact and thus bringing about change in folk magic.
This "set it and forget it" thing -- and the conflation of disposal with deployment -- has NEVER been my way of working. Lots of folks say those words, but i actually was never taught them by any of the older African American practitioners i learned from. In fact i was usually taught to do either DEPLOYED work or ONGOING WORK.
To be VERY clear, i was taught by several people to work morning and night for days at a time, fifteen minutes per day, six at morning and six at night or nine at morning and nine at night, or at sunrise and sunset when engaged in long, onfgoing work. I was taught by others to work in runs, one attendance upon the work per day (or night) or to do the work every other day, or to do it for two weeks while the moon grows (or shrkinks) then "lay off" for two weeks, then go back to the work for two weeks. If work was to be deployed, i did so. I rarely was taught to work merely on an altar, as a microcosm, like so many folks now try to do. And there is NO ONE WAY that works for each spell -- these are the timing instructions for many different spells.
I was taught how to END the work, too -- to work it for a specified number of days -- whatever that spell called for -- in runs or sequences, and then to STOP. But to STOP is not to "forget it."
So, count me as one who has been working this was for 50 years and has never once said to myself or to any of my students, "set it and forget it" -- and, truly, that phrase makes no sense to me.
So there you have another country heard from.
catherine yronwode
teacher - author - LMCCo owner - HP and AIRR member - MISC pastor - forum admin