Cacao, Indigenous Wisdom and Our Lady of Holy Death with Ixchel Lara

Ixchel

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[00:00:00] MacBook Air Microphone-4: Hi, everybody. I wanted to start this episode off with a correction later on the episode, you're going to hear us talk about make lotta Kool-Aid. I was referring to McLaughlin. Coolay as a woman make lock. The cooler is a man. And his wife is MECASA watt. They are the rulers of MC lawn.

[00:00:22] MacBook Air Microphone-5: So this is the. Underworld slash after life for the gnawa people also known as the Aztecs. So now, you know, and thank you. And. And. onto the show. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dine with the Divine. I'm your host, Ashley, and together we'll be exploring the magical, the mystical, and everything in between. So on today's episode, we're going to talk about chocolate and a popular folk saint. So I hope everybody's having a great week, and if not, I [00:01:00] hope it gets better soon.

[00:01:01] Ashley: Today, we have a awesome guest. We have Ishelle Lara Isha Lahr is a professional bruja who centers indigna wisdom and magic in her eclectic Mexican brujería practice.

[00:01:15] Her offerings conjure a craft that is decolonial and focuses on liberation work for the individual and collective. Hundreds of her clients over 20 plus years have been guided by her. into reclaiming their true power and shaping a life of real magic. She is the maestra of kali blood and bone following the lineage of Kali Otsolato.

[00:01:39] To AKA . Oh my God,

[00:01:43] Ixchel: Kelly, AKA

[00:01:53] Ashley: I'm sorry, this is the fact, this is the worst part of having a podcast where you talk to people from different cultures. [00:02:00] Every single culture is different. So how to say their words, and I'm so sorry. So Isha, how are you today?

[00:02:08] Ixchel: I am lovely. Thank

[00:02:09] Ashley: you. Good. I'm so glad you're here and so glad that you're so forgiving of all my bad pronunciations. Yay. First question I'd like to ask everybody is how did you start on your path of magic?

[00:02:22] Ixchel: Oh, okay. How long do we have?

[00:02:25] Ashley: We have as long as you want!

[00:02:29] Ixchel: I'm kidding. No so really it's been my whole life. I was raised

[00:02:33] so my family is Roman Catholic. And I was raised in Catholic Church. And I would say up until I was about 10, 11, we were going to Mass every Sunday yada. So I had that, and my dad was like very Catholic, even when we had stopped going to church, he was still, he has his own little altar, and he had his Jesus statue, and Virgin Mary, and all of that.

[00:02:56] So he was very Catholic. My mom, on the other hand, she was Catholic, but she [00:03:00] was also, very witchy. She did her like folk Catholic practices, and when I was a kid I didn't know exactly what that was. But it was very normal for her to say things like, Oh, I had a dream last night, and such saint told me X, Y, and Z, or this angel, came and told me this, and so to me that was normal, and So sometimes I'd come home from Mass and I'd be in my room by myself and I would ask questions to like the Saints or whatever and they would respond.

[00:03:33] And so to me that was normal. And then as I got a little bit older and I would go to friends houses or talk about certain things and I found out very quickly that is not normal. It's not normal. It is not normal. And more than that. Not only is it not normal, but it's very frowned upon by a lot of people.

[00:03:54] And so for me, part of my journey was in reclaiming my [00:04:00] practices because when I had that experience of people being very judgmental, and it wasn't even just A normal, like, we don't like that people would, some people would be afraid, and I would say, make assumptions and have superstitions about certain things.

[00:04:16] So for me, when I was a kid, I learned to zip my lips. I didn't talk about it. I just had the narrative in my own mind of, you don't talk about this outside of the home, outside of my family. So when I got older. I tried to push away a lot of these. experiences. And spirit just kept coming back and like in different ways.

[00:04:40] And I remember I was like, I want to say maybe 1920 and I had gone, I had some crazy experiences and I was like, no, this is absolutely not something I want to have in my life. So I went to this local church that was I think they were Pentecostal. And I was talking about some of these [00:05:00] things and they were like, oh, yes, demons you need let's bless you Over you and you know in my head because I had been scared by some of these experiences.

[00:05:08] I was like, oh, yeah That must be

[00:05:11] Ashley: it That must be right. Oh shit

[00:05:14] Ixchel: Yeah, you know in my whole life i've been like No matter what, I was like, Jesus, I was always believing in Jesus and Jesus help me, Jesus guide me. And so when I was having that period of time in my life, when I was at this Pentecostal church, I remember things did go away for a little while.

[00:05:33] And then they started to come back and I remember praying and I was like, Jesus. Yeah.

[00:05:42] Ashley: I thought we had it understanding.

[00:05:44] Ixchel: Right? I thought we got this under control. And I was like, I need guidance here, basically, what's going on? What am I supposed to do? And there was an incident at this church that I was like, okay, this is definitely not for me, this [00:06:00] particular church.

[00:06:01] But then I was lost spiritually, without a home. And then at this, around the same period of time, I had gotten a new job. So I go to this new job and I used to work in business management and retail. So I go, first day, there's also another new girl and we're both managers. And me and her are talking and she's like, Oh, by the way are you open to mediumship?

[00:06:26] And I was like, why? And I'm like, why, what do you know about me? And

[00:06:38] she's telling me that she's a medium. Oh, she sees my grandmother around me. And she was asking me if I was open to a message from my grandmother. And I immediately have my guard up, but also I'm open. Cause I'm like. Okay, like my grandmother has passed. Yeah. I'm like, okay, what you got?

[00:06:59] So she [00:07:00] gives me a message and stuff and And she's a cool girl and she tells me that she works at this local Metaphysical bookshop and she teaches classes and yada. So I'm like, okay, I'm having these experiences I don't have a spiritual home here appears this medium I'm like, okay Let me see what's going on.

[00:07:22] So I take one of her classes and Immediately my own abilities just jump right open and back like when I was a kid before I was like trying to push everything away. Yeah, And and still though, I'm in the back of my mind, I'm like, Jesus,

[00:07:42] I'm like, is this really what you're guiding me to do? Like Jesus come through.

[00:07:51] So I'm like, okay, I'm praying for guidance and you get me this new job and you meet, you bring this medium into my path. So [00:08:00] I'm thinking, okay, this is the right direction. I actually ended up getting hired at that metaphysical bookstore to do readings. I'm like 21, 22 at this time, and so I'm starting to do readings and like I said, my abilities had come back to the place they were when I was a kid.

[00:08:22] And it feels, it really just felt right. It, I loved that I could help people with that. Yeah. And there was a time, growing up when I didn't realize. you can choose to connect to this. It was just random experiences when I was a kid. But at this point in life, I was like, Oh, I can like, I can reach out and be like, like I'm picking up the phone, like, hello, can

[00:08:47] Ashley: you like

[00:08:51] Ixchel: and it felt empowering at that point because when I was a kid, it felt like it was happening to me randomly whenever they wanted, like [00:09:00] the spirits. And now it was me, like I said, like picking up the telephone and saying, Hey knock, I need you to come through and answer questions. So I had started to have a much different relationship.

[00:09:13] With spirit, with my own abilities, and Also, recognizing, like I said, that I could help people in that way. That, set me on this journey, I would say my whole 20s I was doing it on the side. And then I had my first daughter when I was 30, and at that time I was like, I wanted to stay home with her.

[00:09:35] So I was like, I'm gonna start a home business. What do I want to do? My first business actually was it was a retail shop selling baby products. But I was like, once, once they're not babies, like I have two daughters and I was thinking to myself, once they're not babies. Do I still want to do this?

[00:09:53] Yeah, no What do I want to do? Yeah, it's a spiritual work. So [00:10:00] 2012 I started my spiritual business online and ever since then I've been doing it as my main full time thing and Just growing and and I just want to Rewind a little bit too because like at the same time when I started doing these readings at this bookstore, I had gone into meditations and I was having like people come through who were native and to me, I was like, okay, cool.

[00:10:34] Interesting. And then I would say well, okay, well, who are you? And they'd be like, yeah, ancestors were like, great grandpa, great whatever. And I was like. Cause I, I'm like, I'm in Michigan, I grew up in like city suburbs and my dad is from Mexico and we used to go to Mexico like for our summers.

[00:10:56] And so it wasn't like I was disconnected [00:11:00] totally, but it was not the culture I grew up in. So I'm having ancestors appear to me and tell me information and that I'm not connected to. One of my tribal connections is Nahuatl and the Oribecha. And I didn't grow up in those communities, but my interest was raised, now that I'm connected spiritually.

[00:11:22] Yeah. So I started at this time, like genealogy research. Yeah. And I'm starting to want to get reconnected to the side of me. So that was like also the same time that I'm opening it to my spiritual abilities. I'm also opening up like to cultural. Indigeneity and even though I didn't have the language for it at the time, it was me starting decolonizing.

[00:11:50] It was me getting reconnected and re indigenizing and there were groups I was connected to. Like originally there, there's a group called Nica and [00:12:00] Tlaca, which is for all de tribalized people of Mexican descent to reconnect and start learning. Through that, I got connected to a teacher who is from Mexico, who is the one who became my maestra and she is who I started to recognize.

[00:12:22] Oh, the stuff my mom was doing was magic is doing well, in our terms is there were things, she cursed people and she was open about it,

[00:12:35] Ashley: You gotta do I know. Yeah. I'm like, I'm just saying, like,

[00:12:45] Ixchel: Yeah, and I, well, with my mom, I just What I knew of what she was doing is that, like, when I think about her cursing, it was people who were hurting people she loved. Yeah. In my [00:13:00] mind, it was like, okay, you're protecting. Yeah. So for me, that was never like a bad thing. But of course, as I got older, I recognized there's lots of stories and narrative around it.

[00:13:10] And I started to understand why people... have superstition and get scared of it. But anyway, so I'm learning from my maestra about our practices and how a lot of what like I said, like a lot of the narrative and everything is about which is an evil and demons and blah, blah, blah. But really it's like our native practices.

[00:13:32] And through colonization, that narrative started. So for me, then it became a conflict between my Catholic backgrounds and now what I was reconnecting to indigenous practices. So I've, I had this whole cycle start where I was like, everything, I'm cutting off everything Catholic, Christian,[00:14:00] and at the time I'm like, Okay, bye Jesus.

[00:14:02] You're

[00:14:07] Ashley: unreal.

[00:14:12] Ixchel: But I'm Like, you got me this far. And I'm just like, I'm moving on now. But yeah. I went. From being very connected to that, to Jesus, right, that's my anchor, to letting that go, and now I'm exploring the indigenous side, and those spirits, and those practices and I would say up until maybe even a few years ago, I was very, like nothing Christian in my life, nothing Catholic at all.

[00:14:46] But my dad had gotten really sick in 2017. And so I started to help my mom help take care of him. He needed physical care and he passed in January of [00:15:00] 2018. At that time with the, like the native practices I have, there's ancestral veneration and putting up altars and things like that, which to be honest, up to that point, I didn't, I wasn't consistent in that, but I didn't take it that seriously.

[00:15:19] It was like when I felt like it, it would do something. But when my dad passed I eventually I put him on my altar and. That was, like, very emotional and it was also, the start of when I really started to take that very seriously connecting with my ancestors and making sure that I had a strong connection.

[00:15:41] That's happening behind the scenes personally on the business side, professional side, my business really was more on the face. It looked more like new age stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I had gotten into that. I was into like the crystals and high vibe and all that stuff. [00:16:00] So on the face of my business, that's what I was doing.

[00:16:03] But behind the scenes, I had my.

[00:16:08] And so once my dad passed, it just was too conflicting. It felt like that was no longer me actually felt like that for quite a while, but I kept pushing it away. Cause my business was really like, it did really well. Yeah. And I was, I, well, I was still am a single mom, so in my head, I'm like, I don't want to take the risk of switching my business and like, And also definitely can name that the wounding was still alive about the judgment.

[00:16:39] Yeah. So I had to do a lot of work confronting my own fears about expressly being bruja. Yeah. And those practices and knowing that people have so much superstition and fear around it, lots of judgment. It has been weaponized and [00:17:00] used against me by people, in personal side of life.

[00:17:04] So I had to prepare myself when I wanted to like. Reemerge, professionally and put this out here as the base of what I do, but I also knew I needed to, because like my spirits, the ancestral spirits were like, for years have been like, this is what you need to do, be open about it. So once he passed and I was like taking the ancestral practices very seriously.

[00:17:29] I started working with Santa Muerte and so she helped a lot with my own growth and like stepping into feeling safe, feeling secure about being open about it. And definitely she's also a particular spirit that people are like, what? Yeah,

[00:17:47] Ashley: yeah. Everybody's like, what the hell's going on here?

[00:17:52] Ixchel: They're like, Oh, okay. You work with Archangel Michael. Cool. But then like somebody, I come along and I'm like, I work with Santa Muerte. Oh,

[00:17:58] Ashley: the skeleton.[00:18:00] No. I think, okay. It's nice to meet you. I gotta go.

[00:18:08] Ixchel: And I love it too. Cause they're like, the ones who, who'd never heard of her and they're like, who is that? Oh, it's Holy Duff.

[00:18:15] Ashley: Oh.

[00:18:17] Ixchel: Okay, real interest. Okay, bye.

[00:18:23] Ashley: I'm sorry, this think of when, like, oh, sorry. I'm not trying to be mean. I always do this when I'm doing this. I always do the sign of the cross when I think I'm being mean. It's the Catholic in me too. I'm like, okay, I'm about to say something mean. I might as well just do this preemptively. Okay, when you see a baby that you don't think is like that cute.

[00:18:38] And somebody shows you the picture and you're like, Oh, this is a cute baby. You're like, Oh, well, he has an interesting look. He certainly does. Oh my God. I'm getting a phone call. Oh, I'm so sorry. I just don't like what you said. Well, that's a baby. That's [00:19:00] a baby. Oh, so innocent. You just have to use different words because you don't know what to say.

[00:19:05] He's going to grow right into that. Yeah, he's going to grow into it. It's going to be fine. Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. Okay, sorry, back to what we were talking about. Okay, Santa Muerte, that's where we were at. Sorry.

[00:19:22] Ixchel: No, that's okay. That's exactly what it's like though, you

[00:19:25] Ashley: know. Oh gosh. They're just

[00:19:28] Ixchel: like, ooh, okay, yep.

[00:19:31] I hear

[00:19:32] Ashley: my friend calling me, gotta go.

[00:19:36] Ixchel: Yeah yeah, it was just, I think working with her definitely is like being pushed off a cliff into facing all the fears that you might have about people's judgments. But yeah, so she and I are very close. She's, she's my main. Spirit I work with.

[00:19:55] I'm a devotee, so I have committed for life. She's helped me with many [00:20:00] things. Also, because of this journey with her and coming, I feel like it's come full circle. Spiritually speaking, because I now welcome Catholicism back in. So I don't believe in the, what I would call the mythology. Yeah.

[00:20:20] But I definitely believe in the spirit. Me and Jesus are cool again.

[00:20:30] I call him Jesus.

[00:20:31] Ashley: Let's do it. The more epic the better. I know,

[00:20:36] Ixchel: let's do it. Well, anybody who does have an ancestral practice knows What you put on your altar is for them, not for you. So with my ancestors and particularly with my dad get having a Bible there, a rosary the Virgin those are all things that were very important to my dad and like other [00:21:00] ancestors, certain other ancestors.

[00:21:01] So those are on my altar, reading a passage from the Bible is for them. But I can personally now find some beauty in it. I can find what parts of it are helpful to me. So I have a folk Catholic practice but I'm not Catholic. And I know for some people that can be confusing. But but yeah, so my personal practice and my professional practice are now matching.

[00:21:29] They are aligned. So I'm in a really good place now, spiritually speaking, because I feel like... Who I am behind the scenes fully matches who I am up front. There's absolutely nothing that is a secret. I talk about everything now and share it with everyone. So now my spiritual journey, I feel like is in a really good place cause everything's aligned, but it was a lot to get to this point.

[00:21:54] Where I do say it definitely is a decolonial practice and that means a specific thing to me that may not [00:22:00] mean the same to other people but it's definitely, it's decolonial, it's centered around indigeneity, it's

[00:22:07] I don't know, it welcomes everything, like I was talking about the magic and like cursing and things like that which is all part of our culture there's nothing about that now that I feel like I have to hide. And if anybody has judgments about it I understand now that's their narrative, their conditioning, their shit to deal with.

[00:22:34] Ashley: My gosh, thank you, first of all, for telling me all that and telling all of us. I think it's so Now, when you were talking, I was also trying, I was like, I'm trying to find a good way to say this because I don't want anyone to be offended by this. When you were talking about how you started a New Agey at first, it was like a New Agey kind of shop.

[00:22:56] I feel... Now, again, I don't want anyone [00:23:00] to be offended by this, okay? Okay, but here's the thing. New age stuff makes us all feel good. And we're all like, yay, everything's great, we're manifesting, yeah. There's nothing wrong with a manifestation. But like, when you talked about okay, then you started getting more and making it more like your...

[00:23:20] practice and including your, the brujeria, like what you know, what your ancestors knew. That's when you, it starts to get hairy for people, because that's when we have to confront all the, I'm gonna use the word privilege, that it is to be new agey. New agey to me is like, oh, I'm gonna sound like a dick when I say this, but I'm like, it's like privileged spirituality at that point, because, It's just like all the fun stuff without having to look into anything.

[00:23:50] Yeah. A lot of the time, so like when we talk about Oh, people be like these ancient, Oh, I love when they're like these ancient practices. Nobody tells you where they're [00:24:00] from. They just tell you they're ancient. This is why I get really upset when people talk about what's that thing I always yell at my friend about?

[00:24:06] Like Yoni schemes and stuff. Like, I don't know. Trust me, I have a point. I'm sorry. Okay? People, they'll be like, It's an ancient practice. From where? Nobody knows. And nobody can ever tell you. And I'm getting, that's why I'm like, I'm not doing it. First of all, that sounds weird. I don't want to burn my vagina.

[00:24:24] , I'm not into that. But like, also, this is exactly what we need to all do. When you talked about, I started my decolonization work when you started doing your practice in a way that served you and served your ancestors better.

[00:24:38] And then even when you brought into your folk Catholicism, that's still decolonization work that you're doing. And you're doing it for your ancestors without them being here. You're mixing all the things that they, Some of them were forced to believe it, but some of them, this was their comfort.

[00:24:53] But you're comforting them by bringing that into it. And I think that's so beautiful that you do that in your practice. And [00:25:00] that is part of the work that all of us have to do. I'm not saying everybody, you have to, if, you have to go out tonight and buy like a 23andMe kit if you want to. I'm not saying that.

[00:25:12] But I am saying that. You need to look at what you are practicing and what you believe and see is this just like the privileged version of me? I can just do whatever I want and say that it's this, without knowing where it's from.

[00:25:25] This is a big thing. And I think I've said this before, why I hate when everybody talks about, Oh, well, I just bought Sage and I did this and that. Okay, so like, you're just doing it because you heard everybody else does it. You don't know anything about the intention behind it. You just think, well, it's for clearing.

[00:25:44] Yeah, okay, it's for clearing, but understand that, and I used to say the word, use the word smudging, but that's closed practice. I don't say that anymore because I learned about it and realized that is not, that's not for me, number one. If I want to clear with Sage, I understand [00:26:00] the intention, I know that behind it, but smudging is its own practice, so that's not my thing, but...

[00:26:05] People just do stuff now because they're like, well, I heard it was spiritual and it made people feel better. But that's not doing the work. And maybe your work is not necessarily, it doesn't have to be ancestral for everybody, but it does have to be looking more deeply into what you believe and why you believe it.

[00:26:24] It's not just looking at the surface and saying, I got this crystal and now I feel better. I promise it's not going to work for long. I'm just being honest and everybody can get mad at me for it. You have to look really deeply into who you are. And maybe you aren't going to have exactly the same experience like Ixchel had, with the unfortunate passing of her father and then her, doing all these other things.

[00:26:47] You might have a different kind of experience, but it's important to look at our lives and look at what we believe and why we believe it. And not just doing it because everybody else was doing it, and it's popular. Of course it's popular. [00:27:00] Everybody wants to feel good. But you're, but in the end...

[00:27:04] You haven't worked through anything. You didn't do anything. You bought a crystal and it's pretty and that's cool. I have crystals too. I think they're really pretty and I love them. But, if I don't do any kind of work with it, what am I doing? And for a lot of us, I think who are first generation Americans, maybe second generation, we end up living in these two worlds and it complicates things a lot for us.

[00:27:30] Like... You have the American, well, depending where you are, you have the culture you're born into, but you have the culture that is in your bones. And I'm not saying it's only if you're first and second generation, it's just that you're closer to it when you are. You're like you might be a fourth or fifth generation and you feel that way.

[00:27:47] That's okay, I'm just making an example. But like, it's in our bones and we grow up in a house where... Maybe you eat things different, or you speak a different language, or your culture's a little different, or your religion's a little different. [00:28:00] And, sometimes, growing up, you try so hard to, like fit in.

[00:28:05] You end up, like you said, oh, I guess all these things, and even if it's just cultural, it's not like hearing saints. But if it's anything, you'll be, I guess this isn't okay. You know what I mean? Because of who I am and who my friends are, I guess this isn't okay. Now you have to grow up, and then you get older and you start giving a shit, less of a shit about what other people think.

[00:28:23] Now you have to reckon with all that. It's so complicated. Like, all I'm, yeah, all I'm saying is give peace a chance. Like, we like, just try to learn about yourself and go a little bit deeper. Then just being like, well, I'm going to manifest this and that, which is fine. All of that is good if it makes you feel good. But if you really want to, like, deconstruct and, like, decolonize your thinking, it involves a little bit more.

[00:28:47] Depth and research. That's my rant. Sorry, Ishelle. You were gonna say something. I cut you off. Oh no

[00:28:54] Ixchel: Well one I co sign everything you just said[00:29:00]

[00:29:00] The realizations I had is that new ages a tool for capitalism. It is, I call it Christianity light. Well, let's just be real. If we're going to offend and hurt feelings, I'm going to go ahead and add on that Western Christianity is white colonized Christianity. Hello. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead. New age is basically white Christianity light.

[00:29:26] And if you want to go even further, everything that we find in new age. And I'm really going to hurt feelings here. Reiki and chakras is extracted and exploited practices from brown cultures or non white cultures. I actually just had a talk today with one of my friends. Magically, she has candles that are infused with Reiki and for a specific purpose.

[00:29:51] And she's like Oh, can I, you're like, can I dress these with herbs? And like, dedicate them to a different spirit or blah, blah, blah, [00:30:00] blah. And I was like, here's my two cents. Reiki is Japanese. They have a whole cultural background and spiritual practices and spirits that are attached to their concept of energy healing, Reiki.

[00:30:18] So when you're interacting with that, the candle, you're interacting with all of that. So I said, you're going to add herbs. Do you know if those herbs conflict with that cultural lineage, the power that is lined up with it? A spirit, do you know that spirit conflicts or not with that energy? Because it's not just a candle, it is an anchor into a source of power that belongs to Japanese culture.

[00:30:51] What do you actually know, really, about Reiki? And how have you studied the culture, how have you studied their spiritual practices so that you [00:31:00] know actually what you're fucking with? And I said, especially magically, if you're going to mess with another culture's stuff, you can literally, you can seriously fuck yourself up if you don't know what you're doing.

[00:31:13] Yeah. It's like people who want to work with Santa Muerte. Okay, great. But do you know our culture? Do you know what she comes from? You know what. What that whole energetic power source is so that you actually know, cause it's not just death. Like death is of course everywhere and in every culture, but that death, the energy of death is filtered through a specific channel.

[00:31:40] In this case, it's Santa Muerte, in another culture, it's a different spirit. So they take on different content, different tone. Different characteristics, so it's not the same across every culture you want to interact with Santa Muerte, you want to interact with Reiki, you want to, whatever that is, do [00:32:00] you actually know what the fuck you're doing?

[00:32:01] Did you take the time to study it so that you actually know where it comes from? If you don't even know what it was born from, how in the world do you think that you really have tapped into the power? Yeah. And I was talking to another friend who is from India, we had a conversation about the chakras and how in new age, it's very, it's basically not really connected to the authentic teachings.

[00:32:31] And she was talking about like some of the differences and how it's looked at, and I agree with her, almost like entertainment, in Western new age and I just thought, wow, if we just had more people, From those cultures or even not even necessarily from the cultures, but who people who actually know what the book we're talking.

[00:32:52] Yeah Writing the books and teaching and all of that. We wouldn't have all this regurgitated [00:33:00] Surface level stuff and specifically Reiki and chakras because those are the two main things in New Age spirituality. You are not plugged into the authentic power source, so you don't actually carry the medicine, the power of that thing.

[00:33:14] You're a weak ass medicine carrier, quote unquote. Shaman, master, teacher, chakra, whatever. Yeah. All the labels that people like to put. Yeah. You don't carry the medicine. No. You don't carry the power, and it's not that you can't, it's just that you won't. do the work, like to your point, you haven't done the work, you aren't doing the work, you won't do the work.

[00:33:38] And you don't want to admit what I'm talking about is a real thing. And so like when people talk about cultural appropriation, at least when I bring it up, I tell people, I'm not coming from the vibe of. How dare you. How dare you interact with something you don't know about. That's what I'm saying!

[00:33:54] That's what I've been saying! Thank you! Okay. Michelle, this is why we're here today. This is why you're on my podcast.[00:34:00]

[00:34:10] Ashley: Because this is what I've been talking about. I was saying the same thing the other day. I was like, culture appropriation to me is not like you can never, you can't Do this, because how dare you and how, no, everybody, which is fine. Okay, here's the thing I can't be offended about every single person who does something from my culture, because I don't care, because if you're like, well, you know what, I love this symbol from your culture, because I was there and I learned a lot about it.

[00:34:35] And I know that it means X, Y, and Z. And I just really connect with that. That's fine. Okay, cool. But like, because you actually learn something about it, like you're talking about Santa Muerte, there's people who are not of any type of Mexican descent or Central American who are, who want to be Santa Muerte devotees, and they do the work.

[00:34:56] They connect with her, they learn about the culture around her, they will learn [00:35:00] about the history of her, which is the right and respectful way to do it. If you're gonna do it, okay, cool! But like, when you're out here, okay, we're gonna, and we, after, this episode is gonna come out after, we had an episode about Hekate, and everybody's talking about Hekate.

[00:35:16] People don't even know who Hekate is, she's just popular on TikTok. So everybody loves Hekate, all of a sudden, like, oh yeah Hekate. But like, when you actually research, you know what part of the world she comes from and their traditions.

[00:35:27] That's how you can really connect with her. , cultural appropriation is because you don't, it's because you don't give a shit about the background. You just think it's cool. Like, if you learn about backgrounds , like you're saying, Michelle, you can really access the knowledge and power of these really beautiful practices and beautiful deities that you want to connect with.

[00:35:47] You have to understand them. It's like getting married, right? And you think somebody's hot, and you're like, Cool, I wanna marry this person that's hot. But then you get married to them, and you barely speak to them, you don't know what they like, you they don't know what you like, [00:36:00] and you're like, why is my relationship bad?

[00:36:01] Because You don't

[00:36:05] know you don't know their favorite color, you don't know their favorite food, you don't know what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what their goals are, so now you marry somebody you hardly know, you're confused as to why your relationship is so surface level. I'll tell you why, you don't know anything about them, and it's the same thing with deities and practices.

[00:36:20] You're talking about Reiki. And also, we have to realize that our cultural practices, no matter where we're from, may conflict with the cultural practices of the deity or culture that you want to work with. Like you said, about the candle. Your friend might be doing this with certain herbs. Maybe those herbs are really not cool in, Japanese culture, or maybe it's Shinto culture, I'm not sure, because I don't know that much about Reiki like that.

[00:36:47] This herb might be, like, completely not cool for them. It might mean something for them that is like, Ooh, we only use this when we want to fuck people up. And you're using it to bless this candle? We use this to ruin people's lives. Like, like, [00:37:00] like, like, like, like. Like you said, it's all about protecting your neck.

[00:37:06] Or in nursing, we say cover your ass, C Y A. Because you don't want to get into situations. Where you're working with deities and cultures, and now you're a mess, and you're like, I don't know what happened, I just wanted to, manifest. Well, they didn't want you to. The colors you, even I know in Santeria, and West African cultures too, colors mean a lot of different things.

[00:37:27] You can't just use any color for any type of deity. Cause they all have their own colors. So like, you're using green. For Shango, Shango is red. Now, he's not, he's gonna be like, I don't like green. So he's not gonna help you. You've gotta, it's just so important that you do the work when it comes to all this stuff.

[00:37:45] It's not all fun and games. I know everybody wants to have fun and be like, yeah, I'm spiritual now. Yeah, I know, but

[00:37:54] Okay, great, but like it's important to really look into what you want to do. [00:38:00] So that you can actually get also get the results that you want when you want a more free life. You want more, feel like you're able to contact the spirits yourself without intermediaries. Everybody can do it.

[00:38:12] You've just got to really be good and know to do the work. Sorry, that's my rant after you spoke, because you said so many important things! Oh, I love it! I love it! Jesus, this Jesus, we love you too, you're great! That's another thing! Just how you were talking, I was like, I had the same problem. Just when you were talking, I was like I feel you so hard.

[00:38:37] I went through a point in my life that I was like, Wait a minute. If my people were colonized and told that their practices were wrong in the name of Jesus. Does that mean I can't like Jesus? Shit. Cause me and Jesus are, we're great. We are all vibing. Me, Ishelle, and Jesus, [00:39:00] we're vibing.

[00:39:03] We're all, we're vibed. So I'm like, that's crazy because, and I thought, okay. I guess I have to renounce Jesus, but Jesus was always, in the back of my mind, Hey, I miss you, girl. And I'm like, how am I gonna miss you, too? And now, like, you said, like, gee, I have a rosary on my altar, along with my hakuna doll from my tribe and, like, all this kente cloth from my tribe and different symbols.

[00:39:28] But it's there, because he means a lot to me. He never did nothing bad to me. He only ever tried to help me. So I'm like, Jesus, we're still cool, Virgin Mary. We're still cool. I'm the same. It's like I'm not deep in it like that, but like I know that Catholicism meant a lot to people in my life and Christianity meant a lot of people a lot of my ancestors who are no longer with me.

[00:39:51] So in order to honor them too, I'm like, nah, Jesus, you got to come back. And he's like yeah, girl, hey, what's up?[00:40:00]

[00:40:00] And I'm like, we're fine. Okay. So that was a great time talking about that. Oh, God.

[00:40:10] So this week, our Dish of the Week and our Tea Time is going to be the same. So Tea Time is when we talk about something educational, and our Dish of the Week is when we talk about some food.

[00:40:19] And it's going to be the same thing today, because I was like, this is an opportunity. Today we're going to talk about cacao, because here's the thing, everybody. Again, I'm not trying to make a statement and nobody get mad at me for saying this. There's a lot of people having cacao ceremonies and I don't know if they know what they're doing.

[00:40:35] I don't trust nobody. But everybody, have you noticed this? Everybody is doing a cacao ceremony now. And I don't know if anybody's doing it right. So I'm just, I don't know anything about cacao. So I can't judge, I'm not judging them. I'm just saying, I need to do my research. Because I don't like to go... Okay.

[00:40:55] And we had a... Actually, my friend on who does like [00:41:00] ceremonies with ayahuasca, she went to what I like to call ayahuasca college. So like, I trust her, like she was in the jungle for two months learning what to do. So I'm like, okay, it makes sense to me, but like. All these random people who wear beige hats and all neutral clothing.

[00:41:17] They're in the desert and they're talking about they want me to drink this stuff and I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to piss off. Okay, let's talk about this too. We're gonna get into, we're gonna talk a lot about the Aztecs. Let me tell you something. I don't know so much about...

[00:41:33] What I've learned about the Aztec Spirits is number one, they're badass, and number two, I don't want to piss them off. I'm not out here trying to drink cacao and act like I'm doing something when I don't want them to get mad at me. Because they're powerful, and they're really cool, and I don't want to make them mad.

[00:41:48] That's my preface to all of this. I just want everyone to know, okay? I don't want to make them mad at all. Okay, so we're gonna talk about cacao today [00:42:00] because I was like, I need to learn about this. And since we're talking about Mexico, we'll be doing another thing later. We're going to talk more about Mexico,

[00:42:08] we're going to talk a little bit about cacao. Is that cool? Yeah, absolutely. All right, cool. We're gonna do it. I'm excited because I learned a lot. Okay all right, so what they see now what archaeologists have been like, when did people start really using cacao? So they said the first people to use it were the Olmecs in the 1500 BCE.

[00:42:30] So back, right? You guys remember the Olmecs from history class, they were like, oh, the Olmecs were there and then they weren't. Like they didn't disappear. They probably were just absorbed. Let's talk about this for a second. I don't understand what people say. A tribe disappeared. They didn't disappear.

[00:42:44] They probably just joined another tribe. They were either conquered or they intermarried or something happened. They didn't disappear. They were just... They just moved and called themselves something else. Everyone relax. M empires rise and [00:43:00] fall. So there was, like, Olmecs were doing really good, and then probably, like, the Mayans came in, so they were like, now we're the new people here.

[00:43:05] It's not a problem. Anyway. So the Olmecs, the word for them was cacahua, so it ended up being cacao later on. And, okay, here we have a quote. As empires rose and fall, the subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations of the Itzipan, Mayan, Toltecs, and Aztecs were converted, were coveted cacao for its properties, primarily in the form of a frost drink.

[00:43:33] It was a prized possession and available only to the elite, for it was a godly potion that would grant energy and power and use in many rituals and to appease the deities. The attributes were considered more than simply advantages in that time food and prayer were also the only source of medicine So and we'll get into it later to the cacao also has a lot of really good like healing stuff So they use it for different ailments, [00:44:00] but It wasn't at least what I read, and people were like, the way that they were drinking it back then, it wasn't, tasty. It wasn't good. People drink it after, it was, like, robitussin, probably, to them. They're like, this isn't good, but, we need to drink it. Like, really? Whether it's for whether it's for, oh, there's also, and I forget the name of it, but there's this sport, and I remember learning about this in sixth grade Spanish class.

[00:44:25] But then I saw a video on it the other day. So there's this sport. And it was played by the Aztecs, and it's kinda like soccer, except you play with your hips. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I read too that before the and this game could sometimes be played just for fun, but sometimes they were playing , ritualistically.

[00:44:47] A lot of the time they would drink the cacao, because it gave them it was like a little Red Bull for them. It gave them a good energy. Yeah, so they were like, let's play before we play the game so we can win. I thought that was cool. And the game looks, the game is hard. I was watching [00:45:00] people play this game, I said, Oh my god, this is really hard.

[00:45:03] I was like, oh my god, I can't play this game. You have to be like, on the ground trying to get it with your hips, and you have to hit it from hip to hip. And then you have, oh, and it's not funny. You guys, the game is you have to hit it from hip to hip, right?

[00:45:13] Then there's a basket. But it's not like a basket. It's on its side, it's a hole, like it's a round, think of a round shape with a hole, like a doughnut, and it's like on the wall, but it's on its side, and you have to get the ball through that, with your hips, yeah, it's hard, it's not easy but it's pretty cool, as I told you though, the Aztecs could do it, cause they're badass like that okay, so then also, the, oh, and also archaeologists even found cacao in, Ecuador, and that cacao actually dates back to 5700 BCE.

[00:45:45] So cacao is old, like people have been drinking it for a really long time in different parts of the Americas. It also grows in other places, but this is where we know people were using it for ritual and for different reasons. Okay, in [00:46:00] some parts of Central America, cacao was actually used

[00:46:04] As a form of payment which makes sense because it was super, super coveted and people really needed it. So why not use it to barter for your goods? When the Spaniards came, they discovered the value of the cacao and then they called it black gold and the seeds of gold because they realized how good it was for all this stuff.

[00:46:23] And actually when, and we'll get into that in a second, but oh. No, the maximum storage for this period is three years. Okay, you can store it for three years. I didn't know that. Okay You didn't even know I put that in my notes, did you? Now I know. And the biggest change when it came to Kakao came with this asshole.

[00:46:40] His name is Herman Cortez if you've never heard of him. He's a dick. He's a real terrible dude. He sucks. He basically came into Mexico and was like, I'm gonna kill everybody and take this stuff. And I was like 15, 19. And he took Kakao back to Spain. And he was like, I don't know what to do with this stuff, but they love this shit down there.

[00:46:58] And everyone's like, okay. [00:47:00] So then the Europeans were like, let's try to add sugar to it. Cause as I told you guys, it don't taste good like that. It doesn't taste like chocolate. It didn't taste nice. It was bitter. Think of when you, you know how people don't like dark chocolate? But think of that like times 10.

[00:47:14] That's what it tastes like. Without the sugar, without the milk. So then when you brought it back to Europe, people started adding sugar to it to make it taste better. Then in, I think it was in the 1800s, there was this guy I don't know what country he was in, but his name was Van Houten, and he developed a method to use about 50 percent cacao, and then he added some milk to it, and he frothed it up, and then he, baked it, and froze it.

[00:47:41] And he was like, this is chocolate! And then people were like, damn, this should taste good! And then Nestle, in 1867, pulverized milk into it, and they were like, ooh, this is even better! And then... In around the 2000s, everybody was like, wait, this isn't the original way we had it. [00:48:00] So everyone started realizing that.

[00:48:01] So that's fine. Anyway, let's get back to the other stuff. So cacao was an intrinsic part of ancient Mayan and Aztec life, and it wasn't just a beverage or food, but it was a pillar of their economy and an integral part of religious ceremonies, appearing in many spiritual ceremonies, even death and ritual sacrifices.

[00:48:23] We have to make a note. Everybody loves to talk about the Aztecs and how they sacrifice people. Alright, let's talk about this for a second, please. Because I think we need to. Now.

[00:48:35] Because ragging on the Aztecs for this. First of all, this happened in a lot of places. There's a lot of places where... Okay, let's talk about the Aztec spirituality. The way Aztecs thought was a lot different than we think today. The Aztecs thought, life is a cycle.

[00:48:50] You're gonna live and you're gonna die. So it's not like they didn't value death. It's not like they didn't think it was, sad when someone died. Everybody in the world, [00:49:00] that's a universal feeling. You're gonna be sad. But they also saw it as a necessity to bring new things forward. So when they did do sacrifices, of whether it was whatever people, animals, It wasn't, because they thought it was cool, it was because they thought it was necessary.

[00:49:16] And a lot of the time, there's a lot of evidence that the people they were sacrificing were, sometimes criminals. It wasn't people like, oh, they were all virgin girls. I don't know, everybody got that in their head. But, it wasn't always like that. A lot of time it was people who were, like, did something wrong in the community.

[00:49:30] They murdered somebody or did something terrible. So they were like, well, this person is sentenced to death anyway. I'm not trying to make it flippant, I'm just trying to make people understand. But, like... They saw things differently and they saw this as like, look, we can't, the crops are not growing well this year.

[00:49:46] We have to sacrifice something to the gods because they gotta help us. And this is not the only place in the world that, where they did this. There's a lot of places and sometimes there's, the evidence is, Thousands of years back, and I have theories about [00:50:00] this too, but I think there's certain places in the world where they don't talk about it, because they don't want to, they're like, oh no, we don't want to say that it happened, but it did.

[00:50:06] It happened in a lot of societies. But people like to rag on the Aztecs for doing it, they were bad people or something. No, they just understood things different. They were no, this is just a necessity of our society. So I just wanted to make that note. Sorry. I just get very, I get very upset about that.

[00:50:22] Ixchel: I, I agree with you and I'm glad you said something as well. I think I notice that a lot when people want to talk about the good things, and I notice this about any Native tribe. There's always somebody who comes up and is like, Oh, you're talking like they were all peaceful together and they didn't fight each other and blah, blah, blah.

[00:50:41] And I'm like, yeah that's a justification for

[00:50:43] Ashley: genocide.

[00:50:48] Like,

[00:50:49] Ixchel: Or they sacrifice people so they deserved it or whatever the case is. And I'm just like, romans did it. Greeks did it. Chinese did it. I'm sure somewhere in Norse mythology, we hear about, some of [00:51:00] their stuff. And I'm like, literally, I think probably every culture around the world has had some form of that.

[00:51:07] And then even if not, let's look at colonization. We all know the things that happened during colonization, so let's not act like... There's any society that's better than another who, who never harmed

[00:51:22] Ashley: anyone. This is what I'm trying to say. Everybody, it doesn't matter how it happened, colonization, exactly, was a genocide of so many societies around the world.

[00:51:33] I always say, remember how they say the sun never sets on the British Empire? That's because they conquered so many places around the world, and they made those people suffer. I don't care where it was, nothing ever was the same because of it. Whether it's the Aztecs sacrificing people for their own, for the good of their own community, these people were and, let's talk about the Romans were just killing people for fun.

[00:51:54] So don't act like one is better than the other. It was both, yeah, in both [00:52:00] situations, it's sad because people got murdered, but the situations were different. One was necessity and one was for fun. So I'm just putting that out there take do what you want with that. But okay So actually, now going back to what we were talking about, I'm sorry, I get very passionate about these things.

[00:52:16] There's actually, there's a book called the Papal Vu, or the Book of Counsel, and this is like a Mayan text that they found. The Mayans and the Aztecs, they kept records, man. They were not playing any games. They wanted you to know what happened. They were like, we're here and we need to let everybody know the story. So in a lot of their, ancient texts, and their creation myths, cacao was a part of it. And one of the stories the severed head of a god is hung on a cacao tree. And in another page of the book, There's the god of maize and there is a cacao pod sprouting from his head.

[00:52:52] So also in creation gods making humans out of cacao. So they're saying that, like, humans [00:53:00] are part cacao. That's how big of a deal this was. And, okay, so we were talking about this. In Aztec societies, a lot of the time, cacao was actually given to sacrificial victims in order to Connect them to the world.

[00:53:14] So they thought everybody's part cacao. So they're like when this person is going back into the earth let's give them the cacao to continue to join them with the earth when they are going back into it and Okay, this is an interesting ritual that we have to talk about during an annual Aztec ritual in Teotitlan a slave would be chosen to represent Quasicudol At which is a God at the end of 40 days during which this person had dressed in finery and was given all manner of good food and drink, he was informed of his impending death and then made to dance.

[00:53:49] If the temple's priest saw that he was not dancing as enthusiastically or as well as they expected him to, , they gave him this drink that was a mix of cacao and water and. [00:54:00] It was used to wash obsidian blades. They were sacrificial blades and therefore they had some blood on them sometimes.

[00:54:07] The sacrifice would be, the sacrificial person would be rejuvenated and really joyful after drinking the mixture of the chocolate. And then they would dance to their death. So this was a big part of that ritual in particular. Also the Aztecs have a, almost it looks like, You know how in a lot of indigenous cultures in the North Americas, they have that cross with a circle.

[00:54:32] The Aztecs have something like that, but it's designed very intricately. And there's different directions that are described. And the cacao is actually on that tree of this directional circle that they have. It's very pretty. I'm going to try to put it on the blog for everybody to see.

[00:54:48] So again, this just shows that in many Mesoamerican cultures cacao is a super important part of everyday life and also [00:55:00] medicinally, they use cacao to treat fatigue and alleviate fevers and people who are short of breath or had what they called the faint of heart. And when the Europeans got it, they didn't know what the fuck to do with it, so they used for fucking everything.

[00:55:14] Yeah, like, they were out there using, they said they had more than a hundred medicinal uses for cacao and chocolate. They were just doing whatever. They were like, well, they're like, those indigenous people like it, so we might as well use it. Here's some more stuff that it was used for. It was used to...

[00:55:33] It was used for emaciated patients so they could gain weight. It was used for people who had apathetic, exhausted, or feeble nervous systems. It was used to improve digestion and elimination. And it's used for people who have weak stomachs, to stimulate kidneys, and to improve bowel function.

[00:55:54] Interesting. Oh, more stuff. They also used it for anemia. We are, mental fatigue. [00:56:00] So if you're... You're burnt out? I guess you should drink some cacao. Oh, people who have poor breast milk production. Tuberculosis. Okay. Kidney stones. Reduced longevity and poor sexual appetite or low virility. They also made it as like a paste to administer drugs, so they would mix it into drugs.

[00:56:20] And they would use the beans, the bark, and the oil that came from it, leaves and flowers, to treat burns and skin irritations. Okay. Cacao is a catch all. They're like, we can do this for everything. The traditional Mayan drink that they made cacao out of was like this. They mixed cacao with water and then they added spices such as chili peppers and cornmeal.

[00:56:47] We talked about In a previous episode mole, so we know down there. They love them chilies They would pour the Concoction back and forth from a cup to like get it frothy and [00:57:00] then they would sweeten it with flower nectar or honey Okay, then some other ritual uses of cacao In mayan times drinking chocolate was one of the privileges of the high Standard individuals and it was considered the food of the gods like we said before it was It's reserved for the elite people such as royals, nobles, priests, high government officials, military officers, warriors who had like really great standings the local shamans of the community, and really particularly very good artists or high earning merchants.

[00:57:37] It wasn't suitable at this point for women and children, they didn't think they should drink it. The seeds were usually offered to the gods after it was made for something else. Marriage rituals use cacao, and that would inspire fertility for the person who's gonna have the baby in the marriage.

[00:57:57] And cacao was given [00:58:00] as a gift for the birth of a child. Now we know a lot about cacao!

[00:58:08] It was a catch all for everything. I love how, the problem now is, though, it's been co opted by everybody. It's a thing that everybody seems to do now. I see cacao ceremonies everywhere and I don't know, I could find some stuff, but I wasn't going to go into the way every single ritual was done.

[00:58:28] But rituals are done for very specific reasons. The way people are doing Kakao now, I don't know so, so much about it. It's just, everybody's doing it I don't know, do what you want. I'm not trying to stop you, but, do your research. Okay at this point in the show, I'm going to plug myself, and then we're going to go to our story time.

[00:58:46] If you're enjoying this show, you can make sure that you're subscribed on... Apple Podcasts, or Google, or whatever you like to listen to, Spotify. And you can also follow me on the socials, I'm at Dine with the Divine on [00:59:00] Instagram. And Facebook, and TikTok I post clips of the show there, so feel free to go and look at that.

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[00:59:32] com. Thank you. Okay, so next we're going to go into our story time, and today we're going to do a deity. I love doing a deity because we get to talk a lot about it. We're doing Santa Muerte, who I know, yes, you are very familiar with. I know, in my own practice Santa Marta has come up a few times I like her vibe.

[00:59:52] It's cool. It's very... intense, but I enjoy a Santa Morte. Who's Santa [01:00:00] Morte? Let's talk about it. First thing you need to know, Santa Morte is a folk saint. What's a folk saint, Ashley? Let me tell you. We've talked a little bit about, we've talked about folk Catholicism on this podcast before, and a little bit about folk saints.

[01:00:13] But there's a lot of different versions of folk saints. I would say... In the, there's deities that are popular and they go in and out of style. Santa Morte is in style right now. And a folk saint, so Wikipedia tells us, a folk saint is a dead person or other spiritually powerful entity that is venerated as a saint but not officially canonized by like the Catholic Church.

[01:00:39] And since they're a folk saint, So this is Saint of the People. Like, officially rec recognized saints, folk saints, are considered intercessors with God, but may not many are also understood to act directly in the lives of their devotees. Frequently, their actions in [01:01:00] life, as well as death, distinguish folk saints from their canonized counterpart.

[01:01:05] Official doctrine would consider many of them quote unquote sinners or false idols. Their ranks are filled by folk healers, indigenous spirits, and folk heroes. The thing too about folk saints, and we'll see, we're gonna talk more about Santa Muerte, is that they happen different ways. Sometimes a folk saint could be a person.

[01:01:26] Right, like a person who was a really a lot of time, a spiritual person. I'm sure there's a lot of saints who, if they weren't canonized, would end up being folk saints anyway. Because they were someone who was a big healer in the community or somebody who was really spiritually knowledgeable.

[01:01:46] Another way that I see that folk saints come up is that, because of colon again, fucking colonization, every goddamn time. Because of colonization, everybody had to be hiding shit. They would take a figure in [01:02:00] their own religion, whether it was like it could be anything. Oh, we talked Kuan Yin. They would take a god in their own, and this isn't so much of a colonization with Kanye, but don't worry.

[01:02:13] They would take a god that was already in their own, indigenous folklore, or their indigenous religion, and convert it, basically, to be like, Oh, yeah, she's just this now. Like, they did that to Bridget, right? Bridget became a saint, because they deemed her worthy of being, the nice god.

[01:02:33] So they were like, oh, yeah, we don't worship her as a goddess anymore. She's a saint. Yay.

[01:02:42] So that happens too. Santa Muerte is somewhere in the middle of that because her induction into sainthood is, it's mysterious. People say they don't know too much. I don't know, Ixchel, if you have a particular theory of how she came to be popular? [01:03:00]

[01:03:00] Ixchel: Yeah, so with something with it, it's a unique case, because, she was not a living person.

[01:03:06] And you have to know Mexican history to understand her rise in popularity. So for her, she is looked at as like a synchrotized spirit with an Aztec god, Mixtlantecuhtli and Mixtlantecuhtli. In Mexican, Mesoamerican, indigenous cosmologies, death is something that people were very comfortable with, because as you referenced earlier, we do look at creation as a cyclical thing there is like time is not linear.

[01:03:38] It's cyclical. So life and death were looked at as very natural partners necessary. So in Aztec mythology, or like it's Nahuatl but in Nahuatl mythology There is Mi'kma'n, which is our underworld. This is where our ancestors [01:04:00] reside. And the rulers over Mi'kma'n were Mi'kta'kasiwa, Mi'kma'nti'kutli.

[01:04:06] As you were talking about with colonization, in order to preserve our practices and and our deities, they got transferred over. So during our colonization of Mexico, Spanish brought over the imagery of the grim raper. And... Whatever their stories were, their narrative about that.

[01:04:25] So I think our people, the indigenous people, saw, oh, that's like this god or this, so we feel like theoretically that's what happened, is that imagery got synchrotized with whomever our indigenous people viewed as like the god goddess of death. In Mexico, at least, I know the first record of her kind of being popular, popularized as Santa Muerte is, in the 1940s.

[01:04:54] Women were using, images, prayer cards of her and praying to her more so for, [01:05:00] love magic. They were wanting to keep their partners or get their partners or things like that. And from there we can see how she transformed. In Mexican culture, but I think it was like in the 90s, early 2000s, when she really started to expand out of Mexico.

[01:05:17] But yeah, so you were talking about folk Catholicism, and I just wanted to also add in that people who practice and are her devotees, some take a Catholic approach and view her as a folk saint and then others are more indigenous. And view her more as like in our view, I'm sorry, I feel like I'm going to give like a whole history lesson, but No,

[01:05:40] Ashley: it's okay, we're going to talk, I have you're going off on a lot of things I have to bring up anyway, so this is great.

[01:05:45] I was like, oh, and by the way, I just want to apologize for saying Aztec and not Nahua, I didn't understand the, the terminology, so I apologize for that. Oh, no, it's okay.

[01:05:55] Ixchel: No, that's fine. I think I'll, I say Aztec. When [01:06:00] speaking, like on a podcast or something, because I know people are more familiar with that.

[01:06:03] But yeah, the people themselves are Nahua people. Anyway, so with us, our, what we would call a deity is not the same as what most people think of in Western minds. Obviously colonialism brought in its own ideas of god and goddess. But for us, in Nahua culture, they're called the Teteo.

[01:06:25] And they're not like embodied entities out, somewhere out there and, in the heavens or whatever. But teteo are divine forces that are, they're active and present everywhere, including in us. So they're not necessarily looked at as like beings, they're more like forces. So death.

[01:06:46] Naturally, you find everywhere and everything, we look at it in nature, we can see it in ourselves when, our nails are growing ourselves rejuvenate. So that's that. So that's what I mean, like, [01:07:00] when we say, Death was very natural and looked at not as something scary because it's present everywhere and in everything.

[01:07:07] So with Santa Muerte, from the indigenous perspective of working with her, the imagery is more like For us. It's not for her. It's for us to have a concept in our mind that we can wrap around this idea of what deaf is. Because deaf, if you really think about it, can you conceptualize deaf, in an image or a being?

[01:07:31] So from the more indigenous side of it, it's we understand we're working with a force. of death. And this is just the image that she has today that helps humans wrap their brain around this idea. And it's the same like in, with the other deities, Beteteo, people will see some of the imagery. and think that we view that as like a literal being.

[01:07:56] The imagery is more looked at as symbolic. [01:08:00] If we look at the image, we can tell what are the characteristics and the behavior of this energy force. It wasn't looked at as oh, this is this being that's, Out there somewhere. We're going to pray to it. It was more. Yeah, it was more understood as like these are just natural forces and the imagery of it like Santa Marta is helping us to connect to it.

[01:08:19] Ashley: Yeah.

[01:08:24] Yes, I think that's so true. There is a definite I've learned from doing this podcast now, The colonized mindset of like certain things. It's very hard to break Like I feel like I understand things like one way like this is a god. This is a goddess and this is it Many cultures have situations like you're talking about it's more of the concept And they, and the ancient people too, they also were like, let's draw pictures so everybody knows what we're talking about.

[01:08:54] But they understood that wasn't actually like what it was. They're like, no, we just need to help [01:09:00] everybody understand, like by drawing it out or making a calendar or whatever they did. Also I want to mention this really quick because I don't think I talked, Oh, actually I'm going to talk about this.

[01:09:11] I'm not talking about that. Okay. Anyway, so let's go back. Okay. I got very excited. Okay. Santa Muerte. She has several names also. So there's a couple different ones. I'm gonna go back to my high school Spanish. I'm trying to channel it. La Madrina, right? The godmother. La Comadre, the other mother.

[01:09:33] Queer de Muerte Beloved Dad, and La Fuakita. This, I knew that one, the skinny girl. Cause there used to be a show on Telemundo, I don't know if it's still on, La El Flocko, and La, no, it was La Flocka, El Gordo, and it was like a skinny woman and a bigger guy, and it was like a TV, it was like a television show, I don't know, they hosted it.

[01:09:55] I used to watch it once in a while. I didn't understand everything, but I used to enjoy it.[01:10:00] Okay just like Ixchel just said, the, one of the big theories about Santa Muerte is she is the modern manifestation of Miquelon Tecutele. Obviously, Achelle said it better than me, but just, I'm sorry, okay?

[01:10:15] Like, so who was Miquelon Tecutele? Who was she? Let's talk about it for a second. She was a keeper of the bones, and she was also, the queen of the quote unquote underworld. Now, again, colonization has us always thinking of the underworld as, like, a negative thing. No. The underworld was just where she ruled, and it was, like, where everybody went when they died.

[01:10:35] She ruled Miquelon, which was... There with her husband and her husband's name. I don't have written down, but he was Oh Mick like you said Mick it costs a lot. I think you said that already Because he went thank you. Mr. Cost a lot. He was her husband and they lived down there. Everything was cool. So so another reason they think oh she was really like she's a manifestation [01:11:00] of her is because Dia de los Muertos is November 2nd, and Miglantecutele's feast day is November 2nd, also.

[01:11:09] Now, the Nahua people, they had an incredibly accurate calendar. They had two calendars, a ritual calendar and a solar calendar. Their solar calendar was 365 days. They didn't ask anybody, they just knew that. Right? Great. Yeah, they were very smart. They also had different cycles of years. So remember when everyone lost their shit because they thought the world was gonna end in 2012?

[01:11:32] Because they're like, the Mayan calendar says that! No, the theory is that they just finished it at that point. They were like, well, this is as far as we can go. Remember, these people were in like, This happened in like, they made this calendar like in the year 1000 probably. No, probably earlier than that.

[01:11:49] They probably made it like 1000 BC. They didn't know how far time was gonna go. So they just they probably just stopped in 2012 and were like, Huh, we've done a lot of work, we can't keep going [01:12:00] at this point. They didn't know. It wasn't that the world was gonna end, they just didn't do any more years.

[01:12:05] Cause they had done enough. The center of Nahuatl life with Tiochitlan, that's Tiochitlan is Mexico City, correct? It's like the same place, right? Am I wrong? Right? Okay. And that's where they found the, oh, it's a whole story and we're going to tell it one day on this podcast. There was a, there was like a, I think it was a hawk.

[01:12:24] With a snake in its mouth. An eagle. Yes, eagle! I like this story, we're going to tell it one day. Not today, don't worry. But it's a good story. They had to find it, and the guy found it. And he's like, oh, this is it. So don't worry about it, we'll tell it another day. She was the queen of the dead, like I said and Mi'kmaq was supposed to be like a really awesome, beautiful place.

[01:12:47] You want to maybe equate it to heaven, right? It was a beautiful place. She was there. And so I read this that the Nahua people if you've [01:13:00] heard of the Dreamtime, the aboriginal people had a theory of the Dreamtime, right? And the Dreamtime was technically like... Right now, us being here on Earth, we aren't dreaming.

[01:13:11] But when we die, that's real. That's the real place. So they say that some Nahuatl people had the kind of same thought of that. So like again, how Ixchel was saying, they thought of death very differently. This was another thing they thought of very differently.

[01:13:25] It wasn't as fearful as a lot of things are now. It was like, oh, this is just part of what's gotta happen. She was born, when she was born as an infant, she was sacrificed at that point. People say she was born to die. And people also say, which I think is fun she swallows the stars.

[01:13:41] Every day and every night she just takes them back out of her mouth to make night cool. So they would also, the Noa people would bury their dead and they would leave them with gifts. And the gifts were for Mi Miigwetchkutele. So when they got there, they could give it to her. A [01:14:00] lot of different cultures around the world did the gifting thing or they buried their dead with special things.

[01:14:06] I know in Ashanti culture. We're supposed to, I used to think this is funny, and maybe it's not, I shouldn't laugh, but we used to bury people with like, amenities, like toiletries. Because they think you're going on a trip. So we have a chewing stick, like the brush your teeth, and towels, and different clothes, cause they, they say you're going on a trip, and they give you a coin.

[01:14:26] Cause we have a ferryman, again, another theme in a lot of places. You gotta give the coin to this guy named Amache, so he can take you across the river. If you don't give him a coin, you stuck. For a while or you gotta cross yourself, which doesn't sound safe. Anyway. Anyway, back to this. So that's a more thing.

[01:14:43] Also they say she could have been modeled after the European version of the Grim Reaper. Cause if you see her, if you see the imagery, it's a skeleton. But, dressed like you would see... Like Our Lady of Guadalupe, like [01:15:00] that's how she's dressed with a crown and like a beautiful like veil. And I didn't know this one.

[01:15:08] I found this on the internet. She may have been a spirit who appeared to in a dream of a 19th century brujo and demanded veneration. Okay, maybe, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have evidence for that

[01:15:19] one thing that I read that I liked this quote, it was like, She has access to everything and fears nothing. Cause she does, she's deaf. What does she fear? She is deaf. She's... What's scary?

[01:15:31] Ixchel: Right, like what are you going to threaten her with?

[01:15:36] Ashley: She'll look at me for?

[01:15:39] She actually, she's petitioned for many matters in life and death, so she actually has become a favorite deity of, or favorite, spiritual symbol for many of, the quote unquote, outcasts, too, of society, not only, magical practitioners or folk practitioners, but Sex workers, sometimes drug [01:16:00] traffickers, a lot of LGBTQ community look to her because she's not judging anybody.

[01:16:06] Again, she's deaf. Who is she judging? Nobody. She's just I'm here. What do you need? And let's figure this out. She also can be invoked to handle anything having to do with death. For instance, if people are asking for a painless death or somebody is dying by suicide or anything like that, she is invoked for that.

[01:16:25] The Catholic Church is pretty annoyed by this. They don't like this. They're trying to, spread the word that's they don't have a good reason to not like it. I don't know why they're bothered by it. They just don't need to involve themselves. But they just don't like it. I think because also people are like, she's dressed like the Virgin Mary, what does that have to do with anything? How she dresses, don't worry about it. People can put her on the altar and usually put different things or maybe different colors for different requests. If she's dressed in black, these are the colors they found. If she's dressed in black, she's petitioned for protection or revenge.

[01:16:58] Dressed in red [01:17:00] protection for, or, dressed in red, love spells. Dressed in white, good fortune, healing from bad luck. dressed in yellow, people may be petitioning her for money. She usually has with her either a scythe scales, a crystal ball, maybe an hourglass. She does not like to share altar space with other deities.

[01:17:20] This is what I'm reading again. She's also called a lot of the time with, again with the Catholicism, with Saint Anthony and or Archangel Michael because apparently she is these are the only two like spiritual figures that she tolerates. I don't know who determined that. Somebody spoke to her and that's what she said.

[01:17:38] She said she don't mind them. So she called her over there. Her bird is often an owl. And then a lot of the offerings people offer her are bread, water, incense, candles, prayers, tattoos. A lot of people have tattoos of her. Which I thought is interesting as an offering, but that makes sense. Candy, fruit, flowers, rum, [01:18:00] sherry, tequila, whiskey, red apples, chocolate, cigars, and cigarettes.

[01:18:05] Yeah, so that is a little thing about Santa Muerte. I put an article about all of this also in the show notes if you want to read more about it. I got a lot of this information from my favorite, the Encyclopedia of Spirits, we talk about that. And, yeah any, anything else you wanna put out there, Ixchel, about Santa Muerte?

[01:18:30] Ixchel: I would say that anybody who's interested in working with her just trust what she tells you, because I think there's, you can find so much on the internet and who knows if it's right or wrong. But usually, people are just talking from their perspective of their practice, which is fine, share experiences, but also just trust your experience and your relationship with her because nobody can really speak for her because like you said, she's stuff, who's going to tell her what, and I've had my own experiences of her [01:19:00] where she's cool working with certain spirits that I think other people may be like, Oh, no, cause like the Orisha, there's the African influence of Mexico.

[01:19:09] My experience is that she's totally cool working with them, other people may have. different experiences. That's my main thing. It's just trust your own relationship if you're looking to work with her.

[01:19:21] Ashley: Okay. Yay! You heard it here first, folks. Trust the relationship. Talk to her. See what she's gonna say.

[01:19:29] Don't mess with her. She doesn't have time for your shit. Now we're coming to the end of the show. This has been great. Michelle, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me Absolutely. So if you don't mind just tell people where they can find you where you want to be found on the online space

[01:19:51] Ixchel: Yeah, so I mainly hang out on Instagram blood and bone Bruja.

[01:19:55] This is my handle there and my website blood and bone. com [01:20:00]

[01:20:00] Ashley: Yeah, okay. So now we know everything again. We'll be in the show notes as well. If you guys want to check her out on Instagram, again, very aesthetically pleasing. I enjoy it. It's doing well. I love it. So now we come to the end of the show.

[01:20:16] Like I said, thank you guys so much for being here. Again, this is Dine with the Divine. If you didn't know what podcast you've been listening to for the past hour, now you do. We are here, we're on all your major podcasting platforms. You can follow me on Instagram, you can follow me on Facebook, I post little clips and stuff, sometimes I'll just be on there telling you something that I need you to do for me give me a review, I always do that.

[01:20:39] If you really like the show, again, please do give us a review on Apple or Spotify, that helps a lot. And if you have any suggestions for an episode, again, email me at dimewithadivine. com. pod@gmail.com. Even if you have comments or anything, please email and if you wanna follow me, Ashley, I'm at Sankofa hss, that's SS A N K O F A [01:21:00] H Ss and Sankofa Healing Sanctuary on Facebook.

[01:21:03] Thank you everybody for being here and listening to the episode and have a fantastic weekend. I'll see you next time. Bye.