Category: Miscellaneous Ramblings

  • The Ides of March

    Happy Ides of March, everyone!

    A few people wrote to me concerned that there was a Friday the 13th followed by “The Ides of March” and wondered if this was bad because their spell work was starting during this period.


    My first answer about Friday the 13th is that it is just another day. 🙂 But my only child was born on a Friday the 13th and so for me I consider all those Friday the 13th’s as a special day in my life since it brought me son and thus my grandsons! 🙂


    Second, the Ides of March was always just a part of a calendar.. there are “ides” in other months, too. I found a great article explaining exactly about the ides of March and what it truly means. Shakespeare fans have forever put a grim foreboding to the 15th of March, but again, just another day, and like all days, it is what you make of it, right?

    So, no, Friday the 13th nor the Ides of March will have any grim bearing on your spellwork!


    Here is the article:

    The Ides of March

    Just one of a dozen Ides that occur every month of the year
    by Borgna Brunner


    As far as Caesar knew, the Ides were just another day.
    The soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March,” has forever imbued that date with a sense of foreboding. But in Roman times the expression “Ides of March” did not necessarily evoke a dark mood—it was simply the standard way of saying “March 15.” Surely such a fanciful expression must signify something more than merely another day of the year? Not so. Even in Shakespeare’s time, sixteen centuries later, audiences attending his play Julius Caesar wouldn’t have blinked twice upon hearing the date called the Ides.


    The term Ides comes from the earliest Roman calendar, which is said to have been devised by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. Whether it was Romulus or not, the inventor of this calendar had a penchant for complexity. The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, each of which served as a reference point for counting the other days:


    Kalends (1st day of the month)
    Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months)
    Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months)
    The remaining, unnamed days of the month were identified by counting backwards from the Kalends, Nones, or the Ides. For example, March 3 would be V Nones—5 days before the Nones (the Roman method of counting days was inclusive; in other words, the Nones would be counted as one of the 5 days).


    Days in March


    March 1: Kalends; March 2: VI Nones; March 3: V Nones; March 4: IV Nones; March 5: III Nones; March 6: Pridie Nones (Latin for “on the day before”); March 7: Nones; March 15: Ides


    Used in the first Roman calendar as well as in the Julian calendar (established by Julius Caesar in 45 B.C.E.) the confusing system of Kalends, Nones, and Ides continued to be used to varying degrees throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.


    So, the Ides of March is just one of a dozen Ides that occur every month of the year. Kalends, the word from which calendar is derived, is another exotic-sounding term with a mundane meaning. Kalendrium means account book in Latin: Kalend, the first of the month, was in Roman times as it is now, the date on which bills are due.


    End of Article


    Love,light, and peace,

    Mambo Sam

  • More About “Deserving!”

    Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! 🙂

    I wanted to talk a little bit more about my question about our sense of “deserving” something. Even though you can see these comments in the comments section under each blog post, I wanted to reprint these comments from readers here in this post so that I could comment on them.


    One reader says:

    “I had to think about this post for about a day before answering. . . . first I think we can trace that “entitlement” thing back to being children and being told if we were “good” santa would bring goodies (and if not, a lump ‘o coal)! Who didn’t have an impression like that made on them when they were small? Some of us never got over it!!! i try to turn it around and say i have been given MORE than I deserve. Several years ago I had a serious illness and could have died; in fact since then have seen many people with the same illness die from it. Ever since that happened I look at anything good that happens as “bonus points”. I still get mad and sad and so on when I don’t get what I want/get my own way; but try to remind myself it could be a LOT worse. Even in this terrible economy, most of us have more than most of the world’s people will ever hope to have. This does not mean I do not throw my temper tantrums and sulk like anybody else but I also try to keep the big picture in mind. . . and intentionally make it bigger and bigger all the time. A hard question! Still not sure of the answer. . .”


    This reader brings up a very good point and it bodes another question: Are we programmed to think in terms of what we deserve? Certainly Santa would be a good example of that! Even just the idea of being children and being punished for bad behavior and rewarded for good behavior reinforces the idea of when we do something “good” in life we deserve some kind of reward for it. It is like somewhere along the line many of us did not get the lesson that sometimes the doing good is the reward in and of itself. We believe we are entitled to more. Like the reader says, it is a hard question and I don’t think there is an easy answer, either!


    Like I was mentioning in my original post my main concern here is what I perceive as a huge sense of entitlement in some of my clients and my worry is that this will somehow be detrimental to their spell work – that they will not put forth the necessary effort, time, or heart, because they have the idea that they just simply deserve a good result!


    Another reader says:

    “Hi Mambo, What a great question I think that this is. I would think that being a good mother should be a reward in itself. And being a good wife should be a reward unto itself. I think the problem comes in when people are picking the wrong people to concentrate their efforts on. If you are trying to be a good wife to your husband and he doesn’t give a hoot about you, then you should have realized that before you wanted to spend the rest of your lives together. Everyone deserves to be happy, but if you just sit around and wait for happiness to find you, I think you will be very disappointed. You have to go make your own happiness and then yes, you deserve it because you worked for it. The same thing goes with our spellwork. If you think you deserve your HD or whatever you are working towards, then you have to really work for it. That means no conflict and staying positive. Then yes you deserve the results you work so hard for. Ok, that is how I see it anyway!!”


    This reader makes a good point, also, in that no matter what you deserve, you still need to be proactive in your own happiness no matter how “good” you have been. Plus, she mentions that “everyone deserves to be happy.” Certainly I agree that we all start out that way! 😉 I think we have all known a few rat bastards that probably did not deserve to be happy, but we will leave them out of the equation for this discussion and assume we are just talking about the at least marginally decent human beings. LOL.


    I would love to hear from more of you on this subject. You know, your comments can be anonymous, you don’t have to say who you are, and a Mambo never tells! 🙂


    Love, light, and peace,

    Mambo Samantha Corfield


    Witchpot

  • What Do We Deserve?

    Hello everyone!
    What do we "deserve?" The dictionary definition of "deserve" goes like this:
    To earn by service; to be worthy of (something due, either good or evil); to merit; to be entitled to; as, the laborer deserves his wages; a work of value deserves praise. To serve; to treat; to benefit. To be worthy of recompense; — usually with ill or with well.

    Many times clients tell me that they "deserve" something; to be treated better by their partner, to have a better life, to have more money, etc. I recently asked a client why they felt that they deserved what they were asking me to help them obtain. I only asked the question because I am hearing a LOT lately about what people think they deserve!

    I have clients tell me, "I was a good mother to my children, now I deserve some happiness in my life." Now this one always give me cause to pause. If you decided to have children, shouldn't you be a good mother?? Does being a good mother cause you to "deserve" some sort of reward for that? Or is being a good mother part of the idea of having children? Are the children the reward? Do you deserve "more" because you were a good mother? Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying one does or does not deserve something because of being a good mother. I am actually asking you, my readers, to weigh in on this!

    Another thing I hear is, "I was a good wife to my husband. He left me anyway and now I deserve something better." So again, I feel like, well, if you are going to be a wife, should you not be a good one? Does your being a good wife mean you now deserve something better?

    Then there is the, "I am a good person, I deserve good things in my life." Okay… so you are a decent human being. Shouldn't you be? Really, isn't it up to all of us to be, at the very least, a decent human being? Should there be a decent human being award? Now if by being a good person you mean you do works of charity, help the homeless and poor, and give freely of your time to the assistance of others, then, yes, maybe there is a merit badge for that! Maybe you are more "deserving" than someone who doesn't do those things. But if you are just sitting around, living your life, minding your own business, and not harming anyone else, I am not sure that means you "deserve" more than another "good person" who happens to be starving to death in Africa.

    By the beginning of the definition of "deserve" above, to "earn by service" who amongst us is "deserving?" Should we be "earning" what we "deserve?" How do we earn it? I didn't say I had answers to these questions, maybe I just have questions! 😉

    I do know that it is really starting to make me uneasy how many people lately are telling me what they deserve. When I ask them why, they generally get pissed off at me, so I am thinking that is probably not the best approach. 🙂 But I am truly curious about the sense of entitlement some people seem to have; like the world owes them something: The mother who was good to her children (so was raising the children so horrible that she now deserves a reward for it?); the spouse who was good, etc. Because we went through tough times, does that mean we are now somehow entitled to a reward? Was our "tough time" worse than someone else's? IS there a reward for tough times?

    I DO get that we are all filled with books and talk shows and self-help gurus telling us how to feel good about our own self-worth, how to manifest our destiny, how to think positively about ourselves and our goals. But does that mean we necessarily "deserve" them OR are we in some way supposed to earn that which we think we deserve?

    Now, most of you are working on spell work from us, and we here at Spellmaker always want you to reach your goal! Most of my thought process above does not come from me thinking that you don't "deserve" to reach your goal! 🙂 Not at all! But I am concerned that just thinking that you "deserve" something is not enough to bring it to you! I am worried that too much thought of "well, I deserve this" is somewhat counterproductive and makes us all work a little less harder to achieve what we want!

    To say the least, I have really mixed emotions about this! I would love to hear your opinion!

    Love, light, and peace,
    Mambo Samantha Corfield

  • Coincidence?

    Greetings everyone!

    As you might guess, I don’t have a lot of time to watch TV. One show that Matt and I do make time for is “House.” I like the whole “medical mystery” type of genre and the show (IMHO)is terribly clever.


    This week’s episode revolved around a sick priest. The priest quoted Einstein with a quote that I had long ago loved to use but had forgotten over the years:

    “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”


    So many times I get a letter from people saying things like, “I saw my boyfriend and he said the exact things I petitioned for in my spellwork, what a COINCIDENCE!”

    Needless to say, this drives me crazy! 😉 Now it isn’t just that I get tired of people thinking that the results from their spellwork are a “coincidence” – I actually get worried about people negating the results of their spellwork! Obviously, if you are sort of backwardly negating your spellwork by tossing it off as a “coincidence” you run the risk of long term damage to your spellwork.


    Another thing that I get a lot of is, “All the things I asked for in my spellwork came to pass, do you think it was the lwa helping me?” Huh? Well, yes. You did ASK them to help you. 😉


    While “God” (or whatever you want to call the Supreme Being) is sort of an unwritten power in our spell work, that doesn’t mean we ignore God. Generally speaking, Vodouisants consider God too lofty or too busy to be concerned with our day-to-day needs. Therefore, we call upon the Vodou Spirits (Les Lois – the lwa) to assist us and be our intermediaries and help our spellwork in many ways. But the spellcaster’s energy, the power of the Supreme Being, and the lwa all work together.


    So if you are a person who is chalking things up to “coincidence” I am going to gently suggest that you stop! I don’t want you to stop getting results because you didn’t believe in what was happening right before your own eyes. 🙂


    Love,light, and peace,

    Mambo Samantha Corfield

  • Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!

    Hello everyone,
    Happy Valentine’s Day one and all! We are getting ready for the ritual that we will be doing later on and in reading over everyone’s letters it is so heartwarming to see how many of you had requests for OTHER people’s happiness besides your own!


    It is just so nice to see how many caring and loving individuals are out there and hoping for the best for themselves while also hoping for the best for the important people in their lives and even for people they don’t know. Many of you asked in your letters for all those participating in the ritual to be blessed with love and happiness. Thank you all for that.


    Even though really Valentine’s Day is “just another day” there is so much concentration on giving and receiving love that it is really a great day to work on love spell work, love candle magick, etc., to tap into the love energy floating around out there!


    If you are doing any kind of magickal work today, remember to take a moment to call in all the loving energy that people are expressing towards each other and put that into your own work. Maybe you a person who is not personally receiving loving wishes today. But still you can call upon the universal love energy of this day and ask that you receive those loving vibrations into your heart and put that into your work.


    We are excited to get your ritual going this afternoon and look forward to feeling the love from each and every one of you. We send it back to you and hope you feel those universal hugs we are sending you all!!!!


    Much love,

    Mambo Samantha Corfield


    Heartkiss

  • Rescue Remedy.

    Happy Saturday, everyone!

    Do you know about Rescue Remedy(tm)? This is a flower essence herbal remedy by the Bach company that helps calm, soothe, and generally relax you. It has been around for many years, and there is even a pet version that we often give to Mojo, our dog, because he is a little hyper!


    I mention it here because I know that so many people are stressed these days. You may be working on a difficult case with your love spell work, finances might be tight, jobs in question, etc. All of these stressors can often send us straight to the doctor where we walk away with a fist full of prescriptions to get us through the day. Anxiety and depression are at an all time high right now in America.


    Of course, I am not saying that a little flower essence is all you need, but if you are stressed out, depressed, etc., you might want to consider getting a bottle of Rescue Remedy and trying it out. It has the nicest calming effect. If you are calm and relaxed, certainly your love spell work has a better chance of working out for you. If you are depressed, anxious, and crying all the time, that is the kind of energy you are putting into your spell work.


    I copied this from the Rescue Remedy website:

    “If you feel like you’ve “had enough”, follow these simple tips to restore focus and regain inner calm wherever you are:


    • Relax – Take 10 deep breaths. Inhale deeply and exhale slowly.
    • Exercise – Learn some basic yoga techniques or just take a 10 minute walk.
    • Smile – Think of a happy time. It is near impossible to keep frowning while smiling and laughter stimulates the production of mood enhancing endorphins.
    • Calm – Let your imagination take you to a calm and tranquil place that exudes peace, serenity and beauty.
    • Use Your Lunchbreak – Take time out for yourself. A walk in the park, especially if it is sunny, can do wonders for your mood. It will help you work more efficiently in the afternoon too.
    • Escape – If you are able to, walk away. Removing yourself from a stressful situation can give you time to restore some perspective.”


    It is good advice!


    Sometimes we get so wrapped up in trying to achieve our spell work goals that we forget to take care of US, take care of how we feel, take care of how we are reacting to our lives. Our reaction to the events in our lives can actually change the next set of events. If you continue to feel like you have nothing but bad things happening to you, and you don’t feel like you see a way out, then you probably will not be presented with a solution. However, if you can put things in perspective and tell yourself that you KNOW there is a solution to the problem, you just need to find it, then you are setting yourself up to be open to potentials and prospects!


    I really wanted to let you all know about this little bit of “peace in a bottle” called Rescue Remedy. I have recommended it to some of you personally but wanted to get it out there in a bigger way. Some of you have let me know that you used it, for instance, before a Milk of Damballah(tm) white bath and felt that it helped you get a better result from it!


    Another person I recommended it to told me that she used it before every love spell work session. She reported that she felt better, didn’t feel like crying through the spell work, and overall felt that she had made a better environment for her spell work!


    One client told me that she even used it when doing her deluxe love doll. She took a few drops herself and then put a drop on the doll and petitioned that her HD would be calm and collected and thinking straight the next time she saw him (he has an anxiety disorder). She swears that it worked!!! I don’t have personal experience with that aspect of using it, but I can’t see that she had any reason to lie!


    Have any of you out there used Rescue Remedy? Did you use it in conjunction with your spell work or adjunct work?? We would love to hear from you about it!


    Love,

    Mambo Sam

  • Are you determined to be negative?

    Hello everyone!

    There seems to be a trend that I have noticed lately. This trend is not just among clients, but among other people that I see and deal with on a day-to-day basis. I don’t know if this trend is due to the economy, winter blues, or what, but there seems to be a certain faction of people who are just determined to have a negative attitude no matter what!


    Caseworkers have drawn my attention to this with some of their clients, but I had actually noticed it already. For some people, no matter how much we counsel them, they are determined to turn what we say into a something negative. For instance, if I tell a client in a reading that I don’t see the HD calling them tomorrow, they will turn around and say, “I bet he will never call me.” Or if the HD doesn’t want to see them right now because the spells are being processed: “Oh he never wants to see me and I don’t think he will ever come and see me again.”


    It is frustrating to try to counsel and help a person who can only see a negative outcome. Plus, somehow, they cannot seem to understand how only seeing a negative outcome will breed, of course, a negative outcome. If you constantly are talking about, expecting, and assuming that you will have a negative outcome, how can you have anything but that? You are not just shooting yourself in the foot, you just shot your foot OFF!


    Look, I know it is hard to remain positive sometimes. We all have negative moments, sad thoughts, fears that things won’t work out. However, when you allow all of that to become a lifestyle or an expectation, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. If you have spent time and money and effort on spell work, you are doing yourself an even bigger disservice. I had a client tell me one time that she didn’t want to think of the possibility of a good outcome from her spell work becaues she didn’t want to “get my hopes up and then be disappointed.” Okay, I get that. But, what kind of energy did she put out there: “Well, this probably won’t work, but I will try it anyway.”


    Is that how you are approaching your spell work? If so, I totally agree that you will probably get a negative result. That is a shame! So many of you have become steeped in such negativity and assurance that you will fail that we are left to sit an watch you plunge head long right into disasister. It is painful to watch.


    I really want to encourage you to try to find a way to look towards things (at least a little bit of the time) in a positive manner. If you truly cannot find anything positive in your life or you are so depressed that you do not see a chance for any happiness in your life, then I encourage you to seek professional help. Here at Spellmaker, all we want is the best for you. We want you to succeed. We want you to have the fairy tale ending. Don’t fight it! Let it happen!!!


    You know, being negative is easy. We are almost bred to it! When you go into a bookstore, you don’t see rows and rows of books on how to be negative. What you do see are rows and rows of books about positive thinking, having a winning attitude, etc. As humans we seem to need that kind of help and positive reinforcement!


    I know it isn’t easy to pull yourself out of a negative state of being, but trying is half the battle! Do some of you have tips for what you do when you feel negativity creeping into your life? We would love to hear them here!


    Love, light, and peace,

    Mambo Sam

  • Toxic Friendships

    Greetings everyone!

    I wanted to talk to you all a little bit about the friendships in your lives.  The work that I do for everyone puts me in a unique position to study relationship dynamics from many different points of view. I get to see people at their best and also at their worst.


    As the years have gone by I have noticed more and more that many of my clients have fallen prey to someone in their lives who was supposed to be a friend. Sadly, those who pose as friends and make us believe in them are the ones that we are most likely to allow to hurt us.


    Now don’t get me wrong! I am not proposing that every person who tries to be your friend has some ulterior motive and will in the end screw you over! That is not it at all. However, there are some categories of “friends” for which you should be on the look out.


    We all might have some of the characteristics outlined below. But if you have a friend that falls heavily into one of these categories, you should take steps to figure out if they are truly a friend, or are they someone who you really don’t need in your life. Most of the time we don’t realize until it is too late that we have involved ourselves with a Toxic Friend.

    Since women fall most prey to this type of friend, I will address it from a female point of view. Of course, these guys exist, too!


    • Connie Controller: This is the friend who cannot get out of a conversation without telling you, “You know what you ought to do….” and then proceeds to tell you how to run your life. Generally speaking, The Controller’s life is probably in a shambles and since she can’t control it, she will try to control yours. This is also the friend who has to say where the two of you will have lunch, what the dress code will be for going out, etc. Most of the time if this person is your friend, you have gotten used to her telling you what to do and you go along with her program without even noticing it.
    • My Idea Minnie: This friend cannot leave your idea or suggestion alone. If you say you want the two of you to bake chocolate chip cookies, she will want to bake chocolate chip MINT cookies. If you suggest something to her, she will generally negate it. A week, or month, or year later (when she figures you forgot about what you said), she will do the thing you suggested and claim that she came up with the idea or doesn’t know where she heard it. Maddening!
    • Polly Passive: But she is really aggressive. Most of us have experienced passive-aggressive behavior and at one time or another we have probably all fallen into doing it ourselves. However, if you have that friend who constantly manipulates you with passive-aggressive behavior prepare yourself for friendship misery. Polly Passive is often a do-gooder friend who will want to do all kinds of favors for you, seems to put herself last and everyone else first, UNTIL the day she wants to call in those favors. “Well, you know that I did work those extra hours at the office so you could go see your sick grandma, but that’s okay, I understand if you can’t lend me $10,000.00 to start my business.” Her other trick is to make you feel guilty and sorry for her. “Oh I don’t want to burden you with my problems.” Then of course, you fall into the trap of saying, “It’s okay, what’s going on?” You know the rest of that story.
    • Betty Blamer: This one always wants to know your opinion, wants to do what you want to do, always wants you to make the decisions. Of course, later on, when/if something goes wrong, she skillfully finds a way to remind you that it was YOUR decision that was wrong. You will never get her to make a decision because she likes to be blame free.
    • Cookie the Coveter: She always compliments you and tells you how lucky your are to have your car, job, husband, family,whatever. She oozes admiration and acts like your biggest fan. BUT she will always remind you how “lucky” you are, assuming that everything you have was handed to you on a silver platter. She is busy trying to figure out a way to get what YOU have vs. working towards getting something on her own. While the other toxic people may only be an annoyance, she will be much, much more if you don’t watch out for her.

    Just because someone may have some of these qualities doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of your friendship. However, if you feel they are too toxic, find a way to start to spend less time with them.


    Of course, there are many, many more types of toxic friends. Which ones have you come across? How did you deal with it? Just answer in the comments section! I would love to hear from you about this subject and any tips you might have for how to deal with toxic friends in your life.


    Love, light, and peace,

    Mambo Sam

  • In Memoriam – 9/11

    Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,
    ‘Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
    Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
    For now I see the true old times are dead,
    When every morning brought a noble chance,
    And every chance brought out a noble knight.
    Such times have been not since the light that led
    The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
    But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
    Which was an image of the mighty world;
    And I, the last, go forth companionless,
    And the days darken round me, and the years,
    Among new men, strange faces, other minds.’
                                               Alfred Lord Tennyson, Morte d’Arthur, In Memoriam





    911

  • Father’s Day!

    Greetings everyone – and a Happy Father’s Day to all the good Dads out there.  🙂

    I cannot help by remember my own father on this special day.  He has been gone for many years, but his memory and spirit are with me always.  He is the reason for many things in my life:  My ability to cook like a professional chef (he was one, I am not!), my sense of humor, my work ethic, the way I treat people, and so much more.

    Even though my Dad never met a bottle of Chivas Regal that he didn’t like, he never sacrificed his family for a drink.  He was a hard working, hard drinking, hard playing man – an old salty dog from the Navy and a straight shooter.  He didn’t believe in lying, even though there were times would that would have been easier.   He believed in treating his employees with fairness and dignity even though most of them were Black at a time in the South where most Black employees weren’t treated well at all.   He took being called by racist names from his friends with aplomb and pragmatism simply saying they were "ignorant" and leaving it at that. 

    My Dad drove me and my friends anywhere we wanted to go; picking up a gang of pre-teen and then teen girls and putting us in his van and dropping us off at the mall, the lake, and anywhere else we wanted to go.  I almost regretted learning to drive because then Daddy didn’t need to take us anywhere anymore!

    He played poker with Mafia guys and I sat on his knee while he did it!  I ran into one of those fellas a couple of years ago in New Orleans.  He was just as old as he could be, but he still remembered me and my father!

    My Dad was, by his own admission, far from perfect as a man, but he was absolutely perfect as a father.  Thank you, Daddy!!!

    So blessings out there to all the Good Dads!

    Love, Mambo Sam