Elegua Cologne
In stock at Atlanta and Decatur.
What this is
A dressing oil. Anointing is what fixes a plain candle to one intention — an oil on its own has nothing to carry it.
The practice
What this tradition does with an object like this — how it is used, not a promise about what follows.
- Mondaythe Moon’s day — worked for the roads, the home, and anything that has to open.
How it is used
- 1A few drops on the fingers, not a pour. This is anointing, not oiling.
- 2Draw it along the candle from the base up toward the wick to bring something toward you — from the wick down toward the base to send it away. The direction is the instruction.
- 3The rest goes where it is wanted: on a petition paper, on a door frame, on your own hands.
Working it properly
The craft under the instructions — direction, count and order. This is the part that is normally only said across a counter.
- Anointed in five points — the four corners and the centre — where a surface is being dressed rather than a candle: a door frame, the back of a photograph, a petition paper.
- On the body it goes at the pulse points and the back of the neck, and the tradition puts it on with the fingers rather than pouring, because the hand is part of the dressing.
- Carriers are not mixed. Two oils bought for two purposes stay in two bottles; combining them is how practitioners describe losing both.
- The bottle is kept out of the light and closed. A dressing oil holds herb and root in suspension, and heat and sun are what turn it.
What completes the working
A working is a ladder, not a single object. Each rung below says what the addition does, and shows what Yeye's Botanica carries for it.
the thing it is for — an oil is a dressing and needs something to dress
a carried piece is fed with a drop of the same oil rather than re-bought
What people get wrong
- Using it on its own. An oil is a dressing — without something to dress it has nothing to carry it.
- Using so much the wick cannot draw.
Named for Elegguá
The roads and the crossroads. Nothing opens or closes without him, and he is greeted first.
- ColoursRed and black
- DayMonday
- Customary offeringCandy, rum, smoke — he is fed simply.
What is here is what the label says and what any botanica will tell you across the counter. Ceremony, initiation and anything belonging to a house is not ours to publish — that is between you and a padrino or madrina.
