Review of my new St. Expedite booklet

Well, I am super happy to be getting feedback from both experienced practitioners and folks who are new to working with the saints, saying that they found useful and/or interesting stuff in my new St. Expedite booklet.

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I know I didn’t do a perfect job of explaining things to an audience new to working with saints, and I’m already aware of a couple of gaps I could fill in a second printing (or just a second booklet, possibly, since this one is pushing the envelope on “pamphlet” at 24 pages long).

But I set out to contribute some stuff that wasn’t just the same old copy/paste job you see all over the internet, and I set myself the challenge of doing it in booklet form (versus just the eternally-in-progress rambly, long-ass blog posts that always promise a part 3 but never seem to deliver it). I’m bad at being succinct 🙂 But I gave it a shot, and I hope it’s interesting and useful.

From the item description:

24-page booklet of information and suggestions for working with St. Expedite, based on my research and my experience as a professional rootworker.
If you have read my blog for a minute or perused the Rootwork Education directory, you know I do not just copy/paste the same old crap that’s already out there in a million places. I don’t waste your time with stuff you’ve already read 100 times on the back of a candle label or cereal box or *whatever.* If I don’t know something, I say so – I don’t just make crap up and try to sell it as The Truth. And I do my best to tell you where things come from – I cite my sources so you can check them out yourself instead of just blindly accepting what I tell you, and I am specific about historical context and geography when applicable.
My research is not confined to English-language sources, and I do my own translations from several languages, so I can just about guarantee that my booklets contain material that you will not have seen before, certainly not on popular English-language blogs, Pinterest boards, and tumblrs. In short, I work very hard at not wasting your time and at sorting the wheat from the chaff and the fact from the fiction.
The St. Expedite booklet contains an overview, guidance on setting up an altar, a discussion of how to handle offerings, a selection of prayers, and a selection of specific remedies and workings (aka spells). I identify and discuss some bad advice that you’ll find on working with St. Expedite and I share prayers and workings from around the world to give you a historically grounded, three-dimensional perspective on this popular folk saint.

More info and ordering options at Seraphin Station.

New: St. Expedite Altar Kits

St. Expedite altar in a box – contains almost everything you need to get set up to work with this popular saint, patron of procrastinators, techies, hackers, couriers, travelers, those burdened by red tape and obstacles, and those needing fast luck or money.

Standard and deluxe versions available. Both come with a 24-page booklet of instructions and prayers.

Read more or order now at Seraphin Station.

St. Expedite Service Begins April 19th

Lights will be set and offerings will be made starting the night of Tuesday, April 19th. There is some wiggle room and you can join up after the work starts as long as you see that there are still spots left and it doesn’t say “sold out.”

Have a glass-encased vigil light fixed, dressed, blessed, set on my St. Expedite altar, and burned for you in a community altar work service for this famed and beloved patron saint of fast results.

St. Expedite’s feast day is April 19th, and while you can petition him any day of the year, you might be able to get a little extra bang for your buck on his feast day.

But beyond that, his feast day would be an excellent time to thank him for for previous services rendered if you already work with him but don’t have the time/space to do anything very elaborate with altars or offerings. Or if you are thinking about working with him and haven’t established a relationship yet, this would be a great opportunity to “introduce yourself.”

In addition to being the saint one petitions for fast results and luck in a hurry, St. Expedite is also the patron saint invoked against procrastination. He’s called on to help break through blockages and end delays, so his help is often sought for matters needing Road Opening and Blockbuster-type work. He’s also the patron of computer programmers.

In some regions and traditions, he is also known as an ally for sending away annoying people or things in a hurry.

Read more or book now at Seraphin Station.

April 2022 Saint of the Month Box

Saint of the month for April 2022 is St. Expedite, invoked for fast results, breaking blockages, luck in a hurry, and against procrastination, feast day April 19th.

Looking to spruce up your altars, add to your chaplet or holy card collection, or just learn more about saints and spirits in folk Catholicism? The Saint of the Month box gets you a hand-picked and handmade bundle of saints’ goodies selected for you and shipped to you.

Whether you’re just starting to learn about saints and spirits in the hoodoo rootwork tradition or you’ve been working with them for years, I strive to delight you with something new and covetable to add to your collection with every box. (I have some pretty neat stuff squirreled away.)

This gives you a chance to get something new for an altar or to be introduced to a saint you haven’t worked with before, and it gives me an excuse to do things I’m always wanting to do but end up putting off, like taking an afternoon to design a new chaplet I’ve been wanting to make for a while.

The standard box includes, at a minimum, a bottle of oil, a candle, a holy card or mini prayer booklet, brief history and recommendations for working with the saint or spirit, and a charm, medal, or curio. The deluxe box adds a fixed, dressed, and decorated glass-encased vigil candle and a handmade chaplet, rosary, or necklace. Very unlikely that any two will ever be identical or that all of this stuff would ever be available to purchase individually.

Saints and spirits may be chosen from the traditional Catholic “roster” or may come from various folk traditions. If you have suggestions or requests for particular saints or spirits to feature, I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a line from the contact form or just leave a comment somewhere.

Read more or order your Saint of the Month box at Seraphin Station.

New chaplets

Recent reading roundup: St. Expedite, Hindu chromos in Haiti, iconography in retablos, domestic work in the segregated South

Did you know there was a very active St. Expedite Society in Independence, Louisiana up until very recently? I didn’t. Read more at Folklife in Louisiana: “St. Expedito’s Role in South Louisiana Catholicism, in New Orleans and in the Italian-American Community near Independence, Louisiana,” by Karen Williams.

Hindu deities on vodun altars: Rush, Dana. “Eternal Potential: Chromolithographs in Vodunland,”African Arts vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1999), pp. 60-75+94-96. Also helpful more broadly, imo, for any student of folklore/popular religion who’s ever encountered an argument about whether Abre Camino is “real hoodoo” or not, wondered what to think about the development of the seven-colors school of approach to Santisima Muerte, or pondered the relationships between figures like Legba vs. Ellegua.

Giffords, Gloria Fraser. The Iconography of Mexican Folk Retablos. Thesis. University of Arizona, 1969. I tend to assume everybody immediately sees why stuff like this is so interesting. I tend to be wrong. But basically the iconography had never been studied before this, so this was a big deal, this work. And if you like to understand what you’re looking at when you see a candle in a botanica or grocery store, you’ll encounter plenty of stuff that had its origins here whether you personally work with that imagery/tradition or not.

I read Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South years ago, and even then, before I’d really started *studying* this stuff in any consistent and applied way, I felt like everybody I knew ought to read it. I knew they wouldn’t – people think this stuff doesn’t have anything to do with them if their families weren’t the ones being described in these stories – but they’d be wrong, ’cause this is part of how we got here. And the impact of it doesn’t just disappear suddenly when it’s no longer fashionable or feasible or *whatever* to have domestic employees. This is part of Southern culture, y’all, and it’s part of how your role in it, as whatever sex, race, class, gender, family role stratum you occupy, got constructed and defined.

I still feel the same way in 2020. I think Southern folks should read this book — especially white folks. Especially white women. Here’s a review with a useful summary at the Washington Post.