(Edited April 2013) We finally have our own site, where you can read our blog, browse our shop, view photo galleries, everything in one place!

Website – HERE.

Twitter – HERE.

Facebook – we have decided to keep just my FB profile, instead of a business page. HERE.

Newsletter – yesterday, we sent the last Moon Camel Bazaar Newsletter, but we are starting a new one immediately. We do not want to send content that you are not interested in, so you will have to subscribe to the new one - HERE.

Before I hit “publish” on the last post of this blog, we would like to say a huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to the readers and customers that inspired and encouraged this change with their requests, and for the patience and loyalty they have shown time after time while our business grew and evolved over the past five years.

We are here because of you, and we couldn’t be more grateful – you know who your are!

To the moment of writing these lines (Apr.14 , 2013), this blog has had 949 posts, 3.446 comments, and 389,363 visits. Here’s to a new beginning, hoping you will follow us there!

Flowers At The Altar, Today

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a few months know that when we closed the House Of Eleggua website and changed our business name to Moon Camel Bazaar, we intended to offer many new products and artwork. So far, we have listed just a tenth of what we wanted to make and list – why, you ask? Because the increase of work on Tarot Readings, Candle Work and Spellwork has made it impossible. When I opened the shop five years ago, I had maybe one consultation and one spell work per week, and that left plenty of time for us to create items for sale. I can’t speak for other shop owners, but for us, creating even the simplest incense is a very slow process, where we take care of the slightest detail, like wildharvesting and drying the herbs ourselves, testing the product several times, etc.

Right now, I have consultations and spellwork every single day of the week, and I’m lucky if I can take a day off here and there – my ratio right now is one day off per ten of work. As you can imagine, the last thing I want to do is using that day for anything else than resting. Also, as we have awakened the curiosity of customers about Maria Lionza’s path, I am getting email requests to teach about them almost every day. And we have decided we are going to do it.

I love crafting items with a passion as you know, but the most important part of my work is to be of service to others, to guide their Spiritual growth, to help them live at peace with themselves and the Spirits. Since we made our vows to the Three Venezuelan Powers, we also vowed to make that service our priority, and if the Spirits are guiding more people into our work, well, so be it. We are both the kind of people that would prefer to stay quietly on a corner, crafting our lives away, but we are not in this world to please ourselves, but to follow the destiny we came to fulfill in this life – and if that destiny is being priests of Maria Lionza, we must accept is as the honour it is.

Having been one of Eleggua’s protegees for almost two decades, change is not something that scares me much, as what I’m really afraid of is stagnation. Change is good, I enjoy it and accept it without a problem – change is evolution and growth, two wonderful things that should never be feared, but welcomed with joy. We have realized that it is the time to leave some parts of our business behind, and make space for new things. In the next weeks, I will be working on teaching tools, organizing and preparing classes and new services, and starting a new website and blog, completely focused on Maria Lionza’s path. Once all that is ready, we will close this blog (I will keep it available so you can check Archives, but I won’t be posting more on it) and the Etsy shop will only keep the Spiritual Services, and new classes and services we will be listing shortly, although we intend to make all services and learning tools available directly from our website as well. Right now we are making 90% of our work outside Etsy anyway, and actually most of our customers join Etsy just to make their purchases, so it’s not like it’s bringing us any sales.

So, forgive me if this blog is a little quiet for a while. The shop will stay open and working as always since we still have a lot of inventory to sell, and you can of course purchase your Tarot, Candle Work and Spellwork appointments, since none of those services will be interrupted EVER. I will just be away from Internet’s social life, because for a few weeks I will need more time to write, but my time (and Fernando’s time) at your service will be exactly the same as always. As I said above, serving you is our priority!

Only three sets available!

These kits have been put together with the intention of providing you will all the elements you need to make Money Magic work for you, either using them all together in one spell, or separately as you prefer. The possibilities are as many as your experience and creativity in the Craft.
Each set contains:
- 1 bag of Money Drawing Spell Herbs. This completely new mixture has been made with 13 herbs and 3 powdered resins. It can be used to cast the spell’s circle, to fill amulet bags, to be sprinkled around your business/wallet, and of course they can be burnt as incense.*
*Note – these herbs were chosen for their money drawing properties and not because of their scent. When burnt, they have a very strong, woodsy scent. Not a bad scent, but remember, this is not aromatherapy, it’s Magic.
- Two bottles of 3 ml./ 0.10 liquid ounce each of Money Oil and Road Opening Oil. To anoint candles, amulet bags or even yourself. These are almost odourless, as they have been made without any chemical fragrances.
- 1 Ekeko holy card. Ekeko is one of the Central America gods of abundance – dressed as a travelling seller packed with goods, he is much revered in Santeria and every house has one to protect its wealth and business. I have worked with him extensively and he is very generous! Offer him rum, cigars, sweets, coins, small toys, and anything that represents your wishes.
- 1 Horseshoe charm with a green Evil Eye bead, to protect your finances from negativity. The charm can also be anointed with the oils to enhance its power, and kept in your wallet or bag, or pinned to the inside of your clothes with a safety pin.
- 3 Buzio (Cowrie) shells, which represent money and abundance. The shells can also be anointed with the oils to enhance their power, and kept in your wallet or bag.
- Two Guinea Hen feathers, one green and one yellow, to tie them to an amulet bag, keep them in your abundance altar, etc. Sizes vary from set to set, but they’re between 1 and 2 inches/ 2,5 to 5 cms.
- 1 Mechita, so you can make an oil lamp. You can add a drop of the oils included in the set, a pinch of the herbs, and even the cowrie shells.

ALL items included in this set have been made by us. They will come to you in a protective box, so you can keep all items together until you use them.

And, this week, we have a new promotion! Every order will receive a beautiful Mano Poderosa Holy Card made by us. No minimum purchased required!

Promotion open while supplies last. Digital items and Services (Tarot, Candle Work and Spellwork)  are not included, as they do not require shipping.

The first four ad boxes have already been taken, so we have added four more! That way, even if any of our advertisers is outbid, you can make a new bid on any of the remaining ad spaces and it will continue to be free. If you are not a member yet, check the link below. Oh, and NO, I don’t get paid for saying this, or get ANY referral fees. We want to give Pagan and Pagan-friendly business a chance to advertise for free, and not the other way round. We are not getting any money for doing this!

To know more about Project Wonderful, click HERE. To go to the ad space and bid, click on the pic and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

We would love to give a chance to starting businesses to advertise for free; if there is more demand, we will add more ad boxes as needed. All Pagan, Pagan-friendly and Handmade businesses are welcome! If you are not a member of Project Wonderful, click here to know more.

Please click on the pic to be taken to the Pagan Square blog!

After a week filled with work from morning to night, and with another week coming that is already full, we’re treating ourselves to a self-care day off. Starting the day with a Power Smoothie (banana, papaya and orange), then physically and spiritually cleansing the house, followed by an afternoon of reading/painting/gardening/writing/doing whatever we feel like.

Something that Tarot Readers/Healers (and anyone who works at the service of others) often forget – and believe me, I forget it all the time – is that burnout is a very serious issue. If you give yourself nothing, you’ll end up with nothing to give, hating your job. We must be full of health (mental, physical, spiritual), joy, peace and empowerment if we intend to be of help to others. Working ourselves into exhaustion helps no-one.

Today, I invite you to Connect. Connect with what keeps you going, with what keeps you creating, with what keeps you alive. Today, I invite you to play, without any expectations about outcomes. Today, I invite you to enjoy the day like a child, like a God.

(please click on the pic to be taken to the Etsy listing)

Original drawing of Maria Lionza, made with colour pencils on acid-free, first quality Fine Arts paper. Measures 22,7 x 17,3 cms. / 8,9 x 6,8 inches.

The Goddess has had many names, many races and many faces in my art, in my worship and in my life. I have painted Her for my own enjoyment, and I have made many commissions for other Spiritual practitioners, covering almost every single ethnicity and/or mythology. In my canvases, she has been Hekate, Freya, Ochum, Gaia, Pomba Gira, the Fairy Queen, Kwan Yinn, Aradia, and so many others.

For those who are not familiar with Her, Maria Lionza is the highest Spirit of Venezuelan Spiritism, the embodiment of Nature and the Chief of the Three Venezuelan Powers. According to the legend, she was an Indian princess born with green eyes, something extremely rare among Venezuelan Indians. Her father kept her secluded in a cave as a child, protected by the twenty bravest warriors of the clan.

In the cave, there was a lake where a giant snake lived. As the princess grew into a young woman, the snake fell in love with her, and as she was looking at her image in the water, the snake appeared and swallowed her – but since she was a magical creature with great powers, the snake couldn’t stand having swallowed her and exploded. Out of the snake’s body, she emerged with full power, and became the Goddess of Nature.

This piece humbly tries to condense such a magical story in one symbol. I have depicted Her naked, embraced by the snake who fell in love with her and surrounded by flowers and butterflies. One of the many names She has is Queen Of Heavens – for that, she is traditionally portrayed wearing a crown as a symbol of Her royalty among Spirits, and so did I, so the piece could join traditional elements with a more contemporary design.

- I have just joined Pagan Place (click on the pic above to be taken to the site), so if you are a member too, you can add me as a friend; if you aren’t a member, maybe you should consider joining! Note – this is not a place for self-promotion!

- Our old Facebook page is about to be closed since, for reasons beyond my understanding, Facebook does not allow pages to changes names. We have a new one (again, click on the banner above) – your “Likes” are very appreciated!

- Do you know of Project Wonderful? If you have an online business, you should! Project Wonderful is a very affordable advertising system for websites, based on bids, where you choose where to advertise your business. While WordPress.com blogs do not support their codes, other platforms like Blogger, and of course your own website, can be used to offer ad space with them. Very soon we will have ad space available at our own website! Click on the banner above to find out more.

As you all know, we are big on recycling and finding new, original supplies for our products’ packaging. One of the permanent goals of our business is to keep all unnnecessary costs down, so our customers are not paying for packaging or shipping supplies more than is strictly necessary to cover costs. There is another reason for doing it – we want to continue the traditions of Canarian Curanderismo alive. Merely 25 years ago, herbs, food, medicines and many other items were sold in paper bags, called cartuchos here.

A few weeks ago, a friend gave us several partially used accounting ledgers. He had removed the used pages, obviously because they contained private information, but there were hundreds of unused pages, made of very strong and durable paper, and of course he said “I saved this for you because I’m sure you could make something out of them”. They were not suitable for diaries as they had too many columns, so we decided to recycle them into envelopes for packaging orders. We made two different size templates, and with a bit of patience, last Monday we made the first hundred. Aren’t they lovely? They are perfect for herbs, teas, salts, and all the new products we’ll be releasing in the next weeks, and since you can write on them, it will save YOU money on the products’ final price, as no sticker tags are needed. Yay for recycling.