Reflection upon my recent brushes with mortality and legacy has led me to reconsider the mysterious brush with Death I had when I visited New York City last December.
I had planned the 2 days in New York as a sort of lagniappe. My real purpose had been to travel immediately on to Connecticut to my wonderful madrina, Laura. That visit was phenomenal: high spirits, much love, great Work, and sprightly shenanigans the whole entire time; I hadn’t wanted it to end. Nonetheless, round-trip flights from Tulsa to JFK are a lot more affordable than the same sort of flights to Hartford, so, back to the City for my lagniappe I went. New York, I hoped, would be more or less anti-climactic. Which, thankfully, it was…until the afternoon before I left.
Mo Shockey, my dear friend–and a truly brilliant illustrator–was putting me up at their place in Brooklyn during my stay. As my flight wasn’t set to leave JFK until 8 pm night, we had most of the daytime to hang out together. Mo knew I liked botanicas and wanted to visit one before I left, so they found a likely candidate to check out during our errand run. Now, one of my favorite things about Mo is that they are uncompromisingly themself on every occasion regardless of circumstances. Part of this total inhabitation of personhood involves Mo’s absolute commitment to self-expression via the queer, working-class goth aesthetic. Mo’s aesthetic definitely influenced my fashion choices that day. I am no goth, but I love skulls and skeletons, so I packed a few pieces in honor of the day Mo and I would be spending together: all-black-everything, with pirate skull-and-crossbones socks, a skull & heart ringer T, a skull-print bolero cardigan, and articulated rhinestone skeleton dangle earrings. Feeling dressed more or less like Mo’s wacky aunty, I set out with them upon their daily errands.
By the time we got to the botanica, I had pretty much forgotten what I was wearing. The temperature had started dropping by the minute, and if I thought anything at all about my clothes, it was that I needed more layers of them. Getting out of the wind and into that botanica was a relief. Mo walked in first. The fresh–faced, 20-something shopkeeper immediately welcomed them into the store, “Holaaaaa!” He grinned wide out from behind a close-cropped beard. His hazel eyes shone out from under his black ball cap, and the large metallic silver skull printed on the cap caught glints of the fluorescent store lights when he spoke. Mo answered him in Spanish and as the two of them spoke, I immediately remembered that Mo also speaks Russian. I slunk in, slow and Spanglishy behind her, kind of wanting to just pop…on…over…into the curio oil aisle alone. I saw the Orisha shrines immediately. They were different from the ones I had seen previously and they were closer to the front than I was used to seeing them. The candles, flowers, and decorations for the orisha were lovely, yet it seemed as if the shrines had seen few recent visitors. Only a handful of coins and a few empty shot glasses suggested anyone had come by, and the dustiness seemed to be from time rather than incense residue.
“Alli!” I heard the shopkeeper say, gesturing towards a 4-foot pyramidal stack of HEM incense from whence emanated contrails of Buena Suerte incense. I looked at him. Mo had come in search of incense and skull items and began tottering towards the display. Immediately, the shopkeeper caught my eye and smiled a wide, genuine, and very welcoming smile. I smiled back at him; big, fake, and uncomfortable. Just as I tried to step away, a soft, heavy, vibrating cannonball bounded into my leg. I smelled a faint waft of cat piss at the same time I heard the industrial-strength purring sound and looked down. An ecstatic and massive coal-black tomcat had started rubbing against my leg. He looked up at me with gold-green eyes and a Cheshire cat grin. I looked back up and saw the shopkeeper beaming at me.
“That’s our cat, Amigo.” He nods towards the cat.
I’m confused a bit and say, “Your cat is an amigo, or I am?” as I inch nonchalantly to my right, ever closer to the curio oils and away from this unexpected conversation.
He laughs a bit at that then says, “The cat’s name is Amigo. This is his store and he goes everywhere he wants. Don’t let him bother you. He likes to be petted but we can shoosh him away…” He’s looking at me intensely as he trails off. “I really like your earrings,” he says suddenly, “They’re beautiful. Your shirt, too.”
I had forgotten what I was even wearing, so when I looked down at my shirt and realized he was talking about skulls and hearts and skeletons, it surprised me. All I could think to do was grin stupidly and say, “Well, thanks. I like them a lot too.” I have never in my life had anyone more masculine than a drag queen compliment my jewelry, so I was surprised to hear this from him. I had also never had a cishet man hit on me by complimenting my clothing or jewelry before, so he wasn’t flirting with me, either. I had no idea what was going on and this fact made me low-key anxious. I just smiled wide at him as I ducked behind a display to peruse the curio oils.
As I excavated the overflowing curio shelves, my mind drifted back to Connecticut. It had been a long overdue visit; necessary and revitalizing. Though Laura and I maintain frequent contact in our socials, we hadn’t actually seen each other in ten years. We had a lot of fun and I was amazed at just how much I’d learned from her this visit. I always learn a lot from her. It’s never like schoolmarm lecture learning or cool aunt “advice” giving. It was like …picking up new stuff from someone who is different from you, but whose mind is similar. She had insight and perspectives on everything I had been pondering. Unfortunately, she had no answers. She did have a lot of questions about MY questions, a fact of which I was reminded as I pawed through the shelves. My fingers glided slowly across the cool, round, glass dram bottles with their nubby caps. From under my fingertips, the heady, rich, intoxicating smell of the oils periodically drifted up. They certainly smelled like magic.
Curio oils–also called condition oils–are used in various folk healing and magic practices. The oils treat specific conditions like cheating husbands, chronic bad luck, sadness, lies, injustice, illness, and all the other sad byproducts of living the human condition. Now, I 100% believe that magic exists, but I’m not at all convinced that it comes neatly bottled with names like “Abre Camino,” and “Lluvia de Suerte,” and “Buscame.” I like the thought, though, which is why I collect curio oils. As I rummaged through the rows of bottles, I halfway hoped the name of one of them would jump out at me from the shelf, providing some sort of inspiration that would trigger a Eureka! moment about my next move. Assigning mystic portents to random things is a dangerous business that I happen to be wary of, but at the same time, I do believe in synchronicity. The shelves before me yielded no such synchronicity I did however pick up a few oils that would theoretically be good for a freelancer: “Abre Camino,” “Lluvia de Suerte,” “Atrapa Clientes,” “Exito el Negocio,” and “Lluvia de Oro” and “Contra Mal de Ojo.” I sighed and turned away from the shelf, taking a moment to just be glad I was in a place where I could actually visit a proper botanica and buy curio oils, because the next day I would not be.
As I turned away from the shelf, my foot gently swept something that slid to a sickeningly sharp clink and stopped. Nervously, I looked down expecting to see a broken oil bottle. Nope. It wasn’t broken, and every drop of the luminescent cerise oil was still inside it. Reaching down, I retrieved the bottle from the metal display leg I’d kicked it under. Unlike the other bottles, this one was small, and square. I turned it over in my hands and discovered a picture of two hummingbirds bathing in a teacup on the front of it: “Chuparosa.” I smiled at the thought of hummingbirds bathing in teacups.
The Mayans associate the hummingbird with pure love and a fragile heart, happy thoughts, and communications between loved ones. Chuparosa didn’t really seem like an answer to any of my questions, but it had begun to seem like the answer to having a better mood, so I took it. Synchronicity. I mean, I’d taken a second to feel gratitude and immediately stumbled upon a bottle of magic happiness. There are stupider hints to take. Besides, hummingbirds may be the harbingers of love and joy, but they are also brutal swordsmen when they fight for dominance. Watch two hummingbirds fence each other and it becomes clear that inside every hummingbird beats the heart of Inigo Montoya, and he is prepared to kill you. As I stood there, taking in the faint rose and frangipani scent of the bottle, my mind coalesced around the idea that hummingbirds are dazzling messengers of love who radiate ferocious joy and do not back down.
Hands full of magic, I made my way through the labyrinthine gauntlet of statuary, incense, jewelry, vessels, books, and decor toward the checkout. Mo and the shopkeeper were chatting as I approached. It took forever. At first, it had seemed like a small, intimate, and CROWDED store. But the longer I was there, the bigger it seemed to get. It's bigger on the inside, I thought to myself as I deposited my oils on the counter. “They live in Tulsa, and there aren’t any botanicas there,” I overheard Mo say to the shopkeeper. “They’re stocking up while they still can.”
“I leave tonight,” I piped up, suspecting it might be my turn in the conversation somehow. “Back to Tulsa.”
“Oh,” the shopkeeper smiled, his gaze steady on mine.
“I was visiting my Madrina in Connecticut. She lives there. I haven’t seen her in ten years.”
Eyes widening, the shopkeeper says, “Your madrina? Oh! You’re here because you’re our people!”
I sighed and let that sink in for a minute: you’re our people. It felt very strange to be this far from the city of my birth, in a store rarely frequented by folks like me, talking to a stranger I’ve never met but who seems to know me somehow, with one of my favorite people on the planet, right after visiting my madrina, and hear the stranger tell me, “you’re our people.”
“Come. I want to show you our Santa,” he said, taking my elbow, “She’s here for our people.” I quickly look around the shop and confirm that yes, I probably am his people. I shop at botanicas and know what the products are for.
Courtesy finally kicked in with me, and I said to him, “My name’s Doc. What’s yours?”
“Ramon.” He grinned and added, “I’m here one year–from Oaxaca.”
“It’s nice to meet you Ramon,” I said, not actually sure what to say next, “Thank you for taking us back to see this.”
“Of course. Of course.”
Ramon guided me back and Mo followed silently behind. Halfway back sat two very powerful women at a rectangular plastic work table. The tall, solidly built middle-aged one in the white bell-sleeved shirt seemed to be filling store orders, sorting and placing items in various boxes, mancala-style. Her long dark hair was piled in a massive messy bun atop her head. As we passed, she shot us a glance of mild annoyance and suspicion. The older, heavier woman sat at the far end of the table eating empanadas. She was wearing a bright red, floral embroidered dress with long, curly, gold-gray hair parted in the middle that trailed down each side of her chair until it almost hit the floor. She glowered at us between bites as we walked past. It seemed they did not approve. I honestly did not blame them, but I did not stop, because I had this growing feeling that whatever this moment was involved forces beyond my comprehension or control. I went with the flow.
When we finally got close enough to see the shrine, I was brought up short: Rows upon rows of the same image greeted me: A fierce-faced skeleton smiling out from under a dazzling hooded robe, scythe held aloft in one hand…I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel, Il Duomo, and Michelangelo’s David. The Grand Canyon. The actual Starry Night. The actual Waterlilies. The reefs off of Kona. All stunning. Inspiring. Sublime. Yet none of those experiences even came close to this, Santa Muerte’s shrine. Her shrine emanated love, warmth, acceptance, and purity like an all-encompassing and irresistible physical force. It was clear that this community loved and tended this shrine often. Something sacred lived here. This place was extremely holy…and I wasn’t entirely sure I deserved to be seeing it. Contemplating Santa Muerte’s grace in stunned silence, I stood there with tears streaming down my face, trying not to fall over.
Ramon walked over to the back left of the 8’ multi-tier shrine towards a specific Santa Muerte statue. She was 3 feet tall and black with gold accents and silver bones. Her scythe was glittery and her robe was trimmed in rhinestones. She was wearing a gorgeous velvety purple cloak that someone in the community had made for her. Her eye sockets held blossoms of multicolor cabochon crystals. She was absolutely stunning. I wondered at the fervor with which this Santa Muerte had been festooned and bedazzled. I wondered more at the unfathomably passionate devotion that had given rise to this fervor.
“You see this Santa?” He gestures. I couldn’t have missed her. He turns to smile up at me, “She travels. When someone is sick or has troubles, we let them take this Santa home with them until the problem is solved. Weeks, sometimes.”
Through my tears, I started smiling. Really smiling. Face-hurt smiling with my whole heart. Ferociously smiling.
Gently fingering the purple velvet cloak, Ramon adds, “She always comes back. And when they bring her back, she always has new clothes or jewelry or something. It’s the people–how they say thank you.”
Drinking in this glorious Santa Muerte, I realize that her people are incredibly grateful. “I suppose,” I say finally to Ramon, “that she takes very good care of her people.”
“She does.” Ramon replies. He tilts his head slightly, and then his demeanor shifts to be a bit more serious. He moves away from the traveling Santa and comes towards me with a gentle and kind smile on his face. I immediately started to worry that he’d finally noticed how I had obviously been crying but was now smiling like a madwoman. It was no matter. Ramon stopped in the center of the shrine and then turned to look at it, with a bit of puzzlement on his face. It seemed as if he had sensed that something wanted to be found, so he went looking for it. Reaching down, he retrieved a figurine from the shrine. It was a horned owl carved out of serpentine, perched on a base of white rock quartz. I’ve always loved owls, but this one was so tiny amidst the busy shrine that I hadn’t noticed it until he picked it up. Owls are one of Santa Muerte’s symbols, and a symbol of brujas and brujareia besides. Owl in hand, Ramon finishes crossing toward me.
“This is for you,” he said as he took my right palm and opened it. Placing the figurine gently into my hand, he said, “She wants you to have it,” and closed my fingers around the owl.
“Thank you,” I stammered, unsure if I was thanking Ramon or Santa but knowing this was the right thing to say; “Thank you so much.” I glanced over to see how Mo was doing; their mouth was slightly agape and their eyes were saucers. Ramon stepped away and then moved back into the store. I soon heard bleeps and clicks as Ramon tallied Mo’s HEM haul on an ancient cash register. The owl felt heavy and warm in my hand as I gazed upon the Santa Muerte shrine in its entirety, lost in my thoughts.
Death is no respecter of persons. This is exactly why Santa Muerte is so beloved by her people; she accepts and helps everyone without judgment, especially LGBTQ+ and disabled folks. Santa Muerte considers all of us her children, because we all come to her in the end. As I stood there, I realized that I am very much Santa Muerte’s people, because we all are her people, whether we recognize it or not. And how incredible the people of this botanica community must be, who honor Santa Muerte so magnificently!
A different incense smoke drifted hazily toward the shrine from the display that Ramon had just re-lit. I quaffed the rose-scented air around me, and noticed that Traveling Santa was not the only sumptuously appointed statue on the shrine. They were all gorgeously decorated. Many wore clothes that had been lovingly made for them. The people of this botanica have a deep and powerful love for Santa Muerte, which they express regularly through rapturous devotion: making very nice clothes and jewelry for Santa, decorating her shrine frequently and tending it generously. The love so clearly expressed through the shimmering, bejeweled Santas on the shrine positively dazzled me. I thought back to the colorful chuparosa that had seemingly led me to it; wasn’t this Traveling Santa Muerte also dazzling messenger of love? The neighborhood of this botanica was working-class and about two and a half steps from desperation at all times. Yet this shrine was exuberantly happy–seemingly in defiance of the circumstances outside; isn’t this shrine the embodiment of the chuparosa’s ferocious joy?
At that moment, I noticed a sort of diorama on the Christmas section of the shrine: a 2-foot, Santa Muerte dressed in holiday red-with-white-fur-trim shared a bottle of tequila with a 2-foot Santa Claus. They were surrounded by yet more Santas Muerte and Santas Claus. Santas gotta stick together, I reasoned. Tim Burton has missed an opportunity, I reasoned further. That sight and those thoughts made me giggle, which was the first sound I’d made in several minutes.
With that, I felt ready to leave the shrine. I walked back into the store, toward the register. The women at the table watched me as I walked. No trace of emotion showed on their faces, but no trace of annoyance or hostility hung in the air, either. Both women gave me a small nod of acknowledgment as I passed by. I smiled and nodded back to each of them.
Mo stood quietly to the side of the counter, waiting patiently for my return from Shrineland. Ramon smiled as he rang up my curio oils. I had to leave the “Contra Mal de Ojo” bottle, because Ramon had discovered that the bottle was cracked under the label. Some of it had even dropped onto my shirt, though I had not known it. While I was at the shrine, the oil had begun to leak out of the bottle and onto the counter. Ramon did not make me purchase the oil, thankfully. I left money in the tip jar equal to the cost of the oil plus before I left.
With salutations and exhortations to return, Ramon bid us farewell. All of the pressing questions that had been festering under the surface when I walked into the botanica seemed very far away as we walked out into the cold, gray, rainy Brooklyn dusk. Mo and I remained silent for most of the ride back to their apartment. The owl sat heavily in my coat pocket.
A committed and principled atheist who nonetheless studies the history of western hermeticism, Mo does not really believe in synchronicity the way I do. I could tell they weren’t quite sure what to make of all they had just witnessed. A heaviness hung in the air between us, and because I had no idea what to say, I kept quiet.
Finally, Mo spoke up. “You know,” they said, turning towards me, “I feel like you are completely in touch with the rhythms of the universe of something,” then they giggled and added, “ and I’m just bumbling around trying to put one foot in front of the other.”
“Mo,” I said, turning towards them, “I don’t know if the Universe talks to anyone, including me. I’m very sensation-seeking,” I offered in the way of rational explanation, “which makes me extremely open to experience. Marvelous and strange things just sort of happen to me sometimes.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Mo chides me, because Mo knows me and my openness to experience. “But still. That…was really something.”
“It certainly was,” I agreed after a minute, noticing that the rainy dusk had turned to a misty, peaceful darkness outside. “I certainly did not expect that sort of thing to happen today. But I owe it all to you, Mo.”
Mo looked at me quizzically, one eyebrow rising incredulously behind their retro acrylic glasses, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think you’re stumbling anywhere near as badly as you think you are,” I said as I squeezed them in a conspiratorial shoulder hug. Feeling ever so very grateful for their friendship, I looked them right in the eye and reminded them, “you chose the botanica.”
