“When, something about when people say ‘gesundheit’ or ‘god bless you,’ that it was because you say it and that prevented something about the devil running up your nose and into your body and killin’ ya, stoppin’ your heart.”
“Do you know where you learned it?”
“From my mom or my grandma.”
“This one I don’t know what it comes under, the category of, but I definitely believe it. Um, about two weeks before, uh, Uncle Perry passed away, he showed up at our front door with Cindy, his wife, and knocked on the front door. And now, he was living in Virginia Beach at the time, in Virginia, flying for the navy back there, and Southwest [Airlines]. And we didn’t know he was coming, and we were just at the house. And it was one Saturday, I think, and he just came and knocked on the door. Now we thought he was across the country. And he came in and we went and had dinner and had a great time. Well, I, to this day, would believe that that is, and I don’t know how to explain it other than religion. Ya know, God’s intervention of giving Perry, cuz he basically took a couple of weeks with Cindy and they went and saw a bunch of old friends and family. And I think that, ya know, God stepped in and said I’m gonna take ya early and ya know, here’s two weeks of time to enjoy with your life but also to say goodbye to family and friends. And I think that was more than just fate. So I think that’s God’s will.”
As long as religion has existed, I think some concept of divine intervention has also been present. It’s a way that mankind has attempted to connect to their idea of a higher power (God/gods), and to understand the influence that the divine may have over us. Legends, myths and tales, too, have a similar purpose of trying to bring meaning to what can’t be rationally and/or immediately understood.
My informant discussed her families dinner for New Year’s Eve with me, she is from Bulgaria, “Every year I ferment cabbage leaves outside on our porch for a while before New Years, it’s like, ummmm…sauerkraut! Only it’s not shredded up, it’s whole leaves. I make small balls of beef with, ummm, you know these really good spices. Then I wrap the leaves around the beef, it is called surmi. In Bulgaria this is good luck to eat on New Year’s Eve, and it represents keeping the luck within the house. It can’t be made with any meat with birds, you can’t eat chicken or anything on New Year’s, you know, because then your luck will fly away from you…Don’t eat birds on new years, okay Lexi.”
There is obviously a great deal of symbolism involved in the idea of the bird causing luck, or prosperity to fly away and leave the household. In many different European cultures cabbage is eaten as a symbol of good luck or prosperity.
My informant brought up a story as we passed a graveyard. “My first boyfriend was Indian Muslim, my mom loved that (said sarcastically), he came to the U.S. when he was twelve…anyway one thing he would do was whenever we were passing by a muslim graveyard in his car, he’d turn the music all the way off so as not to disturb the dead and to show them respect or something.” This practice shows a linking of the souls of the dead to their bodies in the graveyard, not only linking their souls to earth but also creating a connection between spiritual and physical.
My informant brought up a connection to her grandmother as I looked at the veladoras in her room. “So I collect veladoras with the image of the virgen de guadalupe on them. I’m not religious at all, although my family is catholic. My grandmother who I was very close to was very devote to the virgen [she’s supposed to be the patron saint of mexico and the indigenous people who converted to catholicism]. She would light a veladora for her every night and it was bad luck for it to go out until it completely burned out. she burned them for my grandfather who had passed away the year I was born. when I used to visit her in the summer I would be her helper and it was my job to light them for her and make sure they stayed on all night. I didn’t have to but I would get up & check in the night to make sure it was still on. My grandma passed away this summer and I light veladoras for her. I can’t let them burn all night like I used to but she would always say the saint and the soul you would burning it for would understand as long you remembered them.”
The practice my informant began was something that connected her, not to her religion, as it did somewhat with her grandmother, but to her grandmother. She is taking a practice that is supposed to be a religious one out of it’s religion and uses it as a means of remembrance to the dead, but also away to feel connected to her grandmother’s soul. These candles were also made to continue a silent prayer even after one stops praying. The waiting until the candle is completely burned relates to candle magic where often the candles have to burn through completely for the magic to take.