Florida Water

Pardon my messy knitting basket.

Shadow used to douse everything with it.  I wanted to wring his thick neck because the scent was just so overwhelming.

Tarot cards, singing bowls, crystals, you name it, Florida Water was heavily applied.  To this day, many of his items still carry the scent.  Remember folks, the smell of weed dissipates quickly, but Florida Water lingers for life.

I don’t know who or where he learned it from, but I had never used it before in my own practice.  It’s sold at Botanicas and sometimes dollar stores.  It’s a perfume, or maybe technically an eau du toilette?  I don’t know, I’m not French, nor is this concoction, which I believe predates the Civil War and is very much American.  Nowadays it comes in a plastic bottle, it’s actually still made in the USA (believe it or not), and it’s comprised of citrus oils and lavender plus alcohol and blue number whatever to achieve that aquatic color.

I have a friend who is Cuban and practices Santeria.  She uses it to cleanse and bless things, I believe many people also place it in their mop water.  Santeria practitioners are really into amped up mopping water.  One website I looked up said to place the Florida Water in a spray bottle with amethyst and use that to cleanse your space or other items.

I am all about sprays.

So, above is my spray bottle filled with Florida Water and three small pieces of amethyst in three different shades.  You can barely see them.  In mist format, the scent doesn’t bother me too much, but it’s one of the many ways I am choosing to honor Shadow by using tools and items that he enjoyed and showing Ana how her daddy practiced his craft. Besides, now every time I smell that or weed I can fondly remember him.

My spray is also very convenient for spritzing the hallway outside my apartment door, which lately smells like a mix of cigarettes and corn chips.  My cinnamon broom and wreath have long since stopped reeking of cinnamon, so they’re mere decor items now.  I’m very happy for the heavy duty draft guard I invested in, it keeps my good smells in and their bad smells out.  I’ve sprayed the outside part of it with it too.  You know, just in case.

Maybe next time I mix up my batch of vinegar cleaning spray I’ll add a dose of Florida Water to it and spray mop my floors, get any lingering bad juju out of the wooden boards. 

Let’s see what all the fuss is about.

Blessed Be!

🌛🌝🌜