Free Root Work Recipes
“Some knowledge was always meant to be free, child. The ancestors kept it alive so it could reach you.”
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These two workings are Auntie Root’s gift to you. Sourced from our PDF library of Hoodoo and Gullah Geechee tradition. Download them in English or in Deep Gullah Geechee — the old Sea Island tongue — and carry them with you.
love reconciliation
Honey Jar Sweetening Working
One of the oldest and most beloved workings in the Hoodoo tradition — the honey jar draws sweetness into a relationship, softens a difficult person, and keeps love close. Auntie Root gives this one freely.
🌿 What You Need
— 1 small glass jar with a lid (a honey jar, jelly jar, or any wide-mouth glass) — Raw honey (enough to fill the jar 3/4 full) — A piece of brown paper bag (torn, not cut — the rough edges hold the intention) — A pencil or red ink pen — 1 pink or red chime candle (or a plain white candle) — Optional additions: a pinch of cinnamon (draws warmth), a pinch of sugar (sweetens), 3 rose petals (love), a small piece of licorice root (persuasion)
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🔥 How To Work It
1. Write the full name of the person you wish to sweeten three times on the brown paper. If sweetening yourself or your home, write your own name or "My Home" three times.
2. Turn the paper 90 degrees and write your name across theirs nine times, your words crossing over theirs. This is called a name paper — your intention now crosses and covers theirs.
3. In the center of the paper, write your petition in a circle — no beginning, no end — without lifting the pen: what you want to happen. Keep writing in a circle until you complete the loop. Say your petition aloud as you write it.
4. Fold the paper toward you (fold it so it comes toward your body — this draws things to you rather than pushing them away). If folding layers, always fold toward you.
5. Place the folded paper in the jar. Pour the honey over the paper until the jar is 3/4 full.
6. If using optional additions, add them now — drop them into the honey one at a time and stir clockwise with your finger, licking the honey off when done. Tasting the honey seals your intention in your body.
7. Close the lid. Hold the jar in both hands. Speak over it: "Just as this honey is sweet, so shall [name] be sweet to me. So shall this situation turn sweet. So it is."
8. Place the candle on top of the lid. Light it and let it burn completely. Pray over the flame — speak your desire aloud, conversationally, as if talking to a trusted elder.
9. Repeat the candle burning on the jar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until your working is complete. Between burnings, keep the jar in a private place — a high shelf, a drawer, wherever it won't be disturbed.
10. When the working is done, bury the jar in your yard (to keep the person close) or dispose of it at a crossroads (to send the energy out into the world).
📜 The Old Knowing
The honey jar is one of the most documented workings in African American Hoodoo tradition, appearing in the work of folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt in his monumental five-volume collection "Hoodoo — Conjuration — Witchcraft — Rootwork" (1935–1978), where he recorded over 1,600 informants describing sweetening jars across the American South.
The practice draws on West African traditions of working with symbolic substances — honey, sugar, and sweetening agents were spiritual as well as physical goods. Among the Yoruba people of West Africa, honey is associated with Oshun, the orisha of love, rivers, and sweetness, whose traditions blended into African American spiritual practice.
Zora Neale Hurston, the great anthropologist and writer who trained under the New Orleans root doctor Luke Turner, described sweetening workings in her 1935 work "Mules and Men," documenting how root workers across the South used sugar, honey, and molasses in their love workings with specific ritual precision.
The honey jar survived because it required ingredients that were always available — even enslaved people had access to honey, paper scraps, and candle stubs. It was safe to practice quietly, without detection. Its survival is an act of resistance and love, passed down through generations of Black women who kept the tradition alive.
🛒 Where To Find It
Honey: Any raw honey from a local grocery store, health food store, or farmer's market. Raw honey is preferred — it retains its living spiritual properties.
Pink or red chime candles: Available at any botanica, spiritual supply store, or online. Lucky Mojo Curio Company (luckymojo.com) sells them individually. You can also find them on Etsy — search "chime candles for hoodoo."
Rose petals: Fresh or dried. Whole Foods, Sprouts, any health food store carrying bulk herbs. Mountain Rose Herbs (mountainroseherbs.com) ships dried rose petals in bulk.
Cinnamon and licorice root: Any grocery store spice section. StarWest Botanicals (starwest-botanicals.com) carries both in bulk.
Brown paper bag: The paper grocery bags from your last shopping trip work perfectly.
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uncrossing
Uncrossing Spiritual Bath
When life feels heavy, blocked, and nothing is going right — when it feels like something has been laid against you — the uncrossing bath clears it all away. This is one of Auntie Root's most essential recipes, offered freely to all who need it.
🌿 What You Need
— 1 lemon (cut in half) — 1 cup of hyssop herb (dried — available at herb shops and online; this is the traditional uncrossing herb from Psalm 51:7, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean") — 1/2 cup of sea salt or kosher salt (draws out spiritual impurities) — 1/4 cup of white vinegar (cuts through crossed conditions) — A handful of fresh or dried rue herb (traditional protective and cleansing herb) — Optional: 9 drops of Van Van oil (a classic uncrossing formula oil from the New Orleans tradition) — Optional: A white candle to burn before and during the bath
🔥 How To Work It
1. Begin on a Saturday morning if possible — Saturday is the traditional day for cleansing and removal in the Hoodoo calendar.
2. Brew the hyssop and rue into a strong tea: bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add the dried herbs, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Let it cool until comfortably warm (not scalding). Strain out the herbs.
3. Draw a bath of comfortable temperature. Add the herb tea to the bath water. Add the salt, vinegar, and Van Van oil if using. Squeeze the lemon halves into the bath — all of the juice — then drop the lemon rinds in as well.
4. Light your white candle and place it near the tub. Say aloud: "I wash away everything that was laid against me. I wash away every crossed condition, every block, every burden that is not mine. This water carries it all down and away from me. I come up from this bath clean, clear, and free."
5. Get into the bath. Using your hands, wash yourself from your head downward — always downward, from head to feet. This is important: downward motion removes. Never wash yourself upward in a cleansing bath.
6. Submerge your head if possible. Let the water touch every part of you.
7. Soak for at least 15 minutes. Pray continuously or sit in silence and focus on the feeling of heaviness lifting.
8. Do not use soap during this bath — soap is for physical cleaning, and you don't want it interfering with the spiritual work.
9. When you step out, do NOT fully dry off — let some of the bath water air-dry on your skin. This allows the spiritual work to continue as it dries.
10. Collect a cup of the bath water from the tub before you drain it. Take it to a crossroads (where two roads meet) and throw it toward the east, toward the rising sun, as the sun rises — or pour it down an outdoor drain. This sends the crossed condition away from your home and your life.
11. Repeat for nine consecutive days for a deep uncrossing, or three consecutive days for a lighter clearing.
📜 The Old Knowing
The uncrossing bath is one of the most ancient and documented workings in African American spiritual tradition. Hyssop appears in the 51st Psalm — "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean" — and this Biblical verse was incorporated into African American root work traditions because enslaved people had access to the Bible when other spiritual texts were denied them. The Psalm became a working, not just a prayer.
Harry Middleton Hyatt's collection documents dozens of variants of the uncrossing bath from informants across the American South — from Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana. The core elements remain consistent across all traditions: water, salt, a cleansing herb (hyssop, rue, or lemon verbena), and downward washing motion.
Rue (Ruta graveolens) has been used for protection and cleansing across European, African, and Caribbean traditions. In the Gullah Geechee tradition, rue was one of the protective plants grown close to the house — planted near the door to keep evil out, hung in bundles inside to clear the air.
Zora Neale Hurston documented the spiritual bath traditions of New Orleans Voudou practitioners in "Mules and Men" (1935), noting the precise ritual protocols: the direction of washing, the disposal of water, the prayer words. These details survive in Gullah Geechee practice to this day.
The crossroads disposal — pouring the bath water at an intersection — connects to the West African concept of the crossroads as a liminal space where the physical and spiritual worlds meet. In Kongo tradition (which had profound influence on Gullah spiritual practice through the large number of Kongo people enslaved on the Sea Island plantations), the crossroads is where the bakulu — ancestors — can receive what the living send them.
🛒 Where To Find It
Hyssop herb (dried): Available at Latin grocery stores and botanicas labeled as "hisopo." Online: Mountain Rose Herbs, Starwest Botanicals, or Lucky Mojo Curio Company. Also available on Amazon — search "hyssop herb dried."
Rue herb: Check a botanica (often sold as "ruda"). Also available on Etsy and at Mountain Rose Herbs online.
Sea salt or kosher salt: Any grocery store.
White vinegar: Any grocery store — the regular distilled white vinegar is perfect.
Van Van oil: Lucky Mojo Curio Company (luckymojo.com), Etsy spiritual shops, or any botanica. If unavailable, use a few drops of lemon verbena essential oil mixed with a carrier oil.
White candle: Any grocery store, dollar store, or botanica. A plain 7-day glass candle works well.
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