How do I start a relationship with Santa Muerte
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Maybe you're at the point where you feel ready to start build your relationship with Santa Muerte. You just don't know where to start. Well if you've made it this far and read the previous blog posts then you're off to a great start. I'm going to break down your relationship into three components: knowledge, prayer, and offerings.
Knowledge
The best analogy for how to develop a personal relationship with Santísima Muerte is to think of it like any other interpersonal relationship in your life. For starters, you have to get to know someone. How do you get to know someone you ask? You learn about them over time. In some cases when someone comes into contact with you in public let's say, you can pick up on them, notice their mannerisms and their behavior, this is a way to learn about someone indirectly. You can learn some key things about them but you also have the choice to go up to them and talk to them directly.
Your journey begins where most of your relationship begins, in the unknown. So begins your exploration phase with Santa Muerte. In this stage, you will learn about her directly and indirectly. I highly recommend that you start researching in as many ways as you can for as long as you need. Talk to devotees and ask them about their personal experience with Santísima, read books, articles and blogposts about her written by devotees. These are just some easy ways that you can indirectly start learning about her. If you want to start learning about her directly then you're going to have to interact with her yourself. In that we will focus in the next section but just a word of caution.
There is a lot of information out there about Santísima Muerte which is great that we have so much material but just be aware it is not all created equal. Consider the source and take note of the author bias. Some of these authors are not devoted to her or have any practical knowledge or experience with her. In those cases, they are speaking about opinions based on their own feelings. A feeling can be true but not factual. This is why your personal experience trumps whatever it said in this book or whatever someone else said. This is why learning about Santa Muerte via personal interactions is critical.
Prayer
Communication with Santísima muerte is as simple yet as import as it is in your other relationship. Direct your attention to her and speak to her. You can speak to her in your head or out loud. You can say her name to invoke her if you’d like. You can focus in your mind or on an an object. This is a part of why people have statues, prayer cards, candles, jewelry or anything of the sort, it's a physical representation to a very subjective thing which is your link to her. As you speak to her, do so with the right intention, choose your words carefully and begin a dialogue. Talk to her about whatever you'd like, introduce yourself to her, share your opinions with her, tell her about the thing that are important to you and the things you value most. You build rapport just like this in all of your other relationships and this one is no different.
That’s it! That’s basically how you pray. Not much to it. No a prayer is not what’s found in a book or on a pray card. A prayer is not an incantation, a prayer is a verb, it’s an action, something you do. When you make the choice to communicate with her with the intention of building a relationship with her that’s prayer. You can pray to her whenever and wherever and in whatever way you’d like and know that she’ll get back to you.
Some of the energy from the attention and intention you give her she will use to respond to you and voilà, you are now having a two way conversation! Congratulations but how will she respond to you? Well it can’t be physically since she has no physical vocal cords, mouth, lips, lungs tongue etc so she will use other means. Some of these means might be physical, maybe she will send you an omen or omens in the form of animals or insects. Maybe she will manipulate things near her including but not limited to offerings you have out for her. Maybe she will make her presence known by letting you feel her presence. You might even catch something move in the corner if your eye. A common method is the way she will appear in peoples dreams. It’s all very personal.
In my experience she tends to communicate back in many ways. Seeing butterflies even in dead winter. Visiting me in my dreams and of those around me. Passing by the window nearest her altar. Occasionally flickering the lights directly above me. For you that might be different, you may never see her in a dream but instead you may see or experience something completely different from me and that’s okay.
Offerings
Let’s just get one thing out of the way. Gifts are great, who doesn’t love a gift, it could literally change your whole day around and lighten it up for the better. Notice that many holidays include gift giving and we have a whole season dedicated to gratitude, generosity and gift giving. Everyone loves receiving gift but not even know how to give them. Some of the best gifts are not necessarily the most expensive or glamorous. Sometimes the most impactful gift is both appropriate and intimate. When I say appropriate I mean just that, appropriate to the time and place. Offerings should be looked at the same. Appropriate can look like something small that you stumbled upon that reminded you of them, it can look like something occasionally that you two can both enjoy that you share in common while bonding, it can also look like something bigger and more personal on an important day. Intimate is something that is very thoughtful but also personal. The more you know about someone the better you can give gifts that are both thoughtful, considerate, and related to them or your relationship with them in some way. Early on you can likely make your offerings considerate and as you build your connection with Santa Muerte your offerings will become more and more personal.
Tradition does give us plenty of places to start when it comes to what we can offer especially early on when we don't yet know what to offer so here is a list of things you can give as offerings with a bit of detail; light, water, incense, flowers, drinks, foods, fragrances and money. Let's briefly cover each of these.
Light - Light traditionally take the form of burning candles. Now a days we have a variety candle colors, sizes and fragrances to choose from. Some people will say that you should only offer white candles, or glass candles or unscented paraffin or beeswax candles and while all that if find the choice is yours. Try one out if Santisima didn't like it you'll notice. However truth be told you can offer her light from fire or electricity. You can do a burning candle, a battery powered candle, even a nightlight. Whatever the source may be she will show you her preference and show her gratitude for it just keep an eye out.
Water - water is a simple offering that is most people's first offering to her. You don't need to offer her much even a shot glass of water a day is fine. Try to change out the water regularly, don't let the water stagnate. Most people give her fresh water every day.
Incense - Incense is one of those offerings that can be personalized and intimate. You can find an incense that you like and share it with her. Incense like candles come in many form but they are all burned for their fragrant smoke. You can burn her some powdered incense, incense cones or incense sticks or even resins. You can make your own incense too. Create your own personal blend by handing up some herbs in a mortar and pestle and burn over a coal. Warning that if you're burning incense or burning candle please follow fire safety and never leave anything that's burning unattended.
Here are some incense I can suggest: anything musky, anything sweet, sandalwood, rose, myrrh, copal. One that I like to offer Santa Muerte is from Song of India it's called India temple incense and it comes in a few different forms.
Flowers - Everyone loves flowers. You see flowers on special occasions like birthdays, graduations and weddings and they can be celebratory but they can also be a lovely gesture. They bring a beautiful aroma and color into the room.
Here are some flowers I recommend: roses any color, any white flowers such as Jasmin or Lilly, yellow flowers such as honeysuckle, really it's whatever you prefer. In time you'll notice which flowers she enjoys most.
Drinks - Aside from water you can offer another drink. This drink can be alcoholic or non alcoholic. Warning please be cognizant of the drink and make sure it's appropriate. Liquors and wine are probably not an appropriate offering if you live with minors, alcoholics or recovering alcoholics or you yourself are a minor, alcoholic or are a recovering alcoholic. Like with the offerings above there are many drink out there choose whatever you prefer and deem appropriate.
Examples of alcoholic drinks are wine, beers, liquors such as tequila, mezcal, pulque, aguardiente (firewater). Examples of non alcoholic drinks are teas, coffees, sodas and root beers like ginger beet, fruit juices and ciders like grape juice or apple cider, aguas frescas like horchata or jamaica.
Foods - Food can take on many forms such as candy, breads, fresh fruits like apples but can also be an entire plate of food. Just know that a little can go a long way. This one similar to incense and drinks can be intimate and personal. If you're at a phase in your life where you're making teas or mead, desserts or sourdough I'm sure she would love to try it. She will let you know if she likes it.
Fragrances - I mentioned above that we burn incense for their fragrant smoke and that flowers offer fragrances too I just wanted to add that fragrances can also be in the form of a cologne or perfume. You can read the flower and incense sections for inspiration of what kind of perfumes to offer her, sweet scents, floral scents, musky scents, herbal scents, Florida water, 7 machos cologne, whatever you prefer. In here I will also add that cigars and cigarettes can also be offered but again use your own discretion as to if these are appropriate offerings.
Money - Sometimes a little money can go far. When in doubt money is a good gift to give. You're giving a token that you likely got in exchange for your work and giving it to someone so they can exchange it for something they want or need. In reality, you're not just giving money, money is just paper and ink or coins. Is cheesey as it sounds with money and with all of these offerings the thought does matter. Another thing to note is that some people believe that the money should either never be touched or spent on whatever you want. I find money works best when circulated so if you see that Santisima is racking up some bills you can most certainly use them to buy her fresh flowers or another new offering. However, I highly discourage you taking any of that money ever for your own personal gain. Resist the temptation and try not to justify taking money just because it's sitting there. When you give someone money, that money might sit in their pocket or in their bank account but as soon as it leaves your hand and you dedicate it to someone it's a gift not a loan. Don't ever take money from Santa Muerte unless you're build her an offering with it.
As I stated in my post about how to set up an altar (link here) you don't need to start off with one thing in every one of the categories above. I think it's good to start out with the first two, water and light, as well as prayer. The other things listen above are to help you be inspired when you want to offer Santa Muerte something a little extra or something extra special on a special occasion. What offerings are you drawn to? Do you give Santa Muerte any offerings not shared above? Let me know in the comments.
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