Dear Queenie,
I think I need a cleansing. Before you laugh, hear me out. For months now, it feels like everything that can go wrong does. My car has developed an appetite for mechanics and money. Every time I think I’ve caught up financially, another unexpected expense appears. Work is stressful. Family problems keep coming. Things break. Plans fall apart. And I’m tired. I know people will say it’s just life and sometimes bad things come in clusters, but I’m beginning to feel as though I have some kind of bad energy following me around. Years ago, I remember seeing advertisements in “The Daily Herald” for healing doctors and spiritual people offering blessings, cleansings and help with problems like this. I haven’t noticed those advertisements recently. At this point, I'm desperate enough to try. I’m not looking to become involved in anything strange. I just want someone reputable who can give me a blessing, cleanse whatever needs cleansing and hopefully help me feel like myself again. Queenie, can you recommend a healing doctor? I trust your advice. —Bad Luck Following Me
Dear Bad Luck Following Me,
I’m going to disappoint you. Queenie is not sending you to a healing doctor. Not because I’m going to ridicule what you believe. Across the Caribbean, people have long turned to spiritual practices, religious leaders, traditional healers and cleansing rituals when life feels particularly heavy. Sometimes ritual itself provides comfort. It marks a moment when we say: Enough. I want a new beginning. What worries me is one word in your letter. Desperate. Desperate people are easy to exploit. You walk in worried about your car, money and family. Someone tells you there’s a darkness around you. Then the darkness requires US $200 to remove. Unfortunately, they discover something stronger. Another US $500. Then you’re told someone close to you is jealous, somebody has “worked” something against you, or something terrible will happen unless you pay for another ritual. Your bad luck hasn’t disappeared. It has simply acquired an invoice. So I’m not going to choose a stranger from an advertisement and tell you to hand over your fear and your wallet. If you want a blessing, start somewhere you already trust. Speak to a pastor, priest, pandit, imam or another established spiritual leader appropriate to your beliefs. If a cleansing ritual is meaningful within your tradition, there is nothing wrong with finding comfort in it. But alongside the spiritual reset, let’s do a practical cleansing too. Look at where your money has been going. Get the car properly assessed rather than repeatedly patching problems if that’s what’s happening. Decide which family problems actually belong to you. Look honestly at your workload. Ask whether exhaustion is making ordinary setbacks feel like evidence that the universe has singled you out. Because sometimes when five difficult things happen together, there isn’t one mysterious cause connecting them. It’s five difficult things happening together. And that can feel overwhelming enough without adding fear that someone has put something on you. You asked Queenie for someone trustworthy. My answer is someone who doesn’t frighten you, doesn’t promise miracles, doesn’t demand increasing amounts of money and doesn’t tell you to abandon practical solutions. A genuine spiritual practice should leave you feeling more grounded. Not more afraid. Have your blessing if it brings you peace. Clean your house. Open the windows. Pray. Light whatever your faith allows you to light. Then sit down with your bills, your mechanic’s estimate and your boundaries. Sometimes the cleansing we need most isn’t removing bad luck. It’s clearing enough noise to deal with life one problem at a time. —Queenie
