The Evil Eye

I have a Facebook friend who suggested that I try an exercise used as a technique in actor training. It’s called, Synergenis. He explained the idea is to get your body sense memory, imagination and emotions to work together more effectively. For instance, when you’re happy, you smile. If you smile, you will automatically feel happy inside. Make sense? He instructed me to sit in front of a mirror and smile at myself for ten minutes and then post my results.

It took me well over two weeks to get up the courage to stare at myself that long…let alone smile. Ten minutes is a lot longer than you think when you’re staring at yourself and smiling, or even trying to. What finally compelled me to try the exercise was my online horoscope. It said, ‘be seductive when it comes to expressing your passion for others today, dear Leo. There is more to your glance than meets the eye. The untrained prey has no chance against your hypnotic stare’. How could I go wrong with a forecast like that? I gave it a try.

Since that fateful day, I have begun experiencing things, little things that most people wouldn’t give a second thought to. Things that might be attributed to changes in the weather or an unexpected adjustment of plans, such as a bad sinus headache or finding that the Dill Weed in my cupboard, which I intended to use in a new recipe had the expiration date of 1982. Last week, I left a message on a friend’s cell phone. After I finished recording, I was curious about the direction given by the perfunctory voice that I have heard hundreds of times. “For more options, press one.” I pressed one, but there were no more options. It was ominous. I felt an evil presence that seemed to cast an eerie shadow as from a dark cloud. It drifted above causing a chill to run through me.

I began to notice other things too. My online grocery purchases were delivered straight to my neighbor’s door. After numerous calls to the grocery store and to my neighbor, my articles were returned with several slices of the Orowheat cracked wheat bread missing from the loaf, two sleeves of crackers were absent from my Fresh Stacks Ritz crackers and what remained of an Orville Reddenbacker microwave sack with a few kernels of unpopped corn. What was causing me to experience such a sudden patch of bad luck?

I stumbled across an article on the Internet that may have solved the mystery of why things aren’t going so well. The evil eye is to blame. Yes, it’s true. According to this article, it is quite possible to inadvertently bring the evil eye, hairy eye, stink eye, whatever you want to call it, on yourself. I knew I was vulnerable to negative energies but I never dreamed that I could sabotage my circumstances with my own powerful hypnotic stare. Unfortunately, the spell won’t just go away, it must be removed by burning rare seeds or hanging a plant called, Camel’s Needle, at the front door. I could gather uzarlik to burn but I have no idea of how to get to the Khizi mountains, but I do know it is north of Baku on the road to Guba.

I started to panic. How could I remove my evil eye spell if I couldn’t get my hands on the proper remedy? My neighbor observed my agitation and after pouring out the frightening details of my dilemma to her, she said I could call her grandmother who lives in Mexico. She had the perfect remedy to protect against the evil eye.

I called her at exactly 6:48 pm as I was instructed. A feeble voice answered and with a thick accent she said, “Take the right eye of a hyena and put it in very strong vinegar for seven days. Then boil it. Take it to a remote place, where a rooster’s crow cannot be heard and bury it next to a cactus plant. Your spell will be broken.”

I think it might be easier to avoid mirrors.

A Temple in the Hood

Some are taught as children that Womanhood is sacred, life-giving, strong and wise. Huh.

When a woman can look back into her past, without resentment, for the too numerous to mention times her friends pointed out how much of an idiot she could be, but then often reminded her of how much she had improved, and learned that it was the truth that set her free, that at first had pissed her off.

When a woman can look back at her weight during pregnancy, and the all encompassing desire for Cracker Jacks and Chicken Yakatori, she can embrace the fullness of her experience, considering no one else could get their arms around her.

When a woman can look back into her past, without regret, without spotlighting the screams directed at her husband while giving birth, “You did this to me, you bastard! Oh God! This is all your fault!” She can embrace the gift of her experience or at least until she develops calluses on her nipples from breastfeeding.

When a woman can look back into her past at the ongoing unhappiness she has connected with the shape of her body, and she can then allow her personal trainer to pry the handcrafted Cinnamon Dolce Latte from one hand, and the chocolate iced vanilla pound cake from the other, she will be liberated.

When a woman can look back into her past, without hesitation or bitterness, and throw her personal trainer and caution to the wind, to build upon what she had gained, membership in a small, fat-loving civilization, she will respect herself.

When a woman can see her own divinity and recognize the divinity in other women, although some of them had cosmetic surgery to enhance the divinity, she can see her body as a temple and appreciate its form, regardless of age or stage of life she is in.

When a woman can look back and see that the temple that God had given her was being treated like a tent, she can use her experience to learn from and without faltering, choose to reposition the center pole, braid new guy lines and secure the stakes.

When a woman can look back and suddenly say to herself, “Why the hell am I looking back, we aren’t going that way,” The sooner she can move forward to express her emotions, her intellect, her talents and sing praise with the strength and beauty of a diamond that illuminates her itty-bitty, teeny-tiny, world.

Here’s to you, Womanhood.