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I have been working on reading some thin books in Spanish on La Santa Muerte. As Spanish is not a language I studied in school, it's been slow going - though I am not totally lost as, just having lived in So Cal 13 years, I picked up quite a bit just from being exposed to it all the time.

Anyway, I was in and out of botanicas during the years I lived there and picked up -some- of what was going on, but not all of it, and I don't believe I ever saw palos for sale in botanicas. If I did, they didn't register.

I am aware of the various branches of Palo as a religion, but I find it interesting that this recipe for a working with Santa Muerte calls for a piece of a Road Opener palo ('1 pedazo de palo Abre Caminos') This, in a book that is definitely not palo-oriented; if anything, the veneration of La Ste. Muerte has very strong ties to Catholicism, and her prayers are full of references to Christianity - they are always directing you to make the sign of the cross, for example, or to recite Our Fathers, or name other figures in the christian pantheon by name; never are any other deities mentioned. It may seem obvious, but I wonder if the palos are an influence borrowed from the religion Palo?... I notice that, for example, Indio Products sells an entire bundle of palos of a wide array of names and purposes, so it isn't limited to just Road Opener. I don't care for the quality of Indio Products' stuff, but I have also found other sources on the intarweb selling palo bundles similarly in a vast array of purposes and names.

Anyway, the part of the directions regarding the palo are to place it in an earthenware bowl along with coins, a billeta (which I take to mean paper money, though my dictionary translates it as 'ticket',) the specific stones previously named in the ingredient list, and a piece of tortilla.

Does anyone here have any experience working with palos? I'm curious to hear more about how palos are used in the various types of Mexican conjure outside of the religion Palo itself, just out of pure fascinated curiosity. I would also like to hear how long they've been used by the general Mexican conjure community, if you are old enough/have been involved with this kind of thing enough years to have a sense of that.

Thus far it seems to me palos are used more or less like any other piece of herb, though in hoodoo one would bless and dress a large single piece of herb or root in addition to the rest of the work. ... I wonder how big a piece of palo is usually used? I wish there were a botanica here in Hawaii that I could go into and ask people.

The same person who knows the answers to my questions about the palos would likely also know the answer to this question: I observed plastic/lucite or acrylic pyramids often sold in botanicas, and these were always loaded with the usual power-accentuating things one sees in Mexican-made items of this type: grains of wheat or rice, small red abrus beans, cross of caravacas, sometimes a lucky elephant with upraised trunk, sometimes a lodestone and/or magnetic sand, sometimes a coin, etc, sometimes little lucky horseshoes, sometimes a tiny Buddha statue (yes really...!) ... Santa Muerte statues always have some of this material included in at least the base, and if the statue is translucent the inclusions will also go up the front of the statue. I have a translucent purple one, and it has the abrus beans, the wheat, gold glitter, and a pot metal cross of caravaca in its front, plus more of the same under the base plus a potmetal horseshoe with a four-leaf clover between the ends.

(While I'm digressing about Santa Muerte statues, I recently acquired one that is all of one inch tall, and even this one has some tiny things in clear acrylic in its base - a little red abrus bean, plus dark mineral-looking pieces of I don't know what because it's just too small to tell.)

Anyway, I am aware that these pyramids are used to charge things, but I can't find any directions in either English or Spanish on how to -do- that. Does anyone know?

Random remark: I bought a commercially made yet high quality San Antonio do-it-yourself amulet off ebay. In Mexico, it appears that ingredients contained in a bag = an amulet. There are two kinds of amulets at least that I know of and likely others: one, the ingredients are contained in a cloth bag that is then tied shut at the top and look very much like a mojo hand (though sometimes they're sewn shut and look much more like pillows; I've also seen the sewn-shut amulets of this kind attatched to an ojo de venado seed plus saint print attatched) I have also seen amulets where the few small items items are contained with a saint print and a potmetal cross of caravaca (usually) or a potmetal horseshoe (less often) in clear flexible vinyl cover that's simply stapled shut at the top and bottom; these things are typically something just under two inches long by an inch wide.

I digress. In the Saint Anthony amulet I got, which would be made up into a mojo-bag looking affair once complete, there was included a small red plastic pyramid among the other ingredients.

The ingredient list for the entire contents of the kit as is follows:
-Herradura (horseshoe, was not included)
- Piedra Iman (lodestone, also not actually included)
- Piedra Alumbre (big chunks of alum, 2 were included)
- Piedra 7 Metales (7-metal stone, included, looks like pyrite if you didn't know what it was. From what I have heard 7-metal stone is supposed to align you with the energies of all the planets and bring you into cosmic harmony. I am open to hearing more opinions of what 7 metal stone is said to do, just because all of what I just relayed to you sound suspiciously too 80s USA New Age to me.)
- Pionia (also called rosary pea or precatory pea in English; these counter evil eye. 1 included)
- Sahumerio (herbal incense of amazing quality; 1 packet included)
- Lagrima de San Pedro, Saint Peter's Tears, a seed. I have been unable to discover what benefit this little gray tear-shaped seed confers
- Odarin or Cidarin, package is damaged over this word, don't know what it is
- Buda del Amor - Buddha of Love - is this the identity of the pyramid?
- Oracion de San Antonio - Prayer of Saint Anthony on the back of a small laminated holy card portraying him
- Fragrancia - sort of a misnomer, as while this substance was a lovely vibrant shade of red it had nearly no scent at all and remains unidentifiable to me
- Hoja de instrucciones - instruction sheet which, incidentally, you are supposed to dump the sahumerio atop of and burn along with it.

Yet another digression - in my researches on Santa Muerte I have heard from several sources that often when people pray to her, they write their petitions actually on a printed copy of her novena and then use it that one time in their ritual/offering/etc; there appears to be a definite belief that the printed novena itself is holy and I am of the opinion this may be backed up in that I have a Mexican 'saint wallet' that's a few years old now; only a few inches long and much smaller when it's closed, it's loaded with prints of various saints - plus a piece of a prayer folded up and stapled to the wallet alongside the images of all those saints.