Diane

In Wakaw, Diane, who is in her late fifties, has been pouring wax for four years. Diane learned how to pour wax from the book, "The Word and Wax". “Like the word, water has often been credited with magical qualities. Water is an ancient symbol. For centuries it has been used as an agent in healing” (Hanchuk, 13). For Diane, it all started with water. She was drawn to water and knew that she needed to be doing something with water, when her brother mentioned that he was planning to try the wax ceremony, as he had been told about it by their dad who had gone as a young boy to have it done. She now pours about once a week, and she can only do 1-2 pourings a day, because it takes a lot out of her. She advertises on FB and can be found here.

Diane mixes the old with the new. She has kept most of the physical parts of the ceremony, but she’s made it her own.

Here is how Diane describes the ceremony:

“And so I melt the beeswax. And then I make the person face east. And the first pouring is from the heart. And so they're holding, I get them to, if they're able to hold the pot. And then I come with the beeswax and I pour it into the water. And then I take the pot from them and I have a cloth on the table. And then we wait till it hardens. And sometimes I have to cut it with a knife. Because it will spread. It's really profound, but it will usually form the heart, where I've poured from it, it forms that image. So you can see on the outside, it forms the heart, I then turn it over, and I proceed to read it. Whatever I can see. Then the next pouring and I pray and we're talking about, I'm getting messages at the same time about them and I'm telling them stuff about what I'm seeing. And what I'm getting from above, from God, what they're telling me about the pouring, then I'll do the second one is over the head. And I melt the wax. I then go behind them. They're facing east and I pour, I do it over their head because they can't hold the pot and usually people say that they feel they say the sensation is that they can feel the wax like going either it's they said Geez, it feels like it's pouring on me and I say well no nothing's pouring on you. Or they feel pressure that pulling majority say that they feel like the top of their head. Like there's a pulling. So then that pulling us from the brain. And usually it's really cool. It forms a big mass like a brain, like how a brain with the bubbles and everything in the pot. So that one I usually have to cut because it's huge. I always say your brain is really huge big so. So I cut the wax away, and then turn it over and read it. Whatever comes out of there comes and when I'm done reading it. Then the third and last one is the lower half of the body. And that one is interesting. It usually forms intestines. Sometimes if it's a female form the womb sometimes it forms even like a torso, the legs and stuff like half. And sometimes I have to cut that one away from the pot too and then turn it over and read it. Then afterwards, I take a little cloth and I do, I wash the person's face three times counterclockwise. So that what I've pulled out if it's been negative stuff, I don't want it to go back in. So then I wash their face three times I do the wounds of Christ on their hands and on their feet. And then afterwards, I usually, we sit down and I do an angel card reading I'll do a spread of three cards and read that. So it takes about an hour and a half. If I'm at home, sometimes I have a client for two hours we are in here we're reading and doing the wax and that. But it takes a good hour to do three pourings and then I'm just getting hits from the divine. They're telling me this and this and this about the person lots of times too I find their wax is not always negative. Sometimes it shows angels like it'll show these figures of angels and fairies and, and good stuff too, not only bad I found because it's not it's not all negative.”

She mixes traditional elements of the wax ceremony with angel card and past life readings and crystals as well. Traditions that she has kept include facing the person east, going through the ritualized actions, washing the person, and discarding the water appropriately. Her incantations are inaudible, in English, and are different every time, based on "the hits she gets from above". She does not keep some of the traditions, such as drawing water from the well at the crack of dawn, and due to her own schedule, working full time in the health region, she pours on Sundays and church holidays. “Now I don't like... there's one thing they said to make people drink the water. Now in today's day and age. I kind of, they told me don't do that. Because people are different nowadays. They might blame me if they drink the water that I just poured their stuff out of, they might blame me for an illness that comes “