Sitting at a round table in a street side cafe, I asked my best friend over our coffees, “Did your grandma ever knock eggs on your or you sister’s heads?”
My bestie took a sip of her steaming tea, considered the question a moment before saying, “Yeah, yeah she did.”
I’ve personally never had an egg knocked on my head before, so with my best friend being the second person in my circle to have experienced this practice, I dove deeper into the research of eggs as a part of spiritual cleansing rituals.
The cleansing, la limpia con huevo, is commonly believed to remove and chase away the affects of the Mal de Ojo, the evil eye, a concept that reaches across the boundaries of latin countries and is fairly well known around the world, from Mexico, to Italy, to Turkey. And the Mal de Ojo deserves a whole post or two unto itself, which we’ll get to.
When to do This
In Jasmin Alejandres-Prasad’s article, “A Latina Bruja’s Guide to an Egg Cleanse (Huevo Limpia,” she describes that eggs are believed to be containers that will help to catch and to carry away any negativity or fog surrounding you. In a different article from The Herban Alchemist, “Limpia: Zapotec Spiritual Cleansing Ritual” it says that eggs help to reestablish, “balance and equilibrium.” And they recommend that while you perform this ritual, to pay particular, “attention to the head, hands, heart, stomach, and feet.”
*Note – this is a tradition that I am explaining, not a medical recommendation by ANY stretch.*
If someone or something has been sending the evil eye your way, either by willing negativity, rumors, gossip, or just ill-will in general, then the huevo limpia will help to both purify your essence as well as to help you understand what negativity has been surrounding you.
The ritual itself seems to range from household to household, but the common thread between them is to set yourself up in a safe space where you are not surrounded by any negativity as that defeats the whole point of the cleanse. To have a clear glass that is yours and that you will only use for your spiritual cleansing practices. Then, once you’re able to take a deep breath and center your intentions on the egg, you begin.
What to do
Holding the egg in front of you, clasped as if in prayer, you send in your intensions, asking the egg to help collect any of the negativity surrounding you and thanking it for its service toward healing your soul. Starting at the top of your head, you rub the egg gently (it is an egg, after all) and proceed to rub it down the rest of your body. A similar theme throughout many of the practices I researched or heard about, say that while taking the egg on its journey to capture the negative energy, it’s recommended to say prayers or to whisper what you’d like to have relieved from your spirit, be it lethargy, fog, or whatever darkness plagues you.
Most of the practices suggested going over your body a couple of times until you feel that the egg has done its job.
Then once you feel like you’re ready to move on, you’ll crack your egg into that glass, which should be filled a little more than halfway up with water and this is where the element of brujeria being a practice of practicality, a theme mentioned in our previous post, comes about. Water unto itself is considered a very powerful conduit. If the magical elements of this post aren’t really your thing, think about all the different ways water is used on a practical basis especially how we literally use it to cleanse ourselves daily. If electricity travels through water, is it such a stretch to think that negative energies might also travel through it?
Some of the practitioners I read recommended using either Florida water or salted water (as per Alejandres-Prasad’s recommendation), some recommended using a variety of herbs and spices, and some recommended doing the practice with them over video chat… #Twenty-FirstCenturyWitchcraft. Not knocking – I think it’s actually pretty incredible that we can do these practices in this way as it helps to teach others who are outside of our family circles about various practices.
Word of caution – before you go running off to get your egg cleanse read over video chat, make sure you take the time to know who you’re dealing with before paying for anything.
ANYTHING.
So once you crack the egg into your water mix of choice, you’ll be able to read what was plaguing your spirit based on how the egg interacts with the water. Now, I’m not an expert, but I thought this video was a nice visual for how to read egg cleansing and the host does a really nice job of explaining:
Now there are a number of various cleansing rituals and we’ll go into quite a few of them in future posts, so don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter, to learn of these different rituals and explore different practices, or contribute if you have any you’d recommend. If you’re going to start doing any of these on your own, please be cautious and please don’t come knocking an egg on my head if you’re not pleased with your results.
If your abuela has knocked eggs on your head or if you perform limpias and have recommendations, please let us all know in the comments below!
Thank you for reading and see you in the next post!
