swishing, borrida, cleansing? tell me more

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

I live in Mexico, my mother in-law is into herbs and teas and traditional in lots of ways. She does this cleansing....something i call swishing...my husband says they call it borrida. It is a ritual where my MIL does several different things...first off she takes albaca-basil..i think..and swishes it over your body...while she recites a prayer of some sort. Now, she's never done this to me...however she just did it to my husband....he felt a heaviness over him and he was talking to his mom and well she did this swishing.
There is more to it...however i feel that i need to keep some of the ritual sacred......she also takes a crystal and puts it in a pot over the stove and it morfs into something....and you sometimes can see a face or shape or something...which means...the ritual
has taken the negative energy that someone has put upon you away.
Ok...i know i dont have the full story and im not sure i can even begin to explain it the way my husband told it to me.
Any mama's have any idea of what i'm talking about?
I've googled it and cant find a darn thing....im open to thought.
My husband reports feeling lighter and less stressed or no stress...more positive events have come to him....just a fyi!
MIL also did this to my son when he was a baby...he was very sick and she did the swishing to him....i watched her do it and became very emotional watching her do it.

[wombatclay]

Brujeria?

That was the first thing that came to mind based on your description and location.

(It's not scholarly, but there's a very nice presentation of Brujeria in the book Forests of the Heart by Charles deLint and a less "cheerful" and much smaller but still interesting presentation in the book Burning Water by Mercedes Lackey... both of these books may be available in the fiction section of your local library. You can find more scholarly/technical books too but many libraries don't have a huge "alternative religion" or "traditional/folk religion" collection )

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

No that's not it....maybe if someone has put a curse on you....then you would do this swishing thing to make the negative energy go away?

[wombatclay]

So you're looking for information on the specific ritual? Given that it does sound like a folk tradition or religion you may not find anything online, or a practitioner who would be willing to discuss it with a relative stranger in an online forum. Can you ask your husband or MIL for more information directly?

In general, Brujeria is a complete religion/spiritual tradition (with all sorts of different rituals for different situations/life events) so a ritual to remove negative energy or enhance positive energy would certainly "fit" within the religion as a whole. And it's a religious tradition that does focus on herbal allies and things of that nature in a sort of "home grown" manner (meaning that while there are certainly "trained specialists"... similar to a priest for example... practitioners can perform rituals on their own, or be known as having special gifts or abilities for certain aspects of the faith). It may be that your MIL is associated with a branch of Brujeria, or learned certain rituals and charms growing up within a cultural setting that included Brujeria, and she is using this knowledge now to help her family.

I think though that if you're really curious about a specific ritual/charm (why this herb? which crystal do you use? how do you know when to do this? what do you do with the water later?) just asking would be the easiest option. But... my original career was as an anthropologist studying traditional religions and more modern "fringe religious communities" so I've gotten very comfortable asking people about their personal/private spiritual lives. If you're not comfortable approaching your MIL about this or feel like she wouldn't be comfortable discussing it (both of which I would totally understand), perhaps your husband could provide you with more information, or your MIL could point you towards a neighbor or associate who could tell you more?

Good luck! I hope someone has more info for you or that you can find the info you need!