Bloody Mary is my chosen pen name and priestess name. I was born on the bayou and baptized as Mary Millan here in the Crescent City where waters surrounded me on the Isle of Orleans. I have baptismal initiation names as well to live up to for a priestess is but a servant I live my names as Mother, Wife but am a true Mystic combining Shaman, Mambo, Voodoo Queen, Knight, Healer, Lightworker, Historian, Psychic, Teacher, Paranormal photographer and Celebrity VIP tour guide all in one! Through adding my gifts of seership and psychic abilities I am led with extra sensory sources creating a full rounded research technique that I share with you. These blessings help me dig up old knowledge accenting my scholarly pursuits and avid research to present to you the most well rounded approach to understanding my home town and the unseen worlds we live within.
We can all learn to see with more than our eyes and hear with more than our ears, and part of my destiny is to help you to do that too. I believe in living, exploring and traveling to uncharted waters found deep within the heart and river of the soul everything is an adventure of spirit and experience including all my tours, workshops and psychic services. There is no better place on earth to discover spirits than right here in New 0rleans where I indeed am a guide !
"Born and raised as a “Delta Babe” and grown to become known as "The Cultural Diva”, “The Ultimate Insider” and specifically “The Poet Priestess of the Spirit of New Orleans” Bloody Mary is a true spokeswoman of her hometown and an elegant, Modern Southern Belle. - Southern Women Magazine 2003
Everyone wants to know why: Bloody Mary?
There are many answers. But for the record I don’t drink blood or Bloody Marys, nor do I engage in blood sacrifice, but don't test me (LOL). Besides the dark and dangerous misinterpretations many confused minded folk may suppose, I am indeed, first and foremost- a healer as well as a folk historian and storyteller, a dedicated and practicing initiated Mambo and New Orleans Voodoo queen. As a Shaman and anthropologically researched I have indeed studied the macabre and multifaceted historical beliefs surrounding blood and its connection within the mind throughout the ages to engage in a deeper understanding of the psyche and the archetypes within to present you with knowledge, the motivations and fears of our forebears and its links to today's popularity within the horror genre of modern man.
PLUS I am bloodline connected to Queen Mary I (known as Bloody Mary) and I am a descendant of Robert the Bruce, Templar King, as well as the Stewarts of the time from my matriarchal lineage side. The family tree branched here to French territory in the 1720's packing their Pict, Scottish, German and French heritage (to name a few). It seems a little Native American made it in after the arrival to the Pointe Coupee area of Louisiana where they first moved to in Louisiana and moving on to the plantation areas of White Castle, Donaldsonville, St . Gabriel, and in Iberville, Acension Parish areas around River Road.
Meandering closer to New Orleans as the years passed by and having hteri town houses in the city proper, my maternal grandmothers family, Lagasse, Thompson, Bruce, Baugnon., Ranna, ended up in the French Quarter having always traded up and down the river with town houses in the French Quarter throughout the years. Great grandma and great great nanny and "Mimmie" lived on St Anne between Rampart (Love) street and Burgundy street late 1880's across the street from the Famed Marie Laveau cottage and Mimmie knew her well. Nanny had 5 children who were all delivered at home by the local midwife. Marie Laveau’s was the local midwife of the area and seems to have had her hand in a bit of my past life or bloodline. May have Marie Laveau III by that point in 1895 but perhaps 1 of the trinity. Grandma told me about Marie Laveau; she remembers awe and fear, as a little girl but told the tales. Grandma grew up and made voodoo dolls, gave us ritual baths filled with Florida water and made sure the bottoms of the trees were painted white well the trees came from grand paws hands.
My German, French. Italian ends come from Grand paw’s side who were Plaquemine Trosclair’s (troxclair) originally "Troxler" from European Alsace/Lorraine area, living on both sides of the German/French border landing here in 1721 to the River parish of St James and Ascension Parish then moving across the river tp the Bayou Goula, White Castle, Plaquemine areas. Commerce and trade up the river had their town houses in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It is interesting that genealogical searches through many families created in the early 20th centuries had family business connections and or lived next door to each other since the 1700's! In the case of my grandfather it seems that even the descendants of some of the slaves during colonial times were still connected in the 20th century; "Peters" a wonderful old thin black man who my grandma could never say enough good things about and whom I knew as a child was still working for my grandparent was a descendant like this from at least the early 1800's must have been grandma's side for the German end were not much on owning slaves but the American Thompson family branch owned the most slaves in the White Castle/Donaldsonville area in the day!
And to my grandma’s chagrin, my momma married a Yankee! That added Irish, English and Polish to the brew but this "MIllan side" are also related to Robert E Lee, George Washington and many other leaders of our country.
I heard that Yankee thing all of growing up but, especially when I went to move to New York for college. I could never understand why something that happened so long ago still preyed heavily on grandma’s mind. I not only understand it now but teach it and do it as an offering to her and all the voices from the past whispering in my ear!
The history taught in school here had not shed the light on the southern side, or rather, Creole version of the Civil War New Orleans and the hardships following Grandma knew. The history books I had as a child were written from the American viewpoint. So naturally books don’t lie, said a superior inner voice, ego driven and naively thought. But from family remembrances of early 20th century issues coupled with now acquired academic knowledge of the Creole plight, I can now proudly say to my ancestral teacher A Thank you, Grandma! I am sorry I did not believe you. You were right! The Northern Aggression, as grandma called it had a profound effect on the history here but not in the way that you would think I explain that intensely and passionately in my stories. Did you know the Americans even made the language of French illegal to speak here in the early 20th century!
As a child, I passed ghost stories along in the night to my friends and had New Orleans cemeteries as my playgrounds. High school had me leading ghost hunts for the neighborhood gang to some of the same places I go to professionally now! (even then I was the leader of the pact). During my college years I escaped to New York and escorted many back here to the hidden side of my spirited home and after many careers in the public eye I found my true calling.
From a small child I saw spirits and had dreams that were more than dreams. Astral travel was part of my life before I knew the words to describe it. The power of prayer produced results and many situations seemed to take care of themselves naturally with simple thoughts. The overload of spirit activity especially when escaping New Orleans had at some points took their toll to the point that there was a need to close off communication for a while. It seemed safer to try to stop the overload so I sort of closed one door only to open another and focus more on energy healings, psychic development and fully expressing a fun physical life but upon returning home to New Orleans a quickening of messages, a bevy of ghosts awaiting my return, poured in. A readjustment and learning of certain filters and fine tuners to allow this mediumship to grow proved a slow but steady process but teaching this balance among other things is the reward that I share. It is much easier to open the door to our innate psychic abilities but to balance it in the here and now and walk both sides of the veil is a tight rope act requiring a lot of fine tuning Speaking with the spirits is a natural gift and with grace and great teachers from many paths who have come my way I am privileged to share teachings and messages received to you in tours, workshops, ceremonies and healing sessions. Do you want to call that magic, voodoo or just spirit work is up to you for labels are something I find constricting. I am an initiated voodoo Priestess (mambo) and a New Orleans Voodoo Queen and have the title by the state as well as from spirit to perform weddings, baptisms, funerals and everything in between. There is a special sprit reawakening here one that worked a long time ago when new things off the boat mixed and worked together, my job is to bring that back, to heal through stories, to teach respect of the ancestors and the importance of redeeming our past! Never has this been more important than right now with the Post Katrina aftermath leaving not only the City of New Orleans still a disaster area but her residents and Spirit of Place still weakened you returning here and remembering with me can we heal and create anew. The Renaissance is here now and I am proud to help.
Bloody Mary is:
Member of Published in
Southern Order of Storytellers 2005 Editors Choice Published Pen
Louisiana Folklore Society Louisiana Hauntspatality (photographer)
C.G. Jung Society Friends of New Orleans Cemetery News
Friends of New Orleans Cemeteries Encyclopedia of Haunted Places
New Orleans Convention Visitors Bureau International Library of Poetry
American Board of Hypnotherapy Times Picayune
NAPW National Association Professional Women
Ordainments
Manbo Asogwe (priest) of La Source Ancienne Oumfor en La Nouvelle Orleans Queen Bishop of Les Salon L'Esprit de Verite
Knight Priest of the Mystic Knighthood of the Crowned Heart
Twinned Celtic Priestess of Foxwood Temple of the Old Religion
Reverend Mother of the Universal Church
I AM
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