Beachcombing and Ojos de Venado

by CEJ©

Beachcombing on the Pacific coast of Mexico is finest right after a big rain or storm. The rivers open up and spew their detritus into the sea and the sea throws it right back again onto the shore. A beach after a storm can be ugly, with piles of twisted seaweed or splintered twigs and branches, and the inevitable modern malady of plastic bottles, bits of styrofoam, a tattered shoe and tangles of discarded, nylon fishing line and netting. There’s never a lack of body parts — a Barbie’s broken-off arm or an eyeless doll’s head with bedraggled, sun-bleach-blond hair.

Beachcoming booty: Ojos de Venado, sea urchina, sponge and fishing floats

One of my beachcombing rituals is the pursuit of Ojos de Venado. These seeds, like flattened grey or reddish-brown spheres banded by black, are supposed to bring good luck — or more precisely (as we were told by a small boy one day) keep bad luck away, warding off the “evil eye”. The locals often make Ojos de Venado into keychains, integrate them into handmade necklaces, or string them into lucky charms to hang from their car’s rear-view mirror. Many people string a seed on a ribbon or elastic and place it on the wrists of babies, who will happily use it as a teething aid.

The search for Ojos de Venado is a singlar pursuit. You have to have your eyes focused specifically for the spotting of these beautiful, hard, little seeds that fit so well, by the pair, into the palm of one hand… clicking a couple of them together makes the best worry-beads ever.

If you look at the pieces of driftwood, the shells and stones that strew the beach, and don’t keep your eyes peeled and concentrated on the Ojos de Venado, it’s very likely you’ll miss almost all of them as you pass by. Spotting them takes a peculiar focus, but once you see one on a recently storm-washed beach, and bend down to pick it up, slide your eyes around without moving the rest of your body and you’ll probably end up seeing another, and then another… and then one more, just over there…

They seem to come in caches. One stretch of beach will hold a great number, and then there’ll be nothing for a couple of hundred meters. And suddenly you’ll spot yet another…

On some occasions I’ve come back from after-storm beachcombing with a stack of 200 or more seeds clicking around in a plastic bag or discarded container (this usually also found on the beach, unfortunately). It’s times like those that I feel no harm can touch me for the course of my entire lifetime, I have gathered so much anti-evil-eye power into my life.

Mucuna Pruriens

The Ojo de Venado seed comes from the plant whose botanical name is Mucuna Pruriens, a leguminous vine that grows along river banks in many parts of Mexico and other tropical areas of the world. The English common names of this plant include Velvet Bean, Cowhage, Sea Bean and Cowitch. The seeds are often found along the beaches, where they are carried and deposited by the water.

The vine bears flowers that can be of a white or purplish hue. At certain stages the leaves and vine itself have fuzzy hairs, and it also produces a hairy seed pod. These hairs, when touched with the bare skin, can provoke severe itching.

Mucuna Pruriens contains levodopa, a precursor of dopamine, and has been used traditionally in Ayurvedic medicine for treating Parkinson’s disease. It is also used as an antidepressant as well as an aphrodisiac for both women and men, due to its same effectiveness as a dopamine inducer.

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Sources and further information on the seed itself and its properties:
Mucuna pruriens. (2010, January 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:33, February 3, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mucuna_pruriens&oldid=337356128