Santa Muerte: The Saint Who Doesn't Judge Your Love

In Mexico and across the Americas, millions of people light candles to a skeleton in a bridal veil. They call her Santa Muerte, Holy Death, and with affection La Flaca, the Skinny Girl, or La Niña Blanca, the White Girl. She is a folk saint: the Catholic Church does not recognize her and has condemned her devotion, but her followers grow every year.

Neo Animism honors her as its sixth tenet. Here is why.

The saint who refuses no one

Santa Muerte’s devotees are often the people every other altar turned away: queer and trans people, sex workers, the divorced, lovers who didn’t fit the rules, people living at the edges. Her reputation, among those who pray to her, is that she does not judge. She asks for faith and respect, not for a life that matches anyone’s morality.

For people who love openly, that matters. So many of us were told that our desire made us sinners. Santa Muerte’s altar says otherwise: come as you are, love as you love.

The red robe of desire

Devotees dress her and light candles in different colors for different prayers. Red is for love, passion and desire. People ask her to bring a lover, to keep a lover, to heat a relationship back up. In Neo Animism the red Santa Muerte stands for desire honored instead of hidden.

Death, the great equalizer

Her deepest teaching is the oldest one: everyone dies. The rich and the poor, the faithful and the unfaithful, the married and the free all end up in her arms. Before her, no one owns anyone. That is the heart of open love too. We do not possess each other. We are given to each other for a while, and the only right response is to love generously and truthfully while we can.

With respect

Santa Muerte is a living devotion, not a symbol we invented. If she calls to you, learn from her devotees, honor the traditions of her altar, and approach her with the seriousness she is owed. Neo Animism walks under her robe with gratitude, not ownership, which is, after all, the whole point.