The Christmas Baths

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So… we’re at that time of year again; holly berries, wreaths, carols, and the occasional Peppermint Mocha from that unnamed coffee giant with the twin tailed mermaid on the cups (yes; sometimes I let out my inner Basic White Girl) … and for those of us living in the parts of the world where the snow starts to swirl and temperatures drop, there can be a touch of confusion when it comes to tropical traditions and what this time of year means to those living on a sunny island in the Caribbean sea.

Just like certain days of the week have different associations based in hot/cool, Rada/Petro et al, so too do different times of the year; we say that this is one of the Hottest times of year (again, odd when you live in a place where its truly not even pleasant outside because of the cold, but bear with me) because to us this time of year commemorates the Divine descending to Earth and taking physical form in the body of a child. Continue reading The Christmas Baths

The Vodou Deep Dive, pt. 1

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Have you ever noticed, when you search for information about Vodou, especially from the Haitian perspective, that everything available for reading (or watching, with the rise of Vodou video on sites like Youtube) jumps to the how-to-work-with-named-spirits parts of the practice, but that nowhere is there information about the beliefs and the underpinnings of Vodou as a culture/religion/religiomagical practice?

Why is that?

For Vodouisants in Haiti, the answer is oddly simple; people raised in the culture, its religion, and the religions beliefs are steeped in the information from birth. While the information that is held behind the doors of the djevo/initiation chamber is still held only by those who have passed the doors, the underpinnings of the religion are freely known and culturally accepted because of simple immersion.

When it comes to foreigners, though, the story is different… Continue reading The Vodou Deep Dive, pt. 1

A Dangerous Woman

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A couple of years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of attending a Vodou ceremony hosted by Societe La Fraicheur Belle Fleur Guinea, home of several dear friends who are themselves great pleasures of living here in the Crescent City. Their House and mine are friendly to one another and jokingly we refer to ourselves as cousin families; after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, one of their houngans was displaced to Boston, where I got to meet and befriend him. After he moved back to New Orleans, his was one of the main voices that convinced me to follow and move to the Deep South.

*maybe one day I’ll interview him for this blog; we’ll keep our fingers crossed.*

Anyway, today’s post is brought about both by a short discussion that took place at that celebration and by an email I received from a well-meaning questioner… Continue reading A Dangerous Woman

The Met Tet, or the Guardian of the Head

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A common thread shared by the many different religions in the West African Diaspora is the idea that each person has a special connection to a particular spirit within that tradition, and that when the individual becomes an initiate they will be ritually marked as a child of that entity, receive that entity’s mysteries, or any other possible language that could be used to describe the sealing of the relationship, and Vodou is, of course, one that many think of first.

That said, the most famous instances come from the Yoruba-language-speaking peoples that Vodou knows as the Nago Nation in religions such as Lukumi and Candomble, where the process is known as Making the Saint, or Crowning. In those traditions, the individual’s main protective spirit is public knowledge as, passing that ceremony, the now-ordained individual is known to have received and become a priest/ess of that particular spirit’s mysteries.

Where the different religions of the African Diaspora begin to differ, however, is in the cosmological cores the traditions are wound around; to the adherents of Yoruba-language-speaking-people’s descendent traditions, the cosmology comes from an ethnic group historically found centered around what is now the nation of Nigeria. While Haiti inherited quite a bit from that ethnic group (including some of our most famous spirits!), the cosmology *we* inherited comes mostly from a territory a bit to the north of Nigeria in what is now Benin… centered in the Fon and Gbwe ethno-linguistic groups. (We’ll take a deep dive into cosmology soon, I promise).

While Vodou certainly shares the idea of a central guiding and protective spirit for each individual, there are some major differences in how we handle the idea when compared to the Diasporic religions around us. Continue reading The Met Tet, or the Guardian of the Head

Little Altars Everywhere

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As we progress deeper into the lessons here, one thing that is going to come across as a fairly repetitive idea is the notion of points of concentrated spiritual power or essence; in Kreyol, the word is ‘pwen’, from the French ‘point’, which if you’ll forgive the pun brings us back around to our own.

Pwen are places, objects, hidden messages behind songs; pwen are concentrations of spiritual energy that are made, launched, thrown, gathered, or gradually built, depending on the nature of the pwen in question. The concept of pwen is a very wide and complex idea hidden behind the simplest of words, but for today’s essay Id like to examine in depth a single aspect.

I want you to take a moment, breathe, and think about your favorite spot in your home. You know, that place where you’re instantly comfortable, the place where, when the grind of the workday gets to that spot where you just would give anything to be home again, that you’re envisioning. Is it the long part of the sofa in the livingroom, stretching out before the television? The armchair off to the side where the side table is in perfect reach? The computer desk with all your gaming equipment perfectly arranged to plunk you into your favorite world with no wasted time? If you’re reading this, who knows? You may actually be reading this from your favorite spot, you lucky duck. (Otherwise, well…. I promise I wont tell your boss.)

For most of us, we nest; we find the spot we like the most or which makes us feel the most ‘at home’, and our energy in a way claims it. (My stepfather used to be like that about his office; if I wanted to really mess with him all I needed to do was turn a single book around so the binding faced the wall…. he couldnt find the disturbance itself, but he knew *something* was off.)

For Vodouisants, this place is often our Altar.  Continue reading Little Altars Everywhere

Lies to Children

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“We cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realizing, on the man’s part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his education.”

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them as steps to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)
He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.”

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

As an educator, one of the subtle behind-the-scenes choices I have to make each time I’m faced with Continue reading Lies to Children

Well Hello There!

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Hello!

My name’s Houngan Matt, also known by my initiate name in Haitian Vodou, Bozanfe Bon Oungan, and welcome officially to the website of my lil’ shop in New Orleans, The Dark Lady!

I made my name over the last ten years or so with two award-winning blogs that sadly no longer exist, but which can probably still be found via the internet as nothing online really ever disappears… blog.vodouboston.com and a subsequent venture at blog.threekingsvodou.com. Neither are there any longer, which to be honest is OK… their content is being rewritten to be added to this one, so if you follow me there’s nothing you’re going to be missing out on. It’s all coming back online now that I own my own shop and domain again, but if you arent familiar with my work, lemme explain what it was and what you can expect to see here at The Lady’s Musings. Continue reading Well Hello There!