#kanzo

Hi,

So, I regard having to do anything as huge as kanzo and maryaj lwa urgently as something that needs a lot of push back. There are very, very few reasons things with that much life change and spiritual significance need to hurried, and even then a solid houngan or manbo can help slow the process down. The only real reasons I would entertain hurrying for would be imminent death of the person asked to do those ceremonies or their child, or crippling, life-threatening illness...and there are still stopgaps that can be employed to prolong life and give enough time to plan and mount those ceremonies. There is a lot of time and effort that go in, nevermind money.

So, I would want to know why the need for urgency. Because the lwa want it that way is not a good reason; the lwa must respect their people and negotiate for what they want. If folks allow, the lwa will make immediate demands but it is a houngan/manbo's job to help negotiate that and help you stand your ground. I would also ask what they are seeing as urgent; is that with a year? Within five years? Time for spirits is different than time with us.

I also recommend a lot of slowness before initiation. Before someone even considers going into the djevo, they should be present and active in the community that will support the initiation for honestly years. Go to lots of ceremonies and observe, get your hands in the work, meet the members of the house and see if you vibe with them. Spend a lot of time with the person who would mount the initiation for you and learn who they are. Get to know the spirits. Without all of that, you are being dumped in the deep end without knowing how to swim. The work of initiation can never be undone, so choosing wisely and with a lot of discernment is necessary.

With maryaj, it is very often not just one spirit; it is multiple to hold us in balance, provide the optimal protection, and prevent destructive jealousy. Many houses do all those spirits in one ceremony to reduce the need for more and to conserve money. Marrying only one risks needing to do more ceremony in the future to appease unhappy lwa.

Additionally, you wouldn't marry a person you didn't know quite well so you shouldn't be marrying spirit who you don't have at least passing familiarity with. Forging relationships is important. And, maryaj comes with requirements that affect current or future intimate partners. Maryaj and kanzo also have lifelong obligations that need to be met over time.

Just because spirit lays something down as a need, urgent or otherwise, doesn't mean you should immediately pick it up. They cannot and should not demand immediate answers and need to respect your free will. An ask does not mean you have to do it and, quite honestly, does not mean you should. Spirits ask for lots of things, and sometimes the answer is yet but sometimes the answer is no.

I also would want to know why they want initiation. What do you gain from it? They gain a lot, but what's in it for you? How are they going to help you? How do you and your life benefit from this?

The lwa can definitely pave the way after giving big news but that also doesn't mean you should say yes or that it would be beneficial for what you want for yourself. Running fast into something like initiation or permanent bonds of marriage with spirit is a recipe for disaster. Too often people are in a hurry, and then things go poorly for them. Initiation should not be then first thing done in the religion or the first motion of participation in a community. It should be a natural development of growth.

You can't make sure you have the spoons to make it through these processes. Initiation is a difficult, grueling, uncomfortable process that takes you apart and puts you back together, and the process is longer than the actual ceremonies. There is lead up and there is what happens after and it can take awhile for your life to come back to center. If you don't think you have the spoons to do it without it wrecking you or making you upset, you should not do it or should wait until you feel you are more ready.

You additionally can't plan for preparation in any particular way that preserves you because you don't know what the process will require for you. My road to my kanzo required that I shed almost everything important to me; I gave up a job and career path, my home, my car, most of my belongings, and relationships that I had thought were lifelong. That's not the way for everyone but the path to get to kanzo has sacrifice involved. Maryaj is not dissimilar; it required permanent changes to intimate relationships that have consequences if not met.

So...no easy answers. Don't rush, and don't allow pressure from spirits or people make the decision for you. You need a solid foundation before going into either of these ceremonies, and you should not be asked to do things quickly without really specific reasons and after other interventions happen to measure the impact on the situation. You wouldn't jump into life changing processes in other areas without a lot of discernment, so do the same here.

If there is indeed a life threatening situation involved, ask for what can be done immediately to assist in slowing that down or resolving it in a way that does not involve rushing. There are always options.

roasted society

HONDA RC CB750 oil painting by kanzo

I only have a few thoughts after Saturday’s Fet. I never get approached by spirits at fetes. Half of me is glad because I don’t speak Kreyól and would feel pressure in a large crowd to respond or generally know what’s going on (which is rare, even after a year of attending). The other half of me was starting to feel neglected by the lwa. Why tell me to initiate and give no further instruction? The thing is, every Fet I attend results in me receiving a message from a random vodouisant I’m sitting or standing with me that helps me on my journey. Fet Gede this year was no different.

Spirits don’t speak to me at fetes right now because 1) there’s nothing urgent I need to do (thankfully!) and 2) they speak to me in my dreams and in my regular waking life. I need to stop doubting that and second-guessing the signs. Attending fetes serves a different purpose for me. Instead, I need to call Manbo Maude more often to sort through what I see and hear. Period. I have issues developing new relationships, especially with elders/potential parent figures BUT I have a mission.

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A handful of years ago, today (July 24) was the day that I was lifted from the djevo, baptized, and reintroduced to the world as an houngan asogwe. It is the achievement I am most proud of in my life thus far, and there has not been one thing in my life that has moved me more than slipping under the water for 9 days and truly learning what it means to walk with the lwa.

The lwa literally saved my life by granting me access to the djevo. When I (esentially) crawled in there, I was dying and had I not made it there, I would have been dead by the end of the summer. Like, casket dead...not esoteric dead. Things were more serious than I realized, and I was clinging to life by my fingernails.

But...they healed me and worked literal miracles throughout the process, from getting me there to a hand-to-heart miraculous healing the night I was to enter the djevo, and all they did during the process and after to help me rebuild myself and create a life worth living.

A moment with Dantibitsyon at Leve Kanzo

July is my month because of this. When we are not in the middle of a pandemic, I spend July in Haiti and it is always a gift. Good things always happen. Following kanzo, I married my lwa in Haiti, then married my husband, and have been blessed with deeply meaningful time in the the temple with my lwa and my loved one celebrating all those things and more. I couldn't be there this July but that doesn't mean I am not celebrating at all...

Today, I put a crowbar in my badji and took a look around to see what seemed good to share. I do not make large batch spiritual ingredients or items, so it's all limited quantities on a first come first served basis.

(4) 6 oz flasks of Baume du Commandeur. This is one of my favorite things to make; the process is great for me and it's an absolute firecracker. It was brought to the island during colonization and, like anything worth a damn, was made better by the genius of enslaved Africans who became Haitians. It is a common ingredient in Haiti where I learned to make it, but not really available off the island very easily.

Baume du Commandeur is like hopped up 'do as I say' or other commanding work. It's a soldier that can get set to its task on its own or (my favorite) as part of a bigger piece of work. Add it to a bath or a handwash, use it in lamp work...it amps up and intensifies and magnifies the work at hand. A little goes a LONG way. It is one of those things that if you know, YOU KNOW.

$40/flask + shipping, first come first served. I'll be making another batch in August, but not at this reduced price. I am taking pre-orders for full-sized bottles with a $50 discount, deliverable in late August/early September.

(1) bottle of Benyen Bon Chans. This is liquid gold, and it's a bath I prescribe fairly often as it essentially resets the clock on your luck and clears the table to allow blessings to roll in. You'll get some tips and tricks for my favorite ways to use it, too.

$77 + shipping, first come first served.

And...all leson/card readings are $50 until August 1. Book by the 1st for a day that is most convenient for you. A leson is a direct consultation with the lwa to explore what the spirits may have to say and address and questions or concerns you might have, including investigating your spiritual court and possibilities in the religion.

My feet miss the earth. I need my medicine.

I've been fairly quiet this past year not for any bad reasons but because I work in a high risk public health position and that has taken up the majority of my energy. Through the summer, I worked a million hours a week in environments where an unknown third of the people I was seeing were COVID+, and where PPE was scarce and morale in the shitter. It was a whole lot, and the majority of it was me praying with my spirits and my mother giving me remedies for tea to drink after work and steams to protect my lungs and treatments I could do if I felt the least bit unwell, right alongside my husband keeping the literal home fires burning. I was otherwise locked in my house like the rest of everyone, save for a brief trip south to Haiti to shelter in place while some unavoidable business got taken care of.

I've been thinking about this year in all its ugliness, and thinking about how this has been it's own womb. It's been 9 months of this now, and what has been birthed?

For me, this year has had incredible highs and terrible lows. I have experienced the most profound joy and then found moments of deep despairing grief where it felt like there was nothing left...and yet, here I am.

This plague birthed new understandings and, for those of us who do people-forward public health work, new ways of working and surviving. This year, there's even been some thriving...even in the midst of the moments where I thought the world was ending. Those moments were where 'survive' turned to 'thrive' and where my lwa met me.

There is some part of me that needs to relearn, over and over, that my lwa will always be beside me no matter what I find myself in the middle of. I don't even have to look, but just breathe them in and fill my lungs with their presence. They are, as I was reminded while fixed with the gaze of a spirit who sees and has seen me in all my parts, in everything for me...if only I will seek them there.

And so those moments of seeking are what I hold onto this year. Hearing incredible news and tipping my head back to laugh and give thanks. Hearing the news of my family in the US and in Haiti. Collective action to make sure our tiny little community is safe. Receiving love. Learning new things about myself. Having a COVID+ person cough in my face and then die ten feet away from me, yet my numerous tests coming back negative. Cool water and Caribbean sun. Grief so thick I thought I might die of a broken heart. My husband's laughter. The smell of a sweet lamp, burning for the good of another.

In my best moments, I turned to them in glee because it is they who bring all sweetness and blessings. In my worst moments, I turned to them because there was nothing else to hold me up and even when I was too upset to hear them, they bore witness to my pain and reminded me that sweetness tastes like sand without its bitter brother.

I am grateful that I am here to see the close of the absolute worst year I have ever lived through, and equally grateful for each experience that has shaped my understanding of myself through this collective dark night of the soul. I'm looking to 2021 with cautious hope, and the writing is on the wall for some serious leveling up.

There is a New Year's tradition that whatever you are doing on the first day of the year dictates what you will spend the year doing. Right now, I am watching kids play in the lakou while the granmoun sit and talk ahead of tonight's ceremony. I've had my soup joumou already, and might have a little more before the drums start pounding. My husband has just come back from running an errand and he smells like work and happiness. In a little while, we'll put on our whites and fill the temple with heat. I'll sweat like a Republican in a food line, and then will drop off to sleep like a baby afterwards, next to this guy who I can't get enough of. We'll probably skip the bed and spread a banana mat on the porch and sleep for a precious few hours. He'll make me coffee and tease me about his hair, and I'll remind him that he sleeps like a starfished toddler. All will be in balance. That's how I want to spend the next year.

With business taken care of, we stay in. When it’s shady, we sit on the small balcony that looks down in Pétion-ville, with Gwo Mòn on one side and Jalouzi on the other. S points out the soccer stadium that is lit up each night for an ongoing tournament, and Legliz Sen Thérèse, a tall triangle against the short buildings around it, and the buildings that past president Martelly was responsible for. We negotiate the air conditioning, as 75 feels cold for him and the 95+ outside is too hot for me. It’s quiet and slow, and that’s alright.

In the morning, S makes us coffee and pours it between two cups like every Haitian ever to dissolve the absurd amount of sugar that many Haitians like in their morning wake-up. Later, S gnaws on goat and I eat endless amounts of lanbi boukannen/grilled conch, piled high with pikliz echalot. We play the same clicky games on our cell phones (it’s true love...) and occasionally turn on the TV to watch the news, the French overdubbed telenovelas (El Diablo! La Doña!), and the occasional American movie. You have not lived until you’ve seen Mrs. Doubtfire in French.

We talk a lot about the dichotomy we can see from the balcony; the affluence to the left and the poverty to the right. Jalouzi is called a slum because it is packed full of people, many of whom fled the valleys of Haiti when their homes were destroyed in the 2010 goudougoudou. It became a focal point of a government striving to appease the more privileged when an artist was hired (with PetroCaribe funds....) to paint all the houses in Jalouzi a bright and cheerful color. It was floated as a way to beautify and raise morale in a really difficult place to live, but it was really about appeasing the more affluent folks who were looking out their window at a wide gray swatch of concrete and metal homes and shacks.

Today, Jalouzi has faded back to muted colors and gray buildings again and people continue to struggle to make it through the day. There is no electricity to speak of though the soccer stadium less than a quarter mile away is lit up every single night as are the houses in the more affluent surrounding areas. It’s strategic and it does it’s job; folks who are more poor are isolated to their neighborhoods where the folks who are more affluent don’t have to see. If you don’t have the money to buy a better life, my husband says, you are not just waiting for something better to come along but are pase mizè, or sort of waiting in your misery like other might pass time. Each day is a careful balance that results in the sun rising the next day.

One of the things I find most difficult to write about is the intrinsic balance that must be struck by folks who are learning Vodou and, by extension, learning Haiti. It is easy to enchant what is really the result of a lack of exposure to other cultures in the world, and yet it is equally easy to miss the thing that Haiti has achieved that the West has not: the absolutely seamless lived experience of a cultural religion, which certainly looks like enchantment from the outside. You can’t have Vodou without having your feet in the dirt in Haiti, and you can’t have Haiti without Vodou.

But..it’s a risky balance that we all walk on our journey to seek the lwa where they live. With the explosion of the internet, it’s easy to see narratives about how Haiti is essentially this mythical vacuum where everything is sort of twee and picturesque way. People inevitably come away saying that they found the only ‘real Vodou’ on the island and want to package that for sale and distribution, but it is clear to anyone with eyes to see that they have not yet grasped the reality of what they stood in the middle of.

And--since pendulums swing both ways--there is the other side, where folks discount the importance of Haiti and discount the significance of having your feet in the same dirt that the lwa rise up out of. In similar ways, that experience is packaged for sale with things like the idea of a ‘kanzo’ in the United States and the sale of items called kolye or asson, without really caring or understanding how these are made in context or why someone who is not a legitimate asogwe cannot make them for other people. It is a similar lack of grasping as above.

Who knows the right way out? Probably not me. The lwa take a longview and watch, and we know where the lwa live by the spiritual fruits produced (versus material fruits...’stuff’ and capitalism is never the answer). For me, I just do my work and remember that when I come here, I am both coming home to the lwa in their various homes and I am also arriving to where people live and die and do their work in between. Balance in a difficult place.

Today marks 229 years since the ceremony at Bwa Kayiman that began the uprising that birthed the Haitian Revolution. This was a beginning that has never really finished on the island; the French colonizers were expelled and life moved forward in a different way, but the struggle is still ongoing. Haiti has kept fighting under totalitarian regimes, political corruption, numerous pandemics, hunger, bigotry from across the border, economic famine, and continual foreign occupation.

And yet, the dust is the same. When we are on the island, our feet touch the same dirt that Boukman stood on when he called for the lwa. We stand on the same ground that Mèt Feray Aleman and Metrès Ezili Danto were born from when enslaved Africans said ‘enough’. The revolution lives here and not anywhere else, and that’s why it’s important to come. When we are lifted from the djevo, we are lifted with that revolution born within us to carry into the world.

With all these things in mind, I am listening the murmur of folks living out their lives over the rustle of the palms. The drums are pounding hard today all over the country, and I am seeing the tendrils of smoke from cooking fires that no doubt have some manje lwa on them. My heart lives here part-time or full-time or all the time, and it beats a little stronger when I can put my feet on the dirt and feel the ground still reverberate with the fire of Bwa Kayiman. These things are especially poignant in this time of becoming in the world, where we look at what our global systems of inequality and capitalism has birth while we struggle with this illness that takes what we love most.

Papa Boukman o, nou ap we ase

Hi there,

This is a good question. One of the unfortunate realities is that there are priests who were made correctly who make bad choices that harm others. Additionally, there are people who believe they were made correctly who are perpetuating that fraud that was inflicted upon them. It’s a crap thing that this is the reality, but the internet has provided a platform for the spread of information and there are unethical folks who take advantage of that and the relative ignorance of folks who are seekers. It’s even worse when they don’t even realize that what they are doing is based in fraud, because that’s what they were given.

I am of the mind that if someone is out there swindling folks or perpetuating fraud, they are not a legitimate priest. It’s a betrayal of the oaths we take as part of our initiation and so when they begin cashing in on people, they lose what makes them a legit priest. You can come out of an ethical djevo and turn out to be a terrible person. Kanzo gives us tools and opportunities, but it can’t force us to be good people or ethical priests.

It can definitely be hard to tell. Because learning and information in Haitian Vodou is passed teacher to student, it can be a challenge to discern what is accurate and what might look pretty but is broken. There’s no one way to figure it out, but there can be a lot of signs and symptoms of stuff that is not so great and/or downright harmful. I’ll write about a bunch of them below, but of course nothing is exhaustive...sadly there is always more.

Here’s some big red flashing warning signs:

They say they have the only ‘real Vodou’. It often is spelled out as that they are the only ones who have ‘real Vodou’. This plays on someone’s desire for spiritual authenticity and the search for a spiritual home, and seeks to create a dynamic where they are the only source of information. After all, who would want something that’s not real? The truth is that Haitian Vodou varies throughout the country. There are definitely some things that are absolutes in the religion, but there’s a lot that depends on location, lineage, style of initiation, and other factors. Insisting that they are the ones who can pass on what Vodou really is boils down to either miseducation (they were conned themselves) or deliberate manipulation (they are being con artists.

Don’t go talk to other people. This often goes hand-in-hand with the ‘real Vodou’ thing. Folks get told that they should not (or outright cannot) talk to other vodouizan. This is often couched as that no one else can help you or that this specific group is made up of bad people or whatever. This is an isolation technique that is setting you up to be beholden to one person or one group. In any other religious tradition, this would be labeled cult-like behavior, but folks seem willing to accept that in Haitian Vodou for whatever reason. 

As a priest, it’s not my job to dissuade you from speaking to other priests or tell you that you should not seek out what Vodou looks like anywhere else. Part of the discernment process SHOULD be seeing as much Vodou as is possible before making commitments, if indeed commitments are what is being asked for by the lwa. It’s not the place of a priest to try and limit your access to the religion even if you it leads you away from them because it is not the job of a priest to limit you. If the lwa want you with someone, they will make that clear if you listen.

(More behind the cut...this got really long)