I'm so childish sometimes...

My inner Ti-Mazaka would appear to be playing up. I've spent the last few minutes teasing the little mort that lives in the churchyard next door. I've always kmown there was something there in darkest corner of the grounds, where a shadow is cast on three sides by the church building itself and by the trees that mark the boundary of the churchyard on the fourth.

I knew it was a child but very little else until I did some research and found out that a three year old girl from the area had died in the blitz; there's a list inside the church itself of parishioners who were killed in the bombings. As might be expected from someone who met their end in an air raid, she hates loud noises and bright lights, and will often retreat back to the walls and hide next to the stained glass window that depicts the virtue of Charity when a car drives past at night. Sometimes I take her Gede offerings of cola or bread; or on Fet Gede, skull-shaped sugar cookies.

I've noticed that the local children only play in her area of the churchyard; they completely ignore the rest of it. I think she likes the company, personally. Boys play football there on sunny days, and this morning it's a lovely warm day. I've been pointing out of the window singing "Dora's got a boyfriend, Dora's got a boyfriend!" and "Dora and the footballers, sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" I don't think she minds.

I wrote a poem. Aren't I clever?

I know, I know, it's been ages since I updated this thing. I really need to do it a lot more often.

Today is Tuesday; the day, of course, of the Petro Loa. I've been feeling incredibly tense and worrisome lately (for non-Vodou related reasons so I won't go in to them here) and it was perhaps that which kicked my creative brain into gear. I used to write a lot creatively but some years ago my writing notebooks just fell into disrepair.

This morning the outline of a poem about Erzulie ge Rouge popped into my head. I wrote in almost a stream of consciousness style - I did some editing but not a huge amount; just to highlight some of the themes and imagery by changing a few words here and there. If you'll pardon the pretentious biological artiness it was almost as if the emotions which sparked the poem as well as the nature of ge Rouge herself demanded the words just be vomited up rather than honed and measured. All feedback and comments are welcome!


Rouge


On a stained bed
Through a throat clotted with their spendings
I urged them on while my sister self
Fought mute, the other hiding pale eyes behind lace and silk.
I was a tongue
Useful for the moment but not to keep,
Or trust, or treat.

My children drink pus-thick milk and
It curdles in their mouths. Red lips.
We stutter with broken teeth, glass gleaming in our gums
And scrabble with painted nails at half-healed breasts,
Infection dripping with the hot red flood.

I cannot speak.
A sucking wound – seven stabs of the Virgin, seven curses for the whore
Do they reduce me to this?
A tattered thing, pumping outrage through bloodshot eyes.

My strings of wet hair hide my face. You cannot see
The black clots rise in my gorge.
All you will know is the imprint of nails in clenched palms
And the cut-off words
Drying in a throat still full of their spendings.

Good Friday

You were one, one of the three
One in three must find some peace
You were one, one of the three
I need proof before belief

Oh well, you just knew they'd come for you
So it was suicide, suicide
Oh well, now you've got just what you want
I hope you're satisfied

One of the three, one of the three, one of the three, one of the three

You were one, one of the three
One in three must find some peace
You were one, one of the three
I need proof before belief

Oh well, I guess you're not to blame
For what they've done in your name, in your name
Oh well, it's a shame you got so famous for a sacrifice

One of the three, one of the three, one of the three, one of the three
One of the three, one of the three, one of the three, one of the three

You were one, one of the three
One in three must find some peace
You were one, one of the three
I need proof before belief

You sent forth your lamb to the slaughter
You sent forth your lamb to the slaughter

A clarification.

To Whom It May Concern,

I understand how it looks. Truly, I do. I only meant to explore the new city centre library on my way home, and not to spend an hour and a half in their giant red armchair with my feet up. You know how it is. These places are dangerous. You know you should pick up the scholarly Ron Hutton volume, but something else catches your eye, you flick through it and you become engrossed, and then you can't put it down until you've read the whole thing.

You're a regular attendee at the Moot I organise, and as I understand it you're looking forwards to the talk I'm going to give next month - the one on Vodou magic in theory and practice. I would like to assure you that I'd already finished writing my talk when you came over to say hello. Honestly. The printout was right there in that folder I had on my lap.

The fact I was reading "The Idiot's Guide to Voodoo" at the time is neither here nor there.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Love,
Nagini.

If the Loa spoke Internet...

Legba – FIRST!!!

Anaisa Pye – WIN

Erzulie ge Rouge – FAIL

Ogoun Feray – Pwned!

Ogoun Badagris – All your base are belong to us.

Met Kalfu – STFU, n00b.

Baron Cimitiere – I are serious Loa. This are serious thread.

Gede - I can has cheezburger?

Baron Samedi – im in ur base killin ur d00dz.



I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry.

The Vodou Trojan Horse

I'm typing this through a haze of drum and bass soundwaves that are causing everything in my flat to vibrate. I live in the middle floor of a building with three flats, meaning I get noise from both above me (grumpy old man whose washing machine goes into a spin cycle in the early hours of the morning) and downstairs (Burberry-hatted DJ type who sets off fire alarms at 4 am and who plays his music SO GODDAMN LOUD THAT MY REFRIDGERATOR IS ACTUALLY STARTING TO SHAKE).

How does a Vodouisant deal with problems from the neighbours? Of course my first answer is the same one as anybody else would hopefully give as their answer - let them know in a polite but firm manner that ONE MORE BASS LINE MAKING ITS WAY THROUGH MY LIVING ROOM FLOOR AND UP TO MY EARS IS GOING TO RESULT IN SEVERE INJURY FOR HIS STEREO. No, not really. I tried to knock on his door to ask him to turn it down, but he isn't answering. Presumably because he can't hear me above his own din. So, five minutes ago I used a piece of magic I like to refer to as the Vodou version of the Trojan Horse. It's yet to take effect as I doubt he's read the note yet, but let's hope he does so soon.

I wrote my neighbour a note telling him that the soundproofing between our flats isn't particularly effective and asking him to turn the volume down. I then dressed the paper with Bend Over Oil, chanting a little mantra of "not what you will, but what I will" as I smoked it over Baron Samedi's black St Michael candle. I then folded the paper and wrote the number of his flat on the outside, dressing that with more oil for good measure. When dressing names in compelling or domination magic, I put a drop of the oil on my thumb and then literally cross out the name on the paper. If I have the signature of the person that's ideal, but if I don't, then I just write it with any pen I have to hand. It is of course a very basic form of sympathetic magic; symbolically imposing my will on the name of the target.

So why do I call it a Trojan horse? Because people tend to take letters inside their house before they read them. Even if they ignore the notes and put them straight in the bin, the oil is still there is their home; on their hands and their door itself, working away even if it's done from inside a rubbish bin. The magic is there whether they remember the existence of the note or not.

That's actually one of my favourite tricks, and one I gladly pass on to you. It doesn't have to be used just for domination and Bend Over spells; try High John Oil on a memo to your boss before a performance review, for example.

Of course I realise that many people shy away from this type of magic entirely, believing that it's morally and ethically wrong to perform any type of magic which seeks to impose the will of the practitioner on others. That's fine and I appreciate that; but it's not what I believe. I think there's a time, when normal everyday methods fail or just wouldn't work, to use this type of magic. I do however think that overuse of coercive magic is no way to live, especially if it's targeted towards friends or loved ones.

Except if they have a really powerful stereo.

An Oshun Pataki

Although I'm not a Santera, I'm fascinated by the Orisha and by their legends or pataki; particularly those of Oya and Oshun. A friend of mine on the website www.ukpagan.com has recently been asking me about Oshun, so I gave her this pataki.

It's a lovely story about Oshun which says that at one point, she fell on hard times and couldn't afford to feed her children. With nowhere to turn to for money, she became a prostitute. The other Orisha found out about this and were horrified, so they took her children away from her. No child of the spirits was going to be raised by a whore!

Oshun went mad with grief. She went to the river every day and wept for her lost children. She never changed her clothes, and wore the same dress every day for months on end. Eventually her beautiful white gown became yellow with age.

One day the river spirit, Aje-Shaluga, who had watched her crying for the long weeks and months emerged from the water and came to sit beside her on the bank. "Beautiful lady, most loved of the Orisha," he said, "I have heard your grief and tasted your tears as they fall into my waters. The bed of my river is home to gold and jewels, forgotten valuables and trasures. Take them, I beg you, and bring back your children!"

Oshun looked at the handsome river Orisha with his handfuls of gold and shining gemstones, and fell utterly in love. She flung her arms around him and kissed him. There on the riverbank, they pledged their love to each other and made plans to marry. Oshun gratefully took the gold and jewels her fiance offered, and fled to the other Orisha to tell them she was rich once more and that she was to start a new life with the river spirit. They gave her back her children without complaint, and Oshun and her children and Aje-Shaluga lived happily ever after.


Nice, isn't it?