MR: February 1 to February 7
Posted on 02/15/10 12:02 AM
Monday
2.1.10
Rite to Manman Bridgette. Blanc rite / white foods. Manman Bridgette and Brigitte walk the same road. I had a strong contact with Manman in Dublin.
Tuesday
2.2.10
Charlotte’s Question:
How do you define blood, within the context of your own experiences and beliefs?
Is this definition just applicable to venous blood, or does it apply to menstrual blood as well?
My Reply:
Blood is more of a metaphysical term to me. I would identify it as a substance possessing certain necessary characteristics. Blood is a liquid, life embracing, personal substance that flows within the body of its host. Liquid means flowing or capable of flowing; life embracing means carrying the grace of life, and personal means that the entity identifies some portion the self with the blood. This way of seeing blood certainly includes menstrual blood.
Given the above understanding of blood; what constitutes blood to one entity would not be blood to another entity. It would be tremendously ethnocentric to think of the red stuff in us as the only form blood takes.
Referenced to myself, water is not blood but water is the blood of the earth. This is particularly apparent to me on an experiential level when I’m fortunate enough to be in the presence of a stream of water spilling out from a hole or serration in the earth. There is such grace, such mysterie in this. In a practical ritual sense, the loa walk a water road. I pour water out from the veve (signature/ritual drawing) creating a Water Road for the loa.
I had a friend who worked as a janitor. His friend was angered by a supervisor so his friend got a red ink pen and scribbled 12 pages of everything from pictures to grocery lists in the red ink and gave it to the supervisor. Also, I teach in a High School here and it is very bad form to use red ink in most any capacity. Here a red liquid carries the power of human blood and is or becomes, in a very real sense, blood.
Your question brings up other questions. For example, “Do the loa have blood?” There is an odd invulnerability to injury when one is possessed. Blood does not flow easily. I have done things that later on do not make me happy to hear about. If a body shared with the loa does not bleed easily, this may mean that the loa have a sturdier form of what we call blood.
Wednesday
2.3.10
Mishlen…in love there is union and yearning. Separation is necessary for there to be yearning. We are divided for loves sake, for the chance of union. (LiberL)
Thursday
2.4.10
Charlotte’s Question:
I think one of the main reasons that I thought that it was important to talk to you as part of my research is the work that you have done merging the beliefs of the New Orleans Voodoo and Tibetan Buddhism.
I’m particularly interested in how you apply this integration to traditions of blood sacrifice. Although New Orleans Voodoo is syncretism and a living tradition surely blood sacrifice is an integral part of its core practice?
My Reply:
Yes, Blood sacrifice is a traditional part of our core practice. It is an important part, an essential part, and I now use the blood of trees. Red palm oil is an amazing substance. Okoko introduced me to it in the early 1980s and I have yet to sound the depths of its power.
I was able to spend a year with the Tibetan refugees between 2000 and 2001 and then, after Mademoiselle Katrina, they were numerous exchanges when we ourselves refugeed to a town populated by many Tibetans.
The Tibetans and their spiritual teachers were respectful of New Orleans Voodoo and would always politely indicate that blood sacrifice created problems for the voodoosant. They referred to “karma,” something I do not understand from their perspective.
Mr. Norbu, a head of the Tibetan resistance movement, would simply say, over and over and over, that all beings were at one time my Mother. He repeated this till one day I had the shattering AHA! That he was speaking literally. Given an infinite number of incarnations, every animal that I sacrificed was at one point my Mother. Shit! Man, I just fell out when this got through to me. My Mother, Charlotte, was so very kind to me and here I was sacrificing beings that had stood as she stood to me. I was in ceremonies that used them (her) as scapegoats. I get a little sick just thinking about it. Would I kill Charlotte to save my own skin. Fuck no! I stopped my own use of animal blood.
Blood sacrifice is a continuum and I am certainly still on the continuum. Shortly after stopping using blood in rites I was drumming for a rite conducted by an African Priestess based, I believe, in Nigeria and ended up drinking blood. So who would have known what was in the calabash? The point is that for me, doing the least harm possible is a matter of degree and we are all in this together.
The Tibetan people, in the past, used animal blood in their rites. They do not practice blood rites at present and they can successfully call powerful spirits. The same could be said for the type of New Orleans Voodoo that I practice.
Mammal blood is used in our rites for a variety of purposes. It is used for the sheer grace and power it contains. It is used to feed the loa. I have found red palm oil to be effective in both of these instances. Animal are also used for scapegoating. The Tibetans, and now I, believe in the transmigration of souls. Given an infinite number of incarnations, every sentient being one encounters has at one time been your mother. It seems cowardly to transfer my sins on to another being that has been my mother. Its like if someone shot at me and I was willing to pull Charlotte in front of me as a shield.
I am sure that at one time our loa ate people. This practice is infrequent now. The loa are not that far removed from us. As our tastes change so also do their tastes change. My ritual work has a level of success without using mammal blood that is satisfactory to me. My point is to get the most benefit for myself and others while doing the least amount of harm possible.
Friday
2.5.10
Signing copies of Voodoo at Café Puce with Severine. Severine has The book was done I 2005 right before the hurricane. Severine is one of my oldest and closest friends. I believe that the first time I saw her was in the late 80’s as she was doing a ritual with an African drummer named Tuesday.
Saturday
2.6.10
I am sorting through the last of the Katrina boxes. What once was quite a mountain has become a smaller, though not insignificant, hill of boxes. The Temple was flooded in Katrina and I have waited so that the Temples objects can be disposed of properly. Some will go to the levee but I’m saving much of the now quite moldy Temple objects for Mgdlyn for use in her art.
Sunday
2.7.10
Oshun dream…Ah! Decades ago I moved away from Santeria for Voodoo. This dream is a reaffirmation of a link with Santeria through, it would seem, Netzach. The location of the dream was a gasoline station. This is significant. My decision to move away from Santeria took place in a gas station when Ellegua locked me out of the car I freezing weather. My Angel appeared to Mishlen and told her to go and get me. My temperament is much better suited to New Orleans Voodoo than Santeria.
2.1.10
Rite to Manman Bridgette. Blanc rite / white foods. Manman Bridgette and Brigitte walk the same road. I had a strong contact with Manman in Dublin.
Tuesday
2.2.10
Charlotte’s Question:
How do you define blood, within the context of your own experiences and beliefs?
Is this definition just applicable to venous blood, or does it apply to menstrual blood as well?
My Reply:
Blood is more of a metaphysical term to me. I would identify it as a substance possessing certain necessary characteristics. Blood is a liquid, life embracing, personal substance that flows within the body of its host. Liquid means flowing or capable of flowing; life embracing means carrying the grace of life, and personal means that the entity identifies some portion the self with the blood. This way of seeing blood certainly includes menstrual blood.
Given the above understanding of blood; what constitutes blood to one entity would not be blood to another entity. It would be tremendously ethnocentric to think of the red stuff in us as the only form blood takes.
Referenced to myself, water is not blood but water is the blood of the earth. This is particularly apparent to me on an experiential level when I’m fortunate enough to be in the presence of a stream of water spilling out from a hole or serration in the earth. There is such grace, such mysterie in this. In a practical ritual sense, the loa walk a water road. I pour water out from the veve (signature/ritual drawing) creating a Water Road for the loa.
I had a friend who worked as a janitor. His friend was angered by a supervisor so his friend got a red ink pen and scribbled 12 pages of everything from pictures to grocery lists in the red ink and gave it to the supervisor. Also, I teach in a High School here and it is very bad form to use red ink in most any capacity. Here a red liquid carries the power of human blood and is or becomes, in a very real sense, blood.
Your question brings up other questions. For example, “Do the loa have blood?” There is an odd invulnerability to injury when one is possessed. Blood does not flow easily. I have done things that later on do not make me happy to hear about. If a body shared with the loa does not bleed easily, this may mean that the loa have a sturdier form of what we call blood.
Wednesday
2.3.10
Mishlen…in love there is union and yearning. Separation is necessary for there to be yearning. We are divided for loves sake, for the chance of union. (LiberL)
Thursday
2.4.10
Charlotte’s Question:
I think one of the main reasons that I thought that it was important to talk to you as part of my research is the work that you have done merging the beliefs of the New Orleans Voodoo and Tibetan Buddhism.
I’m particularly interested in how you apply this integration to traditions of blood sacrifice. Although New Orleans Voodoo is syncretism and a living tradition surely blood sacrifice is an integral part of its core practice?
My Reply:
Yes, Blood sacrifice is a traditional part of our core practice. It is an important part, an essential part, and I now use the blood of trees. Red palm oil is an amazing substance. Okoko introduced me to it in the early 1980s and I have yet to sound the depths of its power.
I was able to spend a year with the Tibetan refugees between 2000 and 2001 and then, after Mademoiselle Katrina, they were numerous exchanges when we ourselves refugeed to a town populated by many Tibetans.
The Tibetans and their spiritual teachers were respectful of New Orleans Voodoo and would always politely indicate that blood sacrifice created problems for the voodoosant. They referred to “karma,” something I do not understand from their perspective.
Mr. Norbu, a head of the Tibetan resistance movement, would simply say, over and over and over, that all beings were at one time my Mother. He repeated this till one day I had the shattering AHA! That he was speaking literally. Given an infinite number of incarnations, every animal that I sacrificed was at one point my Mother. Shit! Man, I just fell out when this got through to me. My Mother, Charlotte, was so very kind to me and here I was sacrificing beings that had stood as she stood to me. I was in ceremonies that used them (her) as scapegoats. I get a little sick just thinking about it. Would I kill Charlotte to save my own skin. Fuck no! I stopped my own use of animal blood.
Blood sacrifice is a continuum and I am certainly still on the continuum. Shortly after stopping using blood in rites I was drumming for a rite conducted by an African Priestess based, I believe, in Nigeria and ended up drinking blood. So who would have known what was in the calabash? The point is that for me, doing the least harm possible is a matter of degree and we are all in this together.
The Tibetan people, in the past, used animal blood in their rites. They do not practice blood rites at present and they can successfully call powerful spirits. The same could be said for the type of New Orleans Voodoo that I practice.
Mammal blood is used in our rites for a variety of purposes. It is used for the sheer grace and power it contains. It is used to feed the loa. I have found red palm oil to be effective in both of these instances. Animal are also used for scapegoating. The Tibetans, and now I, believe in the transmigration of souls. Given an infinite number of incarnations, every sentient being one encounters has at one time been your mother. It seems cowardly to transfer my sins on to another being that has been my mother. Its like if someone shot at me and I was willing to pull Charlotte in front of me as a shield.
I am sure that at one time our loa ate people. This practice is infrequent now. The loa are not that far removed from us. As our tastes change so also do their tastes change. My ritual work has a level of success without using mammal blood that is satisfactory to me. My point is to get the most benefit for myself and others while doing the least amount of harm possible.
Friday
2.5.10
Signing copies of Voodoo at Café Puce with Severine. Severine has The book was done I 2005 right before the hurricane. Severine is one of my oldest and closest friends. I believe that the first time I saw her was in the late 80’s as she was doing a ritual with an African drummer named Tuesday.
Saturday
2.6.10
I am sorting through the last of the Katrina boxes. What once was quite a mountain has become a smaller, though not insignificant, hill of boxes. The Temple was flooded in Katrina and I have waited so that the Temples objects can be disposed of properly. Some will go to the levee but I’m saving much of the now quite moldy Temple objects for Mgdlyn for use in her art.
Sunday
2.7.10
Oshun dream…Ah! Decades ago I moved away from Santeria for Voodoo. This dream is a reaffirmation of a link with Santeria through, it would seem, Netzach. The location of the dream was a gasoline station. This is significant. My decision to move away from Santeria took place in a gas station when Ellegua locked me out of the car I freezing weather. My Angel appeared to Mishlen and told her to go and get me. My temperament is much better suited to New Orleans Voodoo than Santeria.