Facebook Essays April 2015

AFRICAN VODUN: PLAYING IN THE BIG LEAGUES
As more people began to look toward Africa for training in its traditional spiritual systems, reconnection to ancestry and/or friendships one must understand that the continent of Africa consists of cultures that we are no longer familiar with. While diaspora traditional based spiritual systems derived from the various African cultures the advent of the transatlantic slave trade caused an interruption in the transferring of traditional knowledge. While a great deal has been retained due, to the tenacity of those who continued to serve in secret and hide these systems under Christian symbols, much of its original knowledge has been lost, forgotten, usurped or coopted by local traditional practices. This has led many to believe that diaspora vodou is a new lineage. It isn't! As one's ancestry reaches back to Africa we must also reach back to the motherland to incorporate much, if not all, of what has been lost. For to do so will only enrich our lives, and for those to whom it applies, pull us back from the psychological bondages of slavery and instill in us untold hope for the future.
The problem that I am noticing, however, is that as folks reach out for African vodun they are reaching out with an expectation of what they see in the diaspora. Using the diaspora term of "reading", for instance, they are not understanding that African vodun is not like diaspora vodou. It is the original vodun, therefore, retaining much if not all of its original spiritual trappings. In African vodun one does not have a "reading" per se but experiences authentic African divination. This divination, if performed by an ordained and experienced Ifa priest, vodun priest or priestess involves much more than just giving you the "feel good" speech (all the nice things you want to hear) or the "impending doom" speech. One must know what to ask for and what to expect. A diasporan's initial divination should reveal ones ancestry, head spirit, accompanying spirits, presenting problems, and spirit guided solutions, meaning sacrifices, if needed. This type of divination is much more involved therefore more costly. One may also go in with specific questions. Many diasporans want to trivialize vodun by using it as their "psychic friends" network running to it with a few dollars in hand expecting it to fix their everyday social woes of getting a man/woman back, seeking revenge against their neighbor or magically becoming rich. Authentic African vodun does not work in that manner. Depending on a person's circumstances the spiritual control is in the hands of ones ancestors, personal spirits and destiny as to who might be one's appropriate mate or if one is to become financially successful. And if one has not attended to one's ancestors or fed one's personal spirits the odds are that these things must occur before one obtains what one wants. African spiritual ceremonies are much more involved as well. They can be grand affairs with many animal sacrifices, much dancing, drumming and preparations. All of the adapts involved, in these ceremonies, are taking time away from their loved ones to work for the spirits on your behalf. This too requires costs. The idea that someone of the African priesthood is just sitting in his/her temple waiting for someone to roll up with a fist full dollars, takes it goes to his/her "shrine", pours a libation, prays and "puff" your problem is over is not the reality. First of all what they have is not a "shrine" but living and active voduns. These are spirits that are actually dwelling there on site. And the reality is that he/she must first consult the spirits on your issue, hear their answer, explain to you what the spirits have said and tell you their remedy. Then you can either choose to or not to proceed. But, if you do know that animals must be brought for sacrifice(s) and his/her entire temple will be involved in performing these ceremonies. And, in some cases, if it is ancestral that priest or priestess may be required to travel, on your behalf, with you bearing that expense. African vodun is playing in the big leagues.

So as we reach back to the ancestor, the motherland and it's traditions we need to get a better understanding of the African traditional culture and its spiritual mores. Understanding what to look for and what to expect will help us cut back, tremendously, on those who might wish to exploit or give us less of what we are actually paying for. After all, most diasporans will attest to the fact that coming across money for spiritual ceremonies simply ain't easy.

YET WE STAND!
We came to this land disoriented, shackled one to another, stolen from THE LAND OF KINGS
Yet, those who survived, the children of these kings, were destined to a land to serve those of another
YET WE STAND!
Humiliated, dignities lost, rapes of our mothers, abuse, slave auction blocks, brutalities unimaginable,
lynchings, murders of our people in an old time
YET WE STAND!
Civil Rights, everyday martyrs, leaders lost, murders of our people in a changing time
YET WE STAND!
Change is coming, our first Black President, the son of a proud African, the mother a descendant of the majority
Police brutality and more senseless murders of our people in a present time
YET WE STAND!

OUR AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES BEING KILLED IN AMERICAN STREETS: IS IT THE WILL OF THE SPIRITS (A 21ST CENTURY MARTYRDOM) OR SOMETHING ELSE?
A martyr is loosely defined as someone who suffers persecution and/or death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, and/or refusing to advocate a belief or cause of either a religious or secular nature. But I contend that all of the young black men being killed in our city streets, today, and other places, by the police or those in authority, are true martyrs...martyrs of being black in America with the avocation of the wish to be created equal. I firmly believe that the spirits are behind it, in some way, in order that this country make sweeping changes within our society.
There are martyrs from all faiths as well as social movements. One thinks of Gandhi, Jesus, and others; but, our young black men being killed in our city streets today is, for me, a continuation of the struggle for civil rights, in America, which began centuries ago. From the Civil Rights era we immediately think of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Jimmy Lee Jackson and others. But inside the Civil Rights Movement there are those who have died for the cause of freedom and equality that are seemingly obscure and unremembered. Case in point is a young woman named Juliette Hampton Morgan. A true Southern belle, socialite, and highly educated white woman, Morgan had all the advantages of wealth and prestige; but, she couldn't drive so rode the city buses to work. Appalled at the way black folks were being treated, on the buses, she stood up for them at every opportunity. She was a librarian so began to write the local newspaper advocating the fair treatment of black people. She was harassed, subjected to all manner of attacks, public humiliation and a cross was eventually burned in her yard by the KKK. She continued to write but was excessively mocked by her peers, received death threats and suffered attempts to have her fired. Eventually the trauma became too much, for her; so, she resigned her post July 15, 1957 and took her own life the following morning. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote of her in his book, Stride Towards Freedom: The Montgomery Story, saying that she was the first to draw parallels between the movement and Gandhi in her letters to the editor.
The black male has been at the forefront of racial discrimination in this country. As the head of the black family he has been demoralized and the constant focus of those whose hearts, minds and eyes see him as a threat that needs continual subjection to the psychological master/slave relationship. While his mate has had to step out in front and help keep the black family together he still strikes fear in the hearts of those who perceive him as the uncontrollable African warrior who could kill on sight. While race relations in America has made strides it is to our black men that much must be rectified. Too many inhabit our prison systems who should have never been there. Too many are targeted and arrested unfairly because of who they are. It has been going on for far too long, unwitnessed, undocumented and thus invisible even though the African American community has talked about it for decades on end...so much so that cultural norms have been put into place, in our communities, to dictate how our young men are to respond to authorities just to keep them safe. But as we have seen even the attempts at passive or cordial behavior does not always work. There is an inevitable target on their backs due to the color of their skin. The African ancestors see all of this. It is my belief that it is not by chance that much of this, due to social media, is now being brought to light for all to see. It must if our society is to change. A 17 year old...Trayvon Martin (February 26, 2012)... lost his life walking home from the store with a pack of skittles and an Arizona iced tea by a wannabe cop; and, it has proliferated at an alarming rate. Another was choked to death, by the police, in broad daylight...Eric Garner (July 17, 2014).... and there are others. So, now we have an instance where a black man is shot, execution style, in the back 8 times by a police officer...Walter Scott (April 4, 2015). While years before much of this has not been witnessed and we had to depend on the words of the officers involved; and, even though suspected of wrongdoing biased juries have given these people a pass and our black men and our people have continually suffered. But the spirits are putting into place situations where these heinous crimes are being caught by social media, thus, recorded and documented for the world to see by those whose hearts are touched by what is right. The invisible hands of the spirits are among us. These loved ones deaths will not be in vain. This society, because of them, must and will change. So take heart my brothers and sisters "petti, petti" as we say in Fon...little by little... a change is gonna come. And to these 21st century martyrs, I borrow from the Greek ancestral expression "pro partia mori", to die for one's homeland is one of the most honorable ways for a citizen to die. For while our ancestral roots are distinctly African it is through the blood, sweat and tears of our loved ones, from slavery until today, which makes this AMERICA ours too!