|
I was just reading some past posts on Brother Arthur
Flower's Hoodooway list on Topica about Hoodoo anointing versus ATR initiation. I got to thinking
how someway folks may have gotten the process of initiation confused with it's end result.
I was instructed that there
are two basic types of initiation 1) BIRTH & REBIRTH as in OCHA and VODOU and 2) PRESENTATION as in PALO.
While,
it is true that the Hoodoo Culture did not preserve as much African ritual context as Cuba nor was it as diverse as Haiti
or as dynamic as Brazil but it did help us to survive our experience. Hoodoo culture did hold our stories, our proverbs, our
songs, our dances, our Ancestral and Mythic Heroes and Heroines,
and quiet as it is kept Hoodoo Culture is the basis of the so-called *American Experience*.
Hoodoo is said to be without
formal initiation rituals but it is not without a guide. Hoodoo falls under the RULE OF THE SUN or the Kongo Cosmogram. Hence,
we can look to Universal and natural processes of BIRTH, MATURITY, and DEATH as MARKERS on our LIFE-LINE which we were not
always able to ceremonially celebrate or honor during our HOLOCAUST SLAVERY in America.
INITIATIONS are many in the
life of an African or a HUE-MAN. They are positions where we acknowledge where we now STAND and what direction we want to
take. Initiation is a ceremony where we COMMIT OURSELVES to the REDIRECTION of our ENERGIES and pledge to henceforth to refine
our CHOICES in alignment with our new goal.
In America, potty training, first day at school, leaving school, getting
a driver's license, our first job, first sexual experience, apartment, first committed relationship, first child birthed,
etc are all LANDMARKS points in a life that once done or so marked can never be undone only re-done. A first is a first!
INITIATION in the Diaspora for an African American is needed when one is called to enter into a systemic or cultural
paradigm OTHER THAN THE ONE YOU WERE BORN INTO.
We need to take a look at the fourth point on the Kongo Cosmogram called
Musoni. It is UNDER THE WATER, below the LINE OF KALUNGA. It is at the POINT OF MUSONI, that we deal with CONCEPTION, the
DNA as a genetic marker or the LEGACY of our ANCESTORS.
If for example one is born with a SPECIAL TALENT, say for
instance that of a HEALER and this talent becomes activated (i.e. we become anointed) we do not need to ASK any living man for
instruction or permissions to USE OUR TALENT because that talent is from our Ancestors (i.e. our lineage gods) and is to be
used as we see fit in the service of our people.
We do not have to be PRESENTED to our own blood Ancestors. We CARRY
them within us. They are in our BLOOD and are the components that structure our physical mass. We are already their children/priests.
But what of LAZARUS, the lives we lived previous to this one? What
of the other families we were also a part of? These things were also written within us at the MUSONI POINT. We carry the broken
threads of our SOUL'S MEMORIES in our subconscious/personal unconscious mind.
It is those OLD PIECES of the puzzle
from other times and spaces that cause us to be restless, to move, to search. The FORGOTTEN ONES barge into our dreams, they
laugh with us and they cry, but we forget the details upon awakening. They call us by different names, and whisper phrases
in our ears we can't always understand, they dance with us at our parties and sing songs familiar yet unknown that tug
at our heart strings. They want us to remember the part of them that is still with us and the part they played in making us
who we are.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
That other priests in other places within the SCATTERING (i.e. Diaspora) have eyes that
can *see* those forgotten ancestors we carry in ADDITION TO our biological ancestors, in addition to the ones we have on our
heads, at our backs or those that travel ahead of us in Time and Space only proves that human genetic markers & soul lineage
can be read on the psychic levels of KUNDU, the area between the center point of the KC and the MUSONI point.
If we
are to fully use ANCESTRAL REVERENCING TECHNIQUES (ART) we have to acknowledge and honor the OTHERS just as we acknowlege
our own BIOLOGICAL ANCESTORS. We must find out WHO THEY WERE, where they lived and what relationship we had with them in the
other lives we lived BEFORE this one. Hence we have the investigations, the misas, the centros, the readings with diviners
so they may help direct us to the right place/culture in TIME & SPACE, where we can PICK UP THE PIECES, to re-collect,
to re-member, to make whole the BODY OF AUSAR.
Today's initiations in Ifa, Ocha, Candomble, & Palo are entrances into various levels of the priesthood. These priesthoods
are Afro-diasporic branches of systems that are similar in some ways to our experience in that there were African's and slavery
involved but dissimilar in that each place, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil etc was different as far as language, flora and fauna, indigenous
peoples (Indian tribes) climate, and OVERSEER etc. Each difference changed the way that the African adapted and interacted
in that place.
In all cases named PALO, OCHA and VODOU, the experience of SLAVERY is a FOCAL POINT. All this to say
that each process of initiation in whatever system can only serve to RE-ORIENT, to show a different Point of View, another
faucet or layer of Life which ultimately will allow those fragments to come together and speak DIRECTLY TO YOU as an aid to assign
meaning to the experiences of your own life and the lives of those around you.
Initiation is only ONE CEREMONY,
it is a FIRST STEP(in a system where more than one is given, each marks a level or grade) Initiation is a process that in
and of itself does not make a priest, diviner, medium, or a healer. A priest evolves from the actions taken and choices made
AFTER the original ceremony has ended.
The learning of the protocols, methods, the order of ceremony, the songs &
dances, how to pass the spirit, how to recognize an Ancestor, God, or Spirit, how to salute it, how to cook and present food
and drinks to the Ancestors, how to call the Spirits (conjure)and how to send them away, these things are not given to you
in your initial opening ceremony, nor will they ever be given to you on a silver platter by your initiators. Knowledge
of the spiritual affairs of life is learned OVER TIME. MUCH AS THE SUN (RE) RE-PEATS IT'S COURSE ACROSS THE SKY.
Knowledge is EXTRACTED, from one's repeated actions & encounters, and DISTILLED from each ceremony you attend
or give. The resulting elixir was symbolized in mythematiks as Sheba by the Ethiopians, as Soma by
the Hindu's, and as Ambrosia by the Greeks.
As a priest one should BE ABLE TO ESTABLISH
& RE-ESTABLISH FUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS with the ANCESTORS OF THE SYSTEM you have entered into. In this way will
you LEARN to recognize them and in this way can you become the recipient of their BOONS of DIRECT COUNSEL and MAGICAL ASSISTANCE.
Since
the Gathering, the Haitian Vodou cultural revival of 1804, a lot of us born into the Hoodoo culture have searched for
the knowledge that allows us to fill in our own blank spaces OUTSIDE of the USA. We did not begin our questings without a
prompt. Our journeys were a way of scratching an impossible to reach itch. They were one way to
answer those who called out to us, a way to HONOR FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, PAST LIVES and LOST LINEAGES. What we learned
in those other places, how to navigate, swim and fish in the deep waters of Kalunga, can now be applied at home from
the comfort of our own backyards.
Re-al Kongo,
Djenra
|
|
|
|
|
