Get Your Gris-Gris On
Happy Hallow's Eve!
In the tradition of the day, I bring you a little article on Voodoo in New Orleans. Seems like, as with so many other casualties of Katrina, the practice of voodoo and New Orleans' status as the voodoo capital of America is in jeopardy.
So do your part. Spend some time researching Marie Laveau. Learn a ritual. Check out Erzulie's and consider ordering from Mistic now that Mr. Glossup is back online. And remember voodoo is a religion for many people, not a joke. Support the culture; respect the religion.
It's going to take years to bring back the city many of us knew and still love. No matter how far away you are, contribute in some way.
It's good mojo.
"Cleaning up from the garage ran him late for his other job, however, and he hurried toward the club at a near run, knowing he’d be bathed in sweat again by the time he arrived. The lateness bothered him less than the persistent daze clouding his head, which had intensified at the party and dogged him still. True, he was sunburned and hungover, but this dreamlike state was something else, its roots in more than just physical excesses. Steeped in a childhood duality of Voodoo and Catholicism, he had shed most of their trappings, yet the crumbling foundations remained, leaving him unable to shake the feeling a gris-gris spell was at work.
The threat of gris-gris, common in his Louisiana culture, began with a harmless cloth bag, but then the spell signified by the charm — cast by a Voodoo Mistress and augmented by a hair, a pared fingernail, a drop of blood from the intended victim — built momentum into an unstoppable force. Like most whites, Jamie had a healthy distaste for the religion’s spectacle: the chicken feathers and bone throwing that mesmerized the true believers only made him roll his eyes. But a powerful psychology lay behind the charms, embedded throughout his hometown’s old world customs. It was small wonder in this strange place, with the growing sensation of being out of control of his actions and thoughts, he fell back on the touchstones of his youth."
~ The Long Black Veil, Chapter 16, pp.117-118
In the tradition of the day, I bring you a little article on Voodoo in New Orleans. Seems like, as with so many other casualties of Katrina, the practice of voodoo and New Orleans' status as the voodoo capital of America is in jeopardy.
So do your part. Spend some time researching Marie Laveau. Learn a ritual. Check out Erzulie's and consider ordering from Mistic now that Mr. Glossup is back online. And remember voodoo is a religion for many people, not a joke. Support the culture; respect the religion.
It's going to take years to bring back the city many of us knew and still love. No matter how far away you are, contribute in some way.
It's good mojo.
"Cleaning up from the garage ran him late for his other job, however, and he hurried toward the club at a near run, knowing he’d be bathed in sweat again by the time he arrived. The lateness bothered him less than the persistent daze clouding his head, which had intensified at the party and dogged him still. True, he was sunburned and hungover, but this dreamlike state was something else, its roots in more than just physical excesses. Steeped in a childhood duality of Voodoo and Catholicism, he had shed most of their trappings, yet the crumbling foundations remained, leaving him unable to shake the feeling a gris-gris spell was at work.
The threat of gris-gris, common in his Louisiana culture, began with a harmless cloth bag, but then the spell signified by the charm — cast by a Voodoo Mistress and augmented by a hair, a pared fingernail, a drop of blood from the intended victim — built momentum into an unstoppable force. Like most whites, Jamie had a healthy distaste for the religion’s spectacle: the chicken feathers and bone throwing that mesmerized the true believers only made him roll his eyes. But a powerful psychology lay behind the charms, embedded throughout his hometown’s old world customs. It was small wonder in this strange place, with the growing sensation of being out of control of his actions and thoughts, he fell back on the touchstones of his youth."
~ The Long Black Veil, Chapter 16, pp.117-118
posted by Delhui at 8:21 PM
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