On a visit final yr to New Orleans, I wished to study extra a few custom with deep roots there: the one whose West African root known as Vodún, turned Vodou in Haiti, and in New Orleans is all the time generally known as voodoo. The e book I learn is Karen McCarthy Brown’s Mama Lola, which focuses on the Haitian model, so I’ll use the “Vodou” spelling. Any introductory dialogue of this custom all the time begins with an compulsory disclaimer about Hollywood stereotypes: little or no of it’s about zombies, and even much less is about sticking pins in dolls. However the actual custom is fascinating in its personal methods.
As a thinker, I’m practically all the time most intrigued by cultural traditions of their philosophical or theological facet: what kinds of considering and reflection they’ve in regards to the universe and easy methods to reside in it. However that’s not all such traditions have to supply, and if I confined all my curiosity to the philosophy, I must have discovered Vodou a disappointment. Mama Lola, the Vodou priestess Brown realized from, would commonly inform her “Karen, you assume an excessive amount of!” or “You ask too many questions!” Brown will get excited when a dialogue between Mama Lola and one other Vodou skilled begins to show to the theological, however they rapidly drop the topic and by no means return. The custom is all about interactions with the loa or lwa, supernatural beings with the flexibility to own individuals in ritual trances. However neither in Mama Lola nor in the rest I’ve learn or heard on the custom, do I see Vodou practitioners assume a lot about what precisely these beings are – though there’s lots to marvel about, since most Vodou practitioners contemplate themselves Catholics, and the connection of the loa to the saints and angels they’re recognized with, not to mention to any singular God (bondye), is hazy at finest.
However despite all that, there’s one aspect of the custom that completely fascinates me and calls to me. And her title is Ezili Freda.
Ezili Freda is the loa related to magnificence, romance, and luxurious. Within the poverty of Haiti this stuff are carefully linked: says Mama Lola, “Poor individuals don’t haven’t any real love. They only have affiliation.” So Ezili Freda is portrayed as light-skinned, because the Haitian élite usually are. Since slaves have been required to be formally Catholic and will solely practise their ancestral traditions in secret, the picture of Maria Dolorosa del Monte Calvario – a picture initially meant to be the Virgin Mary, however with a sword by means of her coronary heart and surrounded by jewels and coronary heart shapes – in Haiti turned the enduring portrayal of Ezili Freda.
I don’t get the impression that Ezili Freda is one in all Brown’s favorite loa – Brown provides Freda solely six pages, in comparison with 24 for her angrier sister Ezili Dantor – however I discovered myself turning to these six pages again and again. For Ezili Freda is drawn to the identical issues I’m drawn to in my very own gender fluidity: the aesthetic trappings of conventional femininity, pink, frills, fragrance. I think she calls to me moreover as a result of – in contrast to so many divine feminine figures – she’s not a mom goddess. Most traditions affiliate femininity with motherhood. However for me I’ve by no means felt a calling to be a mom, or for that matter a father. Ezili Freda represents a femininity I acknowledge in myself. That she is taken into account a protector of homosexual males – the namesake of the New Orleans rapper Huge Freedia, who loves his female aspect – additionally makes me really feel that she connects to my very own gender fluidity.
Ezili Freda additionally has a psychological downside that I are likely to have: seeing the world as by no means adequate. She’s not snark over smarm precisely – she’s not a tutorial or journalist – however like teachers and journalists, definitely like myself, she acutely sees what’s mistaken with the world. No matter else Ezili Freda is, she is gorgeous – and she or he needs the world to be lovely, completely lovely in a means that it might probably by no means be. She requires that choices to her to be excellent. She leaves each session of spirit possession in tears, as a result of one thing was not adequate for her. Within the phrases of Vodou provoke and blogger Dykedon (who additionally calls himself Houngan James), “she mourns for the lack of an unspoiled perfection that maybe by no means actually existed. The reasonable ugliness of the world wounds her.” None of this can be a good trait, in her or in me; it’s not one thing to domesticate. However it’s relatable. And that does appear to be a part of the purpose: no matter else the loa could also be, they aren’t ethical exemplars. Vodou practitioners should not inspired to emulate them, solely to have a relationship with them.
All of which is a attribute discovered in lots of gods throughout cultures, from Zeus to Krishna. (A New Orleans information did stress to us that the loa are “not gods, they’re spirits” – however the boundaries between these two classes may be fairly porous. One of many issues a Vodou theological inquiry might do could be to spell out extra clearly how that distinction works.) One of many many issues I like about conventional Buddhism is that it admits this position for the gods: you’re not speculated to revere them (not to mention emulate them), they’re simply there. Many traditions take a god who begins amoral – just like the YHWH who punishes the pharaoh’s complete individuals for an act that God made the pharaoh do – and attempt to flip him into an ethical exemplar. Within the historical past of Buddhism, somewhat than such gods changing into become ethical exemplars, the ethical exemplars – the buddhas and bodhisattvas – begin changing into gods. However Vodou takes a distinct strategy that I additionally like: the loa neither began as nor turned ethical exemplars, they simply are. Which appears more true to the universe as it’s – the imperfect universe that Ezili Freda weeps for.
By Haitian requirements, Ezili Freda has every part, and it’s nonetheless by no means adequate. That’s a bracing reminder for me, since by those self same Haitian requirements I’m ready one thing like hers – to a Haitian I’m light-skinned, and my upper-middle-class American life-style is a wealth unimaginable to most Haitians. And my Buddhist awakening in Thailand in some ways confirmed me how I may be an excessive amount of like her, so readily upset by every part that’s missing, regardless of (or due to?) my relative privilege. Ezili Freda is relatable as a result of she is each the female magnificence I wish to be, and the depressing spoiled younger self I’ve spent so many a long time attempting to get away from – maybe what Jung may name a shadow.
One of many issues that I discover thrilling about Ezili Freda is that she calls to me from a non-intellectual, non-theological world – and that’s fairly uncommon for me. I are likely to reside very a lot in my head: a bunch of my buddies just lately had an exercise that concerned bringing one thing cherished from one’s childhood; the place everybody else introduced a stuffed animal, I introduced a e book. The earthy, non-intellectual world of Vodou may be very, very removed from mine – however Ezili Freda calls to me throughout its boundaries. If it weren’t for her, I might seemingly have personally discovered Vodou unappealing – however it’s a distinct story together with her there.
