Bangles

Sometimes they annoy me and I say
I’m going to take them off for good.

I remember the night when the bangle-seller eased them on:
Bright and clattering, red and gold, spangly with glitter
For weeks afterwards, small shimmers appear
On my clothes, my face, my husband’s blonde hair.

The gentle glitterbomb of Love and India.

I remember my regular bangle-seller,
Rotund and genial,
Telling me (I was 14) that if a man ever grabs me
And I cannot get away,
To slam my wrist against his eyes.
This surprises me:
They are glass, these bangles, decorative and fragile-seeming
Pretty, useless.
But he tells me that adornment never only serves one purpose.

These shining rings are blinding
In more than one way.
One at a time, they are delicate things.
I wear 30 on each arm.

And when a man grabs me and I cannot get away
I smash his eyes and nose and he lets go
Howling and calling me crazy.
I bare teeth, raise fists and shake shattered, bloody bangles at him.
He runs.

But that was a long time ago. Now they break
Against the edge of the sink
As I throw a ball for the dogs
While grinding spices
When I’m cleaning stalls
Or for no reason I can fathom.

Sometimes in the night I roll over and feel a stab at my back,
An unnoticed casualty tangled with us in the sheets.
I know how that one broke.
I place it on the shard-strewn bedside table
And smile back into sleep.

My bangles are not so bright anymore. Stripped of sparkles by
The Indian ocean
The New Orleans sun
My Minnesota farm.

I meant to take them off when I came back home but they stay
Lose against my dark skin
Jangling now against the keyboard
Chiming when I ride my horse
Dwindling of their own accord.

In the grocery store, a woman admires them and asks if I am a Hindu lady.
I say yes.

I smile at her and think, that’s me, darlin: 
A Hindu lady, deadly and adorned.

This Is The Plan

We’ve been in India for a few weeks now, in Garhwal, the first range of the Himalayan foothills. It’s chilly.

We’ve visited SRSG ashram in Rishikesh, spent the day in Haridwar and for the last week we’ve been camped out and bundled up at my mom’s vast white house in Dehradun.

River Ganges at Rishikesh

 

SRSG Ashram, Rishikesh

 

Har-ki-pauri, Haridwar

 

Sadhu (wandering holy man) having a smoke outside a sari shop, Triveni Ghat, Rishikesh.  

 

We’ve made offering into the sacred river Ganges. We’ve marveled over gorgeous fabric, gems and statues. We’ve bounced around in taxis, and discussed the rogue elephant attacking cars on the Rishikesh road. We’ve told stories, made fun of my brother-in-law’s hat, reminisced, argued, watched weird Bollywood music videos, laughed, consumed heroic amounts of chai, and generally just gotten to be a family.

I had great plans for this portion of the trip. I was going to write an article about the International Yoga Youth and Children’s Retreat going on at SRSG. I was going to interview my dad. I was going to interview a traditional Welsh storyteller I met at the ashram. I was going to track down my old horseback riding buddies. I was going to write about my family history with social work, go through old photo albums, visit some historic sites, spend time at the school we run, do art. I was going to be productive.

I did none of these things. India is the great destroyer of itineraries.

I’ve walked in the gardens, consulted (fruitlessly) on how to deal with the monkey menace, meditated in the little hut on the corner of the property, gotten as many hair oiling/head massages as I can coerce my mom or sister into giving me. I’ve gotten up to speed on The Land War In Asia in which we are embroiled. I’ve reconnected with my few friends here. I’ve struggled to adjust to the changes in India.

Now we’ve all pulled out our bags and boxes and started cramming our stuff back in. My sis & bro-in-law leave for Delhi in the morning, Urban & I leave the day after that, the nieces the day after that. Tonight we sat around and read our old Asterix and Tintin comics. Tomorrow this great house will start to empty.

We are not going home though.

Urban and I are headed to Kerala, the southern-most state in India. There, we will explore the backwater canals in a houseboat, travel up into the hills and stay on a tea plantation, then head to the beach to do nothing for a week.

After I see Urban off in Delhi, my mom will meet me and we will head east. I’m not sure what to say about that part of the trip. We will visit a friend’s ashram in Orissa, but that’s sort of a detour. The real purpose of the trip is harder to explain.

When I “became a woman” i.e. started menstruating, my father took me on pilgrimage to two of the primary Kali/Shakti temples: one in Calcutta, one in Assam. On that journey, I was dedicated to the Goddess. Now, I’m going back.

At least, that’s the plan.

Let’s see what actually happens.

Namesake

(You can also read a more coherent and informative explanation of Shivarathri by my friend and colleague Anju.)



It’s Shivarathri—the Hindu festival of Shiva, Lord of the Himalaya, bringer of change, definer of contradictions: he is both detached ascetic and passionate sensualist, a flesh-and-blood man and a nebulous idea. He has a thousand and one names, and no name at all. He walks amid ancient civilizations on the banks of the Ganges and runs fierce in uncharted wilderness. He is the Lord of Animals and keeper of human hearts.  He is death and healing. Shiva dances amid flames, his long hair whipping around him, his drum a blur of savage sound, yet he sits eternally silent in stillness. He is an arrogant warrior that howls with a demon horde and a gentle sage who speaks quiet wisdom in heaven. He is the space between moments.

Live cobras are his adornments but he sits upon the striped skin of a dead tiger. He is arcane and recognized, shadowed and bright. Notorious and respected, perfect and flawed. Imbued with light and too dazzling to look at, he is only revealed in darkness.

He is celibacy and fertility: an impulsive, temperamental lover and a faithful, patient husband, a nomad and householder. The Goddess pines for him, her love unrequited; he throws himself at her feet. His love for her almost destroyed him, the Destroyer. Beholden to none but answerable to all, beyond existence but rooted in the soil of our world. He is the remote sweep of the Himalaya and the lush immediacy of the jungle. He is a bastard and a saint, brutality and compassion. Lord of the dark night, a crescent moon rests above his brow. Shiva is reveler and revealer, unraveler. My life-long patron.

I am named for the moon. Saumya: as gentle and serene as the moon. If you know me, you’re laughing.

The Deodar (Himalayan Cedar), is sacred to Shiva. They are second only to Redwoods in height. This is a rare “Trishul” Deodar, which represents Shiva’s trident.

Shiva moves me and stills the world. I am always sleepless around Shivarathri. Some degree of insomnia is my natural state (there’s a reason my blog is called nsomniasaum!) but in this month when the snow is heavy on the ground and the moon is waning away to nothing, sleep seems to abandon me completely. I feel called to wander, to dwell, to think late and deep. While my work is a natural extension of my spiritual principles, right now I feel the call of the primal. I lose interest in my responsibilities; it’s a struggle to stay hitched to reality. Last year I had the sense to take a vacation around Shivarathri: the jungle in South America was the perfect complement to my urges and mood. This year I am faced with an overflowing inbox, numerous half-completed tasks and a growing, growling restlessness. Rather than follow my instincts, I have stubbornly (and half-assedly) been bumbling around and trying to get stuff done. I did just take about a month off of work to have and recover from surgery, so there are pressing worldly matters to attend to.

But slowly, surely…my motivated, practical and driven nature is subsumed by the mystic in me.  I want to withdraw, to walk forest paths and follow my thoughts, to hear the wind and the wildness. I feel myself simultaneous rising beyond and sinking into myself. There is no stopping it.



The paths to my forest may be snowed in, but I don’t need my body to wander. My thoughts are sometimes wildfire, other times as quiet as the sky. Again and again, an ancient chant tolls in my mind:

Om Namah Shivaiya: Praise to Lord Shiva. I am the namesake of the moon in your hair: the crescent, cupping darkness. We are the same.

This is my current truth: I am the object of my own longing. Everything I reach for is contained within me. I am responsibility and chaos, fetters and freedom, spirit and flesh. Ever changing and never changing. Shiva and Saumya. The river full at my feet, an empty moon above. Darkness lights my way.

Chai & Thanksgiving

 *You can read this as “A Hindu-American’s Thanksgiving” at The Huffington Post Religion blog. Please leave a comment if you like (or don’t like!) my article.*

American Shakti

Versions of this essay be viewed at The Washington Post On Faith blog,  and The HASC site, where you can also learn more about ShaktiSeva.

What is Shakti?

You already know.

Beyond any definition I can give you, beyond explanations drawn from scripture and authorities, is the true meaning of Shakti that each woman knows. It is true because it is your Shakti. It is the part of yourself that you reach into, the deep well that most of us discovered when we had nowhere else to turn. Shakti empowers us into ourselves, empowers us to be ourselves. When you look within for inspiration, solace, guidance, it is Shakti that gives answer and Shakti that acts through you. It is the wisdom of your great-great-great-grandmother, encoded in your bones, the wisdom of the all-Mother that rises through each of us. It is the effervesce of life. Shakti does not only exist in women, but it is through women that it flows. It is our essential foundation, and it is that which goads us to change.

Shakti is a Sanskrit word, but Shakti is beyond religion, race or nation. While the Hindu calendar recognizes Navratri (the nine nights of the Goddess), we are Hindus living in the wheel of Americans seasons. In Euro-American folk traditions, these seasons are significant: autumn is time to enjoy the harvest, to prepare for the quiet wild of winter. As we enter autumn, the air grows crisp, the days grow brief, and we grow introspective. As the days darken, the leaves brighten. We see the colours of the Goddess: gold, orange, red. The season lights its dia to Devi.

There is wisdom in autumn. Feel the city gird itself against the chill, the throngs of people shiver in the wind and wonder at the sky. Become a dragon, breathing steam in the morning. Hear the Goddess as she rustles through the corn, as she revels in the bounty. Feel her readiness for the reaping, the preparation of the long contemplation of winter. As the nights grow longer, let her sing you to sleep. See the trees dress up in their best, then scatter their garments to meet Winter with smooth, bare limbs. Feel the living roots reach deep into the warm beating flesh of our Mother Earth. Feel that power rise to greet the sun, to revel beneath the moon. All this is Devi, the Goddess. This is mother, sister, daughter. This is you and me. This is Shakti.

As that power comes through it becomes: we make it what it is. Whether you are in the boardroom or bedroom, you know the feeling. Shakti is power and Shakti is play. Shakti is the warm womb of the kitchen and the cool bravery of the battlefield. She is the quiet moment when we gather and the brilliant light when we shine. She is what all women know. She is without form yet encompassed by each of our forms. She is beyond and within. Shakti is the current that flows beneath the current.

Shakti is what is shared when women gather: not the essential but superficial knowledge of doing but the deep instinctive knowledge of being. Shakti is not chosen, and we cannot control it. It the flood, the rush of endorphins, the giddy laugh, the flash of insight, the swirl of energy through the cosmos. We ride it like a wave.

This is what Shakti is to me. What is Shakti to you?

This month of October, this season of autumn and Navrathri, take the time to find, explore and express your Shakti. Reach out. Create. Heal.

Celebrate Navratri in a way that is meaningful to you. Nine nights in a row, observe a ritual: it may be traditional, invented or a combination of the two.

• Honor the Deities, Folk Heroes, Activists, Writers, Artists, Innovators, Politicians…the women…who inspire you.
• Forgive a friend who wronged you.
• Light your altar and chant the ancient prayers, then light a candle and take a bath.
• Adorn yourself.
• Arrange events to be inspired by or inspire others with your shakti stories
• Start a journal, a blog, share your stories
• Give yourself permission to create something.
• Revive an old love: sing, dance, paint.
• Write a letter.
• Call your sister, friend, mother.
• Have your friends over: share the profound and silly female bonding rituals of your heritage and youth: oil your hair, do henna, paint your nails.
• Go out for the evening.
• Sign up for a class: make pottery; learn to play the drums, knit a scarf.
• Get moving: go for a walk, learn to ride a horse, take up a martial art.

Just as you already know what Shakti is, you know, deep inside, who you are.

This autumn, tend the light that glows within.

Rediscover yourself. Invent yourself. Become yourself. Most of all: revel in yourself.

Crude Karma

Karma is a flexible word, yogic in its ability to twist into different meanings. People use it when something dramatic happens, to indicate luck, fate, destiny, justice, punishment or reward. None of those are quite right. Trying to understand karma through events is useful, but crude.

I don’t mean crude in a crass sense, but rather visceral, material, something in the visible world. Traditionally, karma refers to patterns of existence under the surface, the ebb and flow of the universe, a tide we affect as much as we are affected by it. It is as much what doesn’t happen, as what does. Crude, we can see. It floats on the surface of things; it can reveal some of what’s in the depths. Analyzing crude karma –what events mean-- can be illuminating, because it is based on things we can see. Events are the invisible process—the things we’re so used to we don’t see them anymore—made visible. Events can help us see, but we have to be careful to keep our vision clear and honest. The most significant lessons are the ones we don’t want to learn.

Every time there is a disaster, some Hindu somewhere says: It was their karma. This drives me crazy. Nobody needs to hear that after experiencing trauma. The way karma is commonly understood, this implies that suffering was deserved.  “Deserving” is another flexible word, implying either entitlement or punishment. Karma is morally neutral. It is not judgment and it is not license to judge others. No one is the authorized agent of karma: you can’t go around smacking people upside the head and then smugly proclaiming it must have been their karma. Bad manners and exploitation have no spiritual justification. The application of any ideal must stand up to common sense and common decency. We are each responsible for our actions.

Karma is the consequence of action. I could insert some poetic quotes from the Bhagavad-Gita, but I’ll spare you. The Gita is a wonderful, wise book, but we don’t need to look to the ancient world for battlefield examples; we are struggling through our own epics right now. We live in a time of dramatic, large-scale events. Now we have to make sense of them.

But understanding is a subtle, slippery thing. Trying to draw a direct correlation of one event to another is tricky. We want to ask: why is this happening? (or, why does this keep happening?) and come up with an answer. But understanding is not an event or intellectual exercise; it is a process. We live it.

Karma is not fatalistic; it is the opposite: the measure of how  our actions on the Universe affects us in return. However, it can appear fatalistic, because once set in motion, certain things must play out. If you drink water, you feel nice and hydrated, but at some point, you will have to pee. That’s an obvious (and crude) example, but a good one. When you’re a little kid, the need to pee is an event that just seems to happen, totally disconnected from anything going on at the time: one minute you’re building a tower, then suddenly….It can be pretty traumatic. I’m sure toddlers wonder: why is this happening to me? As you get older, you figure out that it’s not this mysterious thing. It’s not a punishment, reward, fate, justice, luck or destiny, but it didn’t just randomly occur either. To adults, it may be inconvenient or a relief (or both), but it’s not good or bad. You don’t feel guilty or proud of it. It’s just life in motion. You drink, you pee. You buy, you pay. That, crudely, is karma.

You can learn, and change, and next time the outcome can be different...to some extent. You will always have to pee, but it stops being an event. The drama that gives it an emotional or moral component is gone. You know it’s going to happen, and you learn to be competent. This might seem like a facetious example, but it’s not intended to be silly. It’s amazing, the things we struggle to come to terms with, then absorb, and then barely think of again. So much of what drives our lives has become invisible to us.

Life is driven by choice; according to Hindu belief, to be born (or not) is a choice: you return to life again and again not just because of “karma” to fulfill, but because life is fun; or, some say, we amass karma because we want to stay connected to life; as if life is someone you like but are too shy to ask out, so you leave your sunglasses at their house for an excuse to return. Karma does not have to be a burden. It’s frequently compared to payment, or debt: I think this is apt but misleading, because we have considerable emotional and cultural baggage about debt. No-one really likes the idea of being in debt: we’d all like to own our lives free and clear. But—debt is often what lets us have our cozy homes, our convenient cars, our work wardrobes, vacations, and so on. Incurring debt is often a lot of fun. The money you owe (or earn) does not express the joy and sorrow it helped you experience. Your home is far more to you than the value of your house. Debt can get out of hand, but it can be enriching, too. The process of living is a constant series of exchanges. 

In Hindu thought, Leela, the game board, is symbolic of the world we live in: a game with some rules, but we’re free to play, and it’s no fun to play alone! In Vodou, Ayizan is the spirit of both initiation and the marketplace. While these things seem unconnected, they are intertwined.  The marketplace is also Leela, the world. To initiate is to be in the world; to be in the world is to take part in the entertaining interactions and exchanges of life. You do this through your choices, which in turn become become part of the flow of energy. You may not be attentive to them, but your actions do not just disappear into nowhere when you’re done with them. There are other players on the board, and the marketplace effects everyone.

The idea of Karma unites us: what you do affects me, and vice versa. One person’s action ripples to effect many. There is no question of being deserving or undeserving. We’re all in this together. We all shop in the same market, we all swim in the same Waters. We all thirst. 

This sense of connection makes it appealing, and easy, to lay the blame for things that cause us pain on someone else’s doorstep, someone else’s actions. It’s tempting to blame our Mom, the Universe, God, the Government, Corporations, for letting us down, leading us astray, failing to protect us, or generally screwing us up (or over). But there is no “Government” or “Universe” that is above and beyond us, all powerful and all knowing. Our mom is a lady who did her best; our Government is elected and held accountable by us; our friends, relatives and neighbors work for Corporations from which we buy goods that we want to remain affordable, so we can do what we need to do, and enjoy life along the way.

There is no “them.” We are the Corporations and the Government. We are moms and dads. We are the Universe. This is our world, our joy, our mess.

Our actions are choices. I choose something, not necessarily something dramatic and moral, but an everyday thing, an inevitable thing: I’m thirsty. Everybody has to drink, right? So I’m thirsty. Right now. Excuse me.

Ah, that’s better. My lovely niece stopped by to do some yard work, and brought me an iced coffee from Caribou. Life is made up of such pleasant everyday moments, soon forgotten and usually unremarked upon. But, not noticing something does not mean it is unimportant. So much of what drives our lives is invisible. The most significant lessons are the hardest to learn.

Here are some consequences to my choice of drink: I’m not thirsty any more. I feel happy. I owe my niece four dollars. Later I will have to pee. I’m sensitive to caffeine so I’m going to fly through the day, get a huge amount of work done, and probably not sleep much tonight. If I’m up at 4am, that’s an obvious, a crude, consequence of my beverage. But the ripples spread further, wider: events rise out of process. I might not be the only one losing sleep because of my choices. Buying my coffee from Caribou in a plastic cup supports local jobs, as well as the larger coffee, transportation and petroleum industries.

Embedded in our everyday choices are a whole host of  consequences. Choices direct life. Karma is life in action. Now watch what happens. See the ripples spread.  When we’re all choosing the same thing, all acting the same way, those ripples coalesce into an a wave, a flood, an event that unbalances the world. The game board tips: we all go tumbling. Why does this keep happening?

This is crude karma. It is not done by “them” to “us.” It is not justice, or judgment. It is not luck, fate, destiny, reward or punishment. Although some people may bear the brunt of the suffering, they do not deserve it. We do not have to feel guilty or proud, but if we really want to understand, we have to live a process that can lead to a different outcome.

Our thirst leads us to all manner of tasty delights, but there is a consequence to reckon with, here in the material world. Actions continue far beyond our intent. Eventually the tide brings everything back to our own precious shores.

Svaha~I make this offering

*Here is another one from the archives, circa 2000.

I am not this, consumed by flame; I am not that, washed in water;
I am not that which drew air, nor am I that which walked upon the earth.
I am the earth, I am the air and I am the water.
I am the fire.
All that which is impermanent, I leave behind.
Svaha svaha, svaha, it is no more mine.

My father is dead. I watched it happen, as he performed his own funeral service on the banks of the Ganges. I have heard that Sanskrit phrase, svaha, it is no more mine, over and over again, my entire life. It is said with every offering given on the altar, into a consecrated fire or sacred river. In my family, it is said with humor and resignation, over opportunities or items lost. Our mental shrug, Oh, well, its gone.

That ceremony transformed my father, my Tata, into something else: a Swami, beyond definitions of family, gender, religion. He began a journey away from of me and mine, and sought a life of service. Swamis were not a mystery to me; I grew up with Baba, a guru who initiated me into our tradition when I was six years old. I felt lucky, even as a kid, to know him. He made a family of everyone who needed one. He made the world magical.

When I was nineteen, my dad, struggling with diabetes and a heart condition, was given a last chance by the doctors: a triple by-pass. This was back in the days when heart surgery was a thing of fear and miracles. In the voice that lulled me to sleep as a child with countless guided relaxations (oh, how I relished being able to make him yell when I was a teenager!) he told me that his life was coming to an end, one way or another. He wished to survive, but if he did, it would not be as it was. It was time. He would begin the process of transition towards Swamihood. My mother would care for him after surgery. They would live together as brother and sister for a time. They would part eventually, husband and wife no longer. Not divorce, he stressed, as though I didn’t know. He would renounce his former life, his family. Our father was leaving us for God.

It seemed natural that this was happening. When he said that he would need his children’s formal blessing, I was startled, as if he was asking our permission to stay out late. I must have talked about it with my siblings, my friends, but I have no recollection. I don’t remember feeling rejected or abandoned. It was actually kind of exciting, as if he had won The Nobel Prize or something. Tata was ours, but never only ours. We always shared him with so much, his books, his disciples and his mission. Much was shared with us in return.

Watching him chant his own funeral prayers was another thing. His familiar voice rising and falling, rising and falling as he sang the ancient hymns. I remember sitting in the mild mountain sun, catching my brother’s eye, and thinking, our father is dying.

I am grateful for the Swami who rose from that pyre, although it took awhile to sort things out. What do I call him? (settled on “Tata Swami”) How do I introduce myself? I can’t say “I’m his daughter” anymore, can I? Or can I? There were a few awkward years where no-one was sure how to behave, what was acceptable. This was new territory for all of us. I avoided him.

My relationship with Swami Veda is very different now, but that’s to be expected, I’m not a teenager anymore. I got over my joy of being able to make him raise his voice. Instead I have found pride, solace and inspiration in watching him become. My father had always been a teacher, but a Swami is something more. And he has become more to me than a father. I look forward to the few times a year that I see him, long nights when we sit up and talk. We have an ongoing debate: Are things as they always have been or does the world really change? We argue but also laugh a lot. He still loves to tell jokes, most of them based on awful and elaborate multi-lingual puns. Through Swami Veda, I have finally gotten to know my dad.

No matter what paths I walk, they are extensions of an ancient tradition. I believe the teachings of the mountain sages, teachings repeated in the Bible, Koran, Torah. Teachings spoken by priests and shamans and druids, wisdom based on experience of living: Know thyself. Let go of what limits you. Respect others. Swami Veda has brought that to countless people. He has acquired the weighty title of Maha-mandalashvar, a Swami among Swamis. He has been responsible for bringing the leaders of Buddhism and Hinduism together for the first time in twenty-three centuries, to be the first ambassador of Hinduism in China in I don’t know how long. I may only see him a few times a year, but when I am really in trouble, it’s his phone that rings in the night, where ever he is. When I sit down to meditate, it is his voice in my head…relaaax your shoulders…breathe deeply, slooowly, smoooothly. The echo of the father I let go.

I don’t think it will be so easy to let Swami Veda go, which is ironic.

Not today or tomorrow, not in the next six months, but, holy or not, he is going to die, to make that final life change. I have seen it, under the mountain sun. This time, I am afraid. When Baba died, I knew there was no-one who could replace him; but we had Swami Veda. I had Swami Veda. When he is gone, who is left? Who will be there for me?

And I find when I ask that question, I have trouble meeting my own eyes; for who is left is looking back at me. You skirt around it in your own way; for me it comes down, bluntly, to selfishness. I want mine, my life, my choices, my freedom. I wanted my father. I want the illusion of owning my life…even if I know it’s an illusion. But I am a child of our tradition; I am my father’s daughter. The voice in my head has become my own.

There is no “one” who will take over, who will be Our Father. Who will be mine.

It is exhausting to fight your own truth; I imagine it must be a great relief to finally, totally, just be yourself. I understand why traditions of self-knowledge are not so popular. Revelation can be very disruptive. Compassion is hard work. Surrender takes some getting used to. Our voices are useless if we don’t share them.

I grow tired of the bondage of mine. I know I am not this that walks, breathes, which someday will be washed and burned. I hope that I will have the strength to look at this life I have hoarded so selfishly and be able to someday say, with relief, svaha, it is no more mine. And then live it.

The Vodou that I don’t

A few weeks ago I had a post titled The Vodou that I do, about my struggle to be, and to be honest about being, a priestess of Vodou. It can be hard to talk about, for reasons that I imagine are obvious. Most people don’t even realize Vodou is a religion, and some can be remarkably committed to that view.

So I’m pleased that, after years of frustrating conversations, I finally have a  conclusive way to prove that Vodou is a REAL religion! Is it that Vodouists believe in a Supreme Being? It is that it’s about the human quest to understand the unseen world? No! It’s that Vodou has as much judgment, intolerance and factionalism as other, better known faiths. We’re in the club, people!

I’ve been pretty active on various Facebook groups relating to Vodou, and am happy to have found an incredibly welcoming, diverse and compassionate online community. Of course I have my Vodou family in New Orleans, but I don’t live there. My friends and family here are very supportive, but it gets a little lonely up here in Minnesota. It was wonderful to find others to talk to.  The earthquake in Haiti brought the Vodou community in the USA into conversation, everyone was shaken, everyone was (is) doing something to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti.  Everyone is talking, reaching out, holding each other together.

One particular FB group is a great resource, with mostly kind, informed and helpful people. But, as I discovered -- in a discussion topic on how to deal with ignorance and misinformation about Vodou, of all things – that it wasn’t such a great place to express my uncertainty  about how to respond to said ignorance (I think that’s what’s meant by “irony”). Some people were supportive; others, not so much. My use of the phrase “turn the other cheek” provoked a veritable roar of outrage: I was informed that Vodou is not a “turn the other cheek” sort of religion. Apparently, machetes are required. If our family is threatened, we will draw blades! I was like, AH! NO! Stop now! Bloody metaphors are not particularly helpful in, wait, what were just talking about? I mean, really, it’s funny: let’s address misinformation and fear with some really violent imagery, because clearly people aren’t scared enough of us already. *sigh*

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me (where’s the fun in that?) but neither did I expect the metaphorical machete lady, also a group admin and a fellow Mambo, to tell me that my statements illustrate my lack of understanding of Vodou. That Vodou is not this but that. One thing led to another and, suddenly I realized I was in conversation with Vodouists who believe that because I 1. did not kanzo (initiate) in Haiti and 2. do not offer animal sacrifice, I am not a “real” Mambo. To these people that I found welcoming and interesting and cool, I practice “Pseudo Voodoo” and am not a priestess. Ouch.

Now, to be fair, this is my own fault. I asked for this. I knew there were people who would not recognize my initiation because of these things. I was like, ok, they can chill with the other 4 billion people (or 2 billion, or 5.9 billion, or whatever) who don’t recognize any religion other than their own. Given the choice to kanzo in Haiti or New Orleans, I would choose New Orleans every time, every day, from now to eternity.

Anyway, I believed that people would not recognize me as a Mambo, but I didn’t BELIVE believe it. You know what I mean.

The group admin/Mambo, whom I have been FB friends and very cordial with for over a year, actually unfriended me after the revelation of my New Orleans lineage and wimpy, non-sacrificing ways. I have to admit that I’m (perhaps inappropriately) delighted to be unfriended on FB over Vodoun ideological differences. I mean, doesn’t that make you feel like anything is possible?  But I’m also saddened and pissed off by the contemptuous tone of her words.

It’s not the differences or disagreement that bother me—I love to argue, live to argue—it’s the blatant arrogance and disrespect inherent in telling someone they 1. do not understand their own religion and 2. what they are practicing is not legitimate religion anyway. WTF? What makes someone think they have the authority to ascribe legitimacy?

The real question is: why does it bother me? I’ve been a member of a little-understood tradition since birth. Never mind what most Americans or Brits I’ve lived among think, I have found other Hindus to be the most disrespectful, judgmental and dogmatic people imaginable. I guess the closer we are to something, the more it can threaten us. There’s no feud like a family feud. To explain: Hinduism is really really a real religion made up of countless factions, philosophies, views and practices…but some are more prominent than others. I’m sort of a religious minority among Hindus, what with this weirdo meditation stuff. Many Hindus also don’t consider me a priestess—they have a problem with that “ess” thingy on the end of the word that indicates my gender isn’t male. Some traditional, caste-obsessed Hindus even consider me literally, not just metaphorically, illegitimate. My mother, a priestess in her own right,  was not born in India, so she wasn’t Hindu enough for my parents’ marriage to be recognized in some hidebound Brahmin circles.  My feelings on these matters? Whatever. Screw you and the narrow-minded, misogynistic caste you rode in on. I would never waste my time arguing about this stuff (although I’d recommend people watch what they say about my mom; I do have a machete around here somewhere). I’d stew my teeth, roll my eyes and forget it by the end of the day. Ok, no, I’d probably rant about it for awhile, but you know what I mean. It rolls right off of me.

So, if half a billion (or however many) conservative Hindus don’t bother me, why do a few Vodouists? 

I’ve been mulling that over for awhile now. I’ve ranted, talked it out, even sat in front of my altar all night and sort of sulked about it….and I’ve come to some really uncomfortable conclusions.

This is about my arrogance, not anyone else's. When Hindus denigrate or disrespect me, I can ignore them, in part, because I know what I know. I know who I am. I can be like, yeah, why don’t you go study the Vedas in Sanskrit, then get back to me? You want my lineage?  Sit down, honey, this is going to take awhile. I’ve got crumbling manuscripts and however many generations of ancients backing me up. My family’s land was granted by the mother of the dude who built Taj Mahal, around a hundred years before the founding of the United States. Our spiritual heritage is far more ancient. I’m terrifically proud of my history, and do my best to fulfill the responsibilities that come with it. Although I’ve struggled to make sense of my place in my tradition –-as a woman and someone with, it’s been pointed out, somewhat strong opinions— I’ve never doubted that there was a place. It was my choice to take it or leave it (well, not really, but that’s a post for another day). Basically, I can out-Hindu most Hindus. 

Then the Lwa found me in New Orleans and everything was chaos and I discovered Vodou. (Although the Lwa havr been with me my whole life, I didn’t realize until then.) It’s a tradition I knew little about. I have no privilege of birth, no credentials or education that come with it. I have to speak for myself in a different way, to find faith in myself in a different way.  The very things I love about Vodou—its capacity to level, its lack of hierarchy—are the very things that stir the doubt in my depths. In Vodou I am no one. I am leveled. I have to struggle through my fear and frailties in order to find or make myself. And I’d rather there not be any witnesses to that journey. It’s bad enough that I have to witness it.

These people I’m in disagreement with affect me because they  reveal things about me that I’d rather ignore. Anger I can embrace. Lack of confidence is something I have a hard time accepting, assessing and forgiving myself for. The closer we are to something, the more it can threaten us.

However, feeling insecure and like maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about might slow me down but does not shut me up. It’s  also been pointed out that shutting me up can be a little, um, challenging.

Here is my response to a very lovely post from another group admin describing traditional Haitian Vodou which stated, among other things, that there is one true Vodou, and (although nothing was directed at me personally) I am not a part of it.

~If for some insane reason this post is not long enough for you, and you feel the need to see the whole conversation, you can view it here and here.~

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I'm going to try and tread carefully here. I do not intend any of what follows to be an analysis of your tradition, I am trying only to respond to your comments regarding yours being the one true Vodou.

I agree that someone cannot take a class or read a few books and then expect to be accepted into a tradition, although the books and the class may lead them to find a tradition. Discipline, guidance and commitment to one's tradition are necessary.

I also agree that people should not label what they are doing as traditional Haitian Vodou if it is not. That is both disrespectful and delusional. Where I disagree is with your statements that other paths are "Pseudo-Voodoo" which threaten your tradition's future. Please let me be clear that I am not referring to doing things haphazardly or randomly, but to other different or emergent traditions and communities that respectfully serve the Lwa.

As someone born into a very ancient spiritual lineage, not hundreds but thousands of years old, (see? I somehow manage to drag that in) I understand the need to preserve and pass on tradition. It IS a calamity for these ancient and wise ways to vanish. However, I don't think that the existence of different, syncretic or parallel traditions in any way threatens the ancient way of doing things.

As for altering tradition, most ancient traditions change as the years go on, in subtle as well as obvious ways. Do you think that a tradition that excludes women from being clergy is destroyed when women become clergy? One comment I have heard from an African practitioner is that women cannot be "real" priests in the way men are. Someone in Africa might well consider Caribbean traditions "pseudo voodoo" that threatens to corrupt and destroy their ancient tradition. (Although most of the traditional African practitioners I know do not see boundaries around their faith. As it was put to me, Vodou is "everywhere and everything").

Alterations, evolution or innovation aside, even some ancient traditions do not recognize other, equally ancient, traditions. (Hindus have been disagreeing with other Hindus for literally ages). We can choose to recognize the legitimacy of other people's faith, in the same way we hope our own faith will be respected. That does not mean we understand or agree with it.

We all have a hard time taking our younger siblings seriously! Africa is the soil of Vodou. Caribbean traditions are younger and different from African traditions, not less real or less authentic. They are not African traditions altered for personal preference. They are birthed, evolved from and perpetuate ancient ways, not particular practice, but the deep knowledge, the pulse that underlies and gives life to the visible.

Likewise, there are ways to serve the Lwa that are not traditional Haitian Vodou as you describe it, and "different" does not mean watering down or corrupting something authentic. Practitioners of your tradition's path are not the only ones who have real relationships with the Lwa. As an East Indian I frequently often offer guests something they have never tried before...quite often they like it. Does that significantly change them as a person? Are they less of who they are because they had some chai? If the Lwa don't like something, they are, as you pointed out, very capable of saying so. If the guest is as happy with chai at my house as with chicken at yours, what is the problem?

I'm going to use the example of New Orleans Vodou, as it's what I'm familiar with. New Orleans has its own Lwa, some of which are Haitian and before that, African. Others are local. Just as Haiti looks to Africa, New Orleans looks to Haiti. For a Haitian practitioner, going to Africa to initiate into the ways of the Lwa is not necessary; their Lwa are right there in Haiti. For the practitioner of New Orleans Vodou, their Lwa are right there as well. The pulse of New Orleans is Vodou, deep and real and true.

There is also "Pseudo-Voodoo," or "tourist voodoo" as it's often called, in New Orleans: souvenirs, performances and so on. I imagine the same is true in Haiti?...the intent is to entertain and bring in tourist dollars. That is what makes it "pseudo." People may confuse this with Vodou in the peristyle. It is not.

From what I understand, there are many native Haitian practitioners who do not feel that there is "one true Vodou" as defined in the terms you set forth. There are also those who share your views. I'm sure, as with all traditions, there are some who feel that one must be born into it.

Which of these views represents Vodou? One of them? Two? All three? Are the ones who recognize or perform kanzo outside of Haiti not "real" Vodousiants, despite their being born and initiated into generations-old lineages in Haiti? Do people not born in Haiti and not raised in that culture, have the authority to tell native Haitians that what they are practicing is not real, or that they have no authority to interact with their family Lwa or practice their own ancestral traditions in the manner of their choosing? (I have no idea where you're born, I'm just trying to make a point about the dangers of using only one tradition as a synonym for authenticity.)

Isn't that what happens when the missionaries come? They start deciding what is religion and what is not?

I understand the need for distinct markers by which to define what is and what isn't a particular tradition. Much of your post is a great example of how to do that. These traditions MUST be preserved. But where we differ, is that I think it is possible to define, practice and perpetuate a tradition without labeling everything outside of it as false.

Isn't that our complaint about conservative, proselytizing Christians? That they think everything outside of their tradition is a 'pseudo' religion which threatens and destroys the one true faith? Don't we keep saying that those views are based on ignorance and fear?
I'd ask you to consider the same thing I ask the conservative Christian to consider: How, exactly, does the way I worship in my home threaten the way you worship in yours? Who has the authority to judge what is real religion?

One way of worship offers no insult or threat whatsoever to another...until we choose to denigrate a different way of life as false and set ourselves, and our tradition, above all others as the sole authority for truth. Is that Vodou? If so, you're right, what I practice is not Vodou at all.

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~If you’re going to leave a comment, and I wish you would, please keep in mind that some of the people I’ve discussed (probably not the infamous, Unfriendly Mambo) may read this, and thus your comments. So, be nice. We may disagree, but they are still my sisters. And if you threaten my family, well… I might have to get the machete out.

Holi ~ Hindu Spring/Minnesota Winter

It’s Holi!

Holi is India’s answer to Carnival, if you can imagine Carnival including a nation-wide water- and colored-powder-fight. It’s bright and obnoxious and loud and fun: a hue and cry.

The “Festival of Colors” harkens Spring. It occurs on Phalgun Purnima, or the full moon at the end of the last winter month. In some parts of India (not mine; I lived in a pretty boring part of India, festival-wise) it’s preceded by fifteen days of worship and revelry, including a huge bonfire the night before.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, takes part. In the morning, you put on white clothes and go to the temple; the adventure is getting home. You spend the rest of the day drinking bhang (if I have to tell you what that is, you don’t need to know), throwing bright colored powder and water balloons and soaking family, friends and total strangers alike with water guns full of colored water.

On Holi, traditional behavior and boundaries break down. Class and caste are forgotten. Employees gang up on their bosses, students throw water balloons at teachers, kids waylay grandparents. Although technically a Hindu festival, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs flood the streets as well. If you’re out of the house—old, young, rich, poor—you’re fair game. Reluctant people are often pulled out of the door and mercilessly soaked by friends. You are going to party whether you like it or not!

On this day, India is ruled by Krishna, the mischievous lover. Social rules and reserve are washed away in a raucous flood of  procreative play. Holi is a boisterous and beautiful sexual thrill, an ancient wet T-shirt festival. For little kids, clueless to connotations, it’s just play. For teenagers, half innocent and half knowing, it’s a day of permissiveness and unleashed energy. For adults, it’s a day of freedom, a chance to relax the tension of propriety and embrace the primal. Wives and husbands flirt like young lovers. People chase each other, catch each other, smear each other with color, soak each other with Spring. The thin cotton clothes of men and women alike become plastered to bodies painted sky blue and sea green and saffron and that crimson that looks redder and richer and brighter in India than anywhere else in the world. The country goes mad with color.

Gangs of kids and young men, faces smeared red, bodies painted like warriors, will roam around,  defend a territory from other gangs, ambush strangers and roar with laughter. It does get violent in the city, and unsafe for women. Spring fertility rites and modern Indian cities are a dangerous combination. The heady and the horrific keep close company.

When I was little, Holi was a neighborhood thing, wild and exciting but pretty safe. It got rougher as I got older, so we used to go to a friend’s village up the mountains to celebrate. Adults and kids alike would chase each other around the huts and small houses, tear through the forest, powder clutched in one hand, squirt gun in the other, whooping and shrieking with dismay or triumph or both.  Everybody got crazy, everybody had fun. It makes me smile to remember.

This is the one time of year that I ache for India. Festivals who were popular in their native land can get lonely when they live abroad. We make Hindu holidays our own, here on a Minnesota farm: celebrate Diwali by filling the house with the scent of chai and the light of candles; Shivaratri with reflection and conversation. But trying to celebrate Spring Rites in a Midwestern February…well, there are limits. The white clothes of Winter remain pristine, untouched. Only the sky, too distant to tint the snow, shines with color…but it is a blue brighter and cooler and sharper than any other sky over any other place on earth.

To know more than one place is to be stretched thin, ever longing for the home you’re not in. I keep having flings and then falling in love with other geography. Just when I think I’m settled and safe, I’m pulled out my door by the rough and colorful friends I’ve made of other places.

I’m staying in today, remembering old loves and feeling happily married. Urban and I will cook Indian food: Panir (famers cheese) with peas and mushrooms, peppers with cilantro and lemon, rajma (kidney beans in a tomato gravy) saffron rice; and listen to music: Nine Inch Nails, Modest Mouse, Pink, Santigold. Maybe even some MIA and Indian fusion, who  knows? We’ll laugh and trip over the dogs and tease each other and argue about what to listen to and chase each other around the kitchen. We’ll make the day our own. We’ll color it, sweet and deep, and it will be like no other time or place on this earth.