It started out as a "Magick Thing" for me...
Being nearly obsessively into in All Things Tarot, in early 1992 I came across a recently published Tarot book & deck in a San Francisco bookshop.
The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot turned my whole Magickal Life & World upside-down.
Having been active in various forms of Western Magick - with increasing depths of understanding, and degrees of participation through most of my life - I experienced the "intuitive-tingle" that informed me this would be a substantial extension of my journey.
Not a week later, I came across Luisah Teish's Yoruba-spiced Jambalaya.
Subtitled "The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals" Luisah invites men who are strong enough in their worldview to include women equally in the human race [my words] to enjoy the book as well.
That summer, California Bay Area Witchcraft leader Starhawk, and Louisa Teish conducted a Grand Magickal Night of Dance & Ritual on the beach, which I was blessed to attend. That night I accepted, in my heart and in my mind, that I was now a Vodouisant.
These books and other books and events cut a new, wider & deeper Life Road on which I continue to dance with near-childlike, excitement & anticipation.
I learned that, Voodoo needn't involve bloody sacrifices without losing Ache. This is called Manje sek.
At first, it was solely the Magick of Voudou that remained my focus of study & understanding and practice & experience.
A most important facet of Voudou I quickly came to love - not ordinarily included in Western Magick - is the developing of one's awareness of continued relationship with the Ancestors ... a vital thread running through all forms of Voodou. This was the segue to my budding understanding of Voodoo's religious nature.
It was only after some time spent also becoming familiar with, and serving some of the Lwa that I felt comfortable enough to request their help and guidance in both my Magickal works and ordinary life circumstances.
During a beautiful Voudou rite in Oakland, on June 23rd, St. John's Eve in 1996, I was given a Lav Tet by the elderly Voudou Queen Jolene Jackson, whom I had come to love and respect in the months since first meeting & studying with her in Oakland.
She also told me who my Lwa Met Tet is, whose identity was a total surprise ... I never even imagined being so honored and blessed by that wonderful Lwa.
I can't tell the name of my Lwa Met Tet - however, I am able to tell you that Queen Joleen also divined that Marie Laveau walks beside me.
We mutually agreed that I wasn't yet prepared to accept Kanzo but that the Lav Tet would ease my way into Voodoo ... Hounsi Kanzo would come at a later time.
While my then-partner of 17 years, Scott, was consistently losing-ground in his struggle with AIDS, I was increasingly struggling with my own suffering of "Holocaust Survivor Syndrome."
Additionally, tho' he was entirely non-spiritually-minded, Scott put up with the many twists and turns of my spiritual journey. Yet his tolerance came to a screeching halt when it came to my interest and participation in Voudou. Thank you, Racist Hollywood films and Pulp Fiction trash that has made Voudou a superstitiously frightening religion to far too many good folks.
Eventually, a series of terrible circumstances and events (including Scott's passing) - and my collapsed, dysfunctional response to it all - had so skewed my perceptions that I felt trapped in a distorted world made of broken Fun House Mirrors.
It took leaving San Francisco for those distortions of perception to fade away altogether.
Just a few days before my journey out of California ... convinced that Kanzo would straighten-out my head, as well a strengthening me to courageously face my demons, and continue my Voudou journey safely (including stabilizing my body's and my mind's recovery from the spontaneous Possession experiences to which I've been susceptible since early adolescence) ... with her sister Marguerite attending, Mama Jolene gave me Hounsi Kanzo.
Honor, respects and love for you, Queen Jolene!
