The Game of the Warrior Goddesses of Voodoo and Santeria

Last updated on: April 14, 2014 at 9:50 am By Lilith Dorsey

dollgame — Santeria Catholics, Havana, Cuba photo by Bruce Tuten. Text added. Licensed under CC 2.0

Life is a game, you can buy it at the toy store. (No, I’m only kidding!) But sometimes life is a series of clues, stories and signs to be interpreted and nurtured. Goddesses can help us do that. They can help us roll the dice and move forward in the right direction. In the Afro-Diasporan traditions of Vodou, Voodoo, and Santeria (La Regla Lucumi,) there is an entire legion of goddesses, or divine energies called Loa or Orisha, that have their own strong and intense feminine power. In many spiritual houses people are believed to have guardian spirits, both a mother and a father Orisha to guide them in this divine game of life. Which Orisha rules, guides, and protects a person can be determined in a variety of ways. In Santeria, which is more properly known as La Regla Lucumi, divination is performed by a number of Babalawos until the information is revealed. In Haitian Vodou, sometimes the first Lwa that comes to a person in trance possession is said to be their guardian spirit. In certain Caribbean countries a person’s ruling Orisha or Lwa is determined by their birth family and they grow up with that information to identify and shape themselves. I remember hearing an amazing tale about a teacher asking a group of school children in her creative writing class to write a story about their life. Each one proceeded to write a story about a Loa or Orisha. For these Caribbean children the story of their lives was seen through the divine lens of the instructional religious stories they had been told. Not everyone has these methods at their disposal, a simple way to start discovering which energies are surrounding you at this moment can begin in your garden.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

yemayasequin — Festa de Iemanja 2013 by Clarissa Pacheco licensed under CC 2.0

One very popular tactic in Santeria/Lucumi, Hoodoo, and New Orleans Voodoo is to use whatever plants are growing around you in your own herbal spells and preparations. I have even heard some Babalawos suggest to take note of which Orisha is providing you plants to use and “grow” with in your spiritual life. A very extensive list of herb correspondences can be found in Carlos Montenegro’s very informative Santeria Formulary. As always check with your godparents to see your own personalized recommendations for your house, but if that’s not possible or you want some suggestions here are some to get you started:

Oya: Orisha of the Cemetery. She is the Ashe or energy of Change. (Oya is always addressed seperately from Oshun and Yemaya)

Cypress, Dill, Eucalyptus, Violet, Rue, Rosemary, Mugwort

Yemaya: The Orisha of the Sea

Spearmint, Lemon Balm, Indigo

Oshun: The Orisha of the River

Honeysuckle, rose, chamomile, sunflower, plantain

Maman Brigitte: Haitian Loa of the Dead

Chili peppers, chives, lavender

Storytime: The Words for all Time

African-American history is founded in the culture of storytelling. The oral tradition was all displaced slaves had to remember and share their culture. Master Storyteller Valerie Tutson explains ”stories are the way that we figure out who we are.”

In the Afro-Cuban tradition of La Regla Lucumi, or Santeria, the stories are called patakis and they contain extremely valuable lessons about how the world works. Familiarizing yourself with these stories is a great way to better understand these Orisha. You can learn how the goddess of change begins to shapeshift, or how Oshun saves the world with her sweet hips. All these Afro-Diasporan goddesses are warrior goddesses because they fight with whatever they have to emerge triumphant. Many Santeria patakis can be found in Santero Luis Manuel Nunez’s book Santeria.

They Walk, They Talk

In addition to folktales and patakis there are several great pieces of fiction that talk about the magickal world of the spirits. One of the most entertaining in Brazilian writer Jorge Amado’s War of the Saints, where the statues of the Orixas come to life and start walking around. For those of you who might like to see me walk, and talk more about this subject in person, I will be offering the

Warrior Goddesses of Africa and Beyond Workshop at

Brid’s Closet 296 Main St., Cornwall, NY this Saturday, April 19th 2014

We will be discussing movement and trance techniques associated with these goddesses, other sacred plants and foods, and many more ways to connect with these ancient divine energies.

History of Haint Blue- the Color of the Dead

Last updated on: April 9, 2018 at 9:17 am By Lilith Dorsey

haintbluetitle — Haint Blue Victorian Porch ceiling photo by Lake Lou. Text added by author. Licensed under CC 2.0

There are blues that you get from sleepless nights,

But the bluest blues to me,

Are the blues that make me hot and cold and make me want to shiver

And make me want to end it all by jumping in the river,

Are the blues my naughty sweetie gives to me, gives to me.

The blues my naughty sweetie gives to me.

The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me– Words and Music by N. Swanstone, Charles R. McCarron and Carey Morgan (This song came on while I was writing this, those naughty sweetie Haints )

haintpaint2 — False door actually leads to piazza, haint blue house photo by David McSpadden. Licensed under CC 2.0

Voodoo and Hoodoo history have a color for you: It’s called “Haint Blue.” Maybe your grandmother used it, or your great grandmother. A haint is another way of saying haunt, or ghost, but the word is not used very often these days, even if the haints still exist. The color, however is as bright and alive as it ever was.

Back to the Gullahs

The history of Haint Blue goes back to the Gullah (sometimes referred to as Geechee after the Ogeechee river) people of coastal South Carolina and Georgia.Even Southern Living tells us it is a ghostbuster, and recommends buying Benjamin Moore Palladin Blue to duplicate it’s classic effects at home.

A Serious Blue

Some think the history goes back to the use of Cobalt Blue to ward off the evil eye, or Cerulean Blue by Kongo people to honor the ancestral realms. Souls Grown Deep: African-American Vernacular Art notes it was used on “window frames, door frames, and porches of many Southern African-American homes.” This is a simple, and effective tradition to continue today. Even if you can’t, or don’t want to paint your whole window or porch blue, consider using this color to place protective veves, sigils, or other symbols around your home. The original recipe for “Haint Blue” paint was a mixture of dye from the indigo plant and lime among other things. Plant indigo around your home to protect it and chase away negativity (be careful it’s poisonous.) Crystal Aneira in her blog Herbal Riot mentions how indigo can be used for protection, and even offers a recipe for Dragon’s Blood using indigo. Lime, naturally repels insects and this is most likely how “Haint Blue” got it’s reputation for chasing away bugs, spiders, and other literally creepy things. Lime can be sprinkled around outside the home for both sacred and secular protection magick. Good luck and Happy Hainting!

9 Real Truths About Voodoo Spells

Last updated on: March 13, 2018 at 8:56 pm By Lilith Dorsey

frogvoodoo — Voodoo by Pedro Henrique Correa. Text added by author. Licensed under CC 2.0

Voodoo spells are hot sh*t. Everyone wants to sell you an expensive little bottle of love, money, magick. It’s a monstrous business, and even though I am an initiated Voodoo Priestess, I’m not really sure why. Most of the time the stories I hear are about hucksters and haters and people would probably be better off just throwing their money away. There are a few truths that I think might help people better understand what is and what isn’t possible with a Voodoo spell. Good luck, and if you’re going to go to a new practitioner for a Voodoo spell please do so with your eyes and your mind open. As they used to say on the cop show Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there.”

1.Be Careful What You Wish For.

Love-candle photo by Bogdan. Licensed under CC 2.0

This might as well be the cardinal rule of Magick. This tired trope gets repeated so damn often because it’s true. My favorite cautionary tale about this I call the “Got to Have Pat” story. I’ve been telling it for over a decade. It never gets old. The story was told to me by a dear friend who actually got mixed up in trying to help these people. Note: the following names have been changed to protect the ignorant. Hoodoo Joe (let’s call him) was in love, not a casual love, an all consuming passion that drove his every thought. He had been involved with a man named Pat. Pat was a rogue, a bad boy, a Lothario, in short, he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Hoodoo Joe spent many nights waiting, worrying, and weeping for a situation that never came. Early on in the game of love, he started to turn to Hoodoo practitioners and root workers for help. He performed one unsuccessful spell after another, until he had amassed an entire room in his home dedicated to altars and spellwork designed to bring about the results he wanted. Finally, he was successful. Pat moved in and they were both dead of AIDS within the year. Now, I don’t think Voodoo spells caused Hoodoo Joe’s demise, but maybe he should have opened his mind up to different possibilities.

2.You get what you pay for, and put into it.

This doesn’t mean you have to pay thousands of dollars to get what you want, but your success will be built on the time, money and effort you put into it. Very often when people contact me for spellwork they have no interest or desire in doing what it takes to make the process successful. Money as I have said is one component, you don’t expect your doctor or your lawyer to work for free do you? Spells also become more effective when directly connected ingredients are used. For example if you are working to heal someone, it’s best to have them there, if they can’t be there then try to use some of their hair or handwriting as a link to their physical self. My experience is that people can be just plain lazy, and they don’t want to bother to get or perform the necessary elements for success.

3. Voodoo Doctors Specialize.

barongraffitti — Baron Samedi- Voodoo Man photo by Uberto. Licensed under CC 2.0

Medical doctors specialize and Voodoo doctors ( another name for practitioners) also specialize. Be a little wary of going to someone who says they can do everything well. Many spellcrafters, myself included, work in partnership with other practitioners to make sure they can carry spells for all situations, even if they didn’t create all the magic themselves. You wouldn’t go to a foot doctor for a headache, so don’t put your foot in your behind and think one guru can solve all your problems.

4. More, More, More…How Do you Like it?

Voodoo practice follows a general rule of increase. By that I mean the situation you are working on can, in effect,

St John's eve altar, part of annual offerings in Voodoo. Photo by Lilith Dorsey — St John’s eve altar, part of annual offerings in Voodoo. Photo by Lilith Dorsey

build up a tolerance for whatever spiritual solutions you are throwing at it. One day a situation might be helped by a single candle, the next time you may need two, after that four, … I knew one man who was up to 24 candles to solve his problem before he decided to change things up.

5. It Ain’t Easy.

snakevoodoomuseum — Voodoo objects, Voodoo Museum, New Orleans, USA photo by Paul Mannix. Licensed under CC 2.0

I got a question the other day from a woman who wanted a love spell to return her lost love. Now this situation has it’s own issues, see number 1 above, but the other problem is that she was located in Indonesia. As much as I would love to have mastered the magick or the logic of the Customs department, many of the ritual items we use in New Orleans Voodoo and Haitian Vodou spells are not easily transported or are forbidden across international lines. Most spells have herbal ingredients, and sometimes animal ones too, you can see the potential problems.

This is obviously just a beginning, only five of nine. Tune in Next Time on Voodoo Universe as the list goes on with more truth about Voodoo Spells.

Mojo, Juju, Mumbo Jumbo- What Does It Mean?

Last updated on: December 21, 2013 at 9:45 am By Lilith Dorsey

Tarkawa Bay- Snake Charmer by Sudhanshu Pran Kaul licensed under CC by 2.0

I love words. I sleep with a dictionary next to my bed. I collect antique dictionaries. They get me hot. Well, maybe not literally, but words are a key to our past, a doorway to understanding and meaning that we use everyday. Even my path of Eleggua in Santeria (Lukumi) is all about words, which came as a surprise to both me and my godmother, when we saw the divination results. I love to dance and move so much that everyone thought I would have those qualities ruling my spirituality. But then the thought came, like a revelation “There are always words.” When you dance there are words in your head, maybe words in the music, words people are speaking around you, always words. Even when we sleep there are words in our dreams, sometimes we even speak them. My best friend said to me once over the phone(after she had apparently fallen asleep) “ There is tuna between us.” That has to be my favorite mysterious sleep talk. The world of Voodoo has a lot of mysterious words and many have found their way into our waking speech today.

Words from beneath the ocean, across the seas, from the stars….

Many of the mysterious words of Voodoo originate from West Africa, brought to other continents across time and tide literally in some cases. Some must have traveled across the oceans, whispered in cargo holds by slaves counting on their Mojo, their Juju, and hoping Mumbo Jumbo would save them. In New Orleans Voodoo and Haitian Vodou cosmology there is a belief that the wisdom of the ancestors comes from both the depths of the ocean and the farthest stars. This is a continuing line of knowledge that comes from below passes through us, and then takes off to the stars. Then the whole thing cycles back again in a divine spiral. This is what happens with the words of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Mojo Risin’

James Douglas Morrison in Arte Jim by Marco Scotto Fellino licensed by CC 2.0

The Yoruba of West Africa have a sacred word, Mojuba which means simply Thank you. The origins of the word Mojo lie here. The Mojubas are prayers that are uttered to the divine thanking them for their glory and powerful guidance. Over the years this has drifted towards a more modern definition meaning power and magic in general. There is Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff girls, the popular Mojo magazine, Austin Powers sexual mojo, Paleontologists have recently even named a dinosaur Mojoceratops, but then in keeping with the Christmas season there is a Ba Humbugi snail. People are strange. Most people know that blues musician Muddy Waters got his Mojo Working. Then there are classic bands like the Doors singing about the anagram of Jim Morrison’s name “Mr. Mojo Risin’,” and amazing more recent talent like Ten Ton Mojo ( follow them on twitter.) Mojo is everywhere.

Juju

Ju is the Yoruba word for throw. This obvious root of the word Juju comes from the custom of throwing herbal spells and fetishes at people as a method of spiritual delivery. Some also attribute it’s use to the Hausa people. There is an amazing piece by Bill Casselman about the Oxford English Dictionary falsely attributing juju and gris gris to the french language despite their obvious African roots. Over time this word has evolved to mean the energy, or what Voodoo practitioners would call the Ashe of a place. There is definitely bad juju and good juju and this has found it’s way into urban legend in the form of monkey paws and rabbit’s feet respectively.

Mumbo Jumbo

The most widely accepted history of the phrase Mumbo Jumbo is that it refers to a masked ritual where people would be publicly punished for their indiscretions. But you may be thinking wait doesn’t Jumbo means big like the elephant. Well, actually Barnum was told the elephant was named Jumbo, which was probably a bastardization of the Swahili word Jambo, which means Hello, and was very likely one of the few words the foreigners has retained from their journey to obtain the animal. The first print appearance of the words Mumbo Jumbo was in Travels in Africa written in 1738. It is described here as a “Mundingo (Mandingo) idol. “ An supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1803 describes a strange custom in which a masked dancer would come in the darkness and a ritual would occur. These sound similar to the Egungun masquerades that occur even still today. My favorite literary reference to Mumbo Jumbo is in Ishmael Reed’s fictional book of the same name. He supposes that Mumbo Jumbo at one time meant divine ancestor wisdom. Seems like when we were young our elders were just speaking Mumbo Jumbo anyway. Maybe age has taught us to listen better and speak wisely. If you have a chance please leave your own Mumbo Jumbo in the comments below, I’d love to hear what you think.