Peace be with you, my friends! Today I would like to share with you a little about an Asian tradition that has striking similarities with Voodoo is regards to honoring the dead. This is the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts which takes place on the 14th day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Chinese calendar, sometime from mid to late August according to the western calendar. It is a time to honor the ancestors and especially ghosts who have nobody to pray from them.
14th day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Chinese calendar
In fact, the term “Hungry Ghost,” refers to this particular class of spirits who are in most need of prayers, food offerings, incense and spirit money, about which I have blogged extensively in previous posts. Throughout China, Taiwan and Singapore people gather at temples and adorn private altars at home with such offerings to ensure that the dead are happy in the afterlife and so that they in turn will bless the living with good fortune.
Yesterday, inspired by this traditional Chinese practice, I made a service to my spirit guides and ancestors in observance of the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts. This day is not observed in New Orleans or Haiti, but the veneration of ancestors and spirits guides is an extremely important aspect of both Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo. The traditional day to honor the dead is November 2nd, the Feast of all Souls. On this day, Voodooists place a variety of offerings on their home altars and offer prayers and candles both at home and in church for their ancestors to ensure their happiness in the next world and seek blessings for those still on Earth.
November 2nd is by no means the only time of year that you can and should make offerings to your ancestors. There is a service in Voodoo called an ancestor feast that you may perform at any time to seek a special favor from your spirit guides or to thank them for the blessings that they have given you. I personally perform the service once a month.
Performing an ancestor feast is simple. Lay out a white table cloth and place as many food offerings ad you’d like. Traditional offerings consist of white, bland foods such as popcorn, steamed white rice, bread and flour dumplings. You can also offer black coffee, beer and clear water. Be careful never to include any salt in foods presented to the dead, as it weakens spirits and is even used in many rituals of purification and exorcism. After laying out the food offerings simply talk to your ancestors and spirits and ask for their help and blessings and thank them for all they have done for you. Leave the food overnight and the following day dispose of it either in a cemetery or outside in nature.
I hope you have enjoyed learning about how to serve your ancestors and spirit guides. If you have any questions or would like me to perform an ancestor feast on your behalf, please do not hesitate to contact me. Until next time, may the Ancestors and all the Saints bless you abundantly!
Chinese Spirit Bowl
Peace be with you my friends! Today I've decided to blog a little about a special service that I offer, which admittedly is one of my favorites to perform. I call it my Chinese spirit bowl. To understand this service, which I personally developed about five years ago, we should first discuss the tradition of offering spirit money to our ancestors and spirit guides which is common in various countries and cultures throughout Asia.
Many asian countries burn spirit money.
In various parts of Asia, most notably China, Taiwan and Singapore, it is a common practice to burn paper money and gold and silver colored paper as offerings for family members who have crossed over to the other side in order that they may have a comfortable afterlife. There are three main categories of spirit money: The first is cash in the form of colorful bills usually issued in astronomically high denominations. These are meant for recently deceased relatives and unknown spirits who have nobody to pray for them, also known as “hungry ghosts.” The second is silver leaf paper which is meant for highly revered ancestors and finally gold leaf paper which is meant for Chinese folk gods or the Jade Emperor himself, the supreme ruler of the afterlife. If a person finds him or herself haunted by an unhappy ghost, the most effective remedy is to burn a package of spirit money to make the spirit happy so it will go away. People firmly believe that their ancestors will bless them abundantly in this life if they are well cared for in the next. In recent decades it has even become popular to offer items such as cars, cell phones and mansions made out of papier mache!
On New Year’s Eve, I burn massive amounts of Spirit money to ensure the happiness of my spirit guides and ancestors. It is fun for me to imagine my spirit guides and ancestors living in luxury mansions with servants and living lives of extreme wealth and privilege on the other side. I know that by taking care of my family and spirit guides who have crossed over, they will bless and protect me in this life. This tradition of burning spirit money lead me to develop a service that I like to call my Chinese spirit bowl.
I prepare a large papier mache bowl and paint it red, the Chinese color for luck and royalty, and decorate it with Chinese characters for wealth, luck, happiness, prosperity and peace. Than I fill the bowel with large amounts of spirit money and burn it as an offering to my ancestors and spirits guides and ask for their blessings in return. You can even include a specific request in your spirit bowl. I often recommend people have this service performed, not only as a way to honor your ancestors and seek their blessings, but to ensure success in any business venture and to bring luck and wealth into your life. I have even had people perform this service for love related maters with great success.
If you would like to have the Chinese spirit bowl service performed on your behalf, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. May the Ancestors and all the Saints bless you abundantly!
Papa Legba
Peace be with you my friends! Thank you once again for taking the time to check out by blog. Today I wish to continue our more in depth discussion of the various spirits in the Voodoo pantheon by talking about an extremely important lwa-Papa Legba.
Legba is associated with St. Peter of the Catholic faith - both are known as gatekeepers.
Legba is one of the original lwa of the Rada family brought to Haiti during colonial times and subsequently to New Orleans by refugees fleeing the Haitian Revolution. He is the gate keeper. The spirit to which one must appeal at the beginning and end of every major Voodoo service to open and close the gates of communication to the spirit world. Due to his role as gate keeper, Legba is associated with St. Peter of the Catholic faith who according to tradition holds the keys to Heaven.
Legba exists in various forms throughout the African diaspora. In Brazil he is known as Eshu, coming from his original Yoruban name Exu. In Cuba he is known as Ellegua and is often depicted as a young playful child or a trickster. In Haiti and New Orleans he is often thought of as either an old wise man and other times as a strong hard working young man. No matter how he is depicted, every Voodooist knows that Legba must be invoked at the beginning and end of every service and that any major Voodoo work must be undertaken with his permission and blessing.
Papa Legba’s most important role is that of the gatekeeper, but he may be petitioned directly for help in any matter, especially to create positive change and new opportunities in one’s life. I would like to teach you a simple service to Papa Legba that you may perform at home to seek his help and blessings. Take a statue or an image of St. Peter which you can easily find online and print out, and in front of it place a glass of water and as many as you’d like of Legba’s favorite offerings. These include a shot glass of rum, black eyed peas, white rice, popcorn, roasted peanuts and roasted sweet potatoes. Light a green candle along side the offerings and talk to Legba as you would a friend. Present your needs to him and make whatever requests you would like. Let the candle burn out on its own and then place his offerings in a piece of white cloth or a brown paper bag and leave them at the nearest crossroads. This simple service is powerful and has proven effective for me and others countless times. If you decide to give it a try, please let me know how it goes!
I hope you have enjoyed learning about this most special and important of lwa. If you have further questions about Papa Legba or any other aspects of Voodoo or would like to order a service to Legba or a charm prepared under his patronage, please do not hesitate to contact me. Until next time, I wish you peace, happiness and the sweetest of blessings!
Erzulie Freda
Peace be with you, my friends! It is with great pleasure that I write this post after having completed my annual St. John's Eve service, which I feel was an amazing success. I made thirty seven different offerings in total and performed a service called the Brule Marinette, which is extremely powerful and intricate. This was only the forth one that I have conducted in my years of service as a Voodoo priest. I plan to elaborate on the Brule Marinette in a future post. St. John's Eve is of course the most powerful night of the year to perform any kind of spiritual work in the Voodoo tradition and the energy of the night itself is overwhelming. I was presenting offerings and invoking the lwa non-stop from 9 pm until dawn and then slept until 4 pm in the afternoon on Friday. This time of year is draining for any Voodoo Doctor or Queen, but there is also a euphoric rush that comes from doing service on St. John's Eve and the blessings that follow are most fulfilling.
Erzulie Freda is an important lwa to serve and often blesses her devotees with unexpected wealth and torrid, passionate love affairs.
Through the course of the night the lwa Maistresse Erzulie Freda Dahomey, called Erzulie for short, popped up numerous times while I conducted various forms of divination and fell into possession. Erzulie is extremely beautiful, flirtatious, capricious and intoxicating as well as elegant, refined and full of class. She is an important lwa to serve and often blesses her devotees with unexpected wealth and torrid, passionate love affairs. During the course of my St. John’s Eve service, I felt her energy constantly and have thus been prompted to write this post. I have touched upon Erzulie as well as other lwa in previous posts, but today I would like to go more in depth regarding this most beautiful and intense spiritual entity and in following posts I will do that same with other lwa.
Erzulie Freda is one of the original lwa brought from Africa during colonial times. This origin is indicated in her full title Maistresse Erzulie Freda Dahomey, Dahomey being an ancient kingdom of Western Africa that covered what is today Togo, Benin and parts of Nigeria and included people from the Fon, Yoruba, Wolof and various other ethnic groups who contributed to the development of Vodou in the French colony of St. Domingue, which today is known as Haiti. Erzulie is the embodiment of wealth, luxury, pleasure, sensuality, and flirtatious capricious love. In art she is often depicted as a light skin Creole woman who dresses in pink. Her Catholic image is the Mater Dolorosa, who in popular iconography appears surrounded by gold yet still in anguish with tears flowing down her cheeks and a dagger piercing her heart. This is perhaps symbolic of the human condition of insatiability. At times there is never enough to keep us satisfied and we all want more and more of good things. Erzulie represents this desire for luxury and often cries when her wishes are not fulfilled. People often make the mistake of thinking that Erzulie will bring them love, while this is true, she tends to bring love and is passionate, torrid, yet short lived. Erzulie is always ready for the next lover. So when making a service to her for love, one would be wise to also invoke Ogun to bring about stability. True to her personality, Erzulie’s offerings include champagne, sweet cakes and expensive French perfume. Her colors are pink and pale blue. When taking possession of a Vodou priest or priestess, Erzulie prefers to speak French, the language of the elite, rather the Creole, the language of the masses.
As with all the lwa, there are many tales regarding Erzulie. Despite being capricious and highly flirtatious, Erzulie will not tolerate disrespect or abuse of her children. During the 1960’s in a town not far from Port-au-Prince, there was a popular shrine to Erzulie centered around a magnificent palm tree where she was said to materialize and rest in the palms branches high in the tree. A local protestant pastor was angry that people were giving attention to Erzulie so he ordered the tree to be chopped down. The next day his church was hit by lightening and he was haunted by vivid dreams that eventually drove him insane. Such stories are common regarding those who disrespect Erzulie and Voodoo in general.
I would like to share with you a simple ritual that you can perform to feel the energy of Erzulie and request her blessings. Simply take a warm bubble bath with the fragrance of your choice and add the petals of one pink rose. Light a pink candle next to the tub and as you soak sip a glass of champagne or sparkling wine. Talk to Erzulie as you would a friend. Ask for her guidance and request whatever favor you’d like and be sure to thank her by offering a glass of champagne when you get out of the tub. It is always surprising to see how Erzulie works her magic in our lives!
Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and I hope you will be able to try the Erzulie invocation at home. If you are interested in having an Erzulie service performed for whatever purpose, please do not hesitate to contact me. Until the next time, I wish you peace, happiness and the sweetest of blessings!
St. John’s Eve is fast Approaching!
Peace be with you my friends! I just wanted to take this opportunity to touch base with you and let you know that the preparations for next week's major service for St. John's Eve are well underway.
I will perform a Brule Marinette service which is extremely rare and powerful.
Many people have requested services and placed orders for offerings to be made on St. John’s eve. I will even be performing a service called a Brule Marinette which is extremely rare and powerful and I have only done three in my entire life. I will elaborate of this particular service in a later post.
For those who are interested, it is not too late to place orders for the service next week on the 23rd-24th. Just send me a message and I will be happy to add you to the list. Don’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of this most powerful of nights. Next weekend I will post a full report of the night’s events on my blog, so be sure to check back soon.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post and may the Ancestors and Saints bless you abundantly!
