Friday, October 21, 2005

the arc'd hell-naw

I’ve been off the grid ‘cause I’ve been traveling. A couple of days ago I stayed in a a mid-sized in France. It has one of those plazas that's an arch with a road going through it with a traffic circle around it with roads merging into it that are so common in Paris. Walking down the street towards it and looking at it I started to laugh at the pointlessness of the arch from the standpoint of someone driving a car in the year 2005 and it’s total meaninglessness for me as a pedestrian at that moment. Anyway it got me to thinking about the crossroads and what that particular one meant. And I realized the meaning of that crossroads totally changed depending on if you drove, rode a bicycle, or walked through it . In a car you could only negotiate the crossroads the way the designers intended and the architectural meaning was fixed. On foot you could negotiate the crossroads as you wished and the architecture changed meaning accordingly. Walking offered an opportunity to traverse the crossroads in a way that was totally at odds with the designers’ intention. Traveling by foot easily subverted a certain aspect of the control mechanism of that town and neutered the power of it’s’ architectural iconography. I was reminded of the first time went to L.A. and was stopped by the cops cause I was walking. Walkers are automatically suspects in L.A. I hadn’t thought before then about how important vehicles and the confinement and restrictions inherent in using them are to the law enforcement process. Enforcement of the types of vehicles used, enforcement of the means of transportation is necessary for controlling the crossroads. Transpose this concept from physical to the spiritual and a new angle of systemic negotiation and if necessary, attack opens up. Transpose from vehicles to bodies and the connection between oppression, law and the degrees of skin melanin deemed optimum in the U.S. become apparent. On one hand operating a vehicle, a body, other than the one the designers intended will allow the greatest freedom of movement through the crossroads. On the other hand this body will immediately draw the interest of the command and control entities guarding a system if it is recognized for what it is. Attempting to harmonize with the system by incorporating the correct “vehicle” may let you pass through unmolested. Or it may result in the dreaded “DWB” (Driving While Black) syndrome, especially if your vehicle is well developed and maintained, where the system comes at you with guns drawn and you’re trapped in your vehicle guilty until proven innocent. Ultimately interacting with the American system becomes a question of cloaking devices and codes of recognition, and of subverting the mechanisms of the system in order to attain your goals. For those of us with tropical skin melanin optimization subversion is unavoidable because the system was not designed for us or our interests. Quite the opposite, in fact. So maximizing who we are makes us by definition opposed to the system as it has been constituted up until today. Operating on and through the subversive mechanisms build into the American system and maximizing their potential for use, for flippin da script as the old skool hip-hop heads used to say, has been the goal of rootworkers and hoodooists since day one. ``

is there a dockta in this house?

Any attempt to talk about rootwork without talking about its role as a method of alleviating the suffering and harmonizing the negative conditions that imported Africans and their descendants find themselves placed in here in the U.S. is a conversation that misses the point of rootwork entirely. If that seems like a controversial or confrontational statement all I can say is.... oh, well (shrugs shoulders). Hoodoo today reflects the goals and concerns of African-Americans in the same way that it has every day throughout our history here. Rootwork today addresses the goals and concerns of African-Americans as it has everyday day since we’ve been here. Methods modulate and evolve and tools and tactics are foregrounded and backgrounded as people migrate and people’s concerns adjust to the topographies and ecologies of current circumstance. In other words. rootworkers and hoodooists did and do what they gotta do in the way that’s appropriate for the time and place they live in. But the working methods always relate to and are based on the systems brought over by the original African-Americans and developed by their descendants. As I talk about rootwork and how to deal with certain energies and tactics for solving certain problems I’m going to touch on issues that I have to deal with on a regular basis that are probably going to make people who don’t have to deal with them uncomfortable. I refuse to apologize for this. In my mind the people who are going to be put off by having to deal with issues they’d much rather not confront will be more than offset by those people who recognize themselves and their situation. Those people who recognize themselves might find they’ve been given tactics and insight into their problems which are seemingly coming from a new angle, an alternative viewpoint, but which in fact have evolved out of the same problem- solving methods their ancestors used.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

rootwork today: hoodoo at the crossroads

This thing that people call hoodoo has a certain energy that powers it that has to be respected for it to work. If you try to turn it into something that it isn’t it just wont work right if it works at all.
Even if you wanted to consider rootwork folk magic (which I don’t) you’d have to admit folk magic implies a connection to a larger “folk” culture of which it’s part of and which defines it and its’ parameters. Otherwise we’d just be talking about one worldwide folk culture. The fact that rootwork/ hoodoo exists and has a definition is proof enough of what I’m talkin ‘bout. Defining African-American practices in terms of European culture and cultural values is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the Old Skool rootworkers/hoodooists did. What they did was this: Develop and define a culture in terms of the values and technologies they and their parents carried inside of them when they got here in concert and in combination with others who shared their same cultural condition.
Whatever ingredients they used and developed were defined and incorporated for use in terms of their own culture and technology.
When they used Native American or European cultural practices they incorporated them in terms of and using African cultural practices and technology. This process of incorporating European and Native American practices and harmonizing them in terms of and to African practices is what created African-American culture.
Let me put it this way. When you hear classical music sampled on lets say, a Dr. Dre track is he using it in terms of European cultural values or the rules laid down by European musical theorists? No, he’s jackin’. He’s using it in terms of his own musical culture, the hip-hop culture and its’ own musical rules. If you took all the ingredients Dre uses to make a track and gave them to a classical composer and told to make a composition using only those ingredients you wouldn’t get a hip-hop track back. You’d get some classical music, made with classical musical rules and techniques. And conversely if took a classical orchestra to a Dr. Dre session and told Dre to make a track using only them he’d comeback with a hip-hop track and probably a hot one.
Anyone using 1920’s African-American energy manipulation techniques outside of their cultural and philosophical paradigm is spell jackin’. Placing those practices inside an alien paradigm causes the power they had to be emptied an replaced by the power of the new paradigm. They lose the power they had and become a subset of other,
seemingly weaker practices. As a concrete example, I’ve seen online where people say that hoodoo is an ephemeral practice where the spells die quickly and have to be done again and again. I can guarantee you that “real” rootworkers alive today would disagree with that assessment and even a careful reading of Hyatt’s informers would contradict it as well.
Conversely spell jackin’ into the African based A-A cultural and philosophical paradigms the Essence of what rootwork/hoodoo is. This is due to the same process of reculturalization ( I think I just made a preacher word). Whatever it was becomes emptied and replaced through African- based energy manipulation techniques passed down to us today, in the same way Dr. Dre or Kanye West empty and replace musical “spells” to make their music.
Same crossroad, different destination.

Uhh, I feel another preacher word uh-huh Comin’ on - uhh

Destin-A-tion! - uh - huh
the Power! - uhh
of finding your way - huh
yaa-suh (congregation interjects)
Which way will you Go !? - huh
When you get - uh-huh
To the Crossroads? - uh

peace

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Sunday, October 02, 2005

etymology 1: hoodoo - know the ledge

I've learned over the years that the vast majority of words in Black English ( now known as AAVE- African-American Vernacular English) that I thought were made up or just "slang" are actually real words from Africa. In addition most words that appear in the dictionary with the entry "etymology unknown" are African. A classic example being "okay", or as it's said in Mississippi " 'kay ". This is a REAL word, from Wolof, that's been around for probably hundreds of years. Ask any Senegalese person if you don't believe me. Alot of words dealing with rootwork concepts and technology seem to fall into the "slang" and "etymology unknown" catergories. These words are all REAL words from Africa. From time to time I'll break down some of them.
I'm gonna start with the other name of rootwork, the one that it's more popularly known as, hoodoo. It is popular belief that the word is derived from the word voodoo somehow a sort of "slang" form of the word, leading to the belief that hoodoo is somehow a a "slang" form of voodoo, a"sub", entry level system of voodoo. The fact that this belief is very good for the manufacturers and sellers of voodoo (aka hoodoo) supplies is probably a good part of the reason this belief has been so widely disseminated. The other reason is, like most things pertaining to the development of African-American culture, people just didn't know who to ask or where to look. Alot of info has been purposely deflected or buried and you most times have to dig hard and deep to find it.
I quote: "NO, hoodoo is not related etymologically as a word to voodoo. There is a thin strand of semantic connection only. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, black slaves of Hausa origin brought with them to their enslavement in the American south a distinct magic practice called "hoodoo." The word comes directly from the Hausa language where the verb hu'du'ba means 'to arouse resentment, produce retribution.' "...Very early in America, hoodoo came to mean 'jinx' or 'cast a spell on' as a noun and a verb: "Something hoodooed me out in the swamp last night..."
Interesting, to me anyway dude, is that another word that slipped into English from Hausa is bogus, from the Hausa boko-boko meaning fake.
One of the things Hausas brought to the States was their way of working brooms (sorry to dissappoint any Wiccans on this one). Things like jumping the broom and sticking a broom over the door to keep away bad luck came from them. This subject gets touched on here

peace

snake meets the real deal

peace

I spent about 3 hours talking to Papa CE - The Orb of Obasi last night
He has one of those stories that's the equal of Malidoma Some's or a high Tibetean lama
and who's pedigree is perfect for the high priced self-acutalization/new age curcuit. He's a real actual dibia, a master of the Igbo traditonal technology concerning plants with 10 years living in Nigeria. And he's also a REAL rootworker, Granma style (funny he calls it that, 'cause that's what I call it too). And I got to talk to him for hours. A blessing. We talked about many things I can share (assuming he gives permission) as time goes on.

prime time

bro. rickydoc gave me some shine today
Thats a good bro. right there. He did what needed to be done net-wise on Katrina and is going to continue to do so after everyone's gone on to the next flavor of the month and is pretty much standing alone right now online as a voice - the voice of REAL rootwork - the way I know and my family would know it's supposed to be done. People seem to have forgotten (or dont want to know) why the word Doctor or Aunt or Sister or Prophet is always in hoodoo/rootwork names.
The problem is I didnt tell him I'd switched my philosophical stuff here and he linked to my personal blog. Oh well. I'll be moving all the rootwork posts from over there over here today and send him the new link. At least it's Oct. and the stuff wont go in the archives.

peace

Saturday, October 01, 2005

a question of destiny

A few months back their was a certain amount of public discussion of and contention over whether rootwork was just folk magic and if it had any relevance for cultural guidance. I realize I’m a little slow to the party on this issue, but this issue is just not going to go away. And the reason it’s not going to go away is because there are people coming into hoodoo (we’ll call it that for today) who didn't grow up either in or in intimate contact with the community that birthed it who haven’t studied it thoroughly. They may well be studied, even erudite, in the WHAT and HOW of hoodoo. But they haven’t looked deeply into the WHY. To them I’d ask a simple question.
What are you using to keep your hoodoo from biting you on the ass?
If nothing, well OK you’re just doing folk magic and this conversation is over. And good luck to you, btw. If you’re using some Wiccan or ceremonial magic practices to ground your spellwork and keep it from bouncing back I’d say you’re not doing hoodoo, you’re just using hoodoo practices inside your Wicca or CM. And that’s cool if that's what you wanna do ( I guess) but it’s not folk magic, it’s Wicca or CM. Whether or not it’s still hoodoo is a question we’ll sidestep for now (but you can probably figure out my answer to that). If you’re using the practices the hoodooists themselves used to ground their spells, you’ve stepped out of the realm of folk magic and into the realm of ATR. Something people who aren’t African or who haven’t studied African philosophy don’t seem to know or want to address (the same something that is by the way is something conveniently sublated in the definition of folk magic) is that fact that when an African ancestor passes something down the generations they’re passing down THEIR POWER as well. Their not just giving a physical object or a ritual. By doing that they make it so if a power object or ritual worked for them it will essentially AUTOMATICALLY work for their descendants assuming their descendants maintain proper contact with their ancestors. And the process of maintaining proper contact with your ancestors where you step out of folk magic and into questions of community and destiny.
Even if you don't want to ponder deep questions, or especially if you don't ponder deep questions , there’s going to come a time when the questions ponder YOU. And you really don't want to be on the wrong side of that equation. Because at that point it stops being a question of interaction with or manipulation or forces and switches to dealing with forces that move unstoppably towards you or to put it Biblically, JUDGING you. I’m not talking karma now, though some people would call it that. I’m talking the FLOW and its laws.