Dealin’ at da Crossroads 3- the internal dimension

The internal Crossroads
It is in fact a double Crossroads
2 Crossroads interact to create a rhythm, a movement
this double Crossroads
Creates
and Becomes
a vehicle
the symbol: a star
the Haitian Voodoo term for this star is Zetwal
Zetwal is the personal Spiritual Energy, the spiritual packet of protection given to an individual
Zetwal, the star, is the vehicle of an individual's destiny
This "destiny vehicle", this Star, is the Light of an individual's Ancestral Essence .
Houngan Max Beauvior has written that Zetwal is the creyol term for what's called Sekpoli by the Fon of Benin.
Sekpoli is a compound word
Se means law in Fon and kpoli means destiny
So it could be said that Zetwal is an individual's personal Law- an individual's personal inborn Lwa
the double Crossroads is where you meet your Ancestral Essence, your Destiny, your Personal Lwa
- what some call the Holy Guardian Angel
Who facilitates this meeting?
the Force that stands in the Center
this Force Is
your God Double- the fragment of God that exists inside you
What is called Chi in Igbo, Ipori in Yoruba, Semedo in Fon, Okra in Twi/Akan, Ngafa in Mende, the Gwo Bon Anj in Creyol, Jivatma in Sanskrit
the Self
the Self - the fragment of God that exists inside you- is what connects the Earthly body with the Star body
the Self, your God Double, is what completes the circuit
Accessing the Energy of your Destiny Vehicle, you personal, inborn Law- through the Power of he fragment of God that exists inside you, your God Double- and manifesting these Powers on the Physical plane
is what is what the A-free-cans mean by fulfilling you Destiny

this
is what snake2G means when he talks of the internal Crossroads
snake 2G calls it Two-Headed Junction aka Crossroads of the Two-Headed Man

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Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, magick, occult, african-american, shamanism, philosophy

Dealin' at da Crossroads 2

peace

When you're dealin' with a teacher whose Power is the Holy Spectrum
the learning process is an exchange. An exchange of Energy- as you attune the Energies of the Spectrum you absorb the Energies of the Spectrum and the Energies of the Spectrum absorb you. I overstand this exchange as an expression of the Igbo saying "Uwa bu afia"- "the world is a marketplace". This exchange at the marketplace is the "deal" with the Teacher, the mythical "sale" .

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Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, magick, occult, african-american, shamanism, philosophy

Dealin' at da Crossroads

It's time for me to dip my toe into the subject of the Crossroads... which is probably the ultimate "you milage may vary" subject in Hoodoo/ Rootwork.
Perhaps the archetypal myth of Hoodoo is the "bluesman (Robert Johnson being the mythical example) goes the Crossroads to be able to play the blues" one. The closest I'll get to the "pop" version of this myth is saying that the bluesman "makes an exchange" with a negative (as in minus (-) as opposed to plus(+) ) power or entity for his blues-playing ability.

A major question of people who haven't contacted this Power or Entity and, arguably, the major question of Hoodoo "lurkers" and novices is "Who or What Is this Entity/Energy?" I've spent alot of time on this question myself. I asked a lot of questions and expended alot of energy trying to get my head around what this entity was so I could "absorb" it. But of course it doesn't work that way. The Energy had to absorb me- get "possessive" as Mama Djenra put it - for me to "get it".
In fact for me it was and is a multi-stage/mutli-faceted process... dealin'... at the Crossroads.
I share my interpretations of parts of the process that are public knowledge to hopefully aid some others who may be seeking insight into the African-American conception of the Crossroads.
I have to say I speak as a non-Iniatate of ATR's and as someone who doesn't work "Voodoo". Those who have an Ellegua or Lucero. or work with Papa Legba will have a different angle into this. I'm speaking from my overstanding as my Ancestors, Guides and Mentors have taught me.

Eye N I knowledge:
The African-American Crossroads Entity is a TEACHER.
In fact it is proper to say that the African-American Crossroads Entity is a GURU.
He is a Guru whose Power is , as was so beautifully put here , the Power of the Holy Spectrum.
AND He has ALL the Powers a Guru of his caliber would have.
That's really all you need to know about him.

How those Powers man-I-fest is a question of your own Personal Power Pack.

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Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, magick, occult, african-american,shamanism, philosophy

Ancestors: the Gateway to God- the Gateway to Power

Spiritually African-Americans are the syncopated repetition of our Ancestors. We are part of a chain, a rhythm. a riff to use the jazz musicians term, that goes all the way back to the First Ancestors, the Ones who lived with and in God. We carry these First Ancestors within us as a Rhythm- as a mode of Living and Being. We contain the same Energy they had, that they lived as a Reality. It lives within us as a seed, as potential waiting to be tapped. Most of us never tap in, never allow the seed to gerninate, grow and flower. We remain unaware, caught, seemingly powerless, never knowing we hold the key for harmoniusly living our lives within ourselves.
The secret of Ancestral veneration is the more we harmonize with our own personal Ancestral lines the more we allow our individual Spark to harmonize itself to the stronger and sublter levels of Force embodied by our Ancestors. This allows us to contact Ancestral Powers closer and closer to the Beginning, Powers that maintain a level of Consciousness far beyond our own. As we harmonize ourself with our own Harmonized Ancestors they Initiate us- they open the door and allow us entry into the modes of Seeing and Being they have accessed. Once the process of Ancestral veneration is established the African Ancestors take responsibility for spiritually directing and teaching us, their descendants.

The Original Rootworkers want us to reconnect with our ENTIRE family-
here and across the waters.
The completion of a Spiritual system for African-Americans should also be the re-introduction to and the re-constitution of an African Ancestral line.

The Original Rootworkers expected their descendents to do the same thing they did when they got to the U.S.
To look to the True Self within for Wisdom and to the Ancestors for Guidance.
To see and use the Powers imbedded in America as tools to Overcome.
And to not see the journey as finished until we find their Spiritual place back home in the Motherland.

This is in my opinion one of the reasons that the African-based spiritual system developed in the United States seems "unfinished" or "incomplete" ritual-wise when compared to some of other African-based Spiritual systems in the Western hemisphere.
The Africans who came to the U.S. did NOT consider take America as their home!
Furthermore, NEVER wanted to be here!
They ALWAYS in their heart of hearts desired to go "back home" .
The story of Ibo Landing testifies to that fact.
AND they want us to continue to look BACK to Africa as they did.
In my opinion the African-American Ancestors did not leave a "finished" ritual system for us here in the U.S. because they didnt regard the U.S. or the situation they found themselves in here as the final spiritual landing place for either themselves or their descendents.
BUT they did give us the tools to Work whatever System we find ourselves dealing with! The Spiritual system they left us here has and does Overcome in situations where many others fail.
Snake 2G says It is the responsibility of all African-Americans who strive to live in Harmony with the Original Wisdom to honor their Ancestral Spiritual bloodlines by re-constituting the Spiritual line broken by the Middle Passage.

This process may re-connect you with Spiritual family in Cuba, Haiti or Brazil.
OR it may require you to carry out the wishes of the "salt-water Blacks" and reconnect DIRECTLY with your Ancestral Bloodlines




Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, magick, occult, ancestors, culture

about me pt II:

snake2G exists because the Ancestors ordained it
breaking down some of the experiences and Powers that created the snake
eye Speak of
back in the day

learning of the Orishas
tagging along with a friend who was going to see his Madrina so I could find out who my Orisha was (hehe)
finding I didn't have a Orisha (wha???)
That I was solo Congo - and the Congos wanted me on their team
7 seven years down the road
but first: studies
met Siete Rayo
started sittin in on readings -silent observer
as well as weekly metaphysics classes uptown (an hour and a half on the A-train)
learned about the Tree of Life and the Kabbalah, the esoteric meanings of the colors and much more basic metaphysical so ingrained I don't remember where I learned it
about 2 years in the "house" splintered
time to look at Plan B
I decided I needed to learn how to meditate
tried on my own, no haps
Eye decide to go up to to the Catskills for a day to a Yoga seminar I'd somehow heard about
When I came back home all of a sudden I was seeing lights when I meditated
Decided to go back upstate 2 weeks later for more
that while I'm strollin' through ashram grounds - just loungin' really
from around the corner here comes
Baba
Eye and I contact!
technical term: shakitpat diksha
result: Kundalini awakening
external manifestation: classic kriyas
internal manifestation: Self contact
OK.. I switched from Team Congo to the Kundalini League, it's all good
Teams Vitthal, ShivaShambo, Durga, Kali and more
Tantric studies: Shiva Sutras, Spanda Karikas, Vijnana Bhairava
the works of Abhinavagupta and Jnaneshwar Maharaj and much. much, more
fast-forwarding through the years: the 7 have long since come and gone
Salvador da Bahia- Eye come to the realization the Ancestors want me back on the Home Team
Pilgrimage to India: In Tuljapur eye sea - Africa and India come together
Harlem N.Y- start researching my Gullah/Geechee family history
Brooklyn, N.Y.- eye see one of my lil brother's now grown playmates is a Tata Nganga
we link- looks like I'm back on Team Congo- meet Sarabanda
I and I connect with the Bantu ancestral energy on a "scratchin day" at my almost Tata's nzo I but stay "unscratched" myself
Time to look at Plan C
The teachers on the other side in the family lines start to step up
AND The Igbos refuse to let themselves be forgotten
My family on the other side start to provide me with mentors and info
Eye step into the Crossroads and find my way
Eye sea that the Ancestors want me to develop a spiritual discipline that allows them direct and ummediated access to the Matrix(Matrice) through the Vehicle currently called African-American culture
some call this vehicle Hoodoo
I call it Rootwork



Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, tantra, shamanism, culture

tree talkin': a 101 experience

peace all,
I had stopped bloggin' for a while because I had gotten "flickid"...
My left arm became sorta useless - it had essentially "deflated" for a while
- exactly the sort of thing that will and did deflate this Rootworker's pretensions as well
Mama Djenra later explained to me that this condition is called "frozen shoulder" and has no medically definable onset.
Anyway...
my "flickid" arm turned out to be exactly the sort of affliction that anthropologists refer to when they talk about "cults of affliction"...
It led to me bein' able to talk to trees.
Even though I've had alot of strong spiritual experiences and feel at this point I can rightfully call myself a "Prophet" in the sense that "chuch" (that's African-American church if you didn't know) people use the word - I didn't feel I could call myself a "Rootdoctor" until I had talked to a tree, communicated with its SPIRIT.
Malidoma Some in his book "Of Water and Spirit" talks about his tree communication during his initiation process. My experience was sorta similar to his.

Me and my son were gathering power rocks (simbis)
- crystals, pyrite, iron ore, etc - from a really beautiful stream that winded down the side of a hill to become a waterfall (we gathered some crystals from the waterfall's pool) then continued.
At one of our stops down the hill my son noticed the particularly striking tree that we had happened to stop in front of.
Since he noticed it I suggested HE talk to it (yeah, he's 7 and he already has the skill) and ask the tree it's name. The tree told him. I asked him to ask the tree if there were power rocks nearly. My son was quiet for a minute, than said "the tree says they're everywhere around here, you just have to pay attention" (needless to say their were).
At that point I decided "what the heck, let ME try this"...
So I put myself in a meditative state, and when I felt the time was right I asked tree its name.
And... It told me a name! I had done it!
At that point I decide to "ground" myself in the Earth and to try to harmonize myself with the tree.
After a while the most intense feeling came over me - the only way I can describe it is to relate it to my 1st crush - that real intense sorta pre-sexual feeling of wanting to be around a girl without knowing why...
Anyway...
I decided to ask the tree what to do about my arm.
The tree said "just aim it towards me". So I stretched out my arm and opened my hand towards the tree. And soon a powerful wave of energy emerged up out of the ground (it seemed) through my body, to and through my arm , out of my hand and back to the tree. It stayed in this energy current for a few minutes, absorbing it into my arm. As I stayed in the current the emotional context of the wave started to become more overtly sexual, in a sense. More like when I noticed that girls were GIRLS, if that helps. I guess you could call it a properly Tantric experience if you wanted to use that reference point.
When I felt it was time I thanked the tree and closed the experience.
One of the blessings that came through that experience is that I now feel the ancestors allow me to call myself a RootDoctor and request that i get the training that this tilte requires.

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Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, tantra, shamanism, culture

the ancestors DO speak

peace fam,

Back in December I convinced my parents to take the African Ancestry DNA test.
For those who don't know this particulart DNA test takes your "root" DNA
(the longest unbroken DNA chain - the one ALL the either male or female ancestors have in COMMON) and compares it against a database - in this case one compiled from peoples in regions in Africa
African-Americans were most likely to come from.
My father has done his already.
The first result we got back was the Root Male DNA on the Male side-
my Root male ancestry
AND
the answer shouldn't be a surprise to anyone whose read my other posts
Its...........
Igbo!
of course
this was just confirmation of what they'd already told me

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Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, magick, occult, ancestors, culture

movin once more...

peace all,



you can vibe with the snake here now:

snake2G's myspace

sea u dere!

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Categories: rootwork, hoodoo, magick, occult, mindpower