Great Granny Gordon and the Spirits

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by Kevin Filan

This past weekend (Jan. 6, 2006), Kathy and I attended a party held by a few of our friends. It was held by Orgasmateria, a New York Burning Man camp. Those who don’t know anything about Burning Man, see www.burningman.com for more information. Imagine one part rebirth of 1960s tribalism and one part great excuse for a party. (This arguably would be two parts 1960s tribalism, but I digress. …)

It was also a birthday party thrown for our charming hostess. She had prepared for the celebration by making several bottles of flavored booze — then decorating them with pictures of dearly departed ancestors. She explained this to us as she held up a bottle of Great Granny Gordon’s Scintillating Green Apple Vodka, and told the story of Great Granny Gordon the Teetotaler and other members of her family who lived in upstate New York and had for seven generations.

Alas, like Great Granny Gordon, I don’t drink alcohol, so I didn’t get to sample her bottle. Several people who did seemed to like Great Granny Gordon’s concoction just fine. And I realized, as I enjoyed the party’s raunchy, slightly seedy burlesque-house vibe, that there were other guests here. Our hostess had thrown a party for the ancestors, and the ancestors had come. And of course, there’s going to be another guest you can count on — Ghede, the foul-talking, booze-swilling voice of the forgotten dead.

In 1999 I read Tarot cards at a friend’s event in New York’s West Village. Before every night opened we called down Ghede. You could always tell when he arrived. The air got heavy like smoke in a speakeasy, hot and humid and faintly stale. People began smiling, a little bit nervously at first, then more broadly, leering like skulls as the energy rose. I wasn’t a Houngan then, but it didn’t matter. Ghede won’t miss a party, especially one that has invited him and welcomed his presence.

Tonight I was seeing those same smiles, and feeling that same energy. This party wasn’t thrown by Houngans or Mambos: There were no goats sacrificed, no veves drawn in cornmeal, no black boujis, no piman or possessions. But there were ancestors being honored, and there was alcohol and music and people having fun — no tears; just rejoicing for what we had received from the dead. And that’s all Ghede and the dead ask for, really: they have no need of anything else.

Sometimes it’s easy for Houngans and Mambos to get caught up in the intricacies. We try to learn all the details, all the gestures and songs and ritual language, all the marvelous intellectual framework of our tradition. And that’s all very valuable. We need to preserve our tradition. We need to master the framework. We need to know myths and our rituals and know the culture it came up in. There’s real power in that knowledge, yes. But all that knowledge is useless if we don’t use it to serve the spirit.

There are several roles that go along with being clergy. We’re teachers, expected to educate believers and nonbelievers about our religion. We’re advocates, defending your faith against ignorance and hatred. We’re counselors, listening to our congregation’s problems and trying to offer solutions. We’re healers, working with injured souls, minds and bodies. And we’re leaders, with all the responsibilities and hassles entailed in that word.

But before all those roles we are conduits for the Divine. In the case of my tradition, Vodou, we’re literal conduits. We are possessed by the lwa and let them speak through us. But it’s true in other traditions as well. The priests and priestesses, the shamans and the saints, they’ve always been the ones who remind the others of Something Greater. They’re the ones who bring our world and the world of spirit together. That’s the hardest part of the job, in one way. But in another way it’s the easiest of all.

As she was planning our party, our hostess didn’t consult a list of magical formulae, or mutter arcane language over the booze. She didn’t burn myrrh or wormwood, she didn’t scatter peppered rum on the ground, and she didn’t assert her rank and lineage and scream that the spirits had better respect her authority. But she heard a little voice; she had a sudden inspiration. And she followed that inspiration.

She listened to the spirits. And the spirits listened to her, and they came.

In Vodou a priest is nothing without the miste (mysteries). A Houngan who has no spirits has no power. He will go to another Houngan or Mambo to discover why he offended the lwa; he will spend from his meager income to propitiate them and to regain their favor. We don’t do magic in our own names: We present our lamps, our pwens — all our magical objects to the lwa. They do the work for us. Being an initiate helps, sure. But there are plenty of people who do powerful magical work and who have a vital connection to the spirit without ever setting foot in an initiatory chamber.

The spirits come when they will, to whom they will. But they also come in places where you least expect them. If you keep your eyes open, you’re sure to see them. And once you’ve seen them, once you’ve made their acquaintance and learned what they want from you, then you are a serviteur lwa. And that’s the most important step of all. You can be a Houngan without lwa; you can be a Babalao who sounds the words but loses the meaning; you can be a high priestess who can call on the Lord and Lady but who would run in terror if they ever came. But so long as you are serving the spirits, the spirits will never leave you. Teacher, counselor, advocate, healer, leader — if you listen to them, all those roles will come naturally and in due course.

And getting that contact is not a difficult thing at all. African traditions, like neopaganism, realize that we don’t have to go looking for the Divine. It’s everywhere we are and everywhere we aren’t. Papa Legba waits by every crossroad; Sobo can be found in every thunderstorm; Ogou can be seen prowling about every military base. The Divine is everywhere we are and everywhere we aren’t. Before Vodou teaches us how to call the spirits, it teaches us that the spirits are already there.

If I had been thinking, I would have wet my lips with Great Granny Gordon’s drink, then spilled a few drops on the floor along with the appropriate words. I would have taken a glass and put it in the corner, along with some popcorn and Doritos, for Ghede. I might even have drawn a veve if I could find cinnamon, red pepper and coffee grounds. But I never thought to do so until after I left. That night the amateurs served the ancestors better than the Houngan who showed up at their party. I was distracted, and they were listening for the spirit.