Pular para o conteúdo principal

Pomba Gira & the Solace of Woman


Pomba Gira is the death mask of Venus, she is sensuality, transformation and challenge manifesting in beauty, truth and ordeal. She is every woman and knows the heart of every man. She is the bitterness of scorn and she is the ecstasy of obsession. She is legion. We come to her with broken and confused hearts; she is the spirit of solace and of solution. She is the fire of transformation that all Exu seek to preserve and take nourishment from. As such she is the serpentine heart of the cult of Quimbanda. Any attempt to define her as this or that is something she simultaneously affirms and escapes. She is the embodiment of the sensual and finds her mystery spoken off in woman, both mortal and stellar. Quimbada itself can be seen as a cousin of the cult of Ghede who also walks on the points of death with erotic and sexual steps.

Death and sex, the alpha and omega of human life, our journey’s beginning and end, so often diabolized, is what lies at the centre of Quimbanda and because of this these spirits have also accepted its diabolic imagery in a crooked demonstration of escaping to the centre of the diabolic.


Quimbanda is also a necromantic cult, because many of the spirits found within the cult were once men and woman who continues to tell their stories and teach their remedies, herbal and magical, to those who uphold their legacy. In this we find a bridge to the goes and to the greater array of necromantic specialists and of the nigromancers.

Pomba Gira, like her cult, Quimbanda is about transformation, the changing of hue in conformity with a full specter of influences ranging from the personal to the magical. She can be a comforter and a destroyer and she plays at all times on unpredictability and insecurities. She is a particular theme that finds resonance in the history told by men and gods. I would like to read one passage from the book Pomba Gira concerning this:

  “The particular theme that manifests her essence is one of extremes. She moves from the ecstasy of the saints through cruelty and abuse and to voluptuous desire for pleasure. This opens for a wide scope of historical and celestial characters used as the blood to draw her form with within the greater theme of Pomba Gira. In her theme we find Maria Magdalene and Venus side by side with Erzébeth Báthory, Joan of Arc and the Iberian exiled witch Maria Padilha. The theme reveals violence, sorcery, mercy and sensual joy.”

PombaGira and the Quimbanda of Mbùmba Nzila is a book of necromancy and sorcery – but it is also a testament given to Woman in all her glory and diversity of manifestation. By gaining knowledge of Pomba Gira, we can gain knowledge of self and death, as much as findings ways of understanding and dealing with life. Pomba Gira is Woman and she is Solace, the whisper of wise death as it guides the living. The book can be ordered through Scarlet Imprinthttp://www.scarletimprint.com/pombagira.htm

Illustration: Enoque Zedro


Postagens mais visitadas deste blog

The ‘firmeza’ of Quimbanda

Quimbanda is a cult centred on the direct and head on interaction with spirit, hence developing mediumistic skills and capability in spirit trafficking is integral and vital to working Quimbanda. Possession is a phenomenon that intrigues and also scares. After all we have all seen movies like The Exorcist and other horror thrillers giving visual spectacles to how hostile spirits can take over the human body, mind and soul in intrusive and fatal ways. But possessions do find a counterpart in the shamanic rapture as much as in the prophet whose soul is filled with angelic light that makes him or her prophetic. Possession is not only about the full given over of your material vessel to a spirit that in turn uses the faculties of the medium to engage various forms of work. Inspiration, dream and to be ‘under the influence’ are potentially valid and worthy avenues for connecting with spirit. Yet another avenue for good spirit trafficking is the communion, or what Jake Stratton-Kent ca

Quimbanda Workshop (Umbanda & Quimbanda) 2022

The Cabula/Temple Meia-Noite da Encruzilhada will arrange for its yearly workshop of Quimbanda from 7 th of September to the 11 th of September 2022 . The workshop will this year also cover Umbanda , hence we will make a workshop under the greater umbrella of ‘ macumba ’. The workshop will be held in Brazil, in the state of Minas Gerais on a Farm located in the midst of the forest, 100 km from the airport Guarulhos in São Paulo. In this workshop we will offer traditional Umbanda baptism and we will offer the first initiatic step in the ladder of Quimbanda , what is often called vinculação , a ceremony working on the same level as a baptism that aims towards establishing a true and strong bond with your Exu and Pomba Gira. These initiatic steps will be followed by a full Gira (drumming) where also the spirits of Umbanda will be celebrated as we move from these spirits of forest and wisdom towards Exu and Pomba Gira during the celebration. These important parts are mediated by se

A Quimbanda FAQ

In this article I will try to answer some questions concerning Quimbanda that surfaces with frequency. Questions concerning how to work this cult solitary and somehow dislocated from the cultural climate of understanding here in Brazil are frequently asked as are questions concerning the magical tools, such as guias, patuás and statues, available to the general public. I want to be initiated in Quimbanda, how do I proceed with that? When we speak of initiation in the perspective of Quimbanda we are speaking of a true and intense merging with spirit that involves a pact/agreement, a spirit vessel (assentamento), ordeal and oath. There are elements used in this process that are common to every house/terreiro/cabula/lineage of Quimbanda that reveals a common origin. There are different varieties of Quimbanda in Brazil, and the expression of the common root, will always depend of the constellation of spirits we find in the tronco. In other words, a ‘Casa de Exu’ that is dominated