Pomba Gira – Teacher of Death and the Erotic

 Photo: Graciela Iturbide

Life is a beautiful condition of being – it can give all, poverty and riches - disgrace and grace – it is the playground of Fortune and Chance. The best teachers in giving value to this are of course those that understand death. Those that lived until Death gave them wisdom.  Myth tells many stories of how the dead interacts with the living and give advice, they be ancestors in a blood line or a spirit line. The dead ones as teachers is something that is subject for great forgetfulness as the world rushes towards a greater materialism. Our world is a repetition of sameness that effectively eradicates the other as something that does not belong – like death that is now the other. The other as a teacher thrives well and good in those parts of the world deemed ‘primitive’ – the embarrassing backwaters of modernity that sustains vivid and pulsating tradition.

In the Halls of Hades Hell was everywhere and paradise was isolated islands of milk and honey - it spoke of and interaction between those who forfeited their destiny and those who made it. It is here I see Quimbanda takes shape and in particular the figure of Pomba Gira. We might say, for the sake of allegory that Exu is the king of Hades and Pomba Gira is the spirit of teaching, often restrained but upon awakening is sent out in the world to awaken us from our slumber. She comes in many forms and all these forms challenges you – by this alone. She is a denizen of the crossroads of the world that breaks open in a multitude of serpentine impulses that goes out in the world to infect us with consciousness of life. She, from beyond the grave teaches us about life because she has been there – but now she is the other that knows you. She is perspective from beyond the grave.  

Knowledge and understanding is always in the realm of the other. Action and reaction, manifest beauty and the hatred upon it is about our world, the world of the living flesh. Pomba Gira defies this mock world of repetition upon the theme of sameness and challenges you to enter the other so you can become whole and complete.

Pomba Gira’s message of becoming complete is growing more and more in importance, especially for Woman and those that struggle with condemnation of their sexuality. In our world when sexuality defines and defies so much of modern men and Woman’s identity and worth she is so important that it is better to discard her as primitive, vile and lewd - improper. Because at the end of the line she is your mirror – she is you – and no contemporary potencies would like you to be you in your fullness and glory....

It is here we find Pomba Gira, the Free Woman, who knows life and death and if taken on as a muse and guide can teach you to release the truth about yourself. For modern man so much identity is locked up in shame and denial somehow related to desire and sexuality – she seeks to release this so she can aid in moulding you as a serpent moulds its victim, as a lover moulds the world around the beloved to make you strong. She seeks to make you strong, to mould your iron-spine of resistance and stubborn reluctance of acceptance in the fires of passion and desire.   

This is Quimbanda and this is Pomba Gira’ role. She is not the answer to sleazy, lovelorn obsessions of your passions in spellcraft and mirongas - she knows these pitfalls to well and engage you only if a lessons are involved.  She keeps the secret that can unbridle the acceptance of yourself; nothing less – even if you settle for less.  She is fertile Death teaching you of passion as she sings in a whisper:

Shshshs I am She who makes your world turn

Shshshs I am She who you entreated with your world of desire

Take my hand and begin your metamorphosis - now burn!

Because transmutation and sulphur feeds my fire.

Saravá Pomba Gira!         

The Secrets of Power

Power is a curious term. It can denote your power to replicate something and it can also define the strength of your office. This strength of office manifests in the ability to get things done and to exercise influence. As such the idea of power simply states an effect – but it does not state the quality of the power exercised or the character of the one that is wielding power nor the effort of the machine that produces power.  It its most optimal presentation power is omnipotence. Power is a constant theme in Foucault’s discourse where the whole idea of power is taking institutional forms in the Panopticon. Here the material and profane government usurp omnipotence by control over the actors in the material world. From this comes opposition as a natural consequence of being confronted with a tyranny that abducts your sense of humanity and choice.  

Power is a force that denotes influence and invites what supports it. A machine for instance is supported by a current of energy that ignites the power of the machinery to perform.  A political party that is assuming power is doing so because voices of support and protest challenge the power; if the power is wise it will grow by its character and wisdom. If the power is rotten it will grow because of its ability to obscure, lie and deceive. Until it resigns and give ‘bread a circus’ – just to keep opposition away.

Power is always confronted because opposition, both positive (praising) and negative (condemning) is forces that carries the seed of growth when it is directed. Creation does not take notice of the quality of the attention you give, just the power you give. Power and its resistance and support are all magnetic powers that support the power in question positively or negatively.  This means that condemnation can actually have the same effect as giving support.

There is yet another issue; condemnation of a power can also be a mirror. The child as it grows up constantly defies its parents. This is the body asking growth and the response given to the body sets the mind in flames with the power given or taken.  Here we find growth or regression. This simple mechanism plays itself out in our life constantly. We oppose because of our growth, we bless because of sympathy and a promise of solace in our growth. To find the right power means that we are going in the right direction. It is here we find saintly dwellings of comfort that gives us the power to move on and not what defies and challenges our power.  

At times opposition can be a shadow or it can be direct confrontations. If these powers meeting your power brings growth or rest is ultimately defined by your character.  Power, potency, strength, fire all this is fuel to our character and growth.

Power in the cosmology of Ifá rests in the wonderful odú Irete meji. The message of Irete is found in various proverbs around the world speaking of how we all make our own good fortune. Irete is, according to Baba Falokun, an elision of ire and te which literally means to force by power your good fortune to manifest. It speaks of determination.  A bad use of this determination takes form in a resistance to change – positively it creates the determination to take what is yours, mediated by Fate and Wisdom.

There is one verse in the corpus of Irete Meji that speaks about determination, life and growth in particular.

It says:

Bùtùbútú ònà Ijèsà lomode fiì sere

Bí ó bá kómo ní rírìn esè

A komo nì níyan

In Karengas translation we read:

The fine sand which children play with on

The road to the land of Ilesa

If it is used to teach children how to walk

It can also be used to teach them how to

Walk gracefully

The road from Ilé ifé to Ilesa is a long road, this road is covered in soft sand, like at the beach. A child walking in sand will not walk gracefully, but as life and good tutors teach them they can come to walk gracefully on an earth that does not invite to grace – like the sand at the shores of the ocean. The message is, you can learn to walk for sure – but to walk gracefully invites an acceptance of opposition and humility in front of one’s teachers. This simple verse tells us that the world is not easy – but for sure you can make your way somehow – but only when we walk the world gracefully have we understood to essence of power as it reveals itself in determination to embrace our happy destiny.    

At the Core of Traditional Witchcraft

Traditional Witchcraft is a term subject for a series of misconceptions that in fact stems from the term itself. For one, the whole idea of witchcraft is a category immensely wide across history and geography and counts a whole array of concubines, prisoners, astrologers, beautiful women, seedy people, criminals, heretics and so forth. It is a pejorative term denoting what defies civic social order and boundaries. This means the whole idea of ‘the witch’ is a term developed by the profane social order and as such it is only natural that the idea of the witches’ craft invites equally invites those who desire to restore the intent at the heart of the matter as much as lost souls living in alienation of the Craft that seek to impose their gospel upon the witches’ Craft.  Given the diversity the word itself have been subject for it is only natural and true that the Craft is subject to diversity in faith and rite – but this never changes the doctrine at its root. 

The witches Craft is traditional – and even if the idea of what is traditional today is often limited to a quite horizontal, profane and civic idea of transmission of some form of knowledge the matter at hand is other. A traditional Craft must be traditional in the true sense of the word, it must reveal a foundation in a traditional worldview that acknowledge the importance of spirit in such way that we will have the ever turning crossroad of the worlds, converging as two serpents – one across telluric time and the other across angels, elementals and spirits in a thirst for repeated manifestation. Traditional Craft is always oriented from a profound understanding and acceptance of how the point and the circle are mediated by a million shades, like rainbows and scales of gray...

This complex origin also result in the accusations of elitism directed towards the few traditional Craft groups that have chosen to show a public face for some time. This elitism is often understood on modern premises which defines an ‘elite’ as being someone superior, while it is simply about those elected by blood and ancestry. This does not impose a polarity of superiority and inferiority on any one but one of kin and not-kin. The fact that you can never request to enter a closed clan – but rather be invited upon recognition of shared blood, provokes some due to an unfortunate sense of inferiority. From this complex of inferiority and desire veiled in alienation we see creatures crawling out from their holes in rotten wood preaching some weird gospels. They want to make federations and they want to gather followers – all in the name of inferiority and injustice – albeit the gospel sounds different in the words covering the complexes they are exercising. 

The Craft proper can take many forms, from solitary ways, to adopt a form of guild or order into apprentice, journeyman and master and also be one of clanship. At the heart of the Craft we still find the mystery that connects it all – it is about the land made fertile by the stars and angels with all its implications. It is in this simple and grand mystery that stretches to the centre of earth as much as to the immovable point in the heavens we find the Craft – and herein is found the explanation of diversity. Land and sphere behaves in ways different from region to region as they did across time. In this we find the fluidity of the Craft, how the One Mystery has a thousand ways.  The Craft follows the silent laws of Nature – not society or the civic order. It speaks from the grandeur of the Land and the many wise ones that gave their blood, bones and flesh to the land. The Craft speaks in the voice of land, wilderness, angels and ancestors – and how can this language ever be ‘human’ – it naturally speaks with your soul and shakes your heart! 

I believe many modern delusions concerning the craft arises from our civic order that insists on manmade and worldly values. Seekers, lost in this assault upon nature will feel even more lost and their alienation will be painfully evident as they try to call the spirits of a land now covered in asphalt, concrete and glass. A garden gives solace in this alienation – and if you tend the garden well land and spirits will speak with you– but in the want of even this little piece of blessed land man is at a loss with the Craft proper. 

I have stated through my book Arts of the Night (Chadezoad/Lulu)/Artes da Noite (Rosa Vermelha) that the witch is a poetic imagery of a legacy that pertains to us all – and I believe this to be so very true. This legacy however speaks through land and spirit and as it was then it is now. We need to search this legacy at springs and groves, in caves and wilderness. It is here in the wilder domains of Nature this legacy is found – not in federations, social and nefarious condemnation and exaltation or in quarrels of beliefs. The Craft is about the pure voice of nature as she speaks to the blood and quickens you to be wise in finding your peace.        

Pride & Envy

The Yorubá Word for pride is ìgbéraga, a word composed of several interesting facets. Ìgbé is usually used in reference to something solid – like bones – which gives way for ancestral imprints. ‘ra’ means to rub, massage and quicken something while ‘agan’ amongst many thing can be both a ladder and a wolf tooth. We can understand pride to be a way of massaging ones bestial memory in an ascending way, the wild and aggressive elements are used as a support for our sense of self importance.

Envy is in Yourbá ilara, the contrast of ‘ilera’, to be of good, stable health’. Ilara is to be in a miserable, unstable condition. Ilara is an elision of ‘ile’ and 'ara’. Ara can mean both ‘body’ and ‘thunder’ and ‘ile’ denotes a resting place, it be house, home or womb. As such ‘ilara’ or envy is seen as a physical state where the body is infused with thunderous tension. Whenever we see ‘ara’ mentioned in Yorubá language it has a physical connotation and it is the material that is object for this thunderous tension.

Pride in our Latin derived sense is ultimately from the idea of hubris, once an act subject for death penalty as it generated so much ill will and social disruption that it was better to finish with the misplaced idea of self that grew out and made life sour for everyone.  

Pride is not the feeling of contentment arising after satisfaction with ones accomplishments but it is a feeling of superiority in ones achievements that takes forms in arrogance and hostility. Pride is the obsessive lover of envy. Because envy is not solely the rays of the evil eye as it seeks to obtain for itself what others have. It is also about this feeling that someone else is undeserving of their own good fortune.  Envy is that ill will, rejection and venom that is projected upon another person’s good fortune and growth – especially material and by renown.

Envy and pride can also take on the masks of truth and justice. We can feel that we have the right of harbouring ill will towards someone else, to judge and to bar their success by any means to our disposition. These judgments always leave out ourselves and our role in the calculation of judgment. This can reveal self loathing and it can reveal hubris of the kind Death has a particular hunger for. What is certain is that this is ultimately the type of venom that leads to one’s own un-doing and annihilation. Pride and envy defies the very purpose of being and operates on a base and profane level of being that is nefarious, misdirected and cruel. It is the map for losing one selves in the wilderness of life and grow sour by each step taken away from the oasis of joy we know as our destiny.    

The odù Òságúndá speaks of the creation of the world and of destiny. One of the verses tells us the following:

Àgìriyàn ni morèrè eèrùn

Asùwà ni morèrè èniyàn

Asùwà dá Orun

Asùnà dàa sílè

Àsekún sùwàdà nígbàtí ìwà se

Àsekún sùwàdà nígbàtí ìwá gún

Asùwà nìgbà ìwà ròò

Ir´r gbogbo wá d’àsùnwà

Irún pé sùsù wón gborí

Irún àgbòn pé sùsù wón di òjòntarigi

Ogí pé sùsù wón di igbó

Erúwà pé sùsù wón dòdàn

Agbon pé sùsù fówó tilé

Ìtà pé sùsù bó ilê

Aàsùwàdà a pé ó

Kó O rán ìwà sùsu wáá

Ki won kò ire gbogbo wáá ba wa

In Maulana Karenga’s poetic rendering it reads as follows:

Dews pouring lightly, pouring lightly

Were used to create the world

And likewise was done to create the earth

So that goodness of togetherness could

Come forth at once

Indeed all goodness took the form of a

Gathering together in harmony

Now, if one mind in alignment with heart encounters good

It will spread out and touch two hundred

If my mind and heart is good

It will spread out and touch you

And if your heart and mind is good

It will spread out and touch me

For if just one mind and heart experiences good

It will spread out and touch two hundred. 

Ifá relates this process to the presence or absence of wisdom. This is the wise approach towards the world, it is what accumulate what is good, conveyed in the simple message of Baba Falokun that ‘if your life gets better, my life gets better’. The powers of pride and envy follows the same accumulative principle, but instead of accumulating what is good we accumulate what bars us from happiness and destiny. Ifá speaks about this as throwing ashes in the wind – it will stain the one who throws the venom until the humanity is all clad in ashes and decay.

The good deed, the contentment of a well meaning heart and mind projected outwards into a happiness and joy of seeing our fellow men grow and achieve accumulates goodness in us and others; It is all about being gentle and soft and allow this to touch other people in remembrance of the primordial state where we gathered together in harmony and goodness.    

The Day of Kings

6th of January, the Day of the Magi Kings announcing the epiphany is a most peculiar day. It announces the end of the 12 days of Christ Mass and thus it celebrates the zodiacal signs and the truthful apostles of Jesus. Confusion reigns whether the day of kings commences on the 5^th or 6^th of January which brings in the wild card, Iskariotes – the element of motion and transformation that made the theophany possible.  It is the day of illumination, declaration and manifestation of promise made possible by the three magi-kings.

It is also the day sacred to ‘the old one’, Befana in Italian folk beliefs. Befana takes the form of the well known broomstick riding witch-hag who in the likeness of St. Nick and Krampus crawls down the chimney to reward and punish children.  In Haiti it is the day of Simbi – a class of spirits associated with magic, the woods and miracles appearing in the obscure corners of creation. A day when the woods reveal themselves in all its glory at springs of water and waterfalls.

It is also a day marked by misrule in the saturnalian cycle where the ruler was decided by chance. In modern day this custom is found in the Spanish Roscón made in honour of the magi kings. The cake contains a single bean – and the one who gets it is made king for a day – and at times a fool for a lifetime.  It is ultimately the day when the Fates manage to tempt Saturn to reveal a day of the golden age for those who has eyes to see.

It is a day, like the Holy Friday, when the veil between the worlds are most fragile and in Scandinavia it was customary to fumigate the house and land intensely on this day – the twelfth day of the Christ Mass cycle as it denoted the last chance of malefic to take a grip on the world. Juniper and storax, frankincense and myrrh make for a most pleasant atmosphere and a honey-soaked fruity pie and gallons of musky red wine and cider will invite Saturn and Jupiter to bestow blessings upon the house.  

Intriguingly it is the journey of three magi kings that defines the twelve days where the Wild Hunt roams the world under the sun. The cycle of the longest night naturally invites the nocturnal denizens to feast upon the absence of the Sun.  The wise journey mediated by the terrors of Odin and the herd of dead ones brings you to the crossroad of gold.  

It is the last day of night and magic before the Sun again takes the reins and awakens from her banishment. It is a day of snakes and vipers – of illumination and prophecy. It is the day where oath taken shall never be given. It is a day where what is done shall breakthrough in the halls of gold and silver and mark the world forever with a spark and a glimpse of infinity and miraculous possibility. This is the day when the fool can rule and whoever can at least catch the scent of the regal crown – taking it or not.  It is the day that gives release to want and it gives solace and an oasis in our journey. All this gives cause for celebration;  because today we can all be kings – kings of folly or wisdom in accordance with Fate’s dictate. Let us throw out the old in a night of foolish revelry and let us ascend on the rivers of searching because on this day, it be visible or invisible, the good Lord Saturn gives from his cornucopia gold, wine, madness and wisdom. But never forget that a fool with a crown remains a fool but a sage with a crown rules forever!    

The Road of no Return nor Exit

Ifá teaches the importance of sacrifice. When sacrifice is mention in relation to African faiths the life force offering rushes to the mind – but it is not so. Life force offerings are only one of many modalities of sacrifice. A host of materials can be subject to sacrifice, a food for restoring divine equilibrium – and in fact the sacrifice of one’s attitude values more than blood. To sacrifice your attitude, it be your vengeance, your anger, your misplaced justice and prejudice is at times as hard as moving mountains.

Ifá speaks in the odù Òtúrárosù the following:

Wúyéwúyé

A dífá fún wón ní tibó

Wón níkí wón rúbo

Kí ohun gbogbo ti wón máa se

Kí ó má ba máa se tibó

Ifá ní ki eníkan rúbo

Kí ó má bá máa ri òràn tibó

Kí ohun ti ó múu má bó lówó rè

Kò si lè te ni ohunkòhun

Translated:

Gently, gently

This was the advice of Ifá

For those at an impasse

Ifá said they should sacrifice

So that all they were doing would not come to an impasse.

Ifá says a person should practice sacrifice

So that he will not encounter an impasse in

What he does

And so that things will not slip from her grasp

And she will be unable to hold on to anything

Ifá speaks here about situations where our pride gets in the way. Our pride can block our progress in many ways, by holding on to what is just and right and what we desire to hold, which is often in the kingdom of envy.

Other verses in the same odù speaks of how Òtúrá rested and how Ìrosù rested at the impasse and gave way for honesty; often the biggest sacrifice imaginable when we have bet everything on one card of truth that turned out to be a miserable laughing joker.

When we are there at the crossroads of opinions finding that both you and the other stand hard in its pride only one thing manifests; namely stagnation. And like stale water it all turns bitter because of the pride moving the game. Pride can be defined by lack of humility and lack of truth.

In an exchange of opinion both parties tend to hold the truth hard, even when the truth held is ripped apart and show its fraudulent face. Ifá advices first to be gentle and then to give way for truth – this involves often a sacrifice, a realization that we were actually wrong; a sacrifice of attitude where we open for blessings.

Today in our modern age to accept failures and to ask forgiveness is often associated with weakness – but indeed humility is the sword of the wise – a testament to the world that we are all apprentices in the mysterious world of divine being. Humbleness is not that difficult, it implies solely that you bother to consider another person’s opinion and make a truthful evaluation of it. A humble exchange of opinion is a vein of growth and also a sacrifice. This sacrifice is mediated upon truth and truth leads to the realization of beauty – a worthy sacrifice that makes your life better and helps us all to move on to reach our destiny.