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.

St. Michael, Angel of the Balance

Michaelmas have been subject for shifting dates, varying from the fast in honour of the Cross in the Orthodox Church spanning from the 14th to 27th of September and until 11th of October as was the day of the Old Michaelmas. Legend tells that on this day Satan was thrown out from heaven and landed in brambles, hence the blackberries should not be collected after this date as Satan defecated upon the berries on this day and made them poisonous. Other stories of probably East European origin informs us that the bramble and blackberry was formed by the Devil as his response to grapes, hence its praise name as The Devil’s Grapes.

Henry Corbin in his brilliant presentation of Ishmaelite Sufism comments that the Balance represents the four pillars of the Temple of the Ka'bah supported by the four archangels Seraphiel, Michael, Gabriel and Azrael, each one of them being conceived as the heart of the four main prophets, Adam, Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad. The four pillars guard the throne where the Black Stone is set. This provides intense dimensions to Michaelmas in the guise of the equinox of the Sun’s entrance in the sign of the Balance, the Black Stone being the heart of Venus.

Michaelmas is today related to the equinox of spring or autumn, depending on which side of the equator you find your habitat. The changing seasons in either way is born from the path of the Sun entering the sign of Libra or the Balance. Libra is ruled by Venus and is the bane of Venus the Sun now enters. The triad of stars used as a belt by Orion the hunter is called the three Mari’s is reflections of Venus as she moves from love to war through ecstasy.

On this day the Great Hunter establishes the Balance between the interior Hell and the interior Eden, hence the rhythm, of perfection moves the staff of the Upright to be established so yet again the Path Direct can appear from the bewildered forest of thoughts and deeds. Yet again we can set the scales, they be of heart and feather, sulfur and mercury or truth with lie and renew the path towards self upon the Compass of Venus, in St. Michaels cloak carrying the double edged sword of true perception.

So on this day, let us bring forth the rose of resurrection, flanked by the Grapes of Eden and the Grapes of Hell and place here the dagger that cuts both ways as three lamps cast its golden light over the mystery of the Balance. Pour milk and honey over the stone of beginning so the memory of the light can again flash out upon the world of Mari under the watchful gaze of the Hunter, under the sword and cloak of St. Michael; let the worlds of promise sprout and blossom. With this let us raise the burning sickle and praise the land, the heavens and the steps taken that led us to this holy juncture! With this I raise my glass, the wine red with oath and blood and I bow in gratitude as I give thanks in the moment I cease myself in you, He and She! Amen!


More about Michaelmas in Meanderings of the Muse

The Devil Elect

“Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?”

-           

        The Gospel of John 6: 70

The drama around the Last Supper details a Great Mystery, because here we see the cosmic necessity for the Devil, as the one who affirms the design. The role of Devil can be one given according to Fate’s dictate or being caused by one being appointed to uphold this dignity. In all instances, the Devil is the one who marks the outer limits of possibility, the contraction of the worlds in pain or delight as it affirms beauty and bliss. In its more profane activities, the appointed Devil is merely perceived as a troublemaker, a nuance, a slanderer, a liar – a wayward son of Mercury by all measure. Still, by being appointed as the Devil a tension is established that affirms the agenda of him or her who has appointed their accuser – the accuser will then affirm the truth and the lie by mere existence.

Commonly ‘devil’ and ‘demon’ are used interchangeable, but it is important to make a distinction here. If we follow the earliest Greek transcript of the Holy Bible, the Vatican Manuscript no 1209, also known as the Emphatic Diaglott it is interesting to note that in the Gospel of John chapter 6 where Jesus appoints Judas to be his devil the original Greek word is diabolos. In other passages where KJV uses devil, such as throughout the 11^th Chapter of the Gospel of Luke we find the Greek daimone/demon being used. In KJV this distinction is absent and devil is the translation both of diabolos and daimone. Diaglott makes clear to us that the chief of the demons is Baelzebubth/Baelzebub – and it was by the aid of Baelzebub that Jesus the Christ was accused of controlling the demonic host. There is no connection here with demons always being diabolos.

The Outside

“Those who cannot walk the path alone will be throd upon by those who can”

-           - Andrew D. Chumbley

The witch is constantly presented as something from the outside that affects the natural order – itself being a part of the natural order – but who possess knowledge forbidden. This is a true arising from Jules Michelet and his poetic renderings of the perennial themes making up the icon of the witch as from ethnographies and confessions collected both in the pre-modern and modern world. Perhaps the more ill fate has become the people from the outside in modern time where another element has been added to the icon of the witch, namely superstition. George Ewart Evans comments upon this in his exposition of rural folk magic in Britain that this word, from superstant, in the meaning of ‘standing over’ or being guiding principles for cult and culture today invites provocation and violent reactions because it is conceived of as an assault on common sense and reason. 

The Russian mystic Maria de Naglowska in her treatise The Light of Sex identifies reason with the realm of the satanic, understood to be what denies life and seeks its annihilation. With the advent of the age of reason the overarching goal of attack was superstition and consequently everything outside the material sphere obtained a renewed demonization. In the pre-modern world the witch was something volatile and unpredictable, but with modernity the witch also became a threat against reason. The witch became myth and legend – still its existence nailed the modern scientific dogmas and interests with the fact that they are still to be found.