Letting the mysteries speak for themselves

One of the things that upsets me as a practitioner of a vodou based tradition is the way in which we tend to treat each other.

Google any well known initiate or go on any vodou based forum and I grantee you'll fine one of the following: X doesn't know shit about X, Y hasn't got a 'real' kanzo, he/she is white/gay/etc and therefore can't have any black spirits or initiate in X, my tradition's spirits are better then yours, etc, etc ad nausea.

Outside of forums or in private messages it can get equally bad with people trying to steal initiates or convince others that they haven't been taught properly or that they are somehow less real or less powerful then X.

You know what its boring, its inane and its kinda pathetic. We should have trust in the spirits and God to weed out the wheat from the chaff or have enough confidence not to have to put others down to feel better about themselves. Do we really think that the spirits care more about skin colour, sexuality and ancestry then about what is inside a practitioner and the qualities they have? Do we as vodou practitioners not have enough prejudice and hatred from the outside world without having to worry about what our brothers and sisters are saying or doing behind our backs?

Yes there will be people out there who do things in the wrong way or who spread misinformation or who are just willfully ignorant as to what they should be doing on their path. But it should be up to us as initiates or priest to lead by example not by trying to spread muck and we should have enough trust in our own mysteries to speak for themselves.

Tonight I sat down with my guide, I prayed for him and talked to him. Then I spent the next half an hour getting upset with him. You see he had told me some things which I didn't want to hear and to my shame i'm not always the best at taking bad news. I wish this is the first something like this has happened but its not, its not a frequent occurrence but it is something that happens occasionally.

But the thing is as I got upset, prayed for a different outcome and generally acted like a bit of a dick, my heart began to clear. Feelings poured out of me that had been building up for weeks; my frustration, loneliness and heartache boiled to the surface and my guide took all those feelings and left me cleansed of them. He told me to have hope, that my spirits would guide me and he lifted up my heart. In short he took all my pain, bitterness and anger and in its place he left me feeling peaceful and hopeful once again.

And for that I'm truly grateful to him, because my guide and my spirits aren't just there for me when things are going well. They are also there for me when I'm in a bad mood, or sad or angry or depressed. They help to pick me up when I fall down and they help to steer my course when i'm heading in the wrong direction.

The Ancestors

This week as I do every week, I lit a candle for my ancestors and I prayed for them and for their elevation. I thought about the people I loved who had died in my life and I sat and listened to their advice and their wisdom.


Ancestor veneration is a very important part of Sanse, this is because as my papa says you come into the world standing on the shoulder's of your ancestors. Without them I wouldn't be here right now and without them letting in my other spirits in I couldn't work with them.


When I first started practising I found working with my ancestors one of the hardest things to do. It was painful to think about the ones I love who had died every week and so I tended to avoid doing it. Once I began to serve them however, I began to deal with those feelings of grief and it helped me to remember my ancestors with  loving memories rather then painful ones.


Now when I serve with my ancestors its a deeply positive experience. I get the sense of them being like a wall or a chain, they surround and protect me. They lend me their wisdom and their strength and act to help me in numerous way. Furthermore as I have begun to work with them more, I have begun to discover new commission spirits and discovered links between my own family and the Mysterio that walk with me.


As I work with them more I hope to discover more about them and help them rise up and one day when I join their ranks. I hope I can provide the same understanding and wisdom to future generations that they have given to me.

The long and difficult road

One of the things that has been brought home to me many, many times in my spiritual journey is just how difficult following a spiritual path truely is. Its as true for me in Sanse, as it for a person of any other faith. When I first started practicing vodou I had ideas of the Mysterio saving me from singledom, helping me to fix my career and saving me from my own flaws and foibles.


Since then my hearts been thoroughly broken, my creative streak was severely damaged, I've had spiritual experiences that have scared me to death, I still don't have a steady career, savings or a house to call my own. And I still get depressed by the lack of these things, so why am I still practising Sanse?


Because I love God and I love the spirits and because as much as these are the things I wanted, over time I realised they weren't the things I needed. Instead of the love of my life, the spirits brought me many friends who love me and remind me so frequently. They helped me through my step dad's death, made me realise the career I would had settled for would have ultimately left me unhappy, stressed out and unfulfilled. They helped me out through my depression, allowed me to face my creative block, made sure I never wanted for money, made it possible for me go travelling through India, Canand and New Zealand. Finally they protected me from harmful individuals, brought me the confidence and strength I needed to stand up for myself and the peace I needed to accept the pain and hardship and disappointment that life can bring.


And instead of handing me the things I wanted from life on a platter, they gave me the insight and skills I would need to get them myself. And that means when I do eventually achieve my goals in life, they will be the things that I truly need and I will have earned them for myself. And that will be the greatest gifts that God and the spirits could give to me.

My personal experiences of God

For me one of the most beautiful verses of the Koran begins: "God is the light of the heavens and the Earth"

Now for me personally as a Sanse practitioner, this is one of the most poignant lines from the Koran. It is one of the sutras that I recite most often and it is a verse that I keep very close to my heart. This is because, for me God is the source of all light in the universe and I see God as the being that will grant light and elevation to us and the spirits. As such I wanted to share seven of my thoughts and feelings that I had when I was meditating on God.

1) God is a flash of blinding light, that leaves me utterly dazzled.
2) God is a flame inside you that turns into an inferno, when you meditate on its radiance.
3) God is the beauty of passing clouds on a clear day.
4) God is yearning and longing, that is made much sweeter for the ache His absence causes.
5) God is the absence of light and the waiting in the dark for a hint of His light.
6) God is the shame you feel, the pain, the confusion when you think he is not listening and the relief you feel when you find out he is.
7) God is the joy you feel when you discover how beautiful and glorious you truly are.

A new blog

Sometimes the best thing to admit to yourself and to other people is that you don't know as much about a subject as you would like to. This is because when you write about a subject without knowing enough about it, you can make yourself look rather silly. Or as Ogun Feray once said to me "Some people who be fools, don't know they be fools".


Now this is the second Sanse blog that I have created. I took the first one down because at the time of writing, I began to realise that I didn't know enough about Sanse as I needed to. With this new blog, I wanted to create a fresh start. A way to explore my own spiritual growth and reflect on what I have already learned. In doing so I hope I will be able to elevate myself further and become closer to the God and the spirits that I love so much.