Why I like Hoodoo

Hoodoo crosses cultural and spiritual bridges and boundaries. With all the years I have been studying and practicing spirituality and magic, I have always enjoyed finding the commonalities between the different arenas that exist. Now although I see this within the Hoodoo practices and beliefs, others may not, but this is not a problem, just something I like to observe and may bring up from time to time. So, if I ever make comparitive examples, I am not trying to synchronise other practices into Hoodoo more than they should be, just relating it to other things as a point of reference.

 

My own spiritual, religious and magical practices have developed over the years, forming what has become "My Path", and something I think we should all do. We were created as individuals, even though we belong to Great All Is and are in fact all One, but as livingbreathingthinking people, we have our own minds, our own memories, and so we should be able to decide what we do with them. Having had my main focus on Traditional Paganism and Kabbalah, I find Hoodoo speaks volumes for me, not because Hoodoo is those things, but because of certain aspects that got ingested as it were.

 

Hoodoo finds its roots in Africa, and although I was born in England, I live in South Africa. This is where I call Home, where my feet rest, on African soil. Although my roots are firmly placed in English soil, those same roots stretch across the oceans and the tree above the ground is growing on African Land.

 

I get to put herbs, roots and powders into my mortar and pestle and grind them up, mixing them together and watching the different colours and shades all swirl and mix together. I get to sing to these herbal mixtures, to the spirits and to the Power. Wortcunning at its best. I get to speak with Saints, Loa, Spirits of all natures, Spirits that are closely connected to the Land that I stand on, and they speak back to me. I use my knowledge of Kabbalah to call on the Archangels, which aids in the petitioning of the Saints; and the Psalms, being of Hebraic origin, speak volumes to me. My interest in the old Grimoires comes into play when the use of the talismans and seals is required, and because all of the pomp and ceremony has been removed from such, I can easily relate to this as I like to keep my own practice simple and straight forward. I have never been one to go through lengthy rituals, as Power and Spirit are all around us, waiting for us to just open our mouth and speak with It, or turn our ear to listen. It's simple, plain, but we as humans like ceremony and often tend to complicate things. Not that I dislike ceremony, it can be a very beautiful and powerful thing, but I like the practical approach greatly.

 

What I like most about Hoodoo is the sychronicity between religions and spirituality. Don't forget that Hoodoo is not a religion, and is not a religious practice, but if any practitioner is going to include religion, in the traditional sense, then it would be Christianity. So what we have is a magical practice which causes change in our life and environment, has influences from Kabbalah, European folkmagic, Native American spirituality and African tradition, which is met with Christianity and Catholicism. You may think this is a strange mix, calling on God and the Saints to aid in your magical work, but when you really get down to the roots and bones of any religion, there is a current that flows through all of them. No matter what you follow or believe, you cannot discount the fact that this universe, planet and you came from something, somewhere, a Power or a Force that is everything, an energy that moves through all things. Call it what you like, it is not the gods, the spirits, the loa, or any of those entities that we can contact and speak with, it is something that is in everything which our minds can comprehend and in everything our minds cannot manage to comprehend. This common aspect of all religions is what I like, bringing them all into the same arena and allowing them to talk to one another as friends, brothers and sisters, all children of that eternal Power. Instead, we fight, allow our egos to try and gain the upper hand over our fellow brother or sister, and this Power still flows through us, intermingles with the space between and in and out of both of us, mixing us with each other and everything, making us one, making us whole. Yet we still decide to force our seperation from each other and from that which is all of us. This, I don't like.