Choosing to Do the Hoodoo

I've been thinking a lot over the past two years, mostly to myself, about how much I've been struggling religiously or spiritually, and how much I've been fighting against some inner change. I realize I've been in conflict with myself for pretty much all of the ten years I've been practicing witchcraft, as well as attempting to fit into any number of Pagan traditions. I've researched and gone through motions of Wicca, Druidry, Celtic Recon, Thelema, some eclectic version of Egyptian religion. I kept looking and trying because I was holding so hard onto what had developed into my identity as a religious, Pagan person. I was willing to accept anything in order to be a religious person, but the whole time, I was forcing it. And my lack of progress in these traditions was evident. My identity is changing and I am embracing it, because now I'm really beginning to understand what everyone else is talking about when they say, "It just feels right."

My makeup for opening ritual at last week's Hoodoo Fest to invite in the Ancestors.

I'm no longer a religious person. I don't believe the gods exist as anything other than archetypes. I don't believe in karma, though that's sort of old news. I'm losing faith everyday in the occurrence reincarnation. I no longer view the elements as individual, conscious energies. I'm basically an atheist.

But I still consider myself a spiritual person, because I do hold beliefs in things that aren't directly observable, things that haven't been explained (or accepted) by science. I believe there is a truth to energy manipulation. There is truth in being able to sense and respond to energy that is outside of your own. Energies that belong to the air and the soil and the plants, ponds, rivers, lightning, stones, the moon, animals, the dead. I believe that land spirits are a real thing, they are unique to their own ecosystems, and that we can learn about them by spending time in our environments, paying attention to what we feel when we're there. And I think it's because that I believe in these things that I don't need the religion anymore.

Probably the biggest influence on this personal change entered my life two years ago, when my church began its West Kentucky Hoodoo Rootworker Heritage Festival. Our third consecutive Hoodoo Fest just ended last week and each time I attend, I learn and become even more confident in leaving religion behind to pursue a craft-like approach to spirituality that is rooted in the practices of energy manipulation (magic) and ancestor reverence. And these practices also have a different quality that captivates me more than any others ever have: they're American.

One of the biggest things I've been struggling with for the last decade is that I don't know how to practice something that is so culturally-involved when I myself am not a part of that culture. Yes, my ancestors came from Ireland and England and Prussia, but I didn't. Even having lived in Europe, attending a British school, studying abroad in England, visiting Ireland, hanging out in Germany every weekend, I'm not Irish or English or German. I am American, and before I knew what hoodoo was, it seemed like there was no practice of which that I was ever going to feel truly a part. I might not be a native of the Carolinas or grew up in a household with a grandma who sprinkled brick dust and had superstitions about how to store a broom, but I don't think that matters. Since I've began my own personal research and practice, and since I've been attending hoodoo-focused workshops every year at my church, I've enjoyed success and improvement in my spiritual life that I feel I was always missing out on before. When I dress candles and write petition papers and create sachets, I feel like I'm participating in something that works and enriches my life, rather than something frustrating and discouraging.

I'm even shying away from what I called European witchcraft. There is a feeling of so much freedom in Hoodoo when my materials are just yarn, salt, paper, herbs (among other very easy to find or make ingredients). No need for wands and athamés and censers and grand gestures. Hoodoo is the kind of craft that I can practice sitting on my deck listening to the birds, wrapping string around a little piece of paper. I don't have to be chanting and raising my arms and dancing around an altar at midnight. It's a relief.

And it's also relieving to understand and come to terms with how my beliefs are evolving. I think there's a lot of pressure in the Pagan community to be a polytheist, and to adhere to a karmic worldview, and to never harm anyone or anything, even in self defense. There's a stark dichotomy between "black/dark" and "white" witchcraft that frankly, I hate. It's always been my opinion that overall, Neo-Paganism should draw its spiritual inspiration from nature and it just drives me crazy when Pagans devise all these ethical constructs and fantastic beliefs that have nothing connecting them to the natural world. Hoodoo seems so different in the still early stages of my practice because it is directly connected to the land and the community in which I live. The rainwater I collect comes from my backyard. My petition paper comes from local thrift store packaging that wraps the many jars I also purchase there. The more I learn about this craft, the more I try to use materials that I can walk outside of my house and find right in my yard. I want to personally make my materials as much as I can, like when I made my own Florida Water. Next, I'd like to make my own rose water, and try my hand at my own candles and oils.

Hoodoo to me represents a practice of self-accountability, responsibility, and creativity. It provides so many opportunities for an individual to experience self-growth through trial and error and learning at one's own pace, along with practicing traditional methods. Specifically to me, it allows me to figure out my own ethics and beliefs without the requirement of belief in gods and karma and all the other things that hang me up about other spiritual/religious systems. But it's flexible enough that many practitioners of it (at least most of the people I've met), do approach it from a religious point of view. Some even identify as Christian or at least work the magic within a Christian context, using psalms, calling on Mary and Jesus. It's that flexibility that really makes hoodoo a true craft to me, not just a spiritual activity. From all I've learned and done so far, it's not a meditate-y, prayerful, fluffy bunny, unconditional love and peace type of spirituality. And I need that because nature and life and my own experience are sometimes rarely those things. I need a practice that is grounded in the type of reality that I'm looking at everyday. I don't want a religion or a spirituality for which I have to set time aside, or get into the right (somewhat altered) mindset to participate, or ignore my education as a scientist, or any other ways of removing myself from this world. I'm looking for a spirituality that isn't supernatural, but is still mysterious, with concepts and skills to learn throughout my life.

I believe ultimately that spirituality should be about enriching one's life in the present. I also believe that the enrichment should be driven by oneself, through study, active practice, learning from mistakes and remembering successes for next time. The practice of hoodoo allows these things to happen for the individual, for me, and it's because of that that I don't think I'll be looking back at much of anything else as I move forward. The deeper I go into the study and practice of hoodoo, the farther away these inner conflicts about gods and religion and fitting in with other Neo-Pagans become. This system of American folk magic makes me feel like I know what home is. And home to me is not worshipping deities and drawing down the moon and turning the other cheek until there's nothing left because performing a curse is "wrong." Home is reading and coffee and little red bags filled with lodestones and herbs, enjoying a breeze, sitting with friends, sprinkling salt in the corners of the house, cooking and beer and laughter. Religion or spirituality should not be separated from everyday life, and it just feels right to finally be experiencing them together.

Open Mind, Closed Skull

Before You Read:

I wrote this post as an outlet for my frustration. This is long-winded vent, and I understand that it will be considered offensive to different types of people. If you're not interested in reading pretty strong criticism of Christianity, then don't read this post. I'm not going to apologize for my words.

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I'm a person who thinks about religious tolerance quite a lot. I consider the difficulties in finding balance between too much and too little tolerance (and am especially interested in the former). I'm also interested in finding out what tolerance really is, and how it differs from acceptance and also encouragement.

Religious tolerance and coexistence are widely desired and cultivated values within Paganism. There is a universal ideal of acceptance for all faiths or "paths" that many Pagans hold to be a foundational trait of one who is open-minded. The sentiment appears in several forms, such as, "All paths are valid and/or leading to the same goal," - "There is no one true way, and all ways deserve respect," - "There is an interfaith connectedness between all people," - "All is one," - and so on. I'm sure every Pagan has heard, and most believe, in practicing these values of acceptance. But when is a person too tolerant, too accepting, too open-minded? I imagine many people believe that there isn't such thing as too much acceptance and tolerance, but I disagree with that completely.

-Arthur Hays Sulzberger

It's intriguing to me that complete open-mindedness seems to only be applied to matters of religion. We're "allowed" (and encouraged) to be intolerant of racism, animal cruelty, homophobia, sexism. But if you're not accepting of Christianity or Wicca or Islam or Satanism, you're suddenly close-minded, a bigot. Why is there a protective line drawn around religion? Why is it held separate from the scrutiny and criticism to which all other beliefs and opinions are subjected? Why is religion a sacred topic? As Mark D. Jordan said, “Truly damaging speech cannot be excused just because it expresses genuine religious belief."

When I was still a practicing Wiccan, I was wholly tolerant. I accepted all religions and spiritualities and believed they were all leading to a common place of love for all people. If I witnessed someone's religion being criticized (usually online), I went to their defense, even becoming personally angry on behalf of people I thought were being targeted. This was regardless of their beliefs, and is something I did specifically when Christians were under attack. I was a member of a small, online Wiccan community, sort of like Facebook, and while a member of that site, I wrote blogs constantly about defending Christianity against those Pagans who openly criticize it. I look back at that time in my life (probably 19-21 years old), and I can't even believe my memories of myself.

I was completely blind -- blind to the prejudice, bigotry, and injustices being done by the people I was spending so much time defending. I was completely tolerant of intolerance, keeping my mind so open that my brain fell out in chunks, squashed on the floor. I ignored all the bad experiences both myself and my peers had, insisting that we can't judge all people for the bad actions of some. When I fell away from Wicca, and moved to the Bible Belt in 2010, I began to really solidify a change in how I define and exhibit tolerance, and this change has made me stronger and more confident than I ever was when I was trying to unconditionally love everyone.

I have to be honest now about the real focus of this post rant -- I dislike Christianity. I disagree with almost every tenet it espouses, and outside of a few psalms in the Old Testament, I consider the Bible to be a very destructive piece of literature. I believe YHWH to be a terrifyingly bloodthirsty god (I'd take the attention of the Morrígan or Pélé any day over his), and I've arrived at the opinion that Yeshua (Jesus) was a radical, apocalyptic prophet who disguised a call to war behind empty words of love. In my own life, almost all of the hatred, ignorance, and prejudice I've witnessed has been motivated by that god, that book, and that prophet, and I quit apologizing for and defending the actions of Christians in general years ago. I once accepted all Christians first, assumed immediately they were caring, loving, kind, non-judgmental. Now, I do my best to avoid them, and wait until they show by their actions that they are in fact full of unconditional love for their fellow humans. It's become an exercise in continued disappointment, with few examples that have changed my mind.

My house is visited almost weekly by all different churches, leaving pamphlets, knocking on my door, trying to spread the "good news." I went to a new dermatologist a few weeks ago, and within 20 minutes of entering the exam room, I was already being given flyers for a Christian class for college students (I'm never going back to that doctor again). I've been prayed to loudly on my own property by members of a group called the Christ Ambassadors -- one of them even grabbed the nose chain I was wearing, violating my personal space entirely. The rudeness with which these people treat others is really astonishing; it's happened to myself and I've seen it happen to others. And all of that is nothing compared to what is happening elsewhere in the world. I see church leaders protesting a Summer Solstice festival in Florida, pastors encouraging the murder and torture of children accused of witchcraft in Nigeria. Not to mention the Catholic sex abuse scandal, and now that the religion in general is starting to be more openly criticized, Christians are complaining about becoming a hated minority due to their anti-homosexual rhetoric and behavior. And while many say that these are fringe groups, that they don't represent rank-and-file Christians, nothing could be further from the truth, because those rank-and-file individuals hardly do anything to oppose the speech and actions of their leaders, especially publicly. They don't hold them accountable, and yet act offended when those of us on the outside affiliate them with the negative image that their hierarchy displays. Being tolerant of intolerance only perpetuates hatred.

That's why I can no longer defend Christianity, to others or to myself. There are some amazing Christians I've met, people I consider to be good friends (a couple are members of my family), but I no longer believe that most Christians are like them. They are the exception, and I wish that wasn't true, but it is. I barely need two hands to count the Christians I've met who don't proselytize or try to convert me and others. Those few Christians realize how offensive and divisive behavior like that is. They realize how behavior like that does not show love for fellow humans, only a desire to dominate and change them. A long rant like this wouldn't be necessary if all, or even most Christians were like the few that have taken the time to let me get to know them without the expectation  that I'll join them on Sundays. They've even invited me to speak about Pagan topics in order that they can learn more. They answer my questions in an honest and straightforward way, and remain welcoming without being pushy or expressing concern for my soul. It's incredibly refreshing to know them, especially while living in an area where a church van will park in my front yard and three people will stand on my porch trying to convince me to go to their church. And, as I've found out, adding my address to their mailing list without my consent.

Why should I be accepting of people like that? I think one of the fundamental practices of acceptance is "to live and let live." I only give out cards to my Pagan church to people who specifically inquire about Paganism. I don't go around town knocking on people's doors trying to convince them to attend Spirit of the Earth, and then fight them when they say no. While I would love to see the population of practicing Pagans grow, I'm not aware of any Pagans who are trying to actively cause that growth. The majority of the Christians in the United States do not live and let live, they do not practice tolerance and acceptance. It's not enough for them to just not attend the Summer Solstice festival in Florida, they have to do everything in their power to shut it down completely. It's not enough for them to send their children to private Christian schools, they also want the secular public to pay for a religious education with which they disagree. It's not enough for them to just be welcoming to the people who approach their churches on their own, instead they have to invade the private lives of their neighbors and attempt to scare them into attending.

So why should they be treated with respect and acceptance that they don't deserve? And why should we Pagans be trying so hard to remain accepting? We don't owe them anything. I tolerate their door-to-door "invitations" with politeness, but I no longer lie to them to spare their feelings at the expense of my own. I am tolerant of their existence, but I do not knowingly support or encourage their practice -- and simultaneously, I would never do anything to impede it, as long it was not interfering with my own way of life. That is what it means, to me, to live and let live, to be tolerant. It might make me harsh or a bitch, but I know my open mind is protected by a skull kept tightly closed.

It is possible (and really not very difficult) to hold strong religious convictions without needing them to be validated by millions worldwide, without having to constantly gather more and more followers to give your own beliefs weight. Pagans are living like this everyday. Regardless of religion, all people believe their personal practices or paths are the best -- we wouldn't be following them if they weren't -- and we should be strong and passionate enough that we don't need anyone else to believe our paths are the best along with us. We should have a confidence and self esteem that allows us to handle disagreement and be able to walk away from it, unoffended and without losing a step. And though I am biased, I see that most Pagans can do this, and we can do it politely and without being offensive ourselves. I'm often inspired by the way I see other Pagans dealing with highly offensive encounters with Christians. For example, another blogger posted this video recently (and I encourage any reader to watch it in entirety):

She is asked questions by this man that I've been faced with myself, and she responds gracefully despite the disrespect being thrown into her face by a stranger. She lives and let lives, even when faced with individuals who cannot do the same. She is a model for Pagans, illustrating beautifully the point at which I've tried to arrive with this whole rant: We can be tolerant without accepting, encouraging, or defending behavior we find abhorrent. We can politely defend ourselves against those who wish to attack and change us. We can be open-minded, but remain firm in our personal convictions. We can respond to rudeness with honesty and strength, and ultimately, we can coexist. We can walk away, shut the door, and move on without allowing insensitive, persistant people to invade our lives.

I'm trying to become better at this everyday. I started out so accepting that I would let anyone walk all over me and still try to defend and respect them. I know better now -- I'm no longer intimidated or angered by the offensive Christians I encounter in my daily life, and I also can tolerate them without being accepting or supportive. The type of encounters you experience living in the Bible Belt require a lot of patience, and sometimes it takes a rant like this to vent the frustration that results from such encounters. Compassion and understanding are important virtues, but they should not be extended unconditionally. It's important to speak out against what you believe is detrimental or wrong, and I'm glad that I've overcome my own fear of doing so. I hope more Pagans, and more rank-and-file Christians who are unhappy with how their religion is being portrayed, will do the same.

To those few exceptional Christians I've met: thank you for being confident enough in yourselves that my own confidence does not threaten you. To the Christians who can't be the same, get off my porch, stop flooding my mailbox, and kindly stay out of my life.

Enjoying Exercise

I think one of the things that makes sticking to an exercise plan difficult is the feeling of obligation and the lack of excitement. But not at first -- I do it all the time. I'm completely committed for a week or two, waking up early, making time, doing cardio, weight-lifting, ab work outs, etc. Sometimes, I go over to the gym and use the machines there. Other times, I stay at home and do a P90X routine. Every day I look forward to that time I make for myself, but after those 10 days or so, my enthusiasm starts to wane because I'm not actually enjoying my workouts. They are something I've made room for by taking away a different activity that I do like. If you go about exercising in this way, you'll never have a sustainable daily practice. At least, that's what I believe.

So I've been trying something different. I'm taking activities that I already enjoy and don't put into the exercise/working out category and I'm upping them so that they are more physically challenging. But I'm still holding onto what the original activity entails so that I can keep having fun with it. For example:

I love walking Sól. I get to bond with my dog and see him having fun, I get to explore the neighborhood where I live. I get to enjoy nature, the nice breeze, and I always feel better when I come home from a walk because I've done something that makes me and my dog happy. So instead of giving up that time that I love, I can change it in order to get even more benefits. I increase my time to walking for at least 30 minutes, but if I can, to go for an hour. I walk at a faster pace, and I take routes that have more hills. When I have a little bit more money, I would like to get some ankle weights as well as a pedometer to track my distance. But besides these few changes, my walks with Sól are the same. It doesn't seem like much, but mentally it goes a long way in order to keep yourself enthusiastic about becoming and staying more active.

And just because it's exercise doesn't mean I can't bring my camera along to get a few shots of the things I appreciate while I'm walking around town:

My absolute favorite house in town. I've never seen a witchier-looking manor. This is a total dream house for me.

A beautiful park that is about 30 minutes on foot away from me.  It's a very relaxing area.

I love seeing him so smiley (even though it's hot outside!)

I feel like I'm in a storybook when I walk here.

This treasure exists on my street, only a few doors down. I'm pretty certain it's abandoned and I would love to get over there to do a photoshoot soon.

I like to think that after we get home and rest, he thinks about the great, long walk we just went on.

Keeping motivation alive can be really difficult. Being healthy and happy with yourself is a lifestyle change that requires commitment and sacrifice. It can be really hard to continue to make choices that work for your goals because we become so dependent upon routine. But I really believe that with some creativity, research, and dedication, we can make our breaks from routine fun, enjoyable, and events worth looking forward to. I'm practicing this method everyday, and some days, I truly feel like I'm getting close. 

How I Must Take Myself Back

I've really started letting myself go, in the way overwhelmed, 40-something mothers do, before they cut all their hair off, becoming shapeless grey blobs of sweatsuits and birkenstocks. That's exactly how I feel.

I didn't think that would start to happen until my mid-30's or 40's, not my mid-20's. I feel incredibly old and immature at the same time. There are so many things I want to do, that are right there within reach, but I procrastinate everything. I'm lazy and sluggish, and up until the last few weeks, I've been indifferent as well. Getting by on knowledge and daydreams rather than action. It's really pathetic of me.

It may seem as if I'm having a pity party over here, but there's a difference between low self esteem and being realistic about how one has given up on oneself. For example : Though I wear yoga pants most days I'm not wearing scrubs, I only go occasionally now, despite having more time and more studios to visit. I used to go to yoga at least three times a week, sometimes two classes a day. Now I'm lucky if I make it to even two classes a month.

I used to be a health-food fiend, strict vegetarian, spending hours on shopping trips reading every label, cooking 3 or more meals at home each day, never touching bread or rice that was bleached, never eating frozen dinners, fast food of any kind wasn't even on my radar. Now, I drink soda, I cook more with my microwave than I do with my stove. Though I stopped eating vegetarian for other reasons, I've also completely slacked off on my Mediterranean (low glycemic index) diet. I haven't been to the farmers market in months.

And because of that, I'm gaining weight. I'm around 127-128 pounds, almost 20 pounds heavier than I've ever been before, none of it in muscle weight. I've stopped exercising, I've stopped hiking, I've stopped biking. I barely have enough energy to take my dog for a decent walk each day. Two years ago, I was doing P90X, I was going to the gym almost everyday, at least every other. When I see how out of shape I've become so quickly, it makes me feel defeated, which makes me feel indifferent.

I used to read obsessively, finishing 2-3 new books each month. I carried books everywhere, and turned their pages every chance I got a moment. It was one of the most important daily activities I had. And I still read now, but so much else has taken priority over it. My poor books gather dust faster than my eyes get to see their words. I'm still reading the same novel I was a month and a half ago. I haven't even gotten close to starting all the new ones I wanted to by now.

I used to have a dedicated spiritual practice. I spent a lot of time studying different texts, practicing new and old techniques, meditating, speaking to the Earth, experiencing Nature and Paganism in different ways. I do have to say that my church is one of the only things today that can get me awakened, energized, excited, interested. But it's so often now that I don't bring back home the things I learn there. My private life now is pretty empty, and it feels pretty meaningless. I'm fucking sick of it.

I want my life back, my sense of self, my whole self back. My identity has become that of a depressed, lonely, boring shell. I've not even started any of the 2013 resolutions I wrote for myself on January 1st. I said 2013 was my year, but I haven't yet accomplished one thing other than excuses and being afraid. I'm beyond wanting everything to change, and waiting for that to happen. I've been living passively and isolated, and it's bullshit. I'm glad I feel angry at myself for allowing all of this to happen. I wasn't ever angry about it before, just sad. Sadness doesn't motivate anything, it hinders and distracts and eventually cripples. But isn't it so easy to give into sadness? That's the real insanity of my own life right now. Up until this point, I've been content with being sad. How ridiculous is that?

There are so many things I want to accomplish, and so many changes that need to be made, ones I will have to force myself to embrace. Ones that I used to live out naturally that now seem so impossible. It's like I've forgotten how to be healthy and positive, somewhere, somehow, I fell out of rhythm and convinced myself that none of my old lifestyle mattered, because everything was stressful or chaotic. I've been less passionate than a zombie toward everything lately, and it is stopping now. I'm reaching in, and grabbing my mind or my soul or my higher self or whatever it is that we have, I'm grabbing it by the throat, slapping its face, demanding it to Wake Up, and possess me.

Dawn was so beautiful this morning. I won't keep wasting dawns like today's with hours that I throw away burying myself under negativity, irritation, and indifference. I am taking myself back, and I will not hold back to do so. No more laziness, or self-loathing, or self-sabotage. I no longer have patience for it in my mind or room for it in my heart. No one should ever let their self go.

No Surrender

It is the last weekend before the new semester starts, before the new spring, and I am desperate for change and for the ability to handle what's coming. Stress is the worst thing in my life, and though I feel completely adept at hiding my stress, it seems impossible to shut myself off from its experience, or to even diminish the experience. It is the reason for all my discomfort.

I do not place blame on stress, however, but rather on my own lack of self discipline in the face of stress. I have great plans for how to cope, but instead decide to buy a six-pack and watch TV, late at night when I get off work. And repeat, repeat. The cycle makes me so depressed that even the most basic meditation exhausts me, and each day I give up more easily. And repeat, repeat.

So of course, one of the bigger themes of my New Year's Resolutions is Find Ways to Better Deal with Stress. And I know what these art: more art, more exercise, improved diet, develop a more disciplined spiritual practice, more play, reading, imagination, meditation. Less booze, less smoking, (stop both...), less time non-productively spent on a computer, the end of procrastination. The end of feeding the strength of my stress by obsessing over it, worrying so much about how to handle it that I never actually do.

I believe there is a level of force required to defeat stress, and perhaps one of the simplest things is to force yourself to be positive. Punch through the mirror and declare, I am changing, I am making progress, there is evidence of these things. And I hope that this evidence will come to make up a portion of the meaningful content in this blog: how my puppy is growing into one of the sweetest dogs I've ever known (and how I'm starting to teach him some agility!), how I'm changing my diet and eating Mediterranean, low glycemic index meals, how I'm getting out more to photograph what I might begin calling "speed portraits":

I'm trying to spend more time with a variety of people, I'm cooking more at home again, on the weekends when I don't have work until the evening, I take some time to go to the gym. I snuggle more with my cat, I took Tuesdays off my work availability in order to attend more discussions with a local philoso-religious group I've known for a long time. I'm trying to laugh more without holding back. 

Anne Rice said, "The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half-strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation." I feel as though for some time, my laughter has sounded more like the latter, and I refuse for that to continue to be so. There are no more excuses nor justifications for surrendering to stress.