myencephalonjourneys

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Verrückt – meaning “insane” in German is the world’s tallest water-slide. It stands at 168 feet and 7 inches. It reaches speeds of 60 MPH after dropping you from the height of a 15 story building.

Forgot to mention that it opens tomorrow in Kansas City!

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I miss Iceland ❤️

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as a book fiend: a few of my favs for 02/08/2020🖤

not pictured: #relatable by Marquita Norwood. why? check out her book to find out 😎🖤

- jess

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105 years ago today…America’s most RACIST film was released!!! #NeverForget

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About Root Culture (read: Hoodoo)

The power, the mystery and the glory that is “hoodoo” is passed down through the bloodline of Afrikan people and is manifested and maintained by every generation of Black people of this land as it has been by their Afrikan Ancestors in the Motherland, from the beginning of the beginning. It was more than a collection of tricks; it was and still is the foundation of our survival in a place where we are disempowered, oppressed and murdered because we are Black. It is the well in which we dip to create, to make, to dream, to envision. We have used our juju to liberate, to preservere and survive. Black literature and music played a large part at giving testimony to Root Culture. The Black Church played a significant role in maintaining (AND suppressing) certain aspects of it. A common misconception about hoodoo is that it’s Christian-based. Actually… It’s Big Mama-based. And Mama luh gwine down erra night ta Ol’ Ebbaneezuh Baptiss choich fo’ta git huh prez on fo’ da Lawd. Additionally, our enslaved Afrikan Ancestors Africanized the Christian religion, by fusing traditions from West Afrika.

Not every Black child or young person is witnessed by an Elder to possess the eyes and/or the hands of a rootworker or conjurer. But every Black child who became a rootworker or conjurer was marked by the Ancestors and witnessed by the Elders. Those who have been marked and witnessed begin presentation, training and initiation, which is cultivated throughout their years. Learning roots is a process that takes YEARS to master, so this is why the strongest juju hands belong to the ELDERS of this tradition. The art image below depicts one manner most of us get our gifts or disposition (mark of the Ancestors) confirmed by our Elders. It is also one way (among many) the secrets and mysteries are passed down. This experience is ubiquitous within Root Culture.

The misconception that “hoodoo” is just magic that anyone can pick up is not only an insult to the legacy of the tradition, it’s a direct insult to us, our Elders and our Ancestors… It is a lie, started by non-Blacks to commodify the materials known in some parts of the rootwork practice (oils, incense, powders, roots, etc.). The power that fuels hoodoo goes beyond just tricks using powders, oils, candles, etc. Understand this: No rootworker worth his or her salt is going to order a root cultivated in Mexico from a shop in California whilst stepping over roots growing in the soil beneath his own feet in Ohio. The same roots his Big Mama used which had to replace the ones her Papa used while he was living down in Georgia. Our people historically worked with what was accessible to them. Nothing has changed within Root Culture. We still work this way.

Hoodooists utilize materials gifted to us from The Creator, the Ancestors and the Spirits of land, the waters, the bush, field, forest and swamp— even those who no longer live in the South still do— more than we do these commodified items but will at times use these things in a pinch and if we didn’t craft them ourselves, we will barter or swap with other workers.

Outsiders also think the practice is relegated to spiritual rituals, ceremonies and such, as some endeavor separated out from the mundanity of everyday life. Nope. Not true in many cases. It’s interwoven in our day-to-day. What must be understood: Black folk put de juju in jussboud errthang we do. It’s the foundation of our style, our swag… The one thing this white society loves to capitalize off of when they want to seem “hip” or “cool”… Forever copying off us but they never truly seem to quite get it. “Dey be all up in da kool-aid but don be knowin da flavor”… So while these outsiders are busy bedazzeling chicken feet and debating online about hot foot powder, they don’t even resonate with the juju of a plate of greens, the funk of an Elder, the braid styles of little Black girls, the notes from Bird’s horn, the solo from Hendrix, the bars from Kendrick, the little old lady sitting in the back pew of the Baptist Church scribbling in her Bible… But how could they? They aren’t Black nor a part of Root Culture. Most of them aren’t even interested enough in Black people to learn about our history for only 28 out of 365 days a year. And the gag is… juju is all up in our Black History, HA!

To repeat: Black folk put dat juju in jussboud errthang we do… #KnowThat

Rootworkin is passed down and maintained through the bloodline, and the style and approach to it depends on one’s Family. Your lineage dictates the manner of Spirits honored, which plant life are a part of your Root Family, which spaces in your environs are Places of Spirit, and so on. This information is never written about because it has never been written down. Deal with it. It is never talked about in depth because it is privileged information that if shared with those outside lineage, can have dire consequences. Death being among them. There is a reason there are so many tricks to protect one from bad juju and death. Likewise there is a reason many of our Elders will cease transmitting the secrets and the mysteries to their descendants and take all that info with them to the grave. Think about that….

The “recipes”, “spells” (we never call our workings “spells” by the way) and other things out in the wild labeled as “hoodoo” are for the most part sterile and useless. A lot of the bullshit out in public falls under de Konker rule and as such has been given status as red herrings, decoys or bits and pieces but not the whole. However, the anointed, initiated and skilled will see that fragmented or incomplete hoodoo recipe and they’ll know at a glance what items are missing. Another important thing to consider is that people who grew up around hoodoo or had rootwork done but were not themselves anointed initiated rootworkers, were the main ones disclosing information to outsiders of Root Culture who collected this info and had it published. Their mileage definitely varied.

Another thing that has gotten out of hand… Both culturally and historically, practitioners are NOT witches. Those who self-identify as witches but claim to practice hoodoo are basically saying they 1) have no blood ties or lineage, 2) have no Elders and 3) are outside the Root Culture Community. Without those three things, you do not have Hoodoo.

We are Mama. Sister. Nana. Auntie. Big Ma. Mother. Queen. Prophetess. Madame. We are NOT witches. Witch is a European word used to describe harbingers of evil. It is not a word used to describe physicians, healers, intuitives, prophets, empaths, seers, diviners, conjurers, herbalists, botanists, alchemists, psychics, mediums, magicians or sorcerers.. and rootworkers, rootdoctors, spiritualists… and hoodooists/voodooists. Witch is witch. Period. It has one meaning. Period. Afrikans historically understood and dealt with such things and our priests and priestesses were sought out to identify “witchcraft” (trust they had their own words in their own tongue that translated to witchcraft) and have it and who brought it destroyed. Then the white man came. Colonialists and Missionaries labled ALL Afrikan spiritual practices as witchcraft and its practitioners witches due to their racism, ignorance and arrogance.

Hoodooists, once identified and presented by their Elders, begin learning by living the tradition, within the culture. We are anointed. We are initiated. We learn by sitting at the feet of our Elders. We learn by apprenticing. We learn by being involved within our communities. We can write books and web pages and make videos about this until the cows come home. But we cannot teach it in this way. This work involves the eyes of the Elders and the hands of the Ancestors. It involves getting mud, shit and blood under our fingernails. It involves seeing in the dark. It involves dying and coming back. That’s something that cannot be received without being present, touching, tasting, seeing, smelling and feeling. And it cannot be given to you until your Ancestors mark you ready and your Elders are witnesses to it. And if you don’t have it, you most certainly aren’t fit to be teaching it. Like they say… ya caint give watchu neva had.

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Lineages & Initiation in ATRs

I wanted to share the exciting news that I am now officially a member of an ilé of the American diasporic practice of West African Yoruba Ifá tradition! I also wanted to take this opportunity to share more about the concept of ilé, lineages, and their importance for many Africana religions.

What are Lineages in African Traditional Religions?

> So what is an ilé, and why does it matter? Ilé in Yoruba language means “house,” “land,” or “earth.” It is what we call a lineage in Ifá tradition. This is a concept that is actually very relevant to many African traditional religions (ATRs) such as Santería, Candomblé, and Voodoo/Vodou/Vodun. None of these are single, organized religions. They are each made up of many, many different lineages that have certain practices and beliefs in common, but also lots of individualized differences as well. Every lineage in an ATR has its own way of doing things, and this is very important.

Different lineages in Ifá tradition have their own beliefs about the orishas:

“Bascom concluded that myths about the orisha are stories believed to be true and that the stories about how the orisha arrived on earth in Ile-Ife differ from lineage to lineage.” [x pg 76]

> There are different words for “lineage” in different ATRs. As mentioned, the Yoruba word for it is ilé. In Santería, they are often called casas (“houses”) or cases de Ocha. I have seen them referred to as “lineage,” “house,” and “family” in Vodou (though there may be other specific terms I’m not aware of).

The Role & Significance of Lineages

> Most African traditional religions are initiatory-based. When you get initiated, you become part of that lineage. This is one of many reasons why initiation is so important. To learn and practice many ATRs, you must get involved with a specific lineage. Every lineage is like a spiritual family, and when you are initiated you are officially adopted into it. The priest or priestess who initiated you is often referred to as your godparent. 

> Lineages keep oral tradition alive and secrets from being spread. Many ATRs such as the ones described above are forms of shamanism and mysticism, which means that there are important reasons why some practices are kept secret and passed down through lineages of oral tradition. “Mysticism” comes from the Ancient Greek word μυω (“I conceal”) and μυστικός (“an initiate”). By mysticism, I mean a type of spirituality that relates to becoming one with or fully knowing the divine or absolute truth. Mysticism traditions such as Kabbalah (Judaism), Vajrayana (Buddhism), and Sufism (Islam) have teachings and practices that are kept secret only for initiates/special students.

Shamanism is a type of mysticism present in many indigenous religions, traditional African religions included. A “shaman” is generally someone chosen by the ancestors, spirits, and/or deities of that culture to act as a bridge between those spirits and their community of living people. (Ex.: In some ATRs these spirits are the orishas, in others they are the lwa or loa). This is a huge responsibility, and the special knowledge and wisdom it requires could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

> Lineages are formed by student-teacher relationships. The role of shaman typically requires a lifetime of training and is usually taught by one experienced shaman to another through an oral tradition. Initiation(s) mark steps of progress on this learning path, growing the skills of the shaman and their powerful relationship with the spirits. This string of teacher-to-student relationships is what eventually becomes a lineage. In ATRs, this teacher is your godparent who initiated you as well as potentially other important role models in your lineage.

Each Religion & Lineage is Unique

> Every lineage has its own name. For example, the Idio lineage and Obadio lineage are two Yoruba lineages of Ifá tradition. The Asson lineage, Deka Lineage, and Tcha Tcha Lineage are well-known lineages of Haitian Vodou.

> Every lineage even within a single ATR has their own way of interacting with and potentially bringing in outsiders. For example, my ilé (lineage) in Ifá tradition accepts members through an application and based on experience with them even if you are not yet initiated on any level.

An example of this in Ifá tradition across different Ile-Ife lineages:

“When I asked Oduduwa devotees why their group was not as popular as the Obatala group, they responded that their own lineage forbade outsiders to participate whereas the Obatala group welcomed outsiders.” [x pg 76]

> Every lineage has its own set of beliefs and way of practicing. Though all the lineages of a specific ATR will have a lot in common, it is important to remember that there are always variations across each lineage and its version of the oral traditions passed down. 

This is one of many reasons why it is very difficult (or arguably impossible) to practice any ATR completely on your own. Most ATRs such as the ones described in this post are at their core based on community, lineage, initiation, and oral tradition. All these concepts are intertwined and without them you cannot fully engage in the traditions or even learn them at all.

If you engage in any related practices or traditions and notice anything inaccurate in this post, please message me so I can correct it. Thank you!

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Karolina Olsson was a Swedish woman who purportedly remained in hibernation between 1876 and 1908 (32 years). This is believed to be the longest time that anyone has lived in this manner who then awoke without any residual symptoms. However, it has been claimed that Olsson may not really have been asleep and hibernating all that time. There were many unexplained characteristics of her state; for example, her hair, fingernails, and toenails did not seem to grow. She suffered a head wound while outdoors at age 14 on 18 February 1876, but seemed to recover from it quickly. On 22 February, she complained of a toothache. Her family believed that her tooth was sore because of witchcraft, and she was ordered to go to bed. However, when she fell asleep, she did not wake up. Her father was a fisherman and unable to afford a doctor, and the family relied instead on the advice of friends and the town midwife. Olsson's mother force-fed her milk and sugar water. Finally, the neighbors paid for a visit from a doctor, who was unable to wake the sleeping girl and determined that she was in a coma. This doctor continued to visit her for a year, after which he wrote to the editor of Scandinavia's leading medical journal, soliciting the help of other professionals in finding a cure for Olsson's continuous sleep-state. Olsson was visited by doctors who noted that her hair, fingernails, and toenails did not seem to grow. The family reported that Olsson occasionally sat up and "mumbled prayers she had learned by rote in childhood". One doctor who visited Olsson was Johan Emil Almbladh, who thought that her sleep-state was a result of hysteria. In July 1892, Olsson was hospitalized in Oskarshamn, where she was treated with electroshock therapy. On 2 August 1892, she was released from the hospital without awakening or her situation improving. The hospital said that the appropriate diagnosis was "dementia paralytica". However, there is little to suggest that she actually suffered from that illness. She was not re-examined by a doctor until she awoke from her sleep. During the entire time that she was asleep, Olsson was given two glasses of milk each day. Her mother died in 1904, and after this, a maid continued to take care of Olsson and the household. Upon the death of her brother in 1907, Karolina began crying hysterically, although she remained asleep. She reportedly did not touch any food that she received during her years in bed, and the family's maid never heard her speaking. Olsson awoke on 3 April 1908, 32 years and 42 days after she had first fallen asleep. The maid found her crying and jumping on the floor. When her surviving brothers arrived, however, she did not recognize them. She was very thin and pale, and she showed sensitivity to light during the first few days after awakening. She was weak and had difficulty speaking. She could still read and write, and she remembered everything that she had learned before she fell asleep. Newspaper reporters from all over Europe, England, and the United States traveled to Oknö to interview her, and she and the family went into hiding to avoid the attention. She submitted to psychiatric testing in Stockholm and was found to be in full possession of the faculties that she had possessed before she fell asleep. At 46 years old, she was described as appearing to be no older than 25.

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Deceased celebrities who grew too fond of prescription drugs left behind evidence of their habits, in the form of pharmacy bottles. These macabre artifacts now widely circulate at auction houses. Fans collect the containers to better understand which chemicals coursed through the bloodstreams of the stars and in some cases ruined careers and lives. In the last few years, Heritage Auctions in Dallas has offered bottles from the 1970s that originally contained Elvis Presley’s doses of valium, Dexedrine, tetracycline and the beta blocker Inderal. Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles has offered a smattering of Elvis’s medication bottles from the 1970s, two of which sold for over $6000 each, as well as containers for Michael Jackson’s pain relievers, assortments of Truman Capote’s prescribed drugs and Marilyn Monroe’s barbiturates and anti-allergy pills. Vessels for non-lethal drugs prescribed for Jack Kevorkian have come on the market, too. The market has become so feverish that some living celebrities take precautions to protect themselves from any souvenir hunters scrounging in their garbage bins. When they throw out prescription medicine containers, Julien says, “they take off the labels.”

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… I was stretched, face downwards, my navel to the snake skin cover, and began my three day search for the spirit that he might accept me or reject me according to his will. Three days my body must lie silent and fasting while my spirit went wherever spirits must go that seek answers never given to men as men. I could have no food, but a pitcher of water was placed on a small table at the head of the couch, that my spirit might not waste time in search of water which should be spent in search of the Power-Giver. The spirit must have water, and if none had been provided it would wander in search of it. And evil spirits might attack it as it wandered about dangerous places. If it should be seriously injured, it might never return to me. For sixty-nine hours I lay there. I had five psychic experiences and awoke at last with no feeling of hunger, only one of exaltation. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

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Popular quotes by Marian Anderson. As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might. When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether. Prayer begins where human capacity ends. Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it. Prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating. Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman. You lose a lot of time, hating people. None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath. The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow. Every one has a gift for something, even if it is the gift of being a good friend.

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Selma Burke was born in 1900. She was an African American sculptor from Mooresville, North Carolina. As a child she liked to whittle and model in clay but her mother insisted she get an education for a "career." She was educated at Slater Industrial and State Normal School, now Winston-Salem State University; St. Agnes School of Nursing, Raleigh; and Women's Medical College, Philadelphia. In 1924, she moved to New York where she worked as a nurse. But art was her calling, and she continued to work as an artist. Her accomplishments were so great that in 1935, she earned a Rosenwald Foundation Fellowship, and in 1936, a Boehler Foundation Fellowship. Both awards allowed her to travel to Europe where she studied ceramics with Povoleny in Vienna and sculpture with Maillol in Paris. Among the influences on her were the painter, Henri Matisse, and the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Around 1940, she moved to Pittsburgh, PA. She returned to New York and in 1941, completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Columbia University. At the age of 70, this remarkable woman completed a Doctorate in Arts and Letters at Livingstone College, Salisbury, North Carolina. She was influenced by, among others, Henri Matisse, a painter, and Frank Lloyd Wright, an architect. Dr. Burke was a remarkable sculptor and a dedicated teacher. In 1943, she won the competition sponsored by the Fine Arts Commission for the District of Columbia. In 1944, President Roosevelt posed for the artist and her completed bronze plaque was unveiled by President Harry S. Truman in 1945. It can be seen at the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C.; the image was also used on the American ten cent piece (dime). Since the coin bears the initials of the engraver, John Sinnock, Selma Burke has never received proper credit for the portrait. Burke was a great lover and supporter of the Arts. In 1968, she was the founder of the Selma Burke Art Center in Pittsburgh. At the age of 80, in 1980, Burke produced her last monumental work, a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., that graces Marshall Park in Charlotte, North Carolina. Burke was an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, a non-profit Greek-lettered sorority of college-educated women who perform public service and place emphasis on the African American community. She received many other awards and honors. Dr. Burke's artistic works were not fully acknowledged during her life time. Her pieces can be viewed in the Metropolitan and Whitney museums. Selma Burke died in 1995.

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Carl Gustav Jung. The Red Book (Liber Novus). 1914-1930. The first words of Carl Gustav Jung’s Red Book are “The way of what is to come.” What follows is 16 years of the psychoanalyst’s dive into the unconscious mind, a challenge to what he considered Sigmund Frued’s - his former mentor’s - isolated world view. Far from a simple narrative, the Red Book is Jung’s voyage of discovery into his deepest self.

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What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

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They were called Liquidators. 600,000 were recruited by the government after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and they were tasked with the grim job of clean-up, salvage and rescue. Liquidators are credited with preventing a far-greater planet-wide catastrophe. Here, a Liquidator recovers a baby abandoned in a village home during the evacuation.

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Women of Fauberg Treme, New Orleans and their dog. Faubourg Tremé is the oldest black neighborhood in America, and the origin of the southern civil rights movement and the birthplace of jazz.

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Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Otis Span and others, photo by ~ Jim Marshall (1965)