It's pretty horrible. I'm sending some money.

Also horrible is the predictable chorus of internet muppets suggesting that the quake was God's judgement on Vodou...

And so did the New York Times.

I'm imagining there'll be something going on more local to me, as well.

God apparently has problems with Sichuan province (on Tibet's border) and Taiwan and lots of other places too.

Two photos that struck me:



This is, as near as I can tell, the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince.





This is a search-and-rescue team preparing to leave from China. I don't know whether you can really call it fortunate or not, but they've got a lot of recent experience with this work, and will probably be a great help to the Haitians.

The scale of it is just heartbreaking. I'll be donating what I can but a prayer circle or some other way to send love & support, whatever we can really, certainly ring the right bells for me. I'll be doing some work of my own but let me know what you need & when, I'll certainly bring what I can to it.

I started offering my support and energy to the Ancestors and Lwa last night, lighting candles and making offerings to the Ancestors to support Their loved ones, to Papa Legba to open the ways to the Lwa to aid, and to help find the lost in need, and my Papa Ghede to help heal those who are hurt and to carry away as painlessly as possible those whose time has come.

Soon I will add in Ogou for the work that will be done, Erzulie to help with emotional healing, and Azaka to help get the land back in shape to support the people, per the Mama of the small Loa house that is sister to our House. We've got links going back and forth for different organizations that can take money towards relief efforts, and I'm going to find out at SCU today if there are any efforts on campus to raise funds to send that way (it being a Catholic university, I'd be surprised if they didn't).

I don't mind joining in a prayer circle, but my suggestion is that any of you who are comfortable doing so please offer your support to those Powers who are already motivated to help Their beloved Haiti recover - the Ancestors, the Lwa, and the Saints.

[Edit] Oh, duh, I should offer to St. Clare to shed light on the situation, to aid in finding everyone, healing everyone, and making sure charity efforts go where they are supposed to go! You'd think I'd remember that, being as saturated in St. Clare stuff as I am, but I don't think of Her connection to Haiti...

--Ember--

"Voodoo, involving black magic and animal sacrifice, is recognised as an official religion in Haiti". What fucking bearing does that have?

This really, really pisses me off...

Imagine in the UK, if disaster struck, someone wrote, "Catholicism, involving arcane rituals and cannibalism, is recognized as an official religion in England"...

I... I want to say that I'm being knee-jerk again - a real tool. I thought about this alot this evening.
When I read about stupid peoples reactions, I had an honest visceral rage, but it came out as an acid anger which, prejudiced as I am, I tried to vent at Americans.
Which is wrong, and stupid, and I'm a bit of a prick because of it.
I apologize.

As stated above, I find group magical workings directed towards a huge and complex situation to be problematic, when they are in the mode of "light a white candle and send positive vibes towards world peace". It's all very well, but so vague in its purpose that it feels like a platitudinous drop in the ocean, and mostly functions as a means for the practitioner to feel better about themselves.

Firstly, if you want to help, make a donation as soon as possible.

Secondly, if anyone does want to attempt something on a magical level, try to make it specific and measurable. There is a lot of specific work that could be done on this, along the lines suggested by Ember above, and it is generally better to break a situation down into various smaller goals rather than trying to tackle a whole country's devastation with a single candle working.

One thing that would help matters in the first instance would be to get the phone lines working again so that Haitian expats can have a line of communication and send aid directly to their relatives where possible. Getting the phone lines back up is an obvious Legba thing, and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a group of people doing work with Legba to make that happen sooner rather than later.

Voodoo sorcery is really all about having relationships with the spirits in place, but here's a basic operation that anyone who is so inclined can perform:

Monday is Legba's day, so would be an optimal time to do this work - but this is not a situation for sitting on our hands waiting for the appropriate day. I'm probably going to get something like this rolling asap, and then culminate it on Monday, perhaps doing three nights of it in total.

Get some cornmeal and use it to draw Legba's veve on your altar or another suitable working surface. Directly on the floor works if you have suitable flooring. You can also use images of Legba, or images of St Peter, St Antony, St Christopher or St Lazarus. You can find an image of Legba's veve very easily with a google search, or even print out a saint's image and put it in a small frame as a makeshift altar piece. Small saint's statues are also generally available quite cheaply from Catholic stores.

You can use a prayer along these lines to call to Legba: "Oh creole sondre mirroir oh Legba, oh creole fathom the mirror oh Legba, Odu Legba, Papa Legba, open the doorway Papa, your children await" or just "Ouvre le barrier Papa Legba". You can probably find some other traditional prayers to Legba with a bit of internet digging. You can probably find some of his drum rhythms online for download without too much trouble also, if you wanted to add that dimension to the work.

Make suitable offerings to Legba by tracing a crossroads in the air and passing the items through it, then placing them directly on the veve. He can receive offerings of rum, tobacco, candy, coins, peanuts, spicy snacks, roast chicken, etc.

Make a prayer to Legba to open the way so that lines of communication will be improved and phone lines restored so that aid can get through more easily. If the phone lines are sorted by the time you come to do the work, then modify it to general prayers for the roads to be opened so that help can get through to where it is needed without obstruction.

Hold a red household candle as you make your requests and fill it with your prayers and intent. If you have van van oil (basic recipe is essential oil of lemongrass, citronella, vetivert, palmarosa in a carrier oil) or fast luck (cinnamon, vanilla and wintergreen in a carrier oil), or something else appropriate, dress the candle in the oil as you make your prayer. If you don't have anything like that to hand, don't worry about it.

Place the candle in the centre of the veve or before your saint's image, surrounded by the offerings you have made, and concentrate on your prayer and what you want to happen as the candle burns. Either let it burn right out to nothing in one sitting, or burn it over three nights, pinching rather than blowing it out each night.

After the three days are up and you are done, take everything to the crossroads with three coins for payment. Bagging it up and leaving it in a bin at a crossroads is fine.

Everything feels a bit platitudinous at the moment, but the above is better than inaction, and more targeted to specifics than a general prayer circle sort of thing. It's essentially just a good basic prayer for the roads to be opened so help can get through, and can be done by anyone regardless of their occult background.

Money is better than goods, except in unusual circumstances, but you all knew that.


Here, I am currently getting some hope from reading this peculiar little spreadsheet set up to 1. coordinate volunteers and 2. coordinate (or request) rescue efforts.

reddit are running a drive in collaboration with Direct Relief International

Gypsy Lantern - there's a Folkways LP there with your name on it.

Gypsy Lantern:
...Get some cornmeal and use it to draw Legba's veve on your altar or another suitable working surface. Directly on the floor works if you have suitable flooring...

Make a prayer to Legba to open the way so that lines of communication will be improved and phone lines restored so that aid can get through more easily. If the phone lines are sorted by the time you come to do the work, then modify it to general prayers for the roads to be opened so that help can get through to where it is needed without obstruction...

Did this earlier today.

One specific practical question for you, Gypsy - what method do you use to draw with the cornmeal? I was 'carving' it with a piece of card - quite time-consuming and not as accurate as I'd like; could one use a salt shaker/pot? I would like to be able to do this outdoors as well.

Thanks for that blog post, GL.

It's not enough that one of the sources of voodoo/Christian syncretism was slavery, is it? Some colonial nutjobs like Robertson still need to twist the knife.

Anyway, I haven't actually done any workings towards this relief effort. I'm a very inexperienced magician and wouldn't want to do anything like this until I'm more sure I won't make things worse in some way. I donated about all I could afford to and will try to keep up to date with things as they unfold.

And again:

6.1 magnitude aftershock strikes Haiti.

I have no words.

I wouldn't take calming the earth to Azaka. I don't really have a relationship with Azaka myself, but I'd say he would be a good Lwa to call on for helping people to organise in their communities for survival and to get and distribute food and what they need fairly and properly.

I've just come off three days of Legba services to open the roads, find people and get aid where it needs to go. It's a bit overwhelming though, in terms of need.

Tonight we made service for Erzulie Dantor. I don't really want to talk about that, but Good God.

My next priority will be with Ogoun. I think there are several Haitian roads of Ogoun to make service for. Ogoun Bhalin'dho is an obvious one, in his aspect of paramedic/combat medic. He can be called on to get behind all of the doctors and medical personnae to help them in their work. I think there are several Ogouns that have a role to play here though. One of them can be called on to take charge of things, because a lot of the current problems seem to be a lack of organisation. And at some stage, there is Ogoun Badagris work, the politician and leader, as leadership is going to be needed at that level, and I think that's where his mysteries come in.

I think the cool and soothing presence of Dambala is definitely something to focus on. I can't think of very many situations where calling on Dambala's general blessings at some stage is not a worthwhile idea, and that presence is definitely needed here. I can't think of any Lwa who are specifically related to calming the earth itself, in the way that you are suggesting. In terms of Lukumi, it might possibly fall on Aganyu, Shango's father, associated with the volcano. Possibly. Dambala is a good bet for general blessings of peace though.

I'm probably going to work through the full cycle of Haitian powers that I serve in my house, as I imagine that they will all have a role to play. I think the best thing to do is spend time with them, see what they have to say, give them a service, feed and nourish their mystery, show solidarity and support on the magical level as well as through aid.

Agwe can bring help by sea. La Sirene can bring plentiful fish.

I haven't really got too involved with the Ghede aspect of this as yet. I checked in there one evening at the weekend, but that is a whole other rescue effort in itself.

It's difficult confronting this stuff, as there is so much grief and rage. It has felt good to make these services though, and to stand with the Lwa. Not really saying anything or trying to put any interpretations on anything, but just quietly making a space for them and being there in solidarity. I don't know if I would recommend a lot of the deeper stuff to people who don't already have existing relationships in place, but I think simple prayers to Legba to open the way for aid - even just approaching him in one of his Saint guises - would not go amiss in these circumstances.

That sounds like a good approach. Probably not a time to be pushing forward with a lot of new stuff, but definitely a time to be strengthening and consolidating what is already in place.

Yesterday I did some networking with a few people who have Permaculture related skills about possibly going to Haiti at some point to put effort into building sustainable infrastructure around housing and food. 'Have shovel can build a composting toilet' style of vacation planning. I'm not sure what will become of that yet.

I watched a heart wrenching CNN video of a young woman pulled from the rubble 6 days after the first quake still alive and being transported to the nearest hospital. The footage of her sister saying 'merci, merci' to the heavens after searching for 6 days made me cry like a bebeh.

I thought a great deal yesterday of the people still under the rubble, those searching, those lost, and those suffering. Doctors Without Borders (my charity of choice)is reporting the highest rates of amputations since possibly the American Civil War.

I stopped at the handmade sweet shop in town and picked up a bar of the smoky sea salt chipotle dark chocolate and some black licorice. When I got home I went to the river on the ocean side and thought of all those who are suffering in Haiti, Powers and people alike. It was low tide so getting the offerings into the water rather than the mud was a bit of an effort - and an augury for me.

There's a Buddhist practice called Tonglen, a meditation on taking in suffering of another and breathing out solace to them. Some people do it as a thought exercise to open the heart but being the person I am I tend to think it is more than just thinking. Anyway, with the sweets and the spaciousness of where I was standing I shared what I had and took on what I could for those still buried and those who feel their lives are without sweetness, without comfort.

I have no formal relationship to any of the Lwa or anybody in Haiti but central to my belief system is that those who stand on the Earth are connected in some way. If my neighbor suffers I will lend them aid.

I've been concentratin on my Guys, since They are the ones I have a working relationship with (and since They've taken an active interest in Haitians in the past). Pretty much spent now...

On the tiny positive side the response has been heartwarming- the celebrity telethon alone raised ten million dollars and the cooperative international effort flew in heroic people from all over the world to help, which does highlight the better aspects of humans.

"A total of 132 people were pulled alive from the rubble, the United Nations (UN) has said"
'A two week old baby named Elisabeth was rescued uninjured on 19 January after a week buried, she had spent half her life trapped in rubble.'

The scale of it is mad though, it was as deadly as the 2004 tsunami but in one place instead of spread over 11 countires- almost unimaginable.

XK:There's a Buddhist practice called Tonglen, a meditation on taking in suffering of another and breathing out solace to them. Some people do it as a thought exercise to open the heart but being the person I am I tend to think it is more than just thinking.

Wow... this is one of the pillars of my practice. During an initiation I was taught to do sync my consciousness up the um, esoteric "sangha," you might call it, and then let it be directed wherever it was needed, but I didn't know it had a name, and I don't think I've ever seen it articulated before. I'm relatively new at it and I'm not yet enough of a heavyweight to take on the really deep suffering, but I keep working through increasing levels of responsibility. I can confirm that it can definitely be more than just thinking; it can be actively sharing the common burden of humanity. Whatever spirits we appeal to, there is always a high demand for humans to serve.

XK:central to my belief system is that those who stand on the Earth are connected in some way.

Philosophically, this could be one of the purposes of suffering, to force us to build and strengthen these connections. It's probably the quickest way to knock us out of the "spiritually superior" mode. We're like penguins huddling together for warmth :)

This is one of the most moving things I've seen in a long time:

Sometimes, oh my Canada, you make me feel something edging close to patriotism.

Governor-General salutes Simbi and Danbala-Wedo on national television in song of hope

I tend to think that the punishment for being Pat Robertson is being Pat Robertson.

Not to derail the thread, but how would him being damned stop the infliction? I don't understand retributive justice.

The guy's a turbo-douche, but they are fairly strong concepts you are bandying around.

eta: Also, I suspect he does have troubled nights. And troubled days. Someone so obviously crippled by fear and paranoia must find joy very hard to recognise. How to sleep sound in your bed with all the devil-worship and attacks on the traditional family!

Allowing evil to run free unchecked doesn't help much either.

I see your fundamentalist demagogue, and I raise you this:

http://waxidermy.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=28210

and this:

http://goodrecordsnyc.com/haiti-music-medicine/