RED BLACK & MOONLIGHT
@2000 Marguerite Laurent; Windows on Haiti special edition
a) Much like here b) Bwa Kayiman
e) Vodun Woman i) Rolling on j) Beyond 2004
l) Self-Defense
JOURNEYS OF THE SERPENT AND THE MOON
Vodun Woman, Vodun Woman,
Tell us about the Journeys of the Serpent and the Moon.
And the Vodun Woman, she said:
"Issue of the dark,
of the serpentine womb of creation,
The deep and high - that vertical spiraling root.
Linear ascent is a well told lie.
You are molded and here to mold.
Your center allies to the rhythm of the biosphere.
It's that mythical, omnipotent Light which tricks you
into seeing a crescent, a half moon - a point
where you are disconnected from wholeness.
No trust fund, skyscraper or scud missile can hold back the migration of the dark celestial waters infinitely. Inexorably it claims its own. Rises and falls.
The physical, social, structural are destined to disintegrate, by levels, degrees, intervals. Artificial creeds, like artificial lights, are meaningless in truth. The seeds of decay are within you and within your creeds."
Hmmm, Hmmm...
I’m shouting down walls. The emotion behind these words is the food i’m leaving for the Petwo lwas while these candles burn out, but you will never turn off Erzili Dantò, at least I can't.
Her grains of salt have awakened me and I can't dissemble in waking consciousness. I bring weightlessness to misery without physical movement, shifting heavy mists. It's how i move into another reality when paralyzed by the shock of this one. I can't live in a dreamtime space where we never reach the mountaintop. So i live the talk, like i did with USAID: i acted like they had gone way beyond their myopic visions and meant what they were saying about helping Haiti. That got me a few places. Next time i’ll go further. Next time, while in this unreachable inner place, this primordial space, this container of life created and held for me by the ancestors, next time when i meet the "developers" in Haiti, i will issue forth from this space and enter their gaps, pushing at cracks. Next time my vision will do more. This faith saves me, it destroys me. With it, i’m wholly strong and wholly vulnerable. But now, well now, i can live with that without getting an aneurysm. They have their Colonies. This is mine. I think that was the lesson of Haitian history. I’m irked but jumping up and down like a kangaroo who's misplaced her pouch won't do. The message was and still is: burn the port cities and retreat inland. That's the lesson of Haitian history. The inland portals are protected and though we must struggle, only the ports can be lost. Pwen voye. Dignity is always rescued by the primal singular struggle to receive what's already there but invisible to thought. It's difficult but all can be done if our thinking aligns with this fact: We are just where we are supposed to be - an opened door, perfectly placed.