Magic 401: The Unbothered
It is said of priests in vodou that their maturity can be seen in how often they are not bothered when everyone else is freaking out. It is one of our goals: to be in full command of ourselves no matter what’s happening around us.
There is a bit of a secret to it which starts in death. I said once to someone being especially stupid on a forum that death comes to our parties/ceremonies and is not an unwelcome guest. I was referring the Guede, or the Black Division for people in 21 Divisions, and several people jumped on it to demand that vodouizans mourn death, therefore we must not be that comfortable with death and are hypocritical.
I gave up on that discussion—not my circus, not my clowns—but I will talk about it here.
Death is the entry fee to understanding, to maturity, to wisdom of all sorts. A priest who intends to do the work required for elevation is a person whose resistance to death ends up slowly fading away. They die that often. It’s hard to get it up (metaphorically) for dying after enough of your own deaths.
Gradually, in the messy and painful process of dying, you look out over your own life and observe your death as a cycle. You observe your fear, your pain, your confusion. You observe epiphany, that breaking point of the discomfort as understanding breaks over you. The fear, pain, and confusion melt away, and the new person stands in the disappearing mess they just were. This cycle while you live is a minor echo of the process of reincarnation, the many lives we live in the process of learning.
Death, both metaphorical and physical, is inescapable and an enormous kindness from the divine. There is no liberation without it. Death comes to our parties to dance with us, to bring us the kindness of many endings and to remind us to make the most of incarnation.
Death comes to remind us that an ending can be joyful. Tears get shed in joy, too.
If you are intended to care for others, you can observe their cycle as well as your own. You can observe their pain and confusion, knowing that it will break over them and fall away. Because you know this is true, you can lead them.
It is very, very hard to get upset about many of the things people tend to get excited about. Once you have embraced this process and you understand why it is joyful, you no longer need to be bothered. Bothered might happen. Bothered might not happen, but it does not have to.
But to get there, you must choose to die.
