Magic 501: Lwa and Fluidity
I feel like I should remind readers that I am speaking from a specific tradition. Your experience, priest, mentor, or spiritual worker may not be working from that tradition, which is absolutely by design. Vodou uses this sort of decentralization to resist colonial capture and the influence of hostile cultures.
I asked my godfather once what sort of relationship we are intended to have with the lwa of our court. Their presence felt definitive, but it felt as if a decision had yet to be made between myself and the lwa of my court. His answer was every and any kind of relationship, and that the relationship would change over time and situation.
I cannot, of course, speak of the future. What I can say is that in my experience so far, my lwa have been lover, child, parent, friend, advisor, spouse, and teacher. They are stunningly flexible if they need to be, which is also a trait expected of priests and spiritual workers as they develop and mature.
That flexibility is a tool—in vodou, because your existence is intended to teach lessons, it is assumed that you will be at no particular set baseline. You will come from nearly any background or history, any ethnicity or country of origin, any age or sex or gender. This does not mean the role being taken to deal with you will not challenge you and your identity, which is not (in my particular arm of vodou) considered a positive tool for advancement. In fact, over time, as much of your self-concept will be challenged as is necessary for your lessons—whether that’s your national pride or your feelings of superiority/inferiority about your gender or ethnicity, or any other aspect of your identity. Your spirit does not have those qualities.
The lwa will be as inflexible as they need to be to encourage change and as flexible as they need to be for the same reason.
People approaching vodou often expect the lwa to be gods: either mysterious and terrifying or their pet magical vending machines. The second approach will, at best, get them ignored. At worst, some spirit will decide to be a part of a lesson for that person.
That flexibility is not always apparent at first, but the more a priest or spiritual worker is exposed to magic and does magical workings, the more flexible their understanding of these things tends to get—magic is fundamentally about change, accelerating or surfacing lessons to remove the things which slow the person’s progress toward oneness with the divine. The more flexible a magician’s understanding, the more flexible the lwa get to be with them. This flexibility is a part of the training given to priests and spiritual workers as they begin to more fully understand the divine and the oneness of every damn thing.
Oneness and flexibility are also fundamental traits of magic. When a priest or spiritual worker learns how to find the path between energies and fluidly transform the energy of a situation from one type to another, they have learned one of the most useful skills in magic.
