Magic 501: Roughness and Lessons
The lwa are excellent at figuring out what approach to take with people. Their lack of involvement in delusion and general disinterest in being polite or pleasant for its own sake probably helps this, and the love and care with which they are a part of our lives probably also helps: they observe us well.
When a lwa determines that a gentle warning will work—the child is listening, paying attention, willing to pursue meaning, is committed to change, etc—they will give a gentle warning. They will tell you whatever it is that you need to hear, in a language that can be unraveled for greater and greater meaning over time. It will be relatively painless, as these things go. You can write it down, unpack it with the help of a priest if you need that help, and it will help redirect you.
They are willing to work within that gentleness as well, often prompting the child a little to go speak to a priest, or prompting them according to the best (not easiest) path for the child to figure it out.
Unfortunately, people generally aren’t listening. If they are listening, they cannot and do not understand. There are a variety of reasons for this, some of which are in the control of the person and some of which require healing. Consciousness and attention, being as slippery as they are, can be very unhelpful in this process. Any negative entities, negative attachments, and/or negative patterns the person has not resolved will also interfere. A common problem is people interpreting, whether intentional or caused by something else, a bit of advice according to what they believe to be true, what they think is common sense, and/or what they think should be true.
When their interpretation turns out to be faulty, they often blame the lwa and not their interpretation, then use their feelings of disappointment and betrayal as an excuse not to work on their negative attachments, entities, or patterns. This can also be facilitated by negative entities, attachments, or patterns (and often is.)
When people aren’t listening, the lwa will take whatever the best way to get the attention and focus of the person happens to be. Sometimes, this results in a drastic change in the force, intensity, or ‘roughness’ of the lesson. Perhaps the best way to get a truly harsh lesson out of a lwa is to demonstrate that you won’t listen any other way. Some lwa are quicker to reach this point than others, but almost any lwa can reach the point where the tool they’re using to get your attention has extremely damaging side effects.
For their children, lessons come on a sliding scale—the rule is whatever will get your attention most efficiently, whether that’s a gentle bit of advice or losing your job, or more serious consequences. The fact that the scale is sliding and calibrated to the person is a demonstration of the love the lwa bear their children and a reflection of the love the divine pours out into everything. This will not prevent a lwa from presenting an uncomfortable, dangerous, or painful lesson. In fact, in many cases, that is exactly what gets the child’s attention most efficiently. Love is not making people’s lives easier.
An important fact to remember, when you are a vodouizan, is that you are a very important part of the tone of your lessons. Your willingness to learn, your commitment to growth and change, your willingness to listen, strongly influence how your lessons are carried out. Sometimes, they will be hard because the lesson itself is hard, but many times you can save yourself trouble by paying attention and being able to be reached without the lwa needing to come beat the lesson into you.
Being able to be reached without things getting rough is preferable.
