Vodou Culture 101: Communication
The Christian god of my childhood was pretty quiet. The pastor had plenty to say on Sunday morning, thundering about sin and our wretched selves from the microphone and his pulpit. Church elders and adults had plenty to say, just as negative and demeaning as the pastor. But when my little self talked to god, encouraged by Bible School, I got no particular answers. The conversation was very one-sided, and after awhile I stopped. I wasn’t even getting a warm fuzzy feeling any more.
I was, in my experience, mostly left to my own devices. I tried all the church rituals to make myself holy enough to be talked to—even getting baptized several times—without any specific response but the hypocritical shock of church people who just knew I was going straight to hell.
I looked suspicious to them, which is a repeating refrain in my life.
I suspect silence in response to prayer is a common experience, which might explain why so many people encountering vodou seem to expect there to be silence in response to their attempts to worship lwa (and get their attention.) People seem to believe that, because there’s no particular response to their prayers in Abrahamic religion, they can just sort of make an altar and go if they want to, no harm and no foul. Worst thing that can happen is that they waste their time, right?
The lwa are not hands off and not at all passive. They are not for everyone nor do they communicate directly with everyone, but they do not listen to complaints and respond with, at best, a warm fuzzy feeling. They are direct if you have the capacity to communicate. They will confront you with your failings or weaknesses. They will give you advice that makes it clear that they can see your whole life, and that you have no secrets with them. They will make it extremely clear that they expect you to do something about your problems, and will often offer you advice or recipes for what to do. You might not understand the communication until later, but it’s not nebulous or uninvolved.
People coming in from outside the culture tend to underestimate how very direct, involved, and personal the lwa can be, on which I blame the Abrahamic religions and their approach to communication with god. In vodou, the spirit is intimately, directly involved in your life.
As far as how the lwa communicate, especially with people who are not vodouizan or initiated, they tend to show up in dreams that do not fade away when you get out of bed: vivid, detailed dreams which have a narrative or a common thread between scenarios, and which haunt you in the day. If you’re especially dense or stubborn, you might get repeated dreams on that narrative.
Sometimes, they communicate through bizarre coincidences: animals or people that behave anomalously, or strange interactions that, again, linger. An old man on crutches who gives especially good advice if you help him. A Canada goose that, instead of shying away or attacking, comes close and gives a soft courteous honk and a head bow before waddling off.
You might not know how to understand the sign, but it’s very obviously not normal. That’s fine. That’s where priests come in—part of our job is interpreting signs and dreams. Because I keep getting asked why anyone should bother to consult a priest, this is one of the reasons. The lwa speak very directly, but they speak in their own way, and you may not be capable of translating it.
If you are coming out of the US majority culture, know that vodou is not like the Abrahamic religions. The Abrahamic god might be listening, but he does not appear to talk back much, unlike the lwa. The lwa talk plenty, if you listen to the right channel.
