Vodou Culture 101: Divinity Revisited

For the obvious reasons, this is a tiny sliver of an endless topic.

One of the hardest things for people coming from outside the culture to grasp is the idea of the divine as being all, instead of some separate thing. The Abrahamic religions, which employ sweeping categories that god can only belong to one of, do not prepare people for a concept of god which is just as much in an abortion clinic or battlefield as it is in any church. Vodou has a messy god, a god which does not fit into a category and cannot be discussed simply. Vodou has a god to which the ideas of good and evil cannot be applied, because god is in either, both, and neither, and neither good nor evil can describe it. When we talk about divinity, we’re frequently discussing something that can be recognized in the inherent chaos of nature, which cares just as little for what we consider to be acceptable behavior.

Human beings, as a part of nature, can be expected in vodou to be just as chaotic.

In vodou, divinity has a plan—an overarching purpose or reason for which nature exists. The all creates all, things which can be a part of that all. Or, to put it another way, the purpose of nature, of everything, is reunion with the divine. All that messiness, all the chaos, is as much a part of that plan as any sort of meditation or church service. This tends to cause headaches for people expecting god to stay safely confined in some specific situation, context, or set of actions.

As a part of nature, you are a part of divinity and it is a part of you, expressed in every possible action. You cannot truly reject yourself and you cannot truly reject divinity. It will always be expressed in you, always expressed through you, over the course of lives.