Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Hawai'ian Mothers, Cultural Roads


I've found a lot of summer solstice (Litha) celebrations are grand, multi-day affairs out of town. Which I often can't get to, because I'm working. And, because I don't always have access to a car. But mostly because I'm working.

But I was able to take part in a lovely rite on June 24th at Mt. Tabor Park, which honored --- but didn't invoke --- several dieties from Hawai'i, with stories, songs, food, drink and offerings.

West (water) altar at Midsummer rite

Hawai'i is in the news a lot lately. Kilauea is blowing (and dribbling out of) its top more than usual, causing forced evacuations with lava flows. Not so long ago, storms and floods made a mess of Kauai. The recent upsurge in volcanic activity, however, suggests Pele may have something to say.

There were six of us on this balmy day, beneath the shade of a huge redwood on the slope overlooking the reservoirs and city. As my friend explained, Pele --- the Hawai'ian volcano goddess --- represents to her less of a wicked, destructive fire than She does a controlled, cleansing and procreative fire, Her energy more like that of Kali. Pele's energy may be ideal for burning through old junk and getting ourselves moving into fresh paradigms, especially with all the retrograde planets and other cosmic dance steps happening these days. Disco inferno. . . .

But the well-known Pele wasn't the only divinity we worked with this time.

Why did we not invoke, or use anything from Hawai'i, in our rite? We were trying to avoid "cultural appropriation," a huge issue these days, what with so much global sharing and political sensitivity. None of us are Hawai'ian, including our facilitator, who looks like she could be. It's a careful dance between admiring and exploring, all done with respect, and appropriation --- the worst forms of appropriation, of course, done out of exploitation for profit.


For this rite, our facilitator offered us an oil for annointing. It smelled sweet, I really liked it, though I haven't done a ton with oils over the course of my witchstory. It rekindled in me a brief flirting interest I'd felt for perfumes, essential oils, and aromatherapy. The potential of this area of, yes, "potistry" is huge: Smells are magic to the brain, emotions and memory; and besides aromatherapy, the realm of hoodoo oils is vast and rich. I'd love to do more in this field, but what has held me back is what can hold a lot of people back from a lot of things: money. Oils can be prohibitively expensive.

My friend told me the Sun's Eye oils are carried by Moonshadow, a local shop, and I thought: I haven't been in Moonshadow since it was on Hawthorne Street. That was years ago! What the heck . . . Unless I'm destitute, I don't want poverty to keep me from exploring magick, or continuing to revive my long-suppressed power. I lived too many of those low-magic years, alone in downtown, at times barely surviving, perhaps learning a lot of useful lessons but also using a mere fraction of my magisterial "juice". Poverty can drain you.

On the way home, I went to Moonshadow, which is a fun place. They have a broader range of stuff beyond your typical white Wiccan or New Age shop --- I saw books and supplies for hoodoo, sorcery (i.e. of the Crowley type), alchemy and more. I bought a phial of the oil. Plus, well, a bunch of herbs. Sulfur! Asafoetida! Meafowsweet! Opoponax! Such treasures of apothecary and exotic land! I see banishing, cleansing, and empowering rites and potions in the near future!

A creepy-cool Palmistry hand at Moonshadow. Made by the Alchemy Guild line. Actually can serve as an aid to learning Palmistry.

The day's magicapades weren't yet over. After stopping at home, I went to the last day of Good In The 'Hood multicultural festival (related in spirit, I suspect, to the Juneteenth festivities earlier this month). It felt both odd and also good to be, for once, a minority --- most of the attendees were African American. I looked first for my pet interests, of course, in my desire to support local merchants. Sure enough, I found a Black woman selling oils amid the row of vendor awnings. Most were cologne-like, cheap-smelling or fragrance oils of certain brand names like Polo or Ralph Lauren --- even Barack Obama had a scent! --- or her own herb-in-oil concoctions of the kind I'd rather make myself. Some had labels, a few did not, and most didn't float my boat, scent-wise. But I wanted to walk away with something.

I sniffed and sniffed, nose starting to itch, and finally settled on a small phial of a strange teal oil with a distinct yellow-green layer halfway up. It clung to my fingers, but at least smelled passably useful. There was no label.


 "What's this?"
 "Oh, that one's just a bunch of stuff I had left over ," said the woman, Tamara, proprietor of her business, Afroscentrics.
 Best kind, I thought inwardly, feeling drawn by the mystery.
 "Smells sort of like Road Opener," I told her.
 "What?"
I explained about oils from the hoodoo tradition, and about Orleans Candle Company, now moved from Lombard Street back to New Orleans after civic rehabilitation from Hurricane Katrina. That shop was where I'd first encountered hoodoo supplies, and Road Opener (Abre Camino, as the oil is also called in Santeria) oil itself. I'd skipped the oil, since its smell really was too rank, but I'd bought lots of other hoodoo oils and some Dragon's Blood ink during Orleans's final, 20%-off closing sale.
 "That's where I learned about oils, was when I was down in that area," Tamara said.

Despite being shaken up in a hot purse, whatever went into this blend consists of two definitely immiscible parts. Oil and alcohol?

 She went on, "I just mixed in several odds and ends I had, you know, the little bit at the end of a bottle, and blended 'em together. . . ."
 Me, thinking: All RIGHT! Mystery formula! My favourite!
 ". . . .there's some Money oil in there, some Cotton Candy, and a bunch of other stuff."
 "I'll take it," I said, laughing.
Money? Cotton Candy? How can you go wrong??! Bring on the magic! I promptly decided the oil was my own funny little type of Road Opener, for which I could dream up various uses. Part of folk magick is driven by sympathetic connections, after all, and the rest is your own belief and willpower.


I paid Tamara five bucks, and put the oil in a place I hoped would protect it till I got home, for the scent was already all over my fingers. If I'm ascribing any power to this oil, I'll have to be careful --- I don't want to juju road-open everything I touch! Just some things.

The mystery "Sweet Money Road Opener" oil, showing its odd bilayered composition. What's inside?

My minority status at Good In The 'Hood brought an old idea back up: Should I, as a mostly White woman, practice hoodoo? My Black and Native blood runs maybe one percent, at best. But I am from the South, born in a Texan town about a good spit away from Louisiana, and I remind myself there were a couple of famous hoodooists or "root doctors" who were White; furthermore, the beauty of folk magick is that it is available to everyone, not just to initiates, holier-than-thou New Agers or coven-huddlers. Especially the poor, abused, disadvantaged or disenfranchised relied on root and folk magick to get by. I think my question is this: Do I want to respect the culture as I explore it, get to know its history, and give credit where due? And does that include, for me, mixing with people of color where possible, to acknowledge their expertise directly?
 The answer is yes.

A premade Road Opener oil. Piece of herb visible within.

So, what goes in a genuine Road Opener/Abre Camino, or Block Buster, magical formula?
Opinions vary. Many seem to agree that Orange is a very good oil, as is Lemon, Citronella, Lemongrass, or even Camphor oils --- ideally, a mix of several of these. The one I sniffed at Orleans Candle Company sure didn't smell like this! But a true Abre Camino oil must contain a piece of the Abre Camino, or Palo Abre Camino, herb(s).

 More on Road Openers later.

No comments: