Pantheacon (4) - Blues and Voodoo

The individual Pantheacon workshops last 90 minutes, separated by a 30-minute break (with additional time for lunch and dinner).

I had crossed to the far side of the hotel, and was on my way back for a workshop on Buddhism and Paganism, with about five minutes to get there, when I met a friend I hadn’t seen for awhile and talked for fifteen minutes.  I found the door shut for the Buddhist-Pagan workshop, so I headed for a workshop on The Blues, Voodoo, and New Orleans.

I walked into a presentation on the blues singer Robert Johnson, whom I had never heard of, who died quite young, back in the 1930s; and who, it is said, sold his soul to the Devil in the hopes of becoming a successful blues singer.

This led into a discussion of Voodoo mythology and imagery in blues music.  We learned a little about the loa, the Voodoo spirits which were brought to the New World from Africa.  We learned a little about mojo—objects that can bring you power; and we were given examples of Voodoo terms used in the blues as well as in the music of Muddy Waters and the Grateful Dead.

This developed into a history lesson about New Orleans and the various peoples who have influenced it.  Before Louisiana was purchased by the United States, it was owned by the French, the Spanish, and of course by the indigenous inhabitants.  And in the years before American settlers arrived in quantity, other settlers met and mixed in New Orleans.

This was actually the most interesting part of the workshop for me.  I learned about how some Indians had hidden escaped slaves.  I learned how the Seminole tribe had formed from the mixing of previous tribes.  I learned how the Acadians had come from Canada to Louisiana and become the Cajuns.  I learned about how races and colors had mixed to become the Creoles.

I learned some of the racial history of the New Orleans Mardi Gras.  When Jim Crow laws forbade blacks to march in Mardi Gras parades, they paraded on St. Joseph’s Day.  I learned that some parades had honored the Indians who had sheltered slaves.  (My own research suggests that the activities of St. Joseph’s Day are actually even more complex that suggested in this workshop).

Later, I went and looked up Robert Johnson online and listened to some of his music.  The 1986 film Crossroads is built around the story of his life and music.

I learned more about Voodoo later at Pantheacon (though I actually knew something about it already).

Awakening on Thanksgiving, 2012

Woke up this Thanksgiving morning with many thoughts all jumbled together, trying to form a coherence.  Rather than coherence here, I’ll aim for images and splotches of feelings.

Thinking of William Burroughs, having finished reading Naked Lunch last night.  I know people personally wounded by addiction, or the addictions of their friends or relatives.

Thinking of Burroughs poem, “Thanksgiving Day, 1986” (quoted below).

Thinking of guns.  A friend of mine is buying a gun to defend herself from a stalker.  I’ve been reflecting on that, but I’ll share those thoughts later; they need to settle a bit more.

Thinking of friends far away, hoping I get to know them better as the years come and pass.

Thinking of the United States, and all the countries and people of the Americas, actually; and the world.

Thinking of places I’d like to visit and know better—particularly Latin America.

Thinking of the film I saw over the weekend, George Wallace, with Gary Sinise and Angelina Jolie.    

Thinking of the white southerners depicted in the film, and the blacks brought here as slaves, “freed,” then left to fend for themselves in a hostile, exploiting society.

Thinking of Martin Luther King, killed for demanding justice

Thinking of John Kennedy, assassinated on this date, forty-nine years ago.

Thinking.

. . .

Wondering (when I woke up, anyway) whether people fall into three categories:  People who have always lived in the same place, people who have willingly travelled about, and people who are taken against their will to other places.

Waking this morning, I felt a great connection to all the people who had come to the Americas from Europe.  I’d been reading, last night, about Buenos Aires; and thinking about the many people of the Americas who came here from Europe (and wondering why someone would leave the place they were born, to live and die somewhere else, far from their parents, family, and what they were used to).

Then thinking about people who have never lived anywhere other than where they were born; whose ancestors have lived there as well, as far back as memory or history goes.  Wondering how it is possible to stay in one place.  My own background is so different.

Thinking about Africa, the original home of all humans, scientists say (though indigenous American legends and so on would dispute that); Africa the Great Indigenous Homeland (yet how differently “Whites” think of the “Black Africans” and the “Native Americans” and the “Australian Aboriginals” and themselves).

And thinking about the people who were conquered, or who were enslaved, or who were kidnapped and dragged off somewhere else against their will; abused, exploited, tortured, killed; considered of no importance other than for how they could be used.

And thinking of our current situation, the vast machinery of Black Friday, in the land where the commercial exploitation of each holiday begins at midnight at the end of the previous holiday; or even sooner—where Santa Claus now appears in stores not long after Halloween, before we’ve even staggered into Thanksgiving.

A friend of mine calls the United States a “heaving monstrosity.”  Burroughs, in his inimitable way, says “Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.”

Nevertheless, I’m still thankful for my friends, my lovers, my family.  I’m still glad I’ve grown up and live in the United States.  I’m thankful for my own past and my own present, in spite of the contradictions and paradoxes and darkness contained therein (along with the light).