News from MISS CAT: Dara is moving in July, to Santa Barbara from Texas. Still reachable at hoodooroots.com. Request to load pics of view from new place to HRC photo section.
News from Lucky Mojo: Carpenter to work on MISC building, not to start for several weeks.
News from Owl (class student): opening store on Orcas Island (Vancouver), the only hoodoo shop there. In historic building, the Porter Bldg.
News from Dr. Kioni: Dr. Kioni has announced apprenticeship program based on teleconference study of selected areas of HRC.
DR. KIONI: Phone calls plus limited email and letters. I feel led to very traditional African teachings. Purpose, to help the individual determine whether they are actually called to do rootwork in the African-American Diaspora tradition.
MISS CAT: Newer students have a lot of questions about how to know if they are gifted. You offered to analyze apprentices' dreams for certain traditional signs.
DR. KIONI: Yes; I'll talk about this on the e-list.
*Ndolis* sit down together and discuss their dreams, keeping a careful watch for certain archetypes; spiritual work is a calling passed down from ancestors, rather than just something one decides to do.
MISS CAT: Yes, I've had students who view my course as just another magic book, another compendium of tricks. It is not anyone's automatic right to become a *practitioner*. Anyone can do tricks around the home for themselves, but to serve *others* is a calling.
DARA: And it's a lot of *work* - many don't see that. It is wonderful and a blessing, but a lot of work.
MISS CAT: Dr. Kioni, are you placing a limit on number of apprentices?
DR. KIONI: No, not at this time. It's easier for me than rootwork.
MISS CAT: Do you have a web page for it?
DR. KIONI: Yes, it's on my website - click "Apprentice" right at the top.
MISS CAT: Please post to group and I'll link to it.
DR. KIONI: Certainly, in a couple of days.
MISS CAT: Eoghan is about to begin teaching developmental psychology.
EOGHAN: Folklore is an interdisciplinary field, so you have to know some psych anyhow. This is about stages of human development from infant to geezer. Fascinating subject. Lots of videos for the class to watch at home. The next week or so will be hectic, but I'll be present on radio show and in e-list.
MISS CAT: I'm formalizing my own apprenticeship program, too. Siva's tired of being host to apprentices, so this is *not* a tour of the redwoods. Limit 6 people per year, must be HRC graduate. Michelle Presseau (Deera) is first apprentice. Any other announcements?
SINDY: Todomojo.com splash page is up.
MISS CAT: Dr. Kioni , Dara, Eoghan and I have been talking a bit about forming a professional association.
BEATRICE: What if a person has just started the course/getting involved in hoodoo and is ambivalent about their gifts or unsure of their direction?
MISS CAT: This has come up frequently of late because of delays in getting course book out to new students -- instead of the usual trickle, there's been a tidal ave of new students.
You could get a reading. Or Dr. Kioni will test you out via his new program. I begin by assuming you have the gift when you enroll in the course, but Dr. Kioni's program is a great way to explore your connection to spirit. It's great, but not the only way.
DARA: If you do work and find yourself successful - in other words, if THINGS HAPPEN IN THE WORLD - that's a sign that you have a gift.
MISS CAT: 3rd homework assignment is a simple question, "How you came to magic, when did you first start doing this?" -- i've read tmany o these now, and most successful students began at puberty or even as young as eight!
My earlir stdents were all "called." It's only the latest wave of students who say things like "Oh, I'm just interested in hoodoo." I originally assigned that question just out of curiosity. Now that there is this *different* class of answers, I realize that it was an important question to ask.
EOGHAN: Just an observation: one of the things that's been happening is that more and more people are becoming aware of hoodoo, from outside of its traditional setting; the changes in response to this question you are getting now reflect this influx of people from outside the traditional culture.
MISS CAT: Yeah -- my first students were people I already knew. Latest wave is people not from my community.
EOGHAN: I have a slightly different approach to the question from yours and Dr. Kioni's. I do offer consultations about religious vocation. I do sometimes offer "graduate" teaching to followers of Palo who have lost contact with their initiating house. I'm doing more work with offering advice on devotional, *not* professional, practice. (www.nganga.org)
MISS CAT: Yes, and you also have a course on Congo traditions. I *am* signing up as soon as I have some free time.
EOGHAN: My course was modeled originally on HRCC and I intended to include homework but haven't found a logical way to do that, since there isn't a diploma. These are pretty much lectures. It's an extended survey course. Congo Philosophy and Cosmology - the focus is historical.
MISS CAT: Back to Beatrice's question: many people call the shop and present a problem or condition, seem to already know what they want to order, and sound educated about it - turns out they've read some web pages - but they are the ones who ask "Does this stuff really work?" when I ask for their credit card number. I don't take their business, because a client's confidence is important and I don't stampede people.
People who've seen _Skeleton Key_ have the idea that "it only works if you believe in it." I never used to hear that line. Now I hear it all the time. I'm turning away from trying to fix people. My talent is my great memory and impromptu speaking ability; I'm not here to teach them to be confident. I'm done coaching.
SINDY: Amen, Cat. If students aren't willing to think, listen, learn, ask questions, nothing will work.
MISS CAT: Here's an illustration: If you call a plumber to put in bathtub and say you'll pay him extra to teach you a little about plumbing, he might go for it. But then, if you suddenly ask him, halfway through the job, "should I be putting in a bathtub or not?" he's not going to have an answer for you. I have to assume my students are adult enough to figure this out for themselves.
DARA: If it is your calling, you'll have had signs for a long time. Some have genuine crises trying to avoid the calling.
EOGHAN: In Bantu Africa, *ngoma* (literally, "drum"), or as anthropologists call it, "drum affliction": people often come to their religious calling through crisis or illness, for which initiation is the cure. Hoodoo, like Palo, is another New World adaptation of this solution.
Most people in such societies and cultures will do almost anything to *get out of* initiation. They recognize the incredible, disruptive changes it makes in your life.
NAGASIVA: True of hermetic orders of neopaganism, too. They describe it as a burden or ordeal.
EOGHAN: Yes, but until they get through initiation, they're all crazy to be in. That's a different phenomenon altogether.
MISS CAT: The idea of a crisis leading to spiritual life is not just African.
EOGHAN: Yes, of course, but Western Society is just beginning to rediscover the concept of spiritual vocation outside of monolithic church structures.
MISS CAT: _Company of Prophets_ by Joyce Elaine Noll touches on this situation - not a great book, but worth reading. It's about members of African-American community who have become spiritual workers (not just conjures).
DARA: Llewellyn publication (laughs).
MISS CAT: Yes, so it's lacking things like a decent index. Still worth reading.
DR K: I note in individuals called to ministry, one hallmark is reluctance to enter ministry. When preachers give trial sermon, they often break down in tears because of this reluctance.
RENEE (new student from Detroit): what about *levels* of giftedness? Arenas (areas) of giftedness? Gifted just for family and friends or even just for self, rather than for helping public? I am Santera; some Santeros initiate thousands of godchildren; others are not called to initiate anyone. What you have called a burden I see as an honor, but of course not everyone needs to do that.
MISS CAT: That's very true. There are "Arenas of work", yes, specialties. Some are excellent for love work and amount to nothing in money work. I get asked for gambling charms - I make them, they work, but I don't have the drive to do it. Robin York does - not only making the charms but teaching how to do gambling magic.
The ability to teach is not the same as the ability to do. I know a woman who has been a customer for years (she's in the lesson on 3-ingredient baths - this is the "Mary" of the "Mary's Victory Bath") - who knows as much as anyone about "tricks for the family," but who is *not* a professional. Yet she has done great things for her family, her daughter, her granddaughter.
RENEE: We're also seeing the American cultural tendency to fixate on "the stars," such as yourself and Dr. Kioni. People want to *be* the same thing without understanding that your destiny is not their destiny.
It's because Americans are not sufficiently introspective, I think, so they don't know the full scope of their gifts. I suck at love magic, and I know it, but if you want somebody hexed, let me know
The people who know their gifts at an early age - were they mostly shy, reclusive, introverted, avid readers?MISS CAT: Having gifted relatives is a huge advantage; makes you secure. It often does run in families - but so does music, for instance, or athletic prowess.
DARA: I think there's something in the genetic idea - adopted people sometimes have spiritual gifts similar to their birth relatives.
MISS CAT: I love to see it passed on to the next generation. My great joy is to be a communicative vector for the gift. I'd much rather deal with family traditions than people who read something on the web and decide this is going to be their newest thing.
I loved meeting Robin, for instance, because I didn't have to EXPLAIN everything.
ROBIN: I do feel it's genetic. My oldest daughter is *interested,* but my youngest son has *inherited* the gift - finishes my sentences, understands before I finish explaining.
Yes, there are such things as specialties in gifts. Mine is "black magic". I'm most *comfortable* with that kind of work.
MISS CAT: More and more people are picking and choosing the kind of work they do.
SINDY: Yes, I know there are some kinds of work that I get stopped on when I do them. My grandma keeps telling me that these areas are *not* my kind of work.
DR. KIONI: If one can afford to do so, here's a project: Genome project on National Geographic website. You can have your ancestry traced way, way back for about $100. They can even tell you the migratory route your DNA took. Rootwork is in the GENES. Even if you're Caucasian, you may have African genes (more recent than "our original ancestors"). A client of mine found out she had Bantu and Native American ancestry which she had not suspected at all.
DARA: If you're a male, it will trace your paternal DNA: if female, maternal DNA. If you have male and female children who are FULL SIBLINGS, you'll trace both sides of the family! [or both sides of your parents' family if you have a full sibling of the opposite sex. - MCM]
MISS CAT: Still, it is possible to legitimately "jump culture." The best professional apple-pie-maker in the United States, in my opinion is "Mom" of Mom's Apple Pie, a Japanese lady who came to Chicago decades ago to study medicine. While she was studying for citizenship, an American lady taught her to make apple pies. Mom lives in California now, and she has won prizes for her Appple pies, they are so great -- but she is Japanese. She jumped culures.
Certain personality traits are genetically influenced as well. It's as true of people as of animal species. This is why, for instance, you don't confuse Sicilians and Italians!
MP: [from chatroom]: I was just the kind of kid Renee describes, and had a psychically sensitive mother and sister, but only became aware of my own gifts in the last ten years or so.
MISS CAT: Yes, when I was young, children like that were just called "odd children." I was an "odd child."
EOGHAN: Yes, and some of us are odd adults.
MISS CAT: Well, our hour is up. Next week, either an interview or Jon Hughett's suggested topic, "Finding Lost Things and Hidden treasures." We'll let you know.
DR. KIONI: We're going on extended hiatus so I can update audioblog. 26 weeks, not 13. However, I'd like you all to help decide which shows to play as unedited reruns. Please post to HRC group. I have a lot of catching up to do
MISS CAT: Are you still taking cases, or only doing readings and having apprentices?
DR. KIONI: I am taking cases. 28 cases this year up to 3 weeks ago. Still taking clients. No reconciliation or breakup work. I will help with spicing up existing relationship, finding new lovers unknown to you; helping with money/abundance, finding career/vocation, spiritual enlightenment. And I still do relationship *readings*.
MISS CAT: Dara, will you be taking time off during your move?
DARA: I'll have to; my clients know that I won't be doing anything but praying for them while I move; but I won't be away from the altar for too long.
======= Michaele / Mother Lode <--- new nom de magie! Thanks Dr. K! hoodoofoundry.com
