Category: Orishas

Burning Pepe with Ritual.

A little bit of knowledge can be dangerous… as this story proves out.

I don’t know where to begin because I don’t think that I’ve told you enough about my past with Santeria, Palo and Vodou, but this memory came to mind this afternoon and I wanted to write it down. Perhaps, I’ll even publish it without giving you the proper context. To help a little you could go into some of my blog posts that are tagged with Santeria, Palo and Ramiro and the like… yet it might not help at all. But let’s get right into it, anyway.

Without going into any great detail, suffice it to say that I had been living with a Santero (a practitioner/priest of Santeria. My break with him was tragic. After being with him for several years, to better understand him and the culture of Cuba and its people, I studied Cuban spirituality and simultaneously, Haitian spirituality which, of course, both derive from African roots.

In my studies, I came across primary resources written by priests. Primary resources, of course, are documentation that record first hand experiences. These books or pamphlets or diaries recorded the rituals of their religion. I had watched many rituals performed in the years spent with the Cubans. I always felt though that I was standing at the door with the door just barely cracked open and me, I was peeking inside of a room not truly being able to enter, to participate or to even understand what I was seeing.

This new found knowledge, accompanied by my first hand experiences with Santeros and practitioners of Palo and Vodou, proved to be dangerous weapons in my hands.

After my break with Ramiro, I was left with many accoutrements, but this is another story. My heart had been broken and I had seen too many things. I wanted to relieve my broken heartedness and I also wanted to affect others with what I knew. I didn’t really want to hurt anyone, that was not my intention. But these two things alone are a dangerous combination. I wasn’t looking for revenge but this is how it was perceived.

Pepe was a friend of Ramiro’s and appeared on the scene to “soothe my pain”. I didn’t want a boyfriend, I wanted Ramiro back but I wasn’t getting him back, so Pepe became a friend. But this was not how Pepe saw it.

Pepe would not go away. He tattooed my name on his arm. He led his friends to believe we were lovers. That, we never were. My mistake was to allow him to continue to be my friend even when I realized that he was unreasonable.

My reasoning was that Pepe was nice enough. Pepe cared for me. He was willing to tolerate that I was still in love with Ramiro and that I didn’t love him. In a selfish way, Pepe was my connection to the Cuban community and vicariously to Ramiro. In some odd way this helped to ease the pain, to have somebody familiar around.

This is how the problem started and I am the only one to blame. Pepe was insistent and I suppose you could say that I allowed it, I left the door open, I was too tolerant. But as he became demanding, I became frustrated at first and then afraid. I didn’t believe he would hurt me but he had become frustrated, too. There was an element of him being out of control. Here again, I won’t go into unnecessary detail about his fits of frustration. He was refusing to just be my friend. Though I would lose my connection to him, to the Cubans and to Ramiro, it was time for him to go.

I wanted him to know that I was serious. I wanted him to know that I could make him go away. I knew in no uncertain terms that it had to be final and permanent. I thought that my most powerful ability was to use his own beliefs against him.

I knew too much and yet I knew too little. I never should have done this but I did. This wasn’t the first time, nor was it the last that I used what I had learned, that I used ways that I had no business using.

Whether you believe this or not is neither here nor there to me. I don’t care. But this is what witnesses have reported. These are the consequences of my actions. I followed the directions to the letter. There are times that I regret what I did, but they had the results I was looking for. I never heard from Pepe again.

I wrote Pepe a letter simply asking him to leave me alone. I sprinked into the envelope, powders and ashes of certain and specific animal bones, crushed plants, rocks and metals procribed in the books of priests. I carefully copied, by hand, certain ancient symbols drawn in the books. I sealed the envelope and drew certain other symbols that crossed over the seal, so that when opened, the symbols would be torn in two.

Pepe recieved the letter. According to witnesses, when he tore open the seal, a cloud of dust rose into the air covering his face and flew into his eyes. He was blinded momentarily and had trouble breathing. The dust caused sores on his face and neck that lasted for weeks.

Pepe was out of my life for good. I haven’t heard from him or about him for years. I hope he’s OK.

A Story of Possession

I stood trembling in front of the double doors in the living room, shaking not from cold but for reasons I could not understand.

I was dripping with water that had been generously sweetened with honey and had been poured over my head. I really did not want to hear anything more but I knew that I had to keep my ears and eyes open even though right then, I had them firmly shut.

Oshun was standing on the other side of the room and I knew she was not through with with me yet. At any rate, I was assuming it was she.

The singing continued and so did the beat of the drums. The room was dark except for the evening light that shone through the trees and in through the open doors. The light of the candles added little to dispel the dimness.

Ramiro was speaking but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. His head fell back as he laughed and when he opened his eyes to look at me it was as though I had never seen him before.

He stood up from where he had been sitting, petitioning the deities, barefoot and shirtless in a pair of khaki shorts. He stood very close to me as he pulled his pants up high around his waist, lifted his head and looked down his nose at me.

“Do you know who I am?” He appeared very feminine as he began to move around the room, sashaying and swaying his hips sensuously and moving his shoulders very coquettishly. He held his head high, pushing his chest out, then he asked again, “Do you know who I am? I said yes, thinking I was standing in the presence of Oshun.

“Who told you to light candles to Chango? I did not tell you to. He does not like putas and you are very puta. I am his and he is mine.” He collapsed on the floor with his legs wide apart and demanded loudly “Please, bring me water and honey.”

I brought him water in a glass and the plastic bear containing honey that I used for tea. He dismissed them with disgust, waving his arms arrogantly and laughed loudly saying, “No, I want water, water, lots of water…

Make it sweet and set it here in front of me.” At this I found the biggest container I could find and filled it to the brim, emptying all of the honey into the water.

As I set it on the floor, he first bathed himself starting with his head, splashing it on his body and taking large mouthfuls of it and spraying it into the four corners of the house and then out both of the doors.

Then finally, he came over to me and washed me roughly with the sweet water from head to foot, splashing it all over. He sprayed it from his mouth in my face and all over my body, washing my arms and my breasts and stomach. He turned me around as he washed my buttocks and my legs and feet. “I will cleanse you”, she said. “You have not been living clean. You say that you love your man, but you are very puta. Why? answer me”, she demanded.

I began to cry and said, “Only to take away my loneliness.” With his hands on his hips, he sashayed over to the farthest corner of the room.

As he walked, his movements, though feminine were somewhat stiff. He lurched, nearly knocking over the table and lamp. As I reached out to grab the table he whirled around and snapped, magically as though he had eyes in the back of his head, “Do not touch me. You are an angel but you are dark. I can hardly see you. Stand over there.”

I moved to the farthest corner, next to the double doors. “You need to buy new clothes. Do not wear black anymore. Come here.” I walked over to him and he clamped his hand over my ears, pounding them with his open palms. She said, “I’m going to cleanse you.”

As he spoke words that I couldn’t understand, he rubbed my body, my arms, my legs in forceful downwards movements. He then told me to sit on the floor.

“There’s a woman that you hate. Yes? No? She has the man that you love. So you know who I am? Yes or no? Papijim, he is mine. I have taken him from you. You do not have what he needs. He does not want to dance with you. I have taken him from you. He does not want sex with you, papijim. I have what he needs”, she says, pulling his pants up and he begins to sway his hips sensually. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and turned his head from side to side mockingly. “You have committed many errors and now, papijim, he is mine. You do not know how to live. You do not know how to enjoy life.”

He was snorting and scoffing. She was so sure of herself as she so cruelly mocked me. She laughed out loud and I knew she was right. I was alone. I was broken. Chastised.

Several minutes later, another orisha arrived. He looked as though he saw another person in the room. He dropped his pants and grabbed his genitals. “You have preferred this. You must change.

“Buy girasoles (sunflowers). Buy white flowers that have no pink or yellow. Put the petals in a bucket of clear water. Wash your hands and arms in the water as you crush the petals in your fingers. When you are done, throw the water out the door of your house.” He left me reeling.

Before he left, he sprayed rum into the four corners of the house and around the doors to keep evil away. He moved my image of Eleggua to face the front door to guard against whatever might wish to pass to do me harm.

Post script:

This is just a small example of what I witnessed while I lived with the Cubans. I learned so much about the way they think and about the way they view sickness and ways that they heal. Because they were refugees and lived in a city where items that they needed to perform certain rituals were not readily available, I saw a great deal of adaptation, accommodation and ingenuity. This lack did not affect how they lived any more than the slaves were disabled because they arrived in the new world without the necessary paraphernalia to carry on.

I will not go into descriptions of the orishas (gods), in this instance, Oshun and Chango, or what this experience was all about. I will let it stand but I will tell you more as these stories emerge on this blog.

I lived with Ramiro, a santero (priest in Santeria), for three years and was immersed in his religion. Later, I studied Cuban folklore and spirituality with other priests in both Santeria and Palo and at UCLA.

This story took place when we were no longer together but still very close.

This is one story of many that I will share with you.