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La Raquel Fernández—Obbá Kedún se ha unido a los espíritus.

El lunes pasado por la mañana, me desperté con un mensaje de WhatsApp que sabía que llegaría. Mi amiga, madrina y comadre Raquel Ester Fernández-Vigil—Obbá Kedún se unió a los espíritus por la madrugada. No fue inesperado. Nació en 1929 y llevaba dieciocho meses luchando contra el cáncer, y su sobrina me contó que luchó hasta el final, aferrándose a la vida. Eso suena a Raquel. No era alguien que soltara nada fácilmente. No estoy del todo seguro de cuándo conocí a Raquel, pero probablemente fue en 1997. En ese momento, visitaba regularmente la casa de un obbá en Buena Vista, en el Municipio Playa, y ella era su oyugbona. Cuando trabajábamos juntos en ceremonias, ella mantenía todo en movimiento. Anticipó el siguiente paso. Se dio cuenta de lo que había que hacer antes que nadie. Siempre estaba en movimiento. Clara de mente, dura y profundamente conocedora, Raquel encarnaba muchas de las mejores cualidades de la religión. Estaba arraigada en la tradición de La Habana, pero rara vez habl...
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Raquel Fernández—Obbá Kedún Has Joined the Ancestors

 Last Monday morning, I awoke to a WhatsApp message I knew would come. My friend, godmother, and comadre Raquel Ester Fernández-Vigil—Obbá Kedún had joined the ancestors overnight. It was not unexpected. She was born in 1929, and she had been fighting cancer for the last eighteen months, and her niece told me that she fought until the very end, clinging to life. That sounds like Raquel. She was not someone who released anything easily. I am not totally certain when I met Raquel, but it was probably in 1997. At the time, I was visiting the house of an obá in Buena Vista, in Municipio Playa, on a regular basis, and she was his oyugbona. When we worked ceremonies together, she kept everything moving. She anticipated the next step. She noticed what needed to be done before anyone else. She was always in motion. Clear-headed, tough, and deeply knowledgeable, Raquel embodied many of the best qualities of the religion. She was grounded in Havana tradition, but she rarely spoke in absolute...
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Simple Monthly Ceremony to Honor Babalú-Ayé Lucumí

The COVID pandemic rages on. While the indicators suggest that we are all doing better at the basics of masking, hand washing, and physical  distancing , people are still falling ill. Many people have asked me about ceremonies and offerings to honor  Babalú-Ayé  and request protection and healing.    This simple ceremony is what I would call old-school. It is not flashy. It does not require a  lot of  people or animals. Rather, it is uses simple ingredients that please the  oricha , and it focuses on the most important ingredient of all—devotion.   Please note that this offering is primarily for those people who  Babalú-Ayé   Lucumí  and whose pots are not sealed.  Arará  vessels and those in some  Lucumí  lineages are sealed at the time of initiation. You can learn more about the different forms of  Babalú   here .    Go before your  Babalú-Ayé  and greet him. Say your  mo...
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Ecotherapy and Ecospirituality: A Video Presentation on Oricha, Nature & Healing

 Last fall, my goddaughter Phoenix Smith—Olá Otón Adélele asked me to participate in first activities of the Alliance for Ecotherapy & Social Justice . She asked me to explore how oricha religion provides us with a robust model for nature religion and healing as part of a video series called Ecotherapy for Everyone: Healing with Nature for Peace and Justice.   My presentation focused on three major aspects of oricha religion and how it links individuals to the natural world. First, the presentation explored the idea of the sacred forest as the source of divinity within the religion and how different ceremonies channel that divine energy back into human life. Then, it looked at many of the ways that specific religious ideas and practices link individuals to ecosystems or natural phenomena; this section of the talk also explores how the Arará deity Dandá-Jueró can be understood as a model for ecological connections that lead to wellbeing. Finally, the presentation intr...
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Babalú-Ayé and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Reflections on Humility in a Difficult Moment

“Babalú-Ayé wants everyone to place his altar directly in front of the main door of the house,” a friend texts from Perico , Cuba. “He wants everybody to place seven gourds in front of him, each with a different kind of grain, a red onion, and cigar. And most importantly, he wants everyone to light two candles and pray to Him to scare away the pandemic.” This admonition is followed by another prescription for a cleaning at the foot of the Old Man. In this moment, the coronavirus pandemic has killed thousands of people, paralyzed whole countries, and quarantined millions. So oricha communities around the world are naming ways to acknowledge his impact and pray that he go easy on us. As one traditional praise song says: Ason kuele, Ason kuele, Ason kuele, Ason ño Sickness, be gentle with us Babalú is sometimes said to “rule” infectious disease, but in fact, he is infectious disease and its antidote. So at this moment, we are becoming intimately acquainted ...
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Itutu: Transformation, Rupture and Repair

Babalú-Ayé does not play a formal ritual role in the itutu, the funeral ceremony for those oricha priests that have passed away. However many elders contend that he delivers the body of the dead person to the cemetery on a cart, and so he is always strongly linked to death . Given the recent passing of friends, I have seen several itutus lately, and like most ceremonies in the religion, they invite reflection. The itutu brings transformation, as the deceased moves from the world of the living to the world of the dead. Essentials from the priest’s initiation are placed in an open gourd on the floor within the egun altar. We sing oro egun , the nine songs to praise and move the ancestors. For first time, we name the spirit of our departed colleague as part of the invocation, and we sing to them as an egun. We also feed the new spirit with a bird. For those of us who regularly honor the ancestors, their presence is constant, but we never lose track of the fact that we are living o...
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