A Fool In Haiti

I have so many things to do before I can get back to Haiti and many things happened whilst I was there that I want to blog about. But the question being most often asked of me is what it was like to be possessed and so I shall write about that experience today…

I was staying in Temp Chango Chawa – a Vodou peristyle (temple) in the dusty seaside town of Cayes-Jacmel with my travel buddy Manbo Paula. Temp Chango Chawa is run by Hougan (Vodou priest) Ati Jean Andvenor Lundy, who is a big man in Haitian Vodou – he’s the South East regional chief of the Federasyon National Vodouisan Ayisyen (National Federation of Haitian Vodou).

Before I say more, I need to introduce a concept from Haitian Vodou and that is of the Met Tet – “the ruler of the head”. Every person has one or a few Met Tet – and this is akin to a “ruling archetype”, or a principle deity – it’s the deity that can most easily come through you. In plain language – in Western Pagan terms, it’s simply the fact that some folk will be more akin to Dionysus, others to Pan, some to Apollo, others to Eris, Aphrodite or Artemis (and myriad others).

The Haitian gods or spirits are called Lwa – and it’s a massive field of study to learn about them all if study is your thing, which for me it isn’t as I much prefer an experiential rather than academic approach to spirituality. It was quickly discerned through a number of conversations during my first week that my Met Tet was a lwa from the Simbi family of spirits. Simbi was something I had never heard of before but something I was very keen to learn about. But that is kind of the wrong thinking – one doesn’t “learn” in an academic read-about-it sense with Vodou, one learns by experiencing Vodou first hand. As we sat at the dinner-table, post-eating the the question was dropped, “do you want to meet Papa Simbi?”

“Yes,” I answered and within moments Mr Lundy poured me a shot of rum which I gulped, and then he was soon banging on the table as if it were a drum. His wife Manbo Yvette cleared away the dishes and came back to join us. Manbo Paula looked delighted.

The sound of the drum beat was wonderful and intuitively led me to get up and start dancing to the rhythms produced. Now in Brighton (and elsewhere) I spent a lot of time going to various shamanic dance workshops, groups and sessions. I love going to freestyle dance, kundalini dance, the Wednesday Wave and 5 rhythms even if the music is sometimes over-the-top cheesy and so I have a lot of experience just letting go of the body-mind connection and letting my body move to whatever music is at hand without conscious thought directing my movements. When I was taking part in these different workshops, I had no idea that freestyle dance would be such a great aid for bringing on spirit possession.

The drum beat was playing for a few minutes when Manbo Yvette started singing. I had no idea what the lyrics meant, but could discern “Papa Simbi” mentioned throughout. Manbo Paula joined in the singing as she was able to. Often with Shamanic dance I get more out of it when I close my eyes and direct all my awareness internally. I took another look around the peristyle – there were children, dogs, a couple of broken motorcycles scattered throughout, and the three initiates giving me their wonderful attention. I went deeper into the dance and sway of the beat and allowed the singing of Manbo Yvette to wash over me. She came closer and started to dance a little herself and continued to sing with now her voice much closer to me. Within moments of her coming close to me, I felt some other presence with me – it was like something else at the back of my neck was looking out of my eyes. Very strange experience! And the drumming had only started five minutes prior to this.

And still the drumming and singing continued, “♪♪♪♪ Papa Simbi ♪♪♪♪”

Intuition told me it was time to close my eyes and I did so and continued to dance, continued to allow my body to move to the rhythms, allowed the magical voice of Manbo Yvette to wash over me, allowed myself to be taken…

And taken I was: Very quickly after I closed my eyes, this really beautiful feeling came over me – it was really euphoric – bliss – wonderful. It took over my whole body and I kind of just started melting into the feeling of wonder. My conscious thought-process was thinking, “more! more! come on more!” but soon turned into a, “wow, whoa, what the f@ck, whoooaaa.” The last thought I remember was thinking about their being children and dogs in the room and having a small chuckle from within the bliss and then I was gone…

Gone to a place of bliss, of Euphoric feeling. Akin to a DMT trip but without the visuals effects that I’ve experienced on that drug. Gone to divine embodied magical place of ecstasy that words can’t give justice to… My body kept dancing but it wasn’t me moving it. Such a wonderful feeling oh my! At some stage I crumpled down on to the peristyle floor and just soaked in the bliss of sharing my body with such a wonderful delightful spirit known to me then simply as Papa Simbi.

I’m not quite sure what happened next but I guess I was out of it for about an hour, after which time I started being a bit more aware of things around me… There was conversation at the table and I was slumped on the floor. I felt post-euphoric which is a difficult thing to describe but I guess a kind afterglow of inner peace was with me. I tried to open my eyes but I was not able to. I even tried to pry them open with my fingers so I could see what was happening but they wouldn’t open, so instead I returned my awareness to the feeling of bliss that sat within me. For me, in my limited experience, Vodou would seem to be much more about feeling than seeing and so I stayed with the feeling for a while and just sat there.

After some minutes of soaking it up, I heard Manbo Paula say, “He’s back.” These words triggered something and I could see again. I opened my eyes but wasn’t ready to communicate with anyone. I sat on the stairs and felt peaceful, blissful, groggy and I later learnt that this post-possession feeling is called being “tipsy.” I signalled that I wanted a cigarette (I hadn’t had one in six months!) and one was brought to me or rather to Papa Simbi who was still within me in some way.

Now I’ve been taking part in Pagan ceremony for many years and many of them have been really beautiful and powerful. I’ve always been somewhat of a adventurer within the spiritual realms and have had many wonderful experiences. I’ve felt deity in many different forms and in many different ways. But nothing I’ve experienced compares to the absolute ease with with Papa Simbi was called into me. From sitting at the dinner table to full possession only took about 10 minutes! And there were dogs and children in the room!?! Actually, in retrospect I think having children in the room is one of the reasons the Manbos and Hougans find it so easily to connect with the loa. For them having grown up with it all their lives, it becomes a very easy common thing. Having grown up in that environment, of course contacting the spirits is completely easy and accessible to them. They don’t have to battle their conscious thinking minds to let the spirit in as their thinking minds are already open to these occurrences. Sing to Simbi and Simbi will come. Simple as that. With Pagan ceremony, the results are nearly always a bit unpredictable with people asking at the end, “did you feel anything? did you see anything?”

It was such a wonderful, beautiful and powerful experience, and so easily done that my inner adventurer simply craves to learn more and so to Haiti I shall return. I’m also wondering about taking other people with me to show them what I’ve seen, let them feel what I have felt. If you are interested in coming along, be sure to get in touch! It really was amazing. Look within and decide if it is for you.

I sat there tipsy for another half hour and then returned to the table for small talk, another cigarette and some wonderful dark strong sweet hot coffee made by the wonderful Manbo Yvette… and it’s not just the lwa and Vodou I am looking forward to returning for, it’s also the Haitian coffee.