'Tis the season

Thanksgiving.

Black Friday.

Hanukkah.

Yule.

Christmas.

New Years.

It's the most expensive time of the year. So what should we, as an anti colonial tradition, be doing during this time of the year? Well, there's no one size fits all answer so I will need to address each accordingly.

Thanksgiving or Tisquantum's Error should be remembered for what it is, a reminder to be careful to whom you extend kindness and for those of us who've benefited from the loss of the Patuxet peoples, especially if we currently live on their lands, have an unobserved bloodtie to them, or benefit from industry born from their territories, we owe them contrition, sacrifice, and thanks. Vodou

is not the faith for those seeking to un-ring bells; for that you should seek a savior who will torture himself for your evil or the evil of your grandfather's grandfathers. Vodou holds you accountable for your actions. We don't ask that you divest yourself of your shelter or wealth, only that you do what our ancestors lacked the moral rectitude to do, apologize for our ancestors' actions, offer sacrifice or libations as compensation, and thank the Patuxet for not taking their wealth back or using it to destroy us. If this attitude looks familiar it's because it's MAMA TCHAMBA's sentiment. As such, we will add a bangle of iron or worked leather and some money earned from the Patuxet's sacrifice (if there is any) to Her seat.

Black Friday is abhorrent to me, but nobody asked about my opinions sooooo... If we can't, as revolutionaries withhold our worship of the God that the Colonizers trust in, then we must sanctify it with the blessings of MAMI ABLƆ and MAMA ƐHO. Unfettered Freedom and Money should receive Peppermint Schnapps, cowries, and coins; MAMI SIKA and MAMI LAKSHMI, Gold and Righteous Rewards, should be adorned in gold chains and water. With these four appeased before you go into the blood filled battle field of the shopping mall, you will avoid unnecessary conflict, win the unavoidable ones, and your purchases will feed the growth, wealth, and fortune of the gift's recipient.

Christmas.

This one is troublesome, but not for the reason some may think.

Western Christianity is abominable to true vodounshie. It is a political instrument cultivated to enslave women, deny power to the poor, and to legitimize the theft of the sacred from their enemies.

But this is not the power of Yahweh, the wisdom of Yeshua, or the blessings of the Holy Spirit whose name is... well, we'll talk about that later. These are powerful and respected vodous to us and the patrons of Bani Avraham.

Christmas is the American culture's recognition of Yeshua's incarnation or birth and can be celebrated as such without much deviation from current practice provided we are duly divined to have at least one of these spirits. The sacrifice of a lamb is appropriate particularly because the day usually coincides with the longest night of the year, the end of the year in Vodou, the most opportune moment to give evil medicine to an enemy and thus the perfect moment to rid your house of malevolent influences and flood it with good medicine. So Christmas, for the vodounshie, could be observed as the manifestation of Yeshua and the recalibration of heaven. Personally I think it's a bit much, sandwiched as it is, between Eƒe Nana Densu in September and Eƒe Togbɛ Mɔglɔ in March to conflate the start of our New Year with the fictitious birth of their Christ, but if that's what it takes for Christians to feel like they're part of something original...