The dreams sprinted in like water to high tide after my Skype call with a friend back in the States. “You’re not supposed to leave Greece yet. There’s a goddess. A temple. Somewhere out on one of the islands. You’re supposed to go there.” Adventure time. Fast-forward one week, I’m at a cafe on the island of Amorgos watching a little girl play with the establishment’s resident cat. Her father calls her back to the breakfast their family is enjoying, her name ringing like ping-pong balls on cave walls unto this moment - “Ariadne.” It’s a long, dusty road from port on the island of Naxos to the ..read more

Divinity. Entitlement. Prosperity. Purpose. Ancient whispers deep within callw us to reclaim our divinity and ability to live an enchanted life. You weren’t born for the status quo. Encoded within you is the blueprint to unleash a being uniquely endowed to meet the needs of this moment. A cunning child of the stars. A loaded time capsule. The adventure of lifetime. Chiron and Katelan are the people you want to teach you. With a depth of knowledge from a breadth of disciplines, Chiron and Katelan present their classes with refreshing openness. Their warmth reveals their teachings in an easily ..read more

La Sirene is a Rada lwa most commonly honored with the image of Diosa del Mar. Governing dreams, psychic ability, beauty, and the riches of the sea, she is also a powerful healer and protector. When I arrived in Port-au-Prince in 2016, I didn’t entirely know what I was getting into. Like many, I was enamored with what Karen McCarthy Brown called the “dense opulence” of Vodou’s aesthetics in her seminal work Mama Lola. From the complexity of the ritual line-drawings (veves) to the seeming seemingly gratuitous offerings given the Dead and other spirits, almost everything about Vodou seemed like ..read more

    Gede lanmo! Lave m’ak yo, m’ak yo ka pase byen! (“Dead Gede! Wash me and them, me and them, let everything pass well!”)⁣ - from a chante lwa for the Gede With their love of spicy foods, tobacco, and rum, the wise-cracking trickster Gede nation within Haitian Vodou stands out amongst the world’s categories of the deceased. Bearers of wisdom, delight (and a decent amount of shock-value), these forgotten dead epitomize Death’s support of Life by - having been healed and assembled - bringing their memory of it to the fore so that we, the Living, never forget its gifts. Portrayed by ..read more

    “Hermano Simon, Brother Simon, Brother Simon. You who are the fountain of inexhaustible marvelous gifts and who knows the sufferings of humanity. To you, I come with all my faith and hope to ask for your protection.” — from a traditional prayer to Maximon / San Simon If there is a spirit worthy of the abundance he’s shown receiving from his worldwide devotees it is Maximón-San Simón. Guatemala’s premiere folk saint of Imperial status petitioned to fulfill every Earthly need and request, his reverence is deeply connected to the effigies and images used to represent him with scarv ..read more

    Travay-o, Zaka, travay-o! Travay sou tè-o ak anba tè-o! (“Work, oh, Zaka, work, oh! Work on the Earth and under the ground!”)⁣ - from a chante lwa for Kouzen Zaka With his straw hat and bag which he uses for carrying crops and medicine, Kouzen (Cousin) Zaka is a lwa of the Earth whose lauded place in Vodou reminds us all of our rural connections and dependency no matter how urban the landscape we may find ourselves in. Often accompanied by his wife Kouzeen, both are scrupulous farmers with their mind on their money and their money on their mind, often appearing at fetes to “sell ..read more

    “What you seek is seeking you.” — Rumi Nothing on Earth exudes a greater mystique than Love; that singular force acting as muse, suture, and driver - the desire for which consumes most of our lives. From the yearning for acceptance by others to the fulfillment of deep urges that tempt and seduce, power over love is eternally sought after and often mythically granted through conditions so simple as to be ignored or discarded by those who seek it. In this class, we’ll dive deep into the many graces that guide attraction and explore love, reconciliation, sex, and glamour magic as p ..read more

    The power of connection with spirits of the land is often mentioned in magical discourse while actual methods for forging lasting relationships that support effective magic and an enchanted worldview (especially in urban areas) seem out of reach. In this course, participants will engage art-making, ritual, trance, and practical action to forge deep connection with the spirits of the land where they currently live and retrieve that which they need from land they are connected to by birth, family, and ancestors. Working in the liminal spaces between childhood and maturity / dreams ..read more

Whether or not you choose to work with them, the influence of Biological Ancestral energy is not optional when it comes to Being Human. She was strong in my mind’s eye; elderly and crouched over a cauldron of something hot that she was proud of. Her contours were clean, her face inviting. She looked like a woman with a lifetime’s experience in a hundred different things who was ready to take you somewhere. When I asked her what she needed, she crossed her arms and appeared gruff. “They’ll need this for courage,” she said, expertly plucking Yarrow, “and tell them to not forget the Moon.” In a ..read more

    Set kout kouto, set kout pwenyad (“Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the dagger”)⁣ - from a chante lwa for Erzulie Dantor⁣ The fiercest of the most popularly known lwa in Vodou, Metres Mambo Erzulie Dantor has been kicking ass and taking names since she appeared on the island of Ayiti. Her motherly love infamously unmatched except by the lengths she will go to protect those in her care, she is widely considered to be the potency to whom a native boar was sacrificed at Bois Caïman - catalyzing the Haitian Revolution, sealing its victory, and setting Western Civilization on ..read more