The exhibition is a selection from the collection of Marianne Lehmann (the largest collection worldwide of Vodou objects) and focuses in particular on the Bizango secret society. Lehmann, who lives in Port-au-Prince, has been collecting these objects for over thirty years and now has over 3,000 items – which fortunately survived the recent earthquake.. Her long-term aim is to set up an ethnographic museum devoted to Vodou culture in Haiti.

We tentatively entered the exhibition space (uncertain whether this was the entrance, there was no guard or warden, the reason probably being that nobody could bear (or could be expected) to stand out in the ante-room that was throbbing with heat) by opening a glass door and passing through a curtain which acted like a veil. The transition from bright dry sun-drenched heat to the cool dimly lit interior of the exhibition, pulsing with drum rhythms, was physical – entering the cool room and escaping the heat was a profound relief. The exhibition was empty apart from us and various guards quietly standing around.

Lila’s impressions
The sound of the drums pulled me in, coming from a video showing a vodou ceremony in Haiti. I felt myself falling into the film, my heart merging with the drums, my body swaying with the rhythm, following the movements of the participants, curious about the actions and emotions of the celebrants… until we moved on and stepped into the shadowy depths of the main exhibition.

I find it difficult to find words for this exhibition.

The artefacts were beautiful, breathtaking, awesome. But what struck me most was that they weren’t ‘Art’, made for the sake of beauty and aesthetics (even though some were painfully beautiful) but to me they seemed filled with magic, with intent, they seemed to be made to be used in ceremony, for mediation, to create a link to another world, to communicate with the Loa, to pay homage – and as such rather were utilitarian objects than artefacts for the sake of beauty itself.

Some impressions: a sculpture of Damballa, a lounging bull-headed human encircled by a snake, a half human, half-Donkey (or horse?) holding a snake circling the chair, devil figures, shiny sequinned ritual flags, the statue of a small girl (Erzulie Freda), a beautifully carved black Madonna with child (Erzulie Dantor), ritual drums, ritual cabinets, a painted and stuffed fish, spirit vessels, sequinned skull tripod figures. Most exhibits were dimly lit, in front of blue-black background, a play of contrasts, some areas lying in complete shadow, others in half-light, with deep shadows cast across the images.

The lighting was very effective, it added to the atmosphere and the experience. At the end we were considering getting the exhibition catalogue but all the artefacts had been photographed on white background using bright lights and a lot of the mystery and beauty and glamour had been taken away, one’s mind could no longer imagine what lay in the shadows…

And some of the exhibits to me felt quite scary and gruesome. It wasn’t so much the use of skulls (I’ve never seen so many skulls in one exhibition) that made them gruesome but something indescribable.

There was a room filled with a Bizango spirit army, the queen and king seated in the front room, row after row behind them filled with warriors, all painted in black and red, a multitude of skulls sewn into the heads of the statues, some of the faces containing mirrors, some vaguely recalling fetish gasmasks, looking alien, free of emotions, yet intent. They seemed in stasis, waiting, and as if raring to go at the slightest glimpse of the queen urging them on or a soft word spoken by the king – and they would be off, to do whatever they were bidden to do.

The final room: completely filled with huge, spirit mirrors, some round, some rectangular, dusty surfaces, the mirrors adorned with painted symbols, carvings of faces, masks with lolling tongues, snakes, skeletons, chains, effigies.

The mirrors offered reflections of oneself, and when walking around, from one to the next, the room turned into a mirror cabinet, magic mirror reflecting magic mirrors behind and at the various angles of the room.

The exhibition was an intense experience, breathtaking, awesome. I have never seen an exhibition where artefacts had such a powerful magical resonance.

Here’s a walkthrough of the exhibition (commentary is in German, note that the film seems to ‘stall’ at places but it’s just the commentator rambling about the exhibit and the camera is on pause and then the film continues when he’s talked enough. )

Click here to view the embedded video.

My love affair with bumblebees started years ago when I worked for a ‘design company’ that constructed Santa’s Grottos all year round [horrendous if you don’t like Xmas in the first place!] but also made some seasonal decorations for shopping centres. And for the spring/Easter season some centre up North had ordered 3 giant bumblebees so I spent a few weeks helping another woman construct ginormous bumblebees out of hoola hoops, fake fur and plastic foil.

They were massive things [about 4 feet long and 2 feet in diameter], hanging from the ceiling (and we had to construct cages for them to hang within so they were able to safely travel up North) and they were very sweet and VERY huggable…

There is a well-known and often repeated myth that scientifically apparently they should not be able to fly.

This myth seems to be based on an incident [fact? story? legend?] that there was a Swiss aerodynamicist [others say it was a German physicist or a French entomologist, depending on sources] who, whilst at a posh dinner, got talking to a biologist who started asking about the flight of bees. So the aerodynamicist [physicist/ entomologist] “scribbled the calculation on the back of a napkin but, seeing as he was at a dinner party (and therefore possibly on the tipsy side and uninterested in talking shop), he simplified it. He assumed that bees have a smooth, rigid wing, like the wing of an airplane, and he had to guess the weight and wing area of Mr Bee. Shockingly, the calculations suggested that the bee generated insufficient lift to be able to fly, but the aerodynamicist had had enough by this point and went back to getting drunk.” ilovebacteria.com/bumblebee

There are many websites discussing the ramifications of this myth, whether it proves scientists’ ignorance and arrogance, a lesson that a mathematical model of something is not the same as the real thing (“the roughness and flexibility of their wings was neglected in this quick calculation. The wings of a bumblebee bend to create vortices that provide lift on both the upward and downward strokes, their wings are nothing like the wings of a plane” says Katie Pennicott) and on the other hand you’ve got the view that bumblebees are miracles defying the laws of nature or paragons of strength and defiance and powerful anthropomorphic symbols of the underdog as they fly despite all predictions…

Anyway…

The bumblebees I love the most are the ones that tend to fly around early in the springtime, those huge droning furry buzzy creatures that rootle around in the undergrowth only to suddenly fly up and then frequently just seem to take off into the sky and for a little while you can follow their roundabout and undulating flightpath, their furry bodies outlined against the sky turning into an ever diminishing dot whilst they zigzag away into the distance. And suddenly you can’t see them anymore, they’re gone.

Apparently those massive spring bumblebees are bumblebee queens that emerge in spring from their hibernation spot and search for a suitable nest site.

So it’s the bumblebee queens that fly up on the first days of spring.

What I most love about them is that buzzing sound, that deep droning that makes the air and everything around you vibrate.

At times it feels to me as if that sound reverberates in my body, buzzes through me, echoes within me.

I decided last year that bumblebees could be seen as a manifestation of Lalita, the tantric zigzag Goddess.

I could go on at length about Lalita, Goddess of [and manifested within] the Sri Yantra, (keeping one’s glance on the triangles of the Sri Yantra the zigzag effect will occur like an optical illusion; speaking her mantra her vibrational zigzag nature soon will manifest within one’s body)  and how she emanates waves of joy… but actually – this piece is about bumblebees.

And I just wanted to say – I think they are awesome – gentle bumbling furry harbingers of happiness.

Happy spring everyone!

Bumblebee Conservation Trust

For a while in the early 1990s I became quite obsessed with Baphomet. For several months a friend of mine and I did nightly rites and possessions. We would take it in turns who would become possessed by Baphomet and it turned into an excellent hobby/pastime and we did some amazing rituals. Both of us egged each other on and both of us were keen to continue these nightly rites as it was an exciting process with Baphomet narratives developing and unfolding. We invested a lot of time and magical ‘energy’ into these rituals, and I ended up feeling that I had a unique and intense connection to Baphomet that nobody else quite had access to.

My partner eventually kindly pointed out to me that I was getting obsessed with Baphomet, which was something that mightily pissed me off as obsession is a lot less glamorous than being the (or make that THE) High-priestess of Baphomet.

I ended up thinking that I KNEW Baphomet and when in a group situation/group ritual I started judging other people’s possessions, evaluating them on some internal scale where ‘real’ Baphometdom was at one end and what I conceived as other people’s own personal projections and perceptions (which in my eye made possession less valid, less real, less powerful) on the other end of the scale. In hindsight I believe that a lot of ego was involved here, a lot of ‘I know who Baphomet is and others don’t’ unless their possession somehow resonated with my perception of B.

It all blew up in my face with a Baphomet ritual in Berlin, part of a ‘cross-order’ meeting with people from various magical orders.

It was a South American member of the IOT who was ‘ridden’ by Baphomet, a very intense, very in your face, very animalistic Baphomet. He was foaming at the mouth, stomping around, reeking, sweating, screaming, proclaiming.

The entire congregation was naked and followed Baphomet in awe, and as I felt so very close to B. I put myself very close in his vicinity, following his moves, encouraging him, urging him on, revelling.

B. in the end ‘used’ me/ my vaginal fluids as a sacrament, dipping into me again and again to anoint the other celebrants in the room.

This quite took my breath away, but not in a good way. Everything had been building up intensely, it was a huge rush – yet I had not expected to be physically involved or invaded. I felt taken aback, caught unawares, shocked, wanted to retreat from the situation, wanted it to stop but at the same time thought, ‘I’m a chaos magician, I should be very much okay with this, and this after all is Baphomet!’ Simultaneously I felt quite powerless because how do you make known to a raving possessed deity that you don’t want to be touched in a certain way and that you might have personal limitations?

For some time afterwards I did not discuss this event with anybody. I did feel that my person had been invaded yet my expectations of myself stood in the way of voicing my unease. I felt conflicted – on one hand I thought I should be feeling honoured to ‘be the sacrament’ (and after all I did perceive myself as having this special relationship with Baphomet) yet emotionally I was not okay with this act of invasion which felt rough and raw and too close for comfort. I also felt quite embarrassed that I wasn’t okay with this event (and as a chaos magician I should be able to handle anything!)

And somehow I felt that I might have ‘encouraged’ Baphomet and brought the situation onto myself so I had no grounds for complaint, no reason to feel unhappy, there was an element of telling myself I had acted stupidly and put myself down along the lines of ‘if you can’t handle it you shouldn’t have urged him on, shouldn’t have stood so close!’

It probably would have been helpful if there had been people safe-guarding the space and the ritual to make sure that the participants (the possessed as well as the celebrants) were okay but that was not something that ever happened at rituals during that time.

Having said all this I don’t want readers to get the idea that I think of myself as a victim of ritual abuse.

The whole experience was not pleasant and it did leave me feeling raw and conflicted. But it was also something that started off a process of re-evaluating my obsession with Baphomet, my tendency to think that I KNEW this deity and had certain ‘rights’ in regards to judging other people’s possessions and knowledge re: B.’s definition/personality.