Welcome to America

What follows is a cry out to my folks here in America and specifically all ya’ll pagan folk in the south; if that ain’t you don’t take it so big.


Welcome to America
Hoodoo you know?

Welcome to the New Age - the Age of Aquarius - the Age of Free Thought and Magic Afoot.

Welcome to the Brand New - Brave New World.

Or is it? Do you sing the throat song of the new world or are you still reaching across the waters back to lost and old homes and ages; searching for something better because it ain’t here.
The current New Age of magic seems so diverse and open, but it often appears too rooted in every place but one – America –. Yes, it’s very fashionable, and perhaps more than a little justified, to turn one’s face from the home wall and find wisdom, wit and way in –any- place but America. That being the America of the here and now and the just then; anything existing before that being perfectly acceptable for use as it is Native and Original - and the irony of that on top of what has already been claimed, destroyed, and taken is so huge as to almost be soul crushing. But before you run out and start intoning Gaelic, Latin, Etruscan, or casting circles to the proper Airt you might want to stop and consider that there is a very American magic just under the surface –all around you- not a native magic or an original magic – not a pure magic just made out of it’s own self skin – no, a quilt made up of Haint blue colors, and jinx squares all sewn up on a five spot board – a magic as American as Jazz or Chop Suey.
Hoodoo
Now before you go off and get yourself all tied up, fussing and fuming and ready to put me right in my place, - and I've probably given you plenty to be riled up about since I haven’t been oh so careful and fretful over your all’s feelings – just take a breath and hear me out. I’m not saying to you that old ways from other places or native peoples don’t have worth, aren't damn fine in fact, and I’m not forgetting all the beautiful parts that came to make up Hoodoo from amazing Africa, solemn Synagogues, humble Hexmeisters, hucksters, dreamers, slaves, freemen, bandits, rouges, revolutionaries, just plain ol’ wise mommas and papas and the roots and spirits themselves – so if your all wound and hung just take a long cool drink of shut the hell up and go, stay or do as you like because I’m going to go on.
Hoodoo
That’s right I said Hoodoo, you heard me. That ol’ time huckstery, superstitious, spookism – yup Hoodoo, Mojo Bags, Floor Washin, Black Cat Bones and all. Now a lot a folk got to look everywhere but at home for magic and truth and wisdom, cause if someone you never met and don’t know says it or does it, well then that must be right and true. But now if Gramma and Pops and Sister does it well that’s just how some folks is around here… superstitious, ignorant… backwards. Well La De Da, that’s just fine now isn't; if somebody over an ocean or 300 years back does it it’s real and valid, but if my Gramma did it it’s that old devil spookery or just plain foolishness, or that’s that ol’ evil stuff or even better, the biggest slap in the face, that something that “them” folk do and we all know what I mean by that, G-d help us.
Well it’s out there folks, all around you, in your words, in your manners, in your ways and songs and the little things you do and it’s as real and tangible as the best magic you can call up on any Sabbat Night and it’s a part of –here- our times and our air, our earth and our fires… cicada songs, gator growls, cat screams, and owl hoots all. So before ya’ll run right off to greener pastures and set all your elders on their ears, show us how we’re wrong, just stop and ask and listen – maybe around midnight down by the Crossroads or in the quiet of the Graveyard on Memorial Day or just watch what Gramma does when she drops a knife – who knows Magic might be a whole lot more damn Afoot then you ever guessed.
by Charles Porterfield a.k.a. Grandpaw Coyote