My Perception
of Vodun.

I am often asked what Vodun truly is. The answer heard most often is that it is a religion, or part of our cultural heritage. I respect these words. But it is not exactly what I see, myself, when I look at Vodun.

Here is my perception, the one I have carried always, and which I want to pass on as it is.

Vodun, for me, is energy

I do not define Vodun as a belief one chooses or rejects. For me, it is at once simpler and greater than that: Vodun is energy. It is what vibrates in all living matter.

A tree growing, a heart beating, a plant breathing: within each of these movements, there is a current. This current that makes a thing alive, and not merely present, is what our ancestors named Vodun. It is therefore not something man invented. It is a name given to something that already existed.

The Lesson of the Tree

Take a tree. You see it as a single life. But if you look closer, the bark has its role, the leaf has its own, the root has its own. Each of these parts is, in its own way, a small life within the great life of the tree.

This is exactly how I understand man: we carry within us several parcels of life, each with its own force. We are never alone within ourselves. We are a whole.

Four Elements, One Life

For there to be life, visible or invisible, Water, Air, Earth and Fire must come together. None of the four is enough alone. It is their balance that makes a thing vibrate, breathe, stand upright.

In Ouidah, where the sea is present in our everyday life, Water and the Fire of the sun deeply mark our way of living Vodun. Elsewhere, this balance is composed differently. The essence remains the same everywhere: the four elements. What changes is the way they manifest depending on where one stands.

Where I Place Vodun: Religion, Metaphysics, Spirituality

I am often asked where to place Vodun in relation to these words.

Religion, as it is generally understood, rests on texts, dogmas, a belief one adopts. Vodun, for me, does not depend on belief: whether one thinks of it or not, the tree grows and life vibrates.

Metaphysics is an exercise in reflection, a way of thinking about existence at a distance, through reasoning. Vodun, as I live it, is not a reflection on life. It is a way of being in direct connection with it.

Spirituality is the word that comes closest, for me, to what Vodun is: the human being's capacity to understand themselves while remaining connected to the visible world and the invisible world.

These are my own points of reference. I do not claim they apply to everyone. I share them because they are sincerely what I carry.

In Closing

This is my perception of Vodun, the one I wanted to set down first, before all else. It is not a lesson I am giving. It is a way of seeing that I am passing on, with the respect it deserves.