Marie Laveau Quotes

Women hand sight down through the generations. Mother to daughter.

All is indeed a Blessing IF you can just see beyond the veils; for it is ‘all’ an illusion and a test, and one of the greatest Divine Mysteries of this life cycle.” This IS my constant prayer, my mantra, my affirmation, reverberation, reiteration and my ever-living reality.

The color white is not always what it seems to be. Watch for white handkerchiefs, handmade altars, homemade gumbo, and light summer dresses.

Those who know don’t talk and those who talk don’t know

Many of the words of the ceremonies, words she knew once, words her brother had also known, these words had fled from her memory. She told pretty Marie Laveau that the words did not matter, only the tunes and the beats, and there, singing and tapping in the blacksnakes, in the swamp, she has an odd vision. She sees the beats of the songs, the Calinda beat, the Bamboula beat, all the rhythms of equatorial Africa spreading slowly across this midnight land until the whole country shivers and swings to the beats of the old gods whose realms she had left. And even that, she understands somehow, in the swamp, even that will not be enough.

Come on, I want to take you around to the back, to see St. Anthony's Garden," he said. Delicate bell clangs marked the half hour, and a mockingbird called through the still air as the group entered the garden. The green space was dominated by the tall white statue of a man with arms raised in welcome. "St. Anthony is known as the protector of childless women and finder of lost things," explained Falkner. "This area has had many functions over the years. It was a place for gatherings, markets, meals---even a dueling ground. Père Antoine, one of the cathedral's popular pastors, used the space as a kitchen garden to feed his monks. He also worked with voodoo priestess Marie Laveau to assist the large slave population, especially women and children." "A Roman Catholic priest collaborating with a voodoo priestess?" asked one of the tourists, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. Falkner nodded. "They had more in common than you may think. They both had a desire to heal, sooth, and do good works. They were both very spiritual people. Marie Laveau blended voodoo with Catholicism, especially regarding the saints.

I am The Black Book. Between my top and my bottom, my right and my left, I hold what I have seen, what I have done, and what I have thought. I am everything I have hated: labor without harvest; death without honor; life without land or law. I am a black woman holding a white child in her arms singing to her own baby lying unattended in the grass. I am all the ways I have failed: I am the black slave owner, the buyer of Golden Peacock Bleach Crème and Dr. Palmer’s Skin Whitener, the self- hating player of the dozens; I am my own nigger joke. I am all the ways I survived: I am tun-mush, hoecake cooked on a hoe; I am Fourteen black jockeys winning the Kentucky Derby. I am the creator of hundreds of patented inventions; I am Lafitte the pirate and Marie Laveau. I am Bessie Smith winning a roller-skating contest; I am quilts and ironwork, fine carpentry and lace. I am the wars I fought, the gold I mined, The horses I broke, the trails I blazed. I am all the things I have seen: The New York Caucasian newspaper, the scarred back of Gordon the slave, the Draft Riots, darky tunes, and mer- chants distorting my face to sell thread, soap, shoe polish coconut. And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing. I am the sound of my own voice singing “Sangaree.” I am ring-shouts, and blues, ragtime and gospels. I am mojo, voodoo, and gold earrings. I am not complete here; there is much more, but there is no more time and no more space . . . and I have journeys to take, ships to name, and crews.

I gots to git down to the infirmary, Zuzu, something awful is happening, the Thing has stirred in its moorings. The Thing that my Grandfather Harry and his generation of Harrys had thought was nothing but a false alarm. The Mayor, dragging the woman by the fox skins hanging from her neck, leaves city hall and jumps into his Stutz Bearcat parked at the curb. They drive until they reach St. Louis Cathedral where 19th-century HooDoo Queen Marie Laveau was a frequent worshiper; its location was about 10 blocks from Place Congo. They walk up the steps and the door’s Judas Eye swings open.

Marie the Second sported a bright tignon to signal her status and identity. She flaunted her turban, gold jewelry, and a proud walk that announced to all that saw her -- I am not white, not slave, not black, not French, not Negro, not African American. I am a free woman, a Creole of New Orleans.

Here is the day, we must welcome it with a song

The room was large and empty except for a four-poster bed and a framed picture of Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen of New Orleans. "A free woman of color who owned her own business," said Vivian Weaver. "She made her own money, and rose to fame and power in a segregated South.

The solitude healed her, night and day. It was never painful like that time she’d spent lost in the other world behind the mirror. She wasn’t lost now. She knew exactly where she was.

She learned to love the darkness, the hours when edges were blurred and the night spoke in its true voice. She learned to love the solitude.