by Ya Sezi bo Oungan, edited by Katherine Bonnabel

Saint Anne is the mother of Mary, the Mother of Christ.  Catholics and Christians owe it to Saint Anne for not only Mary’s upbringing to allow her to be selected by That God, but also because Saint Anne, is partially responsible for the birth of Jesus.  Nearly all – if not all the Grans, use the mask of Saint Anne.

Gran Ezili is the Mother of Ezili Freda, and sometimes in certain Lineages, she’s also Ezili Je Wouj or another facet of Ezili Dantor. Gran Ezili, as it sometimes said, was the student of another Gran – Gran Mambo Ayizan Vlekete.  She taught Gran Ezili, Gran taught Freda the Religion and how to be a Mambo in society.  Gran taught Dantor, Maji and how to run the market.

Gran Ezili is very old, she can talk about a topic but in a vernacular only she and the ones who know her can understand. She not talking in riddles, she’s not incoherently babbling. She’s trying to tell us what she is afraid will be forgotten. Gran recalls the events as they happened, in full honesty

Priestess Miriam of the New Orleans Voodoo Spiritual Temple essentially paved the way for modern day expressions of voodoo to be commonplace, expected and anticipated. Priestess Miriam has a way of speaking which the unprepared may not be able to follow so simply or easily. Her speech is heavy with spiritual jargon and shortcuts in understanding that sometimes she is the only one aware of what she’s talking about. She is much like the voice of Gran Ezili in that respect.

There is a custom that nowadays of a cooked food offering. Gran is old, she needs help eating, just like you were fed when you could not feed yourself, she too needs to be fed. Gran Ezili feeds us wisdom and knowledge, things that worked, and things that did not work. We feed her, so she can continue.

Making it to an advanced age is considered a blessing for wisdom. The Grans are a source for good, for healing, and to nurture good habits like patience. This can be seen in the role of Gran Zaranye, who is associated with the Wolfspider, which carries its children on its back. The spider itself is known to be a very spiritual creature

 The spider aside from weaving and connecting also can guide and redirect us to our destiny. As in the way of the wolf spider the eldest guides the youngest in this shared relationship. Young children have just entered the physical world from the spiritual ~ they have none of the faculties to communicate the knowledge of that spiritual world, nor are they able to do much in this physical world yet.

Adults of advanced age, are exiting from the physical world to the spiritual with a lot of the faculties to communicate the knowledge, but it cannot be transmitted to an individual who can make good use of these tools.  It is these grans and many others grans that possess the ability to affect this world and the spiritual.

 Where the water and earth meet is where Gran Silibo begins. She is the source of the spiritual bath that still is applied to children.  It has the added effect of washing in and the sowing of the seeds of the future generation of healers, priests, and spiritual workers.

A part of the greater philosophy of respecting your parents in Vodou and Orisha culture seen in Benin and Nigeria is that your parents assuming all else is normal will return to the ancestors before you. Grann is the one who will inform the ancestors, the dead, and the divine as to what blessings and goodness should be afforded you, she is the first bridge to the rest of our relationship to the dead, and the ancestors.

This can be especially seen within the Lwa Gran Brijit, or Maman Brijit who needs no introduction, she is the prosecutorial force of judgment within Vodou, she is the one you must get past to be in the community of the dead, or elsewhere.

Gran knows the more transcendental or metaphysical secrets of vodou. We can look for guidance from the lwa, in people in our community, and in history whose wisdom comes to us through the Grans.