If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words, with a steamy hot cup of your beverage of choice. Its those rainy kinda of days that make you wonder if you really like the rain or just the idea of rain as opposed to having a drought.
The Halloween season has passed and I still have one or two horror movies to review, if that floats your bought be sure to keep a look out for my next posts. We don’t celebrate Halloween over this side of the world, most things that I know about it are from watching movies. I did play around with idea of what sort of costume I could dress up in, if I had to go to costume party and I thought hmmm Bluebeard.
You are familiar with the story about the man who went on a trip and left his wife with keys to all his secrets and riches telling her she had access to everything except this one locked room which she must never venture into. Curiosity got the better of her and she went into the room to find the severed heads of her predecessors. She tried to hide her transgression but the key to the room developed a bloodstain that could not be removed and when the husband returned of course he now had to kill her too because it is what it is….
There’s several versions and variations to how this French Folktale plays out but bottom line is I was absolutely terrified of Bluebeard… so you could say this is me facing my fears or is it becoming my fears hmmmm
My understanding of the story has shifted over time from being a cautionary tale about curiosity, temptation and servitude, to one about not blindly following the rules without question simply because that’s tradition. As a precocious child who grew up with an inquisitive mind, my curiosity has gotten me into some rather tricky situations since I am the type of person that prefers to witness things for themselves than simply be told thats just the way it is…
Like how I want to be rich enough to see for myself that money cant buy happiness because right now, I simply think its because they don’t know where to shop…
So Elon Musk finally bought the blue bird app for a cool 44 billion dollars, I would be pretty happy about that if I was him, now lets brace for the horror show that follows.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that November is a curious month, whichever culture and tradition you look at you will run into interesting parallels which show there’s more than we understand at play. In our local culture, November is deemed a sacred month as the ancestors will be taking a Sabbatical break from watching over us and its during this annual vacation that they also take our petitions on our behalf to Musikavanhu (The Creator).
Consequently no sacred rituals or events such as weddings, memorial services, installation of traditional chiefs are scheduled for November as the ancestors will not be watching over and so will not recognize or bless any such activities conducted and it can actually invite an ancestral wrath where they rescind their benevolence until an appeasement ceremony is carried out. Also because the ancestors will be otherwise preoccupied from their regular mandate, November can be a month which misfortune befalls families; tragic events, disasters and death seem to happen more prominently in November, the November Curse.
We had to rush to get my uncle’s grave fixed up before the rain season started and most importantly before November started because would be unable to do so otherwise until December. And should anything have happened to it because it was not yet fixed up that would be quite the ominous sign requiring quite a lot of intervention to rectify.
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that I am a product of culture that walks between 2 paths, on one hand there’s Christianity and on the other there’s the African Traditional Religion which history has subdued us into not openly talking about it, so we behave like it doesn’t exist yet at the same time giving it its due respect and more. Unfortunately it leaves us on an incomplete path never fully committed to one or the other.
Its only recently in my older years that I learnt that the sacredness of November is not confined to the calendar month as observed by most people but instead follows the lunar cycle, which means we could be observing it during the wrong period and that might be why some things don’t work out for us. What is it about November? Do check out my linked archive article for November tradition in Zimbabwe.
Someone responded to the question on why we don’t celebrate Halloween in Zimbabwe by joking that “living in Zimbabwe is an going horror story, Mahorror.“. Although I laughed heartily at that I felt where they were coming from, which is why I half considered putting a scarf with country’s flag around my neck and dress up as the president for halloween….Also peep previous guest article on how to become a first lady to an African President.
If you were having coffee with me I would ask if you are aware that Tailor Swift has just made Billboard History of having 10 songs grace the Billboard Hot 100, that could be a dream come true or another horror story depending on how you look at.
Whats been happening in your neck of the woods? Did you dress up for Halloween? What do you know about November?
~B
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