Books like Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals

Be Thou Forewarned...I am incapable of being non-biased when it comes to this book. I'm simply too close to the material it explores, and after reading it, I feel a strong connection to Ms. Luisah Teish herself. And that, in short, is why I adore it."Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals" is part memoir, part folk-magic practices, and part tome of women's spirituality. Written in the eighties, it has some of the historical assumptions about women's spiritual traditions that have since proven shaky, but far less than the equally good "The Spiral Dance" by Starhawk (who addresses the discoveries of such scholarship in the prefaces of the later additions) because Ms. Teish is mostly addressing Afro-American and African/African Diaspora practices which have been in place for thousands of years, rather than reconstructionist ones.Luisah Teish takes the reader through the world of New Orleans she knew growing up in the fifties, and through the riotous mix of L.A. and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies. She addresses race, class, ethnicity and gender issues with a simple, clear understanding that remains as relevant and true today as it was then. Ms. Teish writes with warmth, humor, intelligence, and wisdom. She has a keen sense of herself, and those around her, and we get loving but rounded portraits of her family and friends. For those mostly interested in the 'practical magic' side of things, she offers charms, spells, and rituals in every chapter, some of her own making, many based upon traditional folk and religious practices. She gives a really wonderful, gritty look at the New Orleans of her time, and how it has changed. For those who enjoy memoirs of political activists of the sixties and seventies, this is definitely a gem, especially those interested in the women's spirituality or "alternative religious" movements.Lots of ink has been spent on the economic, political, and social aspects of the civil rights movements of the sixties and seventies. Less has been written on the spiritual movements, and how they interacted and informed them. "Jambalaya" gives a beautiful look into how much connection can be made through mutually inclusive, toleranant spiritual practice and understanding - something we don't quite get enough of when it comes to religion."Sisterhood", I find, is rarely proffered as a term of much meaning among modern feminist circles. When it is, it is sometimes with an air of derision, as if those who used it were naive: how could there be sisterhood when there were so many racial and cultural differences, and prejudices, and privileges? And perhaps the feminists of the past were a bit naive. Certainly, they didn't have the same access to the more up-to-date scholarship about women's history and women's spiritual traditions we now possess. But those feminists who connected through the women's spirituality movement like Starhawk (whose glowing praises adorn the back of the book) and Luisah also seemed able to make deep connections because they were working in the arena of women's rights through spirituality. If you're looking to find relatively unbroken traditions of goddess worship, you must include the orishas of the African diaspora religions, the goddess of Africa and Asia, the Amerindian spirits and folk saints so popular in New Orleans itself. When Luisah describes women as her "Altar-Sisters" it carries weight and meaning because deep personal connections through faith are not just a political statement, but a ritual reality. We're sadly very used to religion as a tool of division: it's a breath of fresh air to get a glimpse of just how much true respect and understanding and appreciation can be engendered (pun intended) when people feel that they have a divine reason to do so.And it makes sense that a writer who can show this would grow up in and around New Orleans, a city where racial mixing, and in particular religious mixing took place despite official sanctioned race, gender, and class lines. Despite the attempt to prevent it, white women flocked to many of the Voodoo rituals held by 'Mam'zelle Marie LaVeau' as Ms. Teish calls her. When it comes to describing the delicious gumbo of beliefs, practices, charms, and spells that dwell in the Crescent City, Ms. Teish goes into a depth of personal detail that is very fulfilling if you're interested in the topic.As a book on women's spirituality from a historical perspective, again, she is mostly in keeping with current scholarship because as an initiated priestess of Oshun in the Lucumi tradition, those practices have been alive and well for hundreds of years. It's good to keep in mind the book was written in the 1980s; you can tell it is if you know the style of those times, and so inaccuracies, if they bother you, aren't really a big worry. (In fact, her 'A "Generic" African Woman' section (based upon a Western African model, from the same areas where the Orisha traditions have their birth) manages to neither put her "generic" woman on a pedestal and sugarcoat reality in an attempt to "fix" current perceptions, nor to paint a pitiful portrait of a stereotypical oppressed woman in need of rescue - a pretty big accomplishment). So, the important question: would you like this book as much as yours truly did? Well, if you're interested in memoirs from women active in the women's spirituality movement/the women's right movement/civil rights movements of the sixties; in Southern memoirs; in African/African Diaspora spirituality; in New Orleans; in Voodoo, Hoodoo, and things of that nature; or if you just plain want a book that describes some REALLY delicious food - I'd say check it out.