Dutch poet and Voodoo Priestess
The Jakarta Post interviews Dutch poet, and convert to Haitian Voodoo, Maria van Daalen. In Indonesia for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, van Daalen discusses her conversion experience, living as a poet, and her definition of a spiritual life.
Maria van Daalen
“I believe in what is real, but that there’s also magical things. Say I acknowledge God created the whole world in six days, to me it’s magical. But certain science is also magical to me. But as a poet I live in reality. This is like what Helen Vendler, a critic, says, ‘The critics love the poem about the red beech tree, but the poet loves the red beech tree.’”
Maria van Daalen is currently planning to publish a “grand essay” on Haitian Voodoo (she claims to have been initiated into the rank of Mambo Asogwe), to be published sometime in 2009. She also maintains a blog at her web site (a rough translation). Maria van Daalen’s life provides an interesting look into how the African diasporic religions are gaining interest and converts in “secular” Europe.
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