#bayou st. john

[viridiansunset]

Bayou St. John

New Orleans

[infrogmation]

Horses and carriage beside Bayou St. John, Mid-City New Orleans.

Photo by Infrogmation of New Orleans, 2007.

[stone-cold-groove]

Scenes from home, past and present.

[a-rrabella]

[kornwulf]

If you know me, you know one of my favorite things is low stakes historical mysteries. The one I'm currently enamoured with is this thing

It's referred to as the Bayou St. John Submarine. We know it was found by a dredge deepening Bayou St. John outside of New Orleans in 1878, and then dragged out of the water... And that's pretty much it. For about a century it was thought to be a different submarine named the Pioneer, which was a prototype for the infamous, ill fated Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.

However, it's features do not square in the slightest with the surviving documentation we have on the Pioneer, which, when combined with period newspaper reports that the Pioneer was scrapped in 1868, means it's now widely held that it's an *entirely different* Confederate submarine *also* built in New Orleans during the civil war, which as far as anyone can find doesn't appear in the historical record anywhere prior to its (re?)discovery in 1878.

So what we're left with is an intriguing shipwreck, with absolutely no knowledge as to how, when, and why it was built, or by whom.

[mediumdata]

[3rdeyeblaque]

On September 10th we venerate Elevated Ancestor, Voodoo Queen of Louisiana, & Saint, Marie Catherine Laveau on her 222nd birthday 🎉

[for our Hoodoos of the Vodou Pantheon]

Marie Catherine Laveau was a dedicated Hoodoo, healer, herbalist, & midwife who, "traveled the streets [of New Orleans] like she owned them", as the most infamous Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

Marie C. Laveau I was born a "Free Mulatto" in today's French Quarter in what was then, New France); to a mother & grandmother who were both born into slavery & later freed via freedom papers. It is believed that she grew up in the St. Ann Street cottage of her maternal grandmother.

She married Jacques Santiago-Paris, a "Quadroon" "Free Man of Color", who fled as a refugee from Saint-Domingue, Haiti from the Haitian Revolution in the former French colony . After his passing, she became known as "The Widow Paris". She then worked as a hairdresser catering to White families & later entered a domestic partnership with a French nobleman his death. She excelled at obtaining inside information on her wealthy patrons by instilling fear in their servants whom she either paid or cured of mysterious ailments. Although she never abandoned her Catholic roots, she became increasingly interested in her mother’s African traditional beliefs. The Widow Paris learned her craft from a ‘Voodoo doctor’ known variously as Doctor John or John Bayou.

Marie C. Laveau I is said to have intiated into Voodoo career sometime in the 1820s. She's believed to be descended from a long line of Voodoo Priestesses, all bearing her same name. She was also a lifelong devout Catholic. It didn’t take long before Marie C. Laveau I dominated New Orleans Voodoo culture & society before claiming title of Queen. She was the 3rd Voodoo Queen of NOLA - after Queen Sanité Dédé & Queen Marie Salopé. During her decades tenure, she was the premier beacon of hope and service to customers seeking private consultations - to aid in matters such as family disputes, health, finances, etc, created/sold gris gris, perforemed exorcisms. While her daughter Marie II was known for her more theatrical displays of public events, Marie C. Laveau I was less flamboyant in her persona. She conducted her work in 3 primary locations throughout the city: her home on St. Ann Street, Congo Square, & at Lake Pontchartrain. Despite one account of a challenge to her authority in 1850, Marie C. Laveau I maintained her leadership & influence.

The Queen died peacefully in her sleep in her ole cottage home on St. Ann Street. Her funeral was conducted according to the rite of the Catholic Church & in the absence of any Voodoo rites. To her Voodoo followers, she's venerated as a Folk Saint. In² addition to her Priesthood in Voodoo and title of Queen, she is also remembered for her community activism; visiting prisoners, providing lessons to women of the community, & doing ritual work for those in need.

She is generally believed to have been buried in plot 347, the Glapion family crypt in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans. As of March 1st, 2015, there is no longer public access to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Entry with a tour guide is required due to continued vandalism & tomb raiding.

We pour libations & give her💐 today as we celebrate her for her love for & service to the people, through poverty, misfortune, bondage, & beyond.

Offering suggestions: flowers + libations at her grave, catholic hymns, holy water, gold rings/bracelets, money

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

[hometoursandotherstuff]

My love for New Orleans, LA homes comes from their uniqueness to just one place. You can't really find houses like this anywhere else. Here's one that was built in 2016 in the style of an old historic "Double Gallery" residence. It has 3bds, 3ba, and is listed for $1.675M.

They did the classic entrance hall with a fancy spindle railing. Remember, it's only 8 yrs. old, so it's not a reno.

They copied a sitting room and even included pocket doors.

High ceilings, wide crown molding, built-in book shelves, and pocket doors to the dining room.

Dining room has a tray ceiling and I like that they put medallions up for the chandeliers.

Cute shower room. Love the pedestal sink, mirror and little chandie.

Coffered ceiling in the everyday dining room. Very nice.

The kitchen is lovely. Sliding barn door, a counter that seats 4, Shaker cabinets, and I like the lighting. They've got a pot filler faucet. I wish they'd chosen a backsplash with some contrast. Love the bookshelf for cookbooks.

Check out the butler's pantry.

A potting area? Wow, that's a wonderful bonus.

This is beautiful. A family room with an interesting take on a coffered ceiling, and 3 double doors to the garden. Also, love the fireplace.

Isn't it fabulous to be able to walk out to these porches from the family room?

Upstairs the thick crown molding continues.

Flex space outer room is open to the primary bedroom.

Bright spacious room.

Has French doors to the terrace and an en-suite.

This is new home that looks like a renovated historic home.

Large en-suite.

And, how convenient to have a walk-in closet/dressing room right off the bath.

Secondary bedroom also has a beautiful en-suite.

The 3rd spacious bedroom is used as a home office. It also has an en-suite.

The view from the terraces is the Bayou St. John.

There's a patio down in the garden.

How lovely to be on a bayou.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1148-Moss-St-New-Orleans-LA-70119/157738071_zpid/

[gerard-lange-art-journals]

Wilco and the Bayou St. John Bridge. Why? I really do not remember.

Gerard Lange art journals, Book 12: Watching You Watching Me, spread 16 (pp. 32–33), 2007–2008, 28 x 44 x 3 cm (11 x 17 x 1 ⅛ in.).

[chasedeys]

Firstly your fics are INCREDIBLE I absolutely adore them <333 if you ever wanted to expand on Joe’marr vacationing/visiting NOLA together I’d love to read!! Maybe ja’marr’s family makes an appearance?? I love reading how others react to the ship in fics and what their dynamics are :))

hi!! thank you so much!!!!!!! i too love to read outside povs to a ship lolllll. prefacing this with i will try to write an actual fic/drabble of this!!! i will attempt it i swear!!!!! but please don't hold your breath 😭 in the meantime take this uncensored babble:

god id loveeee to write them cruising around nola so baddd. but like horrifically unsure abt actually writing this for real bc the research id have to do…….like i dont have the slightest clue what new orleans is like and i want to write the neighborhood and city yk?? 😭 and writing about their family gives me anxiety literally double triple overthinking everything like it matters that much like it's rpfiction i could technically just make shit up but 😭

BUT ANYWAY like i mentioned in this one paragraph –

They’ve spent what felt like hours just rutting inside the other once, during an off day—no media, no interviews, no meetings, no football—just the two of them locked in their tiny hidden rental somewhere in Bayou St. John with no expectations other than just being with each other. Joe’s nipples were so puffy. Ja’Marr’s throat hoarse from screaming. He misses the little private bubble of just two of them with such sudden intensity before it gets drowned out by their current act: still together, still in love.

in love with the idea of them having this tiny place in a quiet neighborhood in nola where nobody knows them (unlikely, i know, especially in nola of all places lmao) or just 1 or 2 neighbors who clock them and are fiercely protective of them!! it won't be the place for them to settle ofc joe loves ohio too much, ja'marr loves his friends too much social butterfly Needs to be surrounded with the guys he loves etc but this quiet nook for them to settle when it gets too much and they want to get away sometimes is Very Important to me okay. a little place somewhat near ja'marrs family home so he can recharge with them too!! the family home being a space where joes own family cherishes!!!!!

Driving out visiting ja’marrs old house when they can to do large family cookouts or just plain random dinners, annoying the family dog. Living alone trying and attempting to cook together bc both of them are class A disasters at it, slowly learning together making these breakfast omelets and cajun fried rice, finally not just eating unseasoned scrambled eggs and sad little protein shakes for breakfast, late night doordash or midnight meal runs to the weirdly open 24/7 chinese place idk. Morning runs to the nearest park and pushing each other on a rickety swing and joe falling over laughing bc ja’marr just slid on a muddy puddle and is now drenched in brown dirt only to skedaddle away because the mans sprinting at him stay the fuck away etc etc.

Just!! the large family cookouts?? both unable to cook for shit somehow getting roped to checking the seafood boil just standing🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️ dead quiet staring down at the closed pot like they're actually doing something while behind them ja'marrs mom stares at them incredulously and throws her hands up in exasperation, playing backyard football with the little nephews and nieces, joe’s own family arriving and meshing in with the chases, joes older brothers needling at jamarr for one thing or the other, getting to sit tangled up in one armchair together during movie night sessions, jamarrs sister throwing peanuts in their direction when they're being too grossly in love, jamarr losing a bet to his sister so he has to hang the laundry up in the morning but he drags joe to help him with it bc he's a dick and says random wedding vows for some reason and that gets joe moving for some reason, little football strategy sessions with the jimmys and all the other siblings and aunts and uncles turning into a mini food fight because they just won't get to a consensus because everybody in this mesh of family is so fucking stubborn etc etc. when jamarrs parent said something about how jamarr was a very hyperactive (?) child and they tried pushing him to football to tire him out only for him to get even more bouncy etc and smiling at each other when they clock jamarr settling down easy when joe has a hand on his shoulder to catch his attention for a convo aaaaaaa you get my vision????

And it pains me that joemarr don't do halloween bc i thought nola was all abt that afhjaskfsjj like girl what about the parades……..WHAT was the horrific scarring halloween experience?? but anyway imagining them dressing up over the top as to hide their identity taking the little nieces and nephews on a candy hunt, trying out a haunted maze booth thing and promptly latching on each others hand shaking bc the fuck is that hyperrealistic dead body doing there but joe stops to observe it closely in a dads-watching-construction-esque way while ja'marr gapes at him incredulously the worker in charge of that section has to peek out to awkwardly tell them to keep it moving sigh anyways this is all i can give you rn hehe

bye <3

[ausetkmt]

The national conversation about police violence against civilians grows louder every day. Recent killings of African Americans have fueled a lack of trust between communities of color and police. In 1866, a mass killing happened at the hands of police in downtown New Orleans. That was during Reconstruction, the era Clint Bruce studies.

“White people, I believe, do not understand the mistrust that many black people in the United States have of police and of authorities.”

Bruce says this sitting at his little kitchen table in the Bayou St. John apartment he’s staying in while doing research in town. He’s a professor at Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, and is working on translating a collection of 70 French language poems that were published during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras in The New Orleans Tribune, a radical newspaper run by mostly people of color.

Two of these poems were written in response to the 1866 massacre. “It was seminal in creating deep feelings of mistrust that I believe black people still have that they will not be protected, and even that they can be killed with impunity” says Bruce about the massacre, who didn’t learn about anything like this growing up in Shreveport in the 1980s.

“A lot of us really looked up to the Civil War as something that was glorious. We played Confederate soldiers, you know, those sorts of things. And it was only later through my studies and interest that I developed as a young adult that a lot of what shaped our world happened during Reconstruction.”

This is when Bruce started to see why black people in America were and are in fear of the police.

Back to 1866 — one year after the Civil War ended — it was a tense year. Back then. Louisiana Republicans wanted to explore giving blacks the right to vote. They called a convention to consider it in the state constitution. “It seems very noble and in many ways it was,” says Bruce. “But everything was politicking, right? And people change loyalties strategically.”

Republicans, arguably, supported giving blacks the right to vote in hopes it would help their party maintain political power. Louisiana was under Union occupation during the Civil War, and had a Republican governor by the end of it. But in 1866, Andrew Johnson was the president of the United States, and a big fan of Home Rule — letting former Confederate states make their own decisions again — as long as they also obeyed federal laws. This concerned Republicans in the South, who felt they would lose ground under Home Rule. At such a pivotal moment, Republicans realized they needed the support of freed black men to maintain political power.

Credit The Historic New Orleans Collection The Mechanic's Institute. 1974.25.3.272.

 “When they got here, I guess about the middle of the block here, they were assaulted by white attackers," she says. "They were verbally and physically assaulted, someone actually shot at them. They fired back, no one was injured. They fought off the attackers and proceeded right down here on Roosevelt Way to what is today the Roosevelt Hotel. Back then it was the Mechanics' Institute.”

This convention had been highly publicized, everyone around town knew it was happening, whether they were for or against blacks gaining the right to vote.  

Bell crosses Canal Street to the entrance of what is now the famous luxury hotel. “So this is where the street was filled with men, women and children, again who were jubilant at the thought of an interracial democracy, the hopes of an interracial democracy.”

The parade of marchers had thwarted off the mob on the other side of Canal, but once they made it to the Mechanics' Institute, where the convention was taking place inside, they were beset by more violence. A gang of white supremacists and ex-Confederates attacked. Fire sirens went off, signaling police to attack. They were sent by the mayor.

“There was panic because the police and firemen, armed, surrounded that building and began advancing,” says Bell. “The attack was premeditated. Lead police chief Harry T. Hayes, what he was doing at the time was recruiting policemen from Confederate veterans. They stormed in and started shooting, chasing people down the street.”

When the attackers finally ran out of bullets, nearly 50 people lay dead, mostly black.

Bell says there were over a hundred injured in all of this. “That's very conservative though, it’s thought that as many as 200, maybe more people were injured in all of this.”

Federal troops had also been called in, well after things got bloody, and it was obviously too late. People lay limp, heads bashed in with bricks, broken bodies thrown from windows, landing on top of emptied bullet casings and abandoned knives.

Justin Nystrom is an associate professor of history at Loyola University, and Co-director of the Center for the Study of New Orleans. “Of course as the saying goes, it was an absolute massacre. Because it was.”

Nystrom is currently writing about the massacre, and says there were immediate consequences.

Credit Historic New Orleans Collection Four scenes from the riot in New Orleans.

He says the Mechanics’ Institute Massacre, combined with another massacre that happened two months earlier in Memphis, Tennessee, essentially served as a reset button for post-war policy in the South. These events were top stories in the national media, and influenced voters who headed to the polls that fall.

“And of course elect a radical super majority to Congress” adds Nystrom. “The radical super majority enacts the Reconstruction Acts which breaks up the South into military districts. I often teach my students that if you don't have the riot of 1866, you probably don't have the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in the way that they appear.”

The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to former enslaved people in 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment, giving black men the right to vote, passed in 1870. Despite the progress it helped achieve, the massacre was a tragedy. There were no convictions in the aftermath. Nobody went to jail.

This reminds Clint Bruce of many recent, contemporary incidents of police violence against people of color. “So I'm thinking of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old who was gunned down. That was settled, it wasn’t considered a murder.”

And the country’s waiting to see what will happen to the officers who shot and killed Philando Castile, in his car in Minnesota, with his girlfriend beside him. And the day before that, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge.

After the Mechanics' Institute Massacre, The New Orleans Tribune continued to follow the incident for months, both in news coverage — and poetry. Remember those published poems written by Afro-Creoles that Bruce is translating? Camille Naudin was one of the most militant voices among the poets of the Tribune. He wrote a poem to commemorate the massacre called "Ode to the Martyrs."

“It was written for the one-year anniversary of the 1866 Massacre, so it was printed on the day the following year,” Bruce explains. “The same day that there was a memorial ceremony at the Mechanics' Institute. ‘Ode to the Martyrs’ is really an elegy that enumerates a number of the victims who were killed, in pretty dramatic fashion, and celebrates their sacrifice.”

The poet mourns that victims of the mob were brutally massacred, while former Confederate leader Jefferson Davis remained alive — and free — at the time.

“There was a perception among Unionists that he was getting off scot free. In an earlier stanza he references a former Black Union soldier Victor Lacroix, who is from a really well known New Orleans family, who was pretty much torn to shreds by the mob. At the end  he writes 'Mais je dirai toujours mulâtres, noirs, blancs, Victor Lacroix est mort, Jeff Davis est vivant.' which I've translated as, 'But for mulattos, blacks and whites, this fact I must tell: Victor Lacroix is dead. Jeff Davis lives still.'”

[viridiansunset]

Bayou St. John

New Orleans

Source

[lboogie1906]

Pastor Harold Robert Perry, S.V.D. (October 9, 1916 – July 17, 1991) was a clergyman of the Catholic Church. An auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, he was the first openly African American Catholic bishop, the second overall, and the first since 1875.

He was the first Black male provincial superior in the US and the first African American clergyman to deliver the opening prayer in Congress.

He was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana to Frank J. Perry, a rice mill worker, and his wife Josephine, a domestic cook. The eldest of six children. His cousin Louis V. Ledoux was the first Black diocesan priest in the Deep South. At age 13, he entered St. Augustine Seminary. He continued his studies at ecclesiastical institutions in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1938, he took vows as a member of the order.

He was ordained to the priesthood. He was the 26th African American to become a Catholic priest. He served as assistant pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Lafayette until 1948 when he was transferred to Notre Dame Church in St. Martinville. He served at St. Peter’s Church in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and at St. Gabriel’s Church in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, before returning to Louisiana as founding pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in Broussard. He built the church, rectory, and school.

He was named rector of his alma mater, St. Augustine Seminary in Bay St. Louis. He joined the National Catholic Council for Interracial Justice. He and other religious leaders were invited to the White House to discuss peaceful desegregation with President John F. Kennedy. He became provincial superior of the Southern province of the Divine Word Society in the US.

He was appointed titular bishop of Mons in Mauretania and auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans by Pope Paul VI.

He served as pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Church and St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Church in New Orleans, vicar general of the archdiocese, and rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. He served as national chaplain of the Knights of Peter Claver. He remained an auxiliary bishop until his death. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[lafayettenossie]

Josephine "Joey Laveau" Archer.

Coroner's Assistant. Voodoo Mambo.

Josephine Archer, Coroner's assistant.

Josephine was born into a family of believers and practitioners of voodoo on Bayou St. John, north of New Orleans. There was a certain gift among the women of the family for speaking with the deceased and with the Loa, especially with the Ghede Loa (the family of Loa related to fertility and death)

Although Josephine grew up in that environment and wasn't unaware of rituals and voodoo, as she grew up her thinking became more and more rational, until she finally decided to study the health branch, specializing in forensic medicine and toxicology at the University in New York.

But the ability to see spiritual beings around her never ceased, Josephine could see and interact with the recently dead and the Loa would show up and sometimes 'ride' her (a term that defines the voluntary possession of a voodoo mambo by one of these spiritual beings for a certain time). During her medical training period at the hospital it would be very common for her to try to help restless spirits to advance towards transcendence. Her classmates would soon call her 'Joey Laveau' upon learning of her family ties to the ancient voodoo queen...

"Joey Laveau", Voodoo Mambo.

In a world where she developed her professional side, her family tried to get her back into the fold by all possible means, and when they failed they punished her by being turned into a Samedi, a decomposed undead creature, which fed on the blood of the living...

Joey Laveau, Samedi vampire.

However, in another world Joey became interested in resuming her family heritage and combined her university studies with voodoo rites. One night, upon returning to the apartment where she lived, she met an enigmatic gentleman who told her that there was a place where people with gifts similar to hers could develop them and learn... This aroused the woman's curiosity and she agreed to go to Strixhaven with him.

[forthosebefore]

Meet the sisters who purchased Woodland Plantation

Twins Jo and Joy Banners purchased the home where their ancestors were enslaved, which was also the location of Ameria’s largest slave revolt.

Growing up in Louisiana, in the bayous of the Mississippi River, identical twins Jocynita "Jo" Banner and Joyceia "Joy" Banner always heard stories from their grandmother Grace, who would tell them about their enslaved ancestors and their history of fighting back at the very plantation the two women now own.

"I know that she is really proud," Jo Banner said, referring to her grandmother. "She just served as this vessel to connect us to an energy that is informing and providing us the sustenance of what we need now for this fight."

The Banner twins are the founders of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit that fights for historic and cultural preservation for descendants of enslaved people. It was through their nonprofit that they bought Woodland Plantation, the birthplace of the 1811 slave revolt.

Raised on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, the twins were steeped in the tales of their grandmother, who recounted the harrowing events of the 1811 revolt known as the 1811 German Coast Uprising.

Often overshadowed in historical narratives, the rebellion saw the brave resistance of Charles Deslondes, two other leaders known as Kook and Quamana, along with approximately 25 others who sought freedom amidst the brutal oppression of slavery. They attacked on Epiphany Sunday. After injuring Manuel Andry and killing his son Gilbert, they armed themselves with more weapons and military uniforms.

The revolters walked through plantations on the east bank of the Mississippi River, along the River Road, and down the German Coast—through what is now St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and Jefferson parishes— in an attempt to conquer the city of New Orleans, gathering as many as 500 more freedom seekers along the way. It became America’s largest “slave revolt”. By the end of the January 1811 rebellion, the white planters had brutally beheaded more than 100 enslaved men, put the rebels’ heads on spikes, and displayed them for 40 miles along River Road, from the center of New Orleans deep into plantation country. (Watch this video from CrashCourse with host Clint Smith III)

According to Britannica, “Even though the government and whites tried to minimize the uprising, surviving rebels and others passed down the stories, and Deslondes, Kook, and Quamana became legends among the enslaved people and their descendants.

Some 213 years later, Jo and Joy Banner became the newest owners -- and first Black owners -- of the historic Woodland Plantation site. It's the second plantation they've bought through the Descendants Project, the first being the Many Waters Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana.

The sisters said they purchase these lands to preserve their history -- they call it defensive buying. But they're also fighting for the freedom and protection of the historic homelands of their enslaved ancestors from industrial companies they claim are polluting the area, compromising the health of the land and the local population, a predominantly Black community.

"In addition to preserving that culture and aiming to get more recognition for that culture, we also do our best to protect the descendant communities, which are our descendant communities who are also fighting against a lot of environmental injustice, a lot of environmental racism," Jo Banner said.

Woodland Plantation is located on an 85-mile stretch of land along the Mississippi known as "Cancer Alley." Running from north of Baton Rouge to south of New Orleans, the area is surrounded by almost 200 industrial facilities releasing emissions linked to cancer in the region. Woodland itself is located in the most concentrated stretch, known as the "chemical corridor." Residents in this area have a 95% higher risk of cancer due to air pollution compared to the rest of the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA announced last month that it was calling for the plants in this area to reduce toxic emissions linked to cancer.

In January, the international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch singled out the state of Louisiana and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, saying they had failed for decades to protect locals from industrial pollution and uphold federal safety standards, making the region the largest concentration of fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities in the western hemisphere.

About 20 minutes away from Woodland in Wallace, situated in St. John the Baptist Parish — and still in Cancer Alley — the Banner twins are also in a legal battle to stop a grain export facility from being built near their home and the Descendants Project headquarters. Read the full article here.

Source: ABC News, NOLA.com, The Drum Newspaper

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[artemiseamoon]

Preview: Labyrinth 8

A klonnie fic

Read on A03

Week of April 1st

The air is crisp and fresh, easy on the lungs with a nice breeze on the wind. Last night's thunderstorm concluded around sunrise. A mild rain followed an hour later, leaving its mark; dewdrops on leaves and the soft petals of flowers. Aromatic scents rising up from the plants, flowers and trees. The ground beneath their feet mostly dry, with small pools of water scattered about.

A brief lull of silence falls in conversation. Bonnie glances at the kayakers gliding along the bayou. Everyone's out enjoying the day, from people on bikes, to picnickers enjoying their lunch.

Bonnie smiles to herself, a small, closed lipped smile, as she takes it all in. "This is a beautiful place, Vincent."

"It is," he echoes, his eyes taking in the landscape, "this is an important place. Marie Laveau used to hold her rituals here. She is still highly celebrated; they keep her alive."

"I can tell," Bonnie extends her hands, feeling the air with her palms, "the energy is so - electric."

Vincent glances at her, then back on the path ahead. “It’s a good community. If you ever want to attend one of the ceremonies, let me know.”

"I will,"

Over the next few minutes, as they stroll the path, Vincent tells Bonnie more about the history of Bayou St. John, and Marie Laveau. Their appointment wasn't for another 15 minutes. As that topic changes to another, they take a seat by the water.

“Are there many shops left like Roots n’ Conjure?” Bonnie asks.

She's been to all the shops in and around the quarter so far. Though many seem to be providing fan service for tourists, there were a couple she did like. But nothing really called to her yet, she was looking for a place she could count on for good quality ingredients, and good people running it. Bonnie hopes that Roots n Conjure can be that place.

Vincent replies, “Some. But you're not going find them in a guidebook or a tour. The community protects them.”

“So, they’re tucked away, invite only?”

“Not all. Some are a little more inviting than others. Chanelle and her family, they keep a tight circle.”

“Should I be nervous?”

“No. Infact, she’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Vincent, you said you don’t practice anymore. Why is that?”

“You got all day?” he shook his head, “I may be a witch, but I’m mortal. The way this city is? I prefer to stay breathing. I’ve seen what magic does to people. To people I loved, to me. I don’t want to go down the same path.”

Bonnie listens intently, then comments, "“It's a beautiful thing, magic. It's also scary. It can destroy things, lives.” she trails off before starting again, "I know that from personal experience."

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