Spiritual Hygiene for Divination

One thing I have learned over the years is that Divination is a organized discplined practice. And keeping my Spiritual hygiene includes knowing when not to read.

One thing I tell my mentees learning Divination is that just because you learn Divination and can do certain divinations for yourself or certain people, it doesn’t mean you should do all your divinations on yourself in every situation. And in some people’s cases, you need to step away.

And with some people, you will have to say no: I will not perform Divination for you to keep your spiritual hygiene tight and together.

Sometimes you are too emotionally involved. Sometimes you may be too afraid of the answer. Sometimes you may be too attached to an outcome you would like, or you are too deep in the middle of a problem or condition to interpret your own Divination clearly and cleanly for yourself or others.

If you are one of those people who cannot take the information you were given as is during the divining session, you should not divine certain things for yourself. They will be difficult for you to grasp, move, or interpret.

You have to be honest with yourself. Can you receive neutral data and act on what you are told?

African-based diasporic Ancestral Divination is not only about receiving knowledge. It is about taking that knowledge, meditating on it for a reasonable amount of time, and following through.

Divination Without Response Becomes Spiritual Consumption

A Divination is not just information to collect and consume. It is instruction meant to move something in your life.

Why keep asking the Ancestors if you’re not ready to act?

Divination without response becomes spiritual consumption. And spiritual consumption can keep you in the same place and block you from acting on it. You can block your own roads by consuming information, not acting on it.

If you are prone to procrastination when your Ancestors give you things to do, then you may need to work more closely with your Diviner and/or elder. They can help you stay on track with your Divination instructions so you can maintain balance in your spiritual relationships, even if you know how to divine for yourself.

Some things people do not want to hear from their Ancestors, and the words cannot reach a person because they have blocked it or do not want it in their life. Not that the Ancestors don't want them to know or haven't been trying to reach them. We must understand that people have free will and can change their destiny at any time. Maybe it is beyond their capacity to accept, interpret, or want to do what is disclosed from their Ancestors. And you have to respect that as a Diviner.

If fear, desire, grief, ego, urgency, or attachment can distort how you see the Divination when you are doing it on your own, it is okay to set some things aside and let someone you trust do it for you.

Spiritual Hygiene Includes Knowing When Not to Read

To divine for yourself requires good spiritual hygiene. I have talked about spiritual hygiene beyond baths, but if you cannot do the basics of cleansing, grounding, centering yourself, then performing beyond the basics Divination for yourself may not be for you and that is okay.

Divination is more than flipping cards or throwing bones. Spiritual hygiene is a huge part of Divination; it means maintaining a vessel so you can divine from your place of overflow. To perform Divination for yourself and others, you must care for your …

• Body

• Mind

• Home

• Emotions

• Boundaries

• Relationships

• Ancestral protocol

Body hygiene: Sleep, food, hydration, rest, movement, and noticing when the body is activated.

Emotional hygiene: Sometimes, when you are not dealing with your grief, fear, unprocessed anger, jealousy, unhealthy attachments, and uncontrollable anxiety, you need to settle yourself before picking up tools; these also affect how you see and filter the Divination message.

Mental hygiene: Not everything is a spiritual message. You have to know when not to treat every dream, thought, TikTok, coincidence, or intrusive fear as a spiritual message, because sometimes it is not a message at all.

Ritual hygiene: Cleansing tools and space, opening and closing practice properly, prayer, Ancestral reverence, and respecting your limits as well as the limits of the system. Some things will not be shown in Divination. Nor should you try to access certain information in Divination.

Spiritual hygiene isn’t limited to ritual cleansing. Spiritual baths aren’t one-size-fits-all. Some baths may never affect you the way they affect someone else because the plants, herbs, and curios aren’t for you.

Spiritual hygiene also includes creating healthy boundaries, honoring your downtime, eating well, staying centered, grounded, getting your rest, cleaning your space, taking time for reflection, doing the things that bring you upmost joy, and tending to your emotional wellnes.

One of the reasons I go into the woodshed, as Baba Flowers calls it, we all need those woodshed moments. I have to go into that woodshed to hear myself, write, hold classes, and perform Divination. Diviners need a lot of downtime to care for their spiritual hygiene. That is why I take frequent social media breaks.

Clean and Clear Enough to Listen

Ancestors are not seeking perfection. None of us are without trauma, but we work toward being grounded enough so that when the Divination reveals what it reveals, we can handle it without the projected fears, unhealthy desires, and toxic memory, and learn to see and accept the messages for what they are.

That distinction matters.

Spiritual hygiene is not about seeking perfection, and it is not “never have anxiety.” But it is being grounded enough to act on the messages that are given. It is the practice of recognizing when anxiety, lack of sleep, or trauma activation may be shaping your interpretation instead of a steady “Crown.”

We need to choose grounding, support, or a pause before self-divining when we are going through a lot.

The Ancestors don’t look down on you because you have to pause certain works or may need assistance in some things. The Ancestors understand the human experience more than you know.

I tell all my mentees: your vessel, your mind, and your body are of great importance to the Ancestors. They can reach you if need be without tools. Trust that they want you to take care of your body first and foremost.

Spiritual hygiene applies to many parts of our lives. Going beyond baths and candles and is key to having a good, healthy Ancestral relationship with Divination.

.

Spiritual bathing in Hoodoo and Rootwork is not just for cleansing and making you feel good. Spiritual bathing is also for revealing things. Peeling back layers, exposing things, offerings, treating yourself as the altar there are a host of other reasons why a spiritual bath is used.

Modern wellness language has a lot of people thinking that spiritual baths are only for cleansing. I teach my mentees not to flatten our Ancestral practices into energy detox or feel-good medicine only. You are not always going to like the rites, rituals, and cleansing that your Ancestors have for you.

What a Spiritual Bath Can Actually Do

Read more

Community Is Part of the Practice, Not Perfection

In my last article, I shared that the Village is part of the practice and that community is an important part of our spiritual hygiene within Hoodoo and Rootwork, here in this article post.

Part of The Hoodoo Basics Series

Make Sure To Read: What People Misunderstand About Hoodoo Divination

Make Sure To Read: Let’s Talk About Ancestral Messages In Hoodoo

Make Sure To Read: What A Spiritual Bath Is In Hoodoo

Make Sure To Read: Spiritual Hygiene In Hoodoo: Part One Asking For Help Is Also Part Of Spiritual Hygiene.

I know you may have seen this before: Hoodoo is community—Mama Rue

And I know you may have heard this question before: or seen it floating online: “How do you find the perfect community?”

Here is my answer: I can’t answer that blankly because I don’t know you. What is good for you may not be good for someone else.

I can’t teach people how to find a perfect Hoodoo or Rootworking community because I don’t believe any such perfect community exists.

What I do believe and say is that being in community is part of the practice and part of spiritual hygiene. Community is part of Hoodoo, Rootwork, and our Black culture.

“ It takes a village” is not just a saying; it is also a proverb, a divination direction, and Ancestral instructions.

But when we are seeking Hoodoo and Rootworking communities, we have to understand that being in any community comes with the mess of being human.

Community is also reciprocity, and reciprocity comes in many forms. We can’t always take from community; because to be part of community, you also have to give. Give grace, patience, and understanding that not everyone will show up in community the way you want them to.

Read more

Part of The Hoodoo Basics Series

Make Sure To Read: What People Misunderstand About Hoodoo Divination

Make Sure To Read: Let’s Talk About Ancestral Messages In Hoodoo

Make Sure To Read: What A Spiritual Bath Is In Hoodoo

And Now We Have: Spiritual Hygiene In Hoodoo: Part One Asking For Help Is Also Part Of Spiritual Hygiene.

Asking for Help Is Spiritual Hygiene

One thing I tell my mentees is that spiritual hygiene is not just about baths, foot soaks, and candles. Spiritual hygiene shows up in many ways. And if you are a Diviner, you know there are 1,000s of ways spiritual hygiene can show itself in a divination.

And one of the practices of spiritual hygiene is about you learning not to do it alone. Those who feel like they can always practice alone or do it all alone, when you look at the root cause of it. Often, doing it all alone comes from a survival strategy that they adapted over the years.

The Village Is Part of the Practice

Being in community is also an important part of our spiritual hygiene routines. When I teach Divination or Hoodoo Foundations, the mentees are also required to get to know one another; learning is not just about showing up to class and extracting information.

As Hoodoo Rootworkers, the Village is def part of our practice. Because many systems sought to keep our Ancestors disconnected. And many systems still want us disconnected. The last thing our Ancestors want for us is always to do it alone. Being in community is important to Black legacy and to the Ancestors. The Ancestors often remind us that it takes a village in our lives.

Spiritual hygiene doesn’t only happen in that cool water bath; it also happens in community. It’s not only a solo act; sometimes, communing with your Village gets your soul back into place and cleanses you. The Village will forever be important to our Blackness and our spiritual hygiene.

Sometimes you come into community to rest, to receive, to let hands other than yours hold you; sometimes you need to be witnessed. Not that the community will have all the answers to your problems, but being seen and heard sometimes is the cleansing or Spiritual hygiene folks need.

Asking for Help Is Part of Your Hygiene Routine

Another important part of spiritual hygiene is asking for help. Delegating, saying no, setting boundaries, and resting are all part of it.

Spiritual hygiene is beyond the bath oils and protection rituals; those are important and serve a purpose in context, but asking for help is important as well.

In Low Country Hoodoo, it is not a sign of weakness to ask for help. I believe the Low Country culture survived because of our Ancestors' ability to ask for help and be vulnerable.

Returning to Sacred Order

Spiritual hygiene helps us to return to the sacred order. And sometimes the order that you need restored is the ability to ask for help. Being in community and asking for help remind us to actively clear out the buildup of this world, like pride, shame, and the what-ifs. When the Ancestors call you to ask for help, they are also asking you to make room for grace, connection, and emotional freedom. Not everyone will respond the way the person who hurt you will.

Spiritual hygiene also thrives on connection. When you let people help, you are practicing vulnerability, self-compassion, and allowing service because we can’t do this life, Hoodoo, or Rootwork alone.

The Ancestors Work Through People Too

Remember that the Ancestors ask you to do things because they are trying to lead you to spiritual growth. Some of the inner transformations the Ancestors ask of us are not easy, I know.

But to understand that you are not alone and that you have Ancestors by your side is to ask for help, because sometimes Ancestors work through people as well, and you will not know this if you don’t ask. Or if you don’t show up in community.

May the Ancestors bless everyone to find their Hoodoo, Rootwork community that feeds them and gives reciprocal energy.

We return from Summer Break with Hoodoo Office Hours on September 30th, 2026, at 7:30 PM EST. Tickets will go on sale August 15th, 2026

Leave a comment

Divination Is Not Fortune-Telling

Tonight, let’s talk about Divination honestly about what it is and what it is not from my Low Country Hoodoo perspective. Divination Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Ancestral Divination are based on African Divination. Even though we found different mediums here in the USA, some things about the Ancestral root stayed the same. As a Diviner, I have people come to me to have their futures told. When is this coming? When is that coming? And please understand that when you get a Divination done, it’s not about fortune-telling. While a Diviner may glimpse future possibilities, these are not fixed outcomes. I want to emphasize that Divination’s role is not merely about prediction.

Because Low Country Hoodoo and Rootwork are based on African systems with our own flair for adaptation, even in our adaptation, one thing has not changed: Hoodoos and Rootworkers don’t assume that the future is fixed. Even though there is prophecy, it still says prophecy can change based on living actions.

Divination Is Our Therapy

When people say they didn’t have therapy, I tell them to please decolonize their minds, because yes, we did. Our Ancestors didn’t call it therapy; they called it Divination instead. Divination can be seen as a form of therapy for some people, and I am not saying it should replace therapy at all.

For many people, it needs to work hand in hand, as I have seen Ancestors assist people who need several different types of counsel alongside one another in their lives. Divination, like therapy, is about getting to the root cause of a problem and taking steps to solve it. Divination can be a therapeutic process if you allow it to be. Because your “Crown” and mental well-being are of great importance to your Ancestors, things that hinder your well-being can come front and center in Divination if they see it’s of great importance to your destiny and life here on earth. Although you may want to focus on one thing, the Ancestors may want to focus on something else.

Divination, like many forms of therapy, is used to diagnose the root causes of people’s various issues and to guide a person in restoring balance to their life or in keeping them on track so they don’t fall out of balance. I thoroughly believe this is why many Black therapists are attracted to or feel called to Divination because they see how parallel it runs to psychology and how Divination also helps a person look at social, spiritual, and physical harmony in their lives. Your Crown well-being is of top Ancestral priority.

What Divination Actually Does

Some people come to Divination to ask when the relationship is coming, and the Ancestors ask them to work on their Crown so they can stop making the same relationship choices over and over again. Many people want to know only when certain things are coming, but Ancestors can also focus on how to prepare for them.

Our Divination systems are deeply embedded in traditional African worldviews plus the Black experience, so prevention, diagnosis, and protection are at the forefront.

Some people treat Divination as entertainment, and while the law in many states requires that readings be listed as entertainment, that does not mean you should not take your Divination seriously.

Our Ancestors are interactive, focused on keeping lineages safe, warning about what can be avoided and what may be unavoidable, and on how to work with them to keep you aligned. And how to navigate some of life’s predetermined events. And how to change some things that can be changed, and some that can’t.

Diviners are the interpreters for the Ancestors. The Ancestors are the shields, protectors, counselors, road-makers, openers, and closers. It is the Ancestors and other Spirits who serve as mediators, who have access to decode underlying imbalances, and through whom the Divine delivers the ritual, sacrifice, or prescription.

Diviners are messengers who interpret what the Ancestors say about your spiritual, physical, or social imbalances. If you don’t care for what the Ancestors are saying, you have to take that up with the Ancestors. Diviners have to say the message as is, and yes, it is difficult sometimes because not all messages are pleasant. And Diviners have to deliver messages with a delicate balance for many types of people.

Why Some People Don’t Hear the Message

Not everyone is going to hear their Ancestors loudly. Some Ancestors move more subtly. Things that keep people from hearing the messages their Crown doesn’t want them to hear: poor sleep hygiene, seeing everything as punishment, impatience with the Ancestors’ work, and spiritual hygiene, to name a few. Sleep hygiene is spiritual hygiene. These are just a few reasons why people don’t hear or get certain messages on their own.

And here is a big one: folks forget that you are an active being in your everyday normal life. The Ancestors can say “Go left,” but if you go right, they don’t have to get you back on the right track. This isn’t a fantasy; this is real life. Not every Ancestor will chase you down; they will cease and wait till you come back. I can’t count how many times I have been like, "Hey Ancestor fam, I fucked up." I should have listened.

And remember that it is okay for you not to hear all the messages that may not be your gift. And that is why Divination is in place; sometimes the Ancestors wil say to someone directly, and sometimes things will come through Divination.

Roadblocks Are Not Always Bad

We all have a destiny but often forget its path. Life can be challenging, alluring, and very side-track-ish. And one thing Ancestors will do is block a road to keep you on track. Not every roadblock is bad; sometimes you need that block to finish that thing or that project. And sometimes nothing is going right. Divination is used to reveal where a person has deviated from their intended path and what actions, such as, but not limited to, behavioral changes, sacrifices, leaving, or offerings, are required to get back on track.

But our Black African Indigenous Divination systems also empower you, the seeker, to exercise your free will. You want to get into that relationship after the Ancestors said no? Good luck, God bless you. That’s your free will to do so.

I have had several clients who go against the Ancestors’ direction and choose the hard roads. They choose to know the way the Ancestors try to help, but they don’t want to exercise that help. Some people like to thug it out. I am not one of those people, but I respect those who do. That’s their free will to do so; that’s how they are learning about life through difficulties they choose.

Our Ancestral divination systems are designed for us to choose. You can choose to improve your circumstances, or not. In our Divination, we don’t simply have to accept a predetermined fate; we can bend those roads with the right work.

Divination Is Also About Community

Divination within our systems is not just about what you need; sometimes it’s about communal harmony. The core purpose of African-based Divination is to help us maintain balance in our lives and support the ethical and spiritual health of the community.

So yes, sometimes you may do work for your community, or the community may need you. I have seen Ancestors send people back home because their community needed them. Sometimes they are preventing misfortunes in the lineage, and you are needed there. And yes, sometimes things can happen: illness, financial trouble, and various misfortunes, not only because you are out of alignment with the Ancestors, but also because you are out of alignment with the community or the environment. Yes, how you treat the earth matters in this practice. But remember that sometimes when the Ancestors call you, it is about community as well.

Punishment and Consequences Are Two Different Things

Divination comes with actionable steps, cleansing, wisdom, ways for you to restore balance, not just a glimpse into upcoming events in your life, although it can show that. I have had Ancestors give illness warnings and say Change this around to prevent it.

Ancestors try to prevent certain things; however, this requires a willingness to listen and a willingness to do the steps they ask of you. And if you didn’t listen, the Ancestors aren’t punishing you; these are the consequences of your actions. Punishment and consequences are two different things.

Understanding this distinction requires dismantling colonial, religious biases and pop spirituality. These biases affect how people see and receive Ancestral Divination, from demonizing it to viewing correction as punishment to being upset because the Ancestors are focused on one thing and you on another.

Divination is a sacred technology. It is not a superstitious gimmick, nor is it always going to tell your future. It may require you to put in some work and release some preconceived notions of Ancestors and their roles.

Why I Write About This

We all get hard things. I remember when one of my elders told me to write publicly.

I didn’t really want to write. People can take things personally, and as someone with many clients, what if they think I am talking about them? The Ancestors’ response was: “You cannot write honest Ancestral teaching and protect everyone’s feelings at the same time.” Then I went with the- well, I am not famous or popular who’s going to read it? Lol, they were like, we didn’t ask you to be famous or popular; the answer stays the same. Lol, I was trying to get out of it. So I do understand when you get tough readings. But I enjoy writing more than I thought I would. My Ancestors knew that even when I couldn’t see it.

So I sat with it for a good while, mapped out a plan, and started writing.

Our Black and African Indigenous Divination is a complex body of wisdom and spiritual science for navigating life and the uncertainty that comes with it. Your Ancestors are focused on holistic healing, not cherry-picking what you want them to deal with versus what you don’t. Your highest good is always in order from your Ancestors. Understanding Divination goes beyond our wants; sometimes it is about our alignment, destiny, and community. The Ancestors designed it this way for structure and our betterment.

Mark your calendars:

Hoodoo Office Hours Start Back, September 30th, 2026, at 7:30 PM EST

Blessings — YJ

If you have questions about Divination or topics you want me to write about, please write them in the comments. Many of the things I write about are in response to community questions and asks.

Leave a comment

You Are Not Always Going to Like Your Ancestors’ Messages

One of the hardest lessons I think I had to learn, even though I grew up in a very pro-Black Hoodoo family and around African cosmologies, is that Ancestors are not always going to give you what you want.

In my younger days, whether in Hoodoo, Kongo, or Orisha traditions, I have had to come to accept that you are not always going to like what your Ancestors tell you. When I heard of all the goodness of Ancestors in my younger childhood days, I thought they were like fairies just out here granting wishes. As I got older and worked with Ancestors myself, I sure did change my mind.

I have learned that sometimes the Ancestral journey can be uncomfortable. And that discomfort does not mean harm. Getting aligned in your life can be uncomfortable. And yes, you may even have some anxiety around what they ask you to do, because they are stretching you toward new experiences.

Do you want what is meant for you?

Do you want to live your best aligned life?

Well, allow me to tell you this, as I hold your hand, that Ancestral guidance comes with correction and uncomfortableness sometimes, because they are assisting you to reach your destiny.

Ancestors Are Not Human

Ancestors are not human. And many people try to approach their Ancestral relationship as if they were human, but they are not. They do not respond to “what you meant.” They respond to the structure you keep, the boundaries you honor, the vessel you present, and the discipline you practice. Your practice is the power. Not another root, not another herb you are the power in this work.

Read more

The Water Remembers What the Flowers Forget

Some of my elders would say the water remembers what the flowers forget. When I was younger, I didn’t understand it. But now I understand even more as a mentor, because we use water to revive the flowers.

Spiritual hygiene is a very important practice in Hoodoo and Rootwork. Even if you don’t believe in Hoodoo or Rootwork they way of this world, every Black person needs a spiritual hygiene practice.

But when we talk about Spiritual hygiene and Spiritual baths, it is more than let me sprinkle salts, pretty arrangements of dried lavender in a perfect circle for the most perfect picture, take the bath, let me wiggle my toes in the video, hop out of the bath, hop right back on social media, and everyday things. Then we wonder why the heaviness remains.

We have a culture now as if beauty and intoxicating smell alone could break a curse. Not all Spiritual baths will be Instagram-worthy of pictures, but they will bless your soul if you allow them to do so.

Read more

Over the last six months Hoodoo Office Hours has taught me so show much as always, I am thankful for all the lessons and blessing Ancestors show and give me.

I’m sharing this for the Hoodoo, Rootwork community spaces guides, holders now, and those who will hold them after me.

For over a decade, I have held spaces for community. And I’m still learning, growing, evolving as we all are as human beings. I’ve held these spaces for people in many different forms, from healing circles to conjured conversations. on talk radio, who remembers talk radio, Periscope, community gatherings, and now office hours.

And if there’s one thing this work has made clear, it’s this: holding space is not for the faint of heart. You can’t hold community spaces without a limit.

I’ve tried my best to keep these spaces accessible on purpose. Low cost, sometimes free when people truly couldn’t pay. Until one of my Spirits said they need to pay something, even if it’s $5.00, so I don’t offer free space anymore.

But I do believe people should be able to learn, ask questions, and take part in a spiritual community without everything being locked behind a door. But Hoodoo is a closed practice, and some things have to be behind those doors. So, it’s a fine balance when something is a closed practice.

Accessibility has also brought lessons from people and the Ancestors.

Here are some of the things this past couple of months Hoodoo Office Hours taught me.

These are not complaints; these are practitioners’ community guide observations. And let’s be crystal clear, these don’t make people bad. It makes them human.

Sometimes, no matter how gently you say something or how many times you repeat it, some people will still test your boundaries. And it has nothing to do with you. You can recheck your notes and speak clearly, but people will still try to step over your boundaries.

You can explain that certain questions require divination, or are personal and layered, and that those questions deserve the proper spiritual process. You can say it with care, with clarity, with compassion. But because of where they are, care, clarity, and compassion won’t land in their heart or mind as such. And with all the care, clarity, and compassion in the world, someone will still sometimes try to bring that question into the shared space, shifting the entire community space toward themselves. Or they will contact you privately after you have already answered that what they need requires work, time, and divination. Community can be messy, no perfection required, because the human experience is all of these things.

And even when you explain what the space is, and what it isn’t, some people will still reach beyond it. They’ll send an email or message about intensely personal situations. I can’t answer every call.

And sometimes, in this work, you’ll have to say again and again that this requires divination. Not because you don’t care. But because you do. Because real spiritual work has a process, it has order. It has limits that protect both the practitioner and the person seeking help.

Running community groups over the years has also taught me that you have to be okay with saying access does not equal capacity. Just because someone shows up to a two-hour session does not mean they can receive years of training, understanding, or skill in that time. Yet people will ask for it. Be okay with your no.

Some people want full teachings, complete systems, highly personal answers, all in two hours. When you say Hoodoo Office Hours isn’t a format that can teach all of that, it was never designed to do so. Some understand, some won’t.

And when that happens, it reveals something deeper about how some people arrive in community space. Some come into spiritual spaces neutral. And some come in carrying open wounds. They come looking for relief, for answers, for someone to hold what they’ve been carrying alone. And sometimes, they want you to solve years’ worth of problems in a two-hour space. And you have to set a boundary that you cannot.

Oh, to be human, wanting to undo it all right now. Wanting the pains of life to be undone is a real thing, but sometimes, as the community guide, they place you in these roles without realizing it, a role that has nothing to do with you or what you actually are to them in that moment.

They replace you with what they want to say to their caregiver. A parent. Onto you. Sometimes they want you to be the fixer, caregiver, parent, and some will get upset that you didn’t fix it all. You didn’t teach enough, give enough answers. They didn’t want a community or a shared experience; they wanted a fixer. And in these spaces, you do your best to reach everyone and everything, but it’s truly impossible to meet everyone’s needs.

So, when you redirect gently, respectfully, and appropriately, it doesn’t always land as guidance. Sometimes it lands as a rejection. Some project onto you, no matter how kind and compassionate you are, because they are looking at you from their wounds, not what is actually happening in the space. Sometimes it lands as you “not helping,” even when you’re actually trying your best to keep the integrity of the space. You still must be patient and compassionate.

I’ve also had to sit with this truth over the years, which I am sharing with you.

Vulnerability and boundary-crossing are not the same thing. Not every act of sharing is aligned. Not every moment of openness is appropriate for the community spaces. And sometimes, what looks like vulnerability is actually a search for immediate soothing, validation, or attention, especially in a group setting that isn’t designed for that level of personal processing. They want to process their pain out loud. Some won’t care how kind a patient you are; they will still try to hijack the community space and make it all about themselves. Because they are in pain, hurt and many are learning what it looks like to be in community. And you have to manage many types of emotions and capacity in one space so be patient with yourself and others.

Something else I’ve learned over the last 15 years with social media is how people move through spiritual spaces now. And that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your teaching style or your work. Many people come, leave, gather pieces from different teachers, traditions, and systems, and then come back asking to be taught as if there hasn’t been any break in the relationship, practice, or foundation. Don’t take that personally but set your ground rules.

Or sometimes they say they do it this way over here, and when you say differently, different lineages do things differently; some tend not to understand that you can’t piece together a practice here and there.

Social media can sometimes have people hopping everywhere, creating something scattered and not rooted. not held together, just pieced together. And it’s not about control. But I tell my mentees to curate their experience on social instead of just being overwhelmed by so many options. Doing this work you also have to be comfortable with saying I don’t know you well enough to teach you certain things. Or if that’s what xyz told you to do, then I can’t cross-reference their instructions.

It’s about understanding that spiritual work has form for a reason. There is a difference between being guided and just doing whatever you feel in the moment.

What’s also real and something people don’t talk about enough is that you can give, and give, and give, and people will still misunderstand you. And that is okay.

They will still project. They will still create stories. They will still speak on things they were never present for.

At some point, when you do community work this long, stop trying to correct every narrative, story, rumor, or misinformation about you. You keep your integrity intact and keep moving. So, for those who will do this work long-term after I’m gone, remember that. You can’t spend your time correcting everything you hear about you.

What’s changed for me over the years.

I no longer measure my care by how much I accommodate. I measure it by how well I uphold what the space is actually for.

Office hours are not divination. It’s not a place for emergency care. It’s not a replacement for personal spiritual work.

It is a space for guidance, clarification, and learning within a shared community, making connections and support from others to the next.

I am comfortable in my no I cannot do that more than ever in my work and life.

When Hoodoo office hours return in September, the structure will be different. There will still be space to connect, to ask, to learn. Even the after-space on Voxer, where we continue our conversation, will be a few days, not an open-ended extension.

Not because I don’t care or don’t want to share. But because I’ve learned what happens when everything stays consistently open. And when Ancestors say enough put a limit on things follow their guided directions.

For the Next Generation of Space Holders

For those of you building community spaces, entering leadership, or feeling called to guide others in any capacity, this is what I would say:

Don’t be afraid to say: This is not the space for that.

Don’t be afraid to say, “This requires a session.”

Don’t be afraid to say, “I cannot teach you this in this format.”

And don’t measure your integrity by how much you overextend yourself.

Some will never appreciate it; that’s okay, because the Ancestors do.

Some people will never recognize your generosity when it has boundaries.

This work will ask a lot of you.

But it should not take everything from you. And sometimes people will try to take and take, giving nothing in return.

You set the tone for reciprocity; remember that.

Leave a comment

Letters to the living

To the one who keeps abandoning themselves,

Sweet Soul, we see you.

We’ve been with you for a good while. We see when you are putting a version of yourself on display. Where is the real you? Yes, the world needs the version of you that doesn’t say “I’m fine” when you are not.

You who smile on command, you don’t have to make everyone comfortable; that is not your job. Who says you have to answer the call? Why must you keep the peace and not speak up for yourself?

We never asked you to make yourself small enough to be tolerated; if you heard that, it surely wasn’t a message from the Ancestors.

We see the one beneath all of that bullshit, too.

Read more

Fatherhood Is Bigger Than Biology

Yesterday was Father’s Day here in the USA. May the Ancestors bless all the fathers of blood and non-blood who helped you live in alignment.

DNA Is Not the Only Measure

Sometimes in this modern world, we get caught up in fatherhood as a matter of DNA. Who contributed what? Who is on the birth certificate? Who shares the last name? Ancestors look beyond what can be proven by paperwork or blood tests. Ancestors look at who was there to shape you into alignment for your destiny.

To honor the Ancestors is also to decolonize and let go of these modern narrow definitions of anatomy and biology alone. Who gave you care, held a relationship, took that responsibility, protection, memory, and spiritual obligation for you?

Fatherhood cannot be reduced to a role that only begins and ends with sperm. Many can be biologically linked to a child and still not raise, nurture, or father them. Sometimes we focus so deeply on who wasn’t there that we forget who was.

Another man may have no biological tie at all and still help build, nurture, shape your spirit, bring discipline to your life, protect your future, and leave a deeper inheritance than blood ever could. Ancestors ask us to honor those who identify as he. Did he stand by you and your lineage with integrity? Did he help carry you at some point in your life?

That difference matters.

Family Is Not a Nuclear Model

In many African-descended spiritual frameworks, like Hoodoo, the family is not limited to a nuclear model. Family is beyond blood, extended, layered, complex, alive, and carries spiritual force. People belong to more than the small unit of mother, father, and child. Your biological father may have been needed to get you. But the life you led needed more: you needed kin, elders, community, the dead, Ancestors, and the unseen spiritual ones to guide you in the living.

So, honor those who take fatherhood seriously; those can be men of your biological makeup, and yes, it can be social, spiritual, adoptive, communal, and Ancestral. A man who raised you may be your father in the deepest sense more than biology and our Ancestral spiritual frameworks say never be ashamed of the many things that make you who you are today.

My grandmother had a few engagements, and entanglements to say the least. And one day, during a reading with my elders, they described these men. I was like, “Oh, that’s my grandfather. Then another man, I was like, that is my step-grandfather.” Oh, yep, him too. They’re all here with you. She said they are all here helping you through this divorce. They all hold the role of your grandfather, no step needed, and all helped me in life and in their death.

My great-uncle Sank is the pillar of my Hoodoo practice, an elder and a guide, and he was my Uncle. He fathered, protected, and nurtured me in ways It would take a thousand years to thank him for. If you ever learned anything from me in Hoodoo Foundations or Divination one of those lessons def comes from him.

So, honor the uncles, stepfathers, godfathers, teachers, or community protectors who may also stand in that paternal field, and some of them may not share your DNA at all.

What We Know in Life Is Not All They Are in Death

And then there are the Ancestors who never raised you at all. One of the deepest truths of Ancestral work: just because that is who they were when they were alive doesn’t mean that is who they are in death. In Hoodoo we know that not everyone wants to be an Ancestor, nor everyone wants to be a parent that raises you either. Who gets you here and who gets there on your yellow brick road can be different. Sometimes the Ancestors reveal why and sometimes they do not. The journey of your life will reveal why they weren’t present in your life.

Just because a father was not present in your childhood doesn’t mean he automatically gets tossed to the side, and when he dies, that he can’t be an Ancestor. Your personal pain and views, although valid, don’t determine who becomes an Ancestor.

Not every Ancestor was present in your childhood. Still, presence in childhood is not the only measure of power. Some Ancestors live in the court because they built the path. Not because you elevated them, but because they did the work. We don’t know every aspect of someone’s life. Sometimes we are only filtering their roles by the names we know them as: Father, Uncle, Brother, etc. Divination and Ancestors decide. We don’t know everything someone has lived through. All the conditions surrounding their stories. What happened in their lives that made direct care impossible while they were alive?

It reminds me of my Uncle: Let’s call him Tony for this story. Uncle Tony did a stint in prison and got mixed up with crack cocaine. My Uncle Tony also served in the armed forces. He always wanted to be a lawyer and loved true crime before it was a trend.

In prison, he would read and help Black men who didn’t belong there to fight for their freedom, assist with filling out paperwork, etc. My Uncle Tony also whooped a lot of asses in them streets. There was this older, seedy-eyed Dominican man at a bodega in Brooklyn who would corner the girls in the store, and you would have to brush your body against his to pass by him. He did it to me as a teen, he said his brush against me was an accident and he was teasing.

When my Uncle Tony found out the story, he beat that man so bad, and he went to DR, and we never saw him at the bodega again, and the Dominicans that had that bodega soon left and closed down shortly thereafter.

So, years later, my Uncle Tony had passed away. And I was having an issue, went to get a divination from my elders, and they said these Ancestors could help. They described the Ancestor, and I couldn’t place who they were talking about. Then they said he had a special nickname for your son.

No one knows this nickname. It was a private joke. I was like, my Uncle Tony, the one who was on crack and went to prison, you sure? But yes, it was him. I was shocked, and I learned that what we know about a person in life doesn’t mean that is who they are when they cross the line. Some who I sure thought would be Ancestors were not but again I was very young then the naivety of 20 years old.

The elder said yes, that is him although he did a lot of things, but his heart was pure; he was a fierce protector of the community and children. He made it to be an Ancestor. And years later, he became an Ancestor in my son’s court. And he is my Uncle by marriage. I would have never thought that in my younger days. But I am so glad he stands by me and whoops ass for me still.

And yet, some whom you may never think of for assistance can still be an Ancestor who passed down survival, skill, beauty, rhythm, resilience, or spiritual instruction. So, some of the paternal Ancestors may have been absent, imperfect, broken, or far away, and may not have lived the best life. Ancestral court is not a reward system for perfect behavior. It is a structure of relationship, accountability, and continuation.

The Inheritance Beyond Genetics

So, when we talk about fatherhood, we have to talk about inheritance beyond genetics. We have to talk about the fathers who taught us how to survive, the men who offered stability, the elders who corrected us, fussed us out, told us to go back and do that again. The ones who prayed for us, and even the unseen paternal Ancestors who left before we knew them in the physical yet guided us through life’s lessons. I even thank those who have taught me valuable lessons through absence.

Sometimes the father line is a place of blessing. Sometimes it is a place of wounds. Often it is both. Like most human relationships it is of great complex that is the beauty of life the complexities’ not just the ease. But either way, it deserves to be understood as more than biology. And we all have paternal Ancestors to give thanks to. Whether you know they name or not.

Fatherhood, for those of us who honor the Ancestors, is not just the biological fact that speaks to our hearts. It is an Ancestral function. It is what gets carried, taught, protected, remembered. The father is not only the one who helps create life. The father is also the one whose presence, labor, and spiritual imprint help to organize your life.

Ancestors already teach what many are trying to simplify: blood matters, but blood alone does not make a father. And remember to pour libations and give thanks to all the Ancestral Fathers thank you for your wisdom, guidance and fierce protection.

Our Last Hoodoo Office Hours Before Summer Break is June 24, 2026, at 7:30 PM EST.

Then our next Hoodoo Office Hours will be September 30, 2026, at 7:30 PM EST, to Kick Off Hoodoo Heritage Month.

[Click Here to Join Hoodoo Office Hours: $27]

In alignment and beauty,

Yayi Joyce

Leave a comment

I was thinking about how there is a lot of energy around this Gemini New Moon, and that is understandable; cosmic wonder will always draw the souls of human beings. Human beings will always ask what’s out there and what does it mean for me? Looking toward the cosmos has been at the center of humanity forever, I believe, and will continue to be so, because some can’t accept the unknown is just that: unknown. And we won’t know everything.

The Super New Moon may be meaningful for those who have it exactly or very close to their natal Moon, Sun, Ascendant, or Midheaven. You may feel it strongly because the degrees of these events matter if you are using astrological logic and wisdom.

But if it doesn’t touch anything significant in your chart, it may just pass you by with very little notice at all. There is nothing wrong with observing it or performing rituals on this day or during the time windows at all.

But for some people who think that they need to wait for cosmic events to happen to make big changes, this is for you.

In Low Country Hoodoo, you don’t need a cosmic event to get to the crossroads, like your Ancestors and Divination have been telling you. You don’t need permission from the Moon to apply for the jobs they’ve been telling you about. Nor do you need to wait until the perfect Moon to set the boundaries you need. Nor do you need to wait for the perfect Moon to show yourself self-compassion. Because a calendar does not limit your Ancestors, and neither should you be limited.

They were working before the Moon was marketed, and they are still working. Black folks have enough limitations in this world; we don’t need the cosmos limiting us, either. In Low Country Hoodoo, we get that work done when we need to get it done!

This is not to say that there are certain days and times when certain people have to perform rituals or do things in certain phases; Rootwork and Hoodoo prescriptions are divination-based and person-specific. This is not a blanket statement.

But sometimes people let certain days paralyze them from doing the work they need to do.

Sometimes the guidance is already there. And has been sitting with you. If your Ancestors or divination gave you the instructions to get up, then you get up, cleanse yourself, pray, rest, and move when they say to move. Moving when they say move can be just as powerful as any Super New Moon.

Taking care of yourself and treating yourself with self-compassion doesn't need a special New Moon. You are special every day and deserve to take care of yourself every day like you are special. That is the practice. Getting up and moving when they say move. Not the “portal”; your Ancestors are the portal and then some. Not the countdown to the upcoming cosmic event. They are Ancestors; they are the cosmic event. Ancestors can make every day a Super New Moon for us.

Alignment Is Not the Same as Chasing the Moon

Doing the rituals, prayers, offerings, and practical actions required for your life is different from doing a ritual simply because the Moon is being marketed as special, and you have more stock or faith in the Moon than in your own folks.

Not every Moon requires a ritual.

Not every ritual requires a Moon.

Sometimes the most powerful spiritual work is the work you were told to do on an everyday Tuesday. Or just sitting with yourself and regularly caring for your spiritual hygiene. Oh, what a spiritual bath we need sometimes. You just need cool water over your body, and go sit down somewhere, unplug the distractions, and reset yourself. That simple act can be your Super New Moon on an everyday Tuesday.

The Real Question

The question is not always “What is the Moon doing?”

The question is, what are my Ancestors asking of me right now?

Or what did my Ancestors ask of me that I didn’t do?

These questions can help you align with yourself.

In Low Country Hoodoo

In Low Country Hoodoo, thought is not “moon-based astrology” but a full sacred philosophy of ontology and connection. It is part of a larger sacred relationship with the natural world, seasons, rhythms, tides, planting cycles, Spirit, and the Ancestors. The Moon mattered, but often in a different way than modern astrological systems use it today.

The new Moon can be compatible with Hoodoo ritual practices. Still, if you read it only as “set intentions,” you flatten a much older logic of reciprocity, passage, and Ancestral continuity of working with the Moon.

Low Country Hoodoo cosmology asks, “How am I positioned in the cycle of worlds, Ancestors, and my personal power?

Modern astrology, which is missing the substance, asks, “What is this lunar moment good for in my personal life?”

That distinction of how we work with the Moon matters because it keeps the Hoodoo systems from being reduced to a self-help version of moon magic.

Ancestors are powerful
You work with them
Many days in your life can feel like a Super Moon

No waiting for cosmic days required

The last Hoodoo Office Before We Break for

Summer Vacation and Restart in September

We are focusing on self-compassion as an Ancestral practice

We Meet On 06/24/2026 at 7:30 PM EST

$27.00

Leave a comment

The Moon can support your work, but your Ancestors are the ones who move it

Sometimes you can have the most perfectly crafted altar, and your Ancestors still don't show up there.

Communing with our lovely Hoodoo office hours community this week was a reminder that Ancestors also show up for us in many ways through being in community.

Hoodoo is beyond memorized prayers. Or psalms just for this particular need, because honestly, what one psalm may do for you, it may not do for another person.

Ancestors are not seeking your polished understanding of roots, spirits, or scripture. They are seeking your tired hands and hearts. And for you, the community, as you are not your perfected version of self.

Come As You Are

Give me your tired, your overwhelmed, your spiritually worn down with the state of Blackness.

Give me your food deserts, unfair housing, resumes that don’t get opened once their AI sees it’s a Black name.

Come as you are.

Hoodoo is truly non-denominational; you are not required to be the smartest, brightest, or most perfectly able in the rooms.

Ancestors call: come, you, yes, you.

Because honestly, we have enough petty. We have enough harsh criticisms in the world. Then to have that in the community.

I’ve been there, criticized harshly, subjected to rumors and stories on Facebook of situations that people say I was in that I was not even near, or in the same state, which is the funny part.

Black American IFA and Lukumi practitioners have told me that Hoodoo isn’t valid, yet I’m still here.

My community has always had my back. And for that, I am grateful; we all need community in this practice. And sometimes community comes with mishaps, judgments, and more. The most perfect person isn’t needed; we all have something, and your real experience is needed.

Black Love in Action

Black Love in action is what we need more of, even when petty things happen in the community, because everyone is learning what it means to be in community in this day and age. Because the community is different from what our Ancestors knew.

Community includes a lot of different people, even those who are not like you, the ones who feel like they have missed something.

They are still sweet children of the Ancestors, the ones who think they came too late or learn too slowly. Yes, you are welcome here.

They, she, he, or no label at all, yes, you too.

You have anxiety, stress, carrying grief in your bones, and confusion in your spirit. Yes, you too.

Ancestors want all types of folks in the Hoodoo community. Even the petty rumor-starters have something to learn from the real community.

Your Ancestors aren’t looking for you to be perfect before approaching them or sitting with them, nor are they expecting people to be perfect in the Hoodoo community.

They want us to be real. Attacking each other, using memes, and dropping hints about people isn’t how we forge a healthy community.

Hoodoo Has Always Answered That Call

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these people experiencing homelessness, tempest-tost, to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” (1883)

Hoodoo has always answered that call.

Not as a place of performance, but as a place of return.

I tell people in our community that I’m not perfect, nor do I have all the information, but I’m sharing what I've learned along the way, including my mistakes, mishaps, and wins.

Because Hoodoo is not about perfection, its core is relationship.

Your relationship to your Ancestors, land, and self, even when it feels fragmented. And the relationship you have with the community.

Hoodoo was built by People in Motion

Our traditions were not built by people who had everything figured out.

They were built by people in motion who were displaced, renamed, and forced to rebuild meaning from what remained.

Hoodoo did not come from spiritual perfection. It came from spiritual necessity.

And you are necessary, yes, you are for the community.

But I don’t know … still the answer is yes, you.

But I am so old, I should have done this younger, yes, you.

I start and stop again, yes, you too.

Hoodoo Meets You Where You Are

So when people approach Hoodoo today thinking they must arrive fully knowledgeable, or spiritually “ready,” they misunderstand the very nature of the work.

You may never be fully ready to do what the Ancestors ask of you.

Hoodoo meets you where you are with love from your Ancestors.

Even if you are inconsistent, your Ancestors still hear you when you feel uncertain; you still carry power in the unknown and the uncertain moments of your path.

Even if your practice is messy, your spirit can still be in motion.

The community spaces that you water yourself and grow from Hoodoo should reflect that same principle.

Our closed practice is not a gate to keep people out. They are thresholds meant to guide people in.

Too often, people hold themselves back because they believe they are not “qualified” to engage. They think they need to read more, know more, and fix themselves first.

But Hoodoo is not a reward for becoming; it says you are whole, and Hoodoo is a way for you to become more you.

The Tired Belong Here

The tired belong here.

The ones who feel spiritually disconnected belong here.

The ones who are returning after years away belong here.

Even those who are unsure whether they believe at all still belong within reach of the work.

Ancestral practice is not about proving your worth; it is about remembering who the fuck you are, and that happens with people, and yes, it may not be a perfect community.

Hoodoo community connections do not demand perfection. It demands presence.

Doorways

There is a reason our elders emphasized consistency over complexity.

Being in community is not a small act. They are doorways.

Hoodoo communities, at their best, are extensions of that doorway. You will learn certain things in community, certain things from your Ancestors, and certain things from your elders, and the training you need that variety to help you thrive and grow in practice.

Hoodoo community is where you are witnessed, where your questions are held with care, not dismissed for lack of knowledge.

And sometimes in the community, you may not get the answer you seek because you need to seek it through deeper training or from your Ancestors.

Remember that every Hoodoo practitioner you look up to began somewhere uncertain.

And every elder once stood at the edge of not knowing it all or not having it figured out.

And every Hoodoo lineage survived because someone kept going, even when they felt unprepared.

Arrive Willing, You Don’t Have To Know Everything

So yes, the Ancestors want you to bring your tired heart, your inconsistency, your questions, your quiet doubts.

Bring the parts of you that feel unfinished.

Hoodoo does not ask you to arrive as something perfected.

It asks you to arrive willing.

And to understand that you will learn something in community, with your walk with the Ancestors, and with mentorship.

And from there, the work begins.

We are all learning how to be in community again, just as we are.

Our Last Hoodoo Office Hours Before We Break For Summer Break:

Wednesday, June 24th at 7: 30 PM EST

Cost is $27.00

We also continue our chat after in the Voxer app for a week

Then we break for the summer and meet back again on the last Wednesday in September.

Your First Altar Is You

Today’s Blue Moon matters to me not because it’s a rare moon, but “rare moons” have a way of making people romanticize what should already be sacred. In Low Country Hoodoo, we don’t wait for the unusual sky, or that special moment, or the once-in-a-while feeling; we get that work in when we have to.

Remember that you deserve to devote yourself to yourself regularly, not only to tend to your needs when the heavens put on a show. That is not how real care works. That is not how honor works. In this work, I see people who care for themselves once in a Blue Moon and expect miracles.

You cannot neglect yourself all the time, then tend to yourself once in a Blue Moon, and call that Ancestral honor. I say that with love, your first altar is you. Your body is the place where your prayers have to live. The body is the vessel that carries your offerings. Your “Crown” is the gatekeeper who decides what enters, stays, and what gets released.

A lot of people love to speak of Ancestors as if reverence were only about candles, beautifully displayed photos, prayers, and pretty words. Yes, those things can matter. But if your life is constantly out of balance, your body is being ignored, your nervous system is always depleted, your spirit is always being poured out and never replenished, then what exactly are you honoring?

In Low Country Hoodoo, Ancestral Honor work is not only about the Ancestors or the dead. It also asks something of the living: to live fully. It asks us to become steady. It asks us to become disciplined in caring for ourselves. It asks us to stop treating our own bodies and wellness as only an emergency response when we get unwell, that is, when we want to put ourselves first, and to start treating them as the first step in sacred Ancestral practice.

That means rest before collapse. Water before thirst turns sharp and dry. Moments of silence, turning it all off so you’re not contributing to the burnout. Food before the body starts crying out.

A Blue Moon can remind us that rare moments are meaningful. But rarity is not the same as devotion. Something does not become sacred because it happens occasionally. Sacredness is built through repetition and attention, through the kind of care that does not wait for a cosmic sign to begin. Don’t wait for a cosmic sign or confirmation to put you first as the altar.

Why I keep returning to the language of the altar: because people come into Hoodoo Foundations or even Divination training thinking that a physical altar outside of themselves is the only place of Ancestral attention. An altar is a place where something is placed to build a right relationship. What are your Ancestors asking you to place on the altar of you to be in right relationship with them?. And if I am being honest, many of us have been taught to build altars for everyone and everything except ourselves.

We make space for work, family, other people’s needs, other people’s crises, for everybody’s spirits, everybody’s pain, everybody’s urgency. Then we wonder why our own center feels abandoned.

This Blue Moon is about magick and miracles, but what if this Blue Moon’s miracle starts with you taking care of yourself? The miracle starts when you can take a Shabbath and not reach for your phone.

The miracle starts with you being blessed in your life and being prosperous because you are showing love to yourself. How can you love yourself more than once in a Blue Moon?

What if the magic of this Blue Moon is you saying no more of that? No more. You last yes. That includes your children, spouses, and partners because you can’t take care of them if you can’t take care of yourself. Seek ye first.

Seeking first the kingdom in Low Country Hoodoo also means getting aligned within yourself first, instead of looking outside yourself for what should be from within.

Your first altar is you. Caring for the vessel that holds your life, guards your spirit, and guides your steps, because that is how you learn to care for the Ancestors and for the people around you.

If you are going to honor your Ancestors, it begins with how you treat the body you have been given charge of. And which through which they work. Do you feed yourself and speak to yourself as the magical moon? How do you return to yourself when the world tries to scatter you? Let it begin with the magic power of consistency, not performance. Let it begin with your own name, your own breath, your own Crown.

When you keep showing up for the Ancestors but keep abandoning your own body, boundaries, and emotional health, that is spiritual self-neglect, and sometimes it becomes a form of self-abandonment. And self-abandonment isn’t Ancestral honor.

May you be the miracle you need this Blue Moon through the power of taking care of your whole self.

Today’s moon may be rare. But your care for yourself should not be.

Your first altar is you.

How are you going to start tending to yourself as the beautiful, lived Ancestral offering that you are?

Hoodoo Office Hours: Last Wednesday of the month at 7:30 PM EST

If you are sitting with any of this, the weight of self-neglect, the question of what it really means to honor your Ancestors while also honoring yourself. Hoodo Office Hours is your space. It is a low-pressure Black community space for sharing, sitting, listening, learning, and growing together. Hoodoo has always required people from many walks of life.

Click Here to Join Hoodoo Office Hours- $27

In alignment and peace,

Yayi Joyce

.

The distinctions between Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure matter deeply.

These are not universal practices open to all without context or Ancestral consent.

I write this after someone tried to convince me that the Akashic Records were ours. And I was like, hell no, it is not. They argued me down, y’all, and I kept my ground, saying the idea comes from Indian (Vedic) cosmology, specifically the Sanskrit word ākāśa. It is a Vedic spiritual thought, ākāśa, about their belief in the fifth element, and it holds many things, simply put: vibration, memory, and spiritual imprint, but not to simplify their sophisticated concepts. Later, Western occultists took the concept and renamed it “Akashic Records.”

But I said no; they do not belong in a different system, and they tried to convince me of universalism. Next, you’re going to tell me to clear my chakras, and I can dance with Kali Ma under the moonlight, naked, nah, baby, I am hard pass on that. Cause Kali Ma works for you doesn’t mean it will work for everyone we have to respect others difference and spiritual boundaries. Just like my Hoodoo lineage may not be for you and some other lineage maybe a better fit. Kali Ma don’t want me and that’s okay for me I told them.

That social media exchange I had with someone lead to someone else who told me, “It’s all source,” they said I must be AI because of all my distinctions and not seeing all the systems as one God, one way back to light, which made me laugh. I don’t need my journey back to the light; I am the light already. Needless to say, that exchange in a hard block on social.

And then I thought about it and how dangerous it is to universalize systems. People want the medicine, but not the people who come with it. If you take the Hindu medicine, then you are also committing to helping the Hindu people from whom the medicine comes. Are you doing that?

You can’t post Hoodoo snippets on your witch website and not commit to helping Black people, don’t work like that, baby

Read more

Kongo Mothers Birth Worlds: Why Motherhood Is Your Ancestral Superpower Beyond Babies

Today is Mother’s Day here in the USA, and it tends to celebrate only biological mothers, but if you know me, you know what I am saying: let’s decolonize it.

What I’m sharing here comes from a Low Country Hoodoo lineage perspective, which is heavily shaped by Kongo‑based Hoodoo cosmology. Not all Hoodoo lineages are the same.

In Kongo‑based Hoodoo cosmology, your Ancestral mothers aren’t just those who have the babies. Motherhood in Kongo‑based Hoodoo is relational, not about a fixed identity. Motherhood can be seen as beyond biology. Those who do the spiritual fostering of a feeling of shared connection and community.

To decolonize Mother’s Day in your own life, try this: pour libations and speak the names of all the women who have poured into you this lifetime, whether in person or from the spirit world, whether mothers by blood, by chosen family, or by community care.

Pour your water on the earth and say aloud:

“I honor all the mothers in my life who birth worlds and possibilities in me and around me.”

Let this libation remind you that you, too, and we all belong to the lineage of Ancestral cosmic mothers who nurture our futures in countless ways.

A mother is a maker; they’re Kalunga queens. I am not saying having children isn’t important, but the fact that a woman doesn’t have children doesn’t make her not a mother.

A mother is also a woman who acts as a cosmic architect. She births realities for other people. If a woman chooses to help others in the community rewire their souls, she keeps spiritual lineages alive. She helps her community see themselves as creators of change.

Motherhood here? It’s also a spiritual transformational process strongly grounded in Hoodoo culture, not just a woman’s biology. If you’re feeling that pull to honor the womb wisdom in your blood, this is for you.

By womb wisdom, I mean that deep source of Ancestral memory that lives inside each of us. It is the inner knowing and creative life force that our Ancestral mothers passed on, inviting us all to tap into it.

The Lie of “Motherhood = Biological Birth”

Western spiritual thought reduces mothers to being incubators. Push out kids, bake cookies, call it a day. In Kongo‑based spiritual traditions, women connect with more than the Moon’s rhythm. She can create new planets and new moons to cycle new ways of living.

They not only hold the fertile waters of creation, as well as the waters of the Kalunga Ancestors and the dead Mothers. They don’t just birth children; they also midwife transformation.

If a woman helps others, and her work leads the community to think differently, she may guide initiates through rebirth and cleansing rites or perform rituals that turn death into renewal. Her actions carry transformational power that goes beyond the Kalunga line into Motherhood.

Those who pour into others with Rootwork, offering libations that heal traumas and support life’s fruition, also channel the energy of Motherhood.

That is Motherhood: when you see a woman’s work within the community, generating life across realms.

Ancestral mothers embodied this; all contributions that express Motherhood are honored and weren’t sidelined. Imagine chiefs who carried ivory staffs with crowns depicting enthroned women, showing that female power is the root of authority. Women were seen as producers, reproducers, and preservers of cultural rituals and stories. No babies required.

Black Ancestral Psychology™: Rewire Your Maternal Matrix Thinking

Motherhood can rewire your brain through neuroplasticity, not just through birthing children, but also through the way Ancestral mothers encoded communal harmony in your DNA. Hoodoo and Rootwork are communities; Motherhood is a community. The community helps us love, nurture, and fill in the gaps left by birth parents and caregivers.

For example, within my own Hoodoo Healing Circle, women regularly pool their time and resources to support another member through illness, as well as giving resources and a safe place to talk to women going through school and PhD programs. These acts are Ancestral Mother collective steps that help fill the gaps left by absence or loss and embody the living spirit of communal Motherhood.

When you invoke them, you’re not just praying; you’re activating neural pathways for healing in many Kongo‑influenced Hoodoo traditions.

It was the women who shaped Hoodoo; women often served as spiritual elders and ritual specialists in healing, divination, and Ancestor work. In several African societies, female elders also held authority over rites of passage, fertility rites, and community justice.

Some water‑spirit traditions, such as Mami Wata devotion, were strongly women‑centered and led primarily by women.

This power shows up in my Hoodoo community and in readings, where I see some women, some might call biologically childless, birth businesses, books, and support communities, or by being stepmothers, foster mothers, or adoptive mothers. Motherhood has many notions.

Motherhood is generative divinity: it creates community, curses oppressors, and protects people. Women conjure protection for all around them.

Harriet Tubman used her Ancestral mother power to free people, set up homes for the aging, and was a woman wielding power past her uterus, birthing more than biological children; she is a mother to many and a movement.

Septima Poinsette Clark used her Ancestral mother’s power to overcome mental health battles, making difficult decisions to send her child to live with relatives till she could do better by her child. Even though she faced sexism from many prominent Black male civil rights activists of her time, she became known as the “Grandmother” of the Civil Rights Movement. Here in the United States, she not only birthed literacy movements and more but also helped birth new ways of thinking about women and their roles in the civil rights movement.

Why This Matters Now

In 2026, with the world on a repeat glitch of social and political challenges, reclaim the Ancestral meaning of Motherhood, honoring those who hold spiritual and community‑based roles that our Ancestors defined as Motherhood through nurturing, guiding, protecting, and creating for the collective.

Motherhood is not just for children of the world. Motherhood is for everyone you touch. Reclaim this Ancestral practice of honoring women as spiritual architects and keepers of communal well‑being. If a woman decides to be childfree, it does not mean she cannot be a mother in other ways if she sees fit.

Mother Hamer channeled her Ancestral maternal energy into community organizing and Freedom Farms, guiding, assisting, and sustaining entire communities as a movement mother.

Even after being forced into sterilization, she took on other children, helping raise them and the community. Taking strength from her maternal energy and Ancestral mothers, she birthed new ways of being for her community, all while facing ongoing systemic injustice.

Mary McLeod Bethune had children of her own. She viewed her activist role as an extension of Motherhood. Over the years, she took in many family members and students, treating them as family and adoptive community. She birthed family, community, and educational justice.

No matter if you birth children, temporarily leave your children, nurture and create movements or communities, or find peace and joy and mother yourself, each experience is valid.

Hoodoo, based in Kongo cosmology, holds that all women matter not because they can birth what they can decide, but because they can put into motion whatever they choose in their lives, refusing stasis and embracing eternal possibility. Inclusivity matters in our community because we already have many forces working against Black people.

Motherhood in Low Country Hoodoo is custodianship of life, not just reproduction.

When you upgrade to paid, you do more than keep Hoodoo Healing Roots and Reflections going; you are also participating in the act of spiritual reciprocity, which honors the Low Country Hoodoo Ancestral principle of giving and receiving.

In Kongo-based Hoodoo, reciprocity is an honor, a sacred exchange of energy. Your reciprocity shows commitment to community, transformation, and the generative cycle modeled by our Ancestral Mothers. Thank you for participating in this tradition.

Join us for Hoodoo Office Hours, the last Wednesday of the month: 05/27/2026 at 7:30 PM EST. Bring your questions, community, conversation, and $27.00. We are working through the power of okra and pot liquor this quarter.

Leave a comment

Hoodoo Without Ancestors?

A lot of people aren’t lacking devotion.

They’re lacking definitions, which is why I broke some down here: Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure.

Note: Hoodoo is a closed practice; I …

Read more

Hoodoo Office Hours -A Black‑centered Ancestral space for community and questions around Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure.

Held on the last Wednesday of each month at 7:30 PM EST.

Join Hoodoo Office Hours Cost $27.00

Hoodoo Is Not Folk Magic To Me

I was recently having a conversation with an older Foundations student about why Hoodoo is no longer “folk magic” to me. I used to use that language myself. I even added the “k” to the end of magic at one point along my journey.

As I’ve grown older and wiser in my practice, my understanding of what Hoodoo is and what that framing does has shifted significantly.

If “folk magic” is how you understand or name your own walk, I respect that.

As more grey hair appears than Black one thing I am not doing is arguing with folks. I’m not here to debate anyone’s personal practice or relationship to the work. I’m sharing my evolution and the solid Hoodoo rock on which I now stand.

This reflection comes from years of practice, growing up in this tradition, raising children in it, one now grown and one soon on their way into the world on their own. It comes from decades upon decades of study, lived relationship, and responsibility to the work, not trend, not aesthetics, and not opposition for opposition’s sake.

My language has changed because my understanding has changed. And may we all be willing to change in the ways we need to, so that our highest destinies can be realized in this lifetime.

Hoodoo as an Ethnoreligion

Hoodoo functions as an ethnoreligion because it is tied to African-descended identity. It carries the Ancestral epistemologies of the enslaved people who brought it with them.

They preserved it against all odds and people trying to erase it. Although it lost its centralized “religious status” post-Reconstruction, and the opps went to great lengths to make it more commercialized (calling it mere “folk magic” to try and keep us small). As I have gotten older and deeper in my practice, the word “folk Magick” irks me to the core. More on that later.

Just because Hoodoo lost its religious status in colonial society doesn’t mean its sacred role as a religion to some is lost.

Suppose Hoodoo is something else to you, fine. To me, it’s a religion, and I have no problem saying I am a religious Hoodoo.

I am not full of Church hurt like some, so I don’t mind saying I’m religious, or Hoodoo is my religion, because religion means to realign oneself with God.

And I realign myself with the God in me through Hoodoo.

Hoodoo, Christianity, and Ancestral Strategy

• Hoodoo birthed Black Christian life.

• It evolved into maintaining ritual autonomy for people living in an oppressive environment.

• I do not believe it was the Ancestors’ intention for us to use Christianity indefinitely. Rather, Christianity was a strategic resource to help us achieve important goals during the civil rights movement.

Our Ancestors didn’t intend for us to make this part eternal and to use Christianity as a colonial cage, but as a strategic political tool for our people.

Why “Folk Magic” Irks Me to My Core Now

I believe the civil rights strategy of the Ancestors worked, but they never meant for us to stay caged in Christianity forever.

And they damn sure didn’t mean for Hoodoo to get stripped down to “folk magic.” And forgive me, dear Ancestors, because I was on the “folk magic” bandwagon at one time or another.

Post-Reconstruction, the opps went all in to demonize and commercialize our practices through mail-order catalogs, pretending to be selling sacred conjure tricks to the highest-bidding buckra tourists.

Anything to make Black Spiritual Power look tiny, silly, and disconnected from God.

As I’ve gotten older and deeper in practice, “Folk magic” ain’t it for me, and it does not represent Hoodoo vastness.

It erases the deep cosmology within the ethnoreligion of our people, the Ancestral ways of knowing preserved through adversity, and Black Joy. A lot of our practice is about realigning ourselves and living in this realignment because of the colonization that we endure.

Ancestors knew we were gonna need this, so we didn’t crash the fuck out living in this colonial cultural society. We are not some off-brand religious sideshow. For us, it’s religion that binds us back to the Source. Folk magic is for dem Europeans playing dress-up. It has not come close to capturing the essence of what my people were doing and practicing.

Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure: Lanes, Not Labels

Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure are all kin, but they are not the same thing and serve distinct functions within the tradition.

This is how I was raised, and for me, there are real differences; if it is not for you, that is okay. Hoodoo Is Black Ancestral Love in Action. You can read my thoughts on that there. As a fellow Hoodoo, Rootworker, or Conjurer, you don’t have to agree with me to show Black Love In Action.

This is not random magic. What the Ancestors do in our lives may look magical sometimes to outsiders and to us when they come through like no other, but for us, it is relational. They put in work to be an Ancestor = work, yes, spectacular at how they come through, but also work, don’t forget that part.

If you come from a Kongo-based Hoodoo line, then you already know: there is no “veil thinning.” The Ancestors are here. Present. Active. Fire within and without.

And inside this sacred system, we have lanes.

The Sacred Umbrella

Hoodoo

Hoodoo is the full sacred umbrella. It holds the cosmology, the Ancestral worldview, the relationship to God, spirit, power, the Ancestors, the dead, the living, and the ways we remain aligned to Source through our people. Ancestor reverence is the foundation of the practice.

Rootwork

Rootwork is a specific earth-working lane within Hoodoo. It is the herbal, bodily, and material practice of keeping people safe, well-protected, regulated, and restored. It lives through roots, herbs, food, tonics, and more. It’s the healing intelligence of the natural world. This is the lane of medicine, care, protection, uncrossing, and embodied survival of keeping alive and well.

Conjure

Conjure is the lane of spirit-directed working and engagement with unseen forces. It is the lane of calling, directing, moving, and negotiating spiritual force toward an outcome. While Ancestors may be central in Hoodoo, not every person doing conjure places Ancestors at the center of that work in the same way.

These practices are related, share a common foundation, but each serves a unique purpose. They are not interchangeable. They can overlap, and some people can just be one or all.

Hoodoo: A Closed Practice and Sacred Inheritance

All of it sits within a Black sacred inheritance. And no, this is not open to everybody.

Hoodoo is a closed practice. Blood-carried. Lineage-held. Preserved by Black people through community survival, memory, spirit, and kinship. I also understand that when Black folks hear “closed practice,” some subconsciously link it to oppression, even when the closure is protective of you and your Black practice, not being a punishment. I also understand that some Black people's backlash to “closed practice” is a trauma response, and not a logical one.

Christianity normalized “open access” as a moral good

Colonial Christianity taught many that religion should be open to all and that having this universality equaled righteousness. And Colonial Christianity wanted everybody's coin, so come one, come all, so that we can take all y’all money.

This universality, you see it with people co-opting tarot cards that aren’t their culture, and chakra systems, because exclusivity = sin. And this theology is still alive and well and running folks' nervous system, to the damn ground, yes, even in people who’ve left the Church. You see them arguing with Christians every five minutes online because their nervous system is still searching for validity.

So when Hoodoo is framed as closed, it clashes with their deep internalized belief that: “If it’s real, it must be for everyone.” I am holding your hand gently with love when I say this. That belief is not African. It’s colonial theology you are still holding on to.

So no, there are no Amazon root kits for Colonial tourists over here.

We protect what is sacred because outsiders tend to flatten, market, water down, and try to repackage fragments of Hoodoo as trends to sell back to you, or “folk magic.”

To Those Who Keep Saying Hoodoo Has European-Derived Folk Magic In It!

And for those who keep insisting Hoodoo is just a mashup that European folk magic gave shape to, let me be clear:

We did not need Europeans to bring us spirit, cosmology, or sacred technology.

We did not need European folk systems or your Saints to explain our relationship to God, the Ancestor, the dead, the land, or Black power. Because for every white Saint that’s out there, there’s a Black Ancestor to do that.

What survived in us survived through us. Didn't need European nothing! OK, we are a complete system on our own; we do not need help.

Stay in your lane, and I’ll stay in mine.

Share Hoodoo Healing: Roots & Reflections

Hoodoo will always live in the blood, memory, in the body, in the family, in the spirit, and across countless generations.

Your Ancestors are calling.

Reclaim this as sacred. Reclaim it as an inheritance. Teach your children. Protect the gate.

Hoodoo helps us return to our Black Power Source.

Do not let lies about “just folk magic” keep you disconnected from your own power.

Humming: Black Ancestral Nervous System Medicine Before Science Had a Name For It

Baby, let me tell you our Ancestors were geniuses and scientists before that’s what they called it. I will always call out Black Genius that’s not tied to white European academia standards.

There was a trend circulating for a while saying, “I am not my Ancestors.”

Baby, how could you even tune your lips up or down to talk to Ancestors like they were punks for being enslaved or didn’t go through anything? It’s beyond me. Some hold great shame tied to their Ancestors’ past. I get it, I really do, but we do have Ancestral strength and resilience to move forward. Let’s address a misconception: our Ancestors had nothing to heal themselves; they had Hoodoo, Rootwork, the Black Church, the Ancestors, and each other.

Some call Ancestral traditions demoniac, but in truth, they were pure science, wisdom, and technology left behind by our Ancestors.

Our people developed ways to deal with trauma and to navigate a world designed to fracture us, and were trying desperately to prevent us from seeing our wholeness.

Let’s talk about one such Ancestral healing tradition. To connect this practice to the broader ways our Ancestors supported themselves, consider the use of sound.

Black folks’ humming was never random. The full teaching is below.

Read more

Hoodoo is Black Ancestral Love in action. if you a Hoodoo say it with whole chest!

Too often, people reduce Hoodoo to superstition, love work, jealousy, and drama, missing its true foundation: Black Ancestral love. That is why others can’t practice it they are missing a key piece of it “Black Love in Action” Hoodoo arose from many Ancestral needs, but one of them is its deep devotion to Black Love is often overlooked.

This devotion is evident in how Hoodoo and Rootwork emerged from a refusal to forget ourselves, even as everything around us tried to erase us. Hoodoo is the memory of Black Ancestral Love and freedom, as well as staying whole in a world that profits from your Black mind and beautiful Black soul breaking.

Carrying this memory, to practice Hoodoo is to keep an unbroken conversation with our Ancestors. Many folks don’t need a fancy altar, but they do need more than anything I have noticed is that they need deep belly laughter that heals something invisible. That’s the joy and laughter Ancestors want from us; that is ritual too.

Nothing is ordinary when two Hoodoos or Rootworkers come together; Black Ancestral love is always present. Even challenges amongst us hold their own meaning of Black love and value.

Even loss with Black Folks becomes transformation. When we light a candle, we aren’t just making requests; we remember the Black Ancestral power living in us, passed hand to hand, soul to soul.

When I reach back through time, I see our Ancestors’ hands full of prayers for their community. Mojo bags filled with herbs for the community. Our Ancestors carried both pain and loving African Indigenous memories here to this land, not just for themselves but for their people.

In Low Country Hoodoo, the Praise House was a place where our Ancestors whispered thank you for all the good, bad, ugly, and in between. That’s why I named the space I hold for community “Hoodoo Praise House.” All emotions are welcome there.

Many emotions were held in the Praise House candlelight, where our Black songs carried the hum of those who came before them, as well as hope, love, and betrayal. The Praise House was just not a place to praise but it was also a place to air grievances and to speak their truth in love.

Growing up in and around a Praise House community showed me you don’t have to agree on everything to love one another in Hoodoo. Our Ancestors gave us the blueprint for this kind of love, though many now forget it.

Black Ancestral Love is the kind of love we feel when we work the roots. Cause sometimes the root doesn’t even agree with you, and you’ve got to sit it down. That doesn’t mean you stop using that root forever it means I love you, but I don’t want to work with you right now and as Hoodoo you understand that and you listen deeper to what roots want to work with you in love

For those of us who use the Bible in our work: every verse we speak, whether for left- or right-handed work, is full of Ancestral love in action. Every Ancestor we call by name, and those whose names we’ve forgotten, is love moving through us.

Love moving through us also means building altars from everyday life, even when misunderstandings arise. Jealousy happens, and dirt gets thrown for no reason. Still, we show up in that current of Black Ancestral love in motion.

Some people don’t know how to be in community. That’s okay Low Country Hoodoo wisdom says community itself teaches you how to be in community.

As we move deeper into this conversation, let’s explore what it truly means to practice Hoodoo as a life ritual, where real work and real love begin.

Stay tuned for Part II.

YJ 🕊️☠️
Hoodoo Praise House™

Join Hoodoo Office Hours

If this writing stirred something in you, come learn Hoodoo inside community. Hoodoo Office Hours is our monthly gathering for Black practitioners who want clarity, depth, and connection in their practice it also includes a month of access to our private Voxer circle for continued conversation and support throughout the month

Next session: April 29th, 2026, at 7:30 PM EST
Cost: $27

Don’t just read about Hoodoo come practice inside lineage and community.

Leave a comment

If you feel called, speak on your Black Ancestral Love in the comments.

My Low Country Hoodoo is deeply rooted in Kongo-based Hoodoo.

Here is my Rooted Reflection on the Resurrection

As we reach day three of Holy Week, I want to share my Hoodoo perspective. As a Hoodoo and Rootworker grounded in our Kongo Ancestral view, I see Holy Week as far more than a once‑a‑year moment.

Every week is Holy Week for the Hoodoo. While Christians prepare for resurrection once a year, Hoodoo, especially within Low Country and Kongo-rooted lineages, regards resurrection as an ongoing, daily event and remembrance.

You may say, “Well, why is that? Yayi Joyce, well, glad you asked.” That’s because our Ancestors already understood the cycle of:

birth → life → death → return.

That’s what the ring shout is about: traveling through these cycles.

The Kongo cosmogram holds this understanding of how life moves not in a straight line.

Instead, life moves in a circle.

What Hoodoo Folks Already Knew About Resurrection

When Jesus crossed over and returned, Christian tradition called it a miracle.

But for our Kongo Ancestors, this wasn’t strange or new. That is why some

Kongo-based Hoodoos see Jesus as an Ancestor.

Jesus’ return wasn’t anything new for us; it was very familiar.

A returning spirit?
Oh, we do that too.

Then, Jesus crossed the line between the living and the Ancestors?

And Jesus rising was familiar to them as well, rising in the East, the direction of beginnings?

For them, this mirrored their own understanding of how the world works.

So when Hoodoo practitioners used the Bible, it did not contradict their worldview. Unlike Christians, they were not adopting Christian beliefs but rather recognizing similarities with their own traditions.

The Bible simply confirmed what was already known. Not that confirmation was needed, our people were not synchronizing with Christianity. If this needs clarification, read more here.

So let’s move beyond the idea of “mixing religions.” Instead, recognize that they affirmed truths already woven into their worldview:

Death is a crossing, not an ending.
The dead return.
Spirit moves between realms.

That’s why there is no thinning veil in Low Country Hoodoo or any Kongo-based Hoodoo.

This is why, as a Low Country Hoodoo or a Kongo-based Hoodoo, we can understand Jesus’s return without calling it syncretism.

Our Ancestors didn’t need Christianity to understand resurrection. With African Indigenous wisdom, and as innovators whose creations would make others wealthy by today’s standards, it’s surprising that some think our Ancestors couldn’t separate Christianity from their own traditions.

They had lived with that cosmology long before encountering the Bible. Don’t fall for the dismissive stereotypes colonialism encourages.

Why Every Week Is Holy Week for Us

In Hoodoo:

• Every day, we talk to the Ancestors.

• Every day, the “veil is thin.”

• Every day we cross into Spirit.

• Every day is a ritual.

• Every day is remembrance.

• Every day is a resurrection when an Ancestor visits.

Holiness isn’t seasonal because our Ancestors are holy and they visit us all the time, not just on some special day.

Our view of Holiness is not for one week, but for daily maintenance, walking, and listening.

This is why you don’t see old‑school Hoodoos making a big fuss about Holy Week. Holiness for the Kongo-based Hoodoos is about right relationship with self, Spirit, Ancestors, and community, and other people that are living outside of our community.

We do not see things as colonial Christianity does. While colonial Christianity emphasizes obedience, purity, and separating from practices labeled as “demonic” or “pagan,” Hoodoo views spiritual practice through relationships and community well-being.

For the Hoodoo that lives in a daily relationship with Ancestors, lives the resurrection every day.

Holy Week Through a Hoodoo Lens

Palm Sunday becomes a reminder that Ancestors and Spirit walk with us, not once a year but always.

Good Friday becomes: A reminder that suffering never had the last word for our Ancestors and Black people.

Easter becomes a reminder that returning is real and that our Ancestors do it every day.

Hoodoo doesn’t reject Holy Week. It rejects the Colonial Christian toxic concepts attached to it.

For a Hoodoo, it fits into a broader view of our Ancestors keeping safe long before Christianity arrived.

🕊️ A Word for Those Practicing Hoodoo This Week

If Holy Week brings up questions for you, that’s okay. Just remember:

You don’t need to give up your Ancestor’s view to understand the Bible.
You don’t need to be a Christian to honor resurrection.
You don’t have to blend anything to walk with your Ancestors.

Our people already knew these mysteries.

We speak their language every time we:

• light a candle,

• fix a root,

• call an Ancestor’s name,

• Or simply wake up and remember where we come from.

Every one of those acts is a resurrection in Hoodoo.
Every one of those acts is Holy and gives you a Holy Week.

Every week is Holy Week in Hoodoo.

Because we live in the cycle, not their calendar.

How do you understand resurrection through your Hoodoo or Ancestral lens?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

YJ 🕊️☠️
Hoodoo Praise House™

Share Hoodoo Healing: Roots & Reflections

Join Hoodoo Office Hours

Come join us for Hoodoo Office Hours, a monthly gathering for Black practitioners who want clarity, confidence, and community in their Hoodoo walk.

We meet on the last Wednesday of every month, and your registration includes a full month of access to our private Voxer circle, where the conversation continues long after class ends.

Next session: April 29th, 2026 at 7:30 PM EST
Cost: $27

Don’t just read about Hoodoo, come practice inside it.

Leave a comment