As a medium and reader I am privy to personal information about my clients that they would never tell others and on most occasions I learn about information that even the client does not know about from their own ancestors.
Several months ago a man, who I will call Greg (story shared with client’s permission, name and state changed to conceal identity), came to me for a reading because he felt drawn to the Lwa and wanted to know if he as a white man should pursue learning more about the Vodun religion and how could he find more stability in his life.
The reading started off quietly as most of my readings do and then a whole bunch of his father’s family showed up to tell me exactly why Greg had no stability in his life and he felt a draw to an African Traditional Religion. They were upset that Greg was racist towards his own people and did not acknowledge his own Black ancestry.
To say that this reading was going to be interesting for me and startling for him would have been an understatement. His family was slaves and their descendants from Virginia. His grandmother was Black and passed as white. She moved to the northwestern part of the United States, married and raised her family, along with her husband, as white. Greg grew up not personally knowing any minorities and often he took part of taunting of the few Black kids in his school. As Greg got older he explored several spiritual paths and is now currently in ******** but, the internet and his exposure to other cultures eventually lead him to discover religions such as Vodun, Palo and Lucumi. Vivid dreams as well as various incidents in his life that ********* rituals could not explain or fix, was why he said he felt a pull to Black religions to find answers.
Greg was referred to me for an ancestral reading in 2017 and during our reading I told him that his Black ancestors were not pleased with him and a few of them were causing his roads to close. He was given several suggestions by me to put into place immediately to help alleviate his situation, to start learning more about his family and the religion he was drawn to. This revelation was, needless to say, a complete shock to him and was met with disbelief and accusations of me being a fraud. Six months later I received an unexpected “love gift” and thank you for the reading from Greg with a letter explaining what he felt and had subsequently what he went through. Below is a portion of his letter;
“Dear Ambrozine; I want to apologize to you for the way I behaved when you read for me last year. When you told me that I had Black ancestors, I didn’t believe you and I did not want to. I did an ancestry test and three days after speaking with you I got the result and they matched what you said. I sat with the information you gave me and the DNA result for weeks before going to my mother about what I had learned. My mom thought the result was wrong and she ordered tests from another company for me, my sister, dad and her. When we got the results back a few weeks later, that’s when we discovered that my dad was part black. This has turned my life upside down, it has turned my family upside down. I have many answers but also twice as many questions.”
As I read Greg’s letter, I thought about all of the people who walk around believing that they have exotic features, are a mixture of European and Mediterranean or think they have native in their family line. I thought about all of the African slaves that had to survive and their descendants that decided to pass for white in an attempt at an easier life. I thought about all of the Indigenous people of this land that had their children taken away from them and placed into institutions to make them stop being a child of this tribe or that tribe. I thought about all of the things done to eradicate Black and Brown, to eradicate our languages, religions, our lives. I thought about the racism that is so deeply rooted and on full display in our country. Then I thought about the moment a white man discovers that the one drop rule does apply when it comes to the viewpoint of the ancestor realm.
The part of me that has to navigate in a world that loves Black and Brown cultures but not our lives, laughed at the irony of a man who truthfully wanted the perceived power that he thought could be found in Vodun to heighten his own magical practice was really being called out and put to task by part of his bloodline. The part of me that seeks healing in a world that uses the skin tone color chart to determine the haves and the have-nots is looking to egungun and Orisha for the proper steps to take to help those that discover they are Black like me when it comes to Spirit. I’m thinking out loud, wondering and on some levels am in awe of the universe’s sense of humor.
What a time we are living in, when one can seek out a particular thing only to discover that their journey should start at home.
Funny that you should have a blog about this thing we call “perception”, also……my little nephew was in the store yesterday with my sister (his Mom) and he said in the middle of the isle with all kinds of white people shopping around them, and said, “Momma, why do all Black people look like ‘DooDoo’?” If my sister was gasoline she would have burnt the whole store down. She was so angry with him…but she knew this opinion was born out of a 7-year-old’s ignorance. She got down to his level and said “You, me and your aunt Ki Ki (that’s me) are Black so do you think we all look like ‘Doo Doo’?” I told her she should have said, “Well, baby when ‘Doo Doo’ turns white not even the dung beetles want it…..and for darn sure it’s no good to even fertilize crops for food…White ‘Doo Doo’ is the worst thing to be…..LOL!!!!!”
Which brings me to a friend of mine whose daughter came home from playing with her ‘friends’ and said, “Mommy, why are there not any pretty Black women?” I told her Mom now she knows what she has to do……flood your house with Black magazines, TV Shows…etc…..her daughter needs an emergency influx of ‘Black Pride’!
Needless to say that both of those kids got too many white ‘friends’…….AND, the effects of what systemic racism can do…your client was saved from that ‘stupid thinking’ in his head from cradle to grave….he was saved by his Black ancestors so, he won’t be taking this “fu*^ed up” thinking about race to his grave….most klansmen are afraid to get a DNA test done because most of them will find out how ‘Pure’ they actually are…..(how you gonna be pure anything when everybody’s ancestors came out of Africa?)
AND it fascinates me to think that we hear these people (mostly white people) talking about going to other planets to live….how are they going to be able to handle dealing with an alien from another planet when they can’t handle the truth of dealing with Black people or other peoples of color on THIS planet?
Perception and what we believe based on our perception and what we are indoctrinated with drives the world. Being unyielding to doing things in a better manner, learning new ways to heal and be keeps us locked in this seemingly endless dance of isms & hate. We have to be the change we seek.
The ancestors always straighten us out don’t they? That’s an amazing story, speaks to the testimony of not only the ancestors breaking through this man’s perceptions, but also your ability to stand strong in your sacred stance as a medium conveying the ancestors information to the client. Which is always challenging, especially in this case. As mediums I think it is our job, on so many levels to dance with perceptions, here having to do with race and family, as the messages so their work. The the Lwa reaching out through this man’s closed thinking to have him find you is just so…well, just. They certainly do have a sense of humor! The ancestors and spirits do not care so much about skin color, they do not judge us by outer appearances. They do acknowledge the pain and misalignment caused by our preoccupation with color and identity, and have their ways of working on that. When I see the pain of the racism fully on display in this country right now, I see in this story, the ancestors at work setting things right one person at a time. Their power is immense.