Hoodoo Saints and Root Warriors - Mawiyah Bomani

A sacred circle, a living fire, and voices that won’t shrink to fit the frame. We brought together Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani and Sherry Shone “That Hoodoo Lady” to talk about hoodoo as it’s actually lived: messy, embodied, ancestor-led, and unapologetically focused on liberation. The truth about where this work comes from, who it’s for, and why it’s still necessary.
 
 We dig into permission and boundaries with care. Everyone can read to learn history and context; reading becomes a bridge to respect and accountability. Practice, though, is not a marketplace. Hoodoo is born from survival and community defense, not from trends. We unpack how to move from ally to accomplice, how to challenge token panels and soft appropriation, and how to listen to the people who carry the line. Along the way, we explore “reverse engineering” sacred language—reclaiming scripture and spells so they serve freedom, not obedience.
 
 You’ll hear practical, grounded magic you can start today. Begin with a glass of water and your honest words; bless it, pour it to the earth, and let the work travel where it’s needed. Pair that with a mirror ritual that names you as a beautiful ancestor, shifting self-talk from scarcity to sovereignty. We connect these practices to therapy, book lists, and community study, because emotional maturity is part of the craft. If your ritual can’t hold grief, racism, and daily safety, it isn’t practice—it’s décor.
 
 Come sit with us. Learn from the women doing the work before writing the books. If this conversation moved you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs strength today, and leave a review to help others find these teachings. Your words matter—speak them. Your water matters—bless it. Your life matters—live it out loud.

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Bio:
Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani, a native of New Orleans, is a distinguished writer and spirit woman. Her work has been featured in notable publications like The Crab Orchard Review, Dark Eros, Essence Magazine, and Chicken Bones: A Literary Journal. She is the author of several plays, including Crows Feet, Bourbon, and Men of the AmonRa Society, and co-writer/director of Brown Blood Black Womb. She received the Southern Black Theatre Festival’s 2012-2013 Playwright of the Year award for her play, Spring Chickens.

In 2008, Mawiyah earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. Beyond her writing, she is a respected educator, an 8th Generation Witch, and a Priestess of OYA in the Yoruba spiritual system, addressed as Iyanifa Faniyi Aboyade Omobola Bomani. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Oya N'Soro, an e-zine dedicated to culture and Afrikan Traditional Spirituality.

Mawiyah currently resides in Louisiana, where she conducts Orisa rituals, spiritual consultations, workshops, and divinations. She is working on two new projects: a middle-grade series, The Cool Beans Ghost Hunter Society, which features special needs superheroes, and Dead Man Stew, a poetry collection inspired by Tarot. Mawiyah is also the host of the podcast FishHeadsinRedGravy, which celebrates marginalized people in the esoteric and occult world. She is a recipient of the Critical Mass 8 Literary Award and the KAT Artist Residency. Mawiyah is the author of two books published by Llewellyn Worldwide: Conjuring the Calabash: Empowering Women with Hoodoo Spells and Magick an

Chapters

• 0:00 A Sacred Circle Is Opened
• 2:30 Introducing Sherry And Mawiya
• 5:30 Hoodoo, Ancestry, And Permission
• 12:00 Beyond Aesthetics: The Messy Work
• 17:45 Respectability, Hair, And Racism At Work
• 25:30 Why Magic Must Address Racism
• 31:30 Books, Ancestors, And Courage To Speak
• 38:30 Reverse Engineering Sacred Language
• 45:00 Who Should Read These Books
• 52:00 Appropriation, Authorship, And Authority

Transcript

GDC: 0:01

Welcome to Belief Being and Beyond with your host, Granddaughter Crow. Hi everybody, Granddaughter Crow here with yet another episode of Belief Being and Beyond. And quite frankly, ever since I started this podcast, there is a special guest that I've been wanting to have on. But she's been busy writing books, empowering people, liberating us. And I've had these discussions around having this wonderful person that I'm about ready to introduce to you with one of my wonderful, wonderful sisters, Sherry Shone. She has been on the show. We've done a lot of activities together, and I'm like, Miss Sherry. And she's like, oh, oh, we've got, I almost let it slip, who we have today, who we have today. But before I introduce, I really want to send this out in a very sacred way. Today is a very sacred dialogue among powerful spiritual women who embody their ancestors to bring forth liberation, to bring forth empowerment, to bring forth. I don't have to explain who I am. I am here, and this is what I have to say. So awesome. Welcome into this space. Welcome into this time. I'm gonna draw a circle around this space, around this time. I'm gonna set my ego outside and declare this space as sacred space, a sacred time. I invite in the ancestors to this dialogue where we sit around a fire and chat together about the beauty of the world and how to be liberated, how to be empowered, how to be yourself. May the divine, as it reveals itself to you, come forth and listen to our wonderful dialogue. So without further ado, I do have Miss Sherry Shone, author of so many books. And oh, my Hoodoo Bible is right behind me, Hoodoo Guide for Everyone. I love Miss Sherry. Today we have Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani with us. Welcome, Sherry Shone and Mawiya. Yay! I am so excited. Now, Sherry and I have talked a lot about what you do because you fall right in line with what we do. We bring liberation, we bring empowerment to marginalized people, we bring our ancestors. And I want to kind of touch base on this just a minute. When I met Sherry, I saw sunshine. I saw sunshine. And when I see you, I see fierce warrior goddess, you know, and bringing that. And when I was talking to Sherry years ago, she started talking about hoodoo. And I was like, Am I is it okay if I ask? You know, I'm indigenous shaman. Is it okay? Am I allowed to ask about hoodoo? And Sherry and I sat on a panel of all different spiritual paths, and you know, Wicca and Norse and uh ceremonial magic. And we sat on like almost sandwiched these other spiritual groups, which I think was very apropos. And all of a sudden, they're like asking us questions, how do you see this in your beliefs, belief system? Sherry's like, the ancestors, and I'm all, that was my answer. And then I would say some things, and they'd say, Well, what kind of like tools do you need for your sacred magic? And it's like, household tools, the natural world. And I'm yeah, Sherry's like, that's my magic. And it gave me the permission to start investigating hoodoo, with all respect. And now you're here, Mawiyah. I uh let me before we start, before we start, and I'm I am ahead of myself, my dear. I know who you are. For those of you who haven't heard of Mawiyah, let me just kind of give you a little bit of insight. So Mawiyah is a native New Orleans and is a distinguished writer and spiritual woman. Her work has been featured in notable publications. She's the author of several plays, and she's received the Southern Black Theater Festivals 2020-2013 Playwright of the Year Award for her play Spring Chickens. So much, so much magic in this woman. In 2008, Mawiyah earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans beyond her writing. She is a respected educator. Big time. When you pick up her books, when you listen to her podcast, when you know her, you get educated. She's also an eighth-generation witch, priestess of Oya in the Yoruba spiritual systems. Mawiyah is also the host of the podcast Fish Heads in Red Gravy, which celebrates marginalized people in the esoteric and occult world. I'm over the moon. I have no words. You know I don't. Sherry, before we talk to Mawiyah, could you tell us a little bit about how you got in contact? Because I know you wrote the foreword for she now has two books, which are so powerful. And I know that you wrote the foreword for conjuring the Calabash. Yes. And I I love it. Tell us about it.

Sherry: 6:25

So honored, so honored. Um so when I first started with writing my books, Hoodoo Guide to the Bible and Voodoo for Everyone, it was very distinctive for me to find other authors who were willing to share the gift, the legacy, the beauty, the trauma, the tragedy of Hoodoo. And sell it, say it in a way that was honoring and not indicative of I'm gonna take what ancestor has done, I'm gonna take what other black women have done, I'm gonna take what other black men have done and try to make it a TikTok. Yeah. So when I first was reached out to about conjuring the collab, I said, okay. One, I felt schooled, I felt heard, and I felt like this is a sage priestess. I need to level up and hear what she has to say, because when you hear the right thing, some of the time it's like salt and your water. You know it's healing, but who is it painful? And with her writing, I find that it's not painful, but it's a ball. Right? Y'all remember this the song There's a bombing, Gillian? There is a ball that she is spelling and singing as loud as she possibly can, and she does not care who is listening or not listening, she knows it's here for her to tell. So that's my that's my reason. That is why I listen to her. That is why I love to read her because she is the real thing. And it's very hard for us to hear the real thing amidst all of the noise of, oh, do this kind of thing and do this kind of thing, this is this cute, and I have it all cute and spread out on a TikTok, and that's what I'm doing. And I'm like, you know, the work that we do as Hoodoo workers. It isn't for somebody else's visual interpretation. Right, right, right. And it and it's gonna be ugly and it's gonna be messy. You know what I'm saying? The table's gonna be a mess, the officer's space is gonna be a mess. Whatever we're doing, we're gonna look a mess. So there isn't all of that, you know, showmanship. You know, we don't have time for that. You don't have time to put your camera out and your lighting and all of that. If you're doing if you're serious about the work, then you're gonna be in involved in it. And and that's gonna look like, you know, you might get up with one roller in your hair or something, anything, a slipper on, you know, whatever you got. You know, you may get up butt naked because you got to get to work, you know, whatever that looks like. So you don't have time for all of the pretentiousness of it all. You know, you have to do the work. And so I find that in your work as well. You know, um, when Matt was suggested that we meet, right? We talk, it was like, oh my goodness, you know, because for a long time you see people and it's like they're they're not writing for the people that look like them, you know, they're writing to be heard by the larger group of people, and so with that, they, you know, we we always find it easy as people of color to be inclusive of everybody else when nobody is that way with the right. And so when you find those writers who are saying, I'm speaking to my people, and everybody else, you can come along or not, you know, but but I'm talking to who I'm talking to, then you gravitate towards that. And so it's it's it's easy for me to say, I want those people to see what I'm what I'm doing. I want to be blessed by their words, you know. And I find that both of you ladies, I was blessed by your words. And and so, yeah, yeah. So this for me it was a no-brainer. What time we're meeting? If we're meeting at 2 a.m., two o'clock in the morning, I'm sure. It didn't matter. It didn't matter, you know, because it's about it's about the work, it's about what we do, how we are healing the community and the world as you know, how we do that, and we do that together, and and nobody's um practice supersedes anybody else's. They come together, they join forces, you know. So yeah.

GDC: 10:36

I absolutely love that because you know, it's like that's who I love, that's what I love about this is that in this show, people you're gonna be watching people who do the work first and then happen to write a book in order to share it. You are looking at people who from a very young age have played around or kind of kept the record of the library, didn't know how all the pieces fit, but knew that we would have individually grow into a voice on behalf of the people for the ancestors. And that's what I absolutely love. And Miss Sherry, you know you do that. You know you do. You're just like looking like, what did I do? That I know your story, girl. But it's true. It is true.

Sherry: 11:29

And we go through this. I find that I have this fine line of um, when I would get up every morning as a child, my mom would always tell me, remember, when you walk out that door, you represent your culture, your race, your gender. That's a lot to put on the little child. But I find that most of us that work, live, play in black bodies, every day we leave our house, we are subjected to people that want to judge and lift us up, but only high enough so that they can enjoy our skills and gifts. So as we go into this thanksgiving period, I woke up with a mindset of remembrance in the morning. Because we are in the midst of divisiveness, we are in the midst of spiritual attack, we are in the midst of people wanting to silence our community, people not wanting to even go to school, people wanting to take away our history, people wanting to do all of these things, but still we're being asked to perform. Show up at work, don't bring it up. Stop bringing up things, don't dress the way you do, wear your hair in this way. Don't you dare come in. I had someone ask me the other day, and I know this might be off topic. I had someone ask me the other day, how come I don't wear wigs anymore?

Mawiyah: 13:13

Been there, been there for that one as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I I just like you were talking about growing up and being told, you know, um, you know, who you represent. But tell me I used to tell my kids that when they were young, because white supremacy, it won't wait until you're 18. You know what I'm saying? You know, so very young children. I've had children leave kids in line, you know, at at school, and and another kid who's white will say, I don't want to stand by that nigga, you know, and you're thinking to yourself, right, right, where to say you're three years old, you know what I'm saying? And this kid is the the little kid, it's the black kid is looking like I don't, I don't get this, I don't understand, you know. And so there isn't a time where you you say, okay, now it happens. You know, we always have to be prepared for it. We always have to show up. You're right, and the hair becomes the thing. And I remember being evaluated at work, and in the evaluator saying, Oh, everything is great, but there's a part here that asks about, you know, your hair, right? And and I remember the guy saying, Well, you know, with white women, we can tell when their hair is kind of oily or it needs to wash, but you know, I don't know what to say about your hair. And I just remember sitting up thinking, okay, now where's this going? Because I'm not saying anything, but I'm gonna sit up and look you in the eyes because you're gonna tell me whatever it is you're gonna say, because you gave me the highest marks for everything else, the performance of everything else, and now we're about to talk about my hair. And so he got real nervous, right? And he's like, Well, but but I'm I'm just gonna give you the five because you did great. But it's it's every year, it's this thing how you, you know, or can't is there something else that you can kind of maybe do with the hair, you know? And so yeah, it becomes this whole um dialogue around all of that, right? Things that that, and I tell people it's when they say, Well, why do you bring that up in magical circles? Because I've been to other conventions, right? Why do you bring up racism? Because I can't just talk about fairies and and all these other things. I have to talk about why my magic is necessary, and it's most potent and most needed when I'm dealing with racism, right? I see it all the time, you know, and and I can't not just me walk out the door and not and deal, not deal with it. I have a son who's 16, who's tall, 6'4, and he's standing at the bus stop, and he has to deal with it. So it's all of us, right? You know, when when my mother goes to the hospital, she has kidney, she has kidney disease, and you're faced with a white nurse who's sitting there kind of maybe talking to you one way, so she has to deal with it. So it's all of us dealing with it. So it is it's something that I see often. So I'm gonna talk about it often. So it fits into my magic. It has to, right? Because it's about my survival, and that's where Howodo was born. That's how it was born. It's always been about that. How are we gonna survive this place? You know, and so our our magic has to has to speak in that arena, you know. So yeah, I've been there. I know that one. I know that one clear as day. Every year when we when those evaluations come around, I'm I know that that hair is gonna be the last topic. It doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman, it's gonna be the last thing. It's gonna be our standoff, you know?

Sherry: 16:18

Yes, yes, it's gonna be a topic. And the the concern for people that may be listening and kind of go, why can't we? Right? Let me ask you this. How many times on your evaluation has your hair been brought up? Has your speech been brought up? Has your persona been brought up? Can't you lessen that down? Can't you? It's back to that complicit ideology of systematic racism that says you have to behave in a certain way. Or on the opposite, when you have, which I love this show, and I know a lot of people didn't like it, but the society of the spiritual negro, okay, where you have to always placate and have this comfort that you have to give to your other brethren, where you kind of say, Okay, I know that you're uncomfortable with me. So let me take it upon me to solve your comfort and give you more comfort. I'll lower my voice. I won't be so excited. You know, when we were first starting this recording, one of the things we were talking about is, no, instead, let's bring it up.

Mawiyah: 17:29

Yeah, yeah.

Sherry: 17:29

Let's not hold behind anything. We've been shunned so much, we've been shut up so much. We have been told to be silent ever since you laugh in a barrel, and we've been told don't laugh in a barrel, right? I don't want us la I want us to be loud now. It is so Tom. Okay, it is, it really is, it really is. It is.

GDC: 17:52

Did you say were you ready for this? Oh, you know, this is exactly what I was waiting for because for a very, very long time now, um there needs to be conversation, right? We're all talking about we need to have conversations about you know, different people that are other. We need to have these conversations. And then everybody goes, crickets because nobody knows what to say. And you know, and and this type of thing until you pick up this book. Well, you know what to say. This book, you know what to say. She is inviting us into sacredness of lived experience without pulling any punches. Absolutely. That's what I love about this. Fierce. Fierce. It's like, oh, you wanted a conversation, and it's almost like this is how I see it, Mawiyah. You're sitting at this table waiting for people to have this conversation, and nobody's saying anything because everybody is like afraid to say anything, and you're like, okay, well, let's talk about uh white supremacy, let's talk about marginalized groups, let's talk about the LGBTQ. Let's talk about like what else do you want us to talk about? So it is so beautiful because that's why I call you a goddess, because you're just like, well, let me bring up the topics that we actually need to address. That's why I call you an educator, because you call it out. And yeah, powerful. For me, my voice is still developing. Like it wasn't until about five years ago that somebody looked at me and said, Oh, what do you want to be called? Do you should we call you indigenous? Or should we call you First Nation? Or should we call you, uh, what else? Do you like the name Indian? And to be honest, I wish I had so much fire because I looked at them and I thought to myself, wait, I got a say in this? I didn't know. I didn't know that I I don't know what I want to be called, but thank you for asking. And and so my voice is still trying to find the development with the with the red body and and with the Navajo-ness. And I have a lot of conversations with Sherry about this. And and Leah just is like, oh, that let's go into it. What how did you get your how did you find the courage to come out as a voice going, here guys, this is what we need to talk about. And by the way, young ones, if you are having difficulty, here is the truth. Here is the truth. I refer to your first book as like an encyclopedia that you can go through to start finding like, why does my body feel like this in a certain situation? Right. And then you give us the history of why different situations. So, anyway, that's a horrible question. What gave you the courage? But this took a lot of courage, and I am an ally for you.

Mawiyah: 21:13

Yeah. Um, for me, it was always both books were about sitting with my ancestors, you know, forming this circle and having this ancestral time. And my grandfathers always came forward, right, on both sides. And so it was a lot of um just talking about their own experiences and saying that the people need more, right? There should be this opening where you just go into what's happening now, but tie it to a lot of you know what we've gone through and how we've relied upon those individuals to help pull us forward. So it was, you know, talking to clients, talking to people, talking to family members after that, and just really building a sort of an outline, you know, on what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and um being, you know, asking them, were they okay with you know the inclusion of it? And uh, you know, everybody said yeah, yeah, because they felt like you know, their stories would resonate with other people who were feeling dealing with some of the same things. So for me, it was it was just um, I guess I really wasn't fearful. Um, I knew that it was gonna be a lot. And I, if anything, I was worried that they would say it was too much, you know, it would be too big of a book, but then they were um, they were like, we're good with it. And I was like, okay, you know, um, and I wanted to have not just um formulas and you know the biographical information or the client, but wanted to also include um the book list, you know, and other things that they could use in as well, because um, you know, like you talk about transformation of ourselves, right? Uh being a spiritual disruptor is a part of where I am now in this. So it's I utilize all of my Yoruba understandings, I utilize the centeria, all of that. Um, but also the hoodoo and and then just the, you know, whatever comes, right? It's it's whatever comes. If it's the palombi, whatever it is, you know, becomes a part of you know what I'm actually doing at the time. So for me, um, it was just, you know, the need to have other people understand that it just doesn't end with doing the work, you know, whatever you find in the book. It's also about educating ourselves, right? Educating ourselves to our past, our present, um, how we look at things, you know, transforming, you know, our reality. James Bowman talked about transforming the reality. If we can transform how people see reality, then we could transform and change how we see the world, right? And so I really feel as though uh for me, it's about reading and keeping myself, myself educated. A lot of young people ask, can they use the book as activists? Um, I had a young man recently at the book signing in New Orleans, and I said, yeah, definitely you can. But also don't just look at the work, look at the reading list as well. And you might want to center your group around, you know, a book at a time, you know, and start to get that information from that as well. So for me, I wanted it to be a manual for everybody, no matter what age you are, right? I wanted us all to be able to pull it in and do the work, whether we're together, you know, you might be somewhere in another city, another state, another country, but we could still set aside time to do the works together. And then that, you know, and creates this vortex, you know, where we can have that to manifest change in our lives.

GDC: 24:34

I love that. I absolutely love that. Sherry, do you have anything?

Sherry: 24:40

I, you know, that that courage again, this is this is something where I'm still getting my education. And I was raised in a certain way where I was told, you can be Church of God and Christ black, but you can't be Yoruba black. Right. You can't be African traditional religions black, because that will push you over the edge. That'll make you more into those Mississippi roots, those roots of your father, that kind of thing. So it took me until I was in my late 30s before I would even embrace because I was like, I'm Christian, I'm just like you all. I wanted to still pass, I wanted to still write. And so for me, it was that courageousness of looking at your reading list and saying, look at how much I don't know at 50. Look at how much I don't know. So I applaud and thank you for your courageousness for those of us that didn't get brought, and you're now saying it's okay, it's not too late.

Mawiyah: 25:46

Yeah, yeah. I I was, you know, I think for me, like I always I grew up um and I went to Catholic school. So I can remember being in second grade and the bishop, Bishop Perry at the time, who was a black guy, he would talk about Marie Laveau as being a saint, right? And um, and so that for me, it stuck with me. And I remember sitting down to write this book, just actually going back to those ideas where the two never should mesh, right? You would think, right? Nobody else would say that. Nobody else said that. And um just the fact of understanding that and then saying that I can, you know, practice the Yoruba culture and still do this, right? I can bring this over to here. This can jail, you know, and I tell people that because people often ask, well, is it okay that if I do this? And yeah, why not? You know, the more power, you got more power if you're using it all, right? And you're using it in a way to change your world and hopefully the world of the people you love and your community and all of us, right? So it all blends together. And and once we do it, when we say those words, whether we use the Bible, whatever, if we write it in ourselves, when we say those words, it becomes a spell work. It becomes power. Now we are reconfiguring. I always say reverse engineering the language, right? The language that was supposed to keep us subjugated, supposed to keep us enslaved. Now it's in our mouth. And I say to people, it's like somebody breaking into your house, right? They break into your house and they drop their gun. You're not gonna pick it up and give it back to them. Right, right? You're gonna pick it up and use it on them. Well, that's the way we do these words. That's how we transform this language, right? So this biblical language that people are afraid of oftentimes and say, well, we can't use it. It shouldn't be a part of this because I've I've pulled away from that. You're reverse engineering it, baby. You're using it now, and now, now it is taking on a new form. Because now it's no longer in the mouth of the oppressor, it's in the mouth of those who are oppressed. Absolutely.

Sherry: 27:46

And isn't that exactly what we did um when I was writing Who Do Guide to the Bible? That was the main cause was my father who passed away when I was 16. He always would tell me that you don't use those words that are in the Bible to continue to put you down. Right? This was come from a legacy of ancestors that wanted to empower you and lift you up. Yes, yes, yes.

Mawiyah: 28:17

Which is why when when when they were saying, when they were giving us the Bible, right? They took courts out. Right. That's why they had this nigger Bible, this you know what I'm saying? Right. They didn't want and that's why they sat inside the churches for so long. Just like, you know, what happened. They were watching, right? Because they didn't want you to have any empowerment, right? They wanted to make sure you you reverberated, you said exactly what they wanted you to say, the passages that they could thought would keep you, you know, at bay, and then they would go on about their day and have their service, right? And that was supposed to be it. So, yeah, transform that language, you know, absolutely and it's and it's all of the the languages when we talk about it, because when if we're here or living here, then we're not you know that kin to the Yoruba language. We don't know it that well, right? So we can recite it and we can we can see what the meanings are, but we still have to pull it in. We have to become indoctrinated into that language. We have to transform that language to where we are right now. When I do divination for people in Europe, I'm talking about where you are here in this in this place, right? That we call the West. You know, I'm not gonna divine for you and tell you to go get roots and and earth, you know, again to where they are in Europa land. I can't do that. We you can't do that. I have to talk about what's here, right? What is right here. And if that is, you know, you gotta go get some collard greens and we're gonna wash those and we're gonna do that, you know, whatever that is that we're gonna do. We're gonna use what's here in this space. And so we do that same thing with the language. So it it all is necessary. It is very necessary. It it it will heal us, right? Yes, and it has also the potential to send out, you know, against our enemies whatever it is we want to send out against them.

Sherry: 29:54

Absolutely. It is the ultimate love of deliverance.

GDC: 29:58

I love it again. Listeners, what you're listening to is not just some spiritual woo-woo. What you're listening to is embodied spirit through ancestral understanding and being able to move forward in your life right now, which makes it less spirit over here on Sundays and spirit embodied here. And let's move forward in the ancestors. So I do want to get into like what you want to share with the people in just a minute, but before we do, for the listeners, who is allowed to read all these beautiful books with Sherry shown that hoodoo lady and the contract. Who is allowed to out of respect? Out of respect, I am in your grandmother's home. What can we touch? What can we look at? Who is allowed to read this book in each of your opinions?

Mawiyah: 31:04

For me, I think that when I think about reading, everybody should read it, right? For me, most importantly, everybody should read it. Um, I've always I'm always asked that, especially by white people, and I say, well, now you can get a better understanding of an appreciation for the spiritual practices of people who don't look like you, right? As opposed to what you see on TV or what you conjure in your mind, right? You can actually see for yourself that it does have a basis in reality, right? It is a practice that is sustaining and why, why it was necessary. So for them, I I look at it as more of a historical understanding, and hopefully that they can get a deeper appreciation and stop appropriating um practices that they don't fit into. Um, but for people of color, I think if you we've all dealt with this old subjugation, right? We've all dealt with um oppression and colonization. So in growing up in New Orleans, I always was taught to give reverence to the Chittemacha tribe, right? And they helped the native, the African people, um, you know, when they were trying to get away from plantations, right? Um, showed them how to use the cayenne pepper, right, to make sure the dogs, it got into the dogs' nostrils and everything like that. So the hoodoo became a part of both groups of people, right? It became their understanding and their blending of their ideas about how to use the herbs in that area. So for me, it's a it's for people who have dealt with the subjugation, who understand what that is like. And um, it's it's not uh that white people can't do things, but I always say you have folk magic, you have your practices, right? You have what, and they'll say, Well, I just want to do this, or I wanna, you know, and then I I will say, well, now we're getting into the colonization pack part of the story, right? Where you're trying to colonize a practice, you just want to own a practice, right? And so that is not, you know, learn, educate yourself. If you're doing that much, then you're doing what you need to be doing. And then when you are able to speak up, when you're in communion with individuals who look like you and there's none of us around, right? You're able to be really to speak up and move from being an ally to actually being an accomplice to our, you know, to our freedom and our liberation, right? Because now you're saying those things to those people when we're not there and calling them on it, right? Calling them on the fact that you might not have any um person of color, you know, a poo-practitioner, Europe practitioner, whatever on your panel, right? Or you might just have once, just have a token. Now you can say, no, we need to have more than that, right? You have a reason for saying those things. So it becomes an educational tool for them. And that's the way that I have been taught for me. Um and it sits well with me because I'm good with saying you have, you know, your own, you know, practices and do your thing, and I can do my thing. Sometimes things do overlap, sometimes herbs overlap, and that's okay. It's okay to say I have mine and you have yours. If it's not okay, then you need to check yourself, right? You need to deal with you, and you know, I I can't help you deal with you, you know, because now we're getting into the fact of you trying to own something, and this is hoodoo, it's not on an auction block, you know, it is not out for the highest bidder, it is it was not born from that, right? So you have to respect that.

Sherry: 34:27

Well, yes, and yes, and yes, yes. It when I was first writing, I would voodoo for everyone. It originally was not called that, and it was more about making sure that ancestors, heroes, and heroes would be more except would be more highlighted. And I remember working with the publisher, and the publisher said, Well, we want you to do what you need, but we can't make it an anthology of everything that's happening in open crash black history that might be too large, it might be, you know, whatever, whatever. And it was in my own space that I said, okay, then I'm going to dedicate the first few chapters to black history and knowing what it's like to be in a black body. Then I'm going to ask the question, as you did when we why do you want to do this? Is it because it truly is speaking to you, or because it's another thing for you to control? If it's another thing for you to control and take over and try to say, but look at me, I can do this too. That's different. Because even when we go into when I was a child, I did a book report on Lights to use films. And I remember my teacher saying, Ooh, someone similar to that is E.E. Cummings. Could you do E. Cummings? And I said, No. Why would I want to do E.E. Cummings? Well, because that's a more well-known. And it wasn't until I took my book report home and my mother said, Don't you dare write about E.

Mawiyah: 36:14

Cummings.

Sherry: 36:16

If it got put in your heart to write about Lynx and Hughes, you don't write Lynx and Hughes. And if she has anything to say, she can come talk to Nora too. So many of us, our children don't have that in their lives anymore. Right. Right? And so I want them to say, yes, it's okay for me to read this book. But also remember, you have that privilege to make a choice. Our children were indoctrinated and learning about every other history but their own from birth. They learn about Baby Shark first, and they learn about maybe Martin Luther King by the time they're 16. And that's all they learn. They never learn about the green book, they never learn about systematic geographics, they never learn about redlining, they never learn about how the black dollars there. They never knew there was a Harlem Rhinafots. There's so many. So yes, pick up our books. Start there, learn some of the reference material that we talk about, and let's stop teaching that cycle. Right? Yes. There are many black poets and artists and restaurants and things. And then maybe you'll start looking at other things too and going, well, why is it that we've never taught? Yeah. So that's that's why I say yes, please read on books.

Mawiyah: 37:59

Please read on books. I love that about both our books because what they do is they give you the benefit of understanding this historical aspect. We don't just jump into you know these works. Do this, do this, and do that, and you'll find love and you'll find, you know, we we want you to really understand, you know, how this was born and why it's necessary, right? Why it was first necessary, but why it is even still necessary today. And so I think, yeah, I agree. I totally agree. And when and when when we all come to it, not just people who look like us, but when all of us come to the to the stories, right, to the books, then they get a deeper understanding because now it's it's being written by the people who know it, who know these stories, right? And and and so it's not written by somebody who said, well, you know, my grandmother, she was friends with this little black lady who taught us this, and and so now I'm doing this because the little black lady taught me all of these things. And so um I can give it to you because it came from a little black lady, you know. So, you know, it can't possibly be there's nothing white supremacists about those things. There's nothing. Because she told it to me, and now I'm doing it, and I'm doing it for you, you know, because we we you know, we have this thing with us, right? Where a lot of times, if it's written by us, we won't get it. But if somebody who doesn't look like us comes along and says, this is it, everybody wants to run out and buy it, make it a bestseller. You know what I'm saying? And we do it with we do it, we do it a lot in our commerce with with clothing, right? A black person makes some jeans, we're not buying those jeans. What $60? I'm not paying that. White person, $60. Oh, yes, you know, these are the these are these are the jeans to wear, you know. And so, you know, we gotta stop that. You know, we have to get the information from who it's supposed to come from, right? Because that's where the blessings come from, you know, the stories that we tell, not from somebody claiming that they got it from somebody else and all of this, and it's better because it's them, right? It looks like them, so it must be it must be more authentic. You know, how can I trust you? Right. It must be so yeah, I agree with that. We all need to learn these lessons, and I find that often with people who look like us, right? Trying to fight against that that internalized racist oppression. Oh yes, oh yes. Those ideas that um I don't want to deal with that, right? That is some backwards stuff, that is some African stuff, that is whatever it is, but it's not something that I need to be doing because I'm trying to fit into Western society, right? And I have to have my beliefs have to fit in, I have to look like it, I'm gonna wear that wig, right? I'm gonna do all of these things, and I'm gonna blend in, and that anybody who comes along not looking like that, they better not come near me because I don't want these people to know that I'm one of them, you know, that kind of idea, that kind of thinking. And so I find um, you know, when I do workshops or talk to people, that um those people they'll get up and they'll cry or whatever or storm out of the room or whatever. I just keep keep moving on. I I, you know, and sometimes I get from the white people this whole victimization thing. They don't want to be confronted with white supremacy, right? And so it becomes this whole idea of, well, that was then. And I say, no, that is now, right? I I I can prove it to you. I can I can give you examples, and I do in the book of now. I talk about then, but I tie them together because they there is no there, you know, when when we have a 19-year-old black woman meeting a man and she's thinking she's going out on a date with this guy and he chops her up, right? It kills her. I mean, that isn't a back then, that is a now thing. That is now 2025. Yes, right, right. And because of because I don't like you, but because I don't like myself, I'm putting myself out there to be with this person because I'm looking for somebody else. Because everybody says online they're gonna love you, they take care of you, they want you, you know, that kind of thinking. So, you know, the book is about how we challenge ourselves to move away from that kind of thought process, right? Also about that, it's totally about that. Um, and so when I talk to younger people, we often sit down and have those conversations, young women, right? Because on the internet, there's a lot of between black men and black women, right? Yes, the young people. How are we gonna deal with these relationships? Why, why is that? Where's it coming from? You know, you don't know every black woman, you don't know every black man, so you can't possibly, you know, hate all of them. So we have those dialogues about that and how we can transform that thinking, right? Um, and so and for a lot of them, it it's a it's a new experience because they're just going along with whatever's on the internet. Social media says that's the way it is, so that's the way we have to handle it. It must be. That's not the way, right? Right. It must be right. It's on the internet, right? And so how do we challenge those those ideas? And so a lot of that's in the book list as well. You know, there are different books that speak to those things. So I, you know, for me, magic is about the whole person, right? It's about how we see ourselves, you know, it's about the emotional, even before we get into lighting candles and you know, burning herbs and all of these things. You know, what type of emotional growth are you bringing? You know what I'm saying? Are you emotionally immature? Because if you're emotionally immature, then it's not gonna work for you anyway. It's not gonna work for you. Do you mean you have to grow up first? Yeah, you need to grow up. So I do work with therapists, right? I've worked with um a you know, a woman who is a Yoruba practitioner who also wants to use the book in therapy. I work with a man who wants to use a Europe practitioner who's using who uses kind of the Calavash book in therapy with women. Oh yes. Um, so and men, right? Um, so yeah, it it becomes um uh, you know, just a dialogue about our psyche as well as as our magic.

Sherry: 43:44

Yes. Yeah, because it is so spir it is so therapeutic.

GDC: 43:49

Yeah, you know, that's that's one of the points that I love to make, is um I have this concept that I promote about the four bodies of existence, which is the physical body, the emotional body, the mental body, and the spiritual body. And when I talk to true practitioners, uh people who live and then end up writing a book about it, I see those that all of their spirituality comes out in their physical life, their emotional life, their mental life, their maturity, and that it has to get to this point that it's supposed to be all of you, you know, it's supposed to be all of you and all of the things. And you know, I so I 100% agree about, you know, you can pick up any book and just go, well, let me see what the spell is. And it's like that is not going, that's gonna backfire because you you don't know who you're praying to. Uh you don't you there's that part, you know. Right. You don't know how this is going to disrupt your dreams, your emotional, it's gonna challenge you. It's gonna so it's it really is about the respect around it all. So I didn't think may I ask you? Of course, it was okay to read your books. This is you know what? No one, because I no, I just scary question. You know, you know, it's it's actually interesting because the reason why I wrote that or asked that question is because I actually am working on a book, Shamanism for Beginners by Llewellyn. And so when I go back into my history, I'm like, well, shamanism didn't come from the indigenous Native American, but we practiced it, we just didn't call it shamanism, you know. Well, I also see a lot of European cultures practicing the same thing with the same drums, but they don't call it shamanism. Wait, if you go to, you know, all around the world, and so I've really had to stretch my mind and keep it appropriate, yet big enough. And so, and and I think what happened to me was I came down to exactly what you two wonderful women came to is this conversation about, well, maybe you're gonna read it for historical reasons, maybe you're reading it for educational readings, but if you are actually gonna practice this, let me tell you a little bit about the stories, get into the reasoning, let this magic be embodied, emotionally understood, intellectually understood, and then let's see what your spirit does. And so, yeah, that's oh, thank you for that question, Sherry. So, with that, we're about ready to wrap up too soon. I would love to hear, Mawiyah, is what would you like to tell the people today, in your own words? What has been on your heart? What messages uh do you feel is important to share?

Mawiyah: 47:18

Yeah. I think um, and this one is not on you, Sherry. This one's a water one for you. I think for me, um just don't feel like your magic has to be so big, right? That you have to get all these things and bring all these things in in order for it to work for you. I'm uh I'm a big proponent of water, just using the water, right? Pulling out that glass of water, reciting a psalm over that water, saying a song, whatever's on your heart over that water, and allowing that water, pouring that water into the earth and allowing that to go to wherever it needs to go for your healing, wherever it needs to go to protect you, um, thanking the water, thanking the water reserves, right? Where it came from, but also just allowing that to be, you know, this beacon of hope for you, this change for your life. And that's not something that costs you a lot of money, right? You just put it in a cup, a glass, or whatever you're using, and say what you need to say over it and allow it to go. And and it'll it'll you'll start to see your life start to transform the more you do it, right? And so that's a that's a practice that I try to do every morning, right? And for me, um, it's just it's just it becomes a a blessing that it's not, you know, so grand that anybody, you know, you feel like, oh, I can't do it, I can't remember to do it. You know, do it whenever you remember that day, you know, and then it becomes your protection, but it also becomes protection for the community.

Sherry: 48:43

And I'm going to go bless you on that one. I'm gonna go to the wind. So my messages for today are centered around the words, like the words of my mouth, right, that come out. And I want you all to be encouraged that you're better because you speak, you better because the words that are coming out of your mouth, the way that you speak about not just other people, but yourself. Those things are life-changing, those things are transformative, even as we're talking about Thanksgiving time, holiday time. Many of us know it's a time of remembrance and mourning and grief for us many times. It isn't about being happy and spending money we don't have. I wrote a post about that this morning because I woke up and sits with that on my heart. It's about those words. When you look at yourself in the mirror, I had a great sage woman tell me, when you get yourself up in the mirror, you know what you're gonna see? You're going to see a beautiful ancestor. Whatever you see in that, please make it that first. Don't first start talking about your acne, your scars, your oh, I'm going to work today. It's so sad. It's just a bad day yesterday, it's gonna be a bad day today. You know who you see? You see a beautiful black woman.

Mawiyah: 50:09

That's it.

Sherry: 50:10

And that's all I see.

Mawiyah: 50:11

That's it. And kiss that image. Give it a kiss.

Sherry: 50:21

Right? What does Jennifer Lewis say? She said, When I get up in the morning, I brush my teeth and I look in the mirror and I say, You beautiful bitch. That's right. That's my word for the picture.

GDC: 50:38

I love it. I love it. Oh my goodness.

Sherry: 50:44

I cursed on your show.

GDC: 50:46

No. Fuck it. We love you, bitches. I love it, love it, love it. Oh my goodness. You know, I again am over the moon. I really am happy to be alive at this point in history where people like us can come together and speak our truth and share it. That's the whole thing with belief being in beyond what you believe in constitutes how you behave in the world, but there's always something more. There's always something beyond. And if any of this kind of made you curious and you want to pick up a special book, this is Mawiya's newest book, and it is all about stories. Now we understand why, and magic for liberation. For liberation. It's hoodoo saints and root warriors. Oh my goodness. Of course, conjuring the Calabash, mystery. You want to know what that is? Pick up the book. And of course, my shout out to Miss Sherry, that hoodoo lady, uh, hoodoo for everyone, as well as the hoodoo guide to the Bible. It's so beautiful to be able to sit in circle with you, with your ancestors, and with your voice. So thank you, everyone. Be well. I will I love you guys. Hit the like buttons, all of that. Share this with somebody who you know might want to be educated andor liberated. And I love you guys. We will see you on the flippity flip.