EPISODE 26 - Mawiyah Bomani
AUDIO:
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🌟 Welcome to Episode 26 as we explore the journey and insights of author Mawiyah Bomani, an 8th generation Witch deeply immersed in spirituality and the author of Conjuring the Calabash: Empowering Women with Hoodoo Spells & Magick. Mawiyah's diverse background as a writer, playwright, spirit woman, educator, and Priestess of OYA in the Yoruba system of spirituality sets the stage for an enlightening conversation.
As the host of "Fish Heads and Red Gravy," Mawiyah celebrates marginalized esoteric communities, while her latest literary creation, Conjuring the Calabash, empowers women with Hoodoo spells and magic. Throughout our discussion, Mawiyah generously shares insights from her spiritual journey, recounting early encounters with spirits and occult practices.
Raised in New Orleans, Mawiyah's education and religious upbringing intersected as she attended Catholic school while being initiated into Santeria by her grandfather, with Hoodoo deeply ingrained in her family's traditions. Drawing from her rich spiritual repertoire, Mawiyah recommends influential books on Hoodoo and spirituality.
Join us on this journey of empathy and understanding with practitioners of different traditions on the Casual Temple.
Learn more about Merrily's energy healing work at Celestial Ring Guidance.
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Instagram: @merrilyduffy and @casualtemple
Facebook: Casual Temple page
Music provided by SAPPHIRESONGS/ Pond5
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James Haskins:
Voodoo & Hoodoo: Their Traditional Crafts Revealed by Actual Practitioners
Luisah Teish:
Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals
Virginia Hamilton:
Author page at Amazon
Daniel Manus Pinkwater:
The Big Orange Splot
(Transcript is auto-generated; errors are unintentional.)
00:00:04 Merrily
Welcome to the Casual Temple podcast episode 26, and I'm your host, Merrily Duffy at the Casual Temple. Our mission is to discover our connection to the unseen world of spirit, and how that empowers us to know our true selves. But before we begin a little favor, please follow or subscribe and hit that heart-shaped like.
00:00:20 Merrily
On your favorite podcast.
00:00:21 Merrily
Platform this week we are honored to have Mawiyah Bomani on the show. Today, Mawiyah is an eighth generation Witch, deeply immersed in the practice of Hoodoo and the author of the remarkable book Conjuring The Calabash, Empowering Women with Hoodoo spells and magic. in her book Conjuring the Calabash, Mawiyah helps to demystify the practice of Hoodoo while offering accessible spells and the importance of approaching spirits with humility.
00:00:43 Merrily
And respect Mawiyah dispels misconceptions about Hoodoo and champions the appreciation of diverse metrical traditions and cultural perspectives. Stay tuned so you can bask in the we as wisdom and charm here on the casual temple.
00:00:58 Merrily
Welcome to the casual temple. This week, we welcome our guest. Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani, who has many talents as a writer, playwright, spirit woman, educator and an eighth generation Witch in the realm of spirituality. Mawiyah is an ego and medium and a Priestess of OYA in the Yoruba system of spirituality.
00:01:18 Merrily
WIA hosts the podcast fish Heads and red gravy dedicated to celebrating marginalized people of the esoteric Nicole World.
00:01:26 Merrily
We are here to talk about her latest book, Conjuring the Calabash, Empowering Women with Hoodoo spells and Magic. Mawiyah I'm so honored and happy to have.
00:01:35 Merrily
You on the mountain temple.
00:01:37 Mawiyah
I'm.
00:01:37 Mawiyah
So excited to be here. So it's wonderful.
00:01:40 Merrily
Gosh, yeah, it was just like right before we got out. I was telling if I finished your book. Oh my.
00:01:47 Merrily
Gosh.
00:01:48 Merrily
I so I'm going to we're going to totally. I'm going to totally geek out on you later, but you know so.
00:01:56 Merrily
So basically I just want to preface right, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about your sort of your path there, but I just want to set folks up because it is like the most unique I read. I read a lot of like occult and magical books, just so you know it is. So just a wonderful perspective that I.
00:02:11 Mawiyah
Right, right, right.
00:02:16 Merrily
Personally, you know I'm very ignorant of. Didn't you know? I kind of heard about Hoodoo I have some friends that for practice?
00:02:22 Merrily
But but man, it just it's like a history lesson. It's the recipes and spells. It's the wonderful stories about you and your family that's so beautiful and like. Anyway, that's just setting it.
00:02:23 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:02:35 Merrily
Up.
00:02:37 Merrily
How great I think it.
00:02:38 Merrily
Is.
00:02:39 Merrily
Oh. Oh gosh, yeah. So.
00:02:42 Merrily
So let's just kind of get you know where you feel led to kind of start and give us some sort of idea of like your the back your background and we'll kind.
00:02:51 Mawiyah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, at a very young age, probably around 5:00 or 6:00, I could. I saw it seeing spirit.
00:02:51 Merrily
Of kick it off there.
00:02:58 Mawiyah
That and you know, for a lot of people that would be really daunting and scary. I did go to talk to my mother about it because naturally, you know, when you see things, you talk to your parents and she really broke it down that she when she was younger, she could see spirit and that, you know, if you are too afraid, you know, they won't ever come back. They're there too.
00:03:18 Mawiyah
Because they need your help, and also because you know this is part of your life's work, you know, to see spirit and to be able to interpret messages from spirit.
00:03:26 Mawiyah
And so she walked me through how to deal with spirit. You know, we talked about how to, you know, have your time to be a kid, you know, to do your things you want to do and sort of to build this barrier up so that you wouldn't have to always hear the channel from from the spirit land. She was into tarot. She was into astrology.
00:03:46 Mawiyah
Heavy into astrology, she still is and so.
00:03:51 Mawiyah
You know that just sort of laid a a framework for me when I would go to school, I went to Catholic school in New Orleans. There lots of Catholic schools, the Catholic school system sort of took over in a in a way, their public schools there. But they there was this large grouping of influx, of moving black and Latino.
00:04:11 Mawiyah
Get into the Catholic school system, and earlier we were talking about this. I was talking about this with my mom and she was talking about how a lot of the funding the Catholic school system was losing a lot of the funding in the city. And so whereas they were had a lot of affluent white families, you know, you know, in the in the Catholic school system.
00:04:28 Mawiyah
They were losing a lot of families and so as as African American people started becoming more middle class, you know, they could have this option to have their kids attend the Catholic school system as well. As, you know, the Catholic schools. They start to think about how we get more kids. And so there was a lot more sort of waivers and things like that lottery system.
00:04:49 Mawiyah
Stuff like that to get kids in. So you have kids from various backgrounds attending the school.
00:04:54 Mawiyah
And so early very early was my first introduction to things like Ouija boards or spirit boards and things like that. So in the school, right, with be in the Catholic school, I remember this girl. She would always bring all these things that we thought they were just so fascinating, you know, and we could meet up in the bathroom with somebody that, you know, lean on the door, make sure the nuns wouldn't come around, and we would try to.
00:05:14 Mawiyah
So talk to anybody we could. She pulled out all kinds of things out of her pockets, right? No, I'll get you another interviewer. And he was like, what kind of bag did she have?
00:05:25 Mawiyah
Right.
00:05:25 Mawiyah
And everything there, you know. And so that was you.
00:05:28 Mawiyah
What first real introduction into what I think of as being more occult, you know, and I was really fascinated by it, by it all. You know, we did talk about protection, you know, cause you always see movies and and everybody's like, oh, let's do it. And then they leave and you know, leave everything open. But.
00:05:34 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:05:46 Merrily
We did. She was. She was. She was willing.
00:05:48 Mawiyah
You know, and eventually the non scout to whip of it and they were like, she needs to go.
00:05:52 Mawiyah
So yeah, so she she didn't graduate from the Catholic school. But anyway, you know, that was sort of, you know, that really won't let me down the path of figuring out, you know, what does it all go? You know, how do we incorporate it in a way in which it's spiritual? Right. And we're not scared of it and then still be able to tap into because, you know, the two don't always go together when we talk about.
00:06:15 Mawiyah
Religion and spirituality. It's always like, OK, you're dead, you're done. You know, kind of thing, you know, and don't talk to those people or now you're into something else that doesn't deal with.
00:06:16 Mawiyah
That's true.
00:06:24 Mawiyah
You know, and for me, I always wanted. I always believed that they had to go together. You know it. It had to be a merger of both. And so, you know, I was initiated my grandfather practice Santeria. I was initiated into the very young and, you know, a while back. And then you know Voudoun was in my family, where a lot of.
00:06:44 Mawiyah
Voodoo practitioners, and so that was just heavy, you know? It was just things that you.
00:06:49 Mawiyah
Just knew to.
00:06:49 Mawiyah
Do you know? And it wasn't. Somebody would sit down and talk about.
00:06:54 Mawiyah
You know this is Voodoo or this is Hoodoo. It was just recipes and there were things that you did and things that you know you didn't do when you went to someone's home or you invited someone to your home. You know, you didn't leave your brush out or your home out because they could take some of that hair and use it against you. You know, things like that, that you knew, you know. And it wasn't just if you were having a home party.
00:07:14 Mawiyah
It could be a Workman coming to the home, you know anybody passes through your home who may see things that you have and think that you have a little bit more than somebody else and just wanna, you know, do something to you. So it was all of these kind of.
00:07:26 Mawiyah
Sort of spells that I thought were spell work, but nobody ever really said, you know, it would spell work, but people were still going to church and they were still doing other things, but you knew that it was. It was African retention. You knew why you were doing it. You know, in that way. And you knew to, to respect everybody else who, who? Who's practitioner, you know, in a sense, they even if they didn't.
00:07:31 Merrily
Yeah.
00:07:46 Mawiyah
Cool. We come out and say I practice this. You knew that there were overlappings and there wasn't a lot of.
00:07:52 Mawiyah
You know, I growing up in New Orleans, there wasn't a lot of, you know, just shunning people for that, you know, for what you did. You know, you always knew that there was somebody in your family who knew.
00:08:01 Mawiyah
That that my.
00:08:02 Mawiyah
Grandmother does that or whatever, you know, and and and people didn't look at you kind of weird when we moved to the northern part of Louisiana now, it was it's a lot different here in this area, you know.
00:08:13 Mawiyah
There's a lot of understanding of it, but you know, there's still that.
00:08:18 Mawiyah
You know, I don't do that. You know, I'm so far removed from that. It's kind of like it's almost as if it's a, you know, some country thing, you know, it's no country thing you do. We don't do that. You.
00:08:27 Mawiyah
Know we're more.
00:08:27 Merrily
Yeah.
00:08:28 Mawiyah
Civilized. We don't do that here kind of thing. And so yeah, that's, you know, growing up, I did she, my mother was always supportive of of that. You know the.
00:08:38 Mawiyah
And she, you know, encouraged me to constantly, you know, delve deeper into it. Even if she, you know, just stayed with the astrology portion of it all, just go deeper into that and and and study within that system and figure out, you know, where it's going to lead you. Yeah.
00:08:54 Merrily
So would you say your mother was maybe your main uh main support and guidance on your path? Or were there other folks like you said your grandfather as well?
00:09:03 Mawiyah
Yeah, yeah, I.
00:09:04 Mawiyah
Would say initially, yes, my mother was my one of my main supporters along the path because like as you know, you read the book and I'm in the book when we, you know that we dealt with some spirit energy in the whole you know it was my mother who was really the focal point in terms of how to vanish that energy. You know I want to give away too much because.
00:09:22 Merrily
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's so good. Yeah.
00:09:24 Mawiyah
But you know, just, you know.
00:09:26 Mawiyah
So.
00:09:27 Mawiyah
Seeing her, you know, in the motion of doing that, you know, it really made me look at her like, you know, she's a hero, you know, kind of thing, you know, because it's like, really. And it and it. And it gave me a sense that I could, I could do that, you know, I could help other people do that because as much as I knew I was afraid.
00:09:48 Mawiyah
I knew she was fearful, but she wasn't allowed the fear to overpower her. What she knew she had to do.
00:09:53 Mawiyah
You know, in terms of, you know, relinquishing that energy from the home. So yeah, I would say that my mother and then my grandfather and my grandmother. But like, you know, like, I would always say, you know, people would do different things, but they wouldn't really label it, you know, one grandfather he would because he was a Santero. So he would say, you know, I'm going to do this and that, you know, and he would walk around in his white and but others.
00:10:14 Mawiyah
You know weren't so open with it that they would tell you that these are things that you need to remember, you know, and like you always have.
00:10:21 Mawiyah
And my sister and brother. And they never really, you know, they would listen to some things, but the ones do more teenage things, you know, kind of thing like that. And so. But I would always listen because I always felt really drawn to the information, you know, as if you know that I knew even at a young age that I would need it later, you know. And so a lot of that information, you know and helping other people.
00:10:42 Mawiyah
You know, it did wind up in the book, you know, just ways of using that information that I remembered.
00:10:49 Merrily
Oh, man. Yeah, couple things. So definitely interesting about sort of maybe what I was hearing kind of like maybe in New Orleans it's more acceptable and people kind of it's open and then you moved elsewhere and then it was like, oh, we don't really talk about that in the open necessarily. And that's like kind of I've heard a lot of different cultures.
00:11:05 Mawiyah
Like right?
00:11:07 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:11:10 Merrily
And here in America, as far as like.
00:11:13 Merrily
I've heard a lot of stories about Appalachian. It's kind of the same thing. There's a lot of stuff going on there.
00:11:16 Mawiyah
Ohh.
00:11:18 Mawiyah
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:11:19 Merrily
And super open. And then, yeah, I think it's so cool that you had such really cool guidance and that you like, you're listening to your mom right as a teenager. So that's really cool. Now, this might be a hard question because it's like, what are some of your favorite books that were kind of helpful for you along the way of your path?
00:11:28 Mawiyah
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:11:41 Mawiyah
Well, I've. I've always like, well, I'm gonna go way back when my mom was was working at A at a hotel. She was doing housekeeping at a hotel, and I would go. I was probably 7th or 8th grade and I would go with her sometime that night for night turned down would turn down the bed and put a little candy on the pillow case.
00:12:00 Mawiyah
And so there was with this one time we went and I want to say, James Haskins, his Voodoo book. But that one was there. And so I remember thinking, cause you know, sometimes when you especially in New Orleans when because this hotel was in the French Quarter.
00:12:19 Mawiyah
Right. So a lot of the hotels they'll have like a little knickknack things there for guests and a lot of it is really fluff. You know it's not really anything real, you know, but they'll have it for them because you know they expect you know, this Voodoo city. So they expect, you know, to have all these spooky things. And so a lot of things that you run across, you just laugh.
00:12:32 Mawiyah
Right.
00:12:37 Mawiyah
You sort of flip through it and you.
00:12:39 Mawiyah
But this particular book I was drawn to it, and then I remember later on the guy, one of the front desk workers, he was like, well, we're gonna put a stack of new books in the rooms. So you can have that one if you want it. Cause I really wanted it. Right. And so that one I kept. And so when I did some research, he was really researching a lot of the the culture of Voodoo.
00:12:59 Mawiyah
In in the city and he wrote a lot of other.
00:13:01 Mawiyah
Books as well you know.
00:13:03 Mawiyah
And so that one was really interesting because it was written by Black man and just in terms of his perspective on the city and how how much of the city is infused into the magic. And so I think for me it it seemed like more of a historical approach and not just the the flow, you know.
00:13:23 Mawiyah
You could do this kind of like a movie type, you know. Wow. It was more historical. And so I like that one. I'm definitely Luisah Teish.
00:13:31 Mawiyah
Jambalaya, you know, I really love that one. And so she's from New Orleans, right? So. And I remember just reading that one. I remember in between there were lots of other books that I liked, but I just never felt like they were catered towards me. You know, I always felt like they were, you know, just more for they didn't really take into account.
00:13:45 Merrily
Hmm.
00:13:51 Mawiyah
My experiences as an African American woman, and so when I read Jambalaya, I felt like that was a book that really brought, brought it home for me, you know, in terms of, you know, the city, how we do things, how we mesh, you know, a little bit of Voodoo, a little bit of this and that into it. And you do have a Jambalaya
00:14:08 Mawiyah
of practice and so that one was probably one of my favorites. There are lots of kiddo kiddie books that I like. I always talk to my kids and tell them about Virginia Hamilton. All of her books that are, they're just so, you know, spiritual and everything like that. But there's this one, and I'm and I plan to talk about it at a conference that I'm going to do, which is and. And I read later that the guy.
00:14:29 Mawiyah
Who wrote it for adults and children, and it's not really a magical it is magical. It is a magical book to me. I'm gonna own that. It is magical. The Big Orange Splot. Have you ever heard of that one?
00:14:38 Merrily
No.
00:14:40 Mawiyah
No. Well, the big orange splot so.
00:14:43 Mawiyah
This guy, the whole neighborhood, everything is the same, all the houses and everything. And so he decides one day. Well, there's a a seagull that flies over and drops some paint on the guys house. And so he leaves the spot. So neighbors are like, you gotta paint that. You gotta do something with that. Guys like he's trying to figure out what he's going to do, but he decides to paint this scene on his house.
00:14:56 Merrily
Right.
00:15:02 Mawiyah
Keep this slot and just hang around with this beautiful scene and the neighbors. Of course, they're like, oh, you've gone nuts. So they all decide somebody got talk to him. So one at a time they go to talk to him to try to discourage him and, you know, paint his house back just like everybody else. That's the whole thing is like, we had a neat block before.
00:15:10 Merrily
Right.
00:15:15 Merrily
Well.
00:15:18 Mawiyah
Happened and so one by one, when people would go over, he would have this conversation with him. You never saw the conversation happen, but the people would leave. And they would basically go do the same thing, paint their house and whatever dream that they wanted. And and when I used to read that to my kids because I think the guy I think was published in 71 or something like that. But I remember when my kids were little and I read it.
00:15:36 Merrily
MHM.
00:15:38 Mawiyah
There and you were.
00:15:40 Mawiyah
Like, that's cool.
00:15:40 Mawiyah
What's wrong with that? You know, and it's kind of to me that is a magical book, because I I think that, you know, having your own desires and your own goals and working towards.
00:15:49 Mawiyah
Thing. Or you know what? What makes us individuals and what makes us beautiful in our in our own right, right, and allows other people to see our beauty and to accept us for who we are. You know, just we don't have to all be the same. And so I I use that a lot when I talk about spirituality because we can all embrace the practices. You know if everybody else and and we don't have it.
00:16:10 Mawiyah
That means that yours is better than mine, you know, or I need to just tell you to do mine. You know, it doesn't mean any of that. It just means that we we can appreciate, you know, we can celebrate, you know each other. And so that's probably one of my favorite magical books because of that.
00:16:26 Merrily
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I definitely, I'm going to read it now. I'm going to go check it out because it reminds me of one of my favorite books is Don Quixote. Right. It's kind of a similar thing, right? He's like, everybody thinks he's nuts.
00:16:36 Mawiyah
Hmm. Yes.
00:16:38 Merrily
Right, just not doing something.
00:16:38 Mawiyah
Right, right, right, right.
00:16:41 Merrily
So yeah, that's definitely speaking to me. So I love that. So my next question is, I wrote it like, what does your spiritual or magical path look like today?
00:16:51 Merrily
OK. And and I guess that please, you know help us understand that, but like what does that look like day-to-day I guess is maybe my main question for you, yeah.
00:17:00 Mawiyah
Right. You know, I guess you know when you're when you're first initiated and you do all these things, you know, you use those labels, whatever goes with that system, you know. And so for for a long time. I remember writing when I would write on the Internet, Facebook or whatever. And I would say I'm a witch, you know. And then people would get into your.
00:17:10 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:17:20 Mawiyah
Or, you know, DM's are in your in your inbox and they'll be like.
00:17:23 Mawiyah
You really call yourself a.
00:17:24 Mawiyah
Witch you know, you know, you know. And I remember I would have to defend that term. You know, I would have to defend that and say, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I'm a wise woman. I'm a woman. Who do. Yeah. You know, I do this, and I do that and we have to reclaim, you know? And so I just feel like it's whatever I.
00:17:40 Mawiyah
Feel like I am when I wake up in the morning.
00:17:43 Merrily
Love it.
00:17:43 Mawiyah
And no, magic encompasses all of it, you know, and I just feel like.
00:17:49 Mawiyah
You know, as we get older, you know, we start to our magic just starts to grow with that, you know, and it becomes a part of everything that we do. So waking up, taking a bath or a shower and singing a song, you know, a praise or norisha song or you're of a song or whatever, it could be a rap song. You know, if I'm thinking empowerment or whatever, I'm thinking about that.
00:18:10 Mawiyah
Name then that is my magic, you know, and the and I and I don't let anyone say it has to look like this all the time. Because you're an Orisha Priestess. So you need to do this all the time. You need to look like this all the time. And I just. I'm out of that. You know, I'm to the point where I.
00:18:26 Mawiyah
Feel like if I want to do that, if I want to sing that song, then I'll do that. If I want to sing a raunchy song and still be empowered, I will do that too, you know? And so for me, it's just evolves each day. And, you know, over a couple of coffee, I will say something over water, wine, whatever I'm drinking. If it's a shot of tequila, you know, I'm just.
00:18:46 Mawiyah
It's just it's just an evolution of things and and I tried to do that also with the.
00:18:51 Mawiyah
Look, make it so that you didn't feel as though you had to be committed to a specific system in order to understand or in order to engage with the work you know. So we're always on the move. We're always doing different things and and and I don't have the time to, you know, just pull out a certain look and and then perform magic.
00:19:11 Mawiyah
It doesn't work that way for me. You know, I have lots of things that I want to do and then I feel like doing, you know, and and you know, like I told her friend of mine, like, she was like.
00:19:19 Mawiyah
You know, I'm wearing shorts, you know, and I really want to go out there. That's gonna do.
00:19:22 Mawiyah
It it does. Who cares?
00:19:24 Mawiyah
You wearing your your Daisy Dukes go out there.
00:19:26 Mawiyah
And do your magic, you know.
00:19:27 Mawiyah
I mean, yeah, you know, because we we get so boxed in by especially social media. Like they tell us what we're supposed to look like if we're magical people. They tell us what our altars should look like and this and that. And so, you know, then we start to fall into that.
00:19:41 Mawiyah
Realm of dogma, you know, and that's what we really want to avoid. You know, that's why we travel these paths, right? Because we want to break away from a lot of that and and a lot of it is just take your all kill stuff, you know, look like this. Do this and you know and it's.
00:19:54 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:19:55 Mawiyah
I just for me every day it evolves into something else. You know, I try to do something magical every day for my community, you know, for the world. And then I just, you know, I do. I do whatever it is that I feel like I want to do. You know, I just live, you know.
00:20:13 Merrily
Well, and I think that is like pretty much the most magical thing you can do. Be yourself, yeah.
00:20:17 Mawiyah
Right, right, right, right, right.
00:20:20 Mawiyah
Right. You know, that's the that's for me. That's the part about being a, you know, defiant. It's just, you know, going out there and still doing it, you know, still living because a lot of times people just want you to shut down and hide, you know, and if you're still showing up, then you're magical.
00:20:34 Mawiyah
Cool.
00:20:36 Merrily
Oh, that's so good. That's like a t-shirt quote. Super good. OK, so fine. We're going. You're getting to. So what inspired you to write Conjuring the Calabash in in the first?
00:20:50 Merrily
Place.
00:20:51 Merrily
You know that.
00:20:53 Mawiyah
Well, you know, I think the pandemic.
00:20:56 Mawiyah
And when we were all just shut down, I had already started writing lots of things. And, you know, submitting here, submitting there and doing some things. And then my husband was like, look, why don't you just, you know, focus on one thing that you want to do. He's like you're Sagittarius. You guys are all over the place. And so.
00:20:57 Mawiyah
M.
00:21:12 Mawiyah
A few people I had talked to about the idea, you know, doing it, they were like, well, you know, there are already books out there by other people. And what is it going to be that's going?
00:21:20 Mawiyah
To be different about this, well, you know.
00:21:23 Mawiyah
Even before the pandemic, I had lots of clients who were practitioners of Yoruba culture. Some not, but not as many as the practitioners. During the pandemic, there were lots of people who were not practitioners who were just, you know, I they go to church and now they can't go to church, you know, and they want some help. And I heard about you, you know, kind of thing, you know. And so.
00:21:43 Mawiyah
You know, the more people would talk and they would see that that it is a practice.
00:21:48 Mawiyah
That's that. It is a practice that allows you to self affirm. They felt as though it was something that they could do, you know, and it was different for a lot of people. It was a step away from, you know, sitting in a few and having someone talk to you and then, you know, you thinking in your mind that they're going to take care of it all, you know.
00:22:08 Mawiyah
I'm gonna sit here for these this amount of time and they'll take care of it and I can go home. Well, you know, when we started talking about, you know, how Hoodoo works into your life or anything, you know, African centered and an indigenous and and then they saw that, you know, I have to do some work.
00:22:25 Mawiyah
And for a lot of people, that was kind of daunting. Like, really, you know, I you're not gonna do it all for me. No. You have to really engage with your with your situation because you know it better than me. And the more trust they gain within themselves, right. The fact that they could do it, you know, I I even had some people say, well, I'm not a preacher. I'm not. You know, I'm not a ditch.
00:22:45 Mawiyah
OK, yeah, I said. Well, I'm not a preacher.
00:22:48 Mawiyah
Either.
00:22:49 Mawiyah
But you know you can do it, you know? And and they saw themselves doing it and saw themselves believing in it and using whatever songs or whatever, you know, they wanted to actually add to whatever the recipe you.
00:23:01 Mawiyah
Because they felt more empowered by it and then they would come back and say, you know, this happened and that happened. And I feel good about it. And so I would just kind of write that down. I would ask, you know, do you mind if I, you know, write this out? I'm thinking about doing something with this and it would, it would be an agreement and the more.
00:23:18 Mawiyah
People would come back the more we would share.
00:23:21 Mawiyah
It just felt like it needed to reach other people more than its group of women. You know, that were working with it and even men. I had young men come as well.
00:23:30 Mawiyah
You know, and so it just really felt like people were were yearning for something and they were yearning for a movement in their lives. Fannie Lou Hammer has this quote and I can't remember it exactly, but she talks about, you know, praying all day, getting on your knees, and you're just praying. Well, you know, God's not gonna drop it.
00:23:49 Mawiyah
In your lap, you know you have to.
00:23:51 Mawiyah
You have to get it, put it in motion. And so I I think for a lot of them, the more that they saw that they recognize that this is a serious practice and that they could be part of a serious practice that allows them to be in control, more control of their own lives.
00:24:06 Mawiyah
It's then they were open to it and so that made me really want to get the book out there so that other people could.
00:24:12 Mawiyah
See that as well.
00:24:14 Merrily
Yeah, yeah. And you do such a wonderful job. Like the a lot of the spells or recipe use or? Yeah. How? However you want to look at them, there's a lot of it. It's like, wow, you can.
00:24:24 Merrily
Find a lot.
00:24:25 Merrily
Of the ingredients in your kitchen.
00:24:26 Merrily
So you can really just get started and then that's part.
00:24:27 Mawiyah
Right, right.
00:24:29 Mawiyah
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I wanted, you know, I didn't want people to feel like, you know, where do I find this? You know, this new.
00:24:37 Mawiyah
Yeah. Where do I get this?
00:24:38 Mawiyah
Right. You know, I didn't want those because then you know, you get.
00:24:42 Mawiyah
Then you it's easy for people to roll.
00:24:44 Mawiyah
I can't do it. I don't know where to go. I'm not going to a Botanica. I'm not going to. You know this shop. You know, things like that. So I really wanted it to be things that they could get and they didn't have to hide, you know? I know a lot of practitioners. They have a specific cabinet for just their ritual stuff. Well, I wanted it to be, you know, especially for newbies. Right. New people come into it. I didn't want it to have to be where I have to hide this.
00:24:48 Mawiyah
Thank you.
00:25:04 Mawiyah
I don't want anybody to see what this says on this bottle. Well, if you using cinnamon, you can use cinnamon for anything, right? Just feel it and you. So I wanted those kind of things. You know, I I really, really try to make it easy.
00:25:17 Mawiyah
And less fearful for people so that they wouldn't have, you know, a chance to say that I can't. You know, I really wanted to take a lot of that away from it. So a lot of the spells, a lot of the recipes, a lot of it. If y'all keep saying you can focus on things that you already have in your cabinet at home, you know, and start there and and you can see the magic and all of those things.
00:25:23 Merrily
Great.
00:25:37 Mawiyah
And for a lot of people, they use a lot of those things and they they, they resonate with them in those ways, like the sweetness of cinnamon sweetening your life, you know, things like that. So, you know, they can. Can I see that? I had a lot of people say that, you know, I I ain't adding that to a tea, you know, and saying something over it, that's OK.
00:25:55 Merrily
Like a prayer.
00:25:56 Mawiyah
Right. And you say, yeah, it's kind of like that. You know, if you want use a prayer with it, you can too. And so they go. OK. And so that's, you know, they see that, you know. So yeah, I really, I really wanted it because I I kept going back over over things, you know, just to kind of make sure OK can they get this can they get that would that turn people off. You know I love you know the weirder name.
00:26:15 Mawiyah
Things, but I know everybody does not, and they're they're gonna, you know. And you know, we get into.
00:26:20 Mawiyah
Just how we are today. It's like ohh I can't do. I can't do it. I can't find out. I can't do it kind of thing. We throw up our hands. And so I didn't want that.
00:26:27 Merrily
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's it's so great that you really thought it through and like, so, yeah, I love that you thought about the sort of you be practitioner or. Yeah, so good. So one of the main things I thought was super cool and I don't see this a lot and.
00:26:38 Mawiyah
Ohh.
00:26:47 Merrily
A lot of magic books, honestly, is like you included a lot of sort of your life experience and very.
00:26:52 Merrily
Like and, it's so beautiful how you like just the stories of your family and yourself and your friends. Even at school, you included. Why did you think that was important to put alongside of your spells and recipes?
00:27:07 Mawiyah
MHM.
00:27:08 Mawiyah
Well, for me, yeah, I've. I've read lots of books like you, you know, with, with spells and things. And. And when I when. It's just like a recipe book to me. It's it's good, it's good, no doubt. But for me, I just feel like when when talking to newbies or even people who are still practitioners, regular practitioners.
00:27:27 Mawiyah
It's it makes it more.
00:27:30 Mawiyah
It makes it seem more open. It makes it seem more accessible. Myself and my thoughts. And I'm not like I'm sitting in some high chairs somewhere, you know, talking till you do this recipe like this. You know? So it it. It just gives you the chance to see that, you know, we all have to constantly, you know, you know work our magic.
00:27:49 Mawiyah
You know, you don't just work one thing and then that's it for that, for, you know, the rest of your life, you have this abundance, and now you don't have to worry. close the book. You know, we're we're constantly, you know, clearing up things because these things come back, you know, the universe, you know, all kinds of things happen. They rehab.
00:28:04 Mawiyah
And so for me, I just felt like if they succeed, you know, a lot of my own life, you know, my own transitions, things that I've experienced and how I've had to go back and to reassess and, you know, work magic again for myself, as well as encountering other individuals, friends and family members who also were along the same path.
00:28:25 Mawiyah
This happened and then I did.
00:28:26 Mawiyah
That and it got better, but then, you know, 10 years later, this happened again and I just felt like it allowed people to see the realness of it all. You know, when you just opened the book with just the spells and the magic and things like that, you think, OK, this is this is it for some people, that's what they think. OK, this is it. And then when when it's not it they go back and they say, well, this didn't work or that.
00:28:47 Mawiyah
Book didn't work or I wanna give that author a bad review because you know, I tried that spell, and that spell does not work. You know, that kind of thing. But I really feel like.
00:28:55 Mawiyah
You know, we live in a world where we're constantly bombarded by things you know, and there's no one fix for at all. It's not going to end at all. If it was, you know, we wouldn't need any of it, right. And we could just go to one thing and we're done, you know, and it it just doesn't work that way. And so I I just feel like if I bring them into my world and let them see that, you know, my life is messy too.
00:29:02 Mawiyah
3.
00:29:07 Merrily
That's right.
00:29:15 Mawiyah
You know, and I fix it. And then it it gets messy again, you know, down the line. And it's not because I didn't fix it right. You know, it's just because we're living. And that's what happens.
00:29:26 Merrily
Yeah.
00:29:27 Mawiyah
Yeah.
00:29:27 Merrily
Yeah. Oh, I love how you explain it. It's making me think like, yeah, when I've done sort of your spells or rituals, I have sort of the end goal in mind. Right. And then I loved how you talked about earlier. Like, you know, yeah, you have, like, the end thing that you want the result, but you actually have to take the steps to get there. Yeah. And then so.
00:29:42 Mawiyah
Yeah. Yeah. And even then, it's not done, you know.
00:29:46 Merrily
Yeah, exactly. Because you get there and then.
00:29:48 Merrily
You're like well.
00:29:48 Mawiyah
Right.
00:29:49 Merrily
I was like, I'm here, but now it needs to be better, yeah.
00:29:50 Mawiyah
No.
00:29:54 Mawiyah
I remember our our it was a girl. She was probably about 17. And so I had worked with her mom. And so we were doing some stuff for her. And so she was like, ohh yeah. And, you know, for the whole year everything was good. And so she, she was like, oh, you know, but the next year, things got. And I said, well, do you one.
00:30:11 Mawiyah
Yeah. And then that's it. Like like once a year, once a month or once a week, you know, or one one in your lifetime, you know. And she laughed and she was like, what, like, you know, things like that. And so I'm like, well, that's the same way how magic works, right. You know, it's going to help you. Then you're going to have to, you know.
00:30:32 Mawiyah
Clean it up again. Some things are gonna happen again and some different things. You know, the next year, your senior year of school, some different, some new challenges arise, you know and.
00:30:41 Mawiyah
So how do you?
00:30:42 Mawiyah
Meet those challenges, right. And maybe some of the same things that we cleaned up the last year, but new people, right, and and the appearance of new.
00:30:49 Mawiyah
People. So you still have to clean those things up again. And so that's the way that's what I had hoped that people would see when they read those stories as well. You know, just that whole thing of, you know, yeah, it works. But then you still have to go back. And there gonna be times where you gotta clean it up again, you know, and and that. And that doesn't mean that you're any less stronger.
00:31:10 Mawiyah
You know or any less wiser, you know, or your magic doesn't work. It's just because we live in the world and and that's what happened. It's part of living.
00:31:18 Merrily
Yeah, for sure.
00:31:20 Merrily
Yeah. And I think that just the way that you've incorporated, I we mentioned this on our other chat or I mentioned it, I should say that I thought the way.
00:31:29 Merrily
You.
00:31:30 Merrily
Wrote like the story of your family. I'm like, oh wow, I could see like a movie or a TV show. It's just so cool. And then you have, like, the.
00:31:39 Merrily
Backdrop of New Orleans and and then just the history of your oh, it's so good. I'm so. I'm so happy that you put that in there and it's amazing. So thank you.
00:31:49 Mawiyah
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
00:31:53 Merrily
So I know one thing that you pretty early in the book, which makes sense that you mentioned is to introduce yourself to this spirits before you start working. And I thought like that is the best advice I have ever ever heard because I don't recall that ever.
00:32:07 Merrily
Being in any of the books that I have read. So.
00:32:09 Mawiyah
Hello.
00:32:11 Merrily
Why do you feel that it's important in who do? But then in any of you know any practice?
00:32:18 Mawiyah
Well, because I think a lot of times that I have met other practitioners of anything, you know, talk to other people, it's always been this whole thing like.
00:32:27 Mawiyah
So, you know we're in charge, right? We're in charge. So we get to have the same, you know, and I'm thinking or asking for this higher power this myself. You know, I can remember being a newbie and thinking sounds pretty right. You know what I mean? But I just think that, you know.
00:32:46 Mawiyah
They they have such an unseen power, this unseen force, right. And it's important that we come to them, you know, with compassion and that they know who we are. And and I tell people that even when they're working with.
00:32:59 Mawiyah
Their ancestors for the first
00:33:00 Mawiyah
time or the 70th time. You know you still want to come to them, you know, like, like as if you were coming to your grandmother or child. You coming to an elder. You know, you want to let them know that you're here. And for what purpose it is and give them the chance to say, OK, yeah. I I'm going to work with this, you know, situation that you.
00:33:21 Mawiyah
Present it or I'm going to pass it to the next ancestor. And I think Spirit is pretty much that same in that same for me it's always worked in that same vein.
00:33:30 Mawiyah
You know, in the richer culture, you know, we a piece issue and then you decide where where else it needs to go. When we have tornadoes where I live, we always talk to Eshu first to ensure that our message to Oya, who handles that. She hears it, right? He is the one who carries that information. If you go to the Orisha before him.
00:33:51 Mawiyah
Any other Orisha before him?
00:33:53 Mawiyah
It's not going. It's like, you know, Charlie Brown, teacher talk, you know, because he has to allow it to be. And so I think for me, you know, introducing ourselves to spirit, introducing ourselves to the energy, you know, it allows the energy to see that we come in peace and that we don't hold ourselves as greater than the power that we are asking.
00:34:14 Mawiyah
More you know, because I think a lot of people, you know, I've met people who are like, well, you just tell them what to do and they're going to do it. And I'm like, no, I don't think that that, that that works pretty well.
00:34:26 Mawiyah
You know that's not my idea of how it works, you know, cause I've seen things backfire for people, you know. And then when you ask them.
00:34:33 Mawiyah
Well, how did that situation play out? Like what happened? And then they go into where I just got up and I lift these candles and I told them. And I'm like that part right there. Yeah. It's that part that that, that I told them, you know, the finger point, the finger pointing part, you know. And so, you know, for me, I think that.
00:34:46 Merrily
Yeah.
00:34:52 Mawiyah
So you you allow them the chance, like I say to say, you know, I'm the one to help with this situation or we'll find someone else who will, you know, another energy or whatever, you know, and and then see as well, you know, you know how your magic is working, how your connection is working. You know, do I need to.
00:35:12 Mawiyah
Work more on the ancestral side. Before I put another energies.
00:35:16 Mawiyah
You know, I always teach people that the ancestors are your first line of defense. And so you want to develop a a great rapport with your ancestors, and then they will protect you in terms of when you need to work outside of their realm, you know, with other energies and things like that. But if you don't have that report, then that won't work.
00:35:37 Mawiyah
Or you you know, you you're you're kind of like you're going into a gunfight with a knife, you know, you know what I'm saying? You just, you just you're, you know, you might not make it. You know, you might get a few, but you know, in the end.
00:35:50 Merrily
Yeah, you might like lose and yeah.
00:35:51 Mawiyah
Kind of thing, right? Right. You know, and so.
00:35:56 Mawiyah
You know, and and then that's a big debate. You know, there are lots of people who feel like they should go straight to spirit, and I don't have to deal with ancestors, you know, and I mean, it's it. It's, you know, I'm here not to tell anybody what to do. But for me, it's always been my ancestors have always been very protective, you know? And so I will go to ancestors first and then we will go to.
00:36:17 Mawiyah
To whatever day it is, we need to go to. When my daughter, my oldest daughter, was applying for medical school in Havana.
00:36:24 Mawiyah
We had to go to New York twice and so we were like, Oh my God, we go New York round. My husband was excited because he wanted to New York. Right. And so one of the first things we did was we went to, you know, I divined. And so we went to the ancestors. And so my husband's grandfather and my grandfather both were going and my husband's mom, she had passed.
00:36:44 Mawiyah
And my husband was 13, and so they were all going well. You know, she at his my husband's mother he.
00:36:53 Mawiyah
Very early in her life, she had finished high school, but she wanted to go to college, but that never happened for her, and she was really smart and kind of like the whole family. You know, they rallied around her. She was going to be the one for them, right? So she really wanted to go. When my daughter had to do the the interview process, she wanted to be there with her for that, for that.
00:37:13 Mawiyah
Fortunately, that's what she got through that until he got through the first part of it. Then you had to go a second time and his grandfather wanted to go that time he had been to New York because he had been served in the war and New York was his last stopping point. And so he wanted to go back to New York and.
00:37:29 Mawiyah
So when we would, when we went out that night before, she had to do her last little loop before they said, yeah, and they he wanted a glass of whiskey and we left a glass of whiskey on the table. So she got in. And so after that, we were told to a piece she had to piece her shell go. So we went through the ancestors and then she went through her. Reshad, which is shongo.
00:37:50 Mawiyah
We didn't go to Shongo first. We needed that protection of ancestors and then we could move into spirit. And so I always try to encourage people to introduce yourself.
00:38:00 Mawiyah
You know, to your aunt because a lot of them, my daughter has never met her grandmother. You know my husband's mother. But she wanted to be there, you know. And so that was a that was a beautiful moment. But it was also showcasing the fact that you have to introduce yourself to spirit. You have to start in your lineage and then you move on. And so I find that.
00:38:04 Merrily
Right.
00:38:20 Mawiyah
When you do that, then you humble yourself and as you are able to humble yourself, then you're able to open yourself up for whatever the beauty of the magic is that they will give you.
00:38:29 Merrily
Yeah, well, that's wonderful. That's such a beautiful story about ohh your daughter and oh, that's so great.
00:38:37 Merrily
I do have a question because now I know that you're talking about working with ancestors, and that's part of sort of my path. But you know, I'm sure I'm not unique in this situation, but my kind of immediate ancestors are kind of a bit troubled, right? Yeah. So how would you?
00:38:50 Mawiyah
Right.
00:38:53 Mawiyah
Yeah. Oh.
00:38:54 Mawiyah
Oh.
00:38:56 Merrily
I know you.
00:38:57 Merrily
You do address this in your book for sure, but as far as like so the broader audience might understand. Like, how do you, how do you work?
00:39:02 Mawiyah
Right, right, right, right.
00:39:04 Merrily
Through that, if you.
00:39:05 Merrily
Like you know what I'm saying?
00:39:06 Mawiyah
Right, right. You know, and it you know, because I always tell people they just like us, right. You know, we we have some people that we don't want to invite over for the holiday, even though they're our family.
00:39:15 Mawiyah
We know we we're not invite them. And so I I look at it that way you know because you know when you think about it, the parallel between life and death it's it's we're pretty.
00:39:24 Mawiyah
Much the same.
00:39:25 Mawiyah
We just can't see him, you know. And so I, I don't. I don't put the troubled people on my altar space. You know, I do say words for them.
00:39:35 Mawiyah
Or I may light a candle and and have a little bluing water, and I may say words for those individuals, because I do want them to heighten themselves and to learn. But it's not for me to say how long it will take for them to learn to be a better person. You know I can't.
00:39:49 Mawiyah
Oh well, she's better now. I believe it. Let me put her up there and then, you know, she starts telling.
00:39:53 Mawiyah
Me to do.
00:39:54 Mawiyah
Silly things, you know, so to.
00:39:55 Mawiyah
Right.
00:39:56 Mawiyah
Repeat, you know, right? Yeah, you know. And so I always tell people just you have to, you have to just make peace with that. And the part of the the work that you do for them is, you know, try to move them into a space where they can be surrounded by those.
00:40:11 Mawiyah
Other ancestors who are good, you know, and who can help show them the way. But that's what you do for them, not.
00:40:13 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:40:17 Mawiyah
Think that you're going to clean them up and put them up there, rehab them, you know, ancestral rehab and then put them on the hooks with them. Work that way. You know, we just have to make our peace and leave them over there, you know, kind of thing. And you know, that's what I do, you know, and we all have to do it at.
00:40:32 Mawiyah
Certain certain points, you know and.
00:40:35 Mawiyah
And it can be difficult, especially if it's.
00:40:38 Mawiyah
Close relatives you know, and later on they.
00:40:40 Mawiyah
Just brought all this.
00:40:42 Mawiyah
But you know, that's the one of the best things we do. We send them to be with other ancestors who can help them, you know, repair their own mistakes within themselves, you know, and that's what we do.
00:40:52 Merrily
For them, that's so great.
00:40:55 Merrily
Of that? Yeah, because I do think I feel like sometimes there's a little bit of of I've kind of heard different stories that I'm sure you have too, like, oh, they have this other like perspective now and they, you know, they get better, you know? And and it's like, that hasn't been my experience even in.
00:41:08 Mawiyah
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:11 Mawiyah
No, hasn't been mine either, OK.
00:41:16 Mawiyah
Yeah, like I always tell people also, they went to ancestral rehab. Now they're.
00:41:19 Mawiyah
Good, you know.
00:41:21 Merrily
Wow, cool. Yeah.
00:41:22 Mawiyah
OK, right. OK.
00:41:24 Merrily
Oh so.
00:41:24 Mawiyah
You know, yeah, you know, and I've I've encountered people who said. Yeah. And I just put them up there and then they'll start seeing what this happened and that happened and, you know, and my husband, he was taking only one drink and now he's drinking the whole bottle. Just this person. Right. And I'm like, he hates them off to y'all too. Not be there. You know what I'm saying? Cause they're going to relive.
00:41:44 Mawiyah
Their life.
00:41:45 Mawiyah
You know and and this particular person in that instance did remove them and things started to clear up in their life.
00:41:52 Mawiyah
You know, you know, you just, you know, you know. And it's one of those things where we we want to fix people and we want to believe that if we can communicate with our ancestors and we can make.
00:42:02 Mawiyah
Them better, but no we.
00:42:03 Mawiyah
We that's not our job. That's not our job. To do that, you know. You know, just like in life, people have to decide if they want to be better. You know, if they don't want to be better, no matter how much we love.
00:42:11 Mawiyah
Yeah.
00:42:14 Mawiyah
On them, we can't force them to do it.
00:42:17 Merrily
Oh gosh. Ohh man, I wish. Yeah, shout that out. You know, I always have to rehear that message too, because it's it's a sad thing you learn as you get older, but you know, ultimately what you do.
00:42:27 Mawiyah
Well, it is very true. I, you know and like we were talking about, you know, redoing things I have to constantly tell myself that too. I get in the mirror and I say it, I kid you not, you know, I say that because you want to right you so want to do that for people and for yourself. You're thinking like, you know, kind of sometimes you think, you know I messed up or or you know.
00:42:48 Mawiyah
We, you know, it can be better this time and you know, you just you set yourself up, yeah.
00:42:54 Merrily
Oh.
00:42:54 Merrily
Thank you. Yeah, that was great for walking through that. I appreciate that so much. Yeah. So what would you say is a misconception that the general population has about Hoodoo that you would like to dispel?
00:43:09 Mawiyah
Ohh, I like that one.
00:43:11 Mawiyah
People always say that Hoodoo is Voodoo. They always loop it together. Hoodoo Voodoo? Or do you do that? Hoodoo?
00:43:17 Mawiyah
Hoodoo stuff you.
00:43:17 Mawiyah
Number.
00:43:18 Mawiyah
Know and what I always say is that who? Voodoo or Voudoun that some people call it is a religion, you know it's a religious practice.
00:43:27 Mawiyah
Iand Hoodoo is not. Anybody can practice Hoodoo, Voudoun or Voodoo an initiatory practice, right? You have to go through initiations for that. Now you know what I always say is that, you know, they overlap, right? There are a lot of people who are who practice, who are initiated to Voudoun and they are Hoodoo practitioners.
00:43:47 Mawiyah
And so sometimes if they're doing a Hoodoo working, they may bring up or some of the Voodoo stuff and into it, you know, this morning I had to do a working for my husband. He was having some trouble with someone at work.
00:44:01 Mawiyah
And he was like, so and so.
00:44:05 Mawiyah
You know, part of it, because my husband is an Ogun priest. When I did the work, I sung an Ogun song over the work.
00:44:08 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:44:13 Mawiyah
So there is overlapping so you know I always tell people they're not the same because anybody can practice. Hoodoo anybody can, you know, Catholic people, people go to Catholic Church and they go home and they get their Hoodoo on. And I always say, you know, Baptist Church, you go home and get their Hoodoo on. You know who do it's one of those things. It was. It's a liberatory magic. It's about revolution it.
00:44:33 Mawiyah
Comes from that whole thing, you know, bug.
00:44:35 Mawiyah
You know no way out of making a way out of no way. You know, how do we do this when we don't know what our spiritual practice is, but we do know how to talk to these herbs. We do know how to conjure, you know, and that and it's folk magic, you know. And so with folk magic, it can be used under the basis of anything else. And so. But they're not the same. And people will always.
00:44:55 Mawiyah
Loop it together in a sentence or a statement. You're a Hoodoo Voodoo person and I go.
00:45:02 Mawiyah
You know I love Voodoo.
00:45:05 Mawiyah
But Hoodoo is not Voodoo, you know. They're totally different. Yeah.
00:45:10 Merrily
I think it's just, you know, because it rhymes so well.
00:45:12 Mawiyah
I think so too, right? I was about to say that that rhyme scheme, right, they can't. They can't help but. But it's so it's.
00:45:18 Mawiyah
Funny, because you know when? When.
00:45:20 Mawiyah
When you say when people say, well, are you Baptist or, you know, do you know, are you so are you Catholic? No. Are you Muslim? Are you? Right. OK, you're not Muslim and then it's.
00:45:29 Mawiyah
Like, well, you're Hoodoo
00:45:30 Mawiyah
Voodoo you know? That kind of thing? And it's like.
00:45:32 Mawiyah
I just have to laugh, you know? Yeah, well, yeah.
00:45:36 Merrily
Well, thank you for walking us through that. You know, hopefully we're more.
00:45:39 Merrily
Educated about that so I.
00:45:41 Merrily
Get it? Yeah. OK. So, what are some upcoming projects or events that you want us to know about? You're busy. Ladies, I'm very curious.
00:45:42 Mawiyah
Thank you.
00:45:53 Mawiyah
They gonna con and I said it right. Look at me. You know, when I first saw the name, let's say it, they give a God, they got a God. You know, I'll I will be there in Minnesota.
00:46:02 Merrily
Cool.
00:46:04 Mawiyah
Yeah, my husband's like, what do we wear? Because he's.
00:46:06 Mawiyah
Coming with me.
00:46:07 Mawiyah
I'm like, I don't know, I guess Minnesota. I don't know. Yeah, that's fun. Dresses. I know.
00:46:13 Merrily
No, no.
00:46:15 Mawiyah
Yeah. So I'm gonna be there. I'm. I am happy about that because I get to talk about using Carol for poetry, so pointing. So when I call it.
00:46:25 Mawiyah
Hello.
00:46:27 Mawiyah
So I love that and and that's one of the things that cause I I list terrible books in in my book, right my some of my favorite deck. And so when I do do readings for clients, I encourage them to write you know, take a card. I would take a picture of the cards and so I want them to keep a journal and to kind of write out what they see in terms of.
00:46:48 Mawiyah
Their situation and how that would play out in the imagery that they see. And so usually we write poetry, it could be a journal. It could be like a letter or whatever. I call it poetic Terrell, because I like the poetry part of it. But.
00:47:01 Mawiyah
You know, whatever they see when they look at it and for a lot of clients that has helped them to really come to ownership. You know how to get through this situation. So that's one of the things I'm talking about. I really love that. I'm happy about that. I'll be talking about healing altars, creating altars, spaces with deities that we don't usually think about.
00:47:22 Mawiyah
Or in African American culture.
00:47:24 Mawiyah
And so setting that up in terms of music to play things like that, but also a little background on you know how we can use these altars in our own lives, you know, to help with things like if you know you have a boss who you know just constantly on your back and things like that, you know how you can set up this space.
00:47:44 Mawiyah
And you know, work it so that you can have some, some, some healing from from that situation and things like that. So I like that one because I try to give about 10 different ultra spaces to work with.
00:47:58 Mawiyah
And magical workings of bath and things like that. Quick work you can take with you. And so I'm. I'm happy about that one as well. And then just in general talking about who do in New Orleans and how I grew up is is one of the last beaches I'll be doing there with that I'm excited about it. I'm I'm this is my first.
00:48:16 Mawiyah
Time. So I'm.
00:48:16 Mawiyah
A little bit nervous, a little bit excited.
00:48:18 Mawiyah
Get my little Norman and my little Norman was like, that's gonna be wild and crazy. So I was like, OK, I can take it wild and crazy is good.
00:48:25 Merrily
Wow. And crazy. Sounds fun, you know.
00:48:26 Mawiyah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:29 Merrily
Just gets lots of rest, you know, like like.
00:48:30 Mawiyah
Right, right. Right. Right, right. Yeah. Cause they're like, oh, you can eat. You can have this. You have your favorite drink. I'm like, OK, we might have to wait on the favorite drink. I'll.
00:48:38 Mawiyah
Be too wild and crazy.
00:48:40 Merrily
Right, exactly. Wow. So many things.
00:48:42 Mawiyah
But I'm excited because I think that the more people get exposed to the book, I think that it will allow them to step away from a lot of stereotypes about magic from an African American perspective, which is one of one of the things that I really wanted as well for the book.
00:48:47 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:48:55 Merrily
Yeah.
00:49:01 Mawiyah
I think often times, you know, we look at Hollywood and things like that and we think that magic from the African American perspective is not really high magic. You know, it's thing that people do, you know, or you know, it's just crazy. Right. And so I really wanted them to look at this book and to see that it that the practice is, you know, they do have validity.
00:49:09 Merrily
Right.
00:49:15 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:49:21 Mawiyah
And they and they they.
00:49:22 Mawiyah
Yes.
00:49:23 Mawiyah
Have a purpose and they mean something to the people who do it. You know, they're it's serious magic. So yeah.
00:49:28 Merrily
Yeah, yeah, I love that you mentioned that. Cause I I you know I like, I like reading all the magic books, all different types. For whatever reason, you know, I tend to gravitate towards, like things like the Kabbalah and maybe more Western. That's just my path.
00:49:36 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:49:44 Merrily
But yeah, there is a lot of kind of sniffing Ness around around sort of more of the either like material world magic or more earthy kind of magic, which I don't understand. Yeah.
00:49:47 Mawiyah
Yes.
00:49:51 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:49:53 Mawiyah
Right, right, right.
00:49:55 Mawiyah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I love those too. I mean, I read I read lots of Crowley.
00:50:00 Mawiyah
Right.
00:50:01 Mawiyah
Yeah, right.
00:50:02 Merrily
Yeah.
00:50:02 Mawiyah
Slots slots. I have no idea.
00:50:04 Merrily
Yeah, yeah, that's a.
00:50:06 Merrily
Lot bless you.
00:50:07 Mawiyah
Right, it it's a lot. It is a lot right. I will see things comes up. I'll watch this.
00:50:12 Mawiyah
Yeah.
00:50:13 Mawiyah
You know, so.
00:50:14 Mawiyah
You know, and I do understand this, you know, the kind of stuffiness when that comes.
00:50:18 Mawiyah
With it, you know when I read it, I.
00:50:20 Mawiyah
Get real stuffy too.
00:50:21 Merrily
Right. Exactly like a fool. I was like, what are you doing?
00:50:25 Merrily
I'm reading right? Yes.
00:50:28 Mawiyah
This magical thing. So yeah, I get it, you know.
00:50:32 Mawiyah
You know, but you.
00:50:33 Mawiyah
Know and even with that though, I I it's not like when I go to, you know, a Centuria or Apollo, my own being. I did. I go, you know, sort of like now it's trying to just down it.
00:50:44 Mawiyah
You know I.
00:50:45 Mawiyah
Still have that same, you know, interest. You know that same love and appreciation for it. It's what I really want.
00:50:51 Merrily
Yeah.
00:50:52 Mawiyah
People to see that, you know you can. You can practice this and it is serious. It really is. And and it's empowering, you know, and because a lot of times, even within my own community.
00:50:57 Merrily
Yes. Yeah.
00:51:04 Mawiyah
There's a lot of shutting from it, right? There's a lot of running from it like we talked about earlier. That's I'm not doing that. And then when you find people who do want to step into the magical realm out, you know, the spiritual realm, then it becomes, well, I can do this with uh. But I'm not doing anything like that. You know, I don't want to identify with that, you know, because. And I think a lot of it has been because it's had.
00:51:05 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:51:24 Mawiyah
At press.
00:51:26 Mawiyah
Ohh, you know the idea of doing that and thinking that that doesn't work as opposed to this must work because it's way over here, you know. And so you the spell a lot of those myths.
00:51:31 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:51:36 Mawiyah
About it and to find ways that we can work it into our lives, you know, and and and be appreciative of it. Just like we were, you know, we can do it all. We can have it all. We can appreciate it all you know. And that's and that's good cuz one day it may call for this and the next day it may call for that and that's OK you know.
00:51:53 Merrily
Yeah, great. Wonderful. I love. I love that perspective. I share it. I want us to shout it around. I love it.
00:52:00 Mawiyah
Joe.
00:52:01 Merrily
Oh, man. Wow. I love that you have so much think so many things coming up and they all sound really wonderful. So where can folks find out more about you? Learn more about all the wonderful things.
00:52:12 Merrily
What you're up to?
00:52:13 Mawiyah
The best place is to go to where they can find our Instagram and things like that. Instagram. I love Instagram. I didn't think I would, but I do like I was like to my daughter well.
00:52:23 Mawiyah
I.
00:52:23 Mawiyah
Gotta do what? Yeah, I.
00:52:25 Mawiyah
You can do this. All you have to do is that I was like, OK, OK, I will. And now I can't stop.
00:52:29 Mawiyah
Right. And so definitely they go to my web page if they go to my web, they go to my web, my web Kyle jamal.com. They can be linked up to everything and so they can see you. When I post something silly on Twitter or whatever, you know it's going on and they could just follow me on in those resources and that and I'm always posting something.
00:52:49 Mawiyah
You know whether you know? Not probably.
00:52:51 Mawiyah
Not the same time at every all every site. But you know, once at least once. Yeah, once a week once or twice a week.
00:52:54 Mawiyah
3.
00:52:58 Merrily
OK, cool. Yeah, everybody definitely follow Emilia and all, you know, all her cool stuff that she's doing because you're you're apparently do, like, a million things all at the same time and very well. So. So what? So kind of the last thing we kind of do is what are some words of wisdom in addition to the words of wisdom?
00:53:17 Merrily
You shared that you would like to leave us with today.
00:53:21 Mawiyah
I think just be open to learning new things to reading something that you haven't read in the magical realm. You know, maybe it's something that you wouldn't read, you know, but maybe you like to take a chance and you don't have to practice it, but just open yourself up to some new knowledge. You know, oftentimes we turn ourselves off and we think, oh, that's not from me.
00:53:41 Mawiyah
I'm not gonna read that, but we can learn a lot about people and learn a lot about, you know, their perspectives on life. So when we do run into situations we we can be more of an ally for that practice.
00:53:44 Mawiyah
Hmm.
00:53:52 Merrily
Yeah.
00:53:52 Mawiyah
So I would hope that people would would want to do that, you know, knowing that you don't have to practice everything, but you can be an ally to the person who does practice it and fight for their right to continue to practice as they see fit.
00:54:05 Merrily
Yeah, I love it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Mawiyah. You're such a pleasure.
00:54:10 Mawiyah
Thanks for having me. You thank you.
00:54:11 Mawiyah
Yes.
00:54:14 Merrily
It was a delight having the talented and wonderful to have Mawiyah Bomani on the show today absolutely read her book, Conjuring the Calabash and do check out the show notes to find out more about Mawiyah and all the amazing ways she contributes to our magic world. Do you remember to, like, follow and subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform? It really helps us grow. Thank you for listening and being an important part of the Casual Temple.