How Finding My Ancestors Helped Me to Find Myself

 Introduction

       Have you ever heard of something called "the Dark Night of the Soul"? It's a period of deep loneliness, despair, and often the mark of a crossroads in a person's life. For as long as I could remember, I was praying to something, or someone, whom I thought looked upon me with love - a giant benevolent man in the clouds that was omniscient, and according to the Bible made the world in about a week. I prayed to the Christian God devoutly (or whatever devoutness could look like for a 6 year-old), and made sure to thank Jesus, his only begotten son, for whom he had sacrificed to absolve everyone's sins. I also called on the Holy Spirit to "fill up" my life and lead me to salvation, in hopes that I wouldn't go to yet another hell because Lord knew my life on Earth thus far had been hell enough.

    Over the years leading up to that night, I had really taken the time to build a catalog of my life up until then. It was my junior year of high school, and after searching for answers and falling into cultish rabbit holes, I just still felt like something was missing. I was praying, fasting, veiling, abstaining from drinking and smoking, and other temptations of life. As I dove deeper into every painful event that I had locked away, I realized how deeply lost, confused, and naive I had been regarding what had happened to me. I was born to two deeply wounded individuals who were born in the 1950's; A Narcissistic, Alcoholic Father and A Codependent, Man Chasing Mother who decided that we would be better off to endure his torture and abuse rather than to seek something more out of life. I actually consider my mother to be more of a single mom, than I did a married woman, as my sperm donor had walked out on us more times than I can count.

    During the violence and through the taunting and various levels of harm, I recalled praying for it to all stop. I begged God for relief because I was told that I could lay my burdens down, and Jesus would take them up for me. Of course the relief never came, and I thought maybe I was being punished for not being devout enough. For allowing my flesh to show weakness because I had one suicide attempt under my belt which failed. I kept it a secret because I swore that day that something saved me, something more than that jump rope snapping in the bonus room closet. Something that when I looked up, shone a beam of sunlight gently across my face, and filled me with immense warmth and a strange feeling of acknowledgement. 

    It wasn't until later that I realized Christianity was a fever-dream that was packaged and sold to me as a solution to fix to my faults, as a valid reasoning to my suffering, and gave me an invisible enemy to fight against continually. What I didn't know was that my hunger for answers would lead me to something I hadn't considered because it was sold to me as "evil" and "demonic". 

Dark Night of the Soul

    I didn't have the terminology for it then but, in the words of one of my dearest friends Kah, I had been exposed to life changing violence and feral policing in my childhood, and over time. It led me to confront and dissect myself, and my life. I began to sink my head into book after book, article after article, and I combed devoutly through every version of the Bible. I settled on the Cepher, and even attempted to learn Hebrew to further aid my studies. I stumbled upon the Qur'an, the Vedas, and the Teachings of Buddha too. I had become even more withdrawn from reality, hyper-focused on putting the pieces together, and to no avail. 

    One night, in my frustration, I kneeled down to do my usual nightly prayers and I began to question Christian God himself. "What was ny life's purpose?" "Was he listening, or had he turned his face away from me?" With tears streaming down my cheeks, something clicked, a synapse connected to another and I opened my mouth and spoke words I never thought I would. "I want to speak to the real God! My Ancestors, The Universe, The fucking spirits floating around! I am tired! Is there anyone out there that can hear me? ANSWER ME! Is this a sick game, do you like watching me suffer? Does anyone even care?" I felt like I was splitting at the seams. 

    Earlier, I realized that Christianity and I couldn't exist together because it went against every fiber of my being. Every. Fiber. The colonialism, the misogyny, the way it was used to justify the treatment of my trafficked and enslaved ancestors, and more. There was no amount of justification, or rationalizing, that I could use to force it to make sense. In the midst of sitting in my room, at 2am in the morning, holding my head in my hands while crying and shaking profusely, I heard a symphony of voices come together and say "Yes." I whipped my head around to look around my room, it was dimly lit by my muted television, which I always muted before my prayers. My eyes got wide. And needless to say...ya girl was freaked out but in awe. 

Revelations and The Dream

    That night changed the trajectory of my life. My dreams started to feature faces of people I knew, and of those who resembled me but that I couldn't recall, and of beings showing me things and instructing me clearly. I would wake up and start researching what I had been shown. I began to learn about African Traditional and Derived Religions (ATRs/ADRs), specifically Ancestral Veneration, Hoodoo, and Vodou. I was still in a daze for quite a while, despite my gifts of mediumship and seeing rapidly evolving. Whatever floodgates I opened with my cries, I could not and refused to close them because I had finally been freed from the prison of silence that once enveloped me.

    The loneliness, despair, and most of the confusion started to clear up day by day. I began to feel like a human being again, and I gained a deep sense of surety about my life. I decided to dedicate myself to this journey and embrace everything my Ancestors had to show and tell me. Granted, that night wasn't a total antidote (healing ain't linear beloved) but, it has led me on a path of healing, self-love, and lifelong learning. I don't know where I would've been today had it not been for that moment. I want to share with you, a beautiful dream that I had a few nights later. 

    I was dressed in all white. The dress and headwrap I had on in the dream was a soft linen, made of pure cotton. My feet were bare against the soft, clay ground of a dirt path. I was walking steadily, not with any kind of urgency. The sky above me was blue, with clouds strewn about that looked like white tufts of cotton candy. The path was settled between lush, rolling green hills of tall grass that was waving in the breeze. The same breeze that was blowing my long, dress gently. On the path with me were my ancestors, also in white. I saw my grandmother and her sisters, and a whole crowd of faces who were smiling, dancing, singing, and happy to be walking beside me. The rhythmic drum beats made the walk feel like a celebration. We walked with no real destination, just joy in our hearts, and that was fine with me. I wasn't alone on the path of life anymore. Then I woke up, gently smiling, feeling that same warmth that I felt those years ago after my attempt. They were there for me then, and here they are now. I wish I had cried out for them sooner.