I don’t formally claim any religion, although I grew up Judeo-Christian. I feel deeply inspired by my familiarity with Christian texts, while also being deeply moved by the Spirit and wisdom I have found in other spiritual systems and cosmologies.

Vodou, the most appropriate term, has its origins in Benin and was transported to the island of Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic) through the slave trade. As a direct descendent of the spirits of Hispaniola and as a Haitian woman, there are ancestral connections to the mysticism that informs and makes up Haitian Vodou. However, it comes to me through ancestral connection and I am not an initiate and do respect and adhere to those boundaries.

The “New Age” Movement is often just repackaged and appropriated indigenous wisdoms. I practice not just a decolonizing of spirituality, but a RE-INDIGENIZING of the ways in which I hold spiritual beliefs and practices. Before colonization told me who “God” was and who I was in God, what wisdoms May my homelands and cultures made available to me? How can I reconstruct a concept of spirit that is large enough to help me care for myself, care for others, and care for the Earth at large?