How the Ancestors Found Me Again

A seeker's reflection on ancestry, memory and the call of Spirit

Tomorrow I will begin casting the Dilogún to listen to the wisdom of the ancestors and the Orishas. I will share that wisdom with the Substack community in the hope that something that resonates for me might touch someone else who needs to hear the same message.

My attachment to Santería and the Dilogún is not a hereditary one. My family did not come from that tradition. We were African American — my maternal roots traced to North Carolina, from a long line of both slaves and slave owners. Protestant and Catholic ancestors, bloodlines that stretched back centuries and crossed the ocean from Europe, Africa, and even Asia. But deep in that history there is a thread of Nigerian blood, and I imagine that the magic and wonder I feel in the Dilogún come from those ancestors.

My family’s tradition was more spiritual — you could call it hoodoo, or what some might describe as rootwork. It was the practice of small magics passed down from my grandmother: how to use a candle to turn back envy, incense to banish negativity, and bush baths to bring prosperity and good fortune.

Clairvoyance runs in my family, passed from my grandmother to her three daughters. My mother and my two aunts saw spirits all through their childhood. My mother was afraid of it and bargained with God to take her sight away. My aunts dealt with their sight in their own ways, but the spirit world was always just behind the door or around the corner for my family.

As I grew up hearing the stories of ghostly encounters, I realized that I, too, had inherited some of my mother’s gift. Thankfully, I could not see the spirits as she did; my gift centered on interior knowing. I could tune in and tell people things about their lives that I had no way of knowing. That gift grew stronger when I began to read Tarot.

As a teenager in the Bronx during the seventies, most of my friends were Puerto Rican or Dominican. My light skin made me look more Latin than African American, so I found myself more easily accepted in my friends’ households. Colorism was real — I didn’t look Black, so I wasn’t always accepted as Black.

It was my best friend’s family who introduced me to Espiritismo and opened up my clairvoyant gifts, setting me on my path into the Afro-Cuban legacies of honoring the ancestors and the discipline of Santería.

So tomorrow I will cast the shells — not as an expert who knows everything about the Dilogún, but as a learner and a seeker of truth. I hope you will come with me on this journey as I find meaning in the wisdom that is revealed.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read “How the Ancestors Found Me Again”
Sharing my story has reminded me how powerful it is to honor the roads that bring us to Spirit.

Tomorrow I will cast the Dilogún for the first time here on Substack — listening for the wisdom of the ancestors and the Orishas.

If you’d like to walk this path with me, join me tomorrow as we listen together for the wisdom of the shells.