CW: Talk of suicide, death

Protection against malevolent djinn, sorcery and witchcraft

In 2015 I faced the darkest night of my soul. It was the most challenging year of my life to date, exposing enemies through betrayals and MAJOR course correcting. 2015 followed the suicide of a former lover of mine in 2014, compounding the grief in mourning my older brother who had passed unexpectedly in 2010. My brother was the last protective figure that I had, joining our father and my maternal grandfather and many others in the afterlife.

Death was not new to me. Born with a stellium in the 8th whole sign house, I had grown up around Death, attended many funerals in my childhood and helped my abuelas prepare the family graves for Día de los Difuntos from the age of 3. Yet losing my brother was a death I was not prepared for. It was a most painful growing up moment for me. His passing showed me that I was in this world on my own *for real* this time, with no one I could truly trust to support me if I was ever in danger or in need of help.

The death of my father at 18, followed by my maternal grandfather (who I was closest to) passing when I was 20, followed by one of my first lovers succombing to cystic fibrosis (when i was 22 and they were almost 25) all preceded my brother, and these were all masculine figures in my life who had immensely impacted me. My brother and I started to become close after our father died, which added to the devastation. Everyone I had loved was taken from me early on. Instead of bypassing their deaths as being “a part of life” or the “unavoidable”, instead of believing that “death is an illusion and our spirits are eternal,” I had to accept their transitions as the losses that they were to truly step into my own power.

Accepting their transitions as loss meant allowing all of the sorrow, heartbreak and disillusionment a sacred place on the altar of my heart. Accepting their loss meant allowing myself to mourn what had been, what could have been and what would never be. It meant a real acceptance of all the ugliness that comes with the shadow of grief, the betrayal, regret and anguish alongside the beauty of the mystery of our being together briefly in this life.

But then Jamie’s suicide pushed me off the edge of a deep dark pit that had been growing since as far back as I could recall yet overlooked. During moments of deep thought, I had perhaps pretended this pit wasn't there at all... until I fell into its cold embrace and could no longer see the mouth of it.

The people who came nto my life around that time were really godsends. The conversations we had and the experiences we shared all began to water the soil and roots I had ignored for some time in my spiritual sidequests since adolescence. My benevolent Ancestors were calling me back to Them through these encounters and in visions and in dreams. I started noticing cracks in the pavement that were heartshaped, finding Raven feathers and other signs that reminded me of my queridos muertos y santos, of my angels and daimones, my spirit guardians.

One of my colleagues back then in the diy recording industry would end up inviting me to connect with their Olorisha community and in the process I was encouraged to identify through DNA testing some of the origins of my maternal African ancestry. Upon learning these details about my abuelo, his sisters, and my bisabuela’s lineages, I could feel their gentle hands cloak over my shoulders as they whispered to me their guidance. They communicated needing me to return some of their spirits to the Mother Land, and that I would have to begin through Dahomey. I am of mixed heritage, with Andalusian and Corsican great-grandparents and also Scandinavian, German, Swiss and Mesoamerican ancestors. The DNA matches with North Africa, West Africa and Central Africa showed up, but mis muertos specifically instructed me to return first through Dahomey — I didn't understand it completely at the time, except perhaps it had something to do with Vodou. Since then, I have very much learned the WHYs I had to start here. One day I will write a book about everything.…

That first pilgrimage in January 2016 was steeped in prayer. Every step of my voyage I was in communion with my benevolent Ancestors, specifically my abuelo, his sisters and his mother, because it's they who I felt guiding me through this journey since it is they who played important roles in my formative years. I know them to be some of my most protective and present spirit guardians. So I prayed to them to bring me to the most reputable priests in order to consult Fa/Ifa and learn specifically what they needed me to do. Within 3 days of landing in Bénin I was introduced to the Supreme Chief of Vodun, Dada Daagbo Hounon Houna II and the rest is history.

In that first encounter with Dada, I shared pictures of my Black relatives who are now ancestors, explaining that I was looking to consult the oracle for guidance. His majesty sent me straight to the Bokonon and the first reading with them revealed things that nobody could have known except myself due to my relationship to my elders. Fa revealed that some of my ancestors who were stolen from Dahomey were actually of the priestly caste and because of this I was being called to initiation. The Bokonon described how my Ancestors had chosen my spirit before birth to be the light for the family, entrusting me with the intelligence, wisdom, courage and strength needed to fulfill this responsibility.

My entire life flashed before my eyes in those moments, everything all of sudden made sense beyond words... all of my experiences since early childhood, my sensitivity to the spirit realm, my ability to see things from a deeply animist, sacred perspective, my heart's open receptivity... everything became so clear. Fa also revealed who is in my principal spirit court, what offerings some of my muertos needed in order to transition and be elevated into the ancestral plane, and that my destiny is to reclaim the lineage of priesthood in my bloodlines.

It was a lot to take in. My impostor syndrome kicked in. In making the first gestures however, the darkness that had consumed me and manifested as clinical depression and CPTSD for the majority of my life up until that point was tangibly lifted from my soul. In turn, this warm light descended down through the crown of my head to the soles of my feet like a spiritual baptism when we made offerings to my muertos and began the initiation process. It felt like centuries of dead weight were lifted off of me in just those first ceremonies. I haven't been able to fall back into that cold dark pit of depression since, and I doubt I ever will again.

The first initiation prepared me for the subsequent ones that followed. Submitting to the priest training took some time to accept and integrate but came quick once I remained here due to the global pandemic. The geomancy training is ongoing. All of it comes with immense responsibility. So much has happened since 2016 and there's been many chapters even within this new volume of my wild adventure of a life that was begun back then. It's felt like epochs. To think that my entire life was just preparation for this part that is yet to unfold.

In 2017 I spent some time in El Salvador visiting family and preparing my grandparents’ home for my return. On that trip I collected dirt from the ancient temple grounds at Chalchuapa and the very old graves of my Afrosalvadoran antepasados buried in Chinameca to consecrate on my Ancestral altar back in the States. Motivated by intense premonitions that began in 2012, I was planning to return to my Mother Land in Central America but first I had to finish my studies in NYC. To go back to school in the City I needed powerful protection so I pilgrimaged a few times to Ouidah. I thought I had time, despite the gnawing deep sense that it had ran out.

When I visited Bénin in 2019 I was able to gift Dada the flag of El Salvador, and he graciously draped it over his throne as a blessing for my Ancestors whose journey landed them across trecherous waters and in those fertile lands of the Náhuas, Lencas, Cacaoperas and Matagalpa. I made three trips between 2019 and 2020, thinking I would return to NYC in the spring of 2020 to start summer classes I had enrolled in. The Ancestors had other plans.

The Flag of El Salvador draped over the throne of His Majesty, Dada Daagbo Hounon Houna II

They say Redirection is Protection and I have seen this prove most true for me since 2020 when Fortuna had me remain safe here in Ouidah during the start of the global pandemic. The premonitions I received over a decade ago about needing to GET OUT of the U.S.A. by a certain deadline have been the hardest to see manifest. I still have family business to tend to in the so-called Americas and will return some day, but for now I feel blessed that all those years ago I didn’t give in to the egregore’s ravenous jaws.

I will share more about my experiences in future entries. Thank you for making it this far.

By the love of our Sky-keeping Ancestors,

Naji

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