Imagine waking up and trying to find your home. But you look around in confusion instead because what you see is unfamiliar. I mean it looks the same. Everyone seems to be the same. Everything in its place. The same smells. But now things look different from a new set of eyes. The old life is gone. This is everything that has always been waiting to be discovered.
Imagine now that you try to find out more about your true home. But nobody understands. They look at you like you’re crazy or in fear. You just want answers but nobody can tell you. You’re on your own. But not really because we never are alone. Not when we have our spirit team on our side. Always there but we were never aware. They’re here and you get to go within to find your answers. Your journey here helped you to dig deeper into your origins.
This, as it turns out, would be my journey of learning more about my ancestry. Some years ago, I had become curious about black history before colonizers. I had become convinced that not everyone came from Africa. Some things weren’t adding up. I researched more about our history, making sure to quadruple check. I was surprised at what I was finding. Black people were in North America, in the Caribbean, and pretty much everywhere before slavery.
What came next was hearing from living family members who would have experienced the effects of slavery. The ones who would have surely heard stories about slavery. I asked my grandparents on both my mom and dad’s side. My dad helped me ask his parents. I began by asking my grandparents about their parents. If they were ever told about slavery, or if their parents, or anyone in the family experienced slavery. Because after all the timeline wasn’t that far away.
The replies were unanimous. I wish I had recorded it. They weren’t told about slavery, nor do they recall their parents or their parent’s parents experiencing slavery. “They were always in Jamaica.” “We didn’t come from no Africa.” Not that there was any hate for Africa but the responses had so much pride for where we come from. After that, I was determined to learn more.
My research led me to the US archives confirming black people (Jamaicans included) were in the US before slavery. After that, I figured I would try calling all the archives for Jamaica and even emailing them. I had to see what was archived pre-colonizers. It turned out they only had archives from 1600s onwards. Almost as if before slavery’s history was wiped.
Fast forward now to post awakening to my self. I’m already knowing that I don’t have any information about my ancestors prior to slavery. Nor did I have a way of looking up that information. But I wanted to connect with honourable ancestors from then and learn our magick. Focusing on the magick part would be easy, or so I thought.
On my quest to learn more about my magick, I did a search about Jamaica’s history. What I found was Obeah is new and illegal to use in Jamaica. How the hell did we manage to become so disconnected from our own magick. The same place the Maroons and plenty of magickal beings came from. How does that all just *poof* disappear?
Remember when I said Obeah is new to Jamaica? Well it was said to have arrived in Jamaica in the 17th century. Which begs the question: what were we practicing before that? On this journey to the past I learned more about the Indigenous people of Jamaica. The first people recorded to be in Jamaica before colonizers, were the Arawaks. They had deities, they used their magick, they lived in community, and music was a big part of the culture. This is our ancestry. This is us.
So when Obeah becomes outlawed, where is the disconnect? When our magick helped us during rebellions and being free, you have to wonder. Our history was being erased. There isn’t a clear path of what happened. But one thing for certain is that my ancestral magick is so power. So powerful that it had to be criminalized and kept criminalized to this day.
But it’s so potent that no one truly stopped using it. It’s so potent that when it got mixed with Christianity, the magick was still felt. That’s why when you go to a Jamaican church, it’s going to have a whole different energy than that of a church where someone European is the Pastor/Preacher. They tried to erase our history but it runs so deep we just made it into something new: Myal and Revivalism.
So while my Jamaican family appears to be disconnected from our spiritual path, we never truly forgot. Our magick is embedded in us and it is interwoven into our lives whether we are aware of it or not. The simplest example is of the superstitions that get passed down. Or when we catch the “Holy Spirit” or do some praise dancing, we are conjuring spirits. We are reconnecting with our Godhood and unleashing our power. When our grandparents pray faithfully, use certain protection prayers, and even those bedtime prayers, they’ve been on the right track. They just didn’t get to explore deep enough because we’ve been taught to fear ourselves.
When you’ve been taught to fear yourself, your magick, and your ancestry, you can only get so deep. We end up thinking magick lives outside of us, that it’s evil, or don’t believe it exists at all. We begin to separate ourselves from our truth, replacing it with the lies we’ve been fed. Only until we begin to question and dismantle the colonizer history do we begin to uncover our true history. We begin to uncover who we truly were and are. Queens, kings, empresses, emperors, warriors, healers, shamans, gods and goddess. Limitless potential realized. We stop relying on others that seemingly oppressed us, remember that we have always been free, and come together to create the realities we wish to see.
Our ancestors have been patiently waiting for us to remember. Many have been called but not all answer. They’ve left us clues to follow and messages to decode. If you’re seeing this, it’s probably time to answer the call. They’re calling you back home to you, clarity, and peace. Until then, enjoy the journey.
ABOUT SARAH THE GODDESS
Sarah the Goddess is an Intuitive Creative, Intuitive Coach, empath, natural energy healer, and intuitive herbalist. She is very passionate about guiding others in remembering and tapping back into their power to be the God(dess) that they are. She does this through her writing, singing, dancing, music, art, and her coaching. Through these mediums she is able to go into Trance and tune deeper into herself, the universe, and the world around her, as well as share messages for others. Through her own healing journey, Intuitive Creative Expressions was born. She holds space for spiritual creatives and those interested in creating as a healing modality to authentically express all of their emotions. She guides people through this process through creativity, emotional alchemy, and healing tools such as meditation, shadow work, inner child work, and Past Impact Work©.
