It is no coincidence that the practice of ancestral knowledge and ways has been a part of the human experience for so long. They allow you to tap into your own power and learn how to use it for your own benefit. You are not bound by any rules or restrictions when you practice ancestral practices and can do what feels right for you at that moment in time.
In this episode, Dr. Norissa and Dr. Bukky, the podcast hosts, shed some light on the meaning of ancestral practice, clear spiritual senses, ancestral resilience, Dr. Norissa’s attitude towards ancestral practices, and her advice on ancestral practices towards liberation.
Timestamps
[00:43] Meaning of ancestral practice
[13:44] Clear spiritual senses
[17:50] Ancestral resilience
[21:27] Dr. Norissa’s attitude towards ancestral practices
[24:51] Dr. Norissa’s advice on ancestral practices towards liberation
Notable Quotes
(02:09) “In many indigenous traditions, they go to a diviner to get some spiritual answer into what should be happening next.”
(13:35) “We each have eight clear spiritual senses.”
(14:36) “As you develop your capacities, spirits will speak to you through all the eight clear senses.”
(24:58) “Liberation is about claiming the parts of ourselves that we’ve lost.”
Relevant Links
The book: Writing Down Your Soul
Radical Remembering Podcast
Website: https://radicalremembering.com/
Connect with Dr. Norissa
Connect with Dr. Bukky
If you haven't listened to the Radical Remembering podcast, you should! Radical Remembering speaks honestly and openly about the practical experience of liberation. We hope you enjoy this episode and all future episodes of Radical Remembering. We understand how difficult it can be to get knowledge, wisdom, and healing on board, so we're constantly working towards improving the show. Thank you for listening to the Radical Remembering podcast! Listen to our next podcast and tell a friend about us.
TRANSCIPT
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:01
Welcome to Radical Remembering with psychologist
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:04
Dr. Norissa
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:05
And Dr. Bukky
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:06
This is a weekly conversation where we explore the ways we've internalized oppression and consider what it really means to be liberated.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:12
Each episode will leave you with intimate knowledge of the liberation process, sprinkle a little healing magic, and leave you with wisdom for your journey. What’s up you all? Welcome back to Radical Remembering. Today our topic is ancestral practice as a means of liberation. So let's start with, Norissa you are someone who is engaged in ancestral practice, tell our listeners what that is and what that means to you and what that looks like.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:44
So first, I'll start with telling how I even came to engage in ancestral practices. And so for me, it was having come from a Christian background, even though I hadn't been in the church for a while, those doctrines still reside in you if you never critically interrogate it. And so ancestor veneration, it felt like something that, you no, that's not something I would want to do, like, idol worship, and different things like that is how it was referred to or thought about anything African, how it was referred to or thought about in those days, when I was even forming opinions about it. How I came into it was not with intention or anything like that, I had, so maybe like, 10, 11 years ago, there was a student that I had, and after class one time, she was like, I don't know why, but I really feel like you would want to speak to this psychic, this reader that she was speaking to. And so I spoke to this woman, and actually I consulted with her, I would say like a good 5 to 7 years, maybe even 8 years after that. We have a good relationship, right now I want to email and be like how you doing? Because we had a good relationship. And so in one of the readings, she said there's somebody here. And so at this point, I was just getting but this is also something that I'm naturally doing, because I was remembering, right? And so, because that's what indigenous people do when they're at cross roads, and many indigenous traditions, they go to a diviner, they go to a reader to be able to get some spiritual insight into what should be happening next, what direction one should go in. And so she said that someone was there. And then she said, he showed me his finger. And so my grandfather is the closest person to me that has died. I mean, I've had a few family members that have died. But she showed me that she was saying that, he showed me something on his finger. So my grandfather was a bus mechanic. And there was an accident at work years and years ago, of course, and the tip of his finger was chopped off. And so the nail grew rounded over it. So on the top here, where people have skin, his nail was growing over there. And so that was very significant. Like, oh my God, that's my grandfather. And she gave me a message from him. He was holding a diploma, and he was saying that he's so proud of me. He's so proud of me. And it was a time too that I had chosen from my first marriage, I was divorcing, I was really, really proud to have an African surname because my first husband was from Ghana, because I was no longer the slave owners name. But as I was divorced, and as I was graduating, I wanted to give honor to my lineage, so I went back to Williams as a surname. And so anyway, she was telling me that he was really proud of that, and different things like that. And then he's with me, and he will be with me and all these kinds of things. And so this is my first like, oh, he's not gone, he's here. He knows, he sees, like they see. And so some years later, I was asking her about something different. And I had also asked about my great grandmother. So they died 6 weeks apart. It was a hard time because my paternal grandmother had died in August of 2006, my maternal great grandmother, she died in December 2006. And six weeks later, my grandfather dies with all the deaths happened, like right there. And so I had asked about my great grandmother. And it was a shocker because it wasn't something I was currently thinking about, but the reader had said, you lost a baby, not the son that you have, but you lost a baby before him. And I was like, yes. So she was like, my grandmother had the baby, and that the baby wants to come back to me. And if it's not through my womb, it will be through my son, and then I'll know the baby because the baby will have big bright eyes. Does my daughter not have big bright eyes? I never intended to have more children, but a second marriage and you know what I mean? And there was a baby who wanted to come back to me and you already know what Nuri looks like and she has big bright eyes. She is this baby. And so you know that and some other things opened my mind to the fact that life goes on, and that there are ancestors who were there yet and still I wasn't having a personal interaction. And every now and again, I might say something like, I love you, wherever you are, thinking of you like, as I promised I won't forget you, I'll tell my children about you, those kinds of things, but it wasn't anything meaningful or systematic and part of my life. So now fast forward to 2020. And so I was in this major life transition. Should I leave this job? That was when I was at NYU? Should I leave this job? Should I leave academia? Because that's what I wanted to do. At the time I was like, I don't even know what's next. But this is killing me. Whiteness is killing me right now. And so I was speaking to another reader, who happened to be the sister of another faculty member there. So this is someone I hadn't spoken to. And so when she started the reading, again, I'm not thinking of like, mediumship and hear from my ancestors. But when she started the reading, she said, there's somebody here, she came in before we even started, would you like to hear from anyone if they’re here? And I'm like, Yeah, sure. And she was like, you're named after her and your daughter's named after her. And so my great grandmother, who I only met once, she her name is Nora, I’m Norissa named after her and I named my daughter Nuri, all of those names mean Divine Light, woman of honor. So I'm like, oh shit, this is somebody and she also said that her voice was kind of like gruff and almost sounds masculine. And because she smoked a pipe and different things like that, her voice was really gruff. And she even heard the accent. So there was like, no denying that this was her, my great grandmother. And even actually, the woman before had heard my great aunt. And she was like, she has like a real singsong accent. Anybody describes a Trinidadian accent as like a singsong kind of accent. And so now granny Nora is there and basically is telling me that I really need to stop and think about this. The decision is mine, no one can tell me what to do. But basically, really think about my health. And so because of the stress of the job, my health was compromised, because I had a chronic illness. And so she was also telling me some other things. And it was good. It was a nice one time communication. If I needed to speak to her again, I will go back to a medium, different things like that. I still wasn't thinking of it personally. But now I had gotten to the position, I left the job, and it was my birthday 2021. And I wanted to like okay, I'm done with the job. What is next? So I took this huge leap of faith because it's not like I was just hoping and praying like, something's going to work out my whatever business is going to soar. And I'm so grateful that it has, I haven't done marketing or anything like that. But I've constantly had work. Thank God. And this is like so convoluted a story, so, I went to this one woman, Simone Arthur, 2019 Christmas time, I had went to a fair that my sister in law was selling raw food at. And so she had a table next to her. And I was like, $15, let me do a quick reading. And actually the funny thing is that I thought she was a little off in what she was saying, and this was Simone's first public reading, we could probably have her on the show one time. But she had told me that I was about to get a promotion, which was true. And that I thought that this was a diversity hire, that I'm only getting promoted, because I'm black and a woman. But it's more than that. It's because people see and know your skill set and blah, blah, blah, but you're only going to be there for a year. And I was like, a year, why would I only be there for a year? Like this is a great, huge position, the pay was good, all those sorts of things, and it comes with status. Why would I get this far in my career, and then just be out? It didn't make sense to me. And so I was like, she's cute. Now that I saw that it was true a year later, I'm going to go back to her for like, Okay, well, then what's next? Because I had seen her another time when I was thinking about my house. Now it’s sounding like I go to readers all the time, 12 times a year. I don't go like 12 times a year. But when I was looking for a house I was like, because I was like, thinking about moving to New Jersey, but I was leaving New York and I'm really, like, identified with New York because it's something I do. And she had told me that I was going to get a house and it was going to be in the end of March. And I was like, that's crazy because it's September. Why would it be that late? Still dismissing, but I don't know why I still went back to her for the birthday reading. Oh, I know why, because I did finally close on a house in the end of March. And so she was right. And so I went back to her for my birthday to see what's next, and guess who showed up? Granny Nora. And so same introduction, there's a woman here, you're named after her. And both of them had described her. And so the thing about granny Nora, I'm not sure the official title, but she was high, I want to say like a high priestess or something like that in the spiritual Baptist tradition in Trinidad and different things like that. So she was developed spiritually. And so when they're developed very spiritually, in the afterlife, they have a higher frequency with which they can communicate and come through to those who are able to hear in the earth realm. And so they said that she's like a spirit guide. So you have ancestors and they're just your ancestors, but because of where she is in her development, she serves as a spirit guide, and really, the ancestors kind of communicate to me through her and she organizes their action. And this is what I've learned through speaking to these two readers.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 10:55
Is Simone telling you that, or this is your construction?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 10:59
This is both Simone and then the woman that I had spoken to 6 months before that. And so finally, let me bring this story together. What she said which was such a Caribbean way to say it, and Simone is Asian, so Simone is going to translate it just like a Caribbean African descended person. She was like, granny Nora says that your spiritual practice is wishy washy. I was like wishy washy. And I've always been spiritual. I've always had a meditative practice.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 11:33
Only this is only black Grandmothers will come back from the Spirit land to let you know, you got to get your shit together.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 11:41
This is wishy washy. I don't know what you're doing here, but you need to get it together sis. And she also said, We don't want to keep speaking to you through these mediums. I don't know them. That’s what she said, I don't know them. So basically, get your shit together, have your own little practice and we'll commune. And so she got me all the way together. I still felt like I don't know how to do this. I don't have a template, because of my experiences in the church, I'm not looking for any organized religion. So I don't necessarily want to be with people to develop this practice. How do I do this? So, I started back meditating with more regularity. The day that I was thinking, I wonder if Simone will mentor me, I was looking on Instagram, she was starting a 7 week course on spirituality in your ancestors. So I was like bet this is it this is my answer. And so I took a 7 week course with her which was beautiful. And basically, she taught me, she mentored me in and how to begin my ancestral practice. And so this is only not even a full year but I have my altar, one that is very endearing to me, that means so much to me and I can feel the energy of it as soon as I open, because it's one of these bookshelves and I have it in there for privacy when I open it I can feel the energy of it. And so for me it is the most central part of the practices that every day, I open up my altar and I sit down in front of the altar, I thank them, I call ghosts by names whose names I've known. There have been some who have introduced themselves to me since, but the ones whose names I know because I knew them when I was living, I call their names and I thank them. And sometimes, I'll sit there and wait to hear something. And so they'll speak to you in whatever so we each have clear senses, there are about 8 clear senses, spiritual senses
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 13:40
Each have clear senses what does that mean?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 13:44
So some of us are clairvoyant so we can see, so I'm clairvoyant I can see. So they'll show me images, they'll show me visions of things clear Cognizant so sometimes you just know things, I was thinking about you last night and I was thinking that you're able to discern so clearly, because going back to our first episode, I was like, god damn, when I say you saw me, because I was like, I don't know that we've had enough interaction for you to see me so clearly. So I think that you're naturally very clear cognizant. Then there's clear goustery like some people like tastings is clear. Sentient where people like can feel it in their bodies and it's very akin to like empathy and being an empath. All of these different senses, some of them are more developed than others some of them are more natural as you develop your capacities Spirit will speak to you through all of them in different ways. And so for me, it's very much sometimes I can hear, I can't hear like Simone how someone can make out accents and different things like that, but I can hear words, I'm clear Cognizant where sometimes you have a download sometimes you just know, and definitely my strongest sense is clairvoyant, where I can see and I'll have visions and different things like that. So they'll speak to me in pictures. Sometimes they'll slow me down. So, at that time, I also just started an intense healing journey with journaling every single day. And I still journal every single day. So I started with this book, writing down your soul by Janet Connor. And she talks about the benefits and how she healed a lot of stuff through writing. And so I started with a 30 day challenge that has now been September will be a full year beginning to heal. And sometimes they'll interject while I'm journaling and give me insights. So one time I was journaling about some childhood stuff, and my great grandmother came in my maternal one, I definitely knew her in life and in times within the same house with her. And she came in and she was like, in order to heal that you're going to have to heal these two things. And so, one of them was something I had just learned about her. I didn't even know she had another sister. But I learned through Simone, because while I was taking the class with Simone, her sister came in and her sister has been with me the whole time, and really wants me to get into the herbal knowledge and different things like that. And she was a baker didn't know that, I had to ask my grandmother and she confirmed like, yes, she died when I was 6 so I don't know her much. But she owned a bakery in Trinidad. And so
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 16:21
When you say I had to ask my grandmother, are you asking your grandmother in the now
Dr. Norissa Williams: 16:25
In the now when she's living. Yeah. And so it's so much, even my great grandfather has come through Simone while we were taking that course. And I'm going to give her Instagram address before we leave too so people could follow her and reach out to her if needed. So even my great grandfather came through and I was able to go to my grandmother, it was her father and ask very specifics about like, Did this happen? And he helped build that house there. And did you used to wear your hair in two ponytails and you had ribbons going down? And did you used to like candy a lot? Because he was telling Simone, all of that, to really confirm like, Yes, it's me. And this is the rest of the message. And so in this one story, in my healing, my great grandmother was like, yeah, in order to heal that you need to heal this and you need to heal that. One of the things being that her son died when he was 10 months old, pneumonia because his godmother had left him out in the rain when the rain had started kind of thing. So, the ways in which this overprotectiveness and anxiety has trickled down in my family is directly related to that loss. So she was saying, in order to heal that, what my direct experience that I was journaling about, you have to go back and heal this, and this has to be healed generationally for you to have some healing. And then they were also speaking to me about resilience. That day, I went on my walk, as I put on a podcast about trauma, they started speaking about ancestral resilience and healing from your ancestral, whatever. So it's confirmations they give you like confirmations and different things like that. It's a very rich experience is what I'm trying to say. It's very lively. I feel like every day I don't know what I'm going to wake up to, in terms of the ways that they're going to prepare me and protect me and all these kinds of things. And as having been someone who has felt very alone in life in my struggle, I would say the first 41 years of my life, felt characterized by struggle. So I've always been a very strong person, I've also been very strong, even if I was more wishy washy than granny Nora would have liked, I've always been very spiritual. But it has been so healing for me to know, that I am so taken care of, and that I have a team that I can access whenever. And so how that has been meaningful to my liberation, is because I'm reconnecting to parts of my story and my ancestry. And before this, I was very into my own culture, I was very into learning and mastering, but this has opened up so much as well as I've been led to information that I probably in my unconscious mind wouldn't have been led to. And as well as just they'll tell me stuff, and it'll be confirmed later. And it's just super rich, healing, comforting, exactly what I've needed in my life. And it's not at all the way that it was presented to me in my earlier development through the lens of Christianity, like being demonic and different things like that. You also still have a lot of control, I don't say, but you can be like, I'm busy, don't talk to me right now. I wouldn't want to do that. But I also source them when I'm doing something to be able to, like I need your ability to, I'm going to source the energy and invite the energy of blank of blank of blank to whenever I'm doing something, and I give honor to them and different things like that. So that's it in a nutshell.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 19:59
So I want to ask if you are listening to this, if you are watching this, the first thing I'm going to ask you to do is to pay attention to what is happening in your body in response to hearing Norissa share that. And the reason why Norissa, it's like as you're talking, it's like, for me, what I was noticing was a mix of anxiety and excitement. Because I think that as somebody who is, like I was saying to y'all is like, I feel like I'm very much at the beginning of my liberation journey, maybe closer to the end of the beginning, whatever. But it is, on one hand, like what you're describing feels on one hand terrifying, and another hand exciting, excitement about access to this way of knowing, this way of being that we've been socialized out of. And personally, I just so appreciate, how you laid that story out was really helpful for somebody who, like me can get really concrete sometimes. One part of the piece that I'm certainly curious about is, when your student came up to you and was like, I think you got to meet the psychic, or you got to get a reading from the psychic, prior to that, what had been your attitude towards? How come you said yes? I'm curious about that.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 21:28
How come? I was very open. I think I had spoken of something related to law of attraction, but I didn't say law of attraction, and maybe I was speaking about energy or whatever. And so something about that made her think, Oh, you might want to. I think I had always been open to it post my Christianity days, because I've had spiritual experiences. Like, when I was younger, I had seen what we would call ghosts. Now, I've seen spirits, which is funny because I told my grandmother about it at the time, and she's like, Oh, nothing. You didn't see anything. You didn't see anything. Last year when I was coming back to her and telling her, she was like, Oh, yes, I see ghosts all the time. So I was like why wouldn’t you confirm that for me? This is my maternal grandmother who raised me. I know my mother has seen spirits, we’ve spoken about that, maybe in my college years, we had spoken about that. And then also my great grandmother actually did come to me when she passed. My first husband, we had argued, and she had come to me. And I was so mad that I slept on the floor under Ty's crib under my son's crib. And I felt this hard tapping on my shoulder. I was pissed because I was like, now here he comes trying to wake me up. And so I turned around, and it was her, I saw her, she had just died maybe a day or two ago. And I turned and she hugged me. And there was this great big light behind her, she kind of motioned, I got to go. So I had had all these happenings. And even when my grandfather died, which was 6 weeks after that, Ty was maybe a year and a half. He was a bus mechanic, I smelled nothing but like grease, mechanic oil, and different things like that. And Ty was rolling around the bed hysterically, like somebody was tickling him. And I was like, I was not even touching him. And so I was open to the fact that it's not just us here. Even though it had not yet been a personalized relationship. And, I mean, I also think in that point of my life, it was a hard time in my life, post divorce, single mother healing from so much. And it was probably also desperation like I need something, I need something, whatever could help.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 23:56
There is a way in which I noticed like I'm listening to you and this is confirmation for me about like my shifts, because prior to this moment that I'm in right now, if I had heard you telling the story, I would have been like Norissa is a little crazy. The belief I used to have was like you’re either making this stuff up or there's a way in which I used to be so dismissive. And again, part of holding the ways we've been raised, and we haven't talked about this piece around me also being raised Christian and all of the conditioning, but let's end this way, Norissa, what's the piece that you want people to know? As we wrap this episode up, what do you want people to hold around ancestral practice as it relates our liberation journey here?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 24:51
I think it's integral. Ancestral practice, when you're ready of course, I think it's integral to our liberation journey, because our liberation and remembering is about claiming the parts of ourselves that we've lost that trauma that we've dissociated from. And so I think our ancestral practices will bring us back home. Trask, I think is the first name, Trask writes an article about healing from, like a chapter in a book that she wrote about healing from colonization. And she talked about the fact that I had to go back to the land, I had to learn to love her, like her culture, and rock with her like a lover. And so this is a means to go back to your culture and to who you are to get integrated and get those parts of yourself. Remember, get those parts of yourself that we've lost as a consequence to the trauma that African descended people have lost as a result of chattel slavery. So I think that disconnection is a large part of the world's problem today, America's problem. So there's disconnection and forgetting our shared humanity in our humanity, period. And when we connect back that's the healing, that's the bridge, that's a large part of us moving forward. And they help. One story I also want to add in, right before you and I, and I told you this, but I just want to share with the audience. Right before we were doing this work, so they also speak to you in dreams. I had a dream that that me and Bukky were in this field. And there was this large Baobab tree that Bukky was sitting under, and I was realizing from where I was sitting to where she was sitting, there was a large root in the ground in between us. And I kept saying like, the roots go deep, Bukky, oh my god, the roots go so deep, the roots go so deep. And that was the confirmation to me to do the work. And I share this because that's how they speak to you, that's one of the ways that they speak to you. But I mean, I have Nigerian ancestry, at least 36% according to my DNA test. And so it might also speak to our shared DNA. But it also really, really affirmed, Yes, this is what you're supposed to be doing, we sanctioned this and different things like that. So I wanted to share that with you all since you are audience to our shared journey here together.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 27:16
Wow, that's the best way to end today's episode, it is like this podcast is like divinely sanctioned. Okay. Thank you so much Norissa for sharing yourself with us, and for sharing this practice that's going to be rockin people. You haven't told me these stories the way you talked about it today. And so if you are noticing energy, as Norissa told those stories, pay attention you all, pay attention. So this is it for us. We'll see you next episode. Y'all. Take care.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 27:46
Bye bye. Thanks for listening.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 27:50
If you love what we've had to say, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform
Dr. Norissa Williams: 27:55
I’m Dr. Norissa, and you can find me on IG at Dr. Norissa Williams.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 27:59
And I'm Dr. Bukky, you can find me on IG at the official Dr. Bukky.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 28:03
You can also stay abreast of our latest offerings on our website radicalremembering.com
Comments