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In Part One of this two-part interview Mambo Liz Ruth of Big Liz Conjure and Ezrulie's Garden shares a bit of her wisdom. She dishes on spiritually empowering her daughters, her family's relationship with the Gede, and on her adventures as a Spiritual Practitioner, Education, and Diviner when COVID first emerged.
In Part One of this two-part interview Mambo Liz Ruth of Big Liz Conjure and Ezrulie's Garden shares a bit of her wisdom. She dishes on spiritually empowering her daughters, her family's relationship with the Gede, and on her adventures as a Spiritual Practitioner, Education, and Diviner when COVID first emerged.
Mambo Elizabeth Ruth (Soleil Levè Bon Mambo) is Haitian Vodou Mambo Sou Pwen, Witch, Rootworker and Diviner who trained with owners of The Vodou Store for two years. She also initiated as a Mambo Sou Pwen in Haiti in 2018. In 2015, relocated to central Ohio after spending her adult life as a resident of Chicago. She was raised by her maternal grandparents in a small town in northeastern Ohio. Her grandmother was heavily interested in astrology, UFOs, the Occult, and she communicated with the dead. When Mambo Liz was growing up, Gede (Vodou spirits of the Dead) always visited members of her family right before someone died. The spirits of her Ancestors were also frequent visitors in her home, and they continue to visit her to this day. Their reemergence in her life is why she began her training in the occult.
She also spent vacations in her youth with her paternal grandmother and family in Alabama where she learned about the spirituality, folk magic, superstitions, and customs of the American south.
Mambo Liz opened her online store, Big Liz Conjure
(https://biglizconjure.com) in 2013, and she recently opened a brick and mortar store, Erzulie’s Conjure Garden, with her family in 2019 (https://www.erzuliesconjuregarden.com)
She offers her services to clients internationally to assist them with spiritual issues using divination and Hoodoo/Conjure. She performs Playing Card, Tarot, Lenormand, and Candle Divination services. She also teaches other magical courses and mentorship through her website and store. She takes pride in also selling high-quality spiritual products to her clientele to use in their practices.
Her religion/magical practice is Hoodoo (traditional African American Folk Magic) and Vodou. Mambo Liz also studies Traditional Witchcraft and combines them both in her magical workings as appropriate. She is diverse in her work, and she is comfortable working with clients from all backgrounds. She is often sought out for readings and workings when clients are at a crossroads in their life and need spiritual guidance to move ahead in the right direction.
She sees Haitian Vodou, Hoodoo/Rootwork, and Divination as her ministry. Her work as a spiritual life coach has changed many lives for the better, and this is her mission as a future priestess and a witch.
Jeannette :
Peace and innumerable blessings. Thank you to all the spirits that brought you here. Thank you for being here and clicking on this podcasts and welcome, welcome. Welcome to the spirituality and motherhood podcast. My name is Jeanette Lancien and in this podcast, we're going to explore different ways of honoring your spiritual path, your spiritual gifts, your divine connection, all while being a Mama. My intention here is to support you by sharing the wisdom and experience of other mothers who are on the path, just like you. So you know that you are not alone in working these things out. I come to you, I come to this podcast as the mother of two boys ages four and seven, a root worker, a psychic, a tree talker, a herbalist, and like a baby Hoodoo like a baby baby, Hoodoo. All right. Let's dig in. Let's dig in. Let's get it started. Let's get it cracking. Now this is part one with this interview, this episode we're interviewing, um, the amazing Mambo Liz Ruth of Big Liz conjure, and Ezrulie's garden. And you know what, before reading her bio, I'm going to tell you how I learned about Mambo Big Liz when I was in a Hoodoo, Facebook group and she was, she was up in there dropping knowledge, helping people be on like the path they need to be on, keeping them informed and, uh, Keeping them from foolishness, because if you are ever in any sort of spiritual Facebook group, you know, there's sometimes some foolishness. So that's like my first introduction to, um, to Mambo Big Liz energy and her work. And also, I was in a spiritual situation and I purchased one of her soaps and one of her soaps straightened me right on out. It really helped me. And so like in interviewing her, it's, it's interviewing somebody who I have, um, like watched from afar for a minute and kind of. Like was kind of, um, I kind of was geeked and fell on the floor and she was like, yeah, I'll do this interview. I was like, what? Oh Lord, let me do it right anyway. So let me, let me, let me read this bio so you can, you can understand what's going on Mambo Elizabeth, Ruth. Soleil Levè Bon Mambo is a Haitian Vodou Mambos Sou Pwen, Witch, Root Worker and Diviner who trained, um, with the owners of the Vodou Store for two years, she also initiated as a Mambo Sou Pwen in Haiti in 2018. In 2015, she relocated to central Ohio after spending her adult life as a resident of Chicago, she was raised by her maternal grandparents in a small town in Northeastern Ohio. Her grandmother was heavily interested in astrology. UFO's, the Occult, and she communicated with the dead. When Mambo Liz was growing up, the Gede, Vodou spirits of the dead, always visited members of her family right before someone died. The spirits of her ancestors were also frequent visitors in her home and they continue to visit her to this day. Their reemergence in her life is why she began her training in the occult. She also spent vacations in her youth with her maternal grandfather and family in Alabama, where she learned about the spirituality, folk magic, superstitions and customs of the American south. Mambo Liz opened her online store, big Liz conjure, which you can check out at, www big Liz conjure.com. In 2013. She recently opened a brick and mortar store is released conjure garden with her family in 2019 that you can catch at www. E R Z U L I E S C O N J U R E G a R D E N. Com. She offers services to our clients internationally to assist them with spiritual issues using divination and Hoodoo/Conjure. She performs playing card, tarot, Lenormand and candle divination services. She also teaches other magical courses and mentorship through her website in store. She takes pride and also selling high quality spiritual products to her clientele to use in their practices, their religion magical practices. Traditional African-American folk magic and Vodou. Mambo Liz also studies Traditional Witchcraft and combines them both in her magical workings as appropriate. She's diverse in her work and she's comfortable working with clients from all backgrounds. She's often sought out for readings and workings when clients are at a crossroads in their life and need spiritual guidance to move ahead in the right direction. She sees Haitian Vodou, root work and divination divination as her ministry. Her work as a spiritual life coach has changed many lives for better. And this is her mission as a future priestess and a witch. So as I hopefully mentioned earlier, this interview is going to be at least in two parts. I invite you to, um, like put this, um, podcast on the side, do whatever you need to do and let it just kind of wash over you. Cause there's a lot of wisdom here to absorb and kind of let it sink into your bones because, um, she says a lot, and this is only the first part. This is only the first part. So I feel like I've said enough. I pray this interview, blesses, you, and here let's get into it. Thank you for being here. How exactly should I refer to you?
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Mambo Liz
Jeannette :
Mambo Liz?
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Yes.
Jeannette :
All right. Well, let's start swinging Mambo, Liz.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Okay. I'm so glad you black. I didn't know, who you were but I I'm so glad you black, but gone baby.
Jeannette :
That's a whole nother conversation,
Mambo Liz Ruth:
--but I know what you want to talk about today, so I'm not going to derail you.
Jeannette :
No, like this is a good place to start because sometimes I, yeah, I just, I feel comfortable with you. And I feel like talking about ancestors and ancestry in progress will be a conversation that both our ancestors will show up for. And it will be a blessing
Mambo Liz Ruth:
always.
Jeannette :
Cause I feel like the ancestors are rising and putting people in place and kind of working through lineages to get things right and get them together. So it's like, whenever I talk to somebody black, it's like the ancestors are risingwe're going to get it together. We're going to activate. It's going to be all right. We got us,
Mambo Liz Ruth:
That is what they continuously show me. That's the thing is like, you know, um, we've seen this coming. It's always been, Our ancestors of the only reason I tell my Hoodoo students this all the time, the only reason why we are here is, I mean, it's biological sense that we're only here because there were ancestors before us, each one of us have, has like 4,000 ancestors or something, some crazy number like that, but they've always been here. They've always kept us, uh, surviving. And now what I see us doing, especially with the protest of last year and the blatant racism that we've been dealing with in our society and this virus is that now not only are we surviving, I see a lot of us thriving and I see a lot of us leaving traditional spirituality, leaving the black church. You know, I have a cousin who all his life, you know, he's been different, he's been clairvoyant and he shut it down when he was a kid, because he was scaring people. And he, you know, I connected with him through ancestry DNA. And found all of my great, my grandmother's people on my mother's side here in Ohio, through him, any, we had a very long conversation because he's dating a witch and he never wants us to call ourselves witches. And you know, both of us, we got to tag team him Saturday night on zoom, but he called me like the next day. And he's like, you call me back the next day. He was like, I love you. You're the only person in the family that I can talk to. And incidentally, in 1999, he wrote up dissertation about black liberation theology. Hmm. And so now we're rereading that dissertation so that he can publish the book because before, you know, his grandmother was very staunchly Christian and he didn't want published while she was alive. But now, you know, he's 54 and he's like, this needs to be published. I need to start living my truth. So what we're seeing is ancestors really speaking through us. We're hearing stories about ancestors that we have never heard before. Um, my day job is an instructional designer and I design online courses and they put me on a virtual civil rights tour. And that under normally normal situations, we would have done like a study abroad type of thing. You would have paid your money and you could have gotten continuing education credits and whatnot. And you go to all of these places that were important to the civil rights movement, and you meet with people and you talk with people. So instead because of the virus, we had to take that online. And when I tell you that it was probably the most important class I've ever developed in my 10 years of working for this institution. And secondly, the most triggering, you know, I was like, I think I'm going to need to go back to therapy after this. Because even though my minor was black studies, my concentration in my master's degree in English was a black female literature of the 20th century. There were things I did not know. Things that we have experienced things that we have accomplished, things that we have been through things, you know, deaths. I was not aware of people in the movement I was not aware of. And that was a transformative experience. So the ancestors had been laying on me, um, this entire, this entire, last two years, you know, we passed a year, so we're on year two of this virus, but they'd been laying on me for probably over a decade. And now I'm seeing more people, um, coming to this. So it's, it's really, it's really profound. What's going on right now.
Jeannette :
That's been a lot of your path, right? Cause when you were raised the ancestors and people passing were like talking to your, to your mom.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Yeah, my grandmother, every member of my family in fact, that's how I came into Voodou. When someone in our family passed away. Another person in the family that wasn't dying would get a visitation from a spirit and the spirit was very long, tall, skinny, you know, kind of like what the kids would call shadow man or something might get these days. He had a top hat though. And I didn't know about Baron Samedi. I did not know about him growing up. They just, they called him Abe Lincoln girl. And I don't know, my, my grandparents knew better. My grandfather was from Compromise plantation in Louisiana. He was born in 1897. And my grandmother, you know, like I said, she was, I mean, my whole life was filled with supernatural TV shows. Like I was like weaned on stuff. Like Ripley's believe it or not. And my grandmother would get the Enquire, not for the gossip, but for the supernatural stuff. And then she was very big into astrology and she would go and visit her worker when she came to visit my mother in Chicago. And so I was raised by them. My mother was very young when she had me. But back then, that was young 21. Well, maybe not so young, but you know, I was raised by my grandparents thankfully, and I learned a lot of traditions, but I didn't make that connection to spirituality. Um, the occult paganism, those types of things. I didn't make those connections until I was an adult. I didn't even make those connections. And they do a really good job of smothering our belief systems in folklore and superstition. So when you read, as when I was reading as an undergraduate, even as a graduate, the works of seminal authors that talk about our stuff like Gloria Naylor, like Octavia Butler, like Toni Morrison, you read that from a different lens once you embrace African spirituality.
Jeannette :
Okay. Yeah. So like a whole new light. So fast forwarding. How did you kind of, you have daughters, right?
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Yes.
Jeannette :
So how did you bring that into rearing your daughters? Making sure that they were connected because they, they try to snuff the children. They try to snuff their light.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Well, they always do they try to, I mean, they try to snuff children in the mundane because children will say things that adults won't children always tell the truth. So my youngest was about nine or 10 she's 19 now. And my oldest she's my stepdaughter. She was like 17. And so, you know, for them, you know, we, I have been through the church thing with them. We used to go to a mega Baptist church on the south side of Chicago. But you know, first of all, my youngest was very close to the men on the Vodou store who were my original mentors who educated me because I had them come to my house to get rid of these spirits because they showed up back in my house in my early forties. And I was like, I got Haints. I'm gonna need y'all to come get them. I'm not doing this. I did this when I was a kid, I'm tired of being Hag ridden I'm tired of this. No, come get them. And then when I told them about the spirit that came to usher, the dead, they were like, girl, that's Vodou. And if the Lwa are paying or paying you visits and paid your family paying your bloodline visits, then you need to pay attention to your birthright. And here I am almost a decade later when my kids really just went along for the ride. We weren't gone to church anymore. Um, I was pretty much agnostic. I'm not really still to this day, really into organized religion. And so I did as all parents should do. I mean, in anything I led by example, I did not force my children into practicing. They started, you know, they started, my daughter was 11 years old, I think. And she did her first working before I ever did, like, I've done workings, but I did them unconsciously. But then the first purposeful working done in my household was my daughter because she was being bullied. And so we went over to the guys who owned the Vodou store and we were like, what are we going to do? And they got, they were like, we got to make her enemy be gone gris gris. And the, and the stick was that the enemy had to touch the rusty nail that was put inside the Gris gris. You pull the rusty nail out. Okay. And then you put, you wear the gris gris and you make sure your enemy touches the gris gris. So we went all night trying to figure out how this little girl was going to make this other little girl who she could not stand touch this nail. They ended up going to gym class at the Jewish community center down the street from their school. And because it was winter. So they had to take off their boots. She put it in her boot. And I'm promise you. That every time my daughter stood next to that girl, until that gris gris went through its natural life. Every time my daughter would stand next to that little girl, she would take off running. She she could not, she did not bother my child the whole time that gris gris was active. She did not bother my child. She could not be within two feet of my child. And I used to bring my friends up to the playground to test it. I'd be like Trini, show 'em. and she'd be like Ma. I said show 'em. And, and that's what made her believe. I made her a mojo bag at camp when she wasn't making any friends. And then when I went, we went back, I had to drive her up to Milwaukee to get the bus, to go to the camp. Um, she had the gris gris in her suitcase and that day she was like, oh my God, I really, you know, she made friends and everything that they saw, I made her a bag that would help her be, you know, more magnetic and and uh more charismatic and attract friendship. And so she made friends that day. So my, my youngest saw it in action. She saw in action when we participated or witness spell work or went to Fetes and did things with the gentleman who owned the Vodou store. So, um, the owners, Peruvian, he's got all kinds of things in him. Uh, he's got, he's got Congolese, I believe in him. And then his, his husband is just an Irish witch and he's written an excellent book on Hekate and, um, and, and, and Alan, the, uh, the owner, he's done some amazing tarot and, uh, Lenormand decks, um, fully funded, both of them through Kickstarter, both of them. Um, and so she just, I wouldn't leave her at home. I couldn't leave her at home. My oldest was out of the house. She moved out when she grew up. And so, um, she was with us with me, you know, I was there five, six, seven days a week at their house. Cause they run their business from their house and we would research and read and make products. So she knows how to do all this stuff, but I never said she had to. And so when we opened the store, you know, the first year nobody took a paycheck, she went and worked for a bookstore and then decided, okay, I can't, I can't work with these white folks. Cause they were very, very racist and treated her really horribly. And so she came back last year and started working for the store. So now she makes her own product line. She makes Florida water, body butter. We're about to make rise up body butter, which is my anxiety and depression formulation. So she's got, she's found her thing. She really is good with making spiritual soaps and butters. She believes in divination, you know, she works in the store. She knows everything in the store, but it was because I showed her. I mean, a lot of those nights that we were at their house, she was sitting up there. She went to school across the street from they house at one point she was doing homework and stuff. She was never made to do anything, but she watch, she observed, she knows how to do her own spell work. Um, and that's because. I showed them, you know, she's not a Vodouisant, but she is, uh, venerates the ancestors she helps me maintain the altar I'll be like, here, come light their candle, come give them their, their food. She will do that. And she believes in them. So, you know, it was just as a mother I did not want to force my kids spirituality. I wanted them to experience it themselves. My oldest went through a period of postpartum depression and a breakup when she had her second child and she used herbs and roots and things like grounding and outside activities and things like that to heal herself, to love herself and to move on from that situation. So every single one of them, you know, both of them, they did it because they saw me do it. If they needed consultation on how to do something, you know, my, uh, my youngest, I keep telling her, you gotta learn divination. She's big into astrology. She makes all those of the astrological, uh, line, uh, her little business is called Calypso conjure. So she's getting ready to branch out from oils to soaps, into colognes and to waters for her Zodiac things until she's learning how to do natal charts and things like that. And, you know, and she's doing that because she wants to, she has her own crystal altar in her room. So, you know, as a mother, you know, especially because I see what the church does, especially to black women. Yes. And about the things about how we got to wait for man and how we got to, uh, just put up with pretty much anything in order to make the make Yaweh happy. And I, you know, so I've spent this past 10 years helping them unlearn some of the principles that I taught them from taking, or they were taught from going to church, going to Sunday school, um, and helping them see what is really here in the, in the plethora of spiritual options that are available to them. So they're both pretty adept in their own spell work. Um, and they, that, you know, if, uh, you know, they, you know, you ask them, they'll tell you, we are, we're not Christians. We're, you know, I don't know, you know, they might just say they're spiritual, but it's, it's simply because, um, I believe that children need to make their own decisions about their spirituality and that parents can make, uh, influence on them either positively or negatively, as far as those choices are concerned. So I wanted to be a positive. Uh, influence on my kids and they've seen my life change you know, they've seen us go from, uh, you know, I make decent money, but you know, expenses being a single parent, especially living in Chicago, they saw me going from paycheck to paycheck to be able to have the funds to move, to relocate. And then here, you know, being able to do everything we need to do on our house and then opening a store and seeing how much we're needed and how much we're in demand, um, in our community, because there are no, um, other solely black owned, um, uh, occult stores in the Columbus area. There is one that's owned by a black woman her husband is, is white. Um, but a black woman owned solely occult store in central Ohio. I'm, it, so, you know, I've had people coming to the store and my children have witnessed this as well. People crying. Like, oh my God. I'm so glad you here. Oh my God, we didn't know you were here. We are so glad. And because I think of the influence that I had on my children, when I showed them how my spiritual activities made my life better, rather than making them worse and providing a real connection one that was Afrocentric as well, um, that matched our politics. Um, showing them these things. I realized that we had to teach more people. I realized that there are children out here who are now adults who have never had this. So, um, ever since 2016, I've been teaching online so way before the pandemic. I was teaching on Google Hangouts and then I moved to zoom a couple of years ago. And, um, so we teach, we've probably taught thousands of people, um, the, who do 100 series. So starting off with the background of Hoodoo, and then Hoodoo that's Hoodoo 101 Hoodoo 102 is candle magic Hoodoo 103 is container magic, teaching them that, you know, honey jars and self love jars, that's that's all this modern white appropriation. I show them, you know, what really use containers for most containers or spells are for binding. So they learn about lamps and coffins and jars and bottles and everything and in Hoodoo 103. Also, we have been psyched out to believe that crystals are not part of our practice, but that anthropological evidence shows differently showing them how the energy of these very crystals that are used to create energy or medicine and other things are very important to your magic. Okay. And so I've been, I'm just, I've been teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching this past weekend. We just finished Hoodoo 201, uh, have that about three, four times a year. And that's where I, I sit with the students. We have an orientation. I tell them how to create their formulations. They use not just the magical purpose. They use planetary alignments. They use gender assignments. They use elements. They use the deities. They use the Zodiac that is associated with, to compile a five herbs spell with three, um, oils and using two resins for their incense. So I get together with them. After the orientation, they send me their homework. I email them back. I make suggestions. And then we send them a kit with all of the things in it, all of the ingredients and all of the empty containers. And so we sit all weekend and I teach them how to make these things. And then I demonstrate candle making and, um, talk to them about where they can buy things that they wanna want bottles or supplies or things like that. If they want to make their own, a lot of people have gone on to, um, to create, um, their own conjure businesses. Um, some of them have, some of them have not a lot of them just order all the herbs from me or they'll still order my products because they, because I've taught them. They know, I know what I'm doing. So now I'm, everybody's mom. I'm, everybody's Auntie. Whew lord. So, yeah, so it's sometimes, and I, I really had to change the way I was doing a lot of things because when we first opened that store, I was there sometimes 12 hours a day, you know, I get off the day job and then go over to the evening job, which was the store. So the pandemic allowed us to shut the store down and just do web orders. Um, and I, that was actually, I mean, I didn't really get a break for the way, but the way I did things was differently. A lot of people got a break, you know, from the daily grind that commute from work to home. But for me, it got more intense. I found myself like, literally, because I was worried about income. I had no idea our classes were going to take off. Like they did. You know, it was insane this time, last year, people, everybody, you know, getting their stimulus and different things like that. I literally taught in March, 2013, Hoodoo 101 I had two students that night and I was like, this sucks. I don't want to just teach to two people. So I offered it up for free. In my customer group, we taught 206 people that night. And it was a hundred in Facebook, live in the group and it was a hundred on zoom and we broadcast the zoom to Facebook live. I'm a techie because of what I do for a living. So we taught 206 people at night and that just set off a wave of new customers, new people, wanting divinations, new people, wanting to learn more. And so, um, you know, I, I don't read four hours in a row on Saturdays like I used to because the store was closed. I figured, oh, I'll just read, you know, and make up for store sales, doing divinations that damn near burnt me out. I took a break. I took a break for about a month because it was a very devastating time for people. People were losing, you know, I did the divination from my friend who lost her husband, people, losing grandparents, people, losing parents and people, losing friends and family and just people. You know, it was funny during that time I either had people, can I curse? Can I use profanity on your--
Jeannette :
have at it!
Mambo Liz Ruth:
So there was either two people, two types of people, people really going through it during that time, the early days of petty and people who was just on some fuck shit. And that's when I decided I was no longer going to do romantic readings. I'm like, because I don't believe that you need to be making spells to keep somebody in love with you that don't want you. So I'm also really trying to re configure what a black woman's ideology of what this is for is about. And that's, you know, I started when my kids is ain't about trying to get and keep no, no man or no woman. This does about keeping you. You know, your medical, your magical, your medical, your mundane, those are the three things I teach in Hoodoo 101 I'm like, so I don't, you know, I do make love formulations, use them as you wish, but I don't do, I don't do a lot of spell work for people. I set lights for people and stuff, but my goal just like my children is to empower, learn how to do this yourself. And so that's another thing with my kids with anything I tell them, I don't have gave you a smartphone for you to ask me dumb ass questions, empower yourself, learn how to do it. If you have any questions on the process of you doing. Yeah, of course I'll answer them for you, but don't just start off. And that's, that's how my customers that too. We have a customer group on Facebook. We have files, but they'll come in and be like, do you have something for unhexxing? Did you go to the website? Did you look at the formulations and ingredients better yet? Did you research the herbs for unhexxing so you could just order, the herbs and make something yourself. It's not really hard to put herbs in some oil. So, you know, it's about empowerment and I want my children to be empowered because we have a situation in a world that we live in that tells them that they're anything but powerful and you know, because of patriarchy, but because of sexism and misogyny, you know, they put up with it on all sides. I'm like you, don't going to take it from a black man. You ain't going to take it from a white man These are the things you ain't going to put up with. You have to get respect and give respect when respect is not given you are not obliged to give it back. And you were certainly not obliged to forgive. We are not Christians. So it's taught my daughters how to just basically walk away from stuff.
Jeannette :
So like, how have, your daughters has been impactful to your, to your spiritual development because you've gone from like from Hoodoo to Vodou with them.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Um, you know, the impact, I think has been, I understand them better. They understand me better. We have different ways of communicating with each other. We have different ways of dealing with stress and things like that, because like, one of the things is I tell them don't, you know, like don't come up in the store, especially if you own on some, on some stupid shit. And so yesterday of course, my daughter was driving. She's a new driver and we had back and forth all the way. So by the time she got to the store, she was pretty frustrated with me. And she's like, I gotta go home and get something. She was like, no, but I just went home to go calm down. So I could come into the store in the right frame of mind. And I was very impressed with that, but I know I've taught her that I've taught her that we can't be doing spiritual products for people and be all fucked up in the brain. You know, you can't be making peace oil for somebody, if you experiencing hostility.
Jeannette :
Yes.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
And I experience enough of these workers out here, these so-called people. Cause you know, there's a lot of folks out here on the fast money hustle and they're like, oh, I'm just going to open a conjure shop. I'm going to be a witch. And I'm going to sell products and do readings and their lives are a mess. They haven't had to take the time and they keep talking about this shadow work, but they're not taking the time to do it. And they're not taking the time to heal themselves. So I've taught my daughters, you know, heal yourself. You know, um, and that's the most important thing, whatever you gotta do to get yourself, right? Because you're not good for yourself. You're not good for your kids. And you're definitely not good for a relationship. Well, romantic one,
Jeannette :
which is another conversation, especially around like having girls.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Yeah. And I believe in therapy, um, you know, uh, I believe in a, uh, I'm, I'm not like all nuts and berries here. If, if, if, um, if you need mental health medication, I believe that you should get it. People act like we've pulled these medications and things that they produce in the lab, out our ass, everything comes from the earth. It's just how it's manipulated and what the effects, the side effects may be that you need to be paying attention to. But in the Pedialyte, the crystal contains lithium primary, um, uh, medication use for bipolar depression.
Jeannette :
Yep.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
And I've also taught them the magic does not ensure that you are going to have a problem free life. You're still going to have these issues of this human existence while you are in this shell. But I have also imparted upon them and I've shown them by my actions that this lifetime we're in training for our next lives and how we live our next life is solely dependent. And I'm training to be a better ancestor.
Jeannette :
Yes
Mambo Liz Ruth:
I don't want my children to have to heal with me after my death so they can work with me. I want them to heal with me in this lifetime so that when I become an ancestor, I'm a more powerful for them, for them,
Jeannette :
which kind of gets into the next question is like, how has, you know, your daughter has changed your relationship with your ancestors?
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Well, um, my daughters were always important, you know, it's important to say my oldest daughter, she didn't want to quarantine. She's going through her own life thing She doesn't live here anymore and she lives in her own place and she's raising her kids. And so, you know, we, you know, at this point, I don't know where she is spiritually, but I know that I laid the foundation for her. And, uh, you know, maybe one day we'll have that conversation again, but there's, but the impact, you know, like I said, it's, it's just changed the way they think about things. And they're, um, especially what my youngest child, you know, um, I didn't have her until I was 33. Um, she really thinks about the spiritual implications of the things that she does. Like last night, we just did a reading about a job interview that she was thinking about going on in the spirits were like, Nope, don't even do it. You know, and so she listened, but that doesn't mean that as a child, she doesn't feel like that. She's like, oh, that was the best job out there. No, it's not, and if you petition the ancestors and have them, you know, and it's through action. So it's impacted them, you know? So now she knows that she needs to divine. And now she knows that what is meant for her will be for her. If she asks, you know, and it teaches them not to go grab the first thing coming, that's the thing I wanted to teach them. Always pay attention to your spirits because alot of times, we, I can say this as well, the mistakes of youth come from not listening to our spirit. And if you, if our spirit is not our ancestors, our oversoul is not comprised of them. And they do the spirit that you have because I always repeat Invictus to them. You are the master of your fate. You are the captain of your soul. You're responsible. So, you know, in all things you responsible scoop this litter box, you're responsible. To take care of your, your, your clothing and your environment and live in a healthy, clean place. You're responsible for spiritual protection and setting up those types of things in your home to keep you protected. You're responsible. You know, one of the things is I, you know, I came out of a situation where I left my Vodou house and, uh, everybody almost did after their experiences with my former Mambo. And we all sat back and looked on that and in our healing and realized that a lot of the things where we being taught to fear, and that's not how the lwa work we serve the lwa and the lwa serve us. And I tell them, you know, it's not a matter of like how they tell us in Christianity that if we don't pay attention or if we don't do this, do that or the other we're gonna burn in hell no, but the whole thing. What about an ancestral relationship is that you speak to your ancestors, you work with your ancestors. If you don't speak to them, you don't work with them. They're not gonna speak to you. They're not going to work with you. Do you want to be without that? You know, it's not like they're, you know, you just out here with all of this energy that's going around in this world, unprotected uninformed, you know, so it's, for me, it's always education, education, education, and the ancestors will educate yo ass. They will educate you one way or the other. And if you listen, because it's always better to do things the smart way, but then the hard way. And the smart way is being open to knowledge and information and ancestor drop a download on you and tell you what to do and you make the decision not to do it well. You're responsible for the consequences. You're responsible for consequences, good or bad. So, you know, it was not a big shift in my parenting style.
Jeannette :
Okay.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
You know, but my parenting style became more spirit influenced. Gotcha. And primarily spirit influence. So when they know when that, when I say something, I'm not just talking out the side of my neck and I was telling my daughter last night, when she first told me about the interview, I said, um, I got a bad feeling. I didn't want you out here on the expressway in rush hour, having to go all the way to the suburbs, to interview for a remote job. And I said, but I didn't say anything. Cause I don't want to be that mama. I don't want to keep you from trying to expand. But does she ask for divination and divination coincided with what I was saying? What I was thinking that I had not shared with her socially. She told me last night, she was like, you need to always tell me your first thoughts on something. I will listen. Don't keep things from me that you receive psychically spiritually thinking that you're doing something to me as a parent told me back, I want to know, at least she can make that decision. So I felt free, you know, and having that conversation with her, it'd be like, okay, you don't have to be crazy psychic mama. You can, you can tell her and make, she can take that spiritual information with do as she pleased. And that's the same way I approach the people I divine for period. I've had people get mad at me. I've had people hang up on me. I've had people block me on Facebook after they've gotten the divination. Cause they get read. And if I tell you you lazy, you're trifling and you make it excuses. Guess what? Most of the time that's not coming from me. And any of the time it's not coming from again, ancestors sitting here tell them, tell them, it'd be like in ghost. I'm like really? Do I got to tell him like that? Do we have to do yes, damn it. Did I stutter? I said what? I said, tell them, oh, and it's not always happy. And people cry, but a lot, you know, if people are on the right track, usually they're not like that. Usually they're receptive. They write the information down. Few years ago to test myself, I went online, public status and I said, I've read for hundreds, maybe thousands of you, I don't know. I don't even keep track anymore. I was like, have I ever been wrong? And now one person could say I was wrong. One person said that it didn't happen the way they thought it would based on the divination, but it happened. And that was it. Nobody. They were like, oh, you was right on time. A lot of people seek confirmation, uh, to confirm something. They already know if they won't pay me to tell them what they already know. Okay. But the honest to God, truth is the better thing to do is you already know it. How do you act on it? That's a better and more fulfilling divination. You already know the situation. You're not in denial. What do you do to fix it? And so, like I said, I take that into my parenting style. I'm like, I've, I've I, my oldest daughter, she, when she came back home with her second child, she was like, everything you told me that was going to happen, happened, and I should have listened. And she's still like listening, but that's okay. Because one day she'll hit her Saturn return and one day she'll grow up and she'll realize. You know, and she's messaged me and she's like, I've made her a better smarter business woman handling her own business, teaching her, those things. Um, one of the things, my youngest daughter, I think she looks at me, she doesn't realize she's 19, I'm 52. And she's like, I don't, you know, she wants to have like, I guess a passion like I do, spirituality is my passion. I'm like, you ain't found it yet. Girl, it took me till I was 40 chill out, you know, but I've always had hobbies and things like that. And so she just wants to find something that moves her that drives her. And I really think that, um, I'm sorry, this thing is beeping. Cause it ended, I don't know if you can hear it.
Jeannette :
Okay. This dryer, this is real life
Mambo Liz Ruth:
so it's like, it's a mixture of, you know, and, and, and, you know, the things I teach them about spirit, aren't just pedagogy and theology, you know, gardening, growing your own food, cooking your own food. I've taught them how to do that. You know? So we're always out the garden, my new assistant she's out in the garden, she's loving it. She's from Haiti, um, speaks fluid Creole, and, you know, she's, she know what she doing out there in that garden. So, you know, um, and she loves it. It helps anxiety, it helps depression. I try to tell people all the time, if you're dealing with these types of mental illnesses, sometimes, sometimes it's chemical, but then there's sometimes it's because you're not living your destiny. There's things that you should be doing for yourself, with yourself that you haven't, and you need to, you need to find out what those things are. You need to do them. So my daughter was going through that existential crisis yesterday and just went and grabbed the paints and started painting. You know, just, just, just trying to find that thing that moves you. Everybody has spiritual gifts. Some people sing, some people dance, some people have the gift of administration and business. Some people have gifts clairvoyancy, you know, and that's why my cousin was so happy to reconnect with me. Cause he's like, you're the only person I can talk to. When I tell you, I can see, I used to be able to see the future and I want to reconnect with that. I used to be able to tell people exactly what was going to happen to them. I said, well, that's because you're from my maternal bloodline, the grandparents that raised me, my grandmother, the one who saw spirits talk, spoke to the dead, you know, I'm like, so this is not a coincidence. Unfortunately, you've been programmed out of it. So now you need to research ways to get back in touch with that part of your spirit and like any other muscle strengthen it. Don't push it away. When you get a vision next time, write it down. You have to make the decision with yourself. Whether or not you share that vision with the person or people that it pertains to. Um, sometimes I'll see things. And I won't say anything like what happened with my daughter? Uh, yesterday I saw things and I ain't say nothing because I wanted her to, you know, and she did. She always does. She always comes to her own and usually she comes to me for a divination. So yeah,
Jeannette :
That's so beautiful that you could just be like your grandparents were for you and leave the door open and let them choose their own path. And they can have all the information that they want from you and all the support that they want from you and in doing what their spirit, their soul and their spirit needs them to do.
Mambo Liz Ruth:
Yeah. And that's the thing. If more of us could get that, especially at a young age, yes. It would save our lives. It would keep us from some of these things that are killing us either emotionally or physically, it, it would really, you know, people learn how to set their spirit free and accept what is older than any religion. Vodou means spirit, you know, from animism. You know, if you look at that evolutionary tree of religion, we are the base and the root of it, all African traditional spirituality is the base of the roof that everything branched out from, if you study anthropology and science, you know that we are the oldest people on earth, therefore our religion. So for me, people ask me, well, why did you get into Vodou? I'm like, don't nobody ask you. Why? When did you get into Jesus Christ? When did I accept Vodou as my spiritual path? When did I accept Hoodoo? Cause I, I, when I accepted Hoodoo, Hoodoo is a religion, just as much as Vodou is, and I am both. And, um, I'm Bi- Negro. Okay. And when you accept both and you just be, you accept messages from spirit, you can dodge and weave, a lot of this bullshit. You know, people always talk about intuition, just so you get a funny feeling about something, examine that. And I just am glad that I can, and that I'm showing other people how to take these things. Occult simply means hidden these occult things, bone throwing, card reading, candle divination, things, and, you know, working with different spirits and take these things to help them avoid some of these things in life. Judaica Isles in her book of 5,000 spells says magic levels the playing field. If you read the conjure woman by Charles Chestnut, you know, he's a writer from Cleveland, he could have passed for white instead he chose to tell the story of his people. He he's very active in the Harlem Renaissance. You see black liberation through those stories, black survival. And how black people were working to liberate themselves through spiritual work. You know, when Marie Laveau died in 1881, she got a full page obituary in the New York times. And she showed people of all races, how to take this spiritual work and how to thrive. If you notice there's not a lot of these stories and like American horror story, they blew it and they should have fucking known better that it was just ridiculous. You never hear these stories about Marie Laveau, killing people and doing stuff like that. But one story I do remember was there were some white men who were about to be unjustly hanged, and she went to the execution and all of a sudden their heads fell out of the nooses and they fell to the ground. And so things like that when we realize that our basic African principles and our connection, cause I, I, I became a spiritualist to get closer to the creator, to God, the goddess, whatever you want to call them. In Vodou we call them Bondye. In Orisha practices. You know, you've got Olokun and Olokun is not, doesn't even have a sex. You got Mama Wata, in African traditional spirituality. She's the mother of us all. Without water, nothing exists. And the water receded to create the earth, that science, they put that in the Bible because I was plagiarizing everything else at the time, so, you know, when you get closer to God, you deal with things better. You even deal with death better. I don't fear death. The only thing I don't like about it is I'm not going to be here in the physical with the people that I love, but I don't fear it. It's a new adventure and I tell people, okay, so this is all made up. Say all of us, we're just trying to put a human face and understanding to life, which is all religion is. Um, and then it, depending on how it's used in any religion can be oppressive and controlling warping, but that's not how it's supposed to be any of the religions, including Christianity. But, so what say if I live my life with these spiritual principles and I have this much more blessed, much more accepting, much more receptive, much more natural life say I die and there's nothing. I won't know, but say, if I die and there's everything and I get to experience it, that's a risk I'm willing to take
Jeannette :
And this is only the first part. So please stay tuned for the second part of this interview, because again, there's a lot of richness here. I personally felt very comforted doing this interview comforted in, in the sense of understanding that, you know, as your spiritual path evolves, how you interact in your relationship with your children will evolve too. And, and your, your ways of supporting them and their lives. And that evolves too. And it's part of the path and it's okay. It's interesting. Continuing to evolve and grow spiritually because quite often, like I wish that I would've known. Now what I would have known, like when everybody was younger, but you know, it's always easy to, to, to Monday morning quarterback, all we have is now I'm learning that I'm learning. Anyway. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I pray that, you know, part one was a blessing to you and that I, you know, you come on back for part two. I'll see you in a few weeks. Stay blessed. Peace.
