Spirituality & Motherhood Episode 13: Mambo Elizabeth Ruth Part 2

Part 2 Interview with Mambo Liz Ruth

Intro
[00:00:00] Peace and innumerable blessings. My name is Jeanette Lancien and welcome, welcome welcome to the spirituality and motherhood pod cast, where we're going to explore different ways of honoring your spiritual path, your spiritual gifts and your divine connection all while mothering and raising and getting these littles up into adults safely.

[00:00:22] Jeannette : [00:00:22] My intention is to support you by sharing the wisdom and the experiences of other mothers who are on the path, just like you. So, you know, you do not have to do it alone. You're not on these spiritual streets by your lonesome . We rolling all together. We got you. I come to you, I come to this podcast as the mother of two boys ages four and seven a psychic a root worker and a  herbalist and the tree talker.

[00:00:50] So, yeah. Welcome. Welcome to  part two. Um, of, my interview with Mambo Liz, Ruth, and you want to know more about Mambo Liz, Ruth, please head over to her website: BigLizconjure.com and you can see all that she does all the wonderful products that she sells as well as the classes that she offers a variety of classes,  just, just go check it out. A lot of wisdom there. So if you feel like you, you are in need of some wisdom, some guidance, that's a good place to go. And this is a long, yeah, this this second, the second part is a ka-chunk.

[00:01:31] So I'm gonna cut this intro short. Cause , I wanna honor your time and I'm thankful that you're listening. There's a lot of here though. So let it kind of wash over you and whatever needs to absorb, be absorbed. There's a lot of wisdom from just,  just around raising children while being spiritual, to just life wisdom.

[00:01:54] Just things about life that, you know, um, you realize when you get older, There's something to be said for experience, experience cannot be matched. Anyway, let's go ahead and get into this interview. If you'd like, don't forget to check out BigLizconjure.com. See all the goodness that she's into. She's really a blessing to the spiritual community.

[00:02:19] So please check her out. See you on the other end. Enjoy peace.

Interview
[00:02:29] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:02:29] So that's where I am. And I'm the same way with my kids, that I am with anybody I don't. That does not change, but who I am, 

[00:02:41] you know, people who have observed to me over the years, they all see I've had plenty of assistants and interns and friends come and go because those people were for a season.

[00:02:50] And when they go, they usually were on some fuck shit. And they were not to be around me. And my ancestors will run people like that right the fuck up out of my house. I've seen it with my own two eyes. I watched them run, a student of mine used to have two or one in my house. The women would come and spend the weekend.

[00:03:07] This lab that I have down here now for candle makings, used to be the dorm  that's, why I painted it 

[00:03:12] haint blue because my ancestors will visit your ass at night. And if you ain't 

[00:03:16] right, they will make you very uncomfortable. And I watched them run this girl up out of my house without her shoes on. She had to run back in the house to get her shoes.

[00:03:26] And she sat down on the porch and put her shoes on. 

[00:03:29] And because she wasn't right also, on some fuck shit 

[00:03:32] probably still is. I've seen it. I've seen how they can affect, uh, people, places and things. And around me to make me aware of, or to even get in front of things that don't meet things and people that don't mean me any good.

[00:03:49] And so, because of that, that's what even Christianity tells you, your guardian angels, they got you, you know, that shows me that that is very, very real. And so I have to keep talking to them. I have to keep working with them so that they will keep talking to me. They will keep working for me and they will keep fuck shit out my life.

[00:04:09] I won't eliminate it 

[00:04:10] all completely and totally, but that's the goal 

[00:04:14] here to live fulfilled, to be happy. We would not, we are not born sinners. We are not born doomed at the time of your birth. It's kind of like starting a class. You start with an a 

[00:04:27] yes. 

[00:04:27] What you end up with is your business, depending on how hard you work, you can keep that a or you can disintegrate that a it's the same thing with your spiritual life.

[00:04:38] It's the same thing with your soul, your Ashe, you know, all of those things that people use, your holy spirit, your oversoul, we, all those terms that people use to mean the same thing. We are in charge of those things. And it is up to us what we let in and what we won't. 

[00:04:57] And I tell my kids this all the time, if it's a pair of shoes, a job, or man, a friend, if it hurts, you get rid of it, banish it, bind it, send it on its way, 

[00:05:10] and you can use it mentally because people don't really understand the difference between just doing magic and mentally harnessing that energy.

[00:05:21] And so a lot of times people, a lot of job search candle, and never send out a resume. Well, how do you think you're gonna get a job? You got to learn how to put your mind and your focus into that spiritual work that you were doing and your efforts, because this is not bewitched I'm not going to wiggle my nose.

[00:05:37] And you know, a plate of ribs shows up. I 

[00:05:39] wish that was true, but that is not magic. That is not African spirituality. That not African-American spirituality. That is not paganism. That is not spiritualism. That is not the Occult. People run around here talking about they're alchemists. Don't know the first thing about goddamn science and how things work together.

[00:05:59] You have some herb and  root combination and you put them together or the herbs by themselves and they'll kill you. 

[00:06:06] Or if you mix them with 

[00:06:07] certain medications, people always want to ingest or stand their vaginas over some steaming herbs. And they don't have degrees in herbal medicine. They haven't even studied the herbs and roots. Frequently. I get requests and I end up refunding them. Like, I'll burn a candle for you, but like, I'll get requests for fertility spells. And a lot of those fertility herbs have pregnancy cautions on them. Now that's ingesting, but I'm just not even going to suggest somebody use something like that topically, because your skin is a living, breathing thing, I don't  sell things for ingestion.

[00:06:44] Although the herbs and the roots that I sell, I buy from wholesalers that make them, you can, so we put the holistic use of the item on the website so that they can see it. But if you don't know how every individual is different, you might have an allergy, you know, leave people, putting crystals in their Vajayjays I'm like stop putting crystals in your snatch.

[00:07:05] First of all, your Yoni is your uterus. If you got a crystal in your Yoni, can you send me pictures? Cause I want to see that shit. If you can  get it past your cervix. You let me know. But they're putting crystals in them that leech like selenite is a carcinogen  and it's water-soluble and would leech things into their body and can make them very ill.

[00:07:24] Thanks Gwyneth Paltrow and black folks  because they heard from another black person. Gwenyth Paltrow made that shit popular, yeah. Were we doing it? Yeah. Was it right? No. Everything natural ain't good. Arsenic is natural. As you hold your piece of selenite. I got a big ass stick of that at my store that I keep at my desk.

[00:07:44] I call it my NBC stick. My nigga be cool stick. Cause I will clock you with that shit and you will get them fiberglass shards. That was, I will stick you with it. Okay. So I use my, I use my magical weapons appropriately, you know? Um, so, you know, I, I, I will choose violence. Depends on, depending on the situation, I don't, you know, don't let the, don't let the title fool you.

[00:08:13] Um, but you know, you know, and, um, I'm really done convincing people that we are not what people say we are, let them think what they want. You know, I have a cousin, we all were raised together in the church and she was, you know, and her daughter believes practices gets divinations and the like. And she really doesn't think her mom was up on that stuff.

[00:08:36] But her mother messaged me this weekend, left me a voice message. Cause I've had a couple crazy Christians come into the store two days in a row. And she was like, I just want to make sure you safe. Cause them folks coming up into your store, you need to call the police on these people. Cause I don't like this at all.

[00:08:50] And nothing about that's what you get for studying witchcraft. None of that, none of that, you know, so people are changing and that's great, but whether or not people change at all, I don't care. I changed. And I do believe my children changed as a result of it. 

[00:09:10] I do believe that both of them are better people 

[00:09:12] because of what we received from the ancestors.

[00:09:16] And I mean, God, that's like everything for a parent. You want your kids to do better than you .You want your kids to succeed. You don't want your kids with the same obstacles and the same binding things that held them back from success that you had when you were growing up. So it's like, it's been a decade of just unbinding and 

[00:09:41] letting them be free to make their own 

[00:09:44] decisions because that's what makes them a better adult.

[00:09:47] You know, I've always been like this because I am no longer tied to patriarchal oppression. I'll let my kids know like, oh, you want to have sex? Okay. This is what the deal is. You know, your body is a gift. You are everybody you sleep with, but sex is great. Let's go get you some birth control because I'm not trying to raise no more grand babies, you know, the first one didn't listen, this one does, you know, I'm like, you want to boys bills and babies, that'll slow your ass down real quick.

[00:10:19] So I've taught them, you know, financial management, spiritual management, relationship management, and you know what you're going to put up with and what you're not going to put up with. And they, I honestly believe, you know, even when you think your kids aren't listening, they're listening, you know? Cause she, like I said, she came to me for a divination last night.

[00:10:43] Cause she must have, because I was just like, okay, come on and do the interview, you know, 

[00:10:49] But really, I was just like, you know, I'm like, don't, it won't hurt for you to go. But you know, in my heart of hearts, I'm like, no, that's not it. And the cards said it. And she, you know, that's another thing, a lovely thing is, is they'll ask me to throw cards.

[00:11:06] You can't lie with the cards. If we've sat down here and we've asked the ancestors to come in and tell us, what's what, and this is the way they telling us. Here it is this ain't  mama. So you want to rebel against what it is. That's on you. Do you, Boo, you know, that'swhat I always tell my kids, you know, my, my youngest is getting ready to leave for college.

[00:11:31] She took a year off and now she's going to, um, Ohio university. And, um, I love it because she's going to be able to live with her boyfriend because now they have like gender neutral floors. So she can live with her boyfriend in her dorm room, which was unheard of when we were kids.

[00:11:48] We did it anyway. And, uh, you know, folks just swapped rooms. Um, But we, um, you know, she's majoring in epidemiology, which is the study of diseases. So like in a situation like this, she could be on the news talking to you like Dr. Fucci or whatever his name is. I'm like, man, couldn't, you have been a musician or an artist or professional witch Why don't you to stay here with me and let's make an empire.

[00:12:17] She does see the financial advantage to, you know, doing this and working for yourself. And I'm very happy that she has seen that, you know, and I asked her the other day, what is your dream job? She says, someplace doing something that I love sitting on my ass, making a lot of money.

[00:12:34] I said, yes. Yes. I hope that was the model that I gave you. You know? Cause like I said, I do, I do have a full-time job and I design online courses, uh, for school system, a private higher education school system. 

[00:12:49] And I 

[00:12:49] thoroughly enjoy it. That's where I designed the, uh, social justice course. 

[00:12:54] Um, and 

[00:12:55] so yeah, I, I, now I'm getting ready to do something with a school in Mexico, even though I don't speak Spanish, that's going to be great.

[00:13:03] We're going to be working really heavily with our translators. So, you know, and I've been 

[00:13:07] doing instructional 

[00:13:09] design for 20 years. And so when I became a Hoodoo and I got knowledge 

[00:13:14] and I 

[00:13:14] realized these folks 

[00:13:15] don't know what the hell they talking about out here and haven't done any research. And you know, when I do magical mentoring 

[00:13:22] sessions, I'm like, when's the last time you cracked a book 

[00:13:25] on the subject matter in spirituality or the occult that you 

[00:13:28] wanted to learn.

[00:13:29] And he read it from page from cover to cover. They don't. People want things, you know, given to them spoonfed to them, encapsulated video, engaging. That's how a lot of people have now become accustomed to learning. And so that's why I started teaching people online, using what I've been doing in my two decades as an instructional designer and taking it and using it for magic.

[00:13:55] And now we have several instructors from different practices that I don't, you know, Now, I'm not a crystal expert. So tonight we've got crystal magic and my Vodou sister, Josie Smith teaches that, um, Patty Whittington, uh, she's a white lady. She is the bomb. She's an ally. She teaches meet your bad-ass ancestors.

[00:14:16] So I don't have to teach white folks how to get 

[00:14:19] to they ancestors. 

[00:14:20] And she's written a book. She teaches 

[00:14:21] herb magic. She's written a book about that. She teaches urban magic for city witches. She teaches protection. She teaches moon magic. And you know, I try to sit in on all those classes. We've got, uh, Papa Louis Rosa, um, and he does all of the Lucumi Santeria stuff.

[00:14:38] And he's going to be doing a course next month for Orisha worship and devotion for non initiates. Um, and then we've got Lady Speech Sankofa. Oh yes, baby. That's my sister. That's my spirit soul sister. And she is going to be teaching sex magic 101, 102. Both of those are amazing. 

[00:15:01]

[00:15:01]That's what I always tell people, like, look like the people that I worked in my store, my step-daughter worked in my store. I've had a couple other people. I'm like, you got a problem with something that I'm saying or doing, tell me what the problem is. Say, what's your chest. And they do. Don't sit up here and harbor, um, resentment or misunderstanding.

[00:15:21] You've got to learn how to speak when you have a problem. And that's what spell work, prayer, you know, intention, whatever you want to call it is. Learn how to speak it. Learn how to bring words to life. That is the key to this. And that's why I said I unintentionally did spell work before I became a formal practitioner.

[00:15:43] I cursed somebody for a number of years who had physically attacked me. And I didn't realize it until I saw them on TV years later, all fucked up. I used to call it putting Dodd on them. I didn't know what it was. And then I just looked and I watched this person on TV and I felt really bad. And I said, you know, okay, that was a fist fight that this person is, this is years has gone by.

[00:16:07] I'm like we can stop now. And that person went on to do extremely well, but they were in medical school and the show called Houston medical. And they had two kids and their lights were about to be cut off. And it looked like they lived in the projects horrible, but like 20 years later, she sent me a friend request on Facebook.

[00:16:26] She is a doctor. She's still married to the same guy her kids are grown. I didn't accept that request because I don't have to forgive nobody. I blocked her ass, but I set that curse free. You know, a lot of people don't dispose of their spell work. They don't release things. Forgiveness is not release.

[00:16:47] There's big difference. And I have a series on my YouTube channel about divination matters and about forgiveness and different things like that. So people can go to the big Liz Conjure YouTube channel. We put all of the Facebook lives on YouTube so that, you know, people can go back 

[00:17:03] Jeannette : [00:17:03] your blog. I was getting my life from your blog.

[00:17:06] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:17:06] I wish, but wait a minute. 

[00:17:08] Jeannette : [00:17:08] I like to read. I liked, I mean videos are cool, I like to read, I like videos and stuff but the end of the day it just sets my mind free of the stuff to go. And I could be nourished

[00:17:17]Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:17:17] And Trini was like, she mentioned, my daughter had mentioned something about my blog last night. I'm like, what? The blog that I don't be writing in no more.

[00:17:26] I need time. There's a lot of, yeah. Things like, uh, like if anybody ever gets a hold of my phone after I die, there's like many voice recordings. I'll wake up from a dream or I'll think about something late at night. Knowing good and well that I ain't going to remember it in the morning and about different things that I can be writing about.

[00:17:44] I've been asked to write books. It's just, you know, especially with the day job, there's just, there's just no room right now. But hopefully I've been working lately, spiritually my own spiritual development in creating space because you can't get to the 300, 400 hundreds and 500 hundreds. If you stuck teaching the one hundreds and the two hundreds.

[00:18:07] So, you know, 

[00:18:09] I'm going to do more. That was my goal. I don't do resolutions, but my goal for the year was to invest more in my spiritual education. And so that's what I aim to do. But you know, in the future and you know, for the rest of my life, I tell people that you are on this earth until your purpose is served.

[00:18:30] You're on this earth until you stop living. When you stop learning, you're on this earth, when you stop learning, you stop living. So as long as I keep learning, I'll stay alive. I've learned everything I need to know. Then I'll go. 

[00:18:45] So, you know, my goal 

[00:18:46] is just to continue learning and, um, you know, leading by example, that's the biggest thing you could do for your children.

[00:18:54] When people ask me, you know, oh, well, I'm just starting this ancestor veneration. And I got little kids and I got big kids or whatever, what should I do with the kids? I said, encourage them to watch what you're doing. Do not hide your ancestor, veneration from your kids, some of your spell work. You may want to keep to yourself.

[00:19:12] It may not be age appropriate, but your veneration, 

[00:19:17] your working with your ancestors, you're opening those channels of communication, let them in and let them see so that they know when they get it and how to 

[00:19:27] use it, just show them. And they'll they'll know. I mean, even the Bible says, teach a child the right way. They won't depart from it. 

[00:19:36] So you just got to teach and you know, when they're receptive and everybody goes through, I mean, I remember my daughter, 

[00:19:42] my youngest went through some teenage rebellion. She's 

[00:19:44] like, and I don't even believe in this shit. And I'm just like, okay, well, you're not hurting my feelings, that's you, that's on you.

[00:19:50] Boo. You know, but she believes, and I think that as her life goes on, she'll find a lot of things to believe in and she'll get what resonates with her. And she'll, be spiritually satisfied and she'll make better decisions all the way around because of it. Hmm. 

[00:20:08] Jeannette : [00:20:08] So, like what kind of wisdom would you have for other mothers who are like, you know, beginning to travel their path and figure things out. Like maybe they're just stepping more fully into their clairvoyance, like your cousin or they're , 

[00:20:23] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:20:23] you know, you want to get like-minded people, you want to get educated. You don't want to follow scam artists and be paying people to do a bunch of spiritual work for you. 

[00:20:35] These are the types of things to learn for yourself. That's what I tell everybody. Secondly, if you ain't got nobody paying your bills, don't worry about what they think about it. They ain't raising your kids. Ain't paying your bills. Fuck them. Now sometimes that can cause a problem in a relationship. But most of the time, what I see is the husbands they wasn't really, you know, in the church.

[00:21:03] Anyway, you going black church, it's mostly women. They kind of either go along with it or they, uh, disrespect it and don't really become involved. Once again, like I said, even the Bible tells you that, you know, a man can learn from his wife, he can be saved through his wife. Okay. So you know, anything that a relationship you're in a relationship and you change your spiritual path and your partner tells you, you can't do this, or even destroy your items or beat you or emotionally abuse you.

[00:21:39] Um, the that's a bigger sign of a bigger problem. This ain't your spirituality that has the problem, your relationship has a problem go to marital therapy or whatever you see fit or get rid of that motherfucker. If the person's not going to respect not, everybody's going to go with you, your family, your friends.

[00:21:59] I mean, I can't tell you how many people don't come and see me because I have altars in my house or because of what I worship. You know, my family used to come to Ohio to visit our relatives here all the time. I've been here five years, six years. Oh God. This is five years, five years. They haven't been once.

[00:22:19] They're welcome. But I ain't going to beg them to come and guess what? My life is better for it. Cause they get on my goddamn nerves. Come eat up all your food, lay all around your house. Don't help do nothing, stay home. Bye. And then get they feelings hurt when I don't come see them when I'm in Chicago.

[00:22:41] But like my sister practices now, and my sister went to the museum. My sister's always been a prophetic dreamer and what they call prayer warrior. Whew she could put a spell on you. She could speak a word on you. She could tell you what you're going to do, what you ain't going to do and what's going to happen.

[00:22:57] And she went to the museum of modern art in Chicago for her birthday this weekend. And they had a lot of hanging displays and they were all about people of color. And one of them was a binding spell binding against the patriarchy. It specifically said it, my sister put it up on her Facebook every time my sister would go and stand near one of those installations, it would start spinning like a pendulum.

[00:23:24] And then when she stepped away from it, it would stop moving. The security guard was looking at her like she was touching it. Everybody in there was like, what's going on? She's gifted. She's our bloodline. I was like that's to be expected, strange things are going to happen around you. I had another cousin.

[00:23:42] She's not a practitioner. She's still a Jesus freak. And when I was having my daughter, every time she picked up those little cheap hospital telephones, she would the electricity in her body would blow the phone out.  After the third or fourth phone, the hospitals that we not giving you another one, this was 20 years ago.

[00:24:03] My girlfriend had to go to radio shack and buy us a better phone. So I could have a phone in my room. Cause that was bigger. That was before we all started having cell phones. But every day, cause people was calling the room while I was in labor and talking to her and every time she picked up that phone, she blow that phone out.

[00:24:19] These are the types of relatives that I have. They can make inanimate objects move, they can blow, blow out power to things. You know, I've seen some shit. I've seen my relatives see and do some stuff that I did not connect to our spirituality until I became a practitioner. And I believe there's a bigger thing at play here because my family has had a lot of, uh, death is due to alcohol and drug abuse.

[00:24:49] And a lot of times it was probably because they were trying to get rid of the voices, you know, and, or, or was thinking they were crazy. And I'm here to heal. I'm here to tell them no, if you hearing voices, let's see what kind of voices they are. Let's see if magic you need or medicine, what you need or if therapy is what you need.

[00:25:13] What can we do both holistically and pharmaceutically and with therapy and with spirit in a combined practice to get your mind right. So we are often put in these places by our ancestors to heal our bloodlines. And so I do consider that to be a very big part of who I am. And my family is  out here seeing me living my best life, making more money than they do. Yet, being more grounded than they've ever been, being more in touch with what they call God than they ever have been. You know, I'm not going to church on Sunday, I'm living my, what I believe seven days a week in the things that I do and the way I raise my children in the way I treat my friends, my family, and my customers.

[00:26:01] They see that the way I grow my food, they see that, you know, and so, you know, and when you know, most Christian of them, when they got a problem, they call me, you know, they don't usually ask the Christians, don't ask me to do work. The workers do. They be like, you know, can you give me a little something something? I got one cousin talking about can you put me this aside? I'm like, well, we don't put nothing aside, you better buy this product. What's wrong with you. We ain't got that many of these. Well, my cousin asked me to put aside, but I'm like, I'm just got to order you another one player. Cause you take too long to place orders. 

[00:26:43]That's that, you know, and I'm not perfect.

[00:26:46] Being a spiritualist does not make you a perfect being. It does make, if you are good and you know, what's required of you, you put, you put you at a higher standard and, and, and that's awesome for parents who are doing this show your kids a higher standard of how you deal with people. 

[00:27:04] Jeannette : [00:27:04] Yes.

[00:27:06]Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:27:06] In both good and bad situations.

[00:27:09] Like my kid got to witness. Well, she, she was there that first day when the guy came in and tried to read a Christian book to me at my store, and I basically asked him, I was about to let him go. And I was like, Hey, come back here. And in, in front of everybody in the store, I asked him, I said, how would you like it

[00:27:25] if I walked up into your church, into your sacred space and start preaching the good news of Papa Lega, how would you like it? If I started talking about Vodou in  your church, you he's like, oh, I'd listen I'd be open. I'm like, no, you wouldn't kick me out. And I'd probably call the police. I might even get my ass whooped.

[00:27:41] I was like, get out of my store and put your own mask over your nose. 

[00:27:44] It's not helping and you're not protected. He was like, he walked out the store. You know, women coming in , looking for Bibles. I'm like, this is not that kind of store. My kids get to see how I deal with people who don't believe the same as me. You don't have to necessarily dog people out. You don't have to invalidate their spiritual beliefs, but you can very much inform someone of why you don't believe the way that they do. And that only comes through education. So just like when people are making this change and most of us are in the black church, it's just the reality.

[00:28:24] That major oppressive force in our culture is the black church homophobic self hating. The basis of Christianity is to hate yourself because you're born in sin, hate everything that you are naturally capable of wanting and desiring. You got to go against all that to be holy. You got to be an anti-human to be holy.

[00:28:51] So you could educate yourself as a parent about what you believe in because kids know when you on some old bullshit too 

[00:28:59] Jeannette : [00:28:59] they do 

[00:29:00] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:29:00] and, if they 

[00:29:00] don't, if they see you just hopping around tingling with your crystals in your, and your singing bowls, and you don't have a foundation, they gonna be like, she just she's special.

[00:29:11] You know, they're not going to listen and 

[00:29:14] Jeannette : [00:29:14] They not going to respect, you. They not going to ask you nothing

[00:29:17] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:29:17] They not going to respect what you believe in either. They're not 

[00:29:19] going to embrace it, but when they see actively living, walking, the walk that you talk and they see that your life improved because of it and that you don't act a certain kind of way anymore, because I was black momma.

[00:29:34] I was not big on beating my kids never have been now. I just anti beating children. But you know, um, I was a different parent. I had a lot less patience before I made my spiritual transformation, but I always had a moral code. Things did not change much about who I am and how I raised my kids in that manner.

[00:29:59] It was just my behavior changed how I reacted to certain things, how I counseled them about certain things. Because like with this Corona virus, I sat them down. I looked at them. I said, look, I'm 52 years old.  Often y'all come to me for words of wisdom. Sometimes I give them to you unsolicited, like when we're watching movies and I predict what's going to happen next to my kids get pissed off at me, but can you stop the psychic shit and let us watch the movie.

[00:30:27] But when Corona hit us and I got nothing, but actually I did because I read the astrological forecast on the way back home from Haiti in 2020, early 2020. So I went there for Mange Lwa a little while for new years. And I thought it was some old pagan panic, but that astrological forecast, the Ifa letter of the year, all of those things predicted all of this and nobody paid attention, including me.

[00:30:56] I thought, oh, okay. The world's going to be an upheaval. But the year of 2020 was the tower card. Systems being turned on their heads. People jumping out of buildings like 9 11, everything being changed, death and destruction. That was 2020. 

[00:31:17] And so, because I finally got with it, when I started seeing all this stuff going down, we understood it had to be in how we had to navigate it.

[00:31:26] And so, you know, but I couldn't give them no. At the beginning of this, I was like, I don't know, stay in house. We gone die. 

[00:31:34] We's all gonna  die. Just stay in the goddamn house. You know, I got a young 25 year old stepdaughter. She didn't want to  stay in that house. They think they invincible as we all do when we're younger 

[00:31:50] Jeannette : [00:31:50] good times,

[00:31:52]Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:31:52] you know, and I know she careless cause she just careless in life and I'm like, look, you ain't gonna kill me.

[00:31:58] So you either going to stay in this house. You going to go get your own place. She got her own place. And can't see her because up until recently, I wasn't even inoculated, but I'm still not going around, but I know that she subscribes to a lot of these YouTube, uh, spiritualists and theroists and conspiracies. And, you know, she probably isn't inoculated. I don't know that, but you know, I believe in a mix of this medicine and I said, well, I gotta, I gotta kind of look at this. Nah, I don't really trust inoculations. I know they can kill people. I know they can have side effects, but on the other hand, we, ain't all walking around here with measles and chicken pox and all this other stuff that can kill us, whooping, cough and all this.

[00:32:42] So I'm like, you know, I'm going to take this Corona. I might grow a third tit. I don't know, but I, I hopefully I ain't going to die. 

[00:32:53] You know, you, you going to get your parents be aware, well, especially black mothers, you going to get your biggest opposition from your own people, especially your family who have been walking in the dark, their entire lives.

[00:33:08] Be ready for that. Understand that you have to practice this practice enough, where you are solid in 

[00:33:15] the, um, results of your work. You're solid in the results of your spiritual connection. 

[00:33:20] You are solid in your protection of the 

[00:33:22] ancestors and the Deities and the almighty 

[00:33:24] creator that you won't worry about, that it may hurt your feelings.

[00:33:30] It hurt my feelings. I'm like people being so closed minded. You know, you're going to get problems from 

[00:33:38] people which if your kids go to school with people and they come to your house and see your altars are fine. I don't hide my altars. I have an altar room for my Vodou altars and things like that.

[00:33:49] But my family altar, is in my living room, family room where they should be you know right off the top of my wood-burning fireplace. So when I'm doing my fire, work I'm feeding it to them, literally in my fireplace, you know? 

[00:34:05] Everybody's at different levels, but they're connected. And so that's important. And so that's why it's important for mothers who practice to have elders to have people who support them. I support them. They can always come and talk to me. Um, they can come to me for divination. They can come to me for a mentoring session to help them navigate this because any conversion transformation in your life, it is always helpful.

[00:34:33] If you have support. 

[00:34:35]A support system of any type is incredibly valuable. I want the parents who are starting their practice always involve your children always. And if you run 

[00:34:46] your household, start incorporating your spirituality into the way you mop your floor. When you smudge in your house, I can't tell you the times I've gone and woke my kids up smudging with incense going through.

[00:34:57] I don't use smudge sticks that's appropriation, but I go in there with my frankincense, my myrrh, and my garlic skins. And I'm going through all the corners and all the bedrooms. Sorry you still asleep? You should have had your ass up. I'm I'm I'm I'm smudging or, oh, they hate floor washing. They hate floor washing mean you live in a 2,500 square foot house, which I did in Chicago and I do now.

[00:35:18] And it was like, oh, we're washing all the floors today. I got some van van in that mop water, get to it, you know? You can be you and you don't have to announce to the whole world what you are. They'll see it in how you are rather than what you say. So that's another thing, be a reflection of what you say you believe in. That's another thing that you can teach your kids.

[00:35:45] And it's been very, very important and very instrumental to me in my practice.

[00:35:54] Jeannette : [00:35:54] You done said all the words and I swear you been been over here,

[00:36:02] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:36:02] over here, been here before all those different things. Yeah, probably. 

[00:36:05] Jeannette : [00:36:05] Yeah. So yeah you were over here today, 

[00:36:09] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:36:09] you know, just living that life, you know, I'm still, a heathen I still eat meat. I still, you know, I, you know, like I said, all juices and berries. I love technology. Um, you know, and I, but I do see more now that I'm older and more spiritually enlightened the benefits like this, and then the things that are detrimental because of technology.

[00:36:36] Um, and, um, you know, I see these things, um, and it helps me get a grasp on the world, what I want to participate in what I don't want to participate in things that I just stepped back from and be like, well, I'm gonna let y'all do that. Okay. You know? And, um, so I'm, I'm at a place in my life where I have peace.

[00:36:58] That's the biggest thing, peace, you know, just being settled with it, you're doing things the way you supposed to, that you are in alignment, in alignment with your spirit, that you are in alignment with your ancestors, that you are in alignment with the universe, because folks will be out here talking about aligning their chakras, but they don't know really what that means.

[00:37:20] You know where your heart, your head, your gut and your genitals are in line with your spiritual, spiritual beliefs in your spirit. So, biggest thing is to teach parents, to let their kids be who they are, you know, gay, straight non-binary, trans, whatever, let them live, who they are and love them through whatever it is.

[00:37:48]You can't keep kids from having experiences and then set them loose in this world because that's the biggest disservice we do to children is trying to shelter them and protect them and keep them from knowing things.

[00:38:02] When I was six years old and my grandmother and I was standing at a window in our house, up in Northern Ohio and she looked at me and she said, you know, I was six years old when I saw my first witch and she didn't say anything. She described what the witch looked like. She was walking right through here and this is what she had on.

[00:38:20] And she never said anything else. I don't know why they didn't teach us. I don't know. I asked my uncle, why my mother's generation had had all of the issues and the problems that they've had. And he said, well, because your grandparents didn't take him to church. They didn't teach them any spirituality.

[00:38:39] And I'm like, well, I see it bigger. Now. They didn't teach us our spirituality, the stuff they knew, they didn't go to church. We had a lamp that was electric, that every time somebody died, my grandfather would get out this little label maker, the one that punched letters, put their name up on that lamp. And that never went off.

[00:39:01] Things like that. They didn't explain those things. They just did them. You know, my grandmother had plants growing up into the vertical blinds, you know, trap things, um, that would come in, um, the garden, they taught us. They taught me that. You know, I learned gardening. I learned sewing, but my grandparents didn't make us go to church, but they, they let us go.

[00:39:26] We would go to Awana Bible club. They would have a Jehovah's witness woman come over and give us Bible study. They would watch the crystal cathedral. And then right after the crystal cathedral went off every Sunday, the dude from the final call would show up and they would start talking about black nationalism.

[00:39:44] So my grandparents just did all kinds of stuff, different things, but they never, um, the only time I saw my grandmother get mad was when she saw my uncle doing energy healing on my knee. I fell and busted my knee and my, he was doing Reiki or PA, or maybe it might be T um, Pranic. He was throwing the energy off of me.

[00:40:06] And my grandmother was like, wait, how long will stop that? But maybe that was because of some experiences that she'd had with. You know,the occult and that type of magic, maybe. Um, she didn't like that. She, I remember her having a fit about that, but astrology and signs and crystals, and even goddamned taxidermy, we had all of that growing up.

[00:40:32] You know, it was very, very strange experience as I get older, you know, the memories fade, but the big things really stick out. And I know that our grandparents left us to be free to our own devices spiritually. And they did that with their children. And a lot of the children didn't ever find that they didn't ever, you know, find something that would help them improve their lives and make better decisions.

[00:41:00] But my grandparents, they had excellent role models. I still can't understand how some aunts and uncles ended up the way they did with my grandparents as parents, but also grandparents change. You know, the type of grandparent you are may not be the type of parent you were. And I wasn't there for that. So, you know, but that's what I'm saying.

[00:41:19] Just educate yourself, teach your children just like anything else. That's the biggest thing you can do for your kids, especially with spirituality.

[00:41:30] Hmm.

[00:41:33] Jeannette : [00:41:33] This has been so rich. It's been very, very rich.

[00:41:43] And it's just listening to you. Talk is just like, yeah, it's been so rich and I feel my ancestors, I feel them telling me things. Yeah. 

[00:41:54] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:41:54] That's, that's my life, you know, and I'm cynical. My mentors are cynical as hell. The fact that they're witches blows my mind and I wake up every morning asking myself, are you really doing this?

[00:42:07] This? You still doing this? You really believe this. And uh, you know, you hear that voice you're oversoul it'd be like, God damn right you do. Let's get up and get to witching. You know, I tell people I don't get up with a singing bowl and singing mantras and burning incense, I'm getting up like everybody else.

[00:42:24] There are more things that I want to incorporate into my day that will help me bring spirit. But I'm constantly in touch with it. I used to think it was me talking to myself when I now realize, no, this is me talking to God. This is me talking to my ancestors. This is me talking, bringing truth to the voice, to light saying it with my chest, you know, And not saying certain things, not speaking certain things to existence.

[00:42:54] My daughter is trying to convince me not to, she's going to buy roller skates. And I say, well, I'm, you know, I was recently hospitalized. I had sepsis from an infection from diverticulitis. Yeah. That almost took me out. And so I'm out of PTO, right. Even though I'm working at home and my daughter was telling me that she was going to get some skates.

[00:43:16] And so I'm looking back here at the, to the text messages. And she said, don't. I said, uh, oh, if I fall, I'm gonna have to have knee replacement. I'm heading in that direction. Anyway, she looked at me and she said to where she wrote to me and she said, don't speak that you'll never know until you do. And that is what I taught her.

[00:43:37] Don't speak those things. Don't speak those things to life. Don't put that in your brain. Don't even make that a possibility. And so every time I have a conversation with this child, she reminds me of who I am, who I am and what I taught her. And I'm grateful for it. Your kids can teach you as much. They're very spiritually open.

[00:44:00] They're very spiritually receptive. So the second thing is teach them. The second thing is, listen to them. Spirits, visit these kids, these imaginary friends. Okay. I had one, I had imaginary husband and children and incidentally, his name was Michael. And my first husband's name was Michael. We never had any kids together, but, um, you know, I had, and, and my family and my friends would talk to me like they were real, they would humor me.

[00:44:29] So what's your husband, y'all doing a date with them. Kids been doing, they really talk to me and it was, I didn't, I haven't thought about this in years until just now it was so validating to be this little kid with this made up world full of people and spirits that I spoke to on a daily basis. And I have the adults in my life not make fun of me.

[00:44:52] I used to come home to my grandma kind of stories. I told my grandma, my kindergarten teacher had a baby in the classroom one day. And she was like, yeah, for real, listen to them. Don't shut them down because in the middle of all them damn lies, you will find some truth,

[00:45:11] you know? You know? So, um, yeah. I remember one day my grandmother caught us playing childbirth with our baby alives. And she's like, dammit. She was so mad. I don't know why we were just little kids. She was so mad. She was like, yup, I'm gonna stop letting y'all watch all that goddamn PBS.

[00:45:40] But listen, listen, watch how they play, watch how they, what they imitate, what they emulate. Watch how spirit speaks to them. Children are gifted psychically with dreams, with scrying, with a number of things. And if you shut that down, it's just like kids learn languages quicker than we do. You get to a certain age, you get a mental block.

[00:46:02] And I can't learn another language to say my life. I done took Swahili trying to learn creole its hard, but if you start a kid early, they will speak it and they will have it as long as they keep using it for the rest of their lives. So teach them these things early. Most importantly, pay attention to their spirit early.

[00:46:25] It will keep them out of trouble. It would keep them out of harm's way. You will keep them from going someplace. They ain't got no business going, doing fuck shit with they friends because they'll have that connection and spirit to be like, Nope, and pull them back and they'll listen. But the only way you could teach someone to listen is to listen to them period.

[00:46:49] And that children ain't nothing butlittle people. In my mind I'm, I'm, I'm serious. I'm out here in  this garden fallen over hot, tired, getting my strength back from being in bed for three weeks. And I'm just like, but I feel 12. I feel like I'm really still a little, I'm still that little girl. With the imaginary family, you know, but this body is 52 years old.

[00:47:15] My grandfather was the same way. You had a blood pressure of an 18 year old, but he had an 84 year old heart, you know? So it's one of the things for me is that spiritual helps me reconcile. I I'm not gonna die. Energy doesn't die. It just transforms. I'm real pissed off about this body. I'm working on this body.

[00:47:40] I need to be able to walk to move and do the things I need to do. So, you know, you gotta take care of yourself. You gotta strengthen yourself. Hmm,

[00:47:54] Jeannette : [00:47:54] no, just being  reminded to listen to kids. 

[00:47:57] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:47:57] You got to

[00:47:58]Jeannette : [00:47:58] And not to shut them down cause it feels like so much in life is about shutting children down. It's not even about like getting them to listen to wisdom. 

[00:48:09] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:48:09] We have to understand where that comes from. That comes from patriarchy. That comes from oppression that comes from racism that comes from control.

[00:48:17] And so, you know, black people have unfortunately internalize the violence of their oppressor and on their own children because we were to be children to speak and be seen and not heard. Why not kids have really valuable things to say, 

[00:48:35] Jeannette : [00:48:35] I remember that line. 

[00:48:37] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:48:37] Yeah. It's horrible. 

[00:48:39] Jeannette : [00:48:39] Children are to be seen and not heard 

[00:48:41] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:48:41] A child is who they are. by the time  five years old. Don't shut them down. My niece, my sister, who I told you about was making, uh, art installations move. Her daughter had a whole conversation with my mother  on her patio. Cause my mother was a container gardener and she was telling my heart, my sister, all of the things that my mama was telling her about planting gardens, that child had no mama.

[00:49:08] Grandma. My mother had been dead for years when that child was born and she didn't know nothing about no gardening. That wasn't nothing but spirit talking to that child. So there you go. Listen to the babies. They will tell you. They'll tell you everybody business shit. They'll tell you everything. Oh, I used to get in trouble all the time telling everybody's business.

[00:49:28] And I was psychic too. Not a good mix. All it used to piss off the adults in my life. You talk to them much, shut you down, disrespect you. How do you expect your children to respect you? If you don't respect them, how can you expect a child to do what you don't teach them? You know my problem is , people that don't teach their children a got damn thing.

[00:49:56] They just control them. That's not going to help them out in life. If you don't teach your kid how to put up an iron board and use an iron, cause you scared they're gonna burn themselves so you iron all they clothes. Guess what? When they get grown, ain't gonna be able to iron,

[00:50:12]so yeah, you know, you know,  they are  more than what you think they are, your children are capable, everything they're going to be as in them right now, grow it. Everything. Even every egg you have as a woman, as a female, biological female, every child that you're ever going to have is in your body from the time that your child, and you lose those eggs  as you get older, but they're all their future generations.

[00:50:41] You are born with them. And so, you know, um, then there's a certain amount of maturity where the eggs come to fruition and you get your menstrual cycle, but those eggs are there and you only lose them when you start to shed. So, you know, that's what I'm saying. You know, it's like I knew from an early age, just from studying psychology way before I became a practitioner that.

[00:51:07] My child was going to be who she was by the time she was five years old and I better get it right. And so that's what I've lived by. And I really am proud of her. She graduated valedictorian, even the oldest one who wasn't with me until she was seven. She graduated from high school online with like a 3.5 and she'd been through some stuff.

[00:51:31] My youngest one, four point something on a 4.0 scale valedictorian, presidential scholar, all of those things, every single award, the school could give for academics. She received, she did everything. I, I educated her to do both mundanely and spiritually. And so I'm very pleased in what she's done. But I also realized that even though I was the one to teach her, she was the one that made the choice.

[00:52:02] Not me. She made the choice to be all those things I put into her. But if you don't put anything into a cup, ain't nothing to drink.

[00:52:16] That's why I tell people the suit of  the cups of the tarot is so important that your cup, that's what you have to pour out. That's what you have to give. That's what you have to take. And, um, you need to pay attention to those things, especially when they come up in a divination. So yeah, that's, that's, that's just my way.

[00:52:40] Jeannette : [00:52:40] What a blessing it is. Cause it's like you're pouring into your, your, your daughters, but you also pouring into the community. I think in many ways that's what's been missing for us specifically is the ability to know who to go to, who you can ask certain questions you can get help from because I, 

[00:53:01] Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:53:01] yeah, that's the biggest hurdle, you know

[00:53:04] but the biggest thing is to pour into myself. Yes. Because without that, like I said, if my life was a hot mess, I wouldn't want anybody to follow me. 

[00:53:16] Jeannette : [00:53:16] So how do you pour into yourself as you give to your children, as you give to the community?

[00:53:21]Mambo Liz Ruth: [00:53:21] Like I said, I'm learning more and more about doing that. Now, creating more space for the things I love the things I learn. sleeping more, got a love affair. I got an abusive ass bed. My bed tells me every morning, you don't need no friends. You don't need no job. All you need is me, girl, just stay with me. I go to get more sleep, eat better, do and stop doing the shit that don't serve me. That's the biggest thing.

[00:53:49] No is an amazing word. It's so small yet so hard for so many. I'll learn how to be like, Nope, this is not what I'm going to deal with. And it's caused me to end relationships and start new ones and that's okay. But yeah, me feeding me. Cause if you, you can't do that. If I don't learn more, I can't teach more.

[00:54:15] If I'm dead, you know, I sat up here and got sepsis sitting up on my computer. I wasn't doing nothing I'm out of here cOVID free doing and still got sick, you know, and in diverticulitis is also triggered by stress. So just trying to learn how to get my own, I just got me a gigantic crystal singing bowl for my root chakra, the QC in, you know, brought it up to my room, like the baby steps.

[00:54:43] Now I'm going to start taking it out and using it, just all those different things, keeping all those things around me. But most importantly, it mentally and mundanely structuring my life so that I'm not worn out. So that I'm not giving and pouring into people, places and things that are going to kill me because that's basically what we do.

[00:55:13] We kill ourselves and, and, and I'm hoping that the pandemic among other things have shown us some of this shit just ain't worth it. Some stuff just needs to go be gone. Let it, if it, if it develops and it's worth it, like my relationship with my stepchild been good. But if it's not going to serve either one of us, then it's okay to peacefully love somebody from a distance.

[00:55:43] There's also ways to peacefully dislike someone from a distance. You don't have to be tied up in hatred. That's not forgiveness by the way that's release. But that doesn't mean that you can say forgiveness is telling somebody, okay, I forgive, I forgive what you did, but that people think to me, forgiveness is telling somebody, I forgive what you did and it's not wrong to me anymore.

[00:56:12] It's still wrong. You still wrong? I'm just going to let you no longer take up real estate in my head. Or, in my heart. And if you want to call that forgiveness. Okay. But forgiveness is to absolve someone of wrongdoing and not everybody deserves to be absolved. A lot of times people deserve to be held accountable.

[00:56:38] There's a difference. So I'd rather teach accountability and release than forgiveness, because I don't believe that I won't, I'm always going to be held accountable, you know? So they say, if you don't forgive, nobody will forgive you. Why I'm not going to give them a reason to forgive me for shit. Cause I'm going to be accountable.

[00:56:58] How about that? Yes. And so, you know, that's one of the reasons why I left my Vodou house. I'm like, I can't be accountable for people coming to this elder and not getting what they came for. That's wrong. And you financially supporting these people and you're not filling your spiritual cup with spiritual knowledge technology and uh ritual.

[00:57:25] You're not learning nothing. What you paying for oppression submission. You don't have to pay for the protection of the spirits. There are rituals where you offer them things and you show your appreciation and you should. We serve in Vodou. We serve the Lwa and the Lwa  serves us, you know. In Orisha practices, you worship that's, you know, acknowledgement, okay.

[00:57:58] Accountability that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing by you. And you're doing what you're supposed to be doing by them. That's what that is. It's not living in fear. Papa leg was going to get me. If I didn't light this candle today, that's not how this works. If you didn't send money to the Parister, that's not how this works.

[00:58:18] And so, you know, you, you don't want to change one imprisonment for another one, because this is about freedom. This is about release. This is about forgiving yourself. So you can live with yourself because there's a lot of stuff that as you spiritually grow, you realize, oh my God, I fucked up. And I got to fix this.

[00:58:43] Sometimes some things can't be fixed and you just have to forgive yourself and realize that maybe like credit card debt, I dug this hole. I'm going to dig myself out, but it ain't going to do you no good if you cry about it and hate it and bitter about it, oh, you just dig yourself out. You don't make the same mistake.

[00:59:03] Cause I tell people a mistake is when you do something, the first time. Pay attention to the lessons that you make from your mistakes, because we're going to make them all the time. We're human. But the next time you do that shit with the same set of circumstances and you know better, that's not a mistake.

[00:59:20] That's an intention. Control your intentions, make better ones. That's what really being in touch with your spirit is all about: intentional, mindful living. I swear people would have much better relationships with their children. If they taught them to be mindful. How would you feel if you spoke to somebody like that, you hit your brother.

[00:59:44] How does it feel if somebody hits you, you stole something from, you took your little sister's last piece of cake. What if that was your last piece of cake? Literally teaching people to love others. As you love yourself. But the first thing is you got to teach people to love themselves. So they won't do that shit to other people.

[01:00:05] Because if you love yourself, you are not going to do things to people that you wouldn't want done to yourself. You will not open yourself up to that., and so that's the other thing you got to teach these kids to love themselves. Show them where they are beautiful. Show them where they are growing.

[01:00:24] Stop concentrating on where they're deficient. Even psychology tells you that positive reinforcement works better. They get a science experiment where they went into one of these minority schools, right? And you know, white folks love playing with our brains, In one class room they said  was gifted. And the teacher was told that these children are exceptionally gifted. They gave them fake test scores. The other teacher, they gave them average or below average test scores, or they give them the real test scores. I don't know. Those children that were in the gifted classroom were at the same level as those children in that other classroom,

[01:01:06] but they excelled. Why? Because their teacher believed they were gifted.  Ain't that a bitch.  We need to know how to meet people where they are.

[01:01:18] Period, in all aspects of life. You know, even with my students, I meet them where they are. I ask them what they know. I ask them what they don't know. And I teach them accordingly. Not everything is for everybody. Some people want to be crystal witches. Some people want to be a, Vodou practitioner, not everybody's supposed to be a priest or priestess.

[01:01:41] That's this new hype initiation. Most of these people in these countries where these religions originate go their entire lives. That's like everybody in the Catholic church go to mass one day and decided they want to be a priest. Don't make no sense.

[01:01:59] Everybody has their calling  including your children and their calling comes early and you've got to find it and you got to see it and you got to grow it like you will a house plant or a garden vegetable. You gotta grow children. You gotta feed them water, wash them, grow them, nurture them, you know, and too many kids miss out on that because we so busy, shit.

[01:02:26] My mama, I was getting up, starting the car, running her bath water, getting my sister dressed, pressing everybody's clothes. Cause she was out here trying to make money, working for Illinois bell every day, drinking on our way to work, drinking after work. But my mama cooked every night. My mama was home every night, but she didn't take a lot of time only when she was sober and she'd come out of rehab to really put into us.

[01:02:53] And my got that from my grandparents. I lived with them until I was 11. Thank God. Cause I had somebody to put into me. You can't drink from an empty cup.

[01:03:06]That's the biggest thing. My ancestors told me they put an edict on me about even how I was disposing, offerings and things. They were like, don't waste. You ain't got to go through no special acrobats to dispose of our food. You know, using paper bags, burying stuff, and the animals digging, they were like, don't waste. It's enough that you offer it.

[01:03:30] Put that shit in the garbage with everything else and take it outside. Cause your sidewalk and your street make a crossroad. Put it in the can at the crossroad and keep it moving. Stop getting tied up in rhetoric and dogma and theology. You see how far that's got you? My ancestors laid me the fuck down in October.

[01:03:52] I tore my rotator cuff and they laid some stuff on me that made me leave my house. And I was proven to be exactly right. And I worried about my spiritual protection. If something was going to be done to me, if I was going to be hurt by her and the other members of the house, they tried, it was, she tried to tell them to do it.

[01:04:12] They didn't. They all ended upleaving too. But when I asked spirit, should I do anything magically? They were like, no, watch us work. Won't  they do it. Because a month later, two months later, I had said nothing to anyone. She revealed herself online for everybody to see. I made more money that day then I had no very long time.

[01:04:38] Everybody was like, you were a Mambo to us who cares about her? We support you. I got to see what people, because primarily I care about my reputation. That's another thing you teach kids. You know, how will people know you? As Margaret Burroughs wrote, what is your legacy? I met Margaret Burroughs. She was the founder of south side community art center in Chicago.

[01:05:07] I took her final pictures at a public event. Her final pictures when she was alive for her 90 something birthday at the art Institute. That's how revered she was. I went and assisted a photographer that night. Spirit put me there and I took her pictures and one work of all of her art out of everything she's ever done.

[01:05:29] I remember that poem. What is your legacy?

[01:05:34]What do you want? When you die what do you want people to say about you when you live? What do you want people to say about you?

[01:05:45]You teach, you put that in your kids early. They have a conscious, they woke. That's wokeness, not all this other bullshit that they be preaching on YouTube.

[01:06:01]That's wokeness.  Thing is like, with my youngest, she 19, she ain't found her purpose yet. I'm like, girl, don't be in a hurry to do that. Experience

[01:06:12] all the things. You'll find it. It will happen and it will change. I mean in my life, I've been, I've had a home organization and concierge company. I've been a professional photographer. I've done customer service. I've taught, uh, university classes. Um, I was an elementary education major at first. I I've done a lot of stuff.

[01:06:37] I do miniature work. I built this doll house behind me. I do, I do a lot of stuff because I want to see what I can do. And I don't do all things well, but I try, I start off from that place. I'm going to do this well. And I find something that I they're very little, that I do that fails.

[01:06:58] But fear of failure is what stops a lot of people, especially people practicing spirituality. They'll be like, I'm afraid I'm going to mess something up. And I'm like, how are you going to ever know that if you don't do it. And if you, if you study and research and you talk to people and you do the work and you get the divination, or you do the divination, or when you talk to your ancestors or you go out and you speak to the ground and the earth and the moon and the sun, and they tell you what to do and you don't do it.

[01:07:31] How are you going to know? That's like, like me never teach. I remember my daughter's kindergarten teacher was like, get her some Velcro shoes. Cause I'm tired of tying her shoes. I'm like, no, we're going to teach her to tie her shoes. I'm going to teach her to tie her-- she didn't want me to do it one of her little five-year-old friends taught her how, but she learned if I'd have bought her a Velcro gym shoe, she would not have tied her shoes.

[01:07:59] I mean, you're able up here, she got some corn. I'm going to go show her how to make this fried corn. Cause I made some on Sunday and she's like, I'm gonna need some more of that corn. I got some more of it left. I'm finna go fry it up and I'm gonna make her watch what I do because that's another thing.

[01:08:14] Especially with the occult and spirituality, we weren't shown, we weren't taught. We didn't sit up there,  now this is a class on how to do a lamp or this is a class or how to do a candle. No, we watched our elders. That's how I learned how to cook. My mom never said, this is how you do it. I sat and watched her over and over again.

[01:08:35] I didn't go hide in my room while she was cooking. So I know how to cook, show your children by doing that's how you teach them and have them do.

[01:08:54] Ancestors talking to you. 

[01:08:57] Jeannette : [01:08:57] It's just like we've been taken so far away from ourselves and how we kind of like lovingly move forward with some sort of. Continuity and 

[01:09:07] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:09:07] Right. Well that's because, like I said, everybody's got to have a class to do something. Everybody has to be initiated to do something.

[01:09:14] Everybody got patriarchal oppression order, all we, all of a sudden we want to go do something. Now we got to have a committee or we got to have an order to it. Or we got to have rules, you know? Yes. It's good. Important to learn principles and rules and knowledge, but not be restricted by them. That's how you make a magical practice, your own.

[01:09:41] What resonates with you. There are herbs and roots out here that do things for people that they don't do for other people. They may even work contradictory to their magical purpose with that person. And people don't realize that like pendulums they're like whatever, and they just move a little bit. My youngest, you put pendulum in her hand--

[01:10:05] whoop, whoop, whoop my sister out here, turning art installations into pendulums, but pendulums don't like me. It's okay. I get over it.

[01:10:18] What do you do? You can't do everything perfectly. And that's the thing. People with social media, everybody thinks, oh, look, they've put up their best. Some people are committed to only showing you their best. Other people. They seem committed to always showing you their worst,

[01:10:39] but it creates a warped mindset of what is really going on with that person. Cause people think I just got it all together in my life. Don't have no issues. I'm sure people think that is the case. No, but the difference is I don't always speak my issues to life. Okay. I changed them. I manifest them in a different direction.

[01:11:07] Like my daughter told me about skating. Don't speak to that, do it. I still ain't getting on no goddamn roller skates. I have been on enough to know that that is not my spiritual gift. Or I'da been out here a roll bouncing a long time ago. Like my daddy, my daddy get on some roller skates. He takes 20 years off.

[01:11:27] Easy just moves, just like a pimp. Just he is a skating pimp. He used to go every week. I don't even know if he skates no more, but, but everything ain't for everybody, my mother was a math major. My daddy's a carpenter.  My both of my parents are mathematically gifted. My ass barely got out of algebra. The only math I understood was geometry and statistics. And, but I, write.  Can't, nobody write better than me in my family. And most people that I know. Why, because that is the gift spirit gave me and I use it. And it's not just writing.

[01:12:04] It's the gift of communication, the gift of teaching. My sister is an educator for an international hair company. She's been able to been in a chair, working, doing hair for 20 years. She now she's making a really good living, educating people using zoom because of, you know, Corona, how to use this company's products.

[01:12:26] She's one of the top 30 stylists to know something like that on Instagram. She, you know, is doing amazing things with her life, but we she's using her gift of education. We all, you know, in our family were very good teachers. So, you know, and some people can't teach other people. It's, it's, uh, it's one of those things that, you know, other people are better at teaching things than others.

[01:12:53] Um, and so you just have to go with what works for you and what's good for you. And then you find ways to shape a career out of it. So that you can be, you live with yourself and still afford to eat because we still live in a capitalistic society. I still have a day job. I like healthcare benefits.

[01:13:15] And until I can get in a situation where I get my own health care, that's where I'm going to be. You know, but my eventual dream is to just do this work full-time and I'm getting there. But people all the time make the assumption that that's all, this is all I do. And it's not. Try to be multifaceted, but I like nice things too.

[01:13:38] We ain't gonna lie about that. I got champagne wishes on a beer budget. So, um, I had to get the champagne. I'm working on the champagne budget, you know, and at the same time, not taking advantage of people, not hurting people, not misleading people and, um, being able to sleep at night and look at myself in the mirror.

[01:13:58] When I get up in the morning though, that's what's important for me. And if we teach our kids to do that, the world will be a much better place. And for the black community, even more, because they're going to start to demand the respect that they receive from their parents. If their parents beat them, then yeah.

[01:14:19] They can expect the police to beat them. It's getting, you know, an expectation that that's going to happen. No, you don't have to accept that.

[01:14:28]So if we teach them how to command respect and how to gain knowledge and how to do things that sit well with their spirit and not fight their spirit, not fight who they are physically, mentally humanly. You will see a change and that's the change. I'm hoping that's coming out of all this and the black people in waves coming back to African spirituality.

[01:14:55] That is my wish.

[01:14:58]We'll be better for it because the only reason why we still here is because of Hoodoo and Vodou, magically medically mundanely, because we couldn't go to hospitals. We had to birth our own babies, had to be out in the field the next day. How did they do that? You better learn that type of strength. You know?

[01:15:22] So that's what we got to teach our kids because you know, when you start to look, there was a story, a friend of mine told me. This man died and he went back to heaven. This is, like kind of a Christian story, talked to God. And God was like, yeah, well you gotta go back. And he kept sending the man back and the man finally came back and he said, why do you keep sending me back?

[01:15:47] Could not realize that he was different every time. I mean, and,  God told the man until you realize that you are all the same one. You will keep going back. Until you realize that everybody is you, you will keep going back. And as a lot to do with spiritual elevation reincarnation, probably a whole different conversation.

[01:16:13] But you know, I don't want to do this again. Not this existence. I love it. I'm like Macy gray. I love the life I'm living, but I can't wait to meet you Lord. Cause I'm no, no, thank you. I'm I'm not trying to die, but I ain't trying to do this again. Send me back as a pampered housecat some shit like that, maybe, but I'm not trying to do this human shit again, not human in this earth, in this dimension.

[01:16:43] That's okay. I'll pass too much pain, too much suffering, too much lack of spiritual elevation and enlightenment too many people too hardheaded to see that they're getting in their own way. And at the same time, hurting, killing, abusing other people in the process. Every single time you see somebody do something that horrific, yes, they're mentally ill.

[01:17:07] There's no such thing as an insanity defense, you have to be insane to do some of the shit these people do to each other. And that is unhealed. Unhealed. People hurt people, hurt people. And this is why we have what we have. It ain't no gods, no deities fault. They're always saying, well, why haven't the African God saved you.

[01:17:30] If this is no, the African gods haven't saved you. That's why this is cause they like you black people too. Well, if Ya-, if Yaweh, isn't good enough. Why then? Why we still suffering? Cause when we was over in Africa, no, you, you didn't, you know, you didn't allow them to save you. You didn't allow them to rule your life.

[01:17:55] You didn't listen to them. Has nothing to do with them. They offered it. You didn't listen. Even in Christianity, you didn't listen. You just went off and did what you wanted to do. And bastardized the, you know, the cult of Jesus Christ, you just completely bastardized it, chose what you was going to tell people what you was not going to tell people.

[01:18:17] And you wonder why they are the way they are. You lied to them. You told them these were the words of God. No, these are the words men wrote. Folk tales and stolen stories of the birth of civilization. Take it and twist it to your own political belief system. And you wonder why things are so bad. Because if people were true Christians,

[01:18:47] they wouldn't act the way they would. Cause that I tell people, well, if you want to listen or observe what real Christianity is, read the red letters, lead the rest of this shit alone. Listen to what Jesus said. But then there's always that thing where, you know, there's no archeological evidence that he ever existed, but we won't even go into that conversation because that's another conversation about removing Christian guilt from your practice.

[01:19:13] The biggest thing is nobody wants to walk the walk. They just want to talk the talk. And the walk is hard. Being a spiritualist, being a Vodousaint being a Hoodoosaint it's not easy. It's not even easy to go sit down and do a divination for every single life experience that you have questions about, you know, where what other people would just do on the fly or a quick prayer where, you know, there's ritual involved.

[01:19:42] This is not easy. It's not supposed to be. Life is not supposed to be easy. Life is supposed to be balanced. We're not always supposed to have good times, but those good times give us the faith and the fuel and the knowledge to survive the worst. And people don't realize that. It's about balance. When you're balanced, you're calm, you're healthy.

[01:20:07] Nothing's outrageously scary and bad. Nothing is excitingly, you know, deliriously good. Neither one of those things is a benefit , especially when things are delightfully, good, you not paying attention. Everything's great. And you'll accept all kinds of shit. Cause it's good.

[01:20:30] That relationship. Ooh, that sex is good. So I'm just going to accept all kinds of fucking red flags and bullshit from you. That's unbalanced. So the key is balance. The key is enjoying yourself, gifting yourself, taking care of yourself. That's  the key. And now I gotta go fold laundry. At five o'clock. I told myself I had to go fold laundry. 

[01:21:04] Jeannette : [01:21:04] Finally, your washing machine and your dryer won. 

[01:21:07] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:21:07] No, I got that's the stuff I got upstairs. I still gotta put this stuff in the dryer. I still have two loads upstairs looking at me. So yeah, so, and at eight o'clock I have a divination nine o'clock I have a divination and I'm making candles so balance.

[01:21:21] Yep. Got to go handle that business.

[01:21:26] Jeannette : [01:21:26] Talking to me though. Thank you for sharing. 

[01:21:29] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:21:29] I'm so glad you black. 

[01:21:32] Jeannette : [01:21:32] This work needs to be done, 

[01:21:34] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:21:34] man. These folks, these white folks in the media, they be contacting me. This one guy, the woman was black, who wrote the article and she was so respectful. And then the photographer called and he was like, um, I was just wondering if there was a way that I could photograph you take doing a ritual.

[01:21:49] I cussed his ass out six ways from Sunday and canceled the fucking interview. How dare you? You don't even know the first thing, what I do on it. You can come see my store. I'm not going to no, because they think that this is performative. So I don't do a lot of media stuff. 

[01:22:11] Jeannette : [01:22:11] Thank you for trusting me. 

[01:22:12] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:22:12] Yes. You're welcome. Cause it's not my fame, is not something I'm really comfortable with being well-known people running up to me like I'm some goddamn type of  rockstar at festivals and stuff and, and don't touch me. I don't know your energy. Wanting a hug and autograph. I'm not giving you my handwriting. 

[01:22:38]

[01:22:38] Autographs because they're still stuck in that other mentality. Black and white  always want to hug me. Don't touch me. 

[01:22:48] Jeannette : [01:22:48] People quick to give up their power, I guess we, 

[01:22:51] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:22:51] yeah. Cause they, they don't know no better  they're unaware. And so you have to correct that and you know, and they may not like you because of it, but you can still be you and have your standards and have your reputation and move on from there.

[01:23:11] And like, I don't like people talking to me like they know me, you know, coming at me wrong, assuming they can do say touch. No, we should not have, we should have our own autonomy and people should respect that, but they don't even have their own. So they don't know how. It's like making kids hug relatives that are creepy or relatives that have abused.

[01:23:39] And those types of things, don't make kids hug people and be kissed or be, you know, that intimate with people, that they don't like. Don't make them do that. That's not good.

[01:23:53] So these are all the things that we have to do as parents to put them on this path of self actualization, consciousness, wokeness, and love. That's what we owe our kids. And that's what makes parenting a really hard thing to do. Don't throw witching in it. Then you got a whole different nother level to teach and show and demonstrate.

[01:24:26] Jeannette : [01:24:26] Sorry. I'm finally in the room with the ancestor altar. Cause I had like a little setup in beside the bed and now I'm like, I can look and see my grandparents. 

[01:24:35] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:24:35] Are they reading you right now?

[01:24:37] Jeannette : [01:24:37] They were reading me for filth in the other room-- I'm like,no, 

[01:24:45] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:24:45] We just live. And we learn. And I wish we came with all the answers. My cousin lied to her children and said there was a book, a mommy book. And when the kids would ask her stuff, she says, cause it's in the book. And then they grew up and realized ain't no book,

[01:25:01] You be the book,

[01:25:07] but you, you add to it as you, as you learn. And as you grow, because we definitely don't come with kids, don't come with instructions. I thought I knew babies until I had mine. And I was like, oh my God, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Even from like stuff. I thought I knew, well, like changing a diaper, you know, or feeding, you know, I'm like I fed babies before I changed it.

[01:25:28] It's different when it's yours. I just prayed to dear God, I didn't drop her.

[01:25:39] So I think I did. All right.

[01:25:42]Jeannette : [01:25:42] It sounds like you did like the fact that you let them do and they're not asking you because not every kid asks. 

[01:25:49] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:25:49] No, no, they don't. They don't, but that's because we taught them not to because we shut them down. My kids know that they come to me, ask me anything. They tell me anything.

[01:26:03] Cause I'm very unconventional. You know, you want to be polyamorous. Okay. Well, this is the stuff that you need to be doing. We need to be setting up rules for that. You know, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. This is, you know, how you get respect. So, you know, none of that stuff, you know, nothing fazes me anymore.

[01:26:25] After all the stuff I've been exposed to, especially as a diviner, which also makes me feel incredibly grateful that I have the life that I have when I've talked to certain people and I'd be like,

[01:26:37] yeah, you went to that makes me not feel as traumatized, you know, because I realize, wow, you actually thought you had it bad, but you really had it pretty damn good. And that you can only do that, like by traveling and experiencing people and by talking people, you can only experience how well you have it.

[01:27:01] Cause baby after you spent two weeks in Haiti, in a home with generator electricity and no running water, and you get back home and you turn on that shower, full blast. You like,

[01:27:16] You know, I'm grateful for a flushing toilet. In fact, when I get ungrateful, I go in my bathroom and flush the toilet and I'm like, wow, shit goes down. All right. I don't have to go get a bucket five gallon bucket from the clean water source and carry it home. I've watched people in Haiti carry them on their heads, small women carrying five gallon buckets of water so they can have water in their house.

[01:27:46] You know, I've been in that heat without electricity, without air conditioning. I've been in situations where, you know, I remember when I went to the Dominican Republic and, uh, stayed with a friend on my way to Haiti, a friend of my former Mambos and she was like, we have hot water. She was so excited. And I went in that bathroom.

[01:28:06] I was like, yes, because it was so beautiful. Where was she lived. Um, not like, you know, the countryside of Haiti is beautiful, but being spoiled,and used to modern conveniences, girl I turned on that hot water, and that hot water trickled. She was excited about it. I took me a whole bath and was grateful, but I realized how well I had it, you know, and so I can be grateful for my blessings, not demean other people because they don't have the same blessings, help them get the same blessings.

[01:28:43] Um, and understand, you know, you may have to be at a point like what happened in Texas, where you ain't got no electricity, how are you going to make it? What you going to do? When I moved into this house, I sold my generator. They had one here. I'm like, oh, you fucking idiot. I got to go buy another one. I'm like, what am going to do with a generator?

[01:29:06] It was because they had, and I didn't know this at the time that people just left it. It was because there was a time in Ohio where they had ice storm and they were without power for two weeks.

[01:29:17] Jeannette : [01:29:17] That's a whole nother conversation, especially with spirit and land spirits around like what's coming and how to prepare. Cause sometimes I just feel stuff I'm like, 

[01:29:26] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:29:26] well, there's some solar storms coming, you know, we're in the middle of another retrograde folks need to pay attention, pay attention to your surroundings.

[01:29:34] And I tell my kids all the time, that's another tip. You can not be a good worker, witch, spiritualist, whatever, if you are not cognizant of your surroundings, You must always be aware of where you're going, where you've been. There's if you've driven there, once you better remember how to get there again, you got to watch what's going on around you.

[01:29:54] There may be somebody trying to fuck you up. You got to pay attention to everything in your environment and get in touch with it on a deep, personal level and know how to bind and banish the things in your environment that don't mean no good. That's another thing we have to teach our kids because most of our kids are just walking around here with earphones on and looking at their phones and about  to get hit by cars and shit, not paying attention to anything, except what's on that screen.

[01:30:23] That screen can be valuable or it can be detrimental. And you've got to teach them, like I said, I didn't  buy your smartphone for you to ask me dumb ass questions. Cause if I got something, I don't know the answer to, like I had to go and I wanted to make sure I could stake my peonies and to make them cause they're leaning.

[01:30:38] Cause they're so top heavy on stake, your peonies. All right. But then the last year, my stepdaughter cut off the buds of one of my peony plants because she read somewhere that would make them more bud faster. No, that's when you're dealing with floral arrangements, she didn't even read the website, right?

[01:31:01] Yeah. Got rid of half of my peonies I wanted to fight her. I was waiting two years for them damn things to show up. Garden teaches you failure too. 

[01:31:11] Jeannette : [01:31:11] Teaches you humility. 

[01:31:13] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:31:13] Man. Yeah. And how much you, how very little in control you are. Cause some plants will be like, okay, I'm going to die today.

[01:31:24] I thought I had a black thumb for a minute until I learned how to pay attention and how to listen and how to study the plants I was growing. Then you would learn that no, you can't grow all the things like I've really thought that I could grow these huge lemon grass bushes that we have. I thought I could grow enough to sell.

[01:31:44] Right. It takes acres and acres and acres of a particular herb to be able to get those types of harvest, to get a 16 pound bag of lavender. I got four lavander plants. I'm probably couldn't get an ounce. So you learn these things.

[01:32:05]Okay. Well, I know that I can make enough to use in my formulation so I can still, it's still a tax write off, but I'm not going to be able to sell this. I understand this now, unless I go out and get a lemon grass farm, or a lemon balm, farm of rows and acres and acres of lemon balm, then I can cultivate it, dry it, sell it, make products from it, you know, doing one thing well, which were you trying to diversify and grow everything under the sun. You're not going to do all of that well. Yeah so grow your garden simply. I tell my students all the time, one ritual, one spell at a time. Now that they've gone through Hoodoo two oh one, you've learned how to make one oil. Guess what?

[01:32:58] You can make all the goddamn oils now. Make one water. You can make all the waters, you make one candle and you can make all the candles. You make one incense, you can make all the incense. You just have to decide what you do best, what you like, what works and do it.

[01:33:18]Jeannette : [01:33:18] Woo. That feels right.

[01:33:28] I'm sorry. I felt like you were channeling the Jasmine plant cause like the computers here and there's like this Jasmine plant and this Jasmine plant has been very instrumental in my development over the past two years because it's, it's taught me a lot about how I grow best. And, and how to position myself and not to be afraid to reposition myself, not to be afraid to prune myself that it's important to fertilize myself.

[01:33:58] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:33:58] Well, you got to move a plant around where they get in the right light. I was doing that out on the patio this morning. You gotta realize it. Like I gotta go in here. And my green, I have two greenhouses in my basement and I gotta go in here and figure out why my, um, automatic lights not working for them.

[01:34:14] Um, and then, but they can go outside too. Um, my, my assistant was like, oh, they're still babies, but I think they're going to go better outside anyway. So I'm going to have to go get them, take them upstairs and put them outside and see what happens. It's basil, if it don't grow, I'll either put some seeds in the ground or I go buy me some basil at the nursery.

[01:34:32] We'll have basil, but these babies need to go outside. Cause obviously they need to get them what they need in here. I think that was a sign from the ancestors. When I went in this, thing's been on automatic timer all this time. And then I go into there and the lights are not on. And I'm like, oh, okay take them outside..

[01:34:47] That's right. 

[01:34:47] Jeannette : [01:34:47] You have that grandmother that grew

[01:34:49]Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:34:49] Right, we grew  everything. My grandfather did the vegetables. My grandmother did the flowers. She always loved pansies and I'll be damned I planted some pansies in my front yard garden, right by my mailbox last year. And when the snow melted there, the flowers were.

[01:35:07] And they're just big and beautiful. And I'm like, Ooh, this is great. They grow great in this zone. Let me go get some more pansies. Cause that was my grandmother's flower. I love it. Gladiolas. She'd grow gladiolas, rose's, peonies, zinnias all of those things. My grandmother grew. Okay. And so I want to emulate my ancestors.

[01:35:30] I am their wildest dreams. I want to be everything they were and more. And you want to raise your children to want to grow up to be just like you and more that's what you do,

[01:35:45]but you can't grow them up being ashamed of who you are

[01:35:51] not well anyway. 

[01:35:53] Jeannette : [01:35:53] Nope. 

[01:35:56] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:35:56] Well, my laundry's calling. I'm 12 minutes behind schedule .I'm trying to structure myself. 

[01:36:03] Jeannette : [01:36:03] Thank you so much for your time and your energy. This is very generous of you to share so much.

[01:36:10]Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:36:10] Well, that's what we're here for. Spirit be like, keeping telling them, keep telling them until they listen. Okay. 

[01:36:17] Jeannette : [01:36:17] This has been a blessing. I feel affirmed and redirected at the same time.

[01:36:23] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:36:23] Any conversation that you have with people should energize you, bless you normally talking to folks that bring you down don't make the people for you.  That's another thing I tell people, know who your people is. All skin folk ain't kin folk. Ain't everybody going to get down with you on the same thing.

[01:36:42] You may even like their aesthetic, their marketing skills, but they may not be that person get down with, you know, keep your autonomy, you know, listen to your spirit. Don't be in a hurry to go join the crowd because they think they told you, that's the thing you got to do. And know that's a cool thing.

[01:37:01] Think about all these people get in religions and initiating and all those things. Cause some elder told them they had to do it without them first coming to the realization themselves that they had to do it. Don't let nobody else dictate your life. They don't live it. They don't pay your bills. They don't wipe your ass.

[01:37:19] What they do is they don't feed you. Why did, why? Why does what somebody else thinks about you? Matter what matters most is what you think about yourself. And if you don't like things about yourself, that's okay. Everybody has those things. But if there are real things that will change your life, that you don't like about yourself, as long as you got your ass out the bed this morning, you can change them.

[01:37:38] That's the one thing I learned in my life. I lost my condo. I had to declare bankruptcy, had a nervous breakdown, all the whole fucking nine yards and just like Lot will not Lot. Oh Job. I was still praying to the Christian God and the Christian god was like, I got you. And, but I didn't know that I was going to do this transformation.

[01:38:03] I didn't know that I wasn't really praying to the Christian Guy. I was playing to my creator and he put my ancestors in this place and I was giving everything back threefold. And thank God I didn't lose no kids in the process, but everything else, I got more than I know what to do with getting ready to sell all this shit and get me a tiny home.

[01:38:22] It was too much, but I got everything I wanted and more. I trusted. I believed I leaned on spirit and that's what I want people to know about me. People like how you do this, how you do that. I listened. I listened to Spirit. I even went back and listened to the good things my parents and my grandparents taught me.

[01:38:44] I went back and revisited that advice and I did it and I listened and obeyed. That's when obeying and submission matter, not in sexual relationships, obey your spirit and it will not lead you wrong.

[01:39:05] Jeannette : [01:39:05] Okay. That's perfect.

[01:39:10]Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:39:10] It is, it is fucking perfection at its best. And I have to fight myself every day. Sometimes I feel like ,no what?!. They be like do it.

[01:39:25] I have to get my attitude right and I had to get my spirit right. And then I do it and the more  I do this the less I do that, the less I fight it. Just like sleep paralysis being Hag ridden. Oh, I'm not scared no more. I don't get out of pocket, play into Jesus and Sabbath. Have, did he never show up to do nothing about it when the spirit show up I be  like, okay, what is it now?

[01:39:50] And where are we going? I'm not scared of you. And they usually  leave.

[01:39:57]So, you know, but before that terrified, but no fear, no fear only conscious, only choice. Only good judgment, no fear, not even of death, because there is nothing to fear. Think about everything that you've ever feared that kept you from doing something that you wanted to do. Did those fears come to pass? Hell no, they didn't. And you worried, you worry so busy focusing in on that, that the real shit that was out here to hurt you came in and blindsided

[01:40:36] you cause your eyes weren't open to possibilities. Your eyes were only open to fear or rational things that ain't never going to happen. So that helps people get rid of a rational fear. When you realize the only thing you got to fear is fear itself. Fear is a dream killer. Fear is a spirit killer concern, making rational judgments, little bit of stress.

[01:41:06] That's natural, but fear, fear. We can't, we, you see black people. We can no longer operate in fear. 

[01:41:16] Jeannette : [01:41:16] No, not at all. 

[01:41:20] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:41:20] Because guess what? You just might die any fucking way. You go walking while here scared, begging the police to save your fucking life. How well has that done for us? Where has that got us until we started standing up.

[01:41:37] I don't care if it's a civil rights movement into the things that they did, just make sure that we could. It's a damn shame that we are in the same position in a lot of ways that we were back then, after all that death fighting struggle and oppression, you can move forward. They showed us, we could move forward.

[01:41:57] We were supposed to carry the torch and most people got complacent and not, they realized, oh, it really is racist. Especially white folks

[01:42:08] tried to convince themselves that we lived in a post racial society because we had a black president. And we went on, starting with Obama all the way through Trump seeing just how racist this country is. That's what happens when you stick your head in the ground. If you ignore a problem, it will not go away.

[01:42:28] They will tell you to stop talking about racism. It doesn't have to be a race issue. We'll have racism if you keep talking about it. No, we'll have racism as long as there are racists. Don't let people deter you and keep you in fear. Teach your children that. Teach them come at me, bro. I have thousands of ancestors behind me play with me if you want to try Jesus, don't try me. That's what you teach your children. That's the only way we can make it.

[01:43:03] It's the only way we have made it. But we just like any other civilization. We can go one way or the other.  It's our choice if nobody ever stood on solid ground, if nobody ever said this is not acceptable, think about where we be.

[01:43:29] So we got to all collectively. Teach our children to stand on solid ground and to teach them from where their strength comes. And it comes from our Creator, our Deities, our Ancestors. Teach them that they'll take over the goddamned world in the right way.

[01:43:52]My laundry calls. Yeah. 

[01:43:56] Jeannette : [01:43:56] And stuff's moving. I didn't tell you, but I live like right at the crossroads, like where I live, like I'm in France, but like, I, it was like two crossroads together. One I go make offerings at another one, this is right in front of the apartment 

[01:44:10] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:44:10] You living the American dream. Are you an ex-pat?

[01:44:15] Jeannette : [01:44:15] I'm an ex-pat. 

[01:44:17] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:44:17] Oh yeah. I want to expat somewhere hot with a lot of black people. 

[01:44:24] Jeannette : [01:44:24] South of France is okay. The south of France is entertaining. 

[01:44:29] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:44:29] Yeah. I got to go someplace where I can just be unthreatened and warm and be able to sit with my titties out and have a blunt. That's where I got to live. 

[01:44:41] Jeannette : [01:44:41] Are you going to the Caribbean?

[01:44:42] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:44:42] I don't know where I'm going after this. I'm gonna start with the tiny house. And who knows when you got a tiny house, you can park it  leave it and go anywhere. 

[01:44:51] Jeannette : [01:44:51] Yup. 

[01:44:53] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:44:53] And the jobs that I do I can do from anywhere. I got an internet connection. My job, my main priority is become independently wealthy.

[01:45:01] So if I don't want to do I, ain't got to do, that'd be my choice. Cause at some point I'm going to sit my ass down and feed into me even more and more. I told my daughter, I said, when I get old just sit me  up there in the corner someplace, you know, hire somebody to change my diapers, you know? And, and when I get to the point where I can take care of myself, let me die.

[01:45:27] Don't hook me up to machines. You know, if I don't know myself anymore, let me die. It's okay. They taught us to fear death, not us.

[01:45:44] Jeannette : [01:45:44] So many lessons, just like that. Just coming back to who we are rather than who we are, programming, 

[01:45:50] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:45:50] And knowing that we will go elsewhere and we'll be again and something else. I love me. I don't want to be this all over again. I want to be something else. I want to be something spectacular. I want to  be Stardust. I want Nirvana. And that's how I wanna live my life.

[01:46:14]Jeannette : [01:46:14] I feel like I should let you go. Otherwise I'll start asking you questions and you got laundry and I should act like 

[01:46:19] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:46:19] I got laundry and fried corn. I got to make, I go, go teach my baby and make this fried corn divinations and stuff to do. 

[01:46:25] Jeannette : [01:46:25] And I'm home schooling tomorrow. So I need to act like I'm ready.

[01:46:28] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:46:28] Well you be blessed. And thank you for the opportunity. And I hope that this reaches thousands of people that are finding their way, 

[01:46:39] Jeannette : [01:46:39] it will, this feels like me. So thank you for participating and supporting me. Cause this feels like, wow, what I'm going to do. Cause it feels like this conversation needs to be had over and over again.

[01:46:51] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:46:51] Excuse the cat. She's 14. You know what? There's food in your dish. I'm going to go up here and see about her food because she picky. You'll be blessed sister. Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to have a great day, great life. And I hope we speak again. Are we facebook friends?. 

[01:47:13] Jeannette : [01:47:13] Yeah. We will be  I'll send you the request. 

[01:47:16] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:47:16] Yes. And we have a Facebook group for the customers we have. Oh, good. I think I'm in it.. Share the link. We have a, um, a storefront page for as at least conjure garden. We have a big list conjure page for the website. Cause that's how I started off on the web. And there's we're on Instagram on big Liz conjure.com Twitter.

[01:47:36] I don't tweet that much anymore, but we're out here. We out here and I'm on tumbler because I send all my blogs to Tumblr. So you know, all the, all the different things, I try to send it all out. Take care now. 

[01:47:53] Jeannette : [01:47:53] All right. You stay blessed. I appreciate you.

[01:47:56]Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:47:56] I wish you all the blessings the universe has for you ,all right. Take care. 

[01:48:01] Jeannette : [01:48:01] Peace. 

[01:48:02] Mambo Liz Ruth: [01:48:02] Peace. Bye-bye.

In Closing
[01:48:06]Jeannette : [01:48:06] I know, right. There's nothing more exciting than sitting at the foot of wisdom and talking to, an amazing storyteller.  I had such a hard time editing this because like, there was so much goodness in it, a and B like, um, she tells an amazing story. But like the story also packs a punch and it weaves in like it's, it was, it was, it was so interesting, like for me to see how stories convey so much wisdom and so much knowledge and  how a life

[01:48:47] excuse me a life well lived with, um, consciousness is so nourishing to not only like you and your family, those you choose to share with, you know, those you choose to share your experiences with. Soit was really hard to edit because I didn't want to lose any of that juice. And there was a lot of juice there. So I pray it  was, a blessing for you to listen to as it was for me to do.

[01:49:12] And I'm really enjoying this podcast and I pray it's blessing to you, please don't forget to check out BigLiz conjure.com and support Mambo Liz Ruth.  she's really amazing. She's really generous with her time and her energy. And for the next episode, I know, right? The next episode, there's the next episode.

[01:49:34] Y'all yay. Um, I, I interviewed Aleia McDaniel of soul purpose sisterhood, and it was a very interesting conversation  around raising liberated children cause she has a daughter and it was just, it kind of my(exploding noise) mind. Like some of the ways she approaches raising her daughter. It was really beautiful and hearing about her path was really amazing too.

[01:50:03] Anyway, so I pray you stay blessed and tune in for the next episode. And thank you for being here. Should you wish to support me in this,  loving endeavor, feel free to,  share this like this. You know, let other people know what you're listening to and what you doing. And if you want to like support me financially, you know, head over to PayPal, Paypal.me/ritualmama.

[01:50:31] Yeah, that's it. I will see you for the next episode. Stay blessed. Peace.