Introduction to the Mysteries and the Lwa

As I contemplated the request to create this page, I had to pause. Not out of reluctance, but out of deep reverence. How do I educate without betraying the sacred vows of secrecy I was sworn into as a third-level priestess of the Baron del Cementerio path of Sanse — a Vodou tradition rooted in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico?

The answer came slowly, with ceremony and reflection. I concluded that for me, this work is not only spiritual. It is political.

To walk the path of the Mysteries is to walk into spaces history tried to erase. It is to reclaim truth, identity, and ancestral force. The politics of magic is where this began for me. And today, it is why I choose to open this book of living knowledge to those who are sincerely seeking. This is not performance. This is legacy.

Through this page, I am building a library of remembrance — honoring what I was taught, how I was trained, and how the Lwa and Mysteries revealed themselves to me in visions, struggle, sorrow, and triumph. It will include personal stories and hard-earned revelations. This is where you will find my lived understanding of these ancient forces known first as the Lwa, and later as the Mysteries — forces that have woven themselves into an unbreakable chain in the hearts and minds of people across every corner of the world.

This is also where we begin with legitimacy. All spiritual traditions deserve a home and deserve to be respected for their structure. I began my spiritual training in tribal wisdom. As a young girl, I was apprenticed into a circle of healers. I learned from New Mexican brujas, sat beside curanderos, and absorbed knowledge from medicine men and women in Mexico and the American Southwest. In these cultures, “medicine” means a way of living: a relationship with the Earth and its natural laws.

From there, I followed the calling to apprentice under a Kab·ba·list. I studied hermetic ceremonial magic, apprenticed in the Tarot for four years, and completed 600 hours in clinical herbalism. I later trained with a medical intuitive for two years, became certified in anatomy, physiology, and earned credentials as a nutritional coach to better support the body-based wisdom these spiritual readings reveal.

My commitment to healing also led me to dance. I was awarded a year-long, grant-funded training to become a movement coach specializing in Middle Eastern and Romani (“Gypsy”) dance traditions. I then founded a holistic dance studio and for over five years led transformational workshops that wove together dance, ritual, and soul-based healing.

Eventually, I earned a 1600-hour coaching certification, including public speaking, and began touring spiritual integration seminars. I had the honor of sharing stages with renowned voices in integrative health such as Deepak Chopra and Dr. Vincent Vlad. With time, I brought the work back home—to my community, to a house-turned-temple that became the physical home for the healing arts I had spent a lifetime pursuing.

Then… the Mysteries came.

They came uninvited, yet completely destined. They arrived in visions. In songs I had never learned. In symbols older than my conscious memory. The one who visited me most often lived in a volcano, wore her hair long and black, and had a hand hanging from her belt like a rosary. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know where to look.

So I asked her.

And she led me to Vodou.

Vodou, which means “the path of life” or “life path”, was the answer to a question I hadn’t known how to ask. I followed her guidance. I was led to a spiritual home. And within a year, I entered a full-time apprenticeship in Sanse Espiritismo, a Vodou-based tradition.

I remained an apprentice for nine years.

I was eventually initiated as a Mambo and formally recognized as a minister of the Mysteries. I want to be clear here: outsiders cannot study Haitian Vodou casually. It is not open in the way many Western paths are. But because I asked for nothing, gave everything, and honored every teaching with reverence, I was offered the chance to observe and eventually absorb thousands of hours of traditional training: veves, songs, drum rhythms, sacred potions, magic, spirit works, and healing secrets that only the most trusted are allowed to carry.

At the end of nine years, the elders placed the work in my hands.

That means this: they gave me the right to stand as a vessel of the Mysteries. To combine what I was born with, what I was trained in, and what I was destined to become. They guided me to build a Vodou temple that reflected feminine power, sacred sexuality, holistic healing, and spiritual embodiment through dance. I continued my training, including in Haitian dance, and now I share not just what I learned—but what I live.

This page is part of that sharing.

Here, I will document how the Lwa and Mysteries changed my life and how their presence holds political weight. Because there is politics in spirituality. The Mysteries are not just personal. They are communal. They are ancestral. They are revolutionary.

I have also authored two books:

• “Watch Me Thrive” — a book on healing from abuse using spiritual tools rooted in Vodou
• “Serpent Sutra” — a Vodou Spiritism meditation manual written from the perspective of a master initiate

Welcome to this living archive of the unseen. Welcome to the politics of mystery. Welcome to the truth behind the veil.