*** This article contains some very triggering examples of personal experiences I had, particularly with the abuse of animals… please proceed with caution. This article originally appeared on the social media platform I created, digitalsoulspace.org.
I want to preface this story by saying my experience is an extreme example of Santeria and as with any religion or spiritual practice, there is a huge spectrum of what is considered the norm. There are many that practice this religion in a way that is more in alignment with its African roots, that is not cult like or fueled by fear, or that is not associated with drug trafficking or smuggling. This was my personal journey and is not meant to disrespect the practice or religion of Santeria in any way… it is however what happened to me as a child, and my truth and story to share. I also know that offerings to deities come in many forms, and it’s my personal belief that you can have a successful spiritual practice without harming people and animals… physically or emotionally.
My story begins as young child around the age of seven, when my sister approached me one day and asked if I knew that we had a “little man” living in my mom’s desk. Always excited about magic and the fantastical (probably more than the average kid), I was eager to learn more about what my sister was describing. She showed me to my mom’s early American styled desk and as we sat on the floor, my sister opened a wooden door revealing a small stone round statue. I was a little disappointed at first because it wasn’t what I had pictured in my head… I was fully prepared to see an elf or fairy but instead, there was something that looked like it was a stone sculpture of a grapefruit cut in half with eyes and a mouth made of shells. As if telling me a special secret my sister whispered “His name is Elegúa.”
I still remember when my mom purchased a OUIJA Board and her and my aunt were huddled over it in complete amazement, as if they were two closeted witches belonging to some secret coven.
There is a very old religion that originated in West Africa called Yoruba. This religion has multiple gods and goddesses called Orishas that oversee different parts of the Earth and people’s emotions and behaviors. Like in many religions, some of the Orishas represent different archetypes and people find they are drawn or connected to them for their attributes. During the African Slave Trade, this religion found its way to the Caribbean, especially to the Island of Cuba which was a stopping point before reaching North America. Similar to Pagan practices, the religion was eventually hybridized into the dominant practice of Catholicism… Santeria is that hybridized version. Since many Cubans fled their island nation when Fidel Castro came into power, they brought Santeria with them to South Florida where many decided to settle. Miami’s close proximity to Cuba also made it an ideal location in case communism fell and the exile community felt it could return quickly and safely back home.
In the 1980’s Miami became well known just about everywhere for the massive amount of cocaine flowing into the United States. It was known as the Gateway to Latin America, and that meant it was also an easy “in” for illicit drugs produced in places like Columbia. Miami’s obsession with cocaine and extravagance was on full display in movies like Scarface and television shows like Miami Vice… almost to the extent it was just normalized as part of life in this tropical paradise. It held a particular attraction for one person specifically, someone who was formerly working on the Apollo Space Program and also a pilot, someone who had just failed in launching their own seafood company in Costa Rica and needed a way to escape the embarrassment of a failed business and a criminal arrest in his native country… that someone was my father.
I grew up in a paranormal household. The reading materiel in my mother’s bathroom was usually comprised of a Sears Catalogue, a JC Penny Catalogue, and a variety of books by authors like Hans Holzer and Sylvia Brown. There were books about ghosts and ancient civilizations everywhere in my mom’s collection, in addition to way too many romance novels which I later discovered have some pretty graphic descriptions of “romance.” I still remember when my mom purchased a OUIJA Board and her and my aunt were huddled over it in complete amazement, as if they were two closeted witches belonging to some secret coven. To put it mildly, the paranormal in my home while growing up was actually pretty normal. It would make perfect sense looking back that my father would be so inclined would gravitate to Santeria so easily.
My father decided to open an air chartering service with three small aircraft to fly people around the Caribbean and such, sometimes even to places like Orlando or the Palm Beaches. The airplanes were small, like four or six seaters, but they were comfy and very cool to play in as a young kid when they would let us inside. The planes were also perfect for someone that had the knowledge to build things like inertial guidance systems for missiles and Saturn Rockets, someone that was interested in using that knowledge to smuggle cocaine. You guessed it… my father. I don’t know if I’ll ever know the exact reason why he thought drug smuggling would be a good choice, I can remember the conversations where he told us how bad they were and to stay away from them. Yet the drug business and his engineering knowledge bought us a large home, with 2.5 acres and a tennis court in a Miami neighborhood known as Horse Country… or “Dope Country” as it was referred to by the locals.
Having such a collection of Orishas or “Saints” as they are called, in a well secluded neighborhood like Horse Country, also meant being a Santeria hub for events like Tambors… celebratory drumming ceremonies to invite the Orishas to show up, often in the form of ritual possession.
Turns out that Santeria and Cocaine smuggling went hand in hand for many, since one of the Orishas’s job was protection against the law. Ochosi was often displayed symbolically on a white dinner plate, a medium sized iron bow and arrow laying in a pool of water, often with some chicken blood mixed in. The little man we had tucked away in a beautiful wooden desk, would eventually become part of a huge walk in closet and eventually years later, an entire room of my father’s home with many many vases, statues, tureens and other stone pottery “little men”, all representing different Orishas in Santeria. Some of these statues looked like Catholic Saints which represented the Yoruba equivalent of the archetype. Having such a collection of Orishas or “Saints” as they are called, in a well secluded neighborhood like Horse Country, also meant being a Santeria hub for events like Tambors… celebratory drumming ceremonies to invite the Orishas to show up, often in the form of ritual possession.
Most of the Santeria didn’t phase me as child. I would wear beads around my neck in different color combinations that represented different Orishas. I was evaluated by high priests and priestesses known as Padrinas or Padrinos respectively, whom would then tell us what Orishas were interested in working with me. The first was Elegua, the mischievous child like Orisha, but then came a being that remains special to me until this very day… Yemaya, the Goddess of the Sea. It took my many years of therapy and shadow work to accept her back into my life, however she was truly the first deity I felt so close to, even placing a picture of her above my bed at such a young age. I actually saw her once while she was in my thoughts, her figure and blue dress approached, her imaged blurred through the frosted shower door. Eventually the day came when I would see a side of Santeria that would haunt me to this day, witnessing the ritual sacrifice of animals in the most horrific of ways. Goats, chickens, ducks, pigeons… all sacrificed in front of me during ceremonies and “cleanings.”
I remember on one happy weekend seeing all these animals coming to my house and I was so incredibly thrilled. I thought we were going to start a farm and I was going to have all these amazing animals as my pets. As the day would progress I would learn the fate of these animals through the sacrifices I would witness, their blood being poured over symbolic representations of Orishas while people danced and cheered to beat of the loud drums. I can’t describe enough the immense duality of this situation, the joy people experienced combined with the loud screams and visible pain these animals were experiencing. It something that while writing this article haunts me greatly, and I am sobbing at this very moment. I love animals with all my heart, and to see what I was thinking would be my pet tortured in front of me, was an absolutely heart wrenching and horrific experience… especially for a child that was only in the second grade. My inner child and present adult form mourns this period of my life as being one of the most catastrophic events of my personal development. On one occasion a left over rooster wasn’t utilized, a it actually did become one of my most cherished pets… I would name him Pinta.
Although animal sacrifice was incredibly difficult to witness, there were other aspects of Santeria that I would find almost as frightening. Watching ritualized possession is a very weird thing… feeling the temperature in the room drop as our Padrino was overcome by Spirit, sometimes spending hours drinking rum and smoking cigars (a common offering) while speaking and prophesying to others. On one occasion as my Padrino Jerry was about to regain control of his body and as Spirit left him, he jerked with such force that his body flew to the ground, hitting his head on the corner of a table on the way down. He experienced no pain or sign of injury, everyone was in awe. The temperature in the room fell so much, one of my brothers had to leave the house as he was troubled by what he was seeing and feeling. It was just one of many experiences that I will remember from this very troublesome time in my life, and it’s no wonder that my own channeling abilities as an adult are withheld from public view.
There was absolutely no money and barely any assistance from our family. Our lights were turned off, there was no running water, and there were at times no food. I was the one that opened the front door one morning to receive the eviction notice on our home, and that we had five days to vacate the property.
There are many rules to Santeria, and one of the ones that sticks out the most is when you are commanded to make Saint. This process begins with a reading from your Padrino or Padrina where an Orisha comes forth to claim you as their own. The process is validated by a huge necklace of thick bead-work that probably weighs several pounds, which is thrown towards you from across the room. Should it land around your neck without you even knowing it’s coming your way, that seals the deal… you have been “lit.” This is considered a deep honor, one involving a week long process starting with your head being shaved in the Miami River naked, lots of celebrations, a throne you must sit and sleep under for the entire week while friends and family visit to congratulate you, and is finalized by an hours long life-story reading called an “Ita.” Should you turn down this invitation, you are certain to be met with an untimely death. In fact everyone knows someone that suddenly died because of this, it’s where the cult aspect of this religion comes into play… either do what we say or else. Making Saint is also very expensive, my mom sold her new car to come up with the $16k to do it… my brother and father also went through the process.
Eventually Santeria took center stage in our lives as my father’s drug smuggling business grew until one day it all came to a crashing end. It was February 18th 1981, and my mom and our newly married brother took us to our favorite hangout, the Dadeland Mall. My father was having an important business meeting at our large beautiful home, and he didn’t want us around. As we returned from a wonderful day at the mall, the large semi-circle driveway was filled with cars, some of them with police logos and large lettering on the side. One of them being a very large van which I assume was to carry large amounts of prisoners. My brother punched on the gas as our car sped away, and it was at that moment I discovered as a kid in the fourth grade, my father was a drug smuggler. I couldn’t wrap my head around it… I didn’t know what to think… I couldn’t comprehend what my life would be like from that day forward. We were whisked away to family friend’s house, where they tried to squelch the massive amounts of anxiety I would feel that evening.
We returned home very late that night, I remembered my sister and I were so worried about our little cocker spaniel “Boy” and if he was safe. We found all the lights on, furniture cushions overturned, sliding doors opened, and a pool of human blood and medical supplies in my parent’s bedroom… a stain that never lifted from the carpeting. Boy came rushing into the home with great joy to greet us, he was running about the opened yard and thankfully wasn’t hit by a car. It was all such a crazy feeling, like coming home after an evacuation of sorts. Turns out one of my dad’s “friends” refused to lay face down when instructed to so by the drug agents, so they just shot him in the arm. My entire life had turned upside down in the blink of an eye, a memory that will last with me forever. It wasn’t until my awakening that I would discover something very special and purposeful about this night though, and it would bring me amazing comfort and healing.
I realized that the horrific events of February 18th wasn’t what it seemed, it wasn’t the day my life fell apart… it was the day that Spirit saved my family from my father. It was the day that Spirit said “We are removing this man from your life so you can be safe and you can heal…” It was a rescue mission of sorts.
As the months went on there was lots of time spent with my mom running to attorneys and going to hearings. My father was eventually sentenced to five years in jail in a federal facility that wasn’t too far from our home. There would soon be be Christmas Day spent in prison visiting Dad and almost every weekend. He would eventually request to be transferred to Kentucky without telling us to avoid this constant acknowledgement of his confinement. There was absolutely no money and barely any assistance from our family. Our lights were turned off, there was no running water, and there were at times no food. I was the one that opened the front door one morning to receive the eviction notice on our home, and that we had five days to vacate the property. When a family friend stepped in to save our home and gave us the money to pay it off, my uncle stole it for his gambling habits and took much of my mother’s family on a family vacation to Yugoslavia and Hawaii. It seemed like everywhere we looked people were trying to take and steal what was left of our lives.
It was a really shitty time to be me in my life… all I had was myself and my faith. My father was in jail and my mom sat in her room all day with an endless supply of Valium, thanks to the family doctor and the age of sedatives. Something really strange began to happen in my life though, I began to seek out spirituality as a practice and develop my own faith. At the age of ten, to the horror of my family, I ripped off the steel chain around my right ankle that was supposed to provide protection and decided it wasn’t for me. Looking back, it was my way of saying “this doesn’t resonate with me, I need to do my own thing.” My family followed suit (except my father) and we suddenly found ourselves exiting the cult like experience of this often misunderstood and often twisted for profit religion. As I already expressed, this was my personal experience and there are many that have a very different, and almost shamanic style experience with this practice. There are extreme versions of everything in this world, and this was the one we ended up with.
I would look back at this entire experience as kind of marker in my life, I would constantly evaluate my position in my life in comparison to the amount of years it was since my dad was arrested. Everything good that I experienced was a little step in right direction… getting off of welfare and food stamps, going to college, getting a decent job, it was always connected to the distance from that one calendar date in my head. Then one day, not long after my awakening, I had an amazing download while driving home from work. I realized that the horrific events of February 18th wasn’t what it seemed, it wasn’t the day my life fell apart… it was the day that Spirit saved my family from my father. It was the day that Spirit said “We are removing this man from your life so you can be safe and you can heal…” It was a rescue mission of sorts… Spirit was stepping in and taking control in a huge way, less we might have experienced something even worse. That awareness and change in perspective was so incredibly healing, it allowed me to accept the true nature of energy of the Orisha Yemaya back into my life, where she is acknowledged and thanked every time I step into the ocean.
When my dad got out of prison five years later, it came with its own share of problems, abuse, more drugs… and that’s a completely different story to write. However, I wasn’t the same person I was when he left at the age of ten… I was now growing into adulthood and was exploring my own interests in religion and spirituality. I had a new set of tools and I continue to use them to this day… perspective being an extremely useful and powerful one, and I’m looking forward to my friends Gary and Neha’s new upcoming book about this truly transformative realization. Perspective is everything in life and it helped me heal from incredible trauma, and it continues to do so today more than ever. Looking back at my life and seeing where I am today is a really stark contrast, and I hope my experiences can help anyone that’s in a dark place right now to know there is always hope and light when you choose to look for it. If anything positive comes of this entire experience, I hope that it will also be with your realization that it gets better… it truly does.
I want to extend an amazing and heart felt thank you to Rachael Staples who’s channeled message told me what I already knew I needed to do… write. All this pent up frustration I have been feeling was because my story needed to be told, I needed to bring it to the light. I am a bad ass… I have survived and I continue to do so every day I am alive. Thanks for being a part of this amazing journey, I am just getting started.
To learn more about transformative healing and Gary and Neha’s new book about the power of perspective, visit Higher Dimensional Guidance And Healing.