It started with a whisper.
Not the kind you hear, but the kind you feel in your bones. I had gotten the call: “You need to come home. Your mother’s body is shutting down.” And I reasoned with it.
I told myself, “I’ll go Thursday.”
But a still, small voice whispered: “No. Tomorrow.”
I listened.
The next day, I left for Memphis. And when I walked into the room, my mother was still holding on. Her body was fragile, but her spirit—still bright. She turned her head toward me. She couldn’t speak, but I saw everything she meant to say written all over her face.
“My baby here.”
There was peace in her eyes. Joy. Relief. She had been waiting for me.
That night, we all came and went from her room. Sitting with her. Holding space. Grieving slowly, gently.
At some point, I stepped into the room I was staying in. I bent down to plug in my phone—and felt something.
Two hands.
On my sides.
Soft. Loving. But firm.
They nudged me gently toward the bed, and I heard: “Go to sleep. Just rest. When you wake up… it’ll be okay.”
So I listened. And I slept.
I was awakened by my cousin—a breaking the light from the hallway. Her voice quiet and heavy. “She gone, mane.”
The next day, I was still moving through fog when I opened my laptop. A friend had posted an image collage of different Orishas—deities from the Yoruba tradition. The entire image was dark… except one.
Oya.
She was radiant, centered, and shining like lightning splitting the sky. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
It was like she was looking straight at me.
I dove into research, searching her name, her power, her history. I didn’t need confirmation—I already knew. She is the Orisha of winds, storms, death, and transformation. The gatekeeper between this world and the next.
And there had been a storm the night my mother died.
A loud, violent, sacred storm.
Oya had been there.
The recognition hit me so hard I couldn’t sit still. I went out and bought a machete—Oya’s sacred tool. I wrapped the handle in copper and deep burgundy fabric. I designed a skirt in her honor with nine colors, each one a symbol of the forces she governs. I had a matching top made.
Everything was ready.
But I couldn’t take the photo.
I don’t know why—I just couldn’t. I had created the garments, built the altar, honored her spirit, but something in me wasn’t ready to become her reflection. So the clothes sat. The machete stood in silence.
Then came a shift.
I was at a local festival when I saw a young man dressed like Legba—red and black, staff in hand, keys dangling from his belt. He wasn’t pretending. He was the thing. His energy told me that instantly.
He ended up coming to my home. I took his photo. And the moment he left…
Something cracked open.
I went upstairs, changed clothes, wrapped my head, grabbed the machete, and finally—I became Oya.
I stood in my full regalia and took the photo I had been too afraid to take. And it was powerful. Not just aesthetically—but spiritually. The image captured something ancient, something passed down through storms and bloodlines and spirit guides.
I didn’t just wear Oya. I remembered her.
And in doing so, I remembered myself.
The Door to the Dead: Oya, Mediumship, and the Work That Followed
That moment wasn’t just about honoring Oya. It was the beginning of something much larger.
After that, my dreams shifted. My meditations deepened. The bone would appear in the backyard. Spirits began to speak. The Baron came. Papa Legba followed. But Oya opened the door.
In Yoruba cosmology, Oya is not only the goddess of transformation and storms—she is the guardian of the cemetery gates. The one who ushers souls into the ancestral realm. She stands between worlds, between what was and what will be.
And as I would come to learn, so do I.
That moment—putting on her skirt, raising her blade, taking that picture—marked my first step into mediumship. Into ancestral communication. Into walking with the dead and hearing what others cannot hear. She didn’t just introduce herself. She activated me.
Since then, I’ve received messages. Warnings. Visions. Not because I called—but because now they know I can hear.
Oya doesn’t just clear paths. She clears people.
And once she clears you—once you accept the winds and the weight of what she carries—you can never un-know what’s been revealed. You can’t go back to silence when the dead have started talking.
Oya came first.
Before the Baron.
Before Papa Legba.
Before the bone in my hand.
She came with the storm.
She came with my mother’s last breath.
She came to remind me of who I’ve always been.
And because of her—I can hear the ancestors.
#OyaCalledMe
#StoneyTheMystic
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