#hoodoolibrary

[spiritroots]

Is your Hoodoo Library still open? ☆

Absolutely! It just takes me time to go through applications and process them all. I look at every single one by hand, and sometimes I receive ones where I need to reach out for clarification or ones that are straight up from people who aren’t black/of African descent (these are rejected). I processed 100+ last night since June 27th, so all Library membership requests from yesterday or earlier are done. Thank you for your patience :)

P.S. Everyone who leaves me really thoughtful notes and who shares about their stories and heritage with me or even just little things about their journey, I appreciate you so much!! When I’m going through processing all these applications, seeing those messages and hearing from yall gives me more joy than I can describe and helps keep me motivated every time ❤️

[spiritroots]

April 2019 - Hoodoo Library

The Hoodoo Library is a growing collection of tutorials, traditional recipes, directories, and databases of information on everything from traditional Southern black belt hoodoo to modern urban rootwork. All content within the Library is created by and for black rootworkers, which means that all sources of information about hoodoo come from black rootworkers only. You can read more about the Library and how to get passcode access here.

APRIL PASSCODE

The updated April passcode is now live! Last month, we successfully transitioned from email to Discord for the Library subscription process. So if you’re an approved Library subscriber, you’ll need to access the Discord server (https://discord.gg/GtqMJ2e) and be verified there to have access to this month’s passcode as well as receive future passcodes. If you have any difficulties with this process, feel free to reach out!

NEW LIBRARY SECTIONS

Every month I strive to research and write more so that the Library can continue to grow! At the end of March, I invited subscribers to share thoughts on the future direction of the Library and submit content for the Directory. Based on what folks suggested and asked for, here’s what’s new and coming up soon...

>> THE NOOK

On the survey, folks expressed interest in potentially adding new community features and ways to get involved, which is what inspired the Nook. The Library is maintained and hosted by yours truly (Yejide), but it will always be created for, inspired by, and guided by the needs, interests, and requests of the broader black rootworking community. 

The Nook is a space dedicated to Library subscribers for getting involved by sharing feedback and submitting content. There you’ll find these new features...

Feedback Surveys: The Library will continue to grow and evolve in the directions that the community wants to see

Content Submission: There are ways both big and small where subscribers can contribute (and be fully credited for the help!)

>> ROOTWORK DIRECTORY - SHOPS

The Rootwork Directory is your center for finding recommended black hoodoo bloggers, authors, shops, and books to follow, learn from, and support. I’ve added some new content to the Shops section of the Directory...

Physical Store Locator: Someone suggested that I add a "Resources Near You" tool, so I created the Physical Store Locator in the Shops section of the Rootwork Directory. It’s a Google map open for editing that will allow us to map out conjure shops, botanicas, and black spirituality shops to make it easier to find them in your neighborhood! 

New Featured Shops: I also received some great suggestions for more entries, so you'll find additional conjure stores and online black spirituality shops there.

>> HOODOO HISTORY & FOLKLORE

There was also lots of interest adding a new section to the Library and in seeing more topics related to hoodoo and ancestral African American history. So that will be the next direction I'm taking for the next batch of posted articles! Potential articles and topics that I plan to cover include...

Ancestors & African American Heroes

Famous Conjurers & Root Doctors

Hoodoo in the Church

Folktales & Stories

Hoodoo Music & Spirituals

LGBTQ+ African American / Hoodoo History

[spiritroots]

HOODOO LIBRARY ACCESS UPDATE

Once again - thank you, thank you, thank you for your patience!! I’ve updated all subscribers and replied to everyone who has emailed me a request, so if you still haven’t heard from me please feel free to reach out again. (Just finished sending out 200+ individual emails by hand in an attempt to avoid spam folders and filters!)

Thankfully, in response to the tech issues and other obstacles I’ve been experiencing by managing Hoodoo Library access via email (see here & here), I’ve finally come up with what I hope will be a much simpler, smoother, and more efficient solution going forward (:

I created a Discord server for the Hoodoo Library as a read-only platform to manage access requests and share the monthly passcode to Library subscribers (for now, it is not a rootwork community or chatroom). This should make it 10x easier and faster for me to process access requests!

Going forward, to access the Hoodoo Library please join this server and follow the instructions: https://discord.gg/GtqMJ2e

If you’ve sent an access request and followed the instructions via email, simply join the server and Discord message me the email that you used so I can confirm that you’re already verified.

PERSONAL UPDATE

I also want to share that I’ve been crazy ass busy in a very good way. I’ve been happy and well, and I’ve been grinding and living my best life with good things going on at work and at home and in my spiritual life!

It’s just a lot of goings on to juggle all at once, and it’s really forced me to get offline for a bit as has happened sometimes in the past in order for me to get a handle on it all. My cup runneth over, and I am soooo appreciative of everyone’s understanding, support, patience, and kindness <3 It makes all the difference.

In complete transparency, I still won’t be as active online around Tumblr as I used to be, but I want to do everything I can to keep the Hoodoo Library updated and continue providing secure and protected access to yall!

[spiritroots]

Feb. 2019 - Hoodoo Library

The Hoodoo Library is a growing collection of tutorials, traditional recipes, directories, and databases of information on everything from traditional Southern black belt hoodoo to modern urban rootwork. All content within the Library is created by and for black rootworkers, which means that all sources of information about hoodoo come from black rootworkers only. You can read more about the Library and how to get passcode access here.

FEBRUARY PASSCODE

I got busy and a bit behind on answering requests for Library access, so thank you for your patience! Now I’ve responded to all requests put in within the last week and sent the updated February passcode to everyone who was already approved. If you haven’t received a response from me or you’re subscribed but missing the Feb passcode, please try sending me a regular email at [email protected] or a message on Tumblr, and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

NEW LIBRARY POSTS

Every month I strive to research and write more so that the Library can continue to grow! The three new articles listed below have just been published at the beginning of February. Always feel free to let me know if you have ideas or requests for future articles or sections of the Library.

>> JUJU BABY ZONE

Crossroads & Road Opening: There are many important places to a rootworker – one’s home and land, the graveyard, fresh rivers and streams, areas where fresh herbs and roots can be harvested – but arguably none is more significant or powerful to hoodoo than the crossroads. 

Learn about where the crossroads come from within African and Afro-diasporic traditions and what they mean to hoodoo...

>> HOW TO HOODOO

How to Work the Crossroads: There are probably just about as many stories, legends, and traditions around the crossroads as there are crossroads in the universe. As a rootworker, sometimes it can be overwhelming figuring out where to get started with working the crossroads. 

In this article, you’ll find a number of different traditions for working the crossroads, opening your roads, and engaging with crossroads spirits...

>> BOOK OF ROOTS

Spiritual Bath Recipes: There are many different ways to create a bath, and for so many different purposes from healing to driving away spirits to uncrossing, sweetening, cleansing, and luck. 

In this post, I’ve gathered bath recipes from both traditional Southern and modern rootworkers who use a wide range of ingredients...

[spiritroots]

Quick Updates

I am so excited that the Hoodoo Library is finally up and can’t wait to hear yalls thoughts and ideas for future content to add!

I’ve automated the Library access process as much as I can, but I still have to send many emails by hand and verify folks for access one by one. Now that my vacation time is over and I’ll be back at work during the week, please understand if I can’t get to your access request until the end of the day that you sent it!

Sending your email multiple times through the form on SpiritRoots.co means I have to search through duplicates and that slows things down. If you sent it, I most likely received it and will be following up with you as soon as I can!

I also want to say a big thank you to my friends @melaninhuntress, @theweatherwaxgirls, and @ursalala for giving awesome feedback and helping me proof read and test the Library right before launch! I really appreciated the time you took to help and all your support ❤️

[spiritroots]

March Update Coming Soon

A little update & announcement that as it’s now March, I’ll be working on responding to all the Hoodoo Library requests later tonight and sending out the new March passcode!

My apologies to everyone who’s submitted a Hoodoo Library request in the last week and hasn’t heard back yet! I just came back from a trip to visit my family in NZ, and all my time since coming back has been completely full up with catching up, timezone adjusting, a big transition at work, and just all the many endless to do’s of adulting.

I get dozens of library access requests in my inbox everyday so when I have the time I try to go through them daily or every 1-3 days, it’s just time consuming addressing each one by myself and when I get busy like this I fall behind.

So please don’t worry that you won’t get the passcode as soon as I can get to your request, please just understand that I’m one person doing it manually for free, and sometimes because of work and life I fall behind!

[spiritroots]

Broken Links & Deleted Posts?

Hey yall! I’ve been getting asks from anons and questions from friends about some of my content that’s been disappearing or malfunctioning, so I wanted to address that and explain what’s been going on.

Since the beginning of 2019, I’ve been focused on changing some things up to better protect information from cultural appropriation and also to move it away from Tumblr and onto my website at SpiritRoots.co, where it’s much easier for me to organize and store all the information than it is on Tumblr. 

I’ve deleted a lotttt of my past posts about hoodoo and completely shifted the original masterpost into the Hoodoo Library in order to protect that information from cultural appropriation. Now it’s all easily available to anyone of African descent through a simple and completely free process to get the Hoodoo Library passcode (it’s not a paid subscription like Patreon or anything like that). The Afrocentric WOY post will be back up soon on my website, I just haven’t finished putting it up!

So if you find any of my posts on Tumblr that have disappeared or aren’t working anymore like they used to, it’s most likely on purpose. Going forward, you’ll find the most up-to-date content from me on my WordPress website (: