The Orisha Babalu Ayé and Our Upcoming Community Clinic

December is the month where I feel the most connected to my spiritual forcefield and guides. October and November are Ancestor filled but December holds the axé of both my Orisha guides on this path. A bit ago, I shared about my maternal Orisha in the Candomble religion, Oxossí. Today, I’ll be writing about my paternal Orisha or Pai, Babalu-Ayé or Obaluaye. Babalu Aye was the first Orisha to come into my awareness- in the sense that he spoke directly through me a few years ago. In 2018, I opened my first Botanica. *This was before I knew that there had been ancestors in my lineage who had also owned Botanica’s and did similar work to what I was doing. I knew it felt close but I didn’t realize HOW close. 

One afternoon, after a few days of being open, my shop assistant and I were in the space cleaning and listening to a Celia Cruz album that I had never heard (the Orishas album with her and Merceditas Valdes). We were dancing and talking, chilling. A song comes on and I begin to sing the song, word for word… not noticing that I was singing, just sweeping. My shop asst looked at me with her mouth open, in shock. She told me that my voice sounded different, deeper, louder and like, how did I know the Yorba prayer? She and I both had full body chills. The song kept playing and I looked to see what the title was, it was “Babalu Ayé”. That night I researched the Orisha and began a long journey into learning about his energy.

Who is Babalu-Ayé?

Babalu-Ayé is the Orisha of all aspects of healing. He rules over sickness and disease, generational healing, protecting the earth and is often called The King of the Earth. Babalu-Ayè’s axé lives in restoration and renewal. Revered as a healer, he teaches the transformative power of overcoming adversity and the importance of healing, both physically and spiritually. He is also connected to the story of Chiron (The Wounded Healer) as he had to triumph and overcome everything from a broken childhood, to disease, sickness and losing everything - to find that without this journey, he could never have tapped into the depth of healing that he holds. 

Bablu-Ayé’s story always resonated with me and I had an intuitive ping to make an offering to him at my studio. A few days after I had the experience with the song and after I made an offering, Spiritual elders began to come into the space on an almost daily basis. Saying that they felt called to it, and had felt the good vibe from the street. These elders had books to give me, music to share with me, they had tips on everything from herbal remedios to which day was best to do a spiritual bath. That shop on Prospect & Nostrand Ave brought me closer to my spiritual self, connected me to a deep community that I still rock with, it brought me elders to learn from and work with, it brought me closer to my path in healing. And it started with that transmission through song.  

Looking back, I understand that by taking the leap of trusting my intuition and opening a spiritual space, I had created literal space for my spiritual team to make themselves known. The time to work had begun. 

Since then, healing work has been pivotal in my journey and the journey of BxB. We’ve been working alongside community for years on what healing can look like, feel like, how to make it accessible and how to do so in connection to earth medicines. This has been integral to everything. 

In 2021 after a fated few years of deep change, I found myself at an Terreiro/ Ilé (Spiritual Home) in the North of Sao Paulo, Brazil where I went through a series of ceremonies to learn that Bablu-Ayé had in fact been calling me, guiding me and using my hands to do this work. As a Filha de Obaluayé Y Oxossí, my caminho in this life is one of community healing work. I couldn’t be more grateful for that and for their guidance. 

With all of that said, I’m excited to announce that this year we are hosting a Community Clinic on Babalu-Ayé’s feast day, December 14th. We are gathering for a day of healing and ceremony as we close out the year. There are practitioners joining us offering different modalities and group work. The event is open to all ages, to families, friends, couples, etc. It is donation based, the funds that we collect will go directly to The Birthing Place BX. A space that has recently opened in the Bronx serving perinatal education, womb care, a standing clinic as well as their mobile wellness hub.

We will be sharing the itinerary this week on our Instagram and newsletter. But in the meantime, save the date! We will be gathering from 12-7pm at our studio in The Bronx. 

Please check our IG or sign up for our newsletter to get more information.