Danielle Ayoka is a former prayer warrior who now describes herself as a clairvoyant, astrologer, and magic maker. I found her on Twitter because so many religious and spiritual black women who I follow regularly retweeted her advice and admonitions. She says that when she prayed at night as a child for negative thoughts to leave her mind so that she wouldn’t have nightmares, they would go out of her bedroom window and she would watch them slide away like a movie reel. She became a prayer warrior while at Norfolk State University, through her participation in a campus youth ministry. Like the women in my church, she would lay her hands on people, mostly black children, and they would cry, fall on the ground, or both. To strengthen her spiritual gifts, Ayoka would fast for five to seven days with only water for sustenance. She would read and study different religious texts for hours, abstain from sex and alcohol, and shy away from parties. In college, she began to study quantum physics and energy, which made her feel as if her needs were not being met by the kind of Christianity in which she was raised. She met a woman named Mya, who became her spiritual adviser. On All Saints’ Day, an important pagan holiday, Mya dreamed that a crow was pecking at Danielle’s forehead; she explained that crows represent consciousness in Native American religions. During Ayoka’s first healing session, when Mya instructed her to lie down, she all of a sudden felt her lymph nodes close up. When she told Mya she couldn’t breathe, Mya snapped and wiggled her fingers, and told Ayoka that she’d had a terminal illness in her past life that needed to be cleared up. Once Ayoka left the session, she felt lighter and happier and subsequently invested in energy sessions monthly. Not too long afterwards, she learned from her father that she comes from a lineage of Native American shamans. Now, she practices quantum healing, which involves manipulating energy in her clients’ bodies in order to shift it.
Ayoka rejects the idea that black women are particularly vulnerable to shouldering more than our fair share of burdens in our society. In an interview, she says to me that we do have “a strength and endurance, and [that] is unmatched.
“It has been passed down from generations,” she adds. “It is what we’ve seen from our mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. The way in which we go through life—we are able to be a support for everyone. When is the last time that you’ve seen a black woman break after everything she’s been through and she wasn’t able to get through that? You don’t know another black woman who has been through some things? We have been there for others. We have been strong. We have raised each other’s children. We have helped each other to survive. No one can take your power unless you give it.”
When I spoke to another black woman, a witch named Haylin Belay, about why she practices, her thoughts were eerily similar.
“The deepest forms of magic in the United States come from Native Americans and black people,” she said. “I get a lot of empowerment out of my witchcraft. I wouldn’t feel that empowerment anyplace else . . . There has been multiple times that I’ve shouted in 2016, black women have a lot of problems. We are being gaslit every day, and we have to deal with trauma, abuse, and harassment. I have to go through this world questioning if people see me as a full human being. Despite how others may treat me, I have this core, this form of resilience. My magic is where no one outside of me can touch that . . .”
I have difficulty accepting these women’s ideologies because they seem to be validating the Strong Black Woman stereotype. But then I wonder if spiritual strength can override any obligation black women feel they have to fulfill on earth. Perhaps if our strength resides outside the physical world, a world that is largely influenced by a white supremacist system, then our being Strong Black Women is not a stereotype, but rather an honor to uphold.
As my sophomore year progresses, my stepfather deteriorates and so do I, but I still can’t bring myself to go back to the campus psychologist. Growing up in my black Pentecostal church in South Jersey, I was told that Jesus was the answer for everything. God is supposed to be my solid rock and fortress whenever I face trials and tribulations. My faith in God is absolute; I trust He has the answers for everything. Suffering is a huge component of Christianity. In fact, we are told that suffering is okay, for like gold, our souls are refined in fire and inevitably we will come out purer, stronger, and better than we were before. When I lie in bed at night and believe that I’m going to start hallucinating, I rebuke the Devil instead, and it does provide momentary relief. I ask for extra prayers in my weekly Bible study class. The Bible study leader takes me to a bishop on a Thursday afternoon, and he prophesizes that he sees me standing in front of a mirror as my skin peels off my bones and falls to the ground like feathers. He tells me that I’m going “through it,” and I need to do something—anything—or else I’m going to find myself in a ravine out of which I cannot climb.
But this is good, I think. I need to suffer. I’m being refined. I’m going to come out good as new sooner or later. Maybe this whole process is lasting longer than I thought because I’m not learning some sort of lesson that God is trying to teach me. When I pray about it, I do feel a peace overwhelm me and settle my anxiety. But my moods still fluctuate, drifting from one extreme to the other. As soon as I rise to my feet again after kneeling down in prayer, I feel as if I could easily plummet right back to the ground in anguish. I train myself to think that this sensation means that my dependence on God is getting stronger and that this is a good thing. After all, if I don’t have a relationship with God, then I can’t call myself a true Pentecostal. I am powerless because I believe I need to be. I expect to wake up one morning and find the grieving over. Then, I’ll testify to my community about how no one could have delivered me but God.
And then my prayers start to grow stagnant, and I don’t know what to do.
About a week before the premiere of the play I cowrote, my mother calls me and, in a calm voice, says that my stepfather does not have much time left. I have to come to the hospital to see him. He has been refusing to eat and drink for a few weeks, but he is not afraid. When my grandmother sits in a chair by his bed, she exuberantly sings hymns and he claps his hands or moves his head from side to side. When my grandfather preaches to him about rededicating his life to Christ before his mind and body go, my stepfather looks up to the ceiling and lifts his hands, an action that we all believe means he is ready to be taken home.