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Ep 50: Discovering Our Sensual Selves
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CONTENT WARNING // STORIES OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ASSAULT
In this episode, Dani and Leah discuss their journey of coming into their sensual selves. We talk about how traumatic puberty was for us as Black girls living in the Bible Belt, separating compulsory heterosexuality from desire, and having to stitch together our sexuality in our twenties. We highlight the life of Mather Catherine Seals, the Temple of Innocent Blood, and the inspiring work she accomplished in her short life.
RESOURCES
- African Goddess Rising Oracle: A 44-Card Deck and Guidebook by Abiola Abrams
- "A Night at Fontaine's: A Spicy Romance Short" by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
- Conjuring the Calabash: Empowering Women with Hoodoo Spells & Magick by Mawiyah Kai El-Jamah Bomani
- "Mother Catherine Seals And The Temple Of The Innocent Blood" by TriPod : New Orleans at 300
- "Mother Catherine" Short Story by Zora Neale Hurston
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Apocalypse Still by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
bloom by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
About the Boy by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
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This podcast was created, hosted, and produced by Dani & Leah.
Our music was created by Ghrey, and our artwork was designed by Bianca.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hoodoo Plant Mamas
00:00:00
Speaker
Who do plant mamas? Get your soul
00:00:44
Speaker
Hey, y'all, and welcome back to Hoodoo Plant Mamas. I'm your co-host, Leah Nicole. And I'm Danny B. And it is Hoodoo Heritage Month. We forgot to say that last time. It's Hoodoo Heritage Month.
Episode Announcements & Personal Reflections
00:00:57
Speaker
It's a time to educate a lot of people on what Black spirituality is and isn't and it's a time to like share hidden hoodoos, which is what we plan to do this season. We're coming out with a new episode every Friday of Hoodoo Heritage Month. So before we get started, Danny V, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. Had a little health scare that I'm here and I'm thankful, but you know, I'm i'm reaching that
00:01:24
Speaker
air of my life where my body is no longer taking the things that it took in my twenties. And so something is not good for me. She's like, hell no, bitch. Do you want another hospital bill? And I'm like, no, you win. So that's where I am, but I'm thankful to be alive. And i'm I'm actually thankful that my body communicates with me in a way that has not yet killed me yet. Like if your body is speaking and you're, and you're still alive,
00:01:53
Speaker
She's trying to give you a chance to get it together. So I'm thankful for that. Even though we not on gratitude, I really am thankful because I've been going through it. I would say I am in a similar position, but it's more like surrounding my mindset. So we are just getting out of the eclipse season. And I think for me, it's making me aware of like the things that I believed and the things I did in my twenties. That's not going to work for me in the next few years. And and like the pivots that I need to make.
00:02:31
Speaker
So I'm grateful for what I'm learning. I'm grateful for a little bit of guidance and clarity. and So a little bit of gratitude. So Danny, are you grateful for anything else? I'm grateful for this month. I want to share that today during my morning pool before I got sick, I pulled from the African goddess rising Oracle radical rebirth. And then I pulled night of Pentacles justice.
00:03:00
Speaker
and the death card. I immediately received that as like, something is changing and you really got to step up and take ownership. It's a lot of stuff in your life that's like not balanced that just this card. And it's like, you got to step up. I keep getting the Knight of Pentacles. I think that's what I said. I keep getting that.
Societal Reflections and Critique
00:03:23
Speaker
And if you don't know what the Knight of Pentacles is, it's a person on a horse holding like a pinnacle, like a coin.
00:03:31
Speaker
The death card is almost the exact opposite where they're facing the same way, but the death card is holding that flag and it's a skeleton, not a man, of course. So, you know, it's just like, I got to step up and I also got to welcome the change and stop resisting because there's there's something beautiful on the way. So that was a really good reading, especially with that rebirth card.
00:03:59
Speaker
radical rebirth. I think that that entire spread represents this. so I'm really thankful for the spirits being like, we got you, but you need to get it together. What about you? I do want to say I'm grateful for the spirits as well. ah Like I said, i with me getting through the eclipse season, I was doing a lot of tarot to try to get some guidance and to get some clarity. I do want to say that I'm thankful for the longshoremen. There's currently a port strike that is happening. It's going to hurt the US economy in a very big way. And I just feel like they're not asking for a lot. They asked for $5 extra an hour. That's it.
00:04:49
Speaker
And one longshoreman can bring in like a million dollars a day through their labor, but they are just asking for five dollars and the people in power did not want to give them that. So they're shutting everything down, which I'm like, good for them. Good for them. I'm on their side. It's going to hurt us a little bit over the next few months, but I think we can handle it. I'm grateful for them.
00:05:12
Speaker
answer All of us should really be on strike from the American government, but we don't have to get into that. yeah right
00:05:21
Speaker
So today I wanted to talk about creating the central self. So when I think about creating the central self, I think about my journey of coming into who I am sexually. And so the first book that I wrote, it was a memoir.
00:05:39
Speaker
And I wrote about how traumatic puberty was for me. And maybe this is because like I went from being bullied as a child for the way that I looked and how I act and who I am to like being sexualized. And it was such a traumatic shift for me. And I remember there was this one boy in particular who would physically and verbally attack me.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then it was like two years later, he's like, oh, you know, I just think you're so interesting. I want to get to know you better. The whole time he's looking at my chest and I'm like. I just felt so gross and disgusting. I felt so out of control in terms of what was happening to me. And I remember at that time, like I literally did not want to have anything to do with sex. I didn't want to have anything to do with sexuality. I was covering my body. I was doing all sorts of things to reject and push back against anyone seeing myself in that way. And it was not just me. It was a lot of the people around me. like Everybody was so afraid.
00:06:38
Speaker
of Black girls exploring and figuring out their sexuality. There's so much fear mongering around it. Like we talk about Black girls being, quote unquote, fast and having to cover up when men are around. And I'm someone that really hates wearing clothes, but I hate wearing clothes for sensory reasons. And I remember being in a high school, I would cut my shirts because it feels like it's choking me when I wear a t-shirt.
00:07:02
Speaker
And my friend accused me of doing it to like attract boys. And I'm like, I literally can't breathe in a t-shirt. But now everything that I do, all of my movements, all of my actions, people are analyzing it and being like, oh, it has to be something sexual going on with you. When I was just a teenage girl that was trying to live and breathe and exist,
00:07:23
Speaker
But there were all of these connotations that was put onto me. So before I go any further, Danny, what was your experience having to navigate like sexuality as you're moving through puberty as a young black girl? You know, it's complicated because I have been extremely homosexual since I was a child.
00:07:44
Speaker
like very knowing in that or I didn't have the language but I do remember like my first experience of being sexualized I was actually in the fourth grade because I started puberty abnormally early so I had breasts and I also started my period and I was nine years old that means most of the girls had that was not their experience particularly with developing breasts and just developing in general like what your your body is doing things. I was getting bullied in this grade but I was also getting sexually harassed so boys were simultaneously being mean to me and also like violating me touching my butt. You know if you have to walk through the desk or one of them will like smack my butt or one of my most distinct memories was it was right before the bell ring so he ran
00:08:37
Speaker
This boy, Mayu, fourth grade, were children. He grabbed my shirt and pulled it down to expose my breasts to everybody. like to and Mostly it was just boys and then they were all laughing and then he ran out of the room and of course everybody left. And I left and it was just like, whatever. I had on a bra, I had on my train, my little bra, but still it was like embarrassing.
00:09:02
Speaker
But I feel like I was so used to it. I just was dissociated in the moment. So yeah, it was just a mess and then It was a mix of things if it wasn't my family coming on my way. It was a weird stuff happening at church. So my grandma, I'm able to reflect now and see it. There were certain things my grandma would not let me wear. I will never forget. My daddy bought me this really cute sparkly swimsuit. It was so pretty. It was like a halter top, swimming suit, pink sparkly, something that, you know, I was really interested in at that time.
00:09:39
Speaker
and he also bought me this other like halter outfit my grandma when she saw that she literally was like you not wearing that ever like i think she ended up throwing it away mind you these were from the kids section they weren't sexual but she was just very weird about that i also have a memory of a deacon in church I think I made was in high school, came up to me and said, don't you think that dress is a little short? And I was like, I don't even know if I responded, but it was just like, why are you worried about it? And even those experiences, they don't even really scratch the surface. We both grew up in Mississippi. We already know how it goes. I don't think I started to fully process like the fullness of my experiences with sexuality until adulthood.
00:10:27
Speaker
And I think a part of that process has been, and I know this has taken a left, but it's all related, divesting from compulsory heterosexuality and accepting that I do not desire cishead men. When I thought I did, it was simply because I had been conditioned to believe there was value in being chosen by them and also church and brainwashing. Um, and I have very low self-esteem, so.
00:10:56
Speaker
I think for me, it was just about feeling like wanted. to But all of that is related, whether you're queer or you're straight, if you're read as a woman in the world, there's still all of that wrapped into like value and what devalues you and sex and pleasure. Even not understanding that they should be coexisting. Like you are not just somebodies.
00:11:25
Speaker
sex doll or whatever, because that's how I feel, especially as a teenager when you start having sex. that's I can't speak for everybody. Maybe I was having fun, but I suspect a lot of us wasn't. So you know what I mean? like You deserve to experience full body pleasure And that's, you know, if you grow up in a particular type of way, that's something that could take decades to get to,
Exploration of Sexuality and Societal Pressures
00:11:50
Speaker
unfortunately. So, yeah. Yeah. I just want to start by being like, that was really traumatic. And I'm sorry that happened to you. Oh my gosh. I about it. I told that story before. I guess that is kind of fucked up. I got explicitly bullied. It worked. You know, it was so much going on in my life then. To me, I felt like that was a lie.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah. you mean need but We need to put a trigger warning. I was like, I didn't, you know, now that I think about it, that he is kind of intense. like Oh my God.
00:12:22
Speaker
But I think for me, I really started thinking about this a lot more with my little. So I was a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters for most of the pandemic. And my little she's going to be 12 next month. But back when she was nine, it was like 94 degrees outside. And I don't know where we were going, we were going to be outside. um But she was in this slightly cropped top.
00:12:45
Speaker
And like her belly button was showing and she was in short shorts. And I just remembered that like if I dress like that when I was nine, I would have been caught all kinds of sluts and whores. When they let out the house, because my girl wouldn't be like.
00:13:02
Speaker
And like we're nine. We're nine years old. And so she was nine. She was like, boys are gross. She didn't understand why girls wanted one. and one like She was not even thinking about those things. She was thinking about the fact that it's hot. She wants to dress comfortable. She wants to be cute. And I was just so sad because I was like, that would not have been allowed for me. And it was like seeing her live my dream. I'm like, damn, purity culture really fucked me up.
00:13:29
Speaker
Before I go any further, I do have a quick tangent like about purity culture. I think a lot of it breeds pedophiles. like It forces us to police the bodies of women and girls. And so we see children's bodies as sexual when they should be seen as neutral.
00:13:46
Speaker
in our brains we should not be looking at little girls as if they're trying to cause a sexual reaction in someone they are not they're just trying to live and you're pervert if you see them that way i want to add to this tangent because this happens a lot on social media and there's a very clear double standard when people post little girls anything from their hair like oh that's too grown now mind you do i think a three-year-old need to be in a freaking what are the kids calling it a bust down 50 inch whatever the fuck no it's ridiculous sometimes it don't even be nothing that extreme it's just like so much policing but you don't see that same thing with the little boys and i want to go a step further with
00:14:31
Speaker
A lot of these women who be commenting on like little boys, you're weird. You're weird. Like y'all need to be on a list. That's my little boyfriend. Oh, he gonna be a heartbreaker. I don't like when men or anybody says it about little girls. And I don't like it when y'all say it about little boys. It's weird that y'all are looking at or sexualizing an interaction between two kids. yes That's my cat's feeder.
00:15:00
Speaker
But if it's two kids of the same gender, it's an agenda. But when y'all do it, it's not. Okay. Cause I can tell you one thing. I was not thinking about boys at all until like in the middle school, going into high school. And that was because, you know, peer pressure. And that's the normal thing that you're supposed to be doing, quote unquote, supposed to be doing. So it's just like, yeah, y'all need to stop being weird with kids. You don't want to treat them right. And then you want to sexualize them. I just,
00:15:35
Speaker
Wow, I have to tell this story but when I was 11, my mama had signed me up for this abstinence only talk and it was only for the girls and we had to leave class in the middle of the day.
00:15:51
Speaker
and go to this auditorium where a white woman preached to us about having sex before marriage. And to illustrate her point, she picked out some volunteers from the audience, and each girl was handed a cup of water and an Oreo. And she turned them around, whispered directions in their ear, and then she had them face us. And when they did, each girl had varying amounts of chewed up and spin Oreo floating around in their cup.
00:16:19
Speaker
And so she asked us to pick a cup that we drink from and we all chose the cups of water that had no Oreo in it. And she said that having any amount of sex before marriage was the equivalent to giving your husband a cup of water with floating Oreo when he deserved a pure cup of water.
00:16:37
Speaker
That was my foundation for how to look at sex. And sometimes I really be like gaslighting myself and I'm like, Oh, I'm not that sexually repressed or traumatized. And then I remember this and I'm like, Yes, I am because this fucked me up in so many ways. And I think for me, it made me really afraid to figure out who I was.
00:16:59
Speaker
sexually, like I was actively discouraged from sexual pleasure, where boys were actively encouraged. They did not have any ah any talk like this. They they were just all like, oh, you know, having sex makes you a man. Meanwhile, it's like having sex makes you gross and disgusting and dirt dirty Oreo water. So we got to accept the dirty Oreo water, but they don't.
00:17:20
Speaker
Because yeah a lot of the pure a lot of the women with pure cups of water is accepting cups with the water ain't even in there no more. It's just a big clump. It's just a big old nasty clump of just spit up Oreo. But we deserve this.
00:17:40
Speaker
You want to talk about traumatizing. That actually sounds horrifying. I'm so sorry. And that sounds illegal. No, it sounds illegal. They was doing too much in these schools. No, I literally have been asking people, I was like, oh, did you have that too? And they were like, no.
00:18:00
Speaker
That's insane. My mama signed a permission slip. We had the abstinence only and the fear mongering around STDs that did not stop people from getting STDs, but nah, that, oh beloved, that sound like some out of a, I don't want to say any say something offensive, but it's it sounds like some out of a particular type of church. If you know, you know. If you watched enough of these cult documentaries, you know exactly what church is talking about.
00:18:31
Speaker
she could have been. I have no idea where they got this white woman or why she came to our school to tell us we were sluts and whores. But no, like a lot of this like just really made me afraid of sex and sexuality and it was so bad. Like I did not know that my body could be used for pleasure until I was like 17 when a boy had to teach me what an orgasm was because no one else did. And before then I was like, Oh, my body is for bleeding and to make babies that's it. I didn't think I didn't know what an orgasm was. And so when I learned that like my body could be this source of pleasure, I started being like, Oh, I'm going to burn in hell for this because my body's not supposed to do something like this.
00:19:17
Speaker
So you never even, this is, we don't have to put all kinds of warnings, but you never even masturbated or anything? I did, but not to orgasm. I didn't i didn't know what that was. Damn.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. i'm I'm sure that's a very like common experience. I was a little more like curious and stuff. And initially when I started doing it, I didn't, but when it finally happened, like I didn't know what was happening. I just know that once you experience it's never like the first time. Like it was just like, I felt like I was having an outer body experience. I think I was like 12 or something. Oh, wow. Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker
Listen, tell them myself anyway.
00:20:04
Speaker
No, but it's natural. Like a lot of kids, you're exploring your body. I think I was curious about my body, but that particular thing I would do, but nothing was happening. And then one day something did happen and I was like, what's happening? And then I liked it and I wanted to do it all the time, but that's a conversation for nothing.
00:20:25
Speaker
I liked it. I wouldn't do all the time. But then I was like, no, I'm going to burn in hell for this. And so I think for me, it was like masturbation became this guilty pleasure. And it took years for me to move from like that to like, no, let me go for a while.
00:20:41
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So many church babies have masturbation, like guilt, trauma. And honestly, I had a couple of times where I've cried after and the I, I grew out of that because for me it was like, well, I'm not having sex with another person, but I know people who say, who every time, several people have told me, yeah, I used to cry every time so I felt so guilty. Like I was going to go to hell and I was like, damn y'all ain't even let the girls get off by themselves. Like. You say and no sex for a marriage. Like, we can't do nothing. Strict. Y'all is too strict. I don't think I ever cried after. I was just like, oh, you know, one more time and then I'm not going to do it again. And I kept trying to fast.
00:21:31
Speaker
You know, I think I probably attempted something like that too. Like, I'm going to stop doing it. And I did. It may not last in a couple of days.
00:21:44
Speaker
It just took me a long time to go from like this place of guilty pleasure to a place where it's like, no, you know what? I deserve to feel good today. And also, it's good stress relief, right?
00:21:57
Speaker
It's good for me in a lot of different ways and I shouldn't feel guilty about that. And to learn the things that I like sexually, like what are the things I like or things I don't like? How can I advocate for myself in the sexual space? How do I make sure that my needs and my desires are met as well? This is a big one and this is something that I learned when I talked to men about their sexual experiences when I wrote A Night at Fontaine. Overwhelmingly, men do not have bad sex.
00:22:25
Speaker
Um, they have varying levels of pleasure depending on whether there's protection or not. And they were talking about vaginas being more rigidly or smooth, but they're going to be pleased regardless. They don't care.
00:22:40
Speaker
And so for me, it became this thing of like, oh, I need to make sure that I'm fulfilled because they're always going to be fulfilled. They're always taking care. of You don't need the pussy cleanses. You don't need the ochre water. You don't need to take the dick riding classes. You don't need any of that. I wish men cared the way women do because they taking big second classes. A lot of the energy that women who are dating men put into like pleasing men, I think a lot of that could be redirected to making sure that we are pleased and to make sure that we are sexually fulfilled.
00:23:15
Speaker
I think what you just mentioned really gets to that double standard and I think children internalize that and we know that based on our interactions with them in school like but it's also manifest in girls being hostile to other girls fighting each other over boys while the boys stand around and laugh at both of them because he's going to continue to keep playing that game with both of them even the way girls talk about other girls even the way the boys talk about the girls and the girls who will agree with the boys because, again, the pick me phenomenon is not a new thing. It is a symptom of wanting to feel like you're different from other girls. And so we saw how this manifested in that when girls had sex in school, they were a whole, they were this, that, and the other. When boys, the same boys that were having sex with these, quote unquote, hoes, oh, they're cool.
00:24:10
Speaker
You know what I mean? So it's like even the way it starts in childhood, there's that sense of entitlement. And that's why we have all these issues around consent. Y'all socialize young cis boys specifically to feel like they are entitled to sex, but women shouldn't want it.
00:24:29
Speaker
Well, if they don't want it, how do you get it? Let's have a conversation about it. Cause then now it's going to get ugly and it's going to prove that y'all are literally creating rape culture. The rape culture that you act like doesn't exist. So it's really a cycle. I'm only 31 years old. I'll be 32 in a couple, in a few months.
00:24:49
Speaker
I'm still not free from it. like I still have to work through certain things regarding my relationship to sex and my sexuality. The shift has come over the years because I have been like in no kind of romantic situation for years. And during that time, you know even though I had crushes and stuff, I never told them because I've been extremely traumatized.
00:25:12
Speaker
I can't name a person who treated me kind. I can't name a person who didn't make me feel like physically I wasn't enough. So there's all these dynamics specifically for people red as black women, specifically if you dark skinned, specifically if you fat or disabled or whatever that impacts.
00:25:32
Speaker
our relationship to sex and sexuality because all of that is sort of wrapped up in who deserves and who doesn't. I don't know that's getting a little complicated but I really can't separate it for because for me it's really attached to that like feeling like I don't deserve pleasure.
00:25:51
Speaker
And that has impacted my ability to access the kind of pleasure that I desire. When I was a child, I was very sex averse and for a lot of different reasons that we've already talked about. But like I remember my early 20s, I was like, oh, you know what? I do like the way my body looks. And I think for me, I wanted to enjoy sex for me. And I felt like as a teenager, it was more so this like pressure that was put on me and these connotations that came with the way that my body looked. But it's like, I want to enjoy my body for me. I want to enjoy the way that I look. I want to enjoy sex for me. I don't want to be thinking about like, oh, are you sexually, please what about me? what What about me? And so I think for me as an adult, especially someone who's like going through a divorce, who may, we'll see,
00:26:41
Speaker
may date again, there are certain things that like I want sexually that 10 years ago I was afraid of. There are things that I'm more comfortable doing sexually that 10 years ago I was afraid of. And so I'm kind of excited about that, but I'm also worried because I do dates as head men and we know how they are. Yeah, I think that kind of goes back into like the policing, the policing of our bodies and like that gaining ownership of that. Like everybody's relationship to sexuality is different, but for me, I feel like there's still a lot of shame around it when it comes to people who enjoy sex, especially women. It's seen as like superficial or like, oh, you can't have a real meaningful loving relationship if that's all you focus on. Can people have both? I kept struggling between like, do I just want a sex partner or do I want
00:27:41
Speaker
a relationship and I realized where I am in my life, I want both and I want both to be fulfilling and pleasurable and exciting and fun. And some people would say, well, you asked for too much or somehow wanting like to have pleasurable sex, robust and have a meaningful relationship. Like somehow that can exist.
00:28:06
Speaker
or that it's wrong to like for that to be important. So yeah, I think that's attached to that shame that we internalized about that. It's attached to not feeling like our body belongs to us and we could do whatever we want with it and that our body deserves pleasure, deserves tenderness. So yeah, I think it's all it's all in conversation with each other. I agree. Are you ready to take a break? Yep.
Supporting the Podcast & Historical Insights
00:28:40
Speaker
Let's get into ways you can support the Hoodie Plant Mamas. One is through our bookshop where you can buy the books that we've previously discussed with our Writing the Spirit guests. We have a Hoodie's Beginner Guide as well as our top reading picks. You can also buy my books. Every purchase you make helps support our show. Check us out at bookshop dot.org slash shop slash Hoodie Plant Mamas or the link in our show notes.
00:29:04
Speaker
Other ways you can support us include rating and reviewing this podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow us on Twitter at who do plants and Instagram at who do plant farmers. Also check out our Patreon where we share exclusive video plant and spiritual content for only $3 a month. We also have new patrons.
00:29:23
Speaker
Hi, Laney and Kimberly, thank you so much for supporting us. If you prefer a one-time donation, you can donate via Cash App, Dollar Sign, Who Do Plant Mamas, or our PayPal, whodoplantmamas at gmail dot.com. Let's get back to the show.
00:29:46
Speaker
For today's episode, our hidden hoodoo is Mother Catherine Seales. I learned about her in the book Conjuring the Calabash. So the Louisiana Weekly called Mother Catherine Seales, quote unquote, the founder of the largest cult in America. But I'm going to read um some of her bio from a New Orleans NPR article.
00:30:08
Speaker
Mother Catherine Seals was born Catherine Nanny Cowens in Kentucky. In 1913 she left Kentucky for New Orleans within a year she married and her husband was physically abusive towards her so she left him. She married two more times each husband more abusive than the last and her third husband beat her so bad she had a stroke and was paralyzed.
00:30:32
Speaker
So then Catherine goes to a levy on the Mississippi River to see a healer named Brother Isaiah. He's a white man who claims to be a prophet and healer, but he turns her way because she's Black. And so she prays for help, and she's visited by a spirit who tells her to create her own organization of sinners so she can help and heal. And so she studies under Mother Leafy Anderson, who's a Black woman and the founder of the Spiritual Church Movement in New Orleans.
00:31:00
Speaker
She instructed Catherine on how to build her own church. At the time, many people in the Lower Ninth Ward held churches in their house and many white people associated their rituals with voodoo because of the African traditions and the fact that to white people, voodoo meant black, dangerous, and evil.
00:31:19
Speaker
And so to escape the persecution, to kind of escape those associations, Nanny Cohen's wanted her church to be on the outskirts of town. She changed her name to Mother Catherine Seals and bought an entire block in the Lower Ninth Ward, built a 10-foot wall around her property, and got to work building the Temple of Innocent Blood on Charbonnet Street.
00:31:42
Speaker
Reports of the temple said that there were two main buildings, ah Mother Catherine Sill's private ritual space, and then her manger, which was an open-air building that could hold over 300 people. Records say that there were usually over 500 lamps blazing at any given time.
00:31:59
Speaker
and there were small clay sculptures made by Mother Catherine all over the place and the area was very muddy. Because her place was out of the way, it was hard for many people to get to her, even the clan, so people had to trek through marshlands to receive her healing powers. She was said to use simple ingredients like castor oil and epson salt to ward off or expunge diseases. There are descriptions of people having wounds healed through chickens that were tied to their legs and and stuff like that.
00:32:29
Speaker
Like Father Divine from our last episode, Mother Catherine Sills had an integrated congregation, but her focus with the temple of innocent blood was women who were abandoned and abused by men like she had been. So she harbored pregnant girls, homeless youth, and abused women and their children because she realized that women who had children out of wedlock, both black and white, were discarded by society and the children were subjected to violence and abuse. So they were innocent blood like Jesus who was also born out of wedlock.
00:32:59
Speaker
A reporter recounted in 1924 that a small black girl ushered people in and told white people and men that they had to sit in the back because the front was res reserved for saints only, like her and other black girls and women.
00:33:15
Speaker
Zora Neale Hurston actually visited the Temple of Innocent Blood in the 1920s and she studied Mother Catherine's work and wrote about her in her book The Sanctified Church. Mother Catherine Seals led the Temple of Innocent Blood from 1922 until her death in 1930. She was either 33 or 43, no one knows for sure because she was born before 1900 and And people before then, a lot of people don't know their birthday. So um she is regarded as a patron saint of the Ninth Ward. So before we get going, Danny, do you have any thoughts? Yes. So I find this story absolutely fascinating for a few reasons. The first is I wrote a so short story eerily similar to this.
00:34:01
Speaker
um After a few rejections, I've like shelved it or whatever. I just haven't touched it. But the story was about a woman in New Orleans who took in abused women, girls, and queer folks. The main character was this queer black girl who was leaving an abusive relationship. And she ended up falling in love with one of the women that was helping her get back to Mississippi, another woman who had been um taken in by this New Orleans woman. So I'm honestly just like not surprised that an actual person, like a real person like that exists. i And then I also love that she called children out of wedlock, innocent blood, because this a tangent and I'm ah and i'm a down this hill. Going back to the fact that y'all don't like kids, y'all don't respect them or treat them as humans,
00:34:55
Speaker
People also somehow blame children for whatever issues they have with their parents. If your parent has some issue, you're like guilty by association. You're guilty for being born. It's just it's kind of rooted in the idea that like we're bastards. If we're born out of wed, we're bastards. like Damn. what i mean i didn't I promise you I didn't want to come. I didn't. And so it just goes in line with the way people like being, I think her ah uplifting children in that way, uplifting women, but also honoring the fact that like
00:35:33
Speaker
These children are innocent. um It kind of pushes back against the ways people being religion, especially to um justify the abuse of women, children and queer folks, but especially children. So again, we can go down a deep dive on that another day, but Bless Mother Catherine, okay, doing the good work. This was a woman that had been turned away in so many different ways. Like, when each of her husbands were abusive to her, she ended up disabled from it.
00:36:06
Speaker
She tried to get help. White men also turned her away. And so as a result of that, she's like, I'm going to build my own thing. I'm going to build my own community. And I'm going to do is centering the very people that society turns away. So I really do appreciate her for doing that work. Something that I thought was very curious about this, like me not knowing about Father Devine, me also not knowing about Mother Catherine Seals was like, they were not the only big Black of wealth there were a lot of spiritualists around this time in the 1920s and so I was very curious about why a lot of the spiritual figures were popping up because I know in 1917 there was a world war
00:36:52
Speaker
In the 1918, there was the pandemic. In 1990 to the 1920s, there was red summer where a lot of white people were murdering black people, which triggered the great migration and a lot of black people moving up north to try to escape that violence. And so there were all of these terrible, terrible things that were happening. And then at the same time, there were all these spiritual figures popping up.
00:37:18
Speaker
And so I'm thinking about today how there are so many spiritual figures. A lot of them are on social media, but I think a lot of them are like probably the modern day equivalent to a Mother Catherine Sills or to a Father Divine. You know, I was thinking a lot about that and um so I honestly have been trying to figure out who's actually comparable to them in today's world.
00:37:43
Speaker
that isn't a hateful social media influencer. And one person that came to mind was TD Jakes, comes pretty close, especially in the 90s. But I'm also um wondering about like more contemporary because like, yeah, there's been a few black lead cults that have gotten exposed in the last few years, but I'm wondering if anyone is comparable to the level of influence that Father Divine and Mother Catherine had.
00:38:11
Speaker
Is there anybody you can think of? like Because social media is such a, while it's a big, huge, feels like limitless place, it really is small in the grand scheme of things. And these two people were larger than than life.
00:38:29
Speaker
And they were also like pushing back against particular systems. And I don't really know who's actually doing that in the same way. Like literally creating something like an underground real world for abused people, for abused women. Like who's doing that? Creating buying out buildings to house black people and help them get jobs and all that kind of stuff. Like who's really doing that? That's a good question. I think social media is also more fragmented than like a hundred years ago. Yeah. where you Where you had to actually physically gather and be in a place. Yeah. And again, there's these cults that are all over the country but and none of them really come close because while obviously with father dev divine there's some questions there about ethics and what was going on and how he was getting the money but like when it comes to these other people even cult leaders like Jim Jones who were inspired you were not like when it came down to it you devolved and
00:39:40
Speaker
ultimately these people, you know, perished versus Father Divine's people it was still in that house with his altar in old age, like living. So yeah, I don't know. I don't want to go back on the tangent with my faith because I'm actually fascinated with both of them. Like, how could y'all not find each other? But then again, I don't know, because Father the Divine and his, like, I know he was like, had his kind of progressive ideas about race and gender, but I don't i think the I think the patriarchy would have came out in this one if they tried to lift up. I think he he was mainly in the North, right? Around the time of York and Pennsylvania and stuff. Yeah. He was in Georgia for a period of time. Some people think he's originally from Rockville, Maryland, which
00:40:30
Speaker
For me, it's feeling like Marilyn is Southern, like a large chunk of his pretty Southern. But yeah, he was in New York when a lot of this shit happened, like when he got big. So the fact that she did this in Louisiana is actually amazing. I know we about to end the show, but I got something to say about Brother Isaiah.
00:40:50
Speaker
Because a white man who calls himself a healer and this, that, and that, you still got time to be racist. So God gave you allegedly some God, some spirit gave you a gift, but you still able to be racist. Like they told you, you could still be racist.
00:41:10
Speaker
Okay, I actually had to look him up after this because I had never heard of him either. But apparently, there were people who were like, Oh, he healed me. But then five, 10 years later was like, Oh, you know, I was caught up in the hysteria. He didn't actually heal me. And so he, somebody died. I think that's what happened. Somebody he had claimed to heal somebody, somebody had died. And so then they were trying to sue him and he got chased out of Louisiana. I feel like that was audacious. You're gonna turn somebody away. Did you call yourself a healer?
00:41:39
Speaker
I'm just always amazed at how people be having time to be racist under certain circumstances like how you got time to be thinking about all this and you got this big allegedly this big beautiful gift to help the world help people and you like not you not you darkie but I can help everybody else that no, I'm not buying it. And I'm glad he got ran out of town. Say something that I thought was really interesting is that, well, they said this was pre Katrina. I don't know about since Katrina, but pre Katrina, there were alters around the ninth ward to mother Catherine seals.
00:42:18
Speaker
I'm curious to know. I didn't get a chance to read everything, but um how did she die? Because that's really young. Whether she was 33 or 43, that's really young. That's why I noticed you. I don't think it said. I wonder if, so when she got disabled from her third husband, she had a stroke. So I wonder if it could have been cut. Well, it was still like at least a decade later.
00:42:41
Speaker
I wonder if it was complications from that or something. It could be um Fannie Lou Hamer when she got beat up in that jail. She had lasting wounds from that until death. So it could have been something related to that or just something that got exacerbated because she already had the issues because of that abuse. But yeah, I was like, damn, that's so young, but she she got to do a lot in her her short life.
Conclusion & Listener Engagement
00:43:09
Speaker
so Well, that's the end of the show. I would love if there's any other like suspected people you've you've learned about that you don't really see a lot of attention on.
00:43:21
Speaker
Feel free to shoot us an email because I love to learn about these figures and I believe they deserve to get elevated so long as they weren't like evil or something. But even if they were evil, you know, sometimes we still need the tea. Sometimes it's like, all right, let's let's get to it. Let's dig in. so Yes, hit us up. If you like this episode, you can like, rate, and review Who Do Plant Mamas on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If anything from the show resonated with you, make sure to share it with us on social media. You can find us on Twitter at WhoDoPlants and Instagram at WhoDoPlantMamas. Thank y'all for listening and stay tuned next week for our next show, for our next episode. byall Bye, y'all. Bye.