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Hope Dealer with José Rico
"Hope Dealer" is story-telling that focus on building connections and fostering a sense of belonging within our communities. Through personal narratives, historical reflections, and calls to action, Rico and his guests offer listeners a profound understanding of the power of love, community, and spiritual practice in overcoming systemic oppression and cultural erasure. Each episode is a testament to the enduring love and resilience that drive communities to resist, persevere, and thrive despite the challenges they face. You can join this community at https://joserico.org/
Hope Dealer with José Rico
The Journey Home: Finding Ancestral Roots and Spiritual Rebirth in Sierra Leone
What happens when we finally listen to the signs that have been guiding us all along? In this breathtaking conversation from the beaches of Sierra Leone, Rico sits down with racial healer and founder of ReKinNectar, L3C, Yvonnie DuBose, who shares her remarkable spiritual journey back to her ancestral homeland.
Growing up in Chicago's Ida B. Wells Projects with an unusually strong connection to spirit, Yvonnie describes how she maintained her spiritual gifts despite society's attempts to dim them. "Children are very connected," she explains. "They all are. But we talk them out of that." For twenty years, she suppressed her spirituality during a marriage to someone who questioned whether her gifts were "God-driven" or possibly "satanic" – until a friend's brutal honesty helped her reclaim her true self.
The universe works in mysterious ways. When Yvonnie found herself resisting an invitation to Sierra Leone, strange signs began appearing – a swarm of dragonflies, a rare red bat in South Shore Chicago, moths that followed her persistently. These spiritual messengers all carried the same message: step beyond your fear into the unknown. The moment she surrendered and said yes to the journey, everything fell into place.
Having discovered through DNA testing her connection to the Mende tribe years earlier, Yvonnie's arrival in Sierra Leone completed a circle. In a moving rebirthing ceremony, village elders named her "Majapo" – mother of children, agriculture, and reconciliation. "I never knew what to call home as a Black woman," she reflects, describing the profound recognition she felt among people whose mannerisms and speech patterns mirrored her family in South Carolina.
This conversation invites us all to consider the signs we might be ignoring and the spiritual connections waiting to be strengthened. As Yvonnie suggests, simple practices like meditation can help us tune back into what we already know: "It's a good way to have your subconscious tell you what you already know, but you don't get a chance to listen to."
Ready to reconnect with your own spiritual gifts? This episode will inspire you to begin that journey today.
F.L.Y. L.I.B.R.E. a guide for healing and liberation can be purchased here: amzn.to/4iCzAAM
Get Dr. McBride's book "Becoming Changemakers" to explore more stories of resilience and community transformation. Connect with the Become Center at becomecenter.org or email dmcbride@becomecenter.org.
Buenas familia, soy Jose Rico, or Rico, if you know me from the hood. Thank you so much for your attention today. It means everything to me, and I want to welcome you to Hope Dealer, which is a podcast about our journey towards hope, resilience and joy through the stories that we carry about our return home, and my intention for our time together is to remind us that we carry powerful medicine within us that is our guide to our transformation. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so grateful to be able to introduce you to incredible people, incredible spirits that will share their journeys with us. Buenas familia como estan? How the body? That's how you say it. A greeting here in Sierra Leone.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Hope Dealer, a podcast about our journey towards hope, resilience, joy through our stories of returning home, and today you're going to hear an incredible story of someone's rebirth and her return home, and so I'm positive that the time that we're going to be spending together is going to not only lift up your spirits but hopefully connect you to those spirits.
Speaker 1:This is Jose Rico, and a reminder that this podcast and these stories are a way for myself and for us to remember that we are the medicine that we have with each other. Today I am coming to you from the waterfront, from the coast of Sierra Leone. We're at the beach right now, so you might hear the ocean, you might hear families playing, and one of the reasons that I am here Is because I have an incredible honor and pleasure Of being here with my mana, my sister, who was named Ivani DuBose and now she's going to tell you what her new name is. And Ivani is a racial healer and equity practitioner. She is the co-founder of Reconnectar, which she will talk a little bit about, somebody who is Chicagoan, who's been doing incredible work both locally and nationally, and so I just want to be able and want her to just introduce herself, and we really want to ask her right now how's the body to you?
Speaker 2:We are in Sierra Leone and I think this is how many days have we been here now. We've been here about five six days.
Speaker 2:I am Yvonne DeVos. I have in the last five years, done my somewhere within the last five years, done my DNA with AfricanAncestrycom if you've never heard of them, not Ancestrycom, not 23andMe, not any of those other ones, not 23andMe, not any of those other ones, but actually AfricanAncestrycom that has a larger pool of DNA from the motherland and it showed that I am. I think it's 23% from the Mende tribe of Sierra Leone and so, and then I think it's something like 24% or something very similar. I can't remember the tribe, but they are in Guinea-Bissau. I want to say they're like Bende or something, bantu or something I can't remember, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So I'm right here in the region of them both, but right on the land of Sierra Leone, and I went to the Mende tribe, a Mende tribe village, because the Mende tribe is the most dominant tribe here in Sierra Leone. It's the largest tribe still here in Sierra Leone. They're on the east, north and southern parts of Sierra Leone and I got an opportunity to go to one. The chief actually said we know that the ancestors led you here because you could have gone to many Mende villages and you came to this one.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we can talk about how succinct that truly is spiritually about me being here, um. But they renamed me in a um in a rebirthing ceremony and my new name, while in sierra leone, is majapo, so ma jo po they don't pronounce r's clearly because it's spelled like major poor, but it's Majapo and it's, and it means mother of children, mother of agriculture and mother of reconciliation. And peace.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is beautiful and I actually would. I think it's great if people hear the story of how you got there. But first, the first question I want to ask you is can you share I mean today's about your journey, right, like the journey of how you got here and how you got your name, or anything else you want to share? But let's start the journey a little bit about how you grew up and where you grew up, just to be able to give a context of where you grew up and how you grew up. And then, you know, take this journey of where we are now. So we'd love to hear a little bit about you know you and how you grew up in Chicago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was born and raised so I'd love to say all over Chicago, because I did spend a lot of time all over Chicago, but my journey began in Ida B Wells Projects. My grandmother had a two-bedroom apartment and I know that two of her children, my mother and my aunt, were living there with her, and I am the first born of my mother, so it was the two of them. I believe my cousin Anita might have been living there too, and then myself, and then my mom moved out and got her own apartment. But I think even before we moved back into Ida B Wells she had to move out and move to like the Robert Taylor homes for a little while and somewhere else, and then she came back. So then I was in Ida B Wells until eighth grade pretty much. I mean, we moved out once to go to Pill Hill, came back because of an incident, and then we left Ida B Wells.
Speaker 2:When I was in eighth, when I was graduating from eighth grade, we lived in the Gresham area, auburn, gresham, for two years one year, something like that, two years I think and then we moved to Rogers Park because my brother was getting to be of the age where gangs would be interested in him and my mother didn't want that. So we moved there and then we really stayed on the north side until I don't know. Once I finished college I moved over to South Shore for a little while, went back to the North Side, lived over I don't know what the area is called, I can't think of it right now just east of South Shore and then back to the North Side and then to Bronzeville and now in South Shore. So I've lived almost always east but all up and down.
Speaker 1:Chicago's lakefront. And how did that that moving around? Like, how was your childhood there? What do you think that has to do with your healing journey? Like, how was it growing up for you in all those transitions?
Speaker 2:You know, I've always been a heavily spiritual child. My mother did not turn that off. She did not. She was not somebody who ignored that. So if so, she didn't ignore it. But we didn't have to have a whole lot of conversations about it either, and I learned very quickly that I had my own personal. You know and this is a really funny story my mother, you know, I went to school one day and my teacher said we're going to have a party and everybody should sign up to bring something. And I have no idea what made me say I can bring pizzas.
Speaker 2:Now we're living in the projects and we've never had pizza delivered to my house ever before. And so I come up with this idea that I'm going to bring pizzas. And you know, the teacher is like are you sure you know? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to bring them. And so I don't tell my mother about it until the night before we're supposed to go. And she was like I don't know why you told that lie.
Speaker 2:You know, like I'm not ordering pizzas for a whole classroom. And I was devastated and I was crying and I was saying to Spirit you know, you know, now I understand it's just me and you, not me and mom. You know, it's just me and you. You know, and that relationship between me and Spirit grew from that. From that moment it literally grew between me and spirit grew from that. From that moment it literally grew.
Speaker 2:And so if I would lose my keys, I would literally lay down in a field of grass anywhere, because I knew if I was laid in the grass, like on the earth, and I could look up at the sky, I could just have a conversation and spirit would bring them back to me. And so I would lay down in the grass and just say, look, you know she's going to kill me. I need those keys. You're going to have to show me where they are and spirit would lead me right to them. I'd stand up, go where I was being led and find them in the middle of anything. It didn't matter where. They could be in the middle of a playground, they could be in the middle of a field of grass, they could be in the middle of a garden of flowers, it did not matter, I would find them. So I've always had the gift of being able generally to find things or to request things to return.
Speaker 1:So and that happened since you were from an early age.
Speaker 2:That was at a very early age. At an early age, my friends learned that I spoke to spirit and they would ask me to tell them, like you know, this is happening. What you know, what do you think is going to happen next? Like I mean, I would have dreams about things you know. Um, so yeah, I just I've always had a really strong relationship with spirit, with the spirit world. When people die, I generally hear from people sometimes I hear from people as they are preparing to pass yeah, just different things. So anyway, that's what my background was. And so, moving all around, I can only say my spirituality was very stable. That all felt good.
Speaker 2:You, you know I knew to count on that voice, but also I was just taking a look at the differences and things from one area to another right. So when we were growing up in Ida B Wells, you did not walk around in a swimming suit, we lived right over by the lake. You didn't walk around in a swimming suit, you covered everything. And so then when we would go visit my aunt in Evanston and drive up you know, lakeshore Drive to Sheridan Road and the white people would be crossing the street, you know, bikini clad, I was like what the hell makes this okay? And it wasn't like judgment, it literally was why, you know, like why is this okay? And we could never do that, like you know, um. And sometimes the adults would talk about you know, they just walk across the street like blah, blah, blah, you know, um.
Speaker 2:So I just began to notice lots of differences. I noticed, you know, how they dressed in the winter versus how we dress outside for winter. I noticed just, it was just a very odd feeling of openness and freedom, so like expansiveness, that's it. The energy felt expansive. I don't know if I don't know if people can understand what I'm saying by that, but it felt like when you, when you were, when you came off Lakeshore Drive, it just felt like the world was open to you, versus when you were on the South side, it felt very narrow.
Speaker 1:You mean on the North side.
Speaker 2:The North side felt very expansive, the South side felt very narrow, and another odd thing that used to happen to me was I felt like the sun shined so much brighter on the north side than it did on the south side. I know, right, I thought that was the oddest thing. And so even when we moved up there Rogers Park, as you know, is like filled with everything. So there were already Africans up there, jewish people, I mean, you name it. Like you know, it feels like that's where all of the immigrants were settling at that time, and so we were. There were other black families up there, but there weren't that many African-American families up there yet as far as we could tell.
Speaker 2:And I could be whoever I wanted to be, because we did not have they didn't have any preconceptions. Maybe they had preconceptions of who boys were, black boys were, but I don't feel like they had really any preconceptions of who Black girls were. So the ways in which maybe I was an outcast on the South Side, I was able to be that on the North Side and be invisible, and whereas today we don't want to be invisible, I was very comfortable being invisible because I was on the South side a little odd. So those, those are the things I think that were going on in my background. Yeah, that's that's about and it's it's funny. I'm saying that I was odd. I was, but I was still, you know, at Lindblom High School, in a, you know, in a huge girls club, social club, you know. So I was part of Jontel Farm, which was GF at, you know, lindblom, and so you would not think that I was odd because that was a very popular girls group, but I was still even in that group. I was very odd.
Speaker 1:So you know you talk a little bit about feeling that freedom on the north side and then also not talking a lot about, or be known for your connection to spirit. So for me, when I met you, you seem very connected to spirit and you share that openly. I'm curious about you know, when was the moment or what was it about the work that you were doing then and that you're doing now that makes you comfortable or calls you to declare your openness to spirit, Like, how is that connection and your openness about your healing journey? How did that come about for you?
Speaker 2:So as connected as I had been. So this is the thing. So children are very connected. They all are right, they are very connected. So if you're out there and you've got small children and they say they see, they say they see things or they hear things they do, right, but we talk them out of that. We say to them you don't, you're not hearing that that's not true. We do all the things and no one knows how far to go with kids. Right, because they also have the best imaginations. Right. But when we hit somewhere around the age of 13, 14, our lens changes If we haven't really conditioned ourselves to pay attention to it, right, so that by the time we hit 13 or 14, the world tells us it's all imaginary, has been telling us it's all imaginary, and now the lens changes and we believe it was all imaginary and we let it go.
Speaker 2:I did not have that experience. My mother studied the Silva Method and then came home and gave me everything she had and she said you need to study this too, and so that was another way of holding on to it. But when I got married, my husband was raised Jehovah's Witness and at some point he made a statement to me that other people had made to me before and I didn't really care about. But this was my husband and the statement was how do you know that that's God driven? Because that that sounds like that, you know, could possibly be satanic. Yeah, and so, because we had children, I was like, ok, I'm in this for a while, right, I'm in this, maybe we can work this out because he wasn't a practicing Jehovah's Witness, but I was in my marriage with me sort of stuffing my spirituality, you know, under a bed basically you know what I'm saying In a closet, like closing it up for 20 years, up for 20 years. And if you are anything like me, it was literally like trying to burst out of everything, like, you know, just trying to come out of everywhere. And I decided, I decided at one point I know I need to be done with this marriage. I feel suffocated, like I literally was constantly feeling suffocated and I was like, but I have to separate my energy from his first. I've got to find a way to separate my energy so that I can, um, right, in order to take that step out of the marriage.
Speaker 2:And so I took the kids and we took a road trip. On that road trip. We stopped in North Carolina and it was middle of the night and I called a friend who had gone to high school with me and I was like, girl, tell me where I can find a hotel here, because it's the middle of the night, can you help us this down? And she was like, you got to get over here to this house. So me and the kids went to stay with her and she said well, what's going on? Why would you be out here with you and the kids and with you and the kids? And we talked a little bit and she said, girl, please. She was like anybody that knows you knows that you cannot hide your spirituality. What were you thinking, you know? And so she became a mirror. Yes, exactly, she was like in high school. We were asking you for advice. What are we talking about right now, you know?
Speaker 2:And so that blew the lid off things that I knew I had to get out so that I could get back to where I needed to be. And one of the things Spirit asked of me was was I ready, you know, are you ready to fully give yourself to the community? And I thought no, because I have been saying that even when I was younger. I don't want to do that kind of thing. You know, give me another job, I don't want to do that job. And I was like you know, you know my friend said well, why, why would you, why would you not want to do that job? And I said I don't want to feel like I'm leading people to something and then I fall off and then they don't continue to move toward what that is.
Speaker 2:It took me a while to understand I'm not leading people to anything. I'm just doing what I do and allowing other people to recognize they can do that thing. That's inside of them too. And so when I came to TRHC, just like my self-realization, coaching and meditation work, I could bring my full self, which meant that spirituality, that part of me, to the work. And then I mean, and it's it, if you've ever worked in spirit and I'll say this to anybody, if you work in a zone, you know what I'm talking about. It just flows, right, everything just flows. And I would start the night before absolutely asking my ancestors and the ancestors of anyone showing up, um, to please show up and meet and then to be ready to help us create a container in which everybody in the space could get from that space what they needed and you would do this in preparation to the circles every time yes, every time, and every time we got back rave reviews.
Speaker 2:People loved doing it. People got so much out of it and we did too. You know, there's something magical in this world where you have to say I'm not just giving, I'm also reciprocating. I'm always receiving, and it never failed in that space.
Speaker 1:It never failed in that space. Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I think that you know, bringing people together with the right intention and including the ceremonial, yes, and spiritual, the rituals, rituals, yes, that we were able to do, I think, is what really created this incredible space container. You know, circle Absolutely, where people felt like they were connected to something else besides just having another meeting, and we just pulled the chairs around.
Speaker 2:Yes, because when somebody speaks to that part of you, that part of you that you've been hiding, something resonates Right, and so I don't know how many, I don't know how often people feel like they're in that kind of space, but the moment they would step in, they'd be all in Right and they'd be like when do we do it again? And then you know what happens next and you know that whole thing. So, yeah, what happens next and you know that whole thing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. So so you brought up something that sometimes we end up hiding things, Sometimes it gets taken from us, sometimes it gets distorted Sometimes. So we're here in, you know, in Sierra Leone, with a group that is facilitating circles yeah, a different type of circle, different type of circles but part of the journey that we're on is not only learning how they do it, which has been incredible, but I'm curious for you to share how, coming here and going to the village and getting your name, where do you see yourself in your journey by coming here to Sierra Leone? How does that affect your spiritual journey?
Speaker 2:So you know this story. I was invited to come here I feel like it was probably in January, I don't really know exactly when it was but I was invited very early on and I started looking for all the reasons why not to come. And, to be perfectly honest with you, when my kids, you know, grilled me to understand why I didn't want to come, it was for really silly things like oh, I'm not going to have any of my creature comforts when I get there. You know, just making up stuff to be afraid of. I don't want to be on a plane for that many hours. You know, just really silly stuff.
Speaker 2:But I did that for a little while, with not only that opportunity, but there were a couple of other opportunities that were being offered to me, and this was you know, we all know how spirit works I was being offered elevation because we had just left TRHT and spirit was offering me elevation in the work that I do, and I was not. I knew that we needed to be in a new space doing new things. I said that to you. I was like, you know, whatever things we have promised the universe we would do, it's now time to do that, because that's why we're removed from that space. That's not the, that's not the way to do. That's not going to be the place to do it. We have to do it over here. And I was just really content. People were calling me, hiring me for various things. I was content doing that. None of it was really. A few of the opportunities were pulling me in spiritually, but I was not having to step up and work with spirit to learn more you know and better condition myself. Up and work with spirit to learn more you know and better condition myself.
Speaker 2:And so, as I was in resistance to this was the third offer I had worked for all these people and they all decided they were not going to pay me, for various reasons, like you know. Sometimes it was, oh, I'm waiting on the check, and sometimes it was I sent it to you and it came back. And one time somebody actually was just blowing smoke up our asses and constantly trying not to pay people of color, right. So so we, I just had all these things going on and I knew I was like I've never not been in my flow with my income. That's just never been a thing. Money has always been there. So I'm in this strange situation. All the bills are being paid. I know I got money sitting out there, but all of a sudden it's not coming into my bank account. So what's going on? And I was like, oh, spirit's been trying to get your attention, but you've been taking all these odd jobs making money instead of listening. Stop and let. But you've been taking all these odd jobs making money instead of listening, stopping, let's listen.
Speaker 2:And I got on a call with Monica Haslip and she said you know what's, what's, what's at your core? You know like who are you at the core? What is the thing that must be present for you to be your best at work? And I said, oh, she was like mine is art, what's yours? I was like spirituality. She was like all right then, if spirituality is not in the room, if it's not a part of the deal, that's not the thing you're doing. And if it is a part of the deal, why are you trying to walk away from it? Wow, and so I went out for a walk that day after I got off that call with her and I said all right, spirit, you know I was walking the dog.
Speaker 2:All right, spirit, I'm listening, let's, let's talk about this. And I had a six block conversation with spirit walking the dog. I can't tell you what the dog was doing. I know I cleaned up behind it but I have no idea. And all of a sudden the dog was barking at me and I snapped out of it and looked down and we were standing where they had, they had dug up the sidewalk and there was like a ditch, like you were going to fall down in a ditch. And I was like, okay, let me, you know, figure out how we're going to cross the street. And the dog was kind of like God, you're stupid, let's cross over this way.
Speaker 2:And we walked into a funnel of dragonflies and I was like this is really interesting. And we walked all these blocks and there've been no dragonflies, and now we're surrounded by them on one block in South Shore. And then they disappeared and right in front of me was a red bat on a tree, a red, what A red bat Bat On a tree. I did not know red bats were in Chicago, let alone in South Shore, and I wouldn't have known that it was a red bat because it blended into the tree so well, but it had one wing spread out because it was a windy day. So it was holding on to the tree. So that's how I saw it, very small red bat, and I said, okay, I guess you want me to say yes to Africa Only because I looked them up, both the dragonfly and the bats on a spiritual level, both the dragonfly and the bats on a spiritual level.
Speaker 2:Their beneficial spiritual meaning is to disrobe your fear, step on the other side of your fear, to step out and do something that is not your norm. Let go of your fears and walk into the unknown, because this is the opportunity you've been waiting for. So I said, all right, we're going to go to Africa. Once I made that decision, all the money started pouring in. You know all the things. And then think about when we went to Freetown. We had a swarm of dragonflies that's right and a tree where the bats used to live. Oh, wow, yes.
Speaker 1:So they'll say I mean, it was the same situation as from South Shore.
Speaker 2:All the way to Freetown, where the cotton tree is when the cotton tree is.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right, all the way there. And another thing that happened was right after Jesse got us all the money. I kept having this thing with moths, like I'd go out to the car and the moth would be right over my door Just sitting there, wings flapping, and then I'd open the door, the car door, and it would still be sitting at the top of the door, you know, wings flapping, and it was like, okay, fine, or I'd be walking the dog, you know. And this happened for like one whole day and I looked up moths. I don't remember today what that means, but when we first got to Sierra Leone in the airport, I'm sitting there waiting on my bags and as my bag comes through the thing as my bag was the last one to come through this huge moth comes in and it lands, and then my bag went around the thing. You picked it up before it came back around, and so I had to come find you and when I got over there, the moth was sitting on my bag.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then later it was sitting on me Right, and then it went all the way over to the van. So, like all these things, these signs that you know spirit sends us to say, yeah, I'm still with you, I'm still showing up. Was that the question you asked me?
Speaker 1:No, but I'm going to ask you again that story needed to be told, right? That story about you know spirit showing up and revealing itself to you in South shore and then revealing it to all of us in Freetown.
Speaker 2:Yes, and, moreover, we didn't have to even work to get here. Remember all of that either. I I said to spirit well, if you want me to go, I had a lot of nerve, right. Well, if you want me to go, then you need to make it happen, and you did. You did a little more work than I did, but we got here for full ride, free, like everything right, it all just fell into place and here we are. So we were meant to be here. We were absolutely meant to be here.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and part of the reason I know we were meant to be here was because you got your name. Yes and just. You know we loved for the people to know. What did that mean to you? This happened yesterday, it was yesterday, this happened yesterday. Yeah, since that experience that you described earlier, like what have you been reflecting on? What does that mean in your healing journey? What does? And having a village now where you've been baptized and reborn, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 2:I don't know yet. What I will say is when they named me. God, this whole experience, these people here are so much like my folks in South Carolina, and one of the things we learned is that Sierra Leone is the port by which most of us left this land, and where most of them landed is. Well, they did Virginia and all those things, but South Carolina, and my family is in South Carolina and I think my kids and I, three years ago, decided to go where the port was in South Carolina. We decided to go check it out for the first time because my family lives inland in South Carolina, but we went to check out the port there and when I went to check out the port there, I could see the spirits rising up out of the water. It was a very an incredible experience and I felt like, yes, a direct journey from there to Africa, but I did not know where, and then, being here, it has a very.
Speaker 2:There's a story that has been told about the fact that the people left from here to there, but for me, you can feel, yes, it makes perfect sense that we went from here to there and the people speak very similar to the way my family spoke. We have since all decided to speak clearer, but we still even say you know, well, you know she over there speaking. You know, you know Gullah Geechee over there. You know, because there's Geechee language and my family's name is Guillebeauabo, so that's why we'll say she over there speaking gulligichu, you know um. So when they're talking um, they speak creole, and creole is is is. You know? It's really kind of a broken english almost, and so I can, but I can still hear the remnants of that here for the people here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they speak creole exactly, yeah and then um their actions, the way they um, the way they do a lot of things feel very similar. The time that I spent with the um, the time I spent with the deputy minister here, was very much like being with my uncle, alex. You know, in south carolina there's a lot of similarities between the people. They live in a small town that could be considered a village in and of itself, because there are only three families that have, you know, that were ever really living in that town, and so there are a lot of similarities. But there's also the sense of I never knew what to call home. I never knew what to call home as a black woman. I know there are lots of black people that don't have that same feeling that I have, but I've also talked to lots of black people that do. In America, you know indigenous people. We all know that that land was unceded territory, so that's not our land. You know we were snatched from this land and for many years, centuries, decades.
Speaker 2:You know we were not being told that we could come back to the motherland, that this was our home, yeah, and and even if you did tell us that we didn't know where we came from you know where it was right to get my dna done, to go to the port on that side and then to come here and discover that this was the port on this side and then to meet the people and be given a name that actually fits me.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean me and children, right, and me, the fact that since the pandemic, I have been growing my own food and learning more about agriculture. Um, and the work that we do, reconciliation work that we do um, I'm still sewing, processing and sewing all the pieces together, but I feel like I've stepped into something that I could never have imagined. Like, if this is, this is not spirit-led I don't know what is, because I don't know what to do with it yet, but I'm so wide open right now that whatever it is spirit is trying to get me to do. I'm hook, line and sinker right now, like I'm all in.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and you did a great summary of like putting all the pieces together and you know, again, I mean this just happened yesterday, right? So this is not like yesterday. Some people take years to process and come to stuff. So one of the last things you just said that I want to follow up on is you know? So part of what I hope people get from listening to your story is that if you are open to being spirit led, that things will happen with very little effort. So we'll love to hear from you. Part of the Hope Dealer podcast is to be able to provide people with examples of how people practice hope. So if you were to share what is a practice that you engage in that allows you to be open to that, maybe other people could learn from, or maybe people will want to. You know, yeah, want to practice themselves.
Speaker 2:I would say meditation. You can look up the Silva Method and learn from that, or just try other versions of meditation. Just try other versions of meditation. I find that when I am in meditative space, if I allow myself to go deeper and deeper, and deeper and deeper, and then I just let myself go weightlessly, I get a lot of information.
Speaker 1:That's when you get really in-depth information, and you do that every day.
Speaker 2:I do not do it every day, I don't. I would love to be able to tell people that I do it every day because it's really powerful and when you do it consistently, like there have been times in my life when I've done it every day and I mean you never stop getting messages. They're always coming in. But right now I'm not doing it every day and I mean you never stop getting messages. They're always coming in um, but right now I'm not doing it every day and probably because I want to be distracted a little bit because of so much information coming in um and I'm serious when I say a lot of information coming in. I remember um being younger, in my 20s, and and understanding why there were homeless people, because I have always been one who will talk to homeless people. Just you know, like, how's your day going? What's going on? Let's have a cup of coffee together. I had a boyfriend who showed me that and I was like all right, let's try this. And they love that. Somebody sees them has enough, you know, space and respect for them to give them their dignity, to sit and have a conversation with them. But they will.
Speaker 2:They will share a lot of things with you, and sometimes it's too much information, coming in to the point where you are like, oh my God, I did not need to know all the things that I know right now that have me paranoid. I do not need to be under the watchful eye of big brother, I do not need to know, be need to be a part of this particular system, all of these things. And so sometimes you don't want to know as much as you know. Um, and sometimes you have to say you know, I want to know things, I want to do what you want me to do, but can you not show me those things, because those things aren't necessarily important to the Southern work that you want me to do. So right now, I don't do it every day, but that is the best way for people to get back in tune with hearing, and what I always suggest is, before you go to bed, meditate and then ask spirit to open you up and help you to hear or see or whatever it is, and ask yourself too which of your senses are strongest.
Speaker 2:Do you hear things better? Do you sense something? It's sort of a a, a, a, just knowing. That's the sensing. I think it's sort of just knowing. That's the sensing. Do you smell? Some people have an amazing sense of smell, and that's when they know someone else is in the space with them, and then they can begin to communicate that way Just various things. Some people learn better through dreams, and dreams work really well if you're scared of anything in the space with you. So you can always say I would like to know, but I would also like for you to show me in the dream, because I don't think I can handle it in, you know the real world. So those are ways that I would suggest that people make an effort to, and then, of course, you know, we'll talk about how people can reach me, because that's something I should be doing is helping people to strengthen that muscle, because we all have it. We just have learned to. Many of us have learned to ignore it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and I mean I think you know the being still and meditating and asking the question, right? I think that's it's a very important practice in all types of faiths, yep, and I found that it's actually a good way to have your subconscious tell you what you already know, but you don't get a chance to listen to it, so there's our egos in the way of trying to you know take over conditioning or our conditioning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But so this is the time, ivani, to be able to tell people, I mean, this is. I want to be able to end it two ways None, thank you. Thank you first for thank you first for to allowing the spirits to guide you and guide us for us to be able to be here in Sierra Leone. So I'm really grateful for that, Really appreciate it for that, not just for our trip, but for us being in partnership in this. Together it's been beautiful, yeah. And then to also for you to be able to share. How do you, you know, how can people get a hold of you, learn more of these lessons and, you know, connect with you around your practice or any of the things that you work people with?
Speaker 2:So I am co-founder of Reconnector, r-e-k-i-n-n-e-c-t-a-r. So R-E is re. You know, that's again being or doing something, again returning to something, kin being things that are similar or, like you know, family things of that sort. What are your, what's your kinship? To right your core and then nectar being the nectar, like in flowers, that sweetness that draws things together, draws things to you.
Speaker 2:Um, and so this is us working to help people find that very core value of spirituality, reconnecting themselves to that, to, to the earth, to the ecosystem, to whomever their family and communities. And so I should be saying to you you can reach me at Yvonne's at Reconnector but today I cannot say that because I have not set up our emails. But you can right now reach. Right now reach out to me at Yvonne's Y-V-O-N-N-I-E-S at gmailcom, or Yvonne's at YvonneDubosecom, and that's Y-V-O-N-N-I-E-D-U-B-O-S-E. Gmail is going to be so much easier for you right now. So that's the best way to reach out to me if you're interested in knowing more about Reconnector, or if you're interested in knowing when I will be offering the next meditation sessions, or if you just want to do a one-on-one or any of those things.
Speaker 1:Great, great. So thanks, yvonne, you're welcome. I really appreciate it. Thank you, yeah, no. Thank you, yeah, no. Thank you for everything, and we need to thank the table next door Right.
Speaker 2:That is having the most amazing birthday party For having the most amazing birthday party. Right here on the beach.
Speaker 1:On the beach. Yes, I want to thank them too.
Speaker 2:Thank you all, thank you.