The Priestess in Their Midst

[Im The Truth]

The Priestess in Their Midst
By JENNIFER BLEYER
July 6, 2008
New York Times
The Voice

PAULETTE BUCKLEY, a 56-year-old grandmother whose graying dreadlocks are adorned with beads, is a musician and singer who has performed with the African-inspired troupe Women of the Calabash at Town Hall, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, among other places.

To her myriad godchildren and spiritual advisees, however, Ms. Buckley is better known as Iya Nirvana, a prominent priestess in the city’s Santeria community. Ms. Buckley has spent more than two decades divining the future, offering spiritual guidance and assembling offerings for the orishas, the pantheon of deities who represent different facets of nature in the Yoruba tradition from which Santeria originated.

With a steady stream of visitors availing themselves of Ms. Buckley’s services at Westbeth, the artists’ co-op in the West Village where she has lived for a decade, even some of her neighbors have taken notice of the priestess in their midst and sought her counsel. Amid altars to the spirits of the sea and mountains draped in fabric and adorned with offerings, she talked about her life as a Santeria priestess and the growing mainstream acceptance of her religion. JENNIFER BLEYER

•

I was born in Harlem but raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The projects were new when we moved in there. My father worked for the transit authority all of his life, from giving tokens to being a dispatcher. My mama just stayed home with us. She didn’t believe in leaving children unattended. I’m kind of like that.

I was raised a Baptist. My father did not force us to go to church. It was my mom. We went to church on Sundays, and I sang in the choir. When we came home, my father would take us to the sights of New York. We’d be out in our nice little outfits, and he’d take us for hot chocolate and a piece of blueberry pie at Horn & Hardart down 34th Street. They had the best blueberry pie, 15 cents. It was good.

I lived in Brooklyn until I was 17. When I had my first son, Sulaymaan, I was 24, and I stopped all the wildness. I mean crazy wildness. Having that child saved my life, because I know how risqué the behavior was at that time. Free love and all that.

By then, I’d already been introduced to Lucumi, which is another word for Santeria. It’s a tradition that combines African and Cuban methods and ideologies. My grandmother in this religion was a Puerto Rican woman named Osa Unko, but everyone called her Sunta.

I was having trouble. I talked to Sunta about what was going on, and she gave me a reading with cowrie shells. Depending on the way they turn, they either have their mouth open or closed. If they have their mouth open, you read what they say. She told me: “Go out and get a snake plant, one male and one female. Then bring it here, and I’m going to plant it.” She told me exactly what to do. Orisha saved my life. I said to myself, “I’m having a miracle right here.”

I worked in my godfather’s house in Williamsbridge in the Bronx any time he had a ceremony, which back then was every weekend. He was a priest, his wife was a priest, and his oldest daughter was a priest. The joint was always jumping, a big house painted turquoise on 221st Street between Barnes and Bronxwood.

We were always cooking in the kitchen, making outfits and dressing the walls according to the orishas, each of which has its own stories. When they had to do ceremonies, I would run and get the honey, molasses, Florida water, 21 different herbs, coconuts, cowrie shells. That’s what you bring for the orisha to eat.

I was initiated in 1986. An initiation lasts a year and seven days. The first night is river night. They took me to a river blindfolded. I don’t know what river it was, but let me tell you, I know I was washed in the river. The next day all the songs are sung, all the waters poured. The next day a group of people come and dress you for breakfast and you sit on your throne, which is a stump of wood built by your godparents and consecrated for your seven-day stay.

The next day they dress you in beautiful clothing with pearls and gold and things your orisha likes, and there are big parties with drums and singing, with prayers, prayers and more prayers. Then you spend the rest of that week on that mat.

For the next year, you wear white every day and you eat on a certain plate with a certain cup and spoon. You cannot wear clothes with sleeves that cover less than three-quarters of your arms. You cannot look into mirrors or let people touch you. You’re not supposed to be out after dark. You sleep on the floor on a mat. You’re like a newborn.

These days, I’m an Internet service between here and the worldwide cosmos. It’s not hocus-pocus. It’s a higher form of science. We have a church in Harlem and ceremonies every weekend in Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx.

And it’s not just us. You see the stock analyst walking in his three-piece suit? He went and got his reading already. So did doctors, nurses and lawyers. Here in the building, I’ve given readings to women who just want to know what’s happening. Then there’s the security downstairs. When they found out who I was, they all started bowing down, saying: “We didn’t know! We didn’t know!” I said, “Come on, please.”

[Majadi]

Man this is a beautiful spirit, I often feel a call to Ifa, and I actually started talking on the phone with a priestess with whom I have lost contact and I am dying to know my destiny and life purpose and all that, I kind of feel a priesthood of sorts. I was called "preacher" as a child and the such. I live in Charlotte, NC so I guess Oyatunji Village in SC would be a good place to start. At any rate this story is very nice, thanks Truth you are truly that, my brother!

Originally Posted by Im The Truth

The Priestess in Their Midst
By JENNIFER BLEYER
July 6, 2008
New York Times
The Voice

PAULETTE BUCKLEY, a 56-year-old grandmother whose graying dreadlocks are adorned with beads, is a musician and singer who has performed with the African-inspired troupe Women of the Calabash at Town Hall, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, among other places.

To her myriad godchildren and spiritual advisees, however, Ms. Buckley is better known as Iya Nirvana, a prominent priestess in the city’s Santeria community. Ms. Buckley has spent more than two decades divining the future, offering spiritual guidance and assembling offerings for the orishas, the pantheon of deities who represent different facets of nature in the Yoruba tradition from which Santeria originated.

With a steady stream of visitors availing themselves of Ms. Buckley’s services at Westbeth, the artists’ co-op in the West Village where she has lived for a decade, even some of her neighbors have taken notice of the priestess in their midst and sought her counsel. Amid altars to the spirits of the sea and mountains draped in fabric and adorned with offerings, she talked about her life as a Santeria priestess and the growing mainstream acceptance of her religion. JENNIFER BLEYER

•

I was born in Harlem but raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The projects were new when we moved in there. My father worked for the transit authority all of his life, from giving tokens to being a dispatcher. My mama just stayed home with us. She didn’t believe in leaving children unattended. I’m kind of like that.

I was raised a Baptist. My father did not force us to go to church. It was my mom. We went to church on Sundays, and I sang in the choir. When we came home, my father would take us to the sights of New York. We’d be out in our nice little outfits, and he’d take us for hot chocolate and a piece of blueberry pie at Horn & Hardart down 34th Street. They had the best blueberry pie, 15 cents. It was good.

I lived in Brooklyn until I was 17. When I had my first son, Sulaymaan, I was 24, and I stopped all the wildness. I mean crazy wildness. Having that child saved my life, because I know how risqué the behavior was at that time. Free love and all that.

By then, I’d already been introduced to Lucumi, which is another word for Santeria. It’s a tradition that combines African and Cuban methods and ideologies. My grandmother in this religion was a Puerto Rican woman named Osa Unko, but everyone called her Sunta.

I was having trouble. I talked to Sunta about what was going on, and she gave me a reading with cowrie shells. Depending on the way they turn, they either have their mouth open or closed. If they have their mouth open, you read what they say. She told me: “Go out and get a snake plant, one male and one female. Then bring it here, and I’m going to plant it.” She told me exactly what to do. Orisha saved my life. I said to myself, “I’m having a miracle right here.”

I worked in my godfather’s house in Williamsbridge in the Bronx any time he had a ceremony, which back then was every weekend. He was a priest, his wife was a priest, and his oldest daughter was a priest. The joint was always jumping, a big house painted turquoise on 221st Street between Barnes and Bronxwood.

We were always cooking in the kitchen, making outfits and dressing the walls according to the orishas, each of which has its own stories. When they had to do ceremonies, I would run and get the honey, molasses, Florida water, 21 different herbs, coconuts, cowrie shells. That’s what you bring for the orisha to eat.

I was initiated in 1986. An initiation lasts a year and seven days. The first night is river night. They took me to a river blindfolded. I don’t know what river it was, but let me tell you, I know I was washed in the river. The next day all the songs are sung, all the waters poured. The next day a group of people come and dress you for breakfast and you sit on your throne, which is a stump of wood built by your godparents and consecrated for your seven-day stay.

The next day they dress you in beautiful clothing with pearls and gold and things your orisha likes, and there are big parties with drums and singing, with prayers, prayers and more prayers. Then you spend the rest of that week on that mat.

For the next year, you wear white every day and you eat on a certain plate with a certain cup and spoon. You cannot wear clothes with sleeves that cover less than three-quarters of your arms. You cannot look into mirrors or let people touch you. You’re not supposed to be out after dark. You sleep on the floor on a mat. You’re like a newborn.

These days, I’m an Internet service between here and the worldwide cosmos. It’s not hocus-pocus. It’s a higher form of science. We have a church in Harlem and ceremonies every weekend in Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx.

And it’s not just us. You see the stock analyst walking in his three-piece suit? He went and got his reading already. So did doctors, nurses and lawyers. Here in the building, I’ve given readings to women who just want to know what’s happening. Then there’s the security downstairs. When they found out who I was, they all started bowing down, saying: “We didn’t know! We didn’t know!” I said, “Come on, please.”