Anni Hodge (she/they) 

28

Antigua, West Indies/Miami/New York

Jasmine Respess: What's your name, age, and where are you from? 

Annie Hodge: My name's Anni, I'm 28 years old. I was born in Antigua in the West Indies. In Antigua and Barbados. And I was raised in Miami, Florida, with some time in New York City. 

JR: Where are your ancestors from?

AH: And my ancestors are from Antigua and Barbados. Also, with ancestry from Dominica, some French Caribbean places, so Dominica, Guadalupe. So, actually, I have this is documented from some conversations I've had. Yeah, so I'm from Dominica, Guadalupe, descendant of French Caribbean and Antigua. 

JR: Where did you live in Miami, or where did you grow up specifically? 

AH: So, when I first moved to Miami, I lived in Palmetto Bay, Colonial Drive. That was a very short time. And then I lived with my dad and my stepmom in Carroll City. And then I went to school in Allapattah and Little Havana. 

JR: How would you define your practice, religion, spirituality, however you define it? What would you call it? 

AH: I would define it as being a mixture of Buddhism, Hinduist practice, some Catholicism, pretty much what I grew up around and what has influenced me. Also, like Obeah, I would say, like Indigenous West African practices, Indigenous Caribbean practice. I would describe it a combination of that. So, a lot of like synchronized deities, also some European practice as well, because that is my ancestry. Especially in Antigua, there are definitely a lot of Europeans. So just like aligned with, not necessarily Wiccan, but paganism. So, I would describe it as that, like a mesh and a mixture of all of those things and things that I learned along the way from other people. But also, my grandmother, who I grew up being raised by. Things that my grandmother would say. A lot of it is like with Obeah and with my grandmother, and then also just things that I grew up knowing about in Antigua, even though people can be very uncomfortable about Obeah or like certain practices, it's very much in the way that we do kind of everything. Regardless of your religion or what you do, it's just a part of kind of your life. So just like things like Florida Water, like making your own types of different food, potions, like who you allow to touch your hair, who you share things with, like showering, going to the beach or cleansing with certain type of water, like divination candles, which is also like tied into European practices, like setting intentions, ancestral communication, like doing child work, and like dreaming and things like that. 

JR: Yeah, that, like how we were talking to you about syncretism.

AH: There's a lot, because there's a lot of cultures in the Caribbean. There are a lot of people from different places. Also, because Obeah, especially in the British Caribbean, which is a conversation, because I was actually just describing this to someone the other day, Obeah as a word can be applied to anything that's outside of Christianity. So, people will say Santeria, Voodoo, like that's something that will colloquially be called Obeah. And then there's actually practice, which is very loose because it was so oppressed, and very oppressed to the point where people have been arrested up until pretty recently.

I think one of the most recent ones was 2015, and they were Hindu, which is very interesting. So, there's a lot of, depending on where you're from and your practice, there's a lot of syncretism, which is kind of like different deities that represent each other across different cultures. But then just a lot of syncretized spiritual practices like in Hinduism, even like with Islam. I do fast a lot. That's something that's in my personal spiritual practice and engaging in discipline, like shaving my hair, a lot of fasting, a lot of restrict, I follow a lot of Buddhist things, a lot of consumption in certain ways, a lot of meditation, a lot of self-restriction. That's just my personal practice. I grew up with a family that was Trinidadian and then also had their own spiritual practices, which also included Christianity. My cousin is of Indian heritage, so a lot of those things, there's a lot of correlation even with baptism and observing wearing all white. I personally do the opposite. I observe wearing mostly black, because in my spiritual practice, black isn't a bad color. But that's just a whole different conversation.

JR: Yeah, someone I was speaking to only wears white, and they won't wear black or red or whatever. 

AH: Yeah, of course. And that's also something I've been thinking about, possibly changing for many different reasons. But, there's Hinduism, there's Baptists. I grew up partially Adventist and Catholicism. I grew up in a lot of different denominations and different things, like candle lighting, repetition, chant repetitions, which I learned obviously being Catholic. And then there's a lot of crypto-paganism, which is having one religion and presenting one to the world and doing something else. 

JR: Which is the application of certain deities to other religions. 

AH: Exactly, yeah, exactly. My grandma was very much like that; that was her whole thing. She was Catholic, but she wasn't. 

JR: Yeah, when they're talking about it, you're like, hmm.

AH: No, she wasn't; she was Catholic, but she engaged in a lot of other spiritual practices. Even with just now, the shoes at the door, that's something that is actually very Hindu, Indian. That's a very Asian, actual practice in the Caribbean. They're always like, oh, it's to be clean, but it's also because the feet are seen as shoes from the outside. It's very dirty, and it's something you don't want to taint your spiritual home with the outside. For me personally, there are specific deities.

I have specific deities that I like, but I don't really do cross-deity work. It's not necessarily my jam, but I do use multiple spiritual things that I know about and that I've been taught. And in my family in general, even though people are very Christian, there are many things. We have a lot of Buddha statues, and a lot of Hamsa against evil eye. It's very common in my family's home. People will have those kinds of things.

JR: You're the only person I've talked to thus far who's really talked about Buddhism. And that's something that was really helpful to me because I think Scorpios have a deep understanding of suffering, it's just the nature of it. So that not being, just like the color black, that not being an automatic bad thing or something is always very helpful to me. 

AH: There's a book, it's called Black Women, Buddhists and Collective Liberation by Toni Pressley-Sanon. I have been reading little excerpts; my sister is a Buddhist, so I was just interested. And also, I did forget to say that astrology has become a part of my spiritual practice as well just because of like divination. I have to divine because that's an ancestral thing from my family. Because that's my ancestral thing; dreaming, like that's something I got from my grandmother and everyone before her. So personally, I did study astrology for a little bit, but it's just the best way that I can divine. I can also divine with like candles.

I also do nail divination, which is Onychomancy. Which is like tarot, nails. All of those things are connected because they're forms of divination. Everything's ruled by a planet or, so that's also a part of my spiritual practice, which I do use the Buddha's concept of Dukkha and having collective suffering to tie back to astrology because I believe astrology is important for people to understand that we're all collectively going through very similar things. And that's a lot of how I approach my life and practice, like I believe in praying for my friends and divining for my friends and praying for people I know and their success and like my community success, which is a part of like a lot of how I do my spiritual practice.

JR: Yeah, that's interesting to me because I feel the same way, but I started with it as an idea to conceptually describe things like in therapy or whatever, like my dad's a cancer so we can get to the point quicker. But I'm hearing what you're saying. A lot of people do astrology in their practices, that's been seen across, but the way you're doing it is interesting. I've never heard of anyone like talking about it in that way, but it makes sense.

And I think the idea of like suffering is definitely one I've like been thinking about a lot or the idea that like my pain is not unique and that's a good thing. 

AH: Yeah, because you know, because I think a huge thing with suffering or just when society is very individualistic, which I could go on about that, but the thought that causes, to me, a lot of mental distress for people is that they feel like they're alone. You feel like it's happening to you by yourself, but with astrology, because I took a break from it for a while, like I found it and then I took a break because I was doing a lot of readings, and it became very spiritually overwhelming for me. And I found that like keeping it in my life, even if not in like a study, intense practice really made me realize that, you know, there are other people that are going through very similar things. I also do like in my readings, personally, when I was doing a lot of readings, I focus a lot on family relations.

 I'm really good at like moon readings, like which is like your maternal or maternal figures, which I think is because of me losing my mom at a young age, I have like a very good connection. I'm very good at reading that, which opens up like a whole chart. So, when I do my readings, I do them a little differently. I do houses and all of those things, but I'm very good at like, this is like your relationship with your father, like your sun, the moon, when I do, usually my moon one is like the longest reading. So yeah, the collective. Yeah, it's an important relationship. And it's also just not your relationship with like your actual physical, like biological mother, but also the things that mother you or the things that nurture you.

JR The idea of mothering as like a practice that you do. 

AH: Outside of like having a baby, which is something that's very important to me as well. Learning to, because obviously, if you don't have a mom, there are a lot of people who have to step in and kind of take that place in some way in your life. And they could be different genders, or they don't have to really look like a mom in a traditional sense, but they do mother you. And there are things that mother you, like things spiritually, like places, like connections that you make with people.

JR: It's very intuitive to me. It makes sense. 

JR: What's your first memory of something spiritual? 

AH: Well, I have really early memories. I have really good memory. That's like my thing. But no, what was my first memory? There's a lot. Also, because I grew up in Antigua, which is a very spiritual place. So there was always something that was happening. I would say a huge memory for me, because I do battle a lot with just not having any spirituality and being an atheist, which is like a whole different thought pattern and thing that happens. I remember being a kid, and a huge memory of spirituality is just growing up in the Caribbean, just growing up in Antigua. It was a huge part of our lives to come here to the US to talk about being descended from enslaved people. Like everywhere you go, they'd be like, yeah, this is where this happened. It was a very common thing as a kid. It was very talked about. It was very normal to know that that had happened, because it was everywhere that we were. There are a lot of stories about different places, like houses. Oh, this happened here. And you can hear these people screaming, still. And we have like a place called the Devil's Bridge, which is a body of water that's very rough; you can't swim in it. And there are rocks and things. We have like a really big one that's a tourist attraction. And it's a very spiritual experience because there were ships that would go there, and they talk about people jumping. It's just really rough. It’s a place where you can feel. I do have a lot of spiritual connection to that place. So, I remember being a kid and going there, and when they would tell those stories, being able to really see and feel like those people. This particular place, anywhere you went, like school, had a connection to something like that. 

JR: It's not that different than the South. We just don't talk about it.

AH: We don't talk about it. It was something that was commonly talked about. The school I went to, I remember, the owners of the original housing passed away. And I was a little kid, and this for me is the earliest memory of being like, Okay, like there's like ghosts and stuff, or like things around. And I would always kind of feel them around. And I remember when I was  in first grade, or second grade, there, we had two separate bathrooms; there was an old bathroom that we weren't really supposed to use, and another one that was newer. And I went to the older one, and the door locked on me. Like something closed the door. 

JR: And why were you not supposed to use it? 

AH: Because it was like, there were nails, but it very much gave that there was also something going on. Yeah, we weren't supposed to use it. And well, I went to use it because I had to pee. I was a Scorpio child. Yeah. And something closed the door; it was an early ghost memory for me. And I was just like, What the fuck? And I could not open the door.

JR: Oh no, that's scary.

AH: No, I was like maybe five or six, maybe. And I could not open it. And I was just really scared. And I started telling my mom, Please like open the door. I need somebody to open it. I need to get out. And I was there for like 10 minutes, asking any ancestor I knew to open the door. I was like, Open the door! My friend came and opened the door as soon as I started saying that. And she was just like, What are you doing in here? Like what the hell? And I was like, I needed to pee. And then she was like, Don't come in here. And the door opened. I remember that happening, and even before that, I think the door had started opening a little bit. I was starting to feel the lock open, but it just wouldn't open, like it was jammed shut. Something just closed the door. That’s a very early spiritual memory for me. There was a lot. I used to walk, my dad's from the countryside. So, I would walk everywhere. We'd walk everywhere at night. There were houses with spirits. My family is really into those Indigenous, West African stories, like Anansi. And we would read all of that. We would have books.  I don't know why they were so into that. 

JR: I love that story.

AH: No, I love it too. But I would be a kid and be like, Oh my God. 

JR: Yeah, it's not chill. It's like, A spirit, it's coming at me. 

AH: Right. There'd be a lot of things like bats flying after you and all kinds of things. Seeing like my mother and things like that growing up. There would just be a lot of little experiences I would have like that. Also, the reason why it was a hard question is because my conception was very spiritual. My mom was very sick and dying from cancer when I was conceived. And she was not supposed to try to have a child. And she had me, and I was perfectly healthy. And I also had 12 fingers and 12 toes. Which is a whole thing. 

JR: Yeah, a spiritual thing. 

AH: Yeah, especially in Obeah, it's like seen as me continuing my grandmother's legacy because a lot of us had 12 fingers and 12 toes, which we are also the most spiritual people in my family who have this. But it's considered in Obeah, my grandmother had it, like her genes and all of that. So it was like a big deal, and having my birthmark, it was just always like a thing like growing up. 

JR: Yeah, I know that by your face like that or like your mouth or something.

AH: Yeah, so it was like a whole thing. Like I have birthmarks, I have like six fingers, the 12 fingers, 12 toes. Another spiritual memory, which is also very West Indian and Caribbean, is burying that on my dad's yard. Like my dad had them in a jar, preserved. And we buried them together when I was a kid.

JR: I feel like a lot of Scorpios are birthmarked in one way or another.

AH: Yeah, for sure. That's the 12th house Pluto, shadow realm ruling stuff. Shadow realm ruling stuff, you know. We're all knocking on heaven and hell and death’s door and all of that. 

JR: And you’re gonna be reminded. 

AH: At all times. 

JR: Who do I consider for the teacher? 

AH: I would definitely say my grandmother. Astrology, one of my cousins, someone I dated, actually taught me about astrology. Something I'm really into is fraternal orders and things like that because I have a like Thing about me that attracts those types of men, which also my grandma did because my grandpa was definitely one of those types of men. So my grandmother, my cousin, and my sister. I would say my sister, growing up, was one, the black sheep of the family, but also very woo-woo and very spiritually on another plane; doing a lot of ancestral rituals and into a lot of candles and incense and setting intentions. And even just waking up a certain way. So I would say my grandmother, my sister, and even my aunts.  I would say even this is spiritual practice. Growing up with my aunt, kind of like the discipline, obviously, I didn't like it, but waking up, we wake up at six and seven, every day, and for 30 minutes to two hours we would pray for two hours and listening to a lot of music, and expressing yourself musically. Definitely like rituals for sure, and engaging in practice in that way. I mean it would be so many people. My dad's a cook, my dad's like a really great chef. And teaching me how to cook, mostly Indigenous foods and traditional foods, is something I learned from my dad. So, it would be a lot of people in my life, like aunts, my dad, my grandmother, my sister, some cousins, someone I dated. It'd be a lot. 

JR: It can come from a lot of places. It does sound like you're disciplined. It's another word like suffering that it has these connotations, but discipline is just lthe commitment to do things, the rituals of it. So I think that's always interesting, and I've heard discipline is a major part of spiritual practice in various places.

AH: Yeah, of course. My chart, I'm Capricorn, which  Saturn rules restriction.

JR: Do you feel comfortable sharing this with your family, your inner circle? 

AH: With my family, yes, to some extent. It depends on who in my family. But my relationship with my family is a little different because obviously my mother died when I was very young, so I get a lot of pressure for a lot of things, but I also got a lot of leeway on a lot of things. So, yeah, there's a lot of certain things that I can definitely speak about with my family, which isn't usual, I think other people most likely can't. I also think Miami, being the type of place it is, like even with my cousins, it's a place that definitely fosters this conversation more openly, just because so many people here do so many different things. There are certain aspects of my practice that I can definitely speak about with my family. Even just like things like dreaming or like connecting with my mom or like ancestral things, but there are certain things, especially in regards to Obeah, that make them very uncomfortable, because of the age and the time they grew up in. Especially with my grandma ruling the community, and just certain women's roles, it can cause a lot of distress.

JR: Yeah, because it's a power. 

AH: Yeah, and people treat you differently. It can cause a lot of things for a child to be around that. But for the most part, yeah, I can talk about a lot of spiritual things with my family, which isn't usual, but I do get a lot of leeway because maybe they're kind of scared of me.  Yeah, I'm the black sheep scapegoat. It's definitely being in between two worlds and places, especially with the dreaming, it's something I can always talk to my aunt about. It's also different because my aunt is my Mom's twin sister, identical twins, so there's a huge spiritual connection there. And I know that's also a very important connection in Santeria, I'm also around a lot of people who practice Santeria and then are initiated. I attract a lot of people who are. I'm always being called to that, but the white thing. They interact a lot, a lot of people will divine to me, especially in Miami, people will come up to me and just divine. There are certain Orishas that I hold,  obviously because of the type of practice it is, and there's initiation and things required, but there's crossover, so there are certain people or Orishas  I hold very clearly, like the Ibeji,  which are twins, because there is such a twin presence in my family. And I see how that connection is for my aunt, like she's extremely connected to my mom spiritually, because that's her twin sister, and my mom's connected to me. So if I'm going through something or I'm like hurt or something, my aunt always knows. If anything is happening to me, my aunt is always very aware of anything I'm going through. leo twins. 

JR: When did you realize you had some kind of gift? 

AH: As a kid, just dreaming of many things. That's a common conversation in my family, and where I'm from, so it's very normalized. There's like a specific kind of reverence for someone who does those kinds of things. But I would definitely say a huge memory I have, this is a thing that's happened a lot, but I definitely have a memory that my uncle had passed away right before he passed, I didn't really know he was like not sick, and I had a dream that I was in a place where different souls went, and I knew that's where I was, and I saw him and I was like, Why are you here? An he's like, You know, I'm here. Then I woke up, and the next day found out that he had passed away. So I have a lot of memories of those things happening, memories of feeling my mom's presence, and also just not ever really getting along with other kids in a specific way. I was always feeling way too old, or I would always hang out with the adults. Even in church, I would hang out with an older Friend, who I guess would also be like a mentor. Her name was Dora and she's like this Nicaraguan Jamaican lady, and I would just always hang out with old people and be around like adults as a kid I was one of those kids, because other kids would be like, What the Fuck is wrong with you? I had friends, and I would have very specific friends, but I was always a little too old, and a little too knowing of many things.I was always very gifted in reading and writing. I started writing poetry and songs at a very, very young. 

JR: Adults don’t always react to precociousness well. 

AH: Yeah, well they like it, at first. But then its too many questions and like, You're in our business. You shouldn't be around this. I was also very into justice and liberation things like that at a young age, which is like also my family, but also just being very into those stories and like fighting for justice and having a very strong sense of like fighting for other people at a very young age, I would say. 

JR: I did too, and it was funny because I really cared about slavery, probably because I lived in the South. I was really intense about it, but I did not connect it back to myself until I got older. It was something I was interested in, and I learned a lot about it, but it was hard to be like, That has something directly to do with me. I was interested in it because it was connected to me, but I didn't put that together all the way. Especially, because when you're a Caribbean, but you're not living there, that idea that these are slave islands kind of gets washed over. I'm from the South, so we were learning about American chattel slavery, but Jamaica, I'm sure you know, had some of the most brutal slavery.  When they dig up their bones, they are like, What even happened here? Their muscles were moved off the bones because they worked them so hard. Which I just wouldn't have thought of. 

I also think about the connection between neurodivergence and things that are part of your personality, based on like astrology or whatever. Because that idea of justice is something tied to autism and, of course, ADHD. 

AH: I have them about very specific things, even like with Palestine, I have a very strong sense of justice when it comes to any type of colonization, because I feel extremely personally about it, because also my spiritual practice was deeply affected by literal British colonization, which is also a part of the reason why what's happening in Palestine is happening, or even what's happening in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. It’s literally happening because of the British. When Queen Elizabeth died, at work, people were trying to be like, You can't say you're happy. I was like, Yes, the fuck I can. My family is very anti, my family is very like, Fuck Elizabeth. But yeah, slavery was also very brutal in Antigua as well. 

JR: Yeah, being Americanized is like an active thing you do, so it makes sense that I wouldn't have known that, but it is Interesting. And then there are a lot of conversations about African Americans and Caribbean American people, but at the end of the day, we were all going through that.

AH: Not only that, we have a lot of crossover between migration. There are so many things that we could even get to on that.

JR: What are some of your daily practices and rituals? 

AH: My daily rituals and practice, or practices that I do, would definitely be showering. I like to get, from the beach, ocean water. Making tea, I make tea with different herbs, I like to mix a lot of herbs. Cooking is a huge part of my spiritual practice. Cooking different things. Cleaning my altars, and creating different altars which don't look like altars, which is a huge part of my spiritual practice.

JR: Can you speak more about that? 

AH: So, being able to create spaces that don't necessarily look obviously like that, because it's an easier,  natural thing. But then there are also different ones for different things, like ancestral ones,  my shoes, beauty ones, which relate to the Orishas, certain Orishas, and deities that I kind of synchronized with in certain ways. So, my cat is a part of my spiritual practice because she is very much like a familiar to me. I like to walk a lot. That's a thing. I do like walking outside the other day. I was walking down here, and there was a whole tarot card reading, and there were some interesting cards in there. So, that would be a huge part of my spiritual practice: cooking, just keeping my space a certain way, showering, doing spiritual baths, definitely, praying, and writing is a huge part of my personal spiritual practice. 

JR: Do you consider your relationship to spirit ancestor work? 

AH: For the most part. Obviously, for me, there are certain ancestors I do revere more. I would say my grandmother and my mom, my maternal lineage. I do, at times, tap into the male lineage, but it's a bit much because that's the lineage that has the white imposition. Definitely, that's the part where it has like very strong European things. I also do think it gets a little funky as a Queer person, or someone who lives a certain way, to tap into, because they may not like you. My family's very matriarchal.  I do really try to tap into certain fraternal things. I have a very strong connection to my mom. So even with my dad, my dad's side, I don't tap into certain things, but I smoked tobacco for a very long time, and I was tapping into a lot of that energy when I was consuming tobacco and alcohol, and it can be great. But also like being a sex worker. It's a weird energy to tap into. It’s just very weird.

It can be very great, you know, but  I don't want to say masculine, but because of the power dynamic, it is very intense and very different. I do practice ancestral work, and I do try to call on it, but it can be scary sometimes, especially with the dreaming. But I also do try to call on people who are alive as well. Even with my sister, my older sister isn't in my life right now, so that definitely makes me feel closer to her, because we share the same mom. That’s something my sister always talks about: what growing up was like with my mom, the relationship with my mom, and her relationship with my mom in relation to me. My practice definitely makes me feel closer to them because, obviously, that also goes into death and grieving for me. I definitely want to look into being like a death doula or mortician. That is something I've always been interested in, and I was recently telling my cousin I definitely want to do would be a death doula or help people with that process because for me, I guess dealing with death, it wasn't just my mom, growing up, pretty much most people in my family, my grandma's kids and most family members I was close with died before I was 10 years old. And then as an adult, I had a really close friend, who I grew up with, pass away. So it's just something I'm very used to happening in my life, which also is like a Scorpio theme: Pluto, like the Phoenix, which is also like one of my sister's chosen names, which is very interesting, but it does make me feel closer, especially because in Western culture, and The United States especially, the conversation around grieving is just you take bereavement time you come back. Yeah, and you can move on, but you do have to acknowledge what happened.

JR: That’s a relationship, and you can maintain it.

AH: It's very sterile, very this is a body, and it's gone, and like everything's gone. Being able to keep them alive in different ways, like jewelry that my mom owned, listening to the music that my mom listens to, or that my mom liked. I go through like certain beauty rituals, because my mom is very feminine, that are very aligned with what I think my mom would do or what she would like to do. Also my mom wore her hair really short like I do, so just daily things like this are a part of like my practice and getting dressed a certain way. With death and grieving, it's letting myself be sad, but also knowing that they contributed to the world a certain way. People should be allowed the freedom to die. I think that exists in autonomy as well. Even being polyamorous, like when we talk about ownership of other people, sometimes it’s not wanting someone to die; it has to happen. And then it happens early, or it happens late. I can tell when someone has dealt with death, very young. I have friends, and our approach to just life situations, I've had to talk friends through because having people die, especially people close to you, like a sibling or a parent, it makes you approach life differently. Grieving is so hard because grieving is a daily thing. I try to explain to people that  I'm always sad about my mom dying, it’s always gonna be a thing that is sad, especially because you witness other people have relationships with their parents. So like there's situations where I've had friends who are arguing, and I'm like you're approaching it like this because you've never really lost something. And I'm like this person's approaching this because they're literally grieving, it literally doesn't stop. This person is always like kind of distressed. There are people where like I have had friends who've been really not great friends, but I've had to be like: They're literally grieving and they're not Grieving the way I am because I can see death that way and they just are not. 

Even anti-aging and wanting to live forever, like obviously that's a very white, Western way of looking at it because in so many cultures you do live forever. In Buddhism the death process is an ancestral process that provides things for them to take into other lives. For me, I went to grief camp growing up, which is a huge experience for me. I would say spiritually as well because I went to a grief camp where I was around other young girls who had lost a family member, my close friend growing up had lost her father. We would write letters and burn them and like send up the ashes to the sky, and that was a huge thing to experience as a kid. It just makes you view life much differently, even relationships I have like sometimes with people I'm just like, you want to argue with this person or you want to be in conflict but they could die.