Dr. W. Yanui César (she/her)

Akia Dorsainvil: What is your name? 

Yanui César: Weiselande ‘Yanui’ César 

AD: What is your age? 

WYC: Well, I am turning the golden 55. But age is just a number, just a number because I am forever 21. 

AD: Where are you from? 

WYC: I am born in Haiti. Yes. I left the country at the age of 11. 

AD: Where are your ancestors from? 

WYC: Well, I can say in Africa, but when I did my DNA tests, 49% Benin, Congo, 12%, European, the Spaniards because of course of the name Cesar. By that, so deeply, deeply rooted, I know totally Benin, 100%. 

AD: What is your religion or practice or spiritual practice?

WYC: I have no religion. Period. I mean before that, that answer, maybe five years prior to this, would have changed. But the last seven years, eight years, we evolved. I've gone into a; there is no religion. Religion is a concept, it's a structure, more like it's a tool for bondage. Spirituality, I seek to be spiritual, deeply rooted. In the know, there's a greater power. Period. And experiencing, because we're here to experience it fully, in a physical form. And then if you're thinking of religion, you're going to get stuck, you're going to miss out on that full experience because it's going to be very limited.

AD: So how would you describe your practice? 

WYC: So, my practice lately is really calling to the ancestors. I've been finding that a lot since after my sister passed. 

AD: Condolences.

WYC: I had two sisters who passed 11 months apart. It's going to be three years. Sisters, sisters. Yeah, blood. I have sisters because not from the same womb as my mother.

Yeah. But from my father's side. Heart failure. And then the other one was a battle of cancer, breast cancer. And I think it was really a choice for her to actually, because every time I ponder, I ask how? Because she was very savvy, very intelligent, knowledgeable, knows people. Yeah. Like, it's almost like it was a choice for her to stay in that moment. Just battle it. 

AD: An honorable suicide. 

WYC: That's my intake. So, she passed away. Since then, I've been gravitating towards more of that energy, I just call it. Just guiding time. Knowing that the up there and the ancestral realm. Just taking the space. Just taking the full space until they come back. And I really sense that. I really feel it. So, I've been practicing, you know, what we do in the Lakou. My mom, now I'm finding out my mom was actually, what would you call, not a mambo, not a priestess, but my mom was a council. Okay. In her habitation, in her Lakou, what we call the Lakouta habitation, the court. Okay. You acknowledge nature. First of all, you acknowledge the self. You acknowledge the breath. The first thing you should say is give thanks. Forget the problems. I mean, yeah, there's plenty of them, there's tons of them. But when you wake up, the first thing you need to acknowledge is that breath. 

I drink water. And the first water I drink, I've been doing that for the past three months. I've been dropping water, but I'm also incorporating ancient, Asian practice, whether it's India, Buddhism, of the understanding the scientific part of it. That everything matters. Everything has an energy. You speak to it. It actually changes. The atom actually changes. So, when you're speaking to water before you drink it, everything positive. I used to just drop water because that's what we do in here. Before we sweep, we wake up, we clean the space. We say thank you. We say our prayers, four elements. We sweep our little area. What about the little compound, one house, whatever we have in here growing up? It's clean. It's not clean. It's one room shack, but it's mighty clean. Exactly. Very organized. You clean it, you drop your water, and then your next drink is your coffee. And of course, your coffee, one is bitter, one is sweet. Bitter is for the ancestors, the dead. And then the sweet is for you to drink, of course, for people, the living. Now, I've been doing that. But then the past two months, I incorporate something that I've been reading on and just speak into that water, drink it, then I drop. Of course, the first time we drop to where the sun rises, and then we drop to where the sun is going to set.

So, you're acknowledging the living, you're acknowledging the dead, and then you acknowledge your mother’s ancestors on your mother's side. You're on your mother's side is the right, and then your father's side is the left. So, I've been practicing that. And then I go about my business, which include drinking my coffee, sharing with my mother, who's 85, going to be 86. My sister will come and take if she doesn't do her own, because she also has her own practice. Intertwine, incorporate. My daughter, whoever's in the house, will get a little bit of that coffee. I proceed to doing my incense. My incense is like my daily ritual.

I've been doing incense, I don't know, before I had children. And my oldest is 29. I've been doing incense every day. Four corners. Lately, I've been doing seven. So, make it short.

And then I go to work, whether I'm late to work or not. I'm doing my ritual. I'm calling late.

But no, especially now, you're not rushing me. I need to take off this house. I'm living beyond. I'm leaving my family there. And I'm going to come back to it. I need to be secured.

I need to be on the wall. I need to be anointed, protected, supported, and blessed. I'm anchored. I'm stepping into that school space. My children, I'm ready for them. I'm ready for you. Your teacher got you. Because I did my thing. Yeah, to be protected. You're not rushing me. Principal, you're not rushing me just because I can get here early. And then I got nothing else. Yeah, we're not doing that right now. Yes. And don't let anybody do that to you. Okay.

AD: So, what would you say is your first memory of spirituality? 

WYC: My first memory of spirituality? I was eight. I was seven. Seven or eight. My grandmother passed away. No, I was older than that. No. Well, I was eight or nine.

Yeah. I came to the state. I was 11. Yeah. To New York, LaGuardia. In the dead of cold.

My stepmom and dad come in with cold. And we're like, what the heck is going on? I'm coming from Haiti. 90, 100 degrees. What the heck is happening? But anyway, my step, my grandmother, my fraternal grandmother died. Yeah. In Leogane. I went to the wake. I didn't go to the wake. Because back then, go to the wake. What you do, you go to the ceremony. 

What they call the wake. Before the cleaning of the body. Which is only intimate, immediate family. The little ones, the elder ones. Dressing the body. Dressing the body. Cooking. Crying. Crying again. Cooking. What not. That you're allowed to go. And I remember that vividly.

What I remember is, so we couldn't go to the actual church. So they did a procession from her habitation, her courtyard, her people. To the church in the capital. We couldn't go. I don't remember why. I know exactly how my grandmother look in that casket. Listen to this. Hear this. So I came to New York. I was about 12, 11, 12. Because we might get 12. So I was still about first few months in New York. Sleeping in a bunk bed, and I woke up in the middle of the night, sensing someone is over me. And I smell lavender. Vividly. It freaks me out. But at the same time, I knew it was my grandmother. I smell lavender. I saw that purple dress she was wearing. Polka dots. Tiny dots. White. Lavender fabric. Collar. Like the butterfly collar.

I didn't go. So I explained to my step-mom. Yeah. My Step-mom spoke to my dad, who that was his mother. And they're like, how does she know that? She didn't even go. She's like, “How did you know that? Because you didn't go.” Because immediately after, we were in Port-au-Prince getting paperwork, which takes about a year to two years. To get everything done. So the person can travel. Okay. And I was in Port-au-Prince. My dad was like, “How can she possibly know that?” I just know. And I know it was a visit from her.  I knew. I knew she was protecting me. She's been protecting me since. It's unknown. 

AD: Who introduced you to your practice? 

WYC: Part of it is self. Well, it's ancestral. Yes. It's ancestral intelligence. It's DNA. It's what we know. If we tap into it and just accept it, it's what we know. Besides that, it's what I see.

My mom doing, my grandmother who died at 88 was doing on my mother's side. My mom's mother. Which is T-Mama. Very petite woman. Very stern. Very disciplined. Very wise. And very…She say what she say, she mean what she say. No fluff. When she said she's gonna hit you, better be ready. And she give you the time. She give you the time. She tells you do this. She even tell you when you gonna get that whooping. Because she tell you get ready.

But you gonna get it. She'll have a tobacco. She bring her coffee. Everything. But you still gonna get that whooping. Give you a kiss and a hug. You still gonna get that whooping. That was T-Mama. That was my mother growing up. Her doing that. Yeah. Really, then is where I actually get interested. And I know this is a greater than us. It's universal. It's more than just a Haitian thing. Whatever where you are. But it's ancestral. It's DNA. It's the core. I started African dance. And then West African dance. There was a woman, Iaounisegi was an African princess. Ifa.. So she started doing some of the same ritual, candle. And then essentially, which will in the future be my niece.  His relatives, Yoruba was doing this, actually ended up naming me. Yeah. So when I started being more mature, seeking in spirituality. During the pandemic, post-pandemic, I stopped totally not going to church. And I see why. Yeah. Because the church is really you. It's this spirit. You are embodied. It's wherever you are. It's wherever you step, you occupy that space. You work with that energy. You work with it. This is when I kind of like relate when he said we God, that in a sense that we're taking over. The narcissistic kind of like grandiose that we want to be God because we are in the image of God or goddess. He or she, whatever it is. We embody that energy. So we walk with it, through it, wherever we are. So we are the image of that entity. So I don't believe in having to go to church. And if I don't go to church, it's a punishment. You mean to tell me because I miss church? Somebody's keeping count. Yeah. Somebody doesn't love me anymore. God is going to punish me. Or if I'm not married or whoever my sexual orientation is. That is not the God I want to know. So, the spirituality aspect actually came through when I saw my son since after pandemic, he's going through some stuff. He's my oldest. He's going through some stuff, and I can see anchoring in the sense of knowing and believing. Not believing, knowing. Knowing. You have to know. There's no if. There's no but. It's going to happen. It will. There's no oh maybe. No. It will happen. It hasn't happened yet. Yeah. But you know it's going to happen. And I know it's going to heal. Yeah. He's going to heal because by DNA, by birth, by divine lights, to my ancestors, my lineage, we don't have that kind of stuff going on. You didn't. You didn't give me a young kid to guide to be going to any kind of negative mental thing. No, we're not doing that. So he's going to heal. He's going to heal. It's just you testing me to see how well I can take on to the task and I'm ready to take on to that task because he's going to heal. Yeah. It's not going to happen. So I'm going to light a candle for him and let him know. I'm lighting these candles.

AD: Do you feel comfortable to practice and engage in ritual outside of your home? 

WYC: Very. I've always been conscious of that because here in Miami, live in New York, coming from here, dancing, really realizing the gift that I have, and it's, lately, I'm slow at it, because most people are like, even my daughter, “Ma, Ma, you have a gift, Ma.” You need to know this is more, what you're doing, it's like not anybody else doing it. You need to understand that. My son came to class saying the same thing. Anybody else, you need to know this space is sacred. It's different. I'm doing it 24 hours, but you feel it. You live in anointed, you live in feeling it, because this is a tool for us. It's a guide for us, it's a template, it's a GPS. The movement shows us how to navigate. You mean to tell me I'm doing this movement? And I don't know I'm gonna swing, I'm not saying I'm going to attack forward, attack backward, whichever way the enemy is coming, I'm ready, I can attack, and not just physically, but I cannot attack because my mind is healthy, it's in a healthy state. It's anchoring in the moment that the ancestors got me, the greater being got me. I'm connected, this umbilical cord, Haiti, Benin, and back again, and I'm here in the United States. I'm just holding space, but I'm here, I'm over there. 

AD: What are some practices that make you feel closer to God? 

WYC: Dancing. Dancing. Dancing. 

AD: Do you have a particular feeling that comes over you when you dance? 

WYC: The feeling? Out-of-the-body experience. And you know what that is, it’s the mountain, they call it the Lua, however you wanna speak on it. Now, I wouldn't say I'm a voodoo practitioner, but I grew into it. I have people who grew into it with Guinea, and when I say grew into it, not the Hollywood-ish voodoo they're telling us, not the black magic, witchcraft-y. That's what, that's the stuff they're trying to take from us, and they don't know how to do it, and it turns on them. And it becomes wicked. Yeah. And then they wanna say it's ours. No. No, you can't handle it. It turns in your hand. Go back and kill it. Tunele, detune, say detune. Say detune. Detune. Detune, it's just like, it's like a milk that went curd. You can't handle it. Yeah. You can't handle it. That's not what we do. So, because you can't handle it, and then you give it a different form, and then you want, no, that's not ours, because ours, we heal. There's nothing but healing. 

AD: We are calling in two different kinds of ancestors. My ancestors are not out here colonizing the world. My ancestors are looking through healing. 

WYC: They're not yet killing and doing bloodshed.

AD: My ancestors are looking through healing in a physical form, while yours are looking to find reckoning in another.

WYC: And that's right. Now, so, so dense. Before it used to be, I thought it was writing or gardening at some point. I love colors. I love painting. I forever paint around my house. Painting, forever painting, because I'm just artistic that way. I like to create, even when I'm cooking. I'm very artistic, very creative, always finding ways to be innovative, to stay unique and different. And I love being different. I love being different. I'll tell you the truth. Somebody call you weird, say thank you, because that's a compliment. When you're weird, you're doing something good. You stand out. You're not following the trend. I don't want to be trendy. We're not doing trendy. 

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

WYC: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Right now, the work that I'm doing right now, eventually the Haitian folkloric dance class, the Tradition Lakou Lakai that I created in 2000, that I'm finding out the word lakou itself was actually a template. It was actually a calling. It's actually just a little hidden message in there. I didn't know back then why I chose Tradition Lakou Lakai, knowing that right now the word lakou is the anchor, is the ship, is the mothership. Like when we get that lakou here, that feeling, that experience, that I can take anywhere, I'm finding out right now, I'm taking anywhere, I can take it anywhere, and it becomes that lakou, because it's in me. It's not because I'm having class at Little Haiti Cultural Complex.

 I can take it to Perez at Miami Museum. I can take it, we can have it outside. I can take it to the school if they allow me. The children will experience it. It's me. I embody it. So this is the lakou. So now it becomes the work. Now when I say I'm having folkloric dance, if I mention anything about lakou, experience, know what I mean. 

AD: Ashe, Ashe, Ashe.

WYC: I'm not alone. We're not alone. 

AD: I know there's a thousand others behind you.

WYC: Sometimes when I'm coming through, though, after the moves, I know when they kind of like set foot here. Okay, I'm standing far away, because I don't want to have your visitors get scared, but I know when they kind of like quickly take a glance over, acknowledge and say, you're doing good. 

AD: Yeah, you're doing the work that we want you to do.

WYC: You're doing the work. 

AD: What are your practices around death and grieving?

WYC: Look at that. Look how beautiful that is. That was my sister, two passing away. I don't even know how I did that. I don't even know how I grieved. I don't even know if I actually went through the whole process, and I'm not even going to question. I'm not even going to keep count if I go to the stages of grievance.

AD: It doesn't even matter at this point, because you're living. 

WYC: I'm living. And not only that I did the work, not only that they're still living, they're still inspiring me. I know my sister, wherever she is right now, she has elevated. I know after she passed away, this April is going to be the fourth year, but I know the first year she was, she was, that energy was around. And her only child, my niece, that you're going to see, she promised to come to our class. She just left a few days ago.She came here only for four days and went back to New York. She was just lingering around. I don't know, because she kind of like fearful of leaving that only child behind. But I know she was lingering around. But who really is that? So what we did, a year that would have been her actual birthday, Earth Day.

 Not when she passed away, not ancestral, but Earth Day. Yeah, her Earth Day. July 17th. Okay. We went to the beach sunrise. We did what, I did what I got to do. I know she also guide. I know she also guide me. The ancestors guide me. Yeah. Because I don't do the work like that. I didn't train. And there's no training. If anybody come to you, they said they were trained to be a Mambo, work the other way. I'm telling you that right now, since anyone said they were trained, they went to Africa, work the other way. Yeah. Because you know, when you are trained, they guide you . It's here. All you need to do is be receptive, open. They'll show you clarity. They'll come in your dream. You'll see it in vision. You'll see it in work.

 You'll see it in other people. You'll see it in surrounding, the people's coming to you. You know you're doing the work. They'll guide you. I don't need to go to Africa, but we're going. We're going. 

AD: Yes. Yes, because we want to. We're going, we want to.

WYC: No, we're going. Yeah. We're going. And I've been saying lately, we, not I, because I don't want it to be an I thing. We're going to Benin. We're going to Benin. But I'm not going because that's what everybody's doing. They expect of me. It's trending. No. I'm going. No.

 I know this. I know. I'm going to guide it. I just need to be open. I need to ask more clarity. What I'm doing lately also is when I'm sleeping, when I lay, before I lay, and say my last prayer, protective, reflective, thank you, I also ask for clarity. I'm very intentional. I say no.

 I don't like puzzles. I don't like puzzles. You got me doing this? You want me to do it well? Show me. I need clear. I don't like puzzles. I'm not doing puzzles. And I'm like that.

I'm like that with them. I'm like, I need you to come clear. Reveal yourself. So I can do this walk. Because I'm not alone. I'm not doing this alone. 

AD: So, asking for clarity. Asking for clarity.

WYC: Making sure that you're asking for protection. And that you're doing the true walk. Yeah. The real walk. The knowing. And it's not mixed. The knowing. The ancestral knowing. I give up myself, and I also learn to pour back into myself. Because those people who give a lot, they tend to let themselves go. 

AD: How are you replenishing? 

WYC: I rest.

AD: What does rest actually look like to you? 

WYC: I sit. 

AD: Stillness. No, yeah. Because I know people say rest all the time, but what does that actually mean? 

WYC: Sitting. No phone, no radio. Don't call me. I close my door, my children don't knock, my mother don't call me. My children, I block things out. If my son is in the front office playing video games. I have a special chair. That chair is like 15 years old, by my bed.

Jasmine Respess: Assuming you're also like calling to Orishas and deities, too, how does that look? Is there anything specific you feel connected to? 

WYC: Dumballa. Black Madonna, because I'm a protector of the marginalized. I'm a protector of the Children. I'm a protector of the people in bondage. I'm a protector of minorities, people who have been victimized. I'm a protector. The way I know it now, it's because I was that. And it's because I chose to do a master's in exceptional student education. It's because I have credentials to be administration, to teach a general class, and to teach gifted. And I'm still teaching children with special needs. Because I do this class, because I bring community together. So I know she's my, she's my, I think she's my right. She's my head. When Dumballa is my head. I find that Dumballa is my head. I am totally Dumballa. Cause I'm Pisces, I'm February, I'm water. So I'm Dumballa. I am Dumballa with the life, the healing. I am a healer. But I'm also a warrior. So I'm also Erzulie Dantor. 

 Erzulie Dantor that will be like, back off, you're not touching this person. So I'm Erzulie Dantor. So I am blue and red. I am Tuesday, I am Thursday, I am Saturday. Is it by mistake we are having these Saturday class for years now? I am Saturday. It's every time, but I am Tuesday, I am Thursday, I am Saturday. I am blue and red. And I am a protector and a healer.