And the Shadows Wore Colors: Reflections of a Spiritualist

By Candita C. Gual

And the Shadows Wore Colors: Reflections of a Spiritualist strives to explain the difficulties that the members of the Yorubal/Lucumi community specifically African Americans have experienced in incorporating the realm of spirit into its ceremonies and teaditions. Throughout her life, Candita C. Gual has encountered many puzzling and troublesome paths. She has been fortunate to have the guidance of experienced mediums with foundations rooted in truth and logic, assuring safe footing for her as she has traveled the road of the unseen and commandeered rituals and solutions for the problems at hand.

Yet she still has questions about what she has learned and what is to come in her continued search for knowledge. And the Shadows Wore Colors provides a record of her experiences and conversations that will reveal some answers for those who have questions. In this volume, she examines the stumbling blocks that hinder the spiritual evolution sought by so many people, to perhaps bring some direction and closure to them. She explains her perspective on some of the many facets of the world of spiritualism, divination, and initiation ceremonies based upon her thirty-four years of experience.

And the Shadows Wore Colors is a work in progress that will hopefully open the door to m any discussions and books on this topic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475902785

Candita C. Gual

Candita C. Gual, a Yuruba priestess for thirty-four years, first realized her connection to spiritualism at the age of seven. She attributes her continued development as a spiritualist to the insight given by individuals openly sharing their experiences. She is a resident of New York City and holds a master’s degree in Master of Education from Fordham University.

Book preview

Contents

A Message to the Reader 

Preface 

Foreword 

Prologue 

Introduction 

Chapter 1 

Chapter 2 

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4 

Chapter 5 

Chapter 6 

Chapter 7 

Chapter 8 

Chapter 9 

Chapter 10 

Chapter 11 

Chapter 12 

Chapter 13 

Chapter 14 

Chapter 15 

Chapter 16 

Chapter 17 

Endnotes

A Message to the Reader 

This book is part of the narrative tradition. Ms. Candita Gual embarked on a journey that sought to recollect those memories and rituals that have been repressed. Thus, this journey captured those voices and memories of an ancestral tradition that speaks poignantly to today’s concerns.

Just as important Ms. Gual presents an opportunity to discuss cultural and ethnic differences in the Lucumi community. This concern has broad implications as the tradition becomes more visible in the western world.

So this collaboration of cultural memories, personal reflections and observations awakens the spirit that was momentarily lost but not forgotten. Enjoy the read and reconnect with the spirit in you.

Robert Tate

Babalawo

Professor College of New Rochelle

March 2012

Preface 

I first got the thoughts for this book because of the questions that a dear friend asked me regarding what she had experienced as she journeyed through the roads of spiritual and material evolution. Having lost the one person of trust, her mentor, she embarked on finding someone who embodied her teacher and could answer questions that still were within her. Her need to know forced me to reach deep inside myself and question what I had learned in 33 years of my life as a Yoruba priestess. She committed me to find for her answers that would satisfy her curiosity, deepen her understanding and confirm for herself the reasons she would continue to seek knowledge in this realm.

I hope that the reflections in this book will assist others and afford them a new perspective in defining: who they are, where they will go with the newfound gifts of spiritual and material enlightenment, and what they will do when they attain the knowledge they seek.

This work will merely explain from thirty-three years of experience, one person’s perspective on some of the many facets of the world of spiritualism, divination, initiation ceremonies and the like. It is a work in progress and will hopefully open the door to many more discussions and written works of this kind.

I would like to thank Cynthia Graham-Ward, an appointed daughter of Obatala/Ochun for her diligence and persistence in attaining answers for her questions and insisting that the responses be shared with others. I further thank my Orisha family, all over the world for the experiences they have given me as I traveled this road, and their input that for me is chronicled in this work. To Jose "Apache Rivera, I extend my gratitude for sharing his understanding of the musical rhythms and the mysteries that compose the call and answer" to which Spiritual entities respond and the many afternoons we spent listening to the music and examining its messages. My gratitude to Lenetta Bumford my friend and confidant who believed in me even when she didn’t truly understand and taught me the true definition of unconditional, to my god-daughter Khadijah Morrow, who always had a question for me to answer, to Iya Debbie Garcia, Omo Oshun, my godmother and teacher, whose commitment to her godchildren is never ending. To my beloved Master of Ceremonies, John Bermudez, Omo Obatala, affectionately known as Junior, who believed in my ability to write and communicate the legacy of this practice to the generations that follow, to Allison Lances, Obafunke whose passion for spirit gave me lively conversations and forced me to dig deeper, to Professor Robert Tate who provided for me his insight to the plight of my African American brothers and sisters, and finally to my mentor the incredible John McKoy, Obitaye, my Baba, my teacher and my best friend, Modupue!

Candita Christina Gual

Author of Collection of Selected Prayers

August, 2011

Foreword 

Mommy; God is Jesus’ daddy right? I answered my four year old daughter. That’s right baby. I thought my answer would satisfy my child; until her next question sat me down to contemplate my own continuous thoughts on the subject matter. Then who is God’s daddy? The Alpha and Omega story with which I responded didn’t seem to set right with her, but she sat in silence after answering oh, indicating that she was not buying this story and then went into her bedroom. I understood my daughter’s thoughts, as my interests in the Yoruba culture posed questions which have periodically travelled though my veins, only to disappear, and resurface throughout my life. These questions too deserved some type of closure and/or satisfaction to my inquisitiveness.

Perhaps what had become a part of me growing up has helped to formulate this collage of thoughts regarding religion. I was raised in a strict Catholic household. Yet when sent from New Jersey to the bush of South Carolina during the summer months as a child, which was the family tradition; the children in the north should spend the summers with the family elders; my concept of religion was set for change. On Sundays in the south, my Gullah speaking grandmother certainly did not embrace anything within the Catholic Church. Instead, Mattie Alston, my grandmother, six feet four inches tall, a replica of a Watusi woman of Africa, in preparation for church, would place her wide brim, straw hat on her head, grab a long stick as if it was her scepter, and would arrange her steps to take on any snakes that would appear in her path as we would walk through the bush to her son’s house, which was the equivalent of three long city blocks. In her words, ‘we have to go and collect the oder chirens," her reference to my cousins, her grand-children, who would attend church with us. Once in church, Lord knows the singing was nothing like in the Catholic Church. I was used to singing soft hymns. In my southern family’s church the music was so loud that the drums, guitar and organ had a language of their own, which caused every cell in my body to oblige the rhythm, while my small frame swayed from side to side.

Many of the elders in attendance would peer over their shoulders to watch me, and they would nudge other