My aura shines so bright, you would think it was highlight.
Hashtag bruja and its associated hashtags have over a million posts on Instagram. But
what does it mean? And why are so many people, particularly women of colour posting about
it?
We're realising that conventional allopathic ways of healing are not helping us.
We have the bruja movement right, #brujasofinstagram that has completely transformed women.
You can make a difference in this world. And you need to be reminded of that because this
world is constantly trying to make you think that you can't. But you *** can.
Bruja and brujeria translate into English as witch and witchcraft respectively. But
if you're thinking of black pointy hats and Halloween masks, that's not what we're talking
about here.
We're talking about a particular kind of witchcraft with roots across African, European, Latin
American and indigenous cultures. It can mean many things for different people. But features
of brujeria can include anything from believing in astrology, burning candles, to connecting
with the spiritual realm, crystals and spells. Here in Brooklyn, this magic is distinctly
Afro Latina. And I've come to talk to one of the biggest Instagram bruja influencers
to see why she thinks so many women are engaging with #bruja.
A lot of people have been finding that, you know, religion can be very restrictive in
ways and that spirituality can be a lot more expansive. I'm Emilia Ortiz, I'm a bruja,
spiritual advisor and healer from Brooklyn, New York - I'm a Brooklyn native. I am both
a self-practitioner and practitioner within the community. There's this aspect of reconnecting
with your ancestors and also about there being more than just going to God for answers and
this peace of like, okay, "I can ask for all these things and then not do anything - I
can't, I don't have to make offerings." Yes you do because most spirits won't work for
you. You don't give them like, do you want to work for free? That don't make sense. And
I think a lot of people resonated with that because at this day and age, so many of us
want to be paid for what we do. And I think people resonate a lot with the fact that like,
"Okay, why is God gonna just want to do these things for me? First of all, why is God just
punishing me" or just not feeling like they were getting enough answers.
What Emilia is saying about people turning to spirituality over institutional religions
lines up with what research is telling us about changing religious belief in the United
States. We know that the number of people in the US who identify as spiritual but not
religious is growing. But there's another interesting statistic here. A Pew study has
found that the rate of belief in New Age ideas - now that can include anything from astrology
to ancestor worship - is particularly high in two groups - historically black Christian
denominations and Catholics. The numbers are higher than what we would see in traditionally
evangelical Protestant mainline denominations.
Afro Latina women fit into these communities that Pew Research Centre is saying returning
to what it calls New Age practices. But there's nothing new about brujeria. Latin and Central
America are full of syncretic faiths. That means the fusion of two or more religions
where Catholicism has met with African and indigenous religions. In Brazil, you've got
Candomble, in Cuba, Santeria and Voodoo in Haiti. The region's history of European colonisation
and the transatlantic slave trade has created a smorgasbord of spiritual beliefs here, many
of which have celebrated brujeria. But the Catholic Church has traditionally denounced
witchcraft. For many, brujeria has been an underground practice or simply forbidden.
Posting on Instagram about it is breaking taboo.
That word throughout the world, especially since, you know the advent of European colonialism
has been used to demonise powerful women. And so much so that most people might know
about the witch trials specifically here in Massachusetts in the US, but that has a legacy
of hundreds of years with European women and then African women. And we chose to bring
that word back because there's so much power in it. My name is Griselda Rodriguez Solomon,
and along with my twin Migalina, we are the Brujas of Brooklyn. In creating the Brujas
of Brooklyn Instagram account it was almost like we came out, I'm gonna be honest. Till
this day, my mother is still not 100% comfortable with us using this identity. A witch throughout
history has been a very powerful woman connected to a higher power using elements to heal like
plants and fire and intuition. Unfortunately, because of patriarchy, that type of woman
is a bit too powerful. So that's been an identity that has been repressed.
That power Griselda is referring to for many years met with scepticism. And that's not
just from a Catholic church that for centuries has seen these practices as heretical. Historically,
and today, there's been concerned that people are choosing brujeria over official health
routes.
In the 20th century in the 1940s and 50s in Puerto Rico, brujeria became not so much a
heresy but a problem of public health and during campaigns for modernization and rationalisation
on the island government bodies, waged anti superstition campaigns and marked folk healers
and curanderas and brujas as anti modern. They needed to get on board with Western medicine.
Even later in the 1970s and 1980s, psychiatrists, psychologists and different doctors were really
interested in Puerto Rican healings as impediments to people seeking real medicine or real solutions.
And I think some of these questions are misguided. I think that there is not a world in which
people are only seeking out the guidance of brujas and not going to doctors. They offer
answers to questions that cannot be answered by medicine: problems of romance, problems
of partners gone astray, that it gives people a profound sense of control.
In pursuit of that sense of control, the growth of #bruja seems like lots of things: a reclaiming
of heritage, spirituality, as well as part of the modern appetite for wellness and a
need for a digital safe space to explore all of this. But the online community is now so
large here in Brooklyn, that people are actively gathering and celebrating in real life too.
When you hear the salsa, follow it, there'll be a party on the other side of that door.
So right now we are at my space called Haus of Bread, but when we're not throwing bruja
day raves we host a lot of workshops, meditations, sound baths.
We have a doctor who's a therapist and he does open conversations about mental health
and destigmatising mental health in POC communities.
How many people in that room right now did you meet via Instagram?
95% of people in this party have I've met via Instagram. Definitely. There are a few
like family friends, but for the most part it's people that are connected with over the
years on social media.
I know Chiquita Brujita from Instagram and now we're homegirls IRL.
Chiquita brujita is a bruja that sells her candles here at Haus of Bread. But she's also
a performance artist and runs her own festival dedicated to brujeria in Brooklyn. She calls
it an act of resistance.
When I think about what makes life worth living I think about all of the moments that I am
with others, right? That provides me with access to a well of energetic capital that
I can then use in the moments where I encounter microaggressions. When I encounter explicit
macro aggressions, right, when I encounter structural systems, policies, laws, patriarchy.
I love having followers. I mean, having followers is a crazy blessing. You know, I think that
is amazing of people supporting you and energetically cheering you on in these beautiful moments.
And I think that that is really the you know, the beauty of social and having so many people
come out for the in real life things that I also offer which to me is the real power
of this.
Do you feel like there are unsafe spaces for you as a bruja?
I think there's unsafe spaces for me as a person of colour, and a woman in 2020 alive
in America.
And I think that's a fact. I don't think has anything to do with me being a bruja. I mean,
I'm sure it does. But you know, I think that you know, if anything, you know, I'm protected
because of how I live my life and it allows me to know that I'm moving in purpose and
in service and with my heart in the right place.
Building a sense of community, whether it's in the church you grew up in, or the culture
and the spirituality that you fight to keep alive in diaspora is no longer limited to
the physical world. Somewhere in between the physical space, the spiritual realm, whatever
it is, you believe in, lies a new world of digital community. And it's so much more than
just a hashtag.