Falling through Religions

Jul 8

Been reading the Bible, y’all. [SPOILER ALERT] Adam was a snitch — for realz!

I took a bus from Cuernavaca, Mexico three hours to the city of Puebla, stuck pressed next to a missionary. They were very White, very American (as in United States of American) and preachy AF—dead set on saving my soul. I shut the convo down telling them they’d sooner get me praying to the Easter Bunny. It made the missionary cry, but I got to eat my barbecue grasshopper sans the Jesus noise. Thank God!

Me and the Bible is a twisted ass journey, starting with a whisper: “You’re a shaman.” A deep frigging dive into Shamanism led to Buddhism, Hinduism, Ifẹ, Santería and finally Hoodoo. Hoodoo brought me back to my roots — literally. The day I started researching Hoodoo, I was gifted 200 years of family history going back to slavery. The ancestors I was praying for, finally showed up.

Hoodoo, not to be confused with Catholic-infused Santeria, came about from Protestant dominance where you couldn’t disguise African worship as worship of saints. They co-opted the Bible, which they knew was an object of power. If it made “Massa’s” bow his arrogant head, that book had to pack a wallop! They even used the pages as spiritual relics to work magick. Then they figured out how to read. Imagine enslaved people reading Exodus! Fucking radical!

Hoodoo works with ancestors, and far back as the 1880s mine were ministers. If me reading the Bible makes them happy, I’ll suck it up. Besides the Bible is where Africans hid the spells and recipes for eventually setting brother against brother in a civil war that ended slavery. That last bit is just what I imagine. I don’t doubt though that the magick is that frigging powerful. If more of us would pick it up we might just manage to heal this doomed world.

Plus, the Bible ain’t a half bad story, once you figure out the Shakespeare. Luckily, I can tell a thou from a begat. Adam, by the way (spoiler alert), really is a stone cold snitch and the snake was just a fall guy.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

Falling through Religions

Shakespeare? Bitch, Sit Down!

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