The process is the purpose.
Being re/made is not for the faint of heart,
Which is to say for the small mind that tries to comprehend the vastness of the heart from the places it knows
From the familiar locations of the Known and the points that have previously been mapped.
Being re/made is for the trusting.
It’s for the ones like all of us who are here
Alive
Breathing
And taking steps–
Here; and here.
There,
There.
We walk the process
and the
Process is the Purpose.
We are It.
We Are
the unmappers, the new makers,
Looking through illusion,
Seeing and singing the future.
ME
Deeply-and divinely led listening is my art of divination. I use this art to consult with the ancestors and offer prompts and possibilities for clearing the path toward healing and liberation.
I create journeys, witness journeys, and help groups and individuals identify where and when they are on their journeys toward deeper healing and freedom, without leaving behind the parts of ourselves that are our own People.
My pedagogy/teachings, aesthetics and thought are all rooted in my ancestral practice as a student of Ubungoma and African traditional healing in the traditions of the Southern Bantu Peoples which include the Zulu, Ndebele, Xhosa. This is an honor and responsibility that I hold higher than my MFA, my numerous writing awards, and the beautiful accolades heaped on my work.
I humbly and proudly acknowledge the source of my art and all that I do in this life as coming directly from my reindigenizing, ever-evolving spiritual and ancestral practice.
With the blessings of my elders and the guidance of the Ascended Ancestors who have called me to walk ever-closer to the root of change, imagination, mystery and hope;
I look forward to getting to know you and the ways our paths may cross.
Thank you for coming, Beloved.
US TOGETHER
:: LINEAGE, METHODS x APPROACHES ::
01 Healing through inquiry.
I offer you rich possibilities and paths of prompt-based healing; the finding of words and language to unlock pathways to greater mystery, greater questions and greater answers. Lineages can be restored through the
02 Life is a Divination.
I also help bring clarity and understanding through the lens of divination. All of life can be read as divination. In deep relationship with people and place, I steward and offer counsel based on what I see, hear and feel in the unfolding divination of your life and the pulse of the collective.
03 Process is everything.
My approach is process-focused because it’s a part of the redigenzing path of healing to unhook ourselves from outcomes and destinations, those successes unfold naturally as we attune to the Ancestors guidance and get into alignment with their protection. So we focus together on listening to the guidance and trusting what we receive, instead of on what we think we want. Through these actions, we move beyond our mind’s constructions and into our deeper spaces of being. This is the space of liberation. This is the space of dreams becoming awake.
04 The Ancient-Future Rising.
My indigenous practice comes with a Style of rigor, intimacy and deep relational work, Black feminism and high art.
I honor my numerous teachers in the field of art and ancestral practice who weave through my work x breath.
My current teachers are Sangoma Priestesses, Makhosi Himi Gogo Thule Ngane and Makhosi Ekhaya Esima and all of my siblings at the Makhosi Foundation.
Zulu teachings and the practices of Ubungoma, the Afro-indigenous tradition my Ancestors have called me to; call me to a deeper innerstanding of the root and its medicines, everyday.
05 Creative consciousness as medicine.
I focus on process because all of life is a process until the initiation of death. All of life is divining us all the time. I help you see what is already unfolding.
I am not here to teach you how I came to embrace my gifts, but to create containers and bring an ancestrally-guided presence to our shared space. In that alchemy, I help you find within yourself what you already know. How you Be you. How to remember you, and your people. You as your people. How to remember your own medicine, ways x way.
I thank you for what you and your ancestors have made and will make possible. You have the blueprints, you just need to know you can always find them.
Pillars
Grace
Rigor
Willingness
Surrender
Openness
Strength
Magic
Path-finding
OFFICIAL BIO
Jillian Walker is a multidimensional artist, performer, trailblazer, and teacher making uncharted paths in the field of performance/theater/dramatic storytelling and in the realm of ancestral healing practice as a devoted shamanic student of the afro-indigenous tradition of Ubungoma. Her work breathes with, as, and through a dynamic process of bridging the gap between the ancestral and spiritual, the archival, the dramaturgical, and the artistic practice of Life as a divination.
Guided by the teachings of her Ancestors, Jillian’s extensive resume includes many “firsts” and inaugurals, breaking ceilings with her pen, and reflecting her joys and challenges as a servant of the ancient-future.
Jillian has taught and spoken at:
Harvard University The New School The University of Michigan
Columbia University The University of Washington Brooklyn College
Wheaton College Sarah Lawrence College Fordham University
American University and York College
She has performed in basements, bars, open fields, numerous sanctuaries, and infamous venues such as Joe’s Pub, Park Avenue Armory and Lenox Lounge.
Her artistic work includes the award-winning play, Sarah’s Salt., the uncategorizable award-winning Songs of Speculation, and her critically-acclaimed work(ing) and epic tribute to her Ancestors, SKiNFOLK: An American Show, forthcoming from 53rd State Press.
Her work has been featured in Vulture/New York Magazine and received rave reviews in The NY TIMES.
~
P.S. If you want to nerd out a little more (and I love you for it), you can read the cover letter that helped me earn my place as a finalist for a teaching job at Harvard. It describes my teaching style and beliefs in my unique Ivy League mystic style, so if you’d be into that tea, grab a cup of tea (lol) x enjoy.
Visit Performance Works
“The root is where the Ancestors sit.”
–Makhosi Himi Gogo Thule Ngane
Portal to my roots
(Or, The Unfolding, so far) ::
1985
Born Detroit, MI
I was dropped into the arms of my mother’s friend, a fellow medical doctor and Black woman. I absorbed the musical x creative gifts of my birth city, always surrounded by Motown music and family. Uncles lived down streets and around the corner from Marvin Gaye x Stevie Wonder. Breaking into song, at any time, began as soon as I can remember being earth side.
1993
My family moves from metro-Detroit, where all of our neighbors x friends, businesses are Black, to a predominantly white big pharma suburb in northern Illinois.
Though 8 years old, I inherently understand the significance of this change that benefits our family in great financial ways x costs deeply spiritually in others. The complexity of Blackness is so deep I will spend the rest of my life understanding it through my healing.
2006
My mother gives me a copy of A New Earth. I read it and something shifts though I cannot identity what.
2010
I quietly, officially become a seeker.
Things are happening in my body that are physical, but seem to have spiritual causes. I go to the doctor and they tell me everything’s fine. I start reading A Course in Miracles x other metaphysical books and studying online business.
I go to Acting conservatory.
2011
My artistic desires for greatness and the expression of my potential increase.
I am rejected from the Yale School of Drama x waitlisted at Juilliard to eventually be rejected. I feel devastated and confused about my path.
2011
My artistic desires for greatness and the expression of my potential increase.
I am rejected from the Yale School of Drama x waitlisted at Juilliard to eventually be rejected. I feel devastated and confused about my path.
2011
My artistic desires for greatness and the expression of my potential increase.
I am rejected from the Yale School of Drama x waitlisted at Juilliard to eventually be rejected. I feel devastated and confused about my path.