Blood Salute Honoring the Ancestors

Sometimes I am called to offer blood to my Ancestors through scarification rites. My first scarification was when my Mother, Theresa Calzetta Garrett Hill made her transition in 1997. I had a dream to go to a Maasai village in Mkonoo where I was friends with the Laibon, Spiritual Leader, and asked to have the ritual there. He wanted to do the marks but in my dream I saw a woman doing it. So one of his four wives was selected and she marked me with the little razor cuts on my checks. My father, Sterling Hill, Sr. was there as well as my husband, Brother Pete O'Neal, two Afros from the Diaspora and many people from the village! The hour long ritual was so beautiful and fulfilled my dream. Several years later years later during my initiation into the Egungun Society in 2018 at Ile Ireshe in Florida the head priest , Baba Olomide Ogunlano, Ibaye, marked me once again on my face but I also received the Bull Marks on my shoulders, in honor of the bull that was sacrificed that day. In 2022 I was marked by the steady hand of Spiritual Leader and coFounder of Ile Imole, Iya Mari, in Maryland, WA in honor of my father who made his transition in 2021 and in 2023 I received marks by another Maasai elder at UAACC in our Ancestor Garden. Brother Pete remarked that I might be running out of space for markings! This is the day of the marking last year. Blessings flow with blood sometimes.