Past, Present, Coming Soon

I’m not even convinced that the people who were cured of AIDS have been cured because there was not effort for me doing that. I could see myself doing it. I wonder why others are not doing so. Instead of them sharing with me, which is their responsibility to the world, not to me, because if I afford myself to the world as a healer, and I am not as responsive or I am not affording what others are affording, then it is my duty to visit those that are doing things on a higher level than I to learn how to help in complementing people in need. --from Seven Days in Usha Village: A Conversation with Dr. Sebi

Most days and evenings we talked in Dr. Sebi’s large two-room round hut, a contemporary spin on a traditional African home—pale green, made of mud, and topped with a metal corrugated roof shaped like an upside down cone. It stood on the manicured mango-covered grounds of Usha Village, his healing center in Agua Caliente, a village lying at the foot of a mountain high rainforest, and about 24 miles east of La Ceiba.

His hut didn’t resemble makeshift living quarters you see in television ads for saving impoverished children around the world. But it still stood simply furnished, even with the 42-inch flat screen television on the wooden stand that faced the largest piece of furniture in the hut, his king-sized bed. An African mask and two framed pictures of African art draped the walls, the lone mask, on guard it seemed, resting right above the head of the bed. --from Sojourn to Honduras Sojourn to Healing: Why An Herbalist's View Matters More Today Than Ever Before

I’m in New York, a Monday. My place never open on Monday, whether in L.A. or anywhere in the world. The phone rings on a Monday. I say, ‘I’m not going to answer this stupid phone.’ The phone ringing. It stopped ringing and ring again. I said, ‘Oh God, this must be some emergency.’ I pick up the phone.

‘Dr. Sebi?’

‘Dr. Sebi, oh, I’m glad you’re speaking to me. I’m very sick, Dr. Sebi. I’m very sick. I want you to come and see me.’

I said, ‘Okay ma’am. Where you live?’

‘I live at 143rd Street and Lenox.’

"And I went. Miss McCadden. When I went to see the lady, she’s in bed. I walked up these steps. I walked up this other step and then I go in there. This lady is in her eighties. She laying in bed. The sheet that is supposed to be white is this color.” He indicates the light brown on a chair.

“I went with Annette, who was my wife then. There are two people by her bed, one on each side looking at me. And I’m asking her questions. She had rheumatoid arthritis. She was in a very bad way, and she’s laying on this bed, and she got a big belly on her, and she’s laying on this bed that needs cleaning. So I said, ‘Excuse me for a minute. Annette, come here.’ I took her outside. I said, ‘Annette,’—you know I always have a thousand dollars or more in my pocket all the time—I said, ‘I want you to go to the store and buy me two sets of sheets, two sets of pillowcases, two sets of everything you think she needs, even the spread. And I want you to buy some incense and some oils.’ And I gave her the money. I gave her $500. I know she came back with some change. So when Annette left, I said ‘Please, take her to the bath or bathe her.’ And they wiped her down, washed her down in her bed. And then I took the salve, and I rubbed her feet. I massaged her feet with the salve. Guess what Miss McCadden said? ‘Wow, I could feel the blood circulating in my feet. Oh, your salve is so good Dr. Sebi. Your salve is so good.’ She’s feeling better from her legs. Annette came back. They changed the bed. We put the oils on it. And guess what she said when I’m leaving?

‘How much I owe you?’

‘You owe me $750.’

She took out her coin purse. She said, ‘I can give you five dollars down on it.’

I say, ‘Miss McCadden, if my momma was standing here and I take your five dollars I think my momma would slap me down and hope that I die. That’s okay ma’am. You keep the five dollars, and you use that to buy something else, and please, I may not be here because I’m running up and down the place, Annette will take your name, and Annette will bring you the follow-up.’

“Now, you know how I felt when I went home? And remember, I don’t see people on Mondays, right? Because I don’t do that. I didn’t do that. But when I went home that Monday afternoon, I remember I stopped in Harlem, and I bought some bracelets and I did some things and I went to my room and I lit my joint, smoking my spliff, and thinking about Miss McCadden. I said, ‘Look at that. That was so sweet. If I had not gone there, that lady wouldn’t be feeling good today.’ Out of this project, the many Miss McCaddens that exist in Compton and in Watts and in Harlem, they don’t need to be waiting for it. We will send scouts out every month to scout the community to see which and how many Miss McCaddens exist, that we could help. --from Dr. Sebi Speaks of Dembali: Crossing Over from Dis-Ease to Ease in Matters of Health, Race, Family, and Culture

First published July 17, 2020