Dear Fellow Future Ancestors,
October contains powerful magic, a buildup to the thinning of the veil between the physical realm and the spiritual realm, when ancestors snuggle closer to us, yearning to be remembered by names spoken aloud in exchange for messages from The Great Beyond. On this hallowed eve, on the precipice of All Saints Day, Fèt Gede, Día de los Muertos, Samhain, and the month of November, I am reflecting on magic and power, and the wands we wield in life. My pen is often my wand of choice to write out the reality I am willing into being with the powerful force of my imagination and intuitive messages from my ancestors. I am a visionary, a seer, a pioneer—my ancestors’ wildest dreams.
Sweetness and Power: Three Card Spread for SPKYSZN, October 31, 2026: 6 of Baskets – Sugarcane – “People who have made their peace with the past” (McQuillar 115). | Black Herman (The Magician) – Snakeroot – “He had self-confidence and a strong will to succeed. That was the magic that made him a legend” (McQuillar 30). | 3 of Baskets – Sweetgrass – “Reunion” (McQuillar 112). Deck: The Hoodoo Tarot: 78-Card Deck and Book for Rootworkers (2020) by Tayannah Lee McQuillar, artwork by Katelan V. Foisy. The brick wall in the background of this photograph was hand built pre-Hurricane Katrina by my maternal grandfather and Bahamian ancestor, Arthward Theodore Cooper (1930-2019). Before his battle with Alzheimer’s disease began, Papa would carefully cut and peel sugarcane with his big cutlass/machete for his grandchildren as we played in Grammy’s yard in Nassau, Bahamas; as terms of endearment, my maternal grandmother, Evelyn Etheldreda Knowles-Cooper (1934-2023), would call us sugar low, sweetie pie, and sugar dumpling.
This spooky season confirmed that “Dr. Jones in Jones Hall” is, indeed, a pioneer—the first Black person to be hired at the center where I work, which has existed in this historically Black city for over a century, who wasn’t a receptionist. Unsurprising, but disappointing. The only other Black person I am guaranteed to see every day at my job is the custodian; she loves the brightness of my colorful outfits and always tells me so when we chat. I am the spook that sits by the door, the darkest person in my office space placed in the darkest corner, surrounded by tinted black glass but no windows—a haint at a predominantly white institution in the South. Spooky. Remembering my father, Morris Jones, Jr. (1940-2022), who was a Negro born and raised in segregated New Orleans, would not have been able to apply to study where I am currently employed as an Assistant Director when he graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1958? Spooky. Thinking about how little Ruby Bridges must have felt integrating a “whites-only” New Orleans public elementary school in 1960? Beyond spooky. At least the only people who yell at me as I enter my building every day are the Black chefs, groundskeepers, bus drivers, and parking enforcers responding to my good morning greetings. History is haunting; making it is too.
Photograph of Dr. Jones as a Child with Her Father, Morris Jones, Jr. | New Orleans, Louisiana | October 1998
In the last week of October, I gave two guest lectures based on the first chapter of my dissertation in a first-year seminar about hurricanes in Latin America and the Caribbean. Magic already on my mind, I began with the following sentence: “Crafted with intention, indoctrination is a form of socially accepted sorcery.” On the second slide of my presentation, I included the photo above of my daddy and me taken inside the Municipal Auditorium during the Great Day in New Orleans historic photo shoot, which gathered over 200 notable African-American artists from all disciplines and walks of life in Congo Square on October 11, 1998. Many of them, including my father, are now ancestors. Spooky.
Casual Warhead and a Confused Computer | New Orleans, Louisiana | October 2026
Presenting about the 1898 naval invasion and ongoing U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico to a classroom of students who had varying levels of interest in listening to me talk about the San Ciriaco hurricane of 1899 while I stood next to a warhead in the Navy ROTC building? Spooky. Reflecting on the disappearances and deaths of San Ciriaco hurricane survivors from Puerto Rico who didn't survive the steamship journey to the Port of New Orleans, the train journey to San Francisco, or sailing to Honolulu on the S.S. City of Rio de Janeiro to work on sugar plantations in Hawai'i in 1900? Gut-wrenchingly spooky. The sudden sound of military planes flying overhead outside at mach speed, briefly drowning out my voice as I briefed the students on disaster capitalism, imperial indoctrination, and the expansion of the United States Empire at the dawn of the 20th century? Spooky and loud. The student from Oklahoma raising a hand to tell the rest of the class about how a mob of white supremacist terrorists murdered several hundred Black community members, destroyed their homes and thriving businesses in the Greenwood District, and burned Black Wall Street to the ground on Memorial Day weekend 1921 during the Tulsa Race Massacre? One of the spookiest tales in U.S. history, ever undertold. Discussing the current state of the U.S. Empire and how it echoes the past? Terrifyingly spooky, to say the least. As I closed out my presentation, I proposed the following: “If indoctrination is a form of socially accepted sorcery, then the sugarcane plant has been wielded by the U.S. Empire as a back-breaking, money-making wand for capitalists.” Spooky, indeed.
O Grande Seu Edson: Last Afternoon with an Icon | Rio de Janeiro, Brasil | July 2025
Death is promised; ancestorhood, inevitable. But knowing with surety that it's the last time you'll see someone? Spooky. Listening to said person agree with your intuitive inkling and say farewell to your face over a year before they depart? Even spookier. This month, a dear friend's father, Edson Dias de Araujo (1947-2026), joined the ancestors on my mother's birthday. A July-born Cancer, just like Morris Jones Jr., Seu Edson reminded me of a Brazilian version my father in many ways. When he took me to the rodas de samba (samba circles) while I was studying abroad in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Seu Edson looked out for me as if I were one of his own daughters, sorrindo encuanto aprendi sambar com as velinhas nos bares da esquina (smiling while I learned to samba with the little old ladies at corner bars). In my memory, he will live on with a fedora on his head and a beer before him on the bar table, his squeaky cuica (friction drum) on his lap, the cowries of his necklace clinking together around his neck as he played, and a lit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. May he rest in power and return to the City of Rio de Janeiro in the next lifetime as it was Seu Edson’s wish to live it up as a Carioca (a person born in Rio) again upon his reincarnation. Saudades Seu Edson, you are already missed.
Merry Christmas and Happy Halloween, Daddy | New Orleans, Louisiana | October 2026
Sipping my tea on this Halloween morning as I reflected on this past month, I kept thinking of all the times in my adulthood that I heard Morris, Jones Jr. tell someone who didn’t know what he was talking about to “Google it” as a more hip update to “Go look it up,” one of his catchphrases from my childhood. Finding the mug I had planned to gift to my father for Christmas the year he became an ancestor during Mercury retrograde in Scorpio, and knowing he would love the present implications of his Ancestral Intelligence providing more accurate encyclopedic information from the spirit realm than Google’s Artificial Intelligence in the physical realm? Ironically spooky. In life, Morris Jones, Jr. made me into an endearing know-it-all, and in death, he left me here to channel his spirit and pontificate about all kinds of things to y’all, just like he used to.
Loc’d In: Game Night with the Cousins | New Orleans, Louisiana | October 2026
The memory of my big cousin on my Daddy's side laughing at my child self for thinking her toweringly tall father, Toby White (1945-2022), was a vampire because of his deep booming voice and nocturnal lifestyle while working at the U.S. Postal Service resurfacing on his heavenly birthday? Funny to remember, but spooky nonetheless. Rest in peace, Uncle Toby, October’s very own. Talking with my big cousin about my beloved uncle and our other cousin who I hadn't seen in years, and then ending up all together at the same place for game night, unplanned, a few days later? Spooky, but in a serendipitous way. Watching witches dressed in all black paddle board down the bayou at sunset with my new friend on the night of the Full Moon in Taurus? Peak spooky season. New Orleans? Captivatingly spooky.
Bayou St. John on the Full Moon in Taurus | New Orleans, Louisiana | October 2026
Although the sight of falling autumn leaves invokes the deathly call of winter, October remains a time to celebrate the harvest season. In an effort to emulate my loving father’s propensity to mark major milestones with magnificent meals, I took my inspiring mother and talented sister out for a Libra birthday dinner at a Michelin star-bearing, Black-owned restaurant. It was only a little spooky because all three of us are used to feeling the spirit of Morris Jones, Jr. close-by. He was definitely celebrating with us at Dakar NOLA as we combined his tradition of supporting Black owned businesses and his commitment to connecting with the African continent and our diaspora, by any means necessary—fashion and cuisine included. Morris Jones, Jr. is always with us.
Diasporic Dining at Dakar NOLA: A Luxurious Celebration of My Lovely Libras | New Orleans, Louisiana | October 2026
As October and Hoodoo Heritage Month come to a close, I invite you, dear reader, to honor your ancestors and to say their names. Live like the future ancestor you want to be remembered as, and keep the life-affirming traditions of your ancestors alive in ways that are meaningful to you and your lineage. The true death only arrives when no one alive remembers your name.
In solidarity,
Dr. Jones
P.S. “No es una bruja; es una doctora de brujas.” — Erykah Badu & The Alchemist, “Witch Doctor,” Before The World Blows (2026).