Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Giavanni Washington. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Dr. Giavanni , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck is my latest creative labor of love. It’s a 44-card deck and guidebook featuring gorgeous photos of real Black women in L.A. and Culver City embodying goddesses from Africa, which is set to be published by Hay House Dec. 12 (and is available for pre-orders now).
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
The Black Goddess Within coalesced after several events. First, I was transformed by my doctoral work that culminated in receiving a PhD from UCLA’s Department of World Art and Cultures. I had spent years studying ancestral percussive healing traditions in Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Ethiopia, Guinea, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Senegal, Trinidad, Uganda and the United States. But my interests were outside of academia. I wanted to facilitate and share communal healing with others. I eventually found myself working with a business coach, learning the principles of entrepreneurship so I could turn my academic background into a business.
As my personal spiritual journey deepened, I realized that almost all of the Tarot and Oracle decks on the market featured angels, goddesses, and fairies of European descent. Some decks even portrayed goddesses from Africa as white. During the same time period, I was facilitating personal development work with small groups of Black women. One of our gatherings was on the day that the Ferguson police officers who killed an unarmed Black teenager were acquitted. That evening we cried, we held each other’s pain and then committed to making the world safer for Black people.
The Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck was born as a celebration of Black beauty, Black divinity and Black joy. As the first and only oracle deck featuring photos of real Black women, the deck is designed to connect Black women and their allies with lost history, heal the wounds of colonialism and combat our society-wide addiction to watching violence against Black bodies, which I call “Black Death Porn.” The deck normalizes the beauty, strength and humanity of Black bodies and the souls that inhabit them.
The process of creating the deck was a collaboration of communal healing. I led a group of Black women through a transformative process while on retreat, culminating in a photo shoot of each participant meeting the Goddess. The deck’s 29 Goddess cards and 15 Ancestral Wisdom cards are a celebration of contemporary women of various sizes, shades, abilities, and sexual orientations.
To deepen the journey, I also offer workshops designed for Black women and their allies:
– The Black Goddess Reunion, an online community hub that offers a monthly goddess training/oracle deck reading, a monthly goddess council for witness and support, happy hours, and the Black Goddess library of resources and exclusive downloads.
– Ancestral Alchemy, a 1:1 cowry shell divination derived from the Dagara tradition in Burkina Faso, helps women access ancestral wisdom, guidance and support.
– Liberation Alchemy, a group program blending the wisdom of the Black goddesses, ancestral healing and a restorative community to create liberated healers.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When I initially self-published a 13-card oracle deck in 2016, I dreamed that the deck would one day be picked up by the largest international publisher of self-help and spiritual books and decks in the world: Hay House. I thought it was a reach, perhaps an unattainable dream.
And I did not achieve that dream overnight. There were years of ups and downs. But my biggest accomplishment was sticking with my dream and maturing in my business enough to approach Hay House with confidence as an artist with a viable idea that I’d already proven could succeed in the market. First, I independently sold 1500 decks, which required me to learn about self-publishing, printing, marketing and Facebook ads, packaging, shipping and real-time customer service. After all of these steps, I was able to approach Hay House with a powerful idea backed with financial data (ROI, break-even point, ad spend, etc.) from my independent publishing.
In 2021, Hay House made me an offer to publish a 44-card deck (3.5 times as many cards as the pilot deck). Because my deck features photography and graphic design, I had to pull together a team of artists to bring the vision to life. I managed the entire project from concept to execution, including research, graphic design, hair and makeup, wardrobe, venue scouting and selection, and I guided the three months of personal development for the participating women before the photoshoot. And now, my dream is finally coming to fruition.
I’m proud that the Black Goddess Within Oracle deck will represent Black Divinity in the international market of spiritual gifts and books. It took patience, persistence and passion.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Pick the thing that works for you. You don’t have to be on every platform all the time. Go where your audience is and be consistent. If you’re only going to post once a week, post consistently every week. And don’t be afraid to show people other parts of your life, within reason, so they get a full picture of you as a human. Ninety percent of people who see your posts don’t engage so you never know who is watching and what might come of it.
Follow and engage others in your market by writing comments and sharing. Be helpful. Be generous. And have fun.
Contact Info:
- Website: blackgoddesswithin.com
- Instagram: @blackgoddesswithin
- Facebook: Facebook.com/giavanni.washington
- TikTok: @blackgoddesswithin
Image Credits