Luisah Teish
Luisah Teish is a writer, performer and ritual priestess. She is the author of several books on African and African American Spiritual Culture and Feminist Myth. They include Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals a women’s spirituality classic, Carnival of the Spirit: Seasonal Celebrations and Rites of Passage, Jump Up: Good Times Throughout the Seasons with Celebrations from Around the World, and What Don’t Kill Is Fattening Revisited: Twenty Years of Poetry, Prose, and Myth.
Other writing credits include contributions to thirteen anthologies and published articles in magazines such as Essence, Ms., Shaman’s Drum, and the Yoga Journal.
Teish is an initiated elder (Iyanifa) in the Ifa/Orisha tradition of the West African Diaspora, and she holds a chieftaincy title (Yeye’woro) from the Fatunmise Compound in Ile Ife, Nigeria. Presently she is the Chair of the World Orisha Congress Committee on Women’s Issues. She is also a devotee of Damballah Hwedo, the Haitian Rainbow Serpent, under the guidance of Moma Lola.
She was awarded a Ph.D. in Spiritual Therapeutics from Open International University’s School of Complementary Medicine in Colombo Sri Lanka in 1993.
She holds an Inter-Faith minister’s license from the International Institute of Integral Human Sciences.
Teish designs and conducts weddings, naming ceremonies, memorials, and a host of seasonal celebrations. Teish designed a Rites of Passage program for the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and is the director of the Full Faze Passage Council, a multi-racial, multi-cultural network of artists, consultants, and spiritual advisors experienced in events design and production.
She is the Olori (director) of Ile Orunmila Oshun (The House of Destiny and Love- http://www.ileorunmilaoshun.org) and the School of Ancient Mysteries/Sacred Arts Center in Oakland, Ca. She has taught at the University of Creation Spirituality- Naropa Oakland, John F. Kennedy University, The Institute for Transpersonal Psychology and New College of California.
