What Holding Community Spaces Has Taught Me.

Boundaries, Care, and the Realities of Community

Jun 28, 2026

What Hoodoo Community Spaces Have Taught Me Over the Years

Over the last six months Hoodoo Office Hours has taught me so show much as always, I am thankful for all the lessons and blessing Ancestors show and give me.

I’m sharing this for the Hoodoo, Rootwork community spaces guides, holders now, and those who will hold them after me.

For over a decade, I have held spaces for community. And I’m still learning, growing, evolving as we all are as human beings. I’ve held these spaces for people in many different forms, from healing circles to conjured conversations. on talk radio, who remembers talk radio, Periscope, community gatherings, and now office hours.

And if there’s one thing this work has made clear, it’s this: holding space is not for the faint of heart. You can’t hold community spaces without a limit.

I’ve tried my best to keep these spaces accessible on purpose. Low cost, sometimes free when people truly couldn’t pay. Until one of my Spirits said they need to pay something, even if it’s $5.00, so I don’t offer free space anymore.

But I do believe people should be able to learn, ask questions, and take part in a spiritual community without everything being locked behind a door. But Hoodoo is a closed practice, and some things have to be behind those doors. So, it’s a fine balance when something is a closed practice.

Accessibility has also brought lessons from people and the Ancestors.

Here are some of the things this past couple of months Hoodoo Office Hours taught me.

These are not complaints; these are practitioners’ community guide observations. And let’s be crystal clear, these don’t make people bad. It makes them human.

Sometimes, no matter how gently you say something or how many times you repeat it, some people will still test your boundaries. And it has nothing to do with you. You can recheck your notes and speak clearly, but people will still try to step over your boundaries.

You can explain that certain questions require divination, or are personal and layered, and that those questions deserve the proper spiritual process. You can say it with care, with clarity, with compassion. But because of where they are, care, clarity, and compassion won’t land in their heart or mind as such. And with all the care, clarity, and compassion in the world, someone will still sometimes try to bring that question into the shared space, shifting the entire community space toward themselves. Or they will contact you privately after you have already answered that what they need requires work, time, and divination. Community can be messy, no perfection required, because the human experience is all of these things.

And even when you explain what the space is, and what it isn’t, some people will still reach beyond it. They’ll send an email or message about intensely personal situations. I can’t answer every call.

And sometimes, in this work, you’ll have to say again and again that this requires divination. Not because you don’t care. But because you do. Because real spiritual work has a process, it has order. It has limits that protect both the practitioner and the person seeking help.

Running community groups over the years has also taught me that you have to be okay with saying access does not equal capacity. Just because someone shows up to a two-hour session does not mean they can receive years of training, understanding, or skill in that time. Yet people will ask for it. Be okay with your no.

Some people want full teachings, complete systems, highly personal answers, all in two hours. When you say Hoodoo Office Hours isn’t a format that can teach all of that, it was never designed to do so. Some understand, some won’t.

And when that happens, it reveals something deeper about how some people arrive in community space. Some come into spiritual spaces neutral. And some come in carrying open wounds. They come looking for relief, for answers, for someone to hold what they’ve been carrying alone. And sometimes, they want you to solve years’ worth of problems in a two-hour space. And you have to set a boundary that you cannot.

Oh, to be human, wanting to undo it all right now. Wanting the pains of life to be undone is a real thing, but sometimes, as the community guide, they place you in these roles without realizing it, a role that has nothing to do with you or what you actually are to them in that moment.

They replace you with what they want to say to their caregiver. A parent. Onto you. Sometimes they want you to be the fixer, caregiver, parent, and some will get upset that you didn’t fix it all. You didn’t teach enough, give enough answers. They didn’t want a community or a shared experience; they wanted a fixer. And in these spaces, you do your best to reach everyone and everything, but it’s truly impossible to meet everyone’s needs.

So, when you redirect gently, respectfully, and appropriately, it doesn’t always land as guidance. Sometimes it lands as a rejection. Some project onto you, no matter how kind and compassionate you are, because they are looking at you from their wounds, not what is actually happening in the space. Sometimes it lands as you “not helping,” even when you’re actually trying your best to keep the integrity of the space. You still must be patient and compassionate.

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I’ve also had to sit with this truth over the years, which I am sharing with you.

Vulnerability and boundary-crossing are not the same thing. Not every act of sharing is aligned. Not every moment of openness is appropriate for the community spaces. And sometimes, what looks like vulnerability is actually a search for immediate soothing, validation, or attention, especially in a group setting that isn’t designed for that level of personal processing. They want to process their pain out loud. Some won’t care how kind a patient you are; they will still try to hijack the community space and make it all about themselves. Because they are in pain, hurt and many are learning what it looks like to be in community. And you have to manage many types of emotions and capacity in one space so be patient with yourself and others.

Something else I’ve learned over the last 15 years with social media is how people move through spiritual spaces now. And that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your teaching style or your work. Many people come, leave, gather pieces from different teachers, traditions, and systems, and then come back asking to be taught as if there hasn’t been any break in the relationship, practice, or foundation. Don’t take that personally but set your ground rules.

Or sometimes they say they do it this way over here, and when you say differently, different lineages do things differently; some tend not to understand that you can’t piece together a practice here and there.

Social media can sometimes have people hopping everywhere, creating something scattered and not rooted. not held together, just pieced together. And it’s not about control. But I tell my mentees to curate their experience on social instead of just being overwhelmed by so many options. Doing this work you also have to be comfortable with saying I don’t know you well enough to teach you certain things. Or if that’s what xyz told you to do, then I can’t cross-reference their instructions.

It’s about understanding that spiritual work has form for a reason. There is a difference between being guided and just doing whatever you feel in the moment.

What’s also real and something people don’t talk about enough is that you can give, and give, and give, and people will still misunderstand you. And that is okay.

They will still project. They will still create stories. They will still speak on things they were never present for.

At some point, when you do community work this long, stop trying to correct every narrative, story, rumor, or misinformation about you. You keep your integrity intact and keep moving. So, for those who will do this work long-term after I’m gone, remember that. You can’t spend your time correcting everything you hear about you.

What’s changed for me over the years.

I no longer measure my care by how much I accommodate. I measure it by how well I uphold what the space is actually for.

Office hours are not divination. It’s not a place for emergency care. It’s not a replacement for personal spiritual work.

It is a space for guidance, clarification, and learning within a shared community, making connections and support from others to the next.

I am comfortable in my no I cannot do that more than ever in my work and life.

When Hoodoo office hours return in September, the structure will be different. There will still be space to connect, to ask, to learn. Even the after-space on Voxer, where we continue our conversation, will be a few days, not an open-ended extension.

Not because I don’t care or don’t want to share. But because I’ve learned what happens when everything stays consistently open. And when Ancestors say enough put a limit on things follow their guided directions.