Yowa Institute and its steward.
Yowa Institute of Ancestral Arts & Research supports individuals, collectives, and organizations in integrating ancestral technologies and earth-based practices into their lives and work.
Where the name comes from.
The Yowa is the Bakongo cosmogram: a cross within a circle. It traces the movement of the sun, the meeting of the physical and spiritual worlds, and the seasons of a life.
The Bakongo used it for centuries as an ancestral technology. Enslaved Africans trafficked to so-called United States carried it and adapted it. It has long helped Black and African diasporic people live in harmony with environment, community, ancestors, and self.
Many of us, especially in the African diaspora and in Indigenous communities, have been systematically cut off from the technologies that root us in land, sovereignty, and each other. Yowa Institute exists to help us reconnect with them and adapt them for our lives now.
The arts are the practices: divination, ritual, and earth-based work. The research is the study behind them, drawn from our training in anthropology and years of ancestral and community learning.
Black-founded, and open to those finding their way back.
As a Black-founded collective, one of Yowa Institute's main priorities is the well-being and liberation of Black people. Our offerings and philosophies reflect this orientation.
We also acknowledge that most people alive have been disconnected from their ancestral practices and from their ability to be well, because of colonization and white supremacy. These experiences show up differently depending on factors like cultural background and homelands. We do our best to craft offerings that are both diverse and culturally appropriate.
We work with community organizers, spiritual and wellness practitioners, activists, teachers, care workers, and the organizations that serve them.
I am Aaliyah Shivers, M.A.
I am a Black, queer, neurodivergent descendant of the African diaspora. I am a conjure woman, healing artist, and mystic, and I trained as an anthropologist. My work is personal and political.
My ancestors were enslaved in Virginia and North Carolina. Their descendants moved through Tennessee and Kentucky and eventually to Missouri. Through ancestral research I found ties to West Africa, and I traced the Scots-Irish people, particularly from Ulster, who enslaved my ancestors. That was painful work to uncover.
Much of my path has been self-led. I am an Aborisha and a student of several African traditional and diaspora traditions, and I have practiced and taught Hoodoo for eight years. Divination connected me to elevated ancestors who encouraged me to heal these wounds. The inspiration for Sacred Restoration was born there, and Yowa grew from it.
Whether I am leading a workshop, consulting with an organization, or developing healing resources, my goal is the same: collaborative spaces where people reclaim their power, reconnect with their ancestors, and cultivate liberation seven generations back and seven generations forward.
- FounderYowa Institute of Ancestral Arts & Research, 2024 to present
- Adjunct instructorUniversity of Cincinnati, Medical Anthropology and Religion in Culture
- Healing Arts DirectorTikkun Farm, 2022 to 2024
- Case manager and group facilitatorLove In Action Healthy Minds Day Program, youth mental health groups
- Tarot readerStudying for over twenty years, reading professionally for four
- Hoodoo practitioner and teacherEight years
- AborishaStudent of several African traditional and diaspora traditions