MY STORY

Dr. Omileye “Omi” - Writer, artist, poet, Dr. of Classical (Daoist) Medicine and Acupuncture, trauma-focused counselor, mindfulness teacher, healer

Hello. My name means, “Water Gives Me Joy, Honor, and Dignity”. When I was younger, I had a strange experience—I saw myself walking to school from above, as if watching my own life unfold from afar. Around the same time, I was going through a deep sadness. There was an emptiness I couldn’t explain, only that it felt like something was missing—a place that was Home, though not in the ordinary sense.

That moment opened a question that has followed me ever since: What is Home? And more importantly, how do we return to it?

That question led me from my own personal microcosm into the larger world. It became a journey through the layers of trauma—personal, collective, ancestral, land, —and how they all shape our forgetting. I began to wonder: Have we all drifted from The Way? From Home? From beauty? The Waters?

And so, I searched. I studied and worked with elders and wisdom keepers across cultures, lived by the waterways and learnt from her. I underwent initiations especially connected to Water Wisdom. I trained in multiple healing modalities—some ancient, some modern. Recently I have traveled across Africa and the wisdom of other ancient cultures looking for the alchemy of healing our lineage, our Selves, our Earth - then I came across Kintshugi, a Japanese art form where we fix broken pieces of pottery with gold. It was like a gift from the heavens giving me a clearer insight into my journey and all the work I have done through my lifetime - to help others see that they, we, and our world is not broken, and our cracked pieces an open road to our greater healing. I thought it was not a coincidence that I have been in Africa doing ancestral lineage healing work and working on the last chapter of my book, “The Stories in the Blood: The Alchemy of Healing the Racialized and Ancestral Trauma Body” - when Kintsugi visited me. The last chapter of my book is Opening to Tenderness. I have lived every chapter of the book and that is how I know Kintsugi is a gift. I call it Kintsugi-o, in honor of my love of my African roots, wisdom of Africa, Asia, and the waters I live by. In the African tradition “o” is an emphasis, a nod towards our magnificence. It is the letter that sacred water begins.

I come from a lineage of African Caribbean Vision Keepers and Dreamers. As a Fifth Generation Vision Keeper, I listen for the drumbeat of my ancestors—and the rhythm of the Earth—guiding us all back to remembrance, to healing, to our magnificent weird Selves.