After they’ve tried church, therapy, self-help and meditation, and never quite found what they were looking for, people in Milwaukee come to see Angela Smith.
Smith is the owner and operator of The Zen Dragonfly. She uses African traditional methods to assist people in their physical, mental and spiritual healing.
“I’m the person nobody knows they came to see,” she said. “People get to a point where nothing is working. And then they walk in here.”
Spiritual and life coaching
Smith, 63, is a hoodoo practitioner and rootworker, though most Milwaukeeans first meet her through “acceptable” titles like Reiki master, yoga instructor or life coach, she said.
Smith’s healing work spans Reiki, tarot, bone readings, spiritual baths, shamanic journeying and herbal medicine.
Only later do many discover the deeper tradition behind her work.
Her healing practice, rooted in Black Southern folk traditions and ancestral veneration, welcomes anyone in need of help.
Smith doesn’t promise miracles. And she doesn’t advertise cures.
“My job is to help people do their own healing,” she said. “I can break something open. I can clear a path. But you have to walk it.”
Still, people continue to arrive at her door, quietly and urgently, after prayer, therapy and everything in between.
“When you’ve tried all you can,” Smith said, “I’m usually where you come next.”
Tanisha Williams, a friend and healing guest of Smith’s, said Smith is talented in many ways but especially at helping people find what type of healing can help them.
“She just knows how to appropriately assess someone and guide them with appropriate divination,” Williams said.
A lifestyle
For Smith, healing is more than work, it’s how she lives her life.
Smith’s day begins with tending to her ancestors. She rings a bell, pours water, lights candles and reads Psalms. Then she welcomes healing guests.
“Never clients,” she said.
Her home and workspace reflect her practice: altars in every room, artwork celebrating Black history and spirituality, herbs and botanicals curated with care. Friends and students have encouraged her to turn it into a visual book.
She’s considering it.
She laughs when asked about the aesthetics: “I want you to walk into my house and know an African lives here.”
Matthew Nervig, a friend of Smith’s, said she guides others to be the same way so that they aren’t dependent on her.
“She encourages everyone to pursue their own education and personal practice,” he said. “As opposed to keeping people dependent on her so that she can make money, she urges people to learn on their own and be really helpful and genuine.
Serving Milwaukee
Smith said she did not intend to become Milwaukee’s spiritual triage center.
For years, she hid her hoodoo practice, posting only glimpses of altars or crystals. But in 2018, she said she heard her grandmother’s voice say: “You can’t hide no more.”
Her public announcement cost her followers, but brought the people who needed her most.
“Word of mouth built this,” she said. “I don’t advertise. People come because someone told them, ‘When nothing else works, go see Miss Angela.’”
Nervig said Smith thrives at making people feel welcome once they find her.
“She has a real desire for everyone interested in learning more to have the knowledge,” he said.
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Over the years, Smith has seen the city’s quiet desperation up close.
“There’s a lot of fear in Milwaukee,” she said. “A lot of being stuck. A lot of repeating cycles. And people don’t know where to go when the usual systems don’t fix it.”
Her School of Good JuJu launched during the pandemic and filled immediately. Smith said nearly all the students had the same story. They left church. They tried therapy. They tried being “fine.” And they were still searching.
Williams, who attended the School of Good JuJu, said it felt like a “meant to be” moment.
“We all need a guide,” Williams said. “It’s like how they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
Smith believes the surge of seekers reflects a deeper shift.
“People are exhausted,” she said. “They’re tired of judgment. They’re tired of being told what to believe. They just want to heal.”
Her space offers something Milwaukee’s more formal institutions often can’t: privacy, acceptance, cultural understanding and spiritual agency.
“There’s magic here every day,” she said simply. “People feel that.”
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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