What if healing is more than medicine?
What if it is also memory, faith, family, music, community, and the wisdom carried from one generation to the next?
In The Simmerpot, Anisha "Mama Moon" Newbill explores the living legacy of Black American healing traditions through the stories, beliefs, and experiences that shaped her life. Drawing from the wisdom of mothers, grandmothers, aunties, elders, and ancestors, she reflects on the traditions that helped generations of Black families navigate illness, hardship, spirituality, and survival.
From Southern folk practices and Rootwork to the Black Church, ancestral connection, music, community, and the responsibilities of the healer, Newbill examines the many ways healing can take place-in the body, in the home, in the spirit, and within the community.
Part memoir, part cultural reflection, and part spiritual exploration, The Simmerpot is an invitation to remember the knowledge that came before us, to honor those who carried it, and to consider how ancestral wisdom can continue to guide us in the present.
This is a story about heritage, resilience, identity, and the enduring human desire to make one another whole.
