Aligned with the Spirit, Felicia Webster Creates in Love
By Leo Adam Biga
When the spirit moves Omaha native Felicia Webster, it’s in service of others. The teaching-healing artist, educator, poet, storyteller, actor, emcee and self-love activist goes by WithloveFelicia because whatever she does comes from her heart.
Felicia Webster, artistically known as WithloveFelicia, is a multidimensional artist who believes in utilizing the arts to educate and entertain.
Photo: Lasha Goodwin
As her tagline reads: “If it’s not with love, why do it?”
This self-described “earth mama” is a single mother who lives by the maxim you must care for yourself if you’re to care for others.
“Self-care is necessary for self-preservation,” she said. “I enjoy seeing people talk about it, act upon it, express it. It’s been a part of my life a very long time.“
This practice becomes crucial amid pandemic and social upheaval.
“A car can’t run without gas. For us to keep moving we have to make sure we’re filling up no matter what that movement looks like,” she said, “because the revolution starts within us and it amplifies based on the work we show up to do in the world.”
To thrive during radical change, Webster preaches we take steps that make us the best version of ourselves.
“I am such an advocate-activist making sure we reboot-rejuvenate so that we can rebirth. There’s a reimagining, restructuring, rebirthing, recreation, resurrection happening. What is going on in the world is having human beings transform what wasn’t working. This is an opportunity to really look at structures of employment as organizations and companies once so dogmatic about having employees show up to work sick now try to be safe..“
Suddenly, a work from home option is a reality for many. “There are so many benefits of being able to work at home,” she said.
Though due to COVID-19 precautions much of her work now happens remotely, online, she largely signs off social media on weekends.
“I just take a break where I’m not messaging so that I can pour into myself. That consists of meditation, affirmation, eating healthy foods, taking walks, writing, creating, self-massage, listening to music that is soothing and calming or causing me to dance and sing,”
Webster considers her work ordained.
“We’re all given a gift to share for the greatest good. It is never about us. It comes through us. Once we realize that, then we’re fulfilling our purpose. I lean into the gift I was given so I can be an agent for change and a spiritual warrior to beautify the universe and serve others.”
Just as the spiritually-attuned creative feels connected to the divine, she feels tied to the souls around her and those who preceded her.
“Spirituality is my foundation in everybody I work with, everything I’m connected to, everything I give birth to. I’m blessed I can be in tune with my ancestors. My spirit guides. The source provides.”
-Felicia Webster
The versatile Webster, who also paints and draws, enjoys the range of expressions she creates in. “I don’t limit myself. I believe in infinite possibilities and I walk in the vortex of that frequency.”
Her love of language took early root at the knees of her elders.
“There’s something about sitting up under them, being present, and listening to the stories they told, the lessons woven in the stories, the laughter, the joy, the blessings, the experiences, the challenges, that moved me as a child. Then my mother always made sure she read to us and took us to the library, where books allowed me to tap into my wildest imagination and dreams.”
The village that nurtured her creative spirit extended to “an incredible fourth grade teacher who used to read after recess every day at Mount View Elementary,” she recalls. “The words created beautiful canvases of opportunity to travel beyond the space and time I currently was in.”
Other expressions came at Central High and beyond.
“I had grand opportunities to be involved in church plays, school plays, to play musical instruments, to be in choir in school and outside of school.”
The rich tapestry of her life is wrapped up in her late mother – a Black Brit of Nigerian ancestry who met Webster’s father when visiting a bestie here. Webster and her siblings crossed the pond to visit their African British relatives and the Brits visited their American family in Omaha.
“My grandmother sent parcels, so we grew up eating Cadbury chocolate, English biscuits, salt and vinegar chips. We grew up on Caribbean, African, traditional English and American soul food.”
Tea-time was a ritual inheritance.
Webster attributes her getting a bachelor’s degree in elementary education (Temple University) and a masters in early childhood education (UNO) to her mother’s thirst for knowledge.
“My mother was an educator. She worked with people with disabilities. Her love for people and education rubbed off on me. My parents were adamant about us getting a good education. Systemic, institutional oppression and racism factored in their lives, but they believed in doing the best you could to advance yourself and your community. That is why I went into education.”
Even as a child, Webster craved broader horizons. “I knew my world was bigger than Omaha, Nebraska.” Nurturing her curiosity were Aframerican Bookstore proprietors the late Marshall Taylor and his wife Annette.
MARSHALl Taylor
1937-2020
“They were a very important part of my journey. When I was a teenager I was interested in who I was as a young Black girl and the history of my people. The bookstore became a fortress of knowledge and wisdom.” - Felicia Webster
She practically lived there.
“Mr. Marshall and Miss Annette embraced me and I was opened to a world that allowed me to learn so much about who I was and how vast I am in being a woman of African descent and what that looks like living in America.”
A hunger for identity took Webster on a personal journey.
Aframerican Bookstore
The Black bookstore is located at 3226 Lake St. The store has been in operations since the 80s. Felicia found her identity at the book shop.
“I met a young man here from the east coast who was into Black studies. It was a marriage of intellectual knowledge and tenets. He was my first love. But he could not stand Omaha. It was not as progressive as his life in New York City. Then he left Omaha and my heart left with him. We decided together we would finish up our degrees at Temple University.”
In Philadelphia, she said, “I was awakened in the most incredible way. Not that the East Coast didn’t kick my butt, because it did. However, it taught me many valuable lessons I was able to bring back that shaped who I am today.”
“I definitely learned how to hustle. If you had a gift, you had a business. I learned the power of community. Surrounded by Black people coming together collectively for the greater good really sat in my soul. I was part of that particular energy and vibration in the ‘90s. The poetry and spoken word scene was just breathtaking. Great open mics and venues for people to play.
The passion people had behind their craft was transformative.”
She found traction performing with the spoken word group Daughters of the Diaspora. Some artists (Jill Scott) she shared the mic with found stardom.
Webster rode that heady experience back to Omaha. “When I came back I was on fire. I brought that mentality and spirit back with me. ”
Hungry to start a scene like the one she knew in Phillie, she launched the Inforthymz, Poetic Fusion and Poetry In Motion series. She later became a founding member of The Wordsmiths, partnered with Michelle Troxclair on Verbal Gumbo, stirred The Roux, and stoked The Love Down Below.
She created a healing symposium for women – The Release. She’s since formed the band, WithLoveFelicia and the Light. Paula Bell appreciates that Webster facilitates communal platforms for diverse people to discover, express, create, heal and intersect.
“I met Felicia at a spoken word open mic venue she created and was immediately drawn to her benevolent smile, warm aura and powerful presence. She stimulates spaces that ensure poets and guests freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or ridicule. Her essence forms strangers into families.”
Bell likes that Webster turns “basic spaces into chic, eclectic sets full of colors, layers, textures; much like the people drawn there.”
Given Webster’s community focus, it’s no surprise she delivered a 2015 Ted Talk on “Community – Standing for Something.”
Much of her work combines education and entertainment or “edutainment” (coined by legendary rapper KRS-One) in performances and workshops for organizations such as Why Arts?, Collective for Youth and North Star Foundation.
The Nebraska Arts Council teaching and touring artist does a lot of work with the Omaha Public Schools, including the Minnesota Humanities “Immersions” project that introduces educators to Omaha’s indigenous cultures. Webster’s spoken word soliloquies explore North O’s rich Black cultural heritage.
Humanities consultant Elmer Crumbley brought Webster to the project because she “was a difference-maker” at Skinner Elementary Magnet Center when he was principal there.
“Our school was having a problem with language and after I had Felicia in the building for some time,” Crumbley said, “our language scores began to rise. If there were classrooms that needed help with language I would assign Felicia to those classrooms. She’s very charismatic.”
“Creating event space, performance space, safe space,” Webster said, “the power of affirmation is in every space I am. Starting in my 20s affirmation became a huge part of my being. Part has to do with my spiritual journey. Back east I was surrounded by a beautiful circle of Black women who would gather to read and heal and study together and to affirm one another weekly. That was a part of my life line.”
A decade ago she began posting daily affirmations online. The dope positivity of those messages has become her signature testimony.
“The whispers of my ancestors told me this is what I’m supposed to do and I listened. If you look at my posts, they’re all inspirational. That’s my mission online – to change the trajectory of what we see and hear because that feeds us. And we’re constantly being fed in this information age. We have a choice of what we want to eat and I want to give hungry people healthy choices.”
When Webster lost a job at a local nonprofit about six years ago, she flipped the disappointment into opportunity.
“It left a blank canvas for me to tap into for possibilities – and they’ve been endless since then. I walk in the light that everything happens for a reason.”
Mindset explains why she can turn the page.
Felicia’s performances promote social change, love and build authentic relationships with people around the globe.
Photo: Lasha Goodwin
“In the moment when challenge happens, I go straight into problem solving. I’m like, Okay, what can I do next? That starts at my spiritual foundation. My shield is up, I am prepared to go into whatever battle is before me and face it head on. And figure it out. It’s not what happens, it’s how you deal with it. I know that’s not the way everybody else does it, but that’s how I was created and molded, I’m a warrior. I am not built to fall apart.”
Resiliency is embedded in her.
“Part of my life journey dealt with domestic violence and rape,” she confides. “After getting help I was fired up about how I’d overcome and what I did to heal.”
It led her to advocate for women and to identify red flags in their relationships. “I get hyped on information. I just love to learn.” But, she found, “not everybody wants to hear what you have to say.”
That’s when she felt led to deal with the charged subject in the framework of a play she wrote called “Abuse is Not Love.” It’s been performed in Phillie and Omaha. She’s rewriting the play and, she said. “It’s taken a turn beyond what I could have imagined.”
Losing her mother last year prompted her to take “a pause” to heal.
Seeking help, she stresses is not weakness, “In self-care it is important to be purposeful in allowing yourself to cry, to scream, to go to therapy, to get massages, to do self-discovery and the shadow work.”
COVID has scuttled her in person teaching-performing, but she’s adapted.
“I shifted and transformed with the time [becoming more tech savvy to do live streaming]. You can either roll with the tide or get rolled over and drown, so I now offer who I am and what I do online.“
“I love seeing the new blood, the new energy. I really do, because that’s how the baton gets passed as the landscape of artistic expression continues to get richer and brighter and wider.”
She’s feeling an Omaha’s Black culture “resurgence.”
She’s encouraged many fellow creatives to pursue their own gifts. Paula Bell credits Webster with sparking her career.
“I feared public speaking. She helped me overcome my insecurities and ignited a creative fire I didn’t know existed in me. Felicia helped me realize my gift for writing Spoken Word, which led to performing, which led to teaching [with the Nebraska Writers Collective].”
Sister in the spirit Michelle Troxclair, founder of Verse, Inc, and a Mind & Soul radio host, shared a similar experience,
“Felicia is the reason I do spoken word today. I’d been writing poetry all my life, but when she and I met working at an after school program, she encouraged me to read it out loud at Inforhythmz. I was terrified. When I finished, I received this rousing applause. I was bitten. I found myself going back again and again. I had found a home and a great friend. I credit her for bringing spoken word to Omaha. I credit her for giving me new purpose. I will never forget that - I will always love her for that.”
Meanwhile, Webster keeps doing her freestyling, which mixes oral tradition, spoken word, song, beat boxing, improv – all in service of the tongue.
“The spirit channels through me. I am truly a medium for spirit and my ancestors. They show up and say what they have to say deep within my soul. A lot of things creatively live in my head and soul. But that doesn’t leave anything for history when I’m no longer present, so when people ask me to perform it again, I can’t, because it just happened in that moment.”
Thus, she’s trying to record her performance pieces for posterity, where they can live on, naturally, with love.
You can Follow Felicia on Facebook here.