My Cozy Casita

 The need to share my journal writing revisits me.  This need to create a good archive of thought and narrative.  Sharing to dig out who I am at this moment.  Sharing to dig out who we can all be?  I remember digging to find the voice of the ancestors when the pandemic started in 2020 - wishing for their wisdom and comfort.  I do the same now.  I am the future ancestor in my life.  

 

It is important that I am not invisible during this point in time.  Raising our voices, we break the invisibility and we become our myriad of colors and shades, our diverse selves.  This is a tense point in history, the rise of this new wave of fascism.  It had started with the first term of D.T. but this second term created more intense crisis after crisis - a plan by the entire right wing being placed in motion.  This is how human cruelty creates a cradle.

 

And yet this is also when I learn from the ancestors again - this time Etty Hillesum.  She is being quite a muse.  She teaches me to resist going under the despair and to look at the current events from the other side of my own protection.  To raise and share my voice.  To let it be known that I am living in the new world now, even amongst the birth of these horrors.

 

Of course Etty Hillesum is not the only ancestor I am inspired by - for all our African Mothers who resisted and survived captivity and colonization have paved the road we all can walk on.  If they were able to survive all manner of things, their daughters can survive many things.  We can create community, care for children and each other.  We can mother ourselves into a new life.  

It is important that I see, I am living these moments with Bettsy by my side, as her wife.  It is important to say, I am living my Iyaworaje during this year regardless of what is being destroyed - I am reborn.  Life is movement no matter where the current goes.  

 

The world is--people are changing.  People are constructing methods of resistance that have no faith in anything but the community.  That in itself is wonderful even if the reason we are doing it is a horrible collapse.  This means we all understand the power of the collective.  I am glad that I get to see and work through these beginnings of collective moments, at the beginning of my spiritual vocation.  

 

Dressed in all white I will celebrate Valentine’s Day with my wife in our house, away from all noise - in this space we have created so I can listen to Olofi and the Orishas.  It is humbling to be asked to celebrate Orisha above all things, above all crisis and above all fear.  I celebrate them, for they are life - they guide us to be in good relationship with Olorun and the Ancestors.  

 

And they push us to find our real power. 

 

I have published Part 2 in Medium:

https://medium.com/@shanaliinchaustegui/spiritual-journey-espiritismo-d91ca3ff7776

 Nothing as an Aborisha or Aleyo can prepare you for what this is.  Of course coming in with a good foundation of spiritual work and shadow work will help a lot - in fact it is essential to start the process.  But for all that I have just lived, nothing prepared me for that.  It was all devotion, love, community and dedication to loving Oshun and Orisha.  

I am Iyawo de Oshun.  My Mother.  Beautiful.  Essenial to the world.  Essential to the birth of Kariocha.  I owe her my life.  She manifested in every single essence of me from Day 1 and she continues to understand me and love me as no one has.  I want to dedicate my writing in this year to the beautiful reflections of my soul and my growth.  To reflecting and being an ambassador to Oshun but also who she is in humbleness.  How wonderful to have Her as my Mother so that I can take each little step in love and in her care, in the divinity that she is.  I'm not sure that I will ever be someone to share a lot about my spiritual work in depth.  

You see I think there has to be some very respectful and loving care to how we speak of the mysteries.  It is good to demystify who we are as practitioners but, this religion is very much about relationship building.  Respect and relationship hand in hand.  And so no matter what reflections I write here or what information I give, it will never really describe anyone's experience with Orisha.  Only Ifa can give you insight on what each Odu and each Pataki and each lesson means for you.  

There are also many things from my Ita and my tratados that will never be talked about in this space because that secrecy is what keeps the religion sacred.  

But what I do want to reflect is personal growth.  It is personal experience in the daily.  It is lessons that I have that perhaps will help someone along the way in their spiritual life.  

Maferefun Oshun every day.  Maferefun my Yeye, My Mother, Iyalorde every second and every breath of my life.