Our Approach to Spiritual Community
Is it a church?
Is it an ile?
Is it a library?
I am in practice
I got to this place, ultimately, as a result of studying at the feet of my teachers, my teacher's teachers and even their teacher's teachers. So, I say like I was taught to say when I was an aborisha (novice) and a iyawo (a newly initiated Priest), if you have an issue take it up with my elders.
My Godmother is Iyanifa Ifalade Tashia Asante.
More on my lineage.
In my journey to practice my purpose, which is to facilitate space for spiritual expansion, my biggest breakthroughs have come as I deepen my understanding that
I am not called to be right nor still in my understanding of God-infinite.
Any thought or words I might say are already incomplete. I know enough to know that. Any confidence I have will fail in the face of greater insight.
I am only called to facilitate a loving space for expansion.
And there are infinite ways to even do that.
One of my teachers, Awo Falokun Fatunmbi, taught me that what we understand as Ifa-Orisa spiritual practice, in its original Yoruba context, is a function of the extended family. What life is in community is the very thing that makes up the contents of the spiritual practice we call Ifa*. Spiritual life (what we may understand as religious life) is just life. It is not separated because it is not separate. For me this means the cultural, spiritual and religious beliefs; the practices and meaning-making systems; the very psyche of each individual person, family and the community at large, just living their day-to-day lives is what constitutes the spiritual practice.
For many of us in the U.S. we come into contact with the tradition through popular culture, not knowing the depths of the references to Orisa, the language nor rituals. For many of us (millions in fact), we are born into a family that practices some elements of the tradition. Based on my experience and witnessing, most of us that I have encountered in the U.S. come to the tradition as adults after a spiritual OR cultural arts quest or perhaps out of divinely inspired curiosity. The story is: there's a person that we meet that we begin to study with or under and not a story where we are born into a world and family that practices.
The biggest challenge that I have seen in our formal and informal Ifa-Orisa communities has come as a result of trying to craft an African family-based communal way of life out of geographically dispersed folk and a religious institutional form. We usually do not live near one another. We often come from traditions and have conscious and unconscious worldviews that function in extreme contrast to the Ifa-Orisa tradition we've adopted, let alone the differences among us in how we were raised. There is nothing wrong with us children of diaspora wholeheartedly reconnecting with African spiritual traditions as best we can. Thankfully, technology is hhelping us closethat gao more and more. My question and my calling is to create a safe space for growth and transformation which I know is the purpose of family; the purpose of embodiment. My goal is to close the myriad gaps and widen the affections of those of us who choose to come together for growth and transformation.
The concepts I offer here are me responding to my own inquiry; me trying on various possibilities for creating spiritual community, shared spiritual care and collective responsibility in this age.
*Ifa is sometimes shorthand for the many traditions derived from the Yoruba people of West Africa that include Ifa and Orisa practices that have many different names in the Americas and Caribbean.
Self-guided &
Self-determined
I trust the divine indwelling intelligence in each of us. I seek to facilitate space for practice; a space for the sharing of tools and resources. I seek to inspire.
I am excited for how we get to grow together!
Though I am not called to be a traditional spiritual leader, I do hold training and credentials as well as a vision; I hold space for my growth vision to be actualized and constantly updated by spirit. I am not in charge of your spiritual journey. You are! Come and go as you please.
Ain't that good news!?!
And still there is a place for discipline.
READ MORE
Love & Non-judgement
Accountability does not have to be punitive, and still we can be specific as we support one another in our growth. We can consent and find consensus to meet each of us (including us with us, self with self) where ever we are in our journey.
The muscles that grow Love (agape) are weakened by judgement. We must practice another way. What I have discovered is that a robust forgiveness practice leads to pre-forgiveness. Pre-forgiveness allows Love (aka non-judgment). Love leads to infinite oneness.
In a way, meditation is stilling the mind long enough to pause judgment, access peace and bask in the glory of God / Oneness / Love / Divine Light / Ela.
We access moments of transcendence by practicing ANY of the infinite forms of Love! READ MORE
Time-Space & Practice
Technology can give us access to maintaining the relationships we cultivate in real time-space. Asynchronous (online and accessible anytime) content and ceremony are a bridge only used by a few prior to 2020. Now they are used by the masses.
Our wide variety of upbringings, our pasts, can be a challenge to building community but so can our distance from each other. Every loving tool is like a bridge and useful to facilitate our practice and to grow our connection despite the fact that we are spread across the world.
And still we have the ancient technology of the drum; technology resources abound including the intuitives / channels, snail mail, the stars and more.
We tap into one another as we tap into the infinite. READ MORE
Infinite
There is no end to the paths of enlightenment. What resonates at any given point in time may be ancestral, based on who is facilitating, energetic, familial, cultural, aesthetic or arbitrary. But I trust the spark of God-Infinite in us all to lead the way. Here in each practice the way is rooted in an underlying love-based structure.
Discipline
There is still a place for discipline. I love the discipline and pressure I've experienced during my initiations. I crave those sorts of refining experiences and opportunities to learn life lessons through the rigor of ritual. I love that I can opt into an experience like that as opposed to just haphazardly stumbling upon a lesson in life circumstances or through conflict. Though I give thanks for those as well. I still have a peaceful preference.
Thankfully, we get to opt-into our peaceful growth some times. Some of the spaces you will have access to via your Transcend Practice will be disciplined, have very specific and challenging protocols and activities. For those who revel in these types of experiences I look forward to such collaborations and the ways we deepen our relationships by supporting one another through it. We all have our different preferences, needs and values.
The choice is all yours!
Time-Space & Practice
Part of our work here in Transcend (especially in the Priestly path) is to be less interested in the material, less interested in the perceptions of our senses and memory, and more interested in spirit, energy and facility with our minds.
If you've known me and my partner, Alexis, for any length in time you know we actively recruit all our loved ones to Durham.
However, what we know is that there is no distance between us in spirit. We come together and build relationship and build practice to support what we do when we are not in the same place. This practice of coming together to retreat is like a form of training wheels. We learn how it feels to BE together, to BE in spirit together. Then when we are connecting virtually or through our writing and other creative forms, we can re-activate that beingness, that proximity. And there are many forms of training wheel to support our being together and our release of attachment to time-space and the belief in our senses and old stories/memories.
Connect to Transcend Community
The message board is another way to be engaged. Through posts, audio, video and more we get to be together!
Go there NowMy Teachers
I got to this place, ultimately, as a result of studying at the feet of my teachers, my teacher's teachers and even their teacher's teachers. So, I say like I was taught to say when I was an aborisha (novice) and a iyawo (a newly initiated Priest), if you have an issue take it up with my elders.
My Godmother is Iyanifa Ifalade Tashia Asante and my immediate spiritual family is Ile Ori Ogbe Egun (based in CA and Colorado). My Ajubona are Shangobemi and Iyanifa Ifasade Oyade (aka Queen Hollins of The Earthlodge in Long Beach, CA).
My Godmother extended the lineage of her Godfather to me, Oloye Ifa Karade of NJ.
My Godmother introduced me to my God Aunt and God Uncle Iyanifa Osunnike Anke and Baba Koleoso Karade (ibae) of Lexington, KY. Their community, Many Paths One Truth and The Institute for Whole Life Healing embraced me.
My God Aunt & Uncle introduced me to Awo Falokun Fatunmbi.
And they all have given book and spiritual practice resources that have grown and expanded me beyond my wildest dreams. I honor them. I am a grateful and humble student.
