Eden’s Harvest, Italy (2018) © Reva Santo
I’ve been thinking about choice, and what goes into the decisions that guide our lives. Over the past year, I’ve dealt with some very difficult tower-esque awakenings.
I learned over this past year that just because something holds beautiful potential doesn’t mean it is a path that will be chosen. What’s more important than the intensity of a connection, the excitement around an idea or otherwise is the ability to actually align on that path and commit to walking it. Often the beautiful results we dream about are given up on too quickly because the path feels scarier than we can handle.
On my own path, I have searched many years for a sense of rootedness, an anchor to keep me grounded and connected. Now I realize that it is not so much a downward anchor that I am looking for, but an inner one. My ability to keep my body and spirit clean and have a sustained connection to my inner light allows me to move freely without losing myself to the smorgasbord distractions of human life. As I strengthen my inner sense of confidence, commitment, and trust, I am able to be more patient to allow things to reveal themselves to me and take form slowly.
Until a path is chosen, committed to in mind heart, and spirit, it is nothing but a faint line waiting to be traced, one that becomes lighter over the years, and eventually disappears into dream-like memory.
Lately, spirit has been teaching me many lessons about self-love, reminding me to not connect my value and worth to another person’s perspective of me.
Choice has felt often painful to me. I have obsessed over “being chosen”, and felt broken down when I haven’t been. I have struggled to understand what it means to choose myself, to choose a path, to choose a life. I have struggled with loyalty to people and situations that have not earned access to my light. I have struggled with settling for options that don’t honor me, that aren’t capable or interested in seeing the heart of me, or able to offer devotion in the ways that I know I deserve.
As most of you know, I walk with the teachings of Ifa and my practice of it is central to the way I move through the world. Divination has always brought me a sense of peace, but as my faith has deepened I’ve faced that difficult lesson that *choice* is everything.
Even if things are within your destiny, or projected as the most beautiful and sumptuous possibility, humans still have free will. When we come to earth from heaven, we choose an Ori to walk with. This “higher self” has certain traits, taboos, and agreements. Our Ori becomes our connection to purpose, an anchor to our personal divinity that is untouched by our more human faculties.
Ideally, our choices are guided by our Ori’s, but there are usually a lot of other factors at play. If our connection to our Ori’s is weak, we can be guided by adjogun (negative spiritual forces like fear, grief, loss, or contention). In addition to this our ase, our destinies, and our character play into the choices that we make, and the pathway options that unfold before us. One’s asé is the energetic resonance that is distinct to them. Destiny has to do with the agreements we made to experience and fulfill during our time here. Character has to do with integrity.
In my own life, I’ve seen people skate by on high asé (ie. Tremendous gifts, or the ability to manifest and attract blessings) while having questionable character. They may be able to follow the pathways that have been set before them, but it may cause a lot of damage and destruction to those around them along the way. I’ve also seen folks (myself included) resist destiny because of what our egos want. These factors create infinite permutations and combinations of possible life manifestations. Ifa stresses character development because character can keep us connected to our Ori’s, or separate us from them.
I had a conversation with a close friend of mine who recently decided to commit to monogamy with her partner, both of them coming from a natural inclination towards non-monogamy. She and her partner practice Ifa, and a divination reading told them that non-monogamy was keeping them on a pathway of avoiding their deeper internal wounds—(This was the case for them specifically, I get that non-monogamy can be a healthy pathway for some folks). They each had to unpack their deep identifications with non-monogamy as an actual identity, and do the work to connect to their Ori’s who had been trying to communicate with them about a desire for peace, that each of their egos seemed to be blocking.
She and I discussed *choice*, both of us fascinated by the ways in which we can actually live full, and even interesting lives out of alignment with what our Ori’s actually want for us. Ifa told them that non-monogamy was keeping them stuck in avoidance, even though it was more comfortable—that’s why a deep sense of depression and internal dissatisfaction would always show its face despite being temporarily satiated.
In my own ways of being guided by fear/contention, I have resisted being fully single and alone. I have also given up easily on things that I want when they don’t immediately go how I’d imagined them. These days I spend a lot of time breathing deeply and releasing my attachment to the possibilities that didn’t manifest into material pathways. I use that alchemized energy to fuel a commitment to things that are within my control—my own creative practices and world, and the life that I am patiently and lovingly building for myself. I am growing stronger as a result of it.
In physics, particles resonate into and out of relationship with one another according to both predictable and unpredictable patterns—sometimes being absorbed, connected, repelled, and so on. These particles are temporary formations part of a larger energetic field from which they emerge and eventually return to. We are all in this cosmic dance with energy that is part of us and around us. Things are constantly changing. It is resisting the nature of all matter to try and move with beings or situations that are no longer in alignment with our individual purpose and path. We are constantly coming into and out of fixed form.
I am learning to be firm in my character, and flexible in what I think I know about myself. My outer shell used to feel hard, to protect an inside that felt so tender. Now I feel that I am becoming stronger and more resilient internally, which allows my external self to shapeshift, shed, and take on new forms without so much resistance.
I don’t believe in right/wrong or good/bad dualities. I do believe that we each came here for a purpose and that there are probably multiple ways to manifest that purpose. I believe that there are more peaceful routes, and more chaotic ones—that there are generative pathways and destructive pathways. I believe our choices profoundly impact one another and the world around us, which is why my creative work is so connected to care practices that might help us consider that impact. We most often have moments that are both generative and destructive—moments when we are in alignment and on our path, and others where we feel disconnected and veer from the path. While we may often choose the path of resistance, the path of surrender is always available to us.
As we resonate in and out of each other’s lives, falling in and out of alignment, and making these complex choices, I understand why commitment is so important. Human will is incredibly powerful and is the force that materializes and makes solid these elusive potentials.
We have a certain amount of time here to build concretely before we return to wherever we came from and start over in new ways beyond our human imaginations. So what do I *really* imagine for myself, and what am I willing to sacrifice in order to stay on the path of building the life the deepest part of me longs for?
As I move closer to initiating into Ifa, I naturally am simplifying my life. Tying up loose ends in past relationships, closing the door to things I’ve left open that I know aren’t working. I have been sifting through objects, throwing away old clothes, and creating space. As I create that space, more possibility opens up. My visions become clearer, stronger and more precise. My ‘no’ makes space for a deeper, more resonant ‘yes’.
I naturally feel inclined to buy things in either white or golden yellow. Where I have once sought complex patterns, and been attracted to a variety of shapes, colors and styles, my spirit is craving simplicity. By limiting the options in my closet, so much time and space opens up to me. Less time in the store because certain colors are just blocked out of my periphery. Less time getting ready because an entire factor of the decision process is removed.
This limitation opens me up creatively and generates space for the things that matter most. I feel more consistent and clear in my expression. I want to practice this in all areas of my life. Simplifying so that my inner light can expand, and do what she came here to do. So that there is more room for clarity, more room for dancing.