I received this ritual in the summer of 2020 as I wept and worked in the garden. That is where I spent most of my free time, wet with tears and sweat, pressed against the body of the earth, grieving and anxious. When I received this ritual, my children helped me harvest our plant kin with care and love. We asked permission from the land and the plants to harvest their bounty, laid offerings in the soil and washed their green bodies and bright petals with cool water, prayers, and songs. We patted them down with soft cloths and held them between the flesh of our palms before making tea and tinctures.
🍋🌹
I find myself drawn to this ritual often, grateful to work with the fresh offerings of plant kin when available or with the homemade tinctures that some mysterious and wise aspect of my being guides me to craft in advance.
🍋🌹
I share this with you, hoping that you, too, might be inspired to co-weave and engage with rituals for expressing grief. I share this because I am learning that our rituals carry the most potency and ase when they are shared with and support others.
#love #grief #ritual #ancestors #plantcestors #healing #ancestralwisdom #support #share #ase #potency #plants #plantmedicine #botanical #herb #medicine #descendantbelovedkin #presence #meditation #rose #lemonbalm #tea #tincture #water #gratitude #learning #growing
field notes on ancestral wisdom on asking for and receiving support pt.3
field notes on asking for and receiving part 3.
💧
the practice of asking for and receiving support is also an invitation to open ourselves to grief.
💧
learning to grieve the things that we want but do not receive, helps us to create space and receptivity to receive the things that we need.
💧
#ancestors #egungun #receive #support #ancestralwisdom #ase #ancestralecosystems #spirit #grief #portal #love #descendant #beloved #kin #descendantbelovedkin #learning #growth #presence #vulnerability #want #need #human #life #invitation
field notes on ancestral wisdom on asking for and receiving support p.2
part 2 field notes on asking for and receiving support.
🕊️
asking for and receiving support is an exercise of honoring our agency and capacities for self-determination.
🕊️
asking for and receiving support does not require us to abandon our curiosity.
🕊️
asking for and receiving support means that sometimes we may have to reckon with receiving support that moves us away from what we “want” and in the direction of what we “need”. there is an invitation for us to stay curious when this happens🫶🏽
song anchors ritual and a welcome hymn
Y’all, I love opening rituals and ritual containers with hymns/songs/orin.
.::.
In ways that only a loving universe could design, for almost a decade, I’ve been rooted in communities that continue to gift me the opportunity to study the ways that song anchors ritual.
.::.
Often when I co-weave rituals outside of these spaces, song remains at the center of what I offer.
.::.
My experience has been that when we offer songs/hymns/orin communally, the ase of our rituals are amplified exponentially.
.::.
For me,songs/hymns/orin retain and transmit memory and energy. The practices of engaging them are rooted in the lineages of ring shouts, call and response, and potent diasporic rituals of connection, communion, and healing.
.::.
Engaging with song is a multidimensional practice with ancestral and cultural roots. This practice orients me toward liberated realities, connects me with the past, and supports me in visioning liberated futures.
.::.
Engaging with song is an ancient tool for locating one’s self. It is how I locate myself within the ancestral ecosystems of love that support my life. It is how my ancestors practiced locating themselves amid systems that attempted to strip them of their cultural memories, humanity, and their embodied sense of love and deep belonging. When I offer songs they are a call, and there is always a loving response.
.::.
The more I practice, the more I learn that anchoring songs/hymns/orin is a practice of humility. It becomes less and less about one’s personality and sound. It becomes more and more about being solid, soft, grounded, and open so that one becomes a vessel for transmitting energy and memory through sound. All of this requires deep listening.
.::.
🎶: Welcome Song a gift from my ancestors.
#song #welcome #ancestral #cultural #callandresponse #ringshout #lineage #hymn #orin #egungun #ase #ancestralwisdom #medicine #portal #connection #magic #multidimensional #love #belonging #location #immersion #listening #learning #soft #grounded #energy #ritual #community #humility
field notes on ancestral connections rooted in agency vs expectations
the weight of our unspoken expectations impact our capacity to show up for one another and build loving relationships rooted in agency.
🕊️
we are not entitled to unfettered access to our ancestors, the wisdom and stories they hold. often times we have not developed the skills necessary to engage various aspects of their medicines.
🕊️
the gift of our aliveness is how they show up for us daily. how can your life be a call and response of gratitude for the gift of your aliveness?
🕊️
how can you approach ancestral relationship from a space of agency rather than entitlement?
🕊️
these skills apply to many facets of relationship building with all beings
🕊️
spirit of fire: a summer solstice hymn
When I think of summer, I think of the ancestral and alchemical element of fire.
🔥
I feel deep resonance for the medicines of fire that invite transformation and serve as a portal of connection to those that come before us.
🔥
As we welcome the summer solstice, may the spirit of fire transform that which no longer serves you and deeply nourish your soul.
🔥
To honor of the shifting of the season I offer this song/ hymn that was woven throughout our ritual container last night.
🔥
Deep bows of gratitude to the folks who showed up to co-weave our beautiful summer solstice ritual: nourished by fire.
🔥
Big love my feathered kin in the background of the video and in the foreground of my life. This bird is full of soul fire all the time and her songs always serve as reminders.
🎶: nourished by fire -tamira cousett❤️🔥
#ritual #ancestors #egungun #fire #elements #ase #hymn #song #medicine #community #summer #summersolstice #nourish #transformation #soul #nourishedbyfire #songmedicine #chickenlove #nature #ceremony #sacredfire #orin #invocation #prayer #spell #praise #remember #gratitude #thankyou #altar
Lyrics
Lyrics:
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
nourish my soul
oh nourish my soul
nourish my soul
oh nourish my soul
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
help me let go
oh help me let go
help me let go
oh help me let go
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
spirit of fire
light the path home
our return to soul
light the path home
our return to soul
repeat from the beginning
field notes on receiving support
Asking for support and receiving support are not passive activities. This is true in the realms of Ancestors/Spirit
and in the realms of material and matter. I hold both/ all of these realms to be interdependent fields of possibility capable of eliciting layered responses to our requests for support.
🍋
Often when i ask for support, the deep lessons of receiving and integrating those layers of support unfold. These are some of the touch points I explore in my continued practices of learning how to receive and integrate support.
🍋
1. do i have capacity in my physical, spiritual and emotional landscape to receive the support I’m calling in?
.::.
2. Am i willing to engage with the changes that might be required to create the space/ conditions to welcome in and integrate this support?
.::.
3. Can i slow down and recognize when support emerges in ways i don’t anticipate? Am i willing to stay open to receive support that doesn’t center my comfort?
.::.
4. Am i willing to examine my investments in the stories, beliefs and conditions that keep me from being open to receiving support?
.::.
5. Remember asking for and receiving support are not passive activities.
#ase #egun #egungun #learning #growth #healing #love #support #ancestralwisdom #spirit #life #relationahipgoals #change #story #belief #conditions #ancestralecosystems #ancestralecosystemsofsupport #kin #descendant #beloved #descendantbelovedkin #ancestors #prophetsofpossibility #interdependence #multidimensionalhealing #chickens #learning #curiosity
field notes on the how's and why's of ancestral connections
Examining the “why’s” and “how’s” at the root of building connection with our ancestral ecosystems.
.:.
If we aren’t examining this our why and how they may shaped by the systems of harm and oppression we are seeking to dismantle.
.:.
This happens when we world build and relationship build through the narrow lens of opposition.
.:.
The energy of opposition limits possibly.
.:.
Can we build connection practices and rituals where the energy of opposition isn’t at the center?
.:.
Let’s build connection practices rooted in love, hope and wholeness.
.:.
field notes on connecting with ancestral ecosystems
Let’s slow down and build connection with our ancestral ecosystems in ways that honor ours and their agency.
🌌
Let’s root in connection.
🌌
For those curious about rooting in ancestral connection let’s explore together.
a spell for living through collapse
a spell for living through collapse.
.:.
live beyond the edges of sanity
.:.
love from the thickness of humanity
.:.
expect no deliverance from the alivness of these times
.:.
feel it all
.:.
rituals are required
.:.
like breath, like food, like water
.:.
they will keep us present to the emergence of endings and beginnings
that are worthy of our witness
.:.
#spell #ase #endings #beginnings #ritual #love #humanity #thicknessofbeing #alive #feelings
#emergence #withness #collapse #essential #egungun #ancestors #medicine #sanity #breath #food #water #presence #withness
musings on interior spaces
Alaafia Friends,
Happy almost summer to those of us rooted in the Northern Hemisphere. I've been delighting in the sweetness of spring, rain clouds included.
My spring has unfolded with countless trips to the library with my kiddos, in-person connections with beloveds, receiving bodywork, dreaming about future collaborations, attending Shabbat dinners, speaking about ancestral connections to UNC students, decorating my grandma's grave, mowing my momma's grass and tending to many seedlings, as well as our furry and feathered companions. This spring has been slow, savory, and satisfying. Despite the conditions of the external world, I've found myself inspired and feeling the sweet flames of aliveness radiating throughout my being.
Early in the season, I found myself captivated by a sentence written during one of my morning pages practice. [Side note: If you've never heard of morning pages, this is a daily creative writing practice created by Julia Cameron. If you're curious, google it, it's a great practice to engage.] The words in my notebook that caught my attention were, "Build up and rest in the interiority of your life." Deep down, these words stirred something profound and covered me like a second skin. As I continue to sit with these words, especially in the context of our current and unfolding realities, they feel like a mantra and manifesto of resistance and connection.
These words feel like medicine for our times, gifting us an approach to navigating the world as it changes, becomes unrecognizable, and feels increasingly hostile. They galvanize us to welcome connections and relationships that mirror our humanity back to us, to root even more deeply in community, and to nourish our inner spaces of refuge so that we may continue to engage with the world around us and love each other through it all.
Before I close, I'll share a bit more of what came through in my writing practice related to the interiority of our lives:
“The interior spaces of our lives are not the endeavors of the solo architect; they are the sanctuaries of refuge built and sustained through community, kith, and kin. When we turn our attention to building up and resting in these spaces, we will find the spirits of our beloveds, living, and ancestors companioning us here. Building up and resting in the interiority of our lives is a practice of radical self-love and resistance. Community and relationships are the sacraments that nourish, enrich, enliven, and enable these interior spaces. The existence of these spaces is essential to our collective liberation.”
I hope what I've shared today inspires you to examine with curiosity your understanding and praxis for building up and resting in the interiority of your life. May the conscious tending of your interior spaces help move us in the direction of liberation for all.
Happy Almost Summer,
Tamira
the nature of tide pools
i found god(s) in the tide pools
and they softened the edges of my understanding
they bathed my feet in saltwater libations
i professed that i knew them
through the illusions of separation
they showed me how deeply connected they are
to the vast bodies of the oceans
they spoke of tide-songs and water cycles
that sing them home
they gifted me metaphors for life
they offered me reflections of myself
inside tide pools incarnation
always connected
and never separate
always connected
and never separate
trust falls of incarnation
Since February of 2022, my ancestral ecosystems of support have welcomed in 4 beloveds that are no longer earth-side. The parade of homecoming began with my Aunt Mattie in February of 2022, my Aunt Khalilah in September of 2022, my beloved fur companion, Nintiendo, in February of 2023, and my Grandma Dorothy in March of 2023.
Each of these beloveds has been landmarks, bodies of water, land masses, geography, and topography, on the 3-dimensional maps of my being. They have been integral anchors, providing stability and serving as points of reference for locating myself. They have shaped and influenced my life path through their physical presence and now that they are no longer here, my points of reference are shifting amid their absence. I am simultaneously grieving the changes in the geography and topography on the familiar maps of my being, while holding invitations to open myself even more deeply to the multi-dimensional maps of my being, where each of these beings continues to exist and where we each hold one another in connection.
Their deaths are Soul initiations, not only for them as they move into deeper layers of change and transformation, but also for me, to chart my life path and my points of orientation to self more consistently on multi-dimensional maps that fully anchor our connections. I hold each of their initiations into death as threads of connection, stitched into the multi-dimensional maps of Soul, threads that have been co-woven on the spindles of incarnation, by the forces of our love and the Ase of our connections in this life. These threads are now being tempered by the waters of our grief and the heat of fierce praise our love holds for each other.
Embracing the fierce love and tender grief of these passages continues to be potent, uncomfortable, messy, humbling and filled with aliveness.
#ase #medicine #ancestors #descendantbelovedkin #kin #learning #love #grief #loss #praise #threads #maps #change #transformation #healing #connection #death #soul #initiation #ecosystems #beloved #embodiment #trust #bismillah
chorus of LOVE
when the world tells you who you are
.:.
when others ask you who you are
.:.
when you forget who you are
.:.
remember
#ase #ancestralwisdom #remember #truth #medicine #love #mantra #descendantbelovedkin #descendantofradicalimagination #spell #prayer #human #hymn #ancestralarchive #evidence #healing #selflove
