My IFA elders have been speaking with concern about the ways that people in my generation are seeking to reconnect with ancestral wisdom. I believe it is beautiful that youth and young adults are reaching for often-disregarded and stigmatized folkways. Ultimately, there’s a desire for healing and reconnection with the ancestral soul, with our bodies, with community, and with the land.
Ancestor tablets for veneration of the deceased.
There are important reasons why young folks on a spiritual path don’t know what to do or how to do it. In my Taiwanese diasporic family, assimilation to the US mainstream was the way my immigrant grandparents accessed employment, shelter and resources for their children. For many indigenous peoples, boarding schools were sites of cultural genocide where white authority figures taught generations of children that their heritage was inferior. White supremacy and structural anti-Blackness systematically, violently attempted to sever people of African descent from the powerful wisdom traditions of the continent.
In the US in general, and in the 21st century in particular, there’s a narrative around success through innovation. From the so-called “New World” to frontier towns and Silicon Valley, this space has been constructed as a blank slate to replace the old (whether European monarchies or dial-up internet) with fresh products and services. So it’s settler colonialist capitalism, erasing millenia of indigenous peoples’ herstories/hirtories/histories to create that “blank slate” and generate wealth.
That narrative is deeply embedded, including in radical and spiritual spaces. Without malicious intent (which does not negate harmful impact), young spiritual seekers go wandering through the internet looking for something we/they cannot name or describe. We pick up imagery, words, prayers, that touch something inside us. We aren’t clear what’s Spirit and what is egoic delusion, what’s a calling to priesthood and what’s a mental health crisis. We approach ancient divinities as if they are Santa Claus or the tooth fairy because we don’t know any invisible energies besides the imaginary ones. We mix and match traditions, often unaware that this act can be very disrespectful and counterproductive. We imitate rhythms, invocations and rituals without elders’ guidance or any idea of the serious consequences that can occur. We imagine the spiritual world based on our own fantasies rather than training with those who know it from experience. We don’t know who is an initiated lineage bearer with decades of training, and who’s a fraud.
Elders get understandably upset that we’re not “coming correct.” Yet we may have never learned how.
In a settler colonist society founded on anti-Blackness, misogyny and indigenous genocide, structural oppression has made it difficult for non-Abrahamic religions to transmit sacred knowledge from the old to the young. The elders are still here, teaching. The communities of practice are still here, and growing. Nothing and no one has succeeded in eradicating the sacred feminine, the wisdom traditions of the African continent, the greenwitch folkways of pre-Christian Europe, the radiant diversity of gender, the original people of Turtle Island, nor the exquisite sweetness of love outside heterosexuality. I dreamed my babalawo told me, “The war is already won in Ode Remo,” the village in Ogun state where his IFA lineage is rooted. Oluwo Falolu Adesanya Awoyade continues the legacy of his father and those before him. There is wholeness still, and the possibility of the circle becoming unbroken.
The hype around newness, and the trauma of displacement and severed ancestral connections, can lead my generation to follow (on social media and real life) other young folks with powerful social media presences rather than seeking out a flesh-and-blood community of practice with spiritual elders. But the most wise and knowledgeable elders don’t necessarily know how to market themselves on the internet… often because they’ve been studying for decades on the mat, in ritual space, with lineage bearers who have now passed on. Because they are doing spiritual work to save peoples’ lives rather than arguing online or filtering selfies.
US dominant culture valorizes twenty-somethings for our potential, our skin’s elasticity, the shape of bodies that haven’t yet born children, the freshness and newness of our energy. There *is* an important social role for youth, but is in relationship to generations that know what it is to raise grandchildren, to witness the end of an era, to have loss carve cliffs in your heart, to fail utterly and build it all again.
We gotta give up the impatience, vanity, instant gratification, addiction and entitlement that US mainstream culture normalizes, for a long and slow journey over decades. It takes humility to quietly listen to elders, and it can be especially hard because there is so much abuse of power and hierarchy in this country. In a cultural context of toxic shame, it can also be challenging to hear constructive criticism without reverting to self-loathing. Yet white supremacy’s splintering and severing of kinship bonds also has to do with breaking apart generational connections. Elders, youth, parents, children, are all necessary parts of the whole.
Spiritual seekers of my generation, we don’t have to make stone soup from a mismatched pile of scraps. That can give you spiritual indigestion/constipation or worse. There are places where there are full meals, a warm hearth, family. For me, it’s Ile Orunmila Afedefeyo. We stream services on the Facebook page for those unable to come in person. Baba Fasegun’s introductory book on Ifá is available on the website http://www.ifaforall.org.
And this is why I’m working to finish this book, Listen to the Ancestors: Wisdom of Ebomi Cici. Nancy de Souza e Silva turned 80 last year, and she is coming up on 50 years as a Candomblé initiate. She has walked this Earth more than twice as long as I have. She is a griot, a living library, and my vision is for her biography to serve as a bridge between generations. She uses a flip phone, has no Tumblr or Instagram account, and does not seek fame. But she has what so many seekers are longing for, deep down: knowledge (information) and wisdom (insight) from centuries ago.
If you’d like to support this elder financially, you can donate to http://www.gofundme.com/donacicibook and I’ll transfer funds to her. Once the book is published, she also will receive all royalties. To help me finish this project and publish the book, you can schedule a virtual co-working session at http://www.calendly.com/camellia_lee/60min for accountability and support on bringing your own projects to completion.
*** This reflection is the fruit of ongoing study and conversation with folks much more knowledgeable than me, such as Awo Fasegun, Iya Fayomi Osundoyin Egbeyemi, Oluwo Falolu Adesanya Awoyade, Awo Fanira Ogunleke Awoyade, Iya Alisa Orduna, and Ebomi Cici. The wisdom is theirs, mistakes are mine.
The shade tree 