Deadly Nightshade bears berries that are exceedingly poisonous and apparently quite tasty. That combination is exactly what makes them dangerous.

Today you are being asked to look honestly at what feels fine about your health, may actually be working against you. The comfortable story you keep telling yourself about why something can wait is worth examin…

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The Ghost Pipe cannot make it on its own. It survives because it has built a whole network of relationships underground that feed it, and it gives back in kind. Today I am asking you to think about your own network the same way.

If you are carrying something about your health alone right now, let someone else in. Identify who in your life can genuinely s…

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Comfrey earns its name. Healers have called it boneset for centuries because it does not just soothe: it goes into the break and works to mend it from the inside. That is today’s instruction.

If there is a health concern you are moving toward addressing, today is about making sure you are protected on that road. Think through what it will actually take t…

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The Toadstool shows what ordinary sight passes over. Today, I am asking you to use that quality of seeing on yourself.

If something about your body or your health has been sitting at the edge of your awareness, look at it today. Sit with what is actually there. Let it be real for a moment without the usual commentary running over the top of it.

Then take …

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Weekly Energy Reading: Otura Okanran

Welcome

This is a collective reading, so take what speaks to you and trust yourself to leave the rest. Settle in and let the energy find you.

The Energy This Week

If there is something about your health sitting at the edge of your awareness, something you have been meaning to look at or address, this is the time to stop ignoring it. Unaddressed concerns tend to escalate. What is manageable now becomes harder to manage the longer it waits.

This week asks for a hard, honest look at what your mind and body actually need from you.

Right Leg: Everyday Matters

If there is a health routine or practice in place, this is a good week to ask whether it is actually working. If there is an appointment you have been putting off, a conversation with a provider you have been avoiding, or a follow-through step you keep meaning to take, this week is a good time to do it.

Tarot Companion: 7 of Coins

The Farmer has done the work and is now standing in the field taking a long look at what has actually grown. He shows us what the Odu is already pointing to: this is a moment for honest assessment rather than continued motion.

Practical Focus:

• If there is a health appointment you have been deferring, make it this week.

• Take an honest look at whether your current approach to sleep, food, or movement is actually serving your body.

• If you are managing a chronic concern, deal with it.

Left Leg: Spiritual Matters

It is worth asking this week how your emotional well-being is affecting your body. Odu is asking you to be honest about whether you are actually dealing with emotional stress or just pushing through. Staying present with your own emotional experience, rather than organizing your life around avoiding it, is where the steadiness available this week comes from.

Tarot Companion: King of Cups

The King sits with his singing bowl in meditative stillness. His emotions are fully present and integrated. He shows us what the Odu is pointing to: slowing down and sitting with your own felt experience.

Spiritual Focus:

• If stillness feels difficult right now, that may be worth paying attention to. Even ten minutes of deliberate quiet is doing something.

• Breathwork, meditative movement, bodywork, or journaling through physical sensation are all well-supported this week if any of those are available to you.

• If you have been treating your emotional and physical well-being as separate concerns, this week is a good time to look at them together.

Obatala Speaks

If something in your body has been asking for your attention, you likely already sense what it is. Stop working around it and address it. Protect it.

May what you see lead you forward. May the body be tended and the spirit made steady. May this good fortune be real for you. Ase.

Offering

To honor the energy of this week:

• Cool water, offered with a quiet mind

• White flowers or white cloth placed at your altar

• Efun or cascarilla traced across the forehead

• Shea butter rubbed into the crown or palms

• A moment of deliberate stillness

Spoken Prayer:

Baba, I come clear and willing. Show me what needs my attention. Protect what I am tending. Ase.

Today’s action is alignment. Examine whether your thoughts and beliefs are pointed in the direction of what you are working toward. Take consistent steps from that place. Watch out for self-imposed limitations. Pray. Declare your intention. Do the work.

Then allow room for the magic to happen. The Divine responds in ways least expected. Stay open to that.

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Today’s action is compassion, extended outward. Forgiveness is self-empowerment. It reclaims peace and serenity and liberates the spirit from resentment and judgment.

Where is forgiveness still available to be offered, and what opens up on the other side of it?

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Today’s action is to move. The gates to freedom are open. Take one immediate, tangible step, no matter how small. Liberation comes in many forms. Choose yours.

With freedom comes the responsibility to set fresh boundaries. Get clear on what you will and will not accept going forward.

What is the one step today has made available?

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Today’s action is to speak. Own your voice and use it. Authenticity invites authenticity, and your individual perspective matters. Find the avenue for expression that fits today and use it.

Your voice is your passport to freedom.

What have you been holding back that, spoken today, could move something forward?

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Today’s action is forgiveness. Start with yourself. Perceived imperfections are opportunities for growth, and self-compassion is what clears the way for victory. Look at what you have been carrying and ask whether it still needs to be carried.

Forgiveness reclaims peace. A spirit unburdened moves differently.

Where would you go today if you set down what …

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Today, take an honest look at what is driving you. The masks we wear around our goals are often the last ones we think to examine. Get clear on whether what is underneath the strategy is genuine desire or something built to look right from the outside. That clarity is where the rebirth this week begins.

Conduct that avoids shame starts on the inside. Wha…

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The Energy This Week: Odi Osa

Odi Osa carries the principle of rebirth and sudden unexpected change. Thankfully, it comes with Ire meaning those two principles are working toward abundance. Rebirth here is the total change of mind, body, and spirit that happens at those significant points on the path of spiritual discipline where perception of self and world is transformed. Osa brings a cleansing, transforming effect. This Odu names the path to Victory: the physical and emotional work of securing an outcome against the odds and difficulties that block it.

Right Leg: Odi (Practical / Everyday Matters)

As stated above, Odi is the principle of rebirth. That is the energy operating in your everyday, practical life this week. Through the Victory subset, Odi is asking what transformation is required of you in order to be victorious in your persuits.

Tarot Companion for Odi: The Tower Reversed

The Tower reversed confirms and mirrors the mesage of Odi. It gives some clarity, though by stating that the sudden change is occuring from within. What gets built from that shift is what carries the outcome forward.

Practical focus:

• Ask what personal views or internal landscapes have shifted. How do those shifts affect what Victory looks like?

• Let the rebirth Odi signals guide your strategy.

• Do not allow the persuit of victory to push you toward shameful or unethical behavior.

Left Leg: Osa (Spiritual Matters)

As stated above, Osa is the principle of sudden unexpected change. Through the Victory subset, Osa is asking what self-management looks like when that kind of change is in motion.

Tarot Companion for Osa: Knight of Swords Reversed

The Knight of Swords reversed shows that the response to that outside change is happening internally. The urgency and drive are real, but they have not yet found their outward direction. The spiritual work this week is moving that energy out of the interior and into purposeful action.

Spiritual focus:

• What outside factors are at work this week? Name them. Then ask what it takes to stay grounded inside of them.

• The urgency you feel has a direction. Find it and move toward it.

• Osa’s cleansing, transforming effect is already at work. Let it finish.

Oshun Speaks

Oshun is the voice in this week’s energy. She speaks to the abundance Odi Osa promises and to what it takes to receive it. The path is open. The good fortune is present. What she asks is that the work of toward Victory be carried with the kind of character that can hold what is coming.

May the rebirth moving through this week find its ground. May the win arrive as it was prepared to arrive, and may you be ready to receive it.

Offering to Oshun

Oshun receives offerings that honor sweetness, beauty, and the patient power of moving water.

A simple offering for this week:

• Honey. Taste it before you offer.

• Yellow or gold flowers, fresh

• A small cup of clean, still water or river water

• Oranges or a pinch of cinnamon

• A candle in yellow or gold

Speak plainly:

Oshun, I come with an open hand. You see what I am working toward. Teach me to move the way your waters moves: with purpose and without force. Clear what stands between me and my victory. Receive this offering as a sign of my trust. Asé.

You have done a week’s worth of honest work. Orunmila’s guidance today is simple: Stop. The ground needs time to settle before you add anything new to it.

What will be, will be. Trust what you have already set in motion this week and let the day carry itself.

What would it feel like to end this week without adding one more thing to it?

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In Yoruba tradition the ancestors are not gone. The Egungun are the departed returning to move among the living, bringing guidance, blessing, and correction. The Aztecs built their festivals of the dead around the same truth. Every tradition that has ever paid attention has arrived at the fact that the dead remain present, and the relationship stays ali…

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Today name, out loud or on paper, three things about yourself that your family depends on but rarely stops to honor. The resilience, the steadiness, the thing you bring that would be immediately felt in its absence.

You and your people need you to know your value as clearly as Orunmila does.

What would shift in your family if you carried yourself today li…

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In Yoruba tradition, every tree, river, and stone carries ase. Osanyin lives in the forest. The ancestors move through the living world leaving signs for those paying attention. The Celts knew the same thing, and the hidden people of Iceland communicated through dreams and direct contact with those gifted enough to receive them. Every tradition that has…

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Louisiana Vodou is widely misunderstood as a tradition of curses and dark workings, a reputation built more on Hollywood than on anything resembling the actual practice. That mischaracterization does a real disservice to one of the most spiritually sophisticated traditions to take root on American soil. Relationship with the divine, with the ancestors, with the natural world, and with the spirits who govern it are at the core of the belief system, and its that relationship on which most practitioners focus their energy.

What is Louisiana Vodou?

Louisiana Vodou carries the living imprint of several converging streams. West African spiritual traditions (primarily from the Fon and Ewe peoples of Dahomey) form its deepest roots. However, Haitian Vodou arrived in New Orleans through Saint-Domingue refugees in the early nineteenth century along with Yoruba inspired traditions like Santeria and shaped the tradition profoundly. French Creole culture, Indigenous knowledge, and the syncretic overlay of Catholicism each left their mark as well, shaping how these spirits were understood and honored in public life. The result is a tradition with its own character and that belongs to Louisiana as surely as the bayou does.

Who the Lwa and the Orisha Are

The Lwa are the intermediary spirits of the Vodou tradition. They stand between humanity and the supreme creative force, known in some branches as Bondye, who is understood to be too vast and complete to engage with human affairs directly. The Lwa are the ones who answer. Each one governs specific forces of nature and human experience, and each one has a distinct personality, set of preferences, and way of making themselves known.

The Orisha are the divine emissaries of the Yoruba tradition, each one governing a specific force of nature and dimension of human life. They too serve as intermediaries, each one an expression of Olodumare, the supreme creative source, and each one intimately concerned with the lives of those who honor them.

What the Lwa and the Orisha share is this: they are not distant, they are not abstract, and they are not indifferent. They are powerful, present, and in relationship with those who call on them.

What They Govern

Its worth noting that what follows is far from a comprehensive list of the powers honored in Louisiana Vodou. These are, however, some of the most widely known and venerated. With that in mind, lets continue.

Papa Legba stands at the crossroads and holds the key to every gate. No spirit can be reached without first calling on him, because he governs all passage between the human world and the spirit world. He is depicted as an old man, unhurried, leaning on his staff, and his age is a sign of wisdom. Elegua or Eshu governs the same crossroads from the Yoruba stream. He too is the opener of roads, the spirit of beginnings and endings, the first to be called and the last to be thanked.

Obatala is the Orisha of purity, clarity, and wisdom. He is associated with white cloth, with the cool stillness of deep knowing, and with the creation of human form. He governs the mind and calls those who work with him toward patience and discernment.

Yemaya is the mother of waters, governing the ocean and the mysteries held within it. She is protective and vast, fierce when her children are threatened, and generous in her nurturing. She governs birth, the subconscious, and the deep emotional currents that run beneath the surface of a life.

Oshun governs the fresh waters, love, sweetness, abundance, and the kind of beauty that is also power. She is honey and river current, sensual and strategic, and she governs the places where love and prosperity meet.

Shango governs thunder, lightning, justice, and the authority that comes from righteous power. He is a king, and he carries the double-headed axe that cuts through deception. Those who call on him are calling on fire and truth in equal measure.

Ogun governs iron, labor, and the force required to clear a path where none existed. He is the Orisha of the machete and the railroad track - of all work done with the hands and the will. His Louisiana counterpart, Ogou, shares that energy, governing iron, fire, and the battles of principle that require a person to stand firm regardless of the cost.

Ochosi governs the hunt, justice, and the ability to find what is needed. He moves with precision and patience. Those who need clarity in legal matters or resolution in situations where they have been wronged will find him a steady ally.

Erzulie Freda governs love, beauty, and the tender aching places of the heart. She is refined and generous and capable of deep sorrow. Her grief is as much a part of her nature as her sweetness. She governs what humans long for most and sometimes cannot reach.

Oya governs wind, storms, and the force of change that cannot be stopped or negotiated with. She rules the cemetery gates alongside Baron and governs the kind of transformation that arrives whether you are ready or not. She is the Orisha of endings that make way for beginnings. Those who work with her learn that what she sweeps away needed to go.

Oshumare governs the rainbow, continuity, and the movement between the heavens and the earth (this also make him an Orisha of divination in some lineages). He is associated with transformation, with the cycles that sustain life, and with the flow of wealth and abundance through the world. His presence bridges realms, and his energy is one of perpetual movement and renewal.

Damballah is among the oldest of the Lwa, the great serpent of the sky, associated with purity, ancient wisdom, and the waters above the earth. His presence cools and renews, and his wisdom is so old it does not always come in words.

Baron Samedi holds the gate of death with an irreverent joy that unsettles those who have never stood close to mortality long enough to understand it. He governs the dead, the cemetery, and the bawdy, unflinching wisdom that comes from knowing exactly how short life is. Maman Brigitte stands beside him, governing death and healing. She is of the few Lwa of European origin to be fully absorbed into the tradition. She watches over the graves of the righteous.

How They Communicate

One of the most striking truths about Louisiana Vodou is how actively present these spirits make themselves, and how many channels they use to reach those who are in relationship with them.

Possession is the most well-known form of communication. During ceremony, a Lwa may descend into a practitioner, mounting them the way a rider mounts a horse, and when that happens, the spirit is present in a tangible, embodied way. They speak, they counsel, they heal, and they correct.

The Orisha and Lwa also speak through dreams, and a genuine visitation carries a weight and clarity that the dreamer does not forget. They speak through signs in the natural world such as a particular bird, a flame that moves in a peculiar way, or a stillness that settles where there was noise. Learning to read their language is part of the relationship.

Divination is another avenue. A skilled reader working within the tradition can bring through guidance from the Lwa and the Orisha, and consulting someone rooted in this work is one of the ways people access that clarity when they need it most.

The thread running through all of these channels is relationship. The spirits communicate most clearly with those who honor them, who call on them, and who pay attention.

Finding Your Way

If you feel drawn to the Lwa or the Orisha, or if you sense a particular spirit’s presence in your life and want to understand what they are saying, a reading is a meaningful place to begin. The spirits have a way of making themselves known, and part of what I do is help you hear them.

Book a session.

Papa Eli

A common thread among every spiritual tradition that I know of is the understanding that the relationship between the living and the dead does not end at the grave. Across cultures and centuries, people have maintained active, tended relationships with their ancestors. We seek their guidance, offer our gratitude, and keeping the line of connection open. Ancestral veneration is one of the oldest and most universal forms of spiritual work that exists, and it is one of the most accessible places to begin a serious spiritual life.

What Ancestral Veneration Actually Is

Ancestral veneration is the practice of maintaining an ongoing, reciprocal relationship with those who came before you. Honoring is perhaps the more precise word. You honor those who gave you life and carried your lineage forward across generations so that you could be here. That lineage includes people you knew and loved, people who died long before you were born, and in some traditions, spiritual ancestors as well.

The altar is the physical anchor for this relationship. It gives the practice a place to live and gives the relationship a consistent point of contact.

Why It Works

The logic of ancestral veneration rests on a simple and ancient understanding: the ancestors have intimate knowledge of your lineage, your patterns, and the strengths and wounds carried down through your blood. They have walked the terrain of being human. Many of them struggled with the same things you struggle with. However, because they are now beyond the veil, they can see from a vantage point that the living cannot access.

More than that, they have a stake in your wellbeing. Your flourishing is a continuation of everything they built and endured. When you tend to your ancestors, you are participating in a living relationship that moves in both directions. You give them memory, presence, water, light, and food. They give you guidance, protection, and the deep steadiness that comes from knowing you are not navigating this life alone.

The altar works because it creates a consistent point of contact. When you return to the same space, make the same offerings, and speak the same names, you are maintaining a relationship.

Building a Basic Ancestor Altar

Beginning is simpler than you might expect. Choose a surface that can be dedicated to this purpose. A shelf, a corner of a dresser, or a small table will be just fine. Cover it with a white cloth. White is the color most broadly associated with ancestors and with the clarity of spiritual communication across many traditions.

Place a glass of cool, clean water at the center or toward the back of the altar. Water is a conduit between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and it is one of the most consistent offerings across ancestral traditions. Refresh it regularly, at minimum once a week.

Add photographs of your ancestors. These are the faces that anchor the space to your specific lineage. Begin with those you knew and loved. if you have no photographs, written names on a piece of paper serves the same purpose.

Light a white candle when you come to the altar to pray or speak. If you have no words, just sit in silence. The act of lighting candle when you arrive and extinguishing it when you leave is enough.

Bring food and drink offerings when you feel called to do so. Make sure its things your ancestors enjoyed in life. it can be a cup of coffee, a glass of whiskey, or even a plate of food from a Sunday meal. The offering is both an act of remembrance and an extension of hospitality.

A Word About Difficult Ancestors

Many of us carry blood from people who caused harm or who passed on patterns of pain. This is worth naming plainly because it comes up. Beginning your altar with the ancestors you feel warmth toward is entirely appropriate. As your practice deepens, you may find yourself drawn to address more complex ancestral healing, but that work has its own timing and often benefits from guidance. Starting with those you trust is both practical and wise.

How to Work Your Altar

The altar is a living space, which means it requires tending. Refresh the water regularly. Speak to your ancestors. The language does not have to be formal. Tell them what is happening in your life. Ask for their guidance. Sit quietly afterward and notice what comes. Light your candle with intention. When you arrive at that space distracted and rushing, you are not really arriving. The altar will teach you what presence means if you let it. Over time, you will likely find that this space becomes one of the most grounding places in your home. That is the relationship working.

If you have been feeling disconnected, unsteady, or like you are moving through your life without a sense of backing, beginning an ancestral practice is one of the most direct things you can do. If you want support in understanding what your ancestors are already trying to tell you, a reading can open that conversation in ways that a how-to article cannot. Book a Reading.

Papa Eli

Orunmila’s guidance today is to bring your original self back into your family life. There was a version of you that existed before your roles were assigned and you decided that responsibility meant setting that person to the side. That person is still inside you, and your people need to meet them.

Today, recall one thing you genuinely wanted for yourse…

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Rest is part of the work. Today, Orunmila’s guidance is to find the place in your family life where you have been pushing hardest and step back from it deliberately.

What will be, will be, so release control and trust the momentum you have built to carry things for a while.

What would shift for you today if you actually stopped?

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