Tonight I sat down with my guide, I prayed for him and talked to him. Then I spent the next half an hour getting upset with him. You see he had told me some things which I didn't want to hear and to my shame i'm not always the best at taking bad news. I wish this is the first something like this has happened but its not, its not a frequent occurrence but it is something that happens occasionally.

But the thing is as I got upset, prayed for a different outcome and generally acted like a bit of a dick, my heart began to clear. Feelings poured out of me that had been building up for weeks; my frustration, loneliness and heartache boiled to the surface and my guide took all those feelings and left me cleansed of them. He told me to have hope, that my spirits would guide me and he lifted up my heart. In short he took all my pain, bitterness and anger and in its place he left me feeling peaceful and hopeful once again.

And for that I'm truly grateful to him, because my guide and my spirits aren't just there for me when things are going well. They are also there for me when I'm in a bad mood, or sad or angry or depressed. They help to pick me up when I fall down and they help to steer my course when i'm heading in the wrong direction.

The Ancestors

This week as I do every week, I lit a candle for my ancestors and I prayed for them and for their elevation. I thought about the people I loved who had died in my life and I sat and listened to their advice and their wisdom.


Ancestor veneration is a very important part of Sanse, this is because as my papa says you come into the world standing on the shoulder's of your ancestors. Without them I wouldn't be here right now and without them letting in my other spirits in I couldn't work with them.


When I first started practising I found working with my ancestors one of the hardest things to do. It was painful to think about the ones I love who had died every week and so I tended to avoid doing it. Once I began to serve them however, I began to deal with those feelings of grief and it helped me to remember my ancestors with  loving memories rather then painful ones.


Now when I serve with my ancestors its a deeply positive experience. I get the sense of them being like a wall or a chain, they surround and protect me. They lend me their wisdom and their strength and act to help me in numerous way. Furthermore as I have begun to work with them more, I have begun to discover new commission spirits and discovered links between my own family and the Mysterio that walk with me.


As I work with them more I hope to discover more about them and help them rise up and one day when I join their ranks. I hope I can provide the same understanding and wisdom to future generations that they have given to me.

Thoughts on elevation

Seeking to spiritual elevate both ourselves and our spirits is one of the key goals of both Sanse and Espiritismo. Within these traditions God is seen as being the most elevated of all spirits and it is He that is the source of all spiritual light and progress. As such it is to Him we turn to when we seek elevation, either on our own behalf or for our spirits.

This inevitable leads to the all important question, what is spiritual elevation and what does it mean to be elevated? To tell you the truth, I don't fully know. Now thats not to say I don't have some of the insights or intellectual knowledge needed to partially understand the subject. But at the same time I don't feel like I am at a spiritual level where I can fully develop my own spin on the matter. As such I wanted to write about some of the ideas i've had about what elevation is and the effect its had on me.


Now at least for me the word elevation brings to mind the same connotations as the the word height. However within Sanse this is not the case, as one of my spiritual brothers once described to me, being more spiritually elevated is more akin to having more spiritual awareness. The more elevated you are, the more spiritual levels you can perceive and interact with.


Over time I formed an analogy that I personally could relate to. This was the idea of climbing a mountain, with the eventual aim being to become as close to the sun (God in this case) as possible. If I was to start at the bottom of the mountain, I might not be able to see much and in fact the sun itself might not actually be visible. However if I was to climb by improving myself spiritually, overcoming obstacles in my life and improving myself with the help of more elevated spirits. The view that I get of the world I might be better, looking back I would understand where I had come from and therefore where I was going. And I might be able to help others to reach a higher point themselves.


Becoming more spiritually elevated can also leads to the development of ones spiritual abilities, this varies from person to person based on their spiritual cudro. Some people develop the ability to astral project, some are clairesentient, clairvoyant, some heal and others can become possessed. Whatever that person's latent abilities, through hard work and practise these abilities can become can unlocked and used to help others.


I've found seeking elevation isn't always easy, sometimes I've had to face painful sides to myself. Alot of the time this isn't just about elevating yourself, but also the more unpleasant spirits that you may attract to yourself. Such as dragging, intranquil and cause spirits. This may be difficult but its necessary in order to overcome the tests and  challenges that God may have given to you.


At the end of the day I believe that looking to elevate yourself is about finding newer and better ways of thinking. Of finding within us the hope, love and faith to work our way towards treating ourselves and each other in better ways. As well as the power to break out of the mental traps we make for ourselves and the self destructive patterns that come from them. It may along the way give us more power and spiritual abilities, but these are nothing without the wisdom that elevation gives us to use them and the acknowledgement that all the elevation we gain in Sanse comes from God and the spirits.

Bitter medicine

I had considered posting another opinion piece this week showcasing my growth and progression, but in all honesty it would have been a bit hypocritical. You see I was presented with a situation (which i'm not going to go into), in which I could have shown how much I have matured and grown over time.

Instead I ignored vital advice given to me by people with more knowledge and wisdom then me, communicated my thoughts and feelings badly, flapped around and panicked. Yes, the situation that caused it was deeply unpleasant and certain factors that had been added to it made it that much worse. But the fact remains that I handled it badly.

Now when I sat down tonight, I could have hashed out another blog that completely ignored this little train wreck. But if I had I think I would have ignored something important, because there are lessons in this for me. 

And I hope the next time something like this happens again, i'll have learned something from this and react in a better way...

The long and difficult road

One of the things that has been brought home to me many, many times in my spiritual journey is just how difficult following a spiritual path truely is. Its as true for me in Sanse, as it for a person of any other faith. When I first started practicing vodou I had ideas of the Mysterio saving me from singledom, helping me to fix my career and saving me from my own flaws and foibles.


Since then my hearts been thoroughly broken, my creative streak was severely damaged, I've had spiritual experiences that have scared me to death, I still don't have a steady career, savings or a house to call my own. And I still get depressed by the lack of these things, so why am I still practising Sanse?


Because I love God and I love the spirits and because as much as these are the things I wanted, over time I realised they weren't the things I needed. Instead of the love of my life, the spirits brought me many friends who love me and remind me so frequently. They helped me through my step dad's death, made me realise the career I would had settled for would have ultimately left me unhappy, stressed out and unfulfilled. They helped me out through my depression, allowed me to face my creative block, made sure I never wanted for money, made it possible for me go travelling through India, Canand and New Zealand. Finally they protected me from harmful individuals, brought me the confidence and strength I needed to stand up for myself and the peace I needed to accept the pain and hardship and disappointment that life can bring.


And instead of handing me the things I wanted from life on a platter, they gave me the insight and skills I would need to get them myself. And that means when I do eventually achieve my goals in life, they will be the things that I truly need and I will have earned them for myself. And that will be the greatest gifts that God and the spirits could give to me.

The Centinela

Within Sanse one spirit for me is particularly important, vital in fact for for my spiritual development and that is my Centinela or principle spiritual guide. This is because a guide is the elevated spirit of someone who has died that now acts to guide the spiritual development of another individual. In doing so not only do they act to spiritually elevate that person but themselves as well. As such my guide and everyone else's will be unique and personal to them.


I work with my guide alot, as for me they act as a personal messager and a spiritual gate keeper. This is because although the guide is still an elevated spirit, it is not as elevated as the Mysterio (powerful, elevated ancestral spirits that are normally associated with various spiritual forces). It is therefore easier to reach and work with my guide and would be less draining for me if I was to become possessed by him.


In Sanse there tends to be less of an emphasis on physical offerings, this is because the spirits are capable of gaining energy and light from other sources such as song, dance and prayer. As such although I will give the occasionally offering to my guide. It is not as necessary as it would be with a practice such as Haitian Vodou or Santeria.

My personal experiences of God

For me one of the most beautiful verses of the Koran begins: "God is the light of the heavens and the Earth"

Now for me personally as a Sanse practitioner, this is one of the most poignant lines from the Koran. It is one of the sutras that I recite most often and it is a verse that I keep very close to my heart. This is because, for me God is the source of all light in the universe and I see God as the being that will grant light and elevation to us and the spirits. As such I wanted to share seven of my thoughts and feelings that I had when I was meditating on God.

1) God is a flash of blinding light, that leaves me utterly dazzled.
2) God is a flame inside you that turns into an inferno, when you meditate on its radiance.
3) God is the beauty of passing clouds on a clear day.
4) God is yearning and longing, that is made much sweeter for the ache His absence causes.
5) God is the absence of light and the waiting in the dark for a hint of His light.
6) God is the shame you feel, the pain, the confusion when you think he is not listening and the relief you feel when you find out he is.
7) God is the joy you feel when you discover how beautiful and glorious you truly are.

A new blog

Sometimes the best thing to admit to yourself and to other people is that you don't know as much about a subject as you would like to. This is because when you write about a subject without knowing enough about it, you can make yourself look rather silly. Or as Ogun Feray once said to me "Some people who be fools, don't know they be fools".


Now this is the second Sanse blog that I have created. I took the first one down because at the time of writing, I began to realise that I didn't know enough about Sanse as I needed to. With this new blog, I wanted to create a fresh start. A way to explore my own spiritual growth and reflect on what I have already learned. In doing so I hope I will be able to elevate myself further and become closer to the God and the spirits that I love so much.