The Starry Cave

  Everyone is seeking something good for themselves and in the search for goodness the hunt for purpose, meaning and mission often surfaces as important issues on the path towards self-discovery. But what do we use as the measure for discovering our purpose? Ifá states that we all are imprinted with an energetic signature that both describe our personality traits and how we should conduct ourselves in life to attract good fortune. This energetic signature is a crude and almost primitive mark that gives us a base for growth and expansion, because this energetic signature, the odu, is in truth a primal cosmic force that gives a crude blueprint for our being and journey in life. The map we must make ourselves and there will always be many choices that will be good as there will be many choices that are bad in reference of attracting good fortune. One man’s medicine might be another man’s poison, and choices made towards harmonizing a given energy is often more abstract in nature tha...

  By: Awo Ifasotito Agbefayelele   A frequent question we have received over the last years concerns ‘having path’ to make orisa or Ifá in the sense of being accepted by orisa to initiate. From a traditional perspective this idea of making a divination to see ‘if’ you can initiate doesn’t make much sense looking at this question from within tradition. This, because initiation is a good thing for everyone, so in terms of divination it is not about to see if orisa accept you, but to see how your spiritual dynamic is construed and what spiritual steps would be better for each and every person. In traditional Ifa we can point out four spiritual steps that stands out as important for many and of these four, the first three would be beneficial to do for every one of a sound and good mind and heart. These steps are: 1.       Esentaye/Ori ceremony which commonly is done and given in the first week of an infant’s life. Esentaye which is the naming ceremo...

We are happy to announce our next Quimbanda workshop, which will be held in May 2021 in Extrema, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The exact dates are 5th of May to 9th of May. This time we will make the event one day longer due to the added focus on Umbanda and its relation to Quimbanda, hence we will have a gira of Umbanda as well as one of Quimbanda. The workshop is initiatic in nature. It means that parts of the initiatic process used in our house of Quimbanda will be used for the purpose of connecting you with your personal Exu and Pomba Gira, but also with Exu Omolu who is the Exu presiding over this step pf the process.  The aim is to forge a true connection with your personal Exu/Pomba Gira through Omolu in such way that you will during these days enable yourself to forge a genuine connection with spirit. This means that this first step is about you and your personal relationship with your Exu and Pomba Gira, hence at this point you will not make a commitment to the cabula/temple like ...

  Greetings! We are pleased to inform you on behalf of our Casa de Exu that we will arrange for yet another workshop and seminar of Quimbanda in Extrema, the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil from the 24th to 28th of February 2021. This means that we will be physically in the same place, we will not do webinars/zoom. In this event, we aim towards making room for two different styles of Gira, one more traditional and one 'Gira do Mato', which is more crude and rustic, performed in the woods.  The workshop is both theoretical and practical and will also include the first initiatic steps necessary to forge a true and efficient bond with your Exu and Pomba Gira. For more information please contact us my email: sacred.alchemy.store@gmail.com Laroyê! Tata Sigatana   

Our next Quimbanda Workshop will take place in Extrema, Minas Gerais, Brazil from the 1st day of October to the 4 th of October 2020. The workshop is initiatic in nature. It means that parts of the initiatic process used in our house of Quimbanda will be used for the purpose of connecting you with your personal Exu and Pomba Gira, but also with Exu Omolu who is the Exu presiding over this step pf the process.  The aim is to forge a true connection with your personal Exu/Pomba Gira through Omolu in such way that you will during these days enable yourself to forge a genuine connection with spirit. This means that this first step is about you and your personal relationship with your Exu and Pomba Gira, hence at this point you will not make a commitment to the cabula/temple like the lifelong pact of loyalty a Tata or Yaya pledges. This first step is something you do for yourself, to become an autonomous practitioner capable of taking care of your Exu and Pomb...

The Works of Nigel G. Pearson have largely focused on the world of plants, as in his eminent work The Devil’s Plantation published by Troy Books in 2016. This book is in a way followed up by the book Wortcunning: A FolkMedicine Herbal (Troy Books: 2018) that is actually two books in one. The larger part is a shorthand of folk magic herbs with their uses and associations, a sort of ‘shorthand’ or reference book for the more common of the many plants useful for the cunning one in the great variety of his or her work with healing or with the other side.   A precise and great summary that is very useful.  The other part of this book is composed of the notes Nigel was given by a family group of witches in Susses in the 1980’s that gives a catalogue of properties and use of a great number of healing plants for a great number of ailments. Interesting is also to note that many of the more traditional witching poisons are limited to a warning of being poisonous and give...

Books on Herbalism and plant lore are many and quite often repetitive in the information they give to the reader, but this is not the case with Corinne Boyer’s two publications on Troy Books , Under the BrambleArch (2019) and Under the Witching Tree (2016). These two books are the works of a practitioner of the Green Path that accomplished intense communion not only with the Green world, but Nature herself.  Her work reads as warm and vibrant description of the green treasures she found and she manages to replicate the energetic pulse of the talkativeness of plants and the silent wordiness of the trees in ways captivating and stimulating. Corinne’s work I would place in the succession of writers going back to Nicholas Culpepper’s Complete Herbal (1652), through Erasmus Darwin (yes the father of Charles) in his intense ode to the Greenwood called The Botanic Garden (1791) and in particular the second of the two poems, The Loves of the Plants through Richard Folkard’s ...