Embody the Elements for Liberation & Orisha Wisdom

On some level we know that we aren’t embodying our full potential. That fear and conditioning by our early family, society, and culture is limiting the full expression of our deepest, most powerful, and most beautiful selves. This separation is extremely painful, and finding freedom is often a lifelong process.

Learning to work consciously with the Elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air is a foundational skill to reinhabiting our potential. We are each unique combinations of the Elements because we are each unique manifestations of the divine with our own gifts, struggles, and path in this life.

What are the Elements?

The Elements are a facet of the Creator and the Created. They are made manifest in infinite forms, including you, and they populate the natural and spiritual realms. With training you can learn to connect with the Elements as they manifest in nature, in others, and in your own physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies. In ceremonies of Umbanda, you are invited connect with the Elements are they manifest in elevated spiritual energies, called Orixas/Orishas and Caboclos.

The Elements are made manifest in infinite forms: in the trees, dirt, birds, rocks, lakes, and all of creation. They are made manifest in you and in every person. You are a unique combination of the Elements, a unique and one-time manifestation of the divine. Working with the Elements provides insight into yourself and how the Elements shape your individual gifts and struggles on your personal path.

How Do The Elements Relate to the Orixas?

The Orixas bring multifaceted complexity of what it means to be Divine. Mediums work with Earth energies (like Omulu, Exu, Pomba Gira), Water energies (like Yemanja, Oxum), Fire energies (like Xango, Ogum), Air energies (like Oxossi) and many other energies that bridge elements, such as Iansa (Water, Fire, and Air), Nana (Earth and Water), and so on. Each of these Orixas brings meaning, richness, feeling, and depth to our lives. None of these energies are white energies but all are intensely divine. It is the same with the Elements. Once we are able to embody Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, we become like a prism, holding all the vibrations/colors and reaching the Fifth Element of Spirit (the Orixa Oxala), a white and black energy of wholeness and integrity. One does not work with white energies until all of the individual energies of the Elements are active and at work. No part is denied, made invalid, or left behind. All of creation is given respect, including our own pain and difficult emotions.

Working with our basic elemental nature allows for us to come into a state of wholeness of expression, balance, and knowledge about ourselves. Working consciously with the elements also increases embodiment, which is the key to more connection, strength, and pleasure, as well as successful spiritual and shamanic awakenings.

Understanding the Elements enriches your healing and participation in ceremonies of Umbanda. If you would like a deep dive into the Elements, Nicole provides an entirely online, self-paced program that gives you the tools to work consciously with your elemental nature to fulfill your unique divine potential.

This program provides self-guided initiations to the elements that include both sacred ritual and detailed spiritual education. It is an invitation to experience the magic that is inside of you and all around us. The Divine Feminine of Earth and Water is a much needed energy that brings restoration, nurturance, and loving support. The balanced embodiment of the Divine Masculine of Fire and Air is also greatly needed in our culture and brings fairness, perseverance, and protection. You receive detailed instructions so that you are empowered to understand and even access the energy of the Four Elements directly.

I created this program because I found after my initiation into Umbanda that barriers to my healing and spiritual development arose due to language as well as cultural barriers -- this is the program I wish I had to support my Umbanda learnings in my native tongue and with references to energies that I consciously know and understand. I believe it is a fundamental resource for anyone looking to better understand themselves, the Orishas, and how to move forward on their path. I designed the program to supplement a growing understanding of the Orixás and their energy for people who are already attending spiritual works of Umbanda locally in Colorado. While the Elements differ from the Orixas, they serve as a bridge for deeper communion with the natural/spiritual world and its manifestation in the human form, including yourself.

You can find a complete description here: https://www.oneheartanimism.com/product-page/exploration-of-the-elements.

If you subscribe to our monthly email and are an active part of the Umbanda community in Colorado, check out the May email for a promo code to receive a $10 community-member discount.

In training and initiation in many West African religions including Umbanda, we do not journey to anywhere else to experience the spiritual realms. We know that an invisible, immaterial, and magical world fills us and is all around us, and we don’t need to leave our bodies or our backyards to experience it. The Elements are an ancient form of this animism, the idea that the invisible realm has an ever present vitality in our physical world, and that we are part of an interconnected web of energy that ebbs and flows through us and the entire universe. When we learn to acknowledge and give respect and gratitude to the four elements, in both nature and in ourselves, we enter a state of wholeness that is characterized by the Fifth Element of Spirit, a state of divine union that is cosmic divinity grounded deeply in the earth.

The elements are earth-based spirituality that embraces both the feminine and the masculine, the light as well as the darkness in us. To connect to the elements is to pay respect to our inner divinity. In Umbanda and many West African religions, we hold that divinity is too complex to be fully understood by the mind or by some monotonous, single-toned, bland idea of light and love. Divine potential is embodying everything, from our sacred anger to our fullest joy. It is complex, ever-changing, multifaceted, and based on flow. Embodying the Elements does not ascend us to anywhere but takes us further and further into deeper layers of reality free from illusions and inner-chaos and replete with meaning and beauty.

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