Orisha Ceremony: Healing Power of Drumming

Jesus Limon Morales: My teacher and Renowned Afro-Cuban Music Composer in Cuba


My teachers invited me to a Santeria Ceremony a few days ago. I accepted with full enthusiasm, having no real idea what I was getting myself into but really excited to have been invited in my first week here to experience a ceremony in this ancient tradition first hand. Somehow in my mind, I created a vision of what I thought it might be, both from their enthusiasm and the fact that it seemed like everywhere I looked,as we were getting ready to depart, there were Santos whirling about. I assumed they were all going to the same event. I was visualizing this huge gathering, maybe outdoors somewhere with hordes of drummers and dancers from all over the area. My new friend Jose, the guitar player, warned me to keep my eyes open and protect my heart. He thought I might be too emotionally open and that it could be dangerous for me to not keep my guard up. "You may see things you have never seen before, so be careful and don't let yourself get emotionally involved." Those words of course made the suspense and excitement grow in leaps and bounds!

Ishmael, my angel already, walked with me in his snazzy white pants and sharp shoes to get a cab and we all climbed in and took off on my first adventure into exploring this religion and culture that is Santeria. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, but my heart told me it was right, good and safe and I trusted in that knowingness fully! I wonder what they think of this little white woman who has just shown up in their lives like a sponge to absorb their wisdom and witness their lives. I am so comfortable with these beautiful people. I've never been here, but it's familiar in ways I can't explain, and they are familiar in spirit like some family I've returned home to. I'm walking in and out of people's homes as if I've been here for years or my whole life, and this is only the 5th day here! I'm jumping fully into this with all of my being and loving every minute of it! Somehow I know they can see and feel that my heart and intentions are pure and I feel like that's why things have opened up for me so quickly and effortlessly!

We got to the ceremony and I was simutaneously relieved and disappointed that it was a small, intimate house ceremony with about 25 people. This was a very safe container and a very safe place to be and the intimacy was welcomed. I was instantly engrossed in the moment and the spectacle that was already in full swing when we arrived. The ceremony was held at a home in a neighboring town, a little apartment style house with a small living space that was jam packed full of people. As we entered, we doused our foreheads and hands with rose petal water to clean and purify ourselves. No one really seemed to acknowledge anything out of the ordinary when the little white woman walked in, so I felt like it was OK that I was there though I wouldn't say I exactly felt "welcomed" right away. It was an intense vibe. No one (except Jesus) smiled at me or really even looked at me for quite a while. My teachers were drumming and singing beautiful Orisha chants in Yoruba and this little living room was rocking! I was dancing and in bliss right away and my heart was smiling the biggest smile ever! The dream is alive.

An elder woman sat in the corner, eyes closed, swaying back and forth with the drums, deeply in trance next to the drummers. Jesus Sr. was playing the bell in a blue silk shirt, ragged jeans and a blue khaki cap topping his smiling head. He would give me the biggest toothiest grin, and be singing the songs with really big mouth gestures to try to help me get the words. His big joyful eyes drew my heart to opening right away! So much for Jose's warning! The music was so powerful, so beautiful and alive as Jesuscito (Jesus Jr) would call out the songs and everyone else would sing the responses. I gained mad respect for the Jesus's skill today. They are such skilled musicians and spirit guides! These two men are my new rhythm friends and I totally feel and understand their hearts in service to the people thru rhythm. I couldn't help but feel amazed and overwhelmingly grateful that spirit has so quickly brought me to these masters to learn and experience this magic that is Santeria.

It wasn't long after we arrived that the woman in the corner started shaking and convulsing. Spirit was taking her on a journey. A woman in a green shirt fell into possession and thrashed about nearly knocking over the altar in her violent gestures, head snaps and pops. Another woman, dressed in red popped next and so it went into whirling stumbling trances and possessions, people getting occassionally carried out when they got too high. Throughout the 3 hours, there were several intermittent episodes of the elder woman in the corner getting up and pushing every one else out of the way in her reeling and flopping around, stumbling and falling into the drums, then opening her eyes to see the support of her community and family witnessing her trance, she would smile and go back in. I gathered that the ceremony had some special significance for her healing as she seemed to be given special treatment and space. Just as in our ceremonies with the Muse work, Firedance, etc. the dancer was watched and kept safe by the others present, and more than once this elder woman fell into my arms and was supported to re-enter her trance by a place to lean into and re-group.

All the while Jesus just kept hammering the most beautiful grooves and ecstatic trance with his voice and the rhythms merging into shared communion with spirit, self and community. Sofiah, a tiny wrinkled woman with no teeth danced next to me for the whole ceremony, grabbing my arm or hitting me softly when she was really feeling it, her squinty eyes smiling out at me from the wrinkles. She was adorable and so loving having my company there to share the journey with her. All the women were so given to the dance and we danced together for 3 hours joining in a universal place beyond the physical realm that transcends all differences.

I laughed thinking of Jose's "warning" a few hours ago! How could my heart be anything but open here? There was nothing to protect myself from or be afraid of, and I knew there would be nothing here that was unfamiliar to me or scary in any way. I have seen in my work with drum and dance all kinds of states of trance, possession and spirit magic and even though much of it has not been "traditional" in the way that this is, still spirit moves people thru rhythm in very similar ways energetcially. This is my home! The world of spirit, rhythm, trance, dance and magic is no place I could even consider closing my heart to. This living room and everyone in it know and understand the same heart/spirit space that I do, they understand this connection, and all of us were there together in harmony and total surrender to the rhythm spirits.

The trance brought the older woman back to the dance and after some time of wobbling around and stumbling, she suddenly stood up straight and opened her eyes again. It was as if something in her had lifted and been cleansed, or healed. Her smile was bright and she looked 20 years younger. She picked up a bouquuet of basil and thrashed us all good with it, hitting the young men squarely on their crotches as if to acknowledge their naughtiness, the she sat back down by the drums and went inside again.

The ceremony closed with a beautiful chant to Elegua and a path was made to the door for Elegua to go on his way. We shared sweets and I discovered I indeed have a spirit family here in Cuba. We have danced together, shared our hearts and witnessed each other in altered states of consciousness created solely by music and entrainment. We are now family in a way only those of us who know this path can know or understand fully. It is an unbreakable bond to share this kind of experience. When I walked in no one smiled at me, but now we were all smiling and hugging each other.

I am living a dream I've been dreaming of for a lot of years and I'm choosing today to say that this is just the beginning! Returning to the Roots and loving every minute!

Journal Entry from the Trip to the Rock in the Caribbean

Day 3 here on this rock in the Caribbean Sea. I feel rebellious and so blissed out of my gourd I can barely stand it. Officially, by record, I'm nowhere, I've disappeared and some part of me wonders what would happen if I just didn't go back in 3 weeks. If it were all over tomorrow and a big wave came up and swept me away, I'd die content. I've had an amazing life, and the magic that has happened here in the past 3 days would have me flying back to source with a big smile on my face knowing I have lived a dream I've had for many years!

My first night, my friend Frank and I were wandering around the streets of this little ocean village and came across a man who amazingly spoke English. There aren't many here. I told him I was here seeking to learn about the Santeria Religion and Rhythms, and he informed me that he'd just heard some drumming behind his house and gave me directions. We hunted down the house and the Bembe (Santos ceremony of music, song and dance) was just ending. People in white were filtering outside and dispersing into the streets. Since I had just landed, I hadn't yet had any time to get a grasp on what is acceptable and how to approach this, so I was feeling a mixture of total excitement, and some nervousness about approaching anyone. Especially since my Spanish is far from fluent still! I could feel this little buzz in my heart and couldn't believe my good fortune that the very first night I am here, I would come upon this so quickly!

So I hovered outside, and Frank was encouraging me to wait til the morning and come back to the house and ask. Me being me though, I just didn't want to wait til morning for what I could maybe initiate now. So I hovered, and watched and waited and Frank and I cracked jokes about having ourselves sacrificied for being there hovering outside of their sacred space cracking jokes about being sacrficied! A very tall man somehow energetically caught my attention, and I decided he was the one I would approach, or maybe Spirit had decided for me. I was laughing at myself, "Sure pick the biggest guy around who looks the most intimidating and start there!" As he left, I grabbed Frank by the arm and followed him down the street, and I don't think Frank was super comfortable with all of this by the way. We followed him until he was about 100 yards from the house and I attempted to communicate in my limited Spanish that with all due respect, I had a question and would he be willing to grant me permission to ask. He was gracious, looked at me kind of funny at first (probably my Spanish), and said, "Si." When I told him I was interested in learning about the religion and the music, he gave a big smile and told me to come to his house, which we were now standing in front of, the next day at 10 AM and he would have someone there to teach me. His name was Ishmael, and I feel somehow like he is an angel indeed brought to me, or I to him to start this magical journey!

The next day I showed up at Ishmael's home. Ishmael is a big, beautiful, mature man, maybe in his late 40's, tall, elegant and with a tender heart and a kind way about him. He showed me his altars in his home honoring the different Orisha's of his tradition, Ilegua (the keeper of the doors between the worlds) lives behind his door to guard the opening to the house, Ogun & Chango were in the living room near the kitchen and assured me that "poco a poco" I would come to know more. I was glad I came with atleast a little knowledge of Santeria and the Orisha's from my time exploring on my own and my own spiritual guidance that has cracked open those doors for me. His house was tidy, and simple like most homes there and he led me out back to the "yard" which really is just a concrete slab with a tree coming out of it where I would be taking my lessons.

The doors here are opening for me and quickly. Everywhere I look there are Santos,and I have learned a lot in just a few short days about the religion. I have taken 2 drum classes already with Jesus Limon Morales and his son Jesucito. As it turns out, Jesus Limon Morales is a pretty well known composer (some here say "famosa") of Afro Cuban music here, so miraculously, in this little village by the sea, I was led to some pretty solid real deal connections!

The first lesson I was a little nervous I guess and had a really hard time with the language barrier, but it was beautiful because even with that, we were still able to have this profound conversation about how singing, drumming and dancing activate the mind to heal and help us to connect in ways that nothing else really does. I felt like these two men I'd just met understand something I know and feel that it seems few others do. They really understand the body/mind/spirit connection of the rhythms and their effects. They understand how it opens the portal to the Divine.
I felt like we understood each other on this whole other level, a very real level somehow and I left feeling more connected in just a few short hours to these men than I do to a lot of people I have known for years and realizing that the people I feel the most "family" with in my heart are those who understand these truths fully.

I am here with deep and ancient spirits, my teachers lineage goes back generations in the Santeria tradition, all the way back to the Yoruba roots. In a few days they are taking me to my first ceremony here and I am feeling very honored and blessed to feel the portals opening to me here! I rest tonite giving thanks for every part of the journey that has brought me here now.

Initiation: Returning to the Roots

My shower tonite felt like a ritual. Tomorrow I fly to Cuba for 20 days and I feel like it is some kind of overdue long awaited intiation.

Memories of a circle in Florida, playing all night long where I felt the Orisha's dancing my body, where I first began to understand the reality of spirit posession and it's power and purpose. Memories of a night in Georgia where they ripped through my core and overtook me fully and I became their vessel for play and expression. So many memories of these Rhythm Spirits, some so far back in my consciousness I know they weren't from this life. I have been tentative to approach them, but I have been called more than once to hear their voices.

I bathed tonite in release of my past and in surrender to this unique path of rhythm and magic that is my life's passion and purpose.

I hear them calling me home and at last I have found the courage to answer.