Getting Started -- Seek With Your Heart (part 1)

I did not grow up in an Orisha worshiping home.  I grew up in a highly intellectual home, in an upper-middle class Jewish neighborhood, the daughter of a Jewish father and a "shicksa" (non-Jewish) mother.  My father was oppressively Atheistic; that is to say, not only did he not believe in God, he shamed or ridiculed anyone that did; and so, even though my mother actually was a spiritual person, she kept it so well hidden that I had no idea at all that she believed in anything or ever even thought about such matters until I was in my early twenties.  It was not difficult for her to do, since she was a scientist -- she had a PhD in zoology and later went into research in immunology.  She could easily pretend that she only believed in what could be empirically observed and proven.  My father also had a PhD, in clinical psychology, of all things.  While I personally believe that a highly developed intuition is a therapist's best tool, I never knew a less intuitive person than my father.  He was more like a computer -- info in, info out -- even if that info did pass through some emotionally twisted filters.  So in our house we spoke rational-eeze. I used to jokingly say that we had a Christmas tree in the corner, a Menorah on the T.V. set, and God nowhere in sight.  And it was true. 

But there was a certain beauty to growing up in a spiritual vacuum.  It left me more or less free to think and explore as I wished, as long as I didn't wave it under my father's nose, and even that was just to avoid being ridiculed; he wouldn't have punished me or anything.  Still, I had no wish to give him any ammo to use against me. But even in my teen years I was already beginning to actively explore and ask questions -- it was simply in my nature.  I can remember staying up into the wee hours of the morning, debating with a friend what becomes of one after they die. Even then my Ori was starting to lead me on a circuitous but inexorable path that would ultimately lead to the Orishas. 

From my early twenties on, pursuing matters of the Spirit became one of my principal obsessions.  A Course in Miracles, Jewish Renewal, Taoism, Buddhism, channelings from dead folks and from outer space -- you name it, I explored it all.  I still do.  But at my core, I remained to a certain extent a Rationalist.

That is, until I met the Orishas.

To this day, I still do not know for sure: did the music lead me to the Orishas, or did the Orishas lead me to the music?   What I do know is that I fell completely, madly in love with Afro-Antillean music, or what is more commonly called Salsa. (Merengue too.)  It didn't take me long to start noticing, especially in the older music from the 70's, these strange, exotic words that weren't Spanish.  What were they?  And what did they mean?

Pretty soon people started materializing in my life that had the answers to some of that.  They were involved in something called Santeria, and it seemed so far out, so superstitious and irrational and weird, really weird, even for my way-out New Age-y ass.  It was just so far away from anything I had known in this lifetime, that even when the first ambassador for the Orishas, which in my case was Shango, came knocking at my door, I politely opened the door, blinked, said no thank you, and shut the door again.  But God, or Olodumare if you prefer, is infinitely patient; and the Orishas, being Angelic (which is not to say without flaws) forces that are part of that great All, were ever so patient with me.  They didn't take my rejections personally, they just bided their time, and then came a-knockin' -- actually, it was always Shango in the early days - again, and again, and again, until I just couldn't ignore or discount it anymore and I realized that someone was trying to tell me something, and perhaps I'd better take it seriously and find out what that was!

But then it was my turn to be tested.