The Ground Beneath Your Feet: Finding the structure of an Independent Spiritual Pathway

The Ground Beneath Our Feet, Week # 4: Sharing is Caring and Knowledge is Power

Note: If you aren’t familiar with The Ground Beneath our Feet, It’s a series of posts on my facebook group that discusses what the structure of an independent spiritual journey can look like so we can share ideas, learn from one another, and build community together. Feel free to join here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1CU5zZeUZ5/

4/1/2026:

In talking about The Ground Beneath Our Feet, my initial focus has been on the daily framework of a modern spiritual journey. What does it look like in reality? How do we fit the work in? Now that I feel I’ve been able to Cut Through The Noise and begin to find my own rhythm, I’m adding in a new layer: Sharing is Caring.

Knowledge is powerful, and I know that I need to regularly study outside of a classroom so that as I learn, I can think on my own about what the information means to me and how I can meaningfully integrate it into my life. Sometime in early February, when I was still trying to figure out what this year would look like for me, I began to truly think about what an “Independent Spiritual Journey” really meant. Honestly—I missed my mentor. She is and always will be my friend, but I had to cut her off like a bad habit! I was too reliant on her—on her knowledge, on her power, on her loving willingness to share it all with students who she was eager to see take flight, and I was doing more studying than flying—so I had to stop using her as a crutch. Staying still equates to slow or no growth.

But I missed her, so very much. So I went ahead and made an appointment to check in with her, and we had the best conversation. What had been on my mind at the time, a LOT, was how to grow. How to learn what you need to learn without joining a closed practice, if possible. How to grow even closer to your spirit team, and how to find community, because this path can truly be lonely.

I was seriously contemplating initiating into a formal spiritual tradition so that I could be around more like-minded people, and also so that I could learn those spiritual practices that are only shared inside of closed traditions. That idea, though, did not sit well with me for two reasons:

1) I had already escaped a religion that was stifling, and

2) I’m not so good at following the rules without a good reason, and often—especially in religion and spirituality—you don’t get to know the reason right away. Based on the kinds of trauma I was left with, I have a hard time trusting that process—so much so, that at times, it kind of takes the intervention of spirit itself to get me to listen—and even they have to work real hard to get me there!

So while I was pondering all about whether or not to join a spiritual community and what initiation really was, I began to think about my relationship with spirit and how deeply connected we already were, and then I started wondering how useful joining a community could even be if I was already……connected in really specific ways? Would involving human intervention to “initiate” you to spirit ruin the relationship you already had? Do you even HAVE to be initiated to spirit through a traditional pathway?

While thinking on all of this and chatting with my mentor, A friend I’m connected to on this blue book posted a release date for her new book: Egbe Orun, The Soul Group That Remembers You.

At first, I was honestly not interested. I had read one of her previous books and it was incredibly well-written and very helpful as a companion to one of the classes I took last year—helpful to the point that I don’t think I would have had quite as much success without reading her book, so I knew whatever she wrote was gonna be well-researched, easily understood, and logical in the face of the illogical…but this book seemed like it was much more focused on Yoruba spiritual traditions and like I said…I’m not sure those kinds of religious restrictions are for me, right now, so simply based on the title, I was not feeling it.

I know her value though, and I know how knowledgeable she is, so I read the first 2 sample pages and guess what? Right there in the Author’s note, on freaking PAGE 1 (page 2 in the digital version…)…was the answer to the questions I had been punting around for the last month. First, she explained what the book was and what it was not—and it was most certainly NOT an “academic text on Yoruba religion.” So point one, for me! As I kept reading, I got to the bottom of the page and right there in black and white, was the answer to my very specific question: “…you don’t need initiation to understand yourself as part of a spiritual collective that remembers who you are when you forget…”

Y’all. Y’ALL! I almost broke down in tears, cause I was really struggling with the idea that I would have to stuff myself back into some box that did not leave me enough room to breathe in order to grow! Needless to say—I bought the book immediately.

I was super-excited to get it and wanted to read it right away, but as always—life got to lif-ing. Then my friend—she offered a class that was kind of like an introductory overview of the book, and it was affordable, so I signed right on up.

Right decision. It was so good! It had me leaving the class with a better understanding of the concepts she was trying to share and even more excited to read the book.

Side Note: Do you ever feel like spirit creates elaborate opportunities that are just for you? Like, am I the only one who thinks my spirit team does ridiculous things like have someone write a book that they know will be the answer to my question in the future? Just for me? Because I’m that special?

No? I’m the only one who thinks that? Okay then….?!!!

Seriously, a lot of this journey feels constructed, like spirit was just waiting for me to catch up and start asking the right questions or look in the right direction. My flabbers are still gasted that immediately after I began asking whether or not I needed to be initiated into a specific spiritual tradition to continue my growth—this book came along and said “No. No you do not need to be initiated at all. Just read me.” And so, I did. Read, that is. And my goodness, what a treasure trove of information…..End Side Note!

So…what is the book about? The short answer is that it’s about your spirit team, and the many ways they are connected to you, how they are connected to you, WHY they are connected to you, and how you can better align to that connection so that you ensure you’re walking the path you are meant to walk while embodied on this here earth. And she shares this knowledge through the very specific lens of the Yoruba tradition, while helping us understand that these are themes that appear across many spiritual traditions; each culture creating a framework to describe similar ideas and access similar knowledge.

Although this is written from inside the perspective of the Yoruba tradition, she also somehow manages to help you understand this information in terms of your personal spiritual pathway—and how you can access it without violating another culture’s traditional practices. This is important. We all have access to this knowledge, but we do NOT all have access to the same pathways that offer this knowledge. And each pathway gives you a perspective that offers a different kind of enlightenment, so if that’s what you want and it’s a closed tradition—then you have to honor that by following the path they lay out to learn, if it’s even available to you. I really enjoyed the presentation of the info because it helped in understanding what kinds of practices were prohibited without proper training, and what kinds of concepts were more universal and available to incorporate into your own practice because it wasn’t cultural as much as it was spiritual. I have NEVER seen the concept presented this way before. I usually see it presented as, “this is a closed practice and you can’t ever learn because you’re not one of us…” and so I left it alone. But this presentation? I appreciated it so much.

This does not mean that if I wanted to initiate as a Yoruba priestess I COULD…but the way she described it left me feeling that if I wanted to, I could at least find the right pathway and work towards it. Most folks don’t offer this. They just lock you out.

The point is…while the framework she uses to share this knowledge is based on Yoruba spirituality, you do not have to practice it to use the information she shares to become closer to spirit inside of your own journey—whether that’s independent, uber-religious, or another spiritual practice that looks nothing like an African Traditional Religion.

Side Note #2: I want to be clear that in the framework that allows me to understand my personal connection to spirit, “spirit team” is the most user-friendly way to describe my relationship with the spirits who are there to support me. But the book does not use this term in that way, or at all. I just wanted to point that out because the book uses the Yoruba word “Egbe” to describe the soul family who travels with and supports you and defines it differently than a spirit team. I simply use the words that make sense to me—which is one of the points of the book. We are all connected to our Egbe, even though we may call them something different in our own travels—or call them nothing at all.

I took a tremendous amount of notes as I read the book, and I’ll share some of the more impactful things I learned as we discuss it over the next couple of weeks. But also? I’ll share the link to the book and the book club discussion (hosted by the author), which is at the end of April. If you are interested in this topic at all, I highly recommend buying the book, reading it, and showing up to get chatty with us! I can’t wait!

I think that for now, this is enough. This was a really long post, so if you read all of it—thank you! I’m going to make sure to put it up on my blog with audio so it’s accessible in multiple ways.

Let me know, though…what are you learning about, right now? What is interesting to you? What’s calling to you, to integrate that knowledge???

Here’s the link to the book—if it calls to you, PLEASE BUY IT!

https://www.amazon.com/Egbe-Orun-Understanding-Agreements-Consciousness/dp/1959406221

And here’s the link to the book club discussion on April 30th. Get in! (first link is to the all events page; 2nd is to the book club registration. Use what works…)

https://www.amazon.com/Egbe-Orun-Understanding-Agreements-Consciousness/dp/1959406221

https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/form/6Hh1aCPJB8YO6hUbYJ2C

Happy Wednesday, peoples!!!