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Bridging Ancestral Wisdom & Sacred Ceremonies
Decolonial Healing & Cultural Preservation
Founder @earthmedicinealliance
In service to the Great Mother

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Across generations, spiritual traditions have developed languages for relationship: songs that call, colors that identify, herbs that carry particular qualities, objects that hold meaning, gestures and movements that teach us something words cannot always explain.

Umbanda is rich in these languages.

Songs, colors, herbs, offerings, movements, objects, pontos riscados — all of these can become ways of approaching the Orixás and the many lines of guides within the tradition. They carry knowledge, memory, and meaning.

But the symbol itself is not the relationship.

Having a Pomba Gira fan does not necessarily connect us with Pomba Gira. Wearing the colors of an Orixá does not mean we understand or embody the qualities of that Orixá.

So the question becomes: what has actually been imprinted in us through our encounters with these forces?

What do we recognize in ourselves after sitting with them, singing to them, learning their stories and characteristics, observing their movements, and experiencing the ways they work within ritual?

When we study Ogum, for example, we can learn his colors, his elements, his songs and offerings. But we also come into contact with qualities associated with his force: courage, movement, discipline, protection, the capacity to open a path and move through what stands before us.

And when life brings us to a moment that requires those qualities, can we access what we have learned?

Can something experienced at the altar become a resource for an internal process?

This is where study begins to move beyond information and symbolism.

The objects and ritual elements help establish connection. They give form to teachings and create a language through which we approach something much larger. But the work is also about what becomes internalized — what we learn to recognize, cultivate, and call forward within ourselves when life requires it.

Over time, what we encounter externally can leave an imprint internally.

And perhaps this is where relationship begins to reveal itself: not in what we wear, carry, or display, but in what we have learned to live.

A little of what we studied together this past weekend in upstate New York.

Axé. 🤍 by @gypsyfro

129

a month ago

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The months ahead at Earth Medicine Alliance bring together different altars, lineages, teachers, and ways of approaching this path.

This September and October, Bandeira de Oxalá returns for its fourth U.S. tour with Maracajá, carrying the Afro-Indigenous foundations of Umbanda through a series of daytime giras across the East and West Coasts.

In December, we travel to Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, for Umbandaime — a five-day immersion bringing together studies and practices rooted in Umbanda and Santo Daime.

At the turn of the year, we continue to Brazil to welcome 2027 with the Yawanawá, gathering for a New Year retreat rooted in their traditions, prayer, music, and relationship with Uni.

In May, we return to Chapada dos Veadeiros for The Throne — ten days immersed in the Seven Thrones of Umbanda, studying the Orixás through their points of force in nature.

And from May through July, Shavorã returns to the United States with The Matriarch Tour, continuing a relationship that has grown over several years between EMA, the Yawanawá women who carry this altar, and communities across the country.

Then, in August, we welcome Léo Artese back to Maryland for another weekend of study, prayer, and community within Santo Daime and the Medicine Wheel.

Different traditions. Different histories. Different ways of praying, studying, and building relationship with the spiritual world of plants.

EMA was never created around a single ceremony or a single lineage. It has grown through relationships cultivated over many years, and through the understanding that these paths cannot be separated from the peoples, histories, cultures, and communities that carry them.

Registration is already open for most of these gatherings.

Join our mailing list through the link in our bio to receive registration announcements, new dates, and details as they are released. by @gypsyfro

195

a month ago

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Four years ago, we began organizing Leo Artese’s works in Maryland.
Returning year after year gives us an opportunity to see something that can be difficult to recognize in the moment: growth.
Spiritual work cannot only be measured by the depth of an experience, the places we travel, the teachers we meet, or how many ceremonies we attend. At some point, what we receive has to become visible in the way we live—how we care for one another, how we take responsibility, how we serve, how we navigate differences, and how we learn to build and sustain community.
Otherwise, we risk simply collecting experiences.

This weekend, I found myself looking around and remembering where we began four years ago. I saw people who once arrived as students now carrying responsibilities of their own. People tending the fire, translating, organizing, hosting, preparing, welcoming, and caring for others. Elders sharing what they have learned. Friendships that have deepened through years of showing up for one another.

There are so many pearls of wisdom within Leo’s hymns, but one teaching that returns again and again is love—not only as a feeling, but as something we are asked to practice with one another. His hymns have offered guidance over these years, reminding us that much of the spiritual work happens precisely here: in learning how to live in community.

Teachers can visit. We can listen, study, sing and pray with them. But perhaps one of the greatest ways to honor what they bring is for something to be different when they return.

For the community to have grown.
For people to have grown.
For what was taught to have taken root.

Looking through these moments from the weekend, that is what I feel most grateful for.

Four years later, we are not where we started. And that, to me, is part of the work.

Ari Brasil 🦋 by @gypsyfro

143

2 months ago

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Umbanda is one of Brazil’s most dynamic spiritual traditions, shaped by resistance, adaptation, and the meeting of African, Indigenous, Spiritist, and Catholic influences.

It emerged in a country profoundly marked by colonization, slavery, and the persecution of African and Indigenous spiritual practices. Its development reflects both the need to preserve ancestral knowledge and the ways different peoples, beliefs, and cosmologies came into relationship on Brazilian soil.

Much of its knowledge has been carried across generations in terreiros, through oral transmission, ritual practice, music, relationship with the Orixás, and the many lines of spirits that form its spiritual world. These are not simply elements of ritual; they belong to a much larger cultural and spiritual inheritance.

As the Bandeira de Oxalá travels across the United States, it carries this inheritance with it—creating opportunities for study, cultural exchange, and a deeper relationship with Umbanda without separating its spiritual practices from the people and cultures that have shaped them.

Want to learn more? Comment OXALÁ and we’ll send you the details.

Bandeira de Oxalá · United States 2026

#umbanda #orixa #plantmedicine #culturaafrobrasileira #afrobrazilianspirituality by @gypsyfro

142

2 months ago

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🌀Raizes e Asas🦋
Tamos juntos 🫂
✨Gratidão✨
@shavora.arte.medicina
@earthmedicinealliance taken in Stone Ridge, New York by @gypsyfro

162

5 months ago

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Agradeço do fundo do meu coração a Leo Artese, Ari Brasil e minha família Magnola Way por compartilharem o espaço juntos. by @gypsyfro

264

a year ago

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✨ Bandeira de Oxalá in Maryland — moments from last year’s gathering ✨

Rooted in the traditions of Umbanda and the wisdom of the forest, this altar brings together song, prayer, and devotion to the Orixás — spiritual forces of nature, ancestors, and resistance.

Umbanda was born in Brazil from the meeting of Indigenous, African, and European spiritualities — a powerful response to colonization, slavery, and forced conversion.
It is a tradition of resilience. Of healing. Of harmony between worlds.

We return to Maryland July 19 & 20, walking this sacred path together once again.
Axé to all who walk in reverence and remembrance.

#BandeiraDeOxalá #Umbanda #plantwisdom #Orixás #AfroIndigenousSpirituality #sacredceremony #axé #cantandoparaosorixás #SpiritualResistance #MarylandCeremony #maryland #baltimore by @gypsyfro

103

a year ago

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There’s something happening with rapéh that’s worth pausing to look at.
A medicine once carried with deep prayer, rooted in tradition, is now being passed around in casual spaces — often without context, without relationship, and far from the cultures it comes from.
It’s not always from a place of harm. Sometimes it’s curiosity. Sometimes it’s excitement. Sometimes it’s people trying to help others find grounding or peace. But good intentions don’t always mean right relationship.

These days, it’s easy to find rapéh online. To buy kuripes and tepis like spiritual accessories. To serve and to receive casually in “rapéh circles”. It’s also easy to fall into overuse — spiritual compulsion dressed in ritual. Reaching for rapéh not from reverence, but from habit. From avoidance. From the need to feel something. And when the sensation fades, instead of turning inward, many go looking for stronger blends — rather than deeper alignment.
Slowly, something sacred becomes familiar.
Then familiar becomes casual.
And casual becomes consumption.

I share my story for those in that in-between space — those who are unsure if they’re still in sacred relationship, or if they’ve crossed into escape, dependency, or excess. It’s an invitation to reflect on how we’re engaging with something that was never meant to be used this way.

Right relationship is personal. But it’s also collective. Because how we walk with these medicines shapes the culture we create around them.

Rapéh (and tobacco) can open you. It can teach you. But it can also trap you.

So ask yourself:
🍃 Do you use rapéh every day?
🍃 Can you go more than 3 days without it?
🍃 Do you carry it with you everywhere, just in case?
🍃 Is your nose often irritated or stuffed from it?
🍃 Are you reaching for medicine… or avoiding just sitting with yourself?

My relationship with rapéh continues. More spacious now. Less frequent. More honest. More private.

I hope this reflection supports you in your own process — and serves as a reminder that sacredness and meaning aren’t in the tool or the medicine itself, but in how we walk with it.

#rapé #plantmedicine #rightrelationship by @gypsyfro

344

a year ago

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Healing isn’t just personal.
It’s political. Historical. Collective.

As we walk these sacred paths, we must also include the stories that are often left out —
the stolen, the enslaved, the displaced.
We must include the ancestors who didn’t have the privilege of healing in peace.

Juneteenth reminds us: freedom was never given. It was fought for.
And healing that doesn’t reckon with history risks becoming just another form of erasure.

If your healing rests on someone else’s oppression, it’s incomplete.
If your awakening avoids responsibility, it’s not real.

Let’s not just take the medicine.
Let’s honor the histories it carries.

#decolonizehealing #spiritualaccountability #juneteenth #healingjustice #rightrelationship #medicinepath #blackliberation #indigenousresistance by @gypsyfro

a year ago

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We dream of being awake
but sleepwalk through collapse.
I cannot shift the tides,
I cannot quiet the storms,
but I can tend this little light,
shape this self,
again
and again
and again.

#hope #inspire #ᴛᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ #pretending #intending by @gypsyfro

128

a year ago

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$Sometimes, it takes a tremendous amount of energy just to get to the yoga mat. Some days are easier than others. Some days, I don’t make it. Some days, my sweat mixes with tears as I grieve the parts of my body that will never be the same again. Other days, I’m in awe of my body’s ability to go from where it was… to where it is. Patience and acceptance. Then—acceptance and patience. 🎼 Janaina Portella & Monstermovieph #yogaforhealing #mindfulness #meditation #selfcare #injuryrecovery #rehabjourney #physicaltherapy #recoveryjourney #healingprocess #mobilitytraining #pilonfracturerecovery #rehabilitation #strengththroughadversity #comebackstronger #nevergiveup #wellnessjourney #healthylifestyle #fitmindfitbody #innerstrength #mentalhealthawareness #selflove #pilonfracture by @gypsyfro$

2 years ago

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Once upon a time…
Singing with the Borboleta 🦋

“Take me on your wings
Through fields of flowers
Inside of myself
Come Butterfly
Fly in my garden”

#butterfly #medicine #music #nature #singing by @gypsyfro

141

2 years ago

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Ari Brasil

@gypsyfro