Exu: The responsibility of choosing your path
Honor who you are, no matter what others think of you. Your life is yours to lead, and no one else has the authority to decide for you.
These six messages were channeled for my guided meditation Honoring the Souls. I share them here in the English adaptation used in the video, with my reflections on their meaning. The meditation draws on Quimbanda das Almas and Umbanda. These reflections belong to this particular work and my interpretation; houses and lineages have their own understandings and ways of working with these guides.
The phrase that stands out to me is “your life is yours to lead.” I understand this as an invitation to examine where the authority over my choices actually rests. Other people may have expectations about my work, my relationships, or my spiritual path. Their opinions can matter deeply, particularly when they come from people I respect. Yet I am still the person who must live with the choices I make.
Honoring who I am requires more than defending my preferences. It asks me to become honest about my motives, acknowledge my limitations, and recognize when I have made a mistake. A sense of personal authority becomes more substantial when I can accept correction without surrendering my capacity to decide. Listening carefully and choosing consciously belong together.
There is also a responsibility toward other people within this message. My authority over my life does not give me authority over theirs. A choice can express something true about me and still require a difficult conversation, an apology, or a change in how I treat someone. For me, the teaching becomes useful when it helps me act with greater clarity and accept the consequences of my actions.
Consider a decision you have postponed because you fear disappointing someone. Write down what you want, what you owe to the people affected, and what consequences you are prepared to accept. The work begins in bringing those three things into the same conversation.
A question for reflection: Where am I allowing someone else’s approval to determine a choice I need to own?
Pombagira: Self worth and the work of growth
You are the most important person in your own life. The wisdom of others can only take you so far. Take the wisdom of the ancestors to heart, and grow through your own efforts and achievements.
“You are the most important person in your own life” can be an uncomfortable sentence to receive. Many of us learn to measure our value through usefulness, loyalty, or the approval we receive. I read this opening as permission to recognize that my life also deserves my attention. My needs, aspirations, and limits belong within the decisions I make.
The rest of the message gives that recognition direction. It joins ancestral wisdom with effort and achievement. Guidance can offer perspective, but its usefulness depends partly on what I do with it. A teaching about patience becomes meaningful through how I respond when something frustrates me. Advice about study takes shape when I return to the material, ask a better question, and give myself time to understand.
This is where I find the tension between receiving and acting. It is possible to seek one more reading, one more interpretation, or one more sign while leaving the next ordinary step untouched. The message invites me to notice when seeking guidance has become a way of postponing responsibility. I can honor the wisdom I receive by making a considered effort with the abilities and resources available to me.
Effort also needs a humane measure. People live with different resources, responsibilities, and limitations. I would not use this passage to judge someone’s worth by their productivity or circumstances. Its practical question is more personal: what is one action within my reach that would show care for the life I am responsible for living?
A question for reflection: What guidance have I already received that I could put into practice through one realistic action?
Preto Velho: Seeing with the soul of a bird
My child, life isn’t easy for anyone. Live each day as though it were your last. Honor your will, and grow beyond your personal limitations. Look up and see the boundless goodness of the Creator. Life is beautiful beyond measure. You only need to learn to see it with the soul of a bird.
This message begins by acknowledging difficulty. That matters to my reading of everything that follows. The invitation to see beauty comes after the recognition that life can be hard. There is space here to admit exhaustion, disappointment, and personal limitation while remaining open to something beyond the trouble immediately in front of us.
“Live each day as though it were your last” brings attention to the value of the present. I understand it as a question about what deserves care while time is available. Sometimes that means having an honest conversation or beginning something meaningful. Sometimes it means resting, keeping an ordinary promise, or spending unhurried time with a person we love. The scale of the action can be small.
The image of seeing “with the soul of a bird” opens another possibility. A bird can suggest a change of vantage point, an attentiveness to movement, or a life lived in close relation to its surroundings. These are associations I bring to the image; I leave room for it to speak differently to another reader. For me, it asks whether the difficulty occupying my attention has become the only thing I allow myself to see.
A simple way to sit with this passage is to notice one specific thing that still invites your attention: the sound outside a window, the texture of a leaf, or an act of kindness. Let it exist beside whatever is difficult. There is no need to force a feeling of gratitude or to make pain explain itself before you can notice beauty.
A question for reflection: What could I notice today if I allowed my attention to move beyond the difficulty nearest to me?
Preta Velha: Gratitude expressed through care
My child, be grateful for everything you have accomplished so far. At the heart of life is gratitude for even the smallest things you achieve each day. Honor your loved ones and your family, guided by the wisdom of the Divine, the source of goodness and love.
I am drawn to the way this message places accomplishment and gratitude together. It asks us to recognize what we have reached so far, including the small things that can disappear beneath the pressure of what remains unfinished. A task completed, a boundary respected, or a difficult day met with patience can deserve acknowledgment.
Gratitude becomes more concrete when I can name what I appreciate. “I am grateful for my family” may be sincere, but there is another kind of attention in remembering who listened, who made time, or who offered help when it was needed. Specific gratitude makes the relationship visible. It can also reveal how much of an accomplishment rests on care we received from others.
The invitation to honor loved ones then asks something of our conduct. I understand honoring as making room for attention, honesty, and practical care. It may mean returning a call, offering help within our means, or acknowledging someone’s contribution. Where family relationships are painful or unsafe, care can require limits and distance. Gratitude does not oblige a person to remain available for mistreatment.
The reference to the Divine, the source of goodness and love, gives this reflection its spiritual orientation. Within the meditation, gratitude participates in a relationship with what is held sacred. In daily life, I would bring that attention into one specific gesture: thank someone for something real, or care for something whose presence I have begun to take for granted.
A question for reflection: What small act would make my gratitude visible to someone who has cared for me?
Caboclo: Perseverance and the truth you live
My friend, keep moving forward, even when the path is rough. Reflect on the divine wisdom that lives in every part of the day, from dawn through afternoon and into night. Everything in this life has a purpose. At the heart of that purpose is learning to honor your truth. Keep going, and break through the obstacles that have held you back, a little more each day.
The rough path gives this message a place to begin. Progress may involve effort, uncertainty, and moments when the next step is difficult to see. I understand “keep moving forward” as an invitation to remain engaged with life while considering what kind of movement the situation actually needs. Sometimes the useful step is to continue. Sometimes it is to ask for help or reconsider the route.
The passage moves through dawn, afternoon, and night. In my reading, that movement gives learning a wider timescale. We meet different possibilities at different moments, and our understanding can change as circumstances change. An obstacle that seemed to demand force may eventually call for patience, preparation, or a conversation we have avoided.
“Everything in this life has a purpose” is a spiritual statement within the message. I approach it as an invitation to consider what meaning and response may be possible in my own life. I would be careful about assigning a purpose to another person’s suffering. We do not need to explain why something painful happened before we can offer care, and people should have room to question the meaning of their own experiences.
The phrase “honor your truth” brings the reflection back to conduct. A belief about who I am becomes clearer through the choices I repeat. If I value honesty, where am I avoiding a necessary conversation? If I value learning, what am I willing to revise? One small action can expose the distance between a value I name and a value I practice, giving me somewhere useful to begin.
A question for reflection: What small step would bring my conduct closer to a value I say matters to me?
Cabocla: Self love and the wisdom of the forest
Oh, dear one, you are so wise and beautiful. Surely you can see how worthy you are of your own love. Look for truth in people’s eyes, and walk through life with honor and the wisdom of the forest. The forest knows how to teach you everything you need to learn. Blessed be the Sovereign of the Forests. May their blessings rest upon your life.
The tenderness of the opening is part of its teaching. Before asking for effort, the message recognizes wisdom, beauty, and the capacity for love. I understand this as an invitation to consider how I speak to myself. It can be difficult to care for a life I address only through criticism. Recognizing worth gives that care somewhere to take root.
The invitation to look for truth in people’s eyes calls for discernment. I read the image as a request for attentive human encounter: to listen, be present, and notice whether words and actions agree. Eye contact by itself cannot establish someone’s honesty or intentions. Trust needs time, context, and attention to behavior. That distinction helps me bring the poetry of the passage into relationships responsibly.
The forest then becomes a place of learning. What interests me here is the quality of attention it asks from us. A living place has details that hurried observation can miss: shade, moisture, new growth, decay, and the presence of other lives. As a spiritual image, the forest invites humility before what exceeds our immediate understanding. Encountering an actual forest also asks us to care for the place and respect what we do not yet know.
I would begin with something modest: spend a few minutes observing one tree or patch of plants without collecting anything. Notice what is present before deciding what it means to you. The closing blessing can remain part of the meditation’s spiritual language while this act of observation gives the reflection a practical expression. Learning begins with making room for something beyond our own expectations.
A question for reflection: What might I learn if I gave a person, a place, or myself more patient attention?
Carrying the messages into daily life
Read together, the messages bring personal authority into relationship with gratitude, effort, care, and attention. Exu asks me to own my choices. Pombagira asks what I will do with the guidance I receive. Preto Velho opens a wider view of life’s beauty, while Preta Velha brings gratitude into the relationships that sustain us. Caboclo asks for perseverance guided by truth, and Cabocla invites a more loving and attentive way of meeting ourselves and the living world.
For me, honoring the souls includes considering how the encounter changes my conduct after the meditation has ended. I can return to one passage, sit with the question it raises, and choose an action small enough to carry out. A message becomes part of a continuing relationship when I give it attention beyond the moment in which I hear it.
You can listen to the complete Honoring the Souls meditation and return to whichever message stays with you.