Your Personal Orixás And How They Affect You

Did you know you have an Ancestral Orixá?

Not only that but there are other Orixás that directly influence you, like your Frontal Orixá and your Adjunct Orixá.

What are the Orixás?

The Orixás are Divinities from the Umbanda religion that are all around us and express themselves through the forces of Nature.

 They have masculine and feminine qualities, and for this reason they choose to work in pairs. An active force and a passive one, the positive and negative in terms of magnetism or quite simply the male and female. This creates a Divine Balance and we can always find ourselves somewhere in between the Yin Yang mix.

Click here to read my post on the Orixás and the 7 Divine Thrones they represent.

Meaning of the Word Orixá

The etymology of the word Orixá comes from the Yoruba language.

Ori = Head.

Xá = Lord, Force, Light.

Therefore, we can say that the Orixás represent the energy of the head.

They influence our rational minds and our emotions.

It's common to hear that we have a Father Orixá and a Mother Orixá or that we are a Sons or Daughters of a certain Orixá due to how they affect us.

Another way of understanding this is that there are 3 positions around our head space that directly impact our emotions and minds.

We have the Ancestral Orixá, the Frontal Orixá and the Adjunct Orixá. Together they express the relationship between the world around us and the individual, the environment and the beings that inhabit it.

Ancestral Orixá

The Ancestral Orixá is linked to our soul’s ancestry.

It has been with us from the moment we were created as souls. When we chose to splinter off from infinity, as tiny Divine sparks, we met and were greeted by the energy of a certain Orixá.

This Orixá and their energy imprinted on us from the beginning and stays with us through all of our lifetimes.

All Orixás are present around us and guide and influence us, however our Ancestral Orixá guides our soul.

Every time we decide to reincarnate, our Ancestral Orixá is present.

Their energy influences us and enters our energy fields through the Crown Chakra, above the head.

The characteristics of your Ancestral Orixá define who you are at the most intimate level. This is your inner being and the way you truly relate to yourself.

It's who you are and the things you do when no one's watching. Only those closest to you will have had the opportunity to glimpse this part of you. It’s usually hidden beneath heaps of trauma and emotional baggage, mind you!

So what you're going through right now in this particular lifetime and your life's purpose do not necessarily come from your Ancestral Orixá.

The Frontal Orixá 

The Frontal Orixá is responsible for the energies and characteristics you take on in your current lifetime.

It's considered "the main one", though that's not really the case...

Your Frontal Orixá is much easier to determine compared with the Ancestral because we emanate and work through these energies most of the time.

It’s the energy we give off, it's how people perceive us. When you meet someone and you get that first impression, quite likely that’s their Frontal Orixá at work.

They give us our purpose for this lifetime. For example, if you've come to learn and perfect lessons surrounding Justice, most likely Xangô will be present at the front.

The energy of the frontal Orixá, as you may have guessed, is directly in front of us, and inpours through the brow or Third-eye Chakra.

It heavily influences our rationality and intellect. In other words, our mind. It gives us our characteristics in the way we express ourselves.

What comes from spirit, influences mind and trickles down into the body. So not only do we get a personality and social archetype from the Frontal Orixá, but also our body type.

When we reincarnate, we choose certain lessons to work through… 

Our Frontal Orixá gives us the energy needed to face the hardships of life. They are present and guide us forward as we walk our path.

Remember, they're the energetic embodiment and the purest form of Divine Virtues. With time and enough inner work, we begin to incorporate their faculties.

This Orixá only influences us while we’re alive in the material world, so they change with each incarnation we have.

Therefore, in your past life you had another Orixá influencing you and the challenges you faced were met with a different kind of energy to the way you are now.

The Adjunct Orixá  

The Adjunct Orixá is the assistant, deputy or auxiliary.

They work with the Frontal Orixá, forming a sacred pair and their job is to help keep the balance.

Their influence comes from behind the head, opposite to the Frontal Orixá.

Whenever there is an imbalance, such as an outburst of irrationality or a loss in the logical way of thinking, the Adjunct Orixá steps in to pick us up emotionally.

They are responsible for determining our emotions and influence the way we may react or respond under pressure.

When there is too much of or a lack of  Frontal energy, the Adjunct Orixá steps in either calming or stimulating certain energies to bring about balance.

Inner balance leads to inner growth and that’s what we’re here to do!

Forming Sacred Geometry

The Orixás work in pairs, honouring the duality of life. The combination of these cosmic duos brings about balance and unity.

The positioning of the Orixás around the head form a sacred triangle. You have the Ancestral above the head, the Frontal to the right and the Adjunct to the left. If you were to include the Ancestral counterpart, their energy comes in to balance from the Root chakra and a sacred Cross is formed.

How do I Know Which Orixás Influence Me?

To find out your personal Orixás, the best way is to go to an Umbanda temple. The priest or priestess will tell you straight away. Some say that is the only way to know for sure.

The real question is Why do you want to know?

If you'd like to understand yourself better, you don't need to go anywhere to start.

Getting to know ourselves on a deeper level is truly rewarding and it's something we're all seeking whether we are aware of it or not.

The big idea behind the Orixás is to get to know yourself and the world around us on a deeper level... and for that there is no rush.

To discover your Frontal Orixá requires a bit of self-reflection and self-knowledge.

To find out which is your Ancestral Orixá, on the other hand, requires much deeper insight and a lot of work.

Even if you go to an Umbanda temple, it's not common practice to do an Ancestral reading.

No one can truly give you that answer but yourself.

Revealing your Ancestral Orixá

Revealing your Ancestral Orixá is no easy task. It takes a lot of inner work, self-knowledge and honesty.

It is a great achievement to be in alignment with this energy and the process merits respect in itself.

If you’re simply just curious and are looking for a brief scratch to that curious itch, you will be disappointed.

It’s in those quiet moments of intense connection that answers like this come through. Only by letting go of all that extra stuff you hold on to, and in deep meditation do you get the chance to properly connect. Time and space blend into one and those answers come through.

The Orixás Change Over Time

With each lifetime, you're granted a different Frontal and Adjunct Orixá. Your Ancestral Orixá stays the same, however.

By having divergent Orixás take the reins, we get to experience diverse energies, archetypes and ways of dealing with others and ourselves.

The truth is that the Orixás are all around us, all the time.

In fact, when we go through difficult times, its common for the Orixás to switch places to provide assistance.

I like to imagine a hand of playing cards, spread out, with the Frontal Orixá on top and the Adjunct just behind. As situations change, the energies and virtues needed follow suit.

Over time, we experience all the Orixás and their energies. As we evolve through life, we add their values and virtues to our soul, so it's possible to meet people that may be more advanced spiritually that hold quite a few virtues and the essence of the Orixás.