When I was 12, I went through a formal Rites of Passage process. During one of our rituals, our elders asked each girl what we believed about God.

I often felt two steps behind the other girls. Smart but not smart enough. Decent looking, but not put together enough. I could blend in, but I always studied the social interactions, practiced in my head, but still couldn't quite get it.

But as clear as water, truth descended on me.

I stood in that circle and looked out at the great sequioyas and spoke.

"God is in mostly within. It's also nature. God is just what each of us call It. Religion is how we make sense of it."

I was sweating under my armpits because I knew this didn't align to my Christian upbringing. It was silent and no one responded. But the truth poured out then and it is so now, more than 30 years from that moment.

We seek God outside of our selves and this is the source of our problem.

We don't see our own divinity. We don't have connection with our Ori.

When we know that God is both external AND within. When we know that we carry the ocean and the storms and the elements of earth and fire within us. When we know that breath and air are within. When we know that we carry creation within us.

When we know these and KNOW these, then we will begin to cultivate relationship with our Selves.

Then we know that venerating Orishas and Lwas and Ancestors and Angels and even the Most High can never be complete or enough if we are separate from ourselves. Then we know that we can never be connected fully to Source, co-create with Source, carry the truths of Source if we do not first and concurrently have relationship with Self.

I've chided myself for being inconsistent with my spiritual practice. I've sought community and rules and validation time and time again. When I've stopped beating myself up for this perception of disconnect, I've been able to step back and investigate what is really getting in the way. Spoiler alert: It's not lack of time or materials or communities or rules.

That moment in the woods 30 years ago comes back to me:

"God is in mostly within. It's also nature. God is just what each of us call It. Religion is how we make sense of it."

So I challenge myself and you with this:

• Did you know that YOU are the altar and the temple?

• Are you honoring your Self as much?

• Are you attempting to connect externally more than you are connecting internally?

• Do you know what it is that you're seeking outside of you?

• What do you need to shift?

• What and how do you need to cultivate your relationship with and honor of Self?