Aché : African Spiritual Term
Gathering around the people of New Orleans and you stumble into a Voodoo shop.
Falling into the rabbit hole of Etsy, you discover you have been browsing in a Botanica.
Listening to Beyonce’s Water and you hear a word in the background that doesn't sound familiar.
Santeria, Voodoo, African Diaspora all spell it differently but it comes from the same root of African Spirituality.
Aché
In terms of the Santeria culture, aché represents the primordial, mystical energy that exists in the Universe. It is in everything and makes up everything similar to the Christain belief that their God’s energy is in everything. Aché comes from Odoulmaré who is the Creator in the African Religions and is manifested through Olorún which is represented through the Sun.
Just as some Pagan religions see the Sun as a manifestation of our life force, the African Spirituality is focused on the idea of Aché. There are so many ways to try to describe Aché such as wisdom, knowledge, life force, and power but it is hard to give it tangible concepts since it is a metaphysical term. The idea of energy is similar to this but it is a bodily experience that we all experience since it is in our blood and everything living possesses it.
The birthing of Aché comes from the explosion that Olorún had done to create the Universe. Very much like the BIg Bang, this pure essence of energy, being Olorún, caused the domino effect of creating the rest of the Universe, From there, ache was created since it resided in everything and one example of the connection between the tangible and aché is like the energy that comes from the Sun!
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