Spirit House Founder Aja Daashuur On Democratizing Spirituality

During days where communal sound baths and busy breathwork circles are a distant memory, Spirit House Collective is a place to tune in with community, sans the germs.

Before the pandemic, the collective of spiritual practitioners hosted gatherings in pop-up locations across the country. Since COVID hit, they have transferred their offerings (think: coffee readings, akashic records, and spell-poem casting workshops) into the digital arena.

That’s not the only change made. Following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests, the WOC-led space started an aptly named True Wellness program.

With this program, founder Aja Daashuur hopes to chip away at the barriers that have historically kept the BIPOC community sidelined from wellness by giving white and white-passing people the option to fund workshops for Black people and non-Black POC.

Now more than ever, Daashuur thinks that wellness—specifically, the more spiritual side of wellness—needs to be a basic human right.

“People are feeling rudderless right now,” she says on a call to mbg. “I think that’s why spirituality is having a renaissance period. People are like, ‘I want to know who I am. I don’t want to be told who I am anymore. I want to make my own decisions. And I really want to connect to how powerful, how divine, and how limitless my soul can be.'”

Daashuur’s preferred medium for tapping into expansive energy during restrictive times is spirit guide communication. Each week, she holds a weekly Spirit Church session that connects a virtual group with loving guides and ancestors. She has seen it be a powerful experience, especially for BIPOC folks who are holding onto generational trauma.

“Trusting that there are energies that truly care about our interests can—I know it sounds cheesy, but—it can make the world a more inclusive, diverse place all around,” she says.

While Daashuur is intuitive by nature, she thinks that everyone can see the unseen with a little practice. Here, she shares some tips for fostering a connection with spiritual guides (which you can also think of as angels, universal energies, or any other name you feel comfortable with) in the charged days leading up to Halloween, Samhain, and the Day of the Dead.