Spiritual Packing for the Modern Jetsetter

I never sleep with my bed facing the mirror because mirrors are portals; they can reflect your spirit back at you and trap your dreams, preventing the ancestors from reaching you—so I always rearrange the furniture, invoking Ogun to help me move the heavy pieces with ease. On the first night, I pour a drop of water out of the window as a libation to the local spirits, acknowledging their sovereignty. I dab a tiny amount of my shea butter on the doorframe and whisper a prayer to Elegua, the opener of roads, asking him to guard the threshold and keep out negative hotel energies. Traveling, through this lens, becomes a profound expansion of my spiritual world. I am no longer a vulnerable tourist; I am a mobile shrine, a respectful diplomat carrying my lineage across borders, always in conversation with the unseen hosts of the earth beneath my feet.