What Happens During an Umbanda Gira?

What many people notice first in an Umbanda gira

When people think of an Umbanda gira — an Umbanda spiritual session — they
usually think first of what they encounter upon arriving at an Umbanda
terreiro.

The atabaques.
The pontos cantados.
The entities manifesting through incorporation.
The consultations.
The whole terreiro already filled with a different atmosphere.

All of that is real.

And it is also, perhaps, what most deeply marks someone who is there for the
first time.

But over time, that began to feel to me like only the most immediate part of
the gira.

Not because it is small.

But because the gira gradually stopped seeming to me like something that
suddenly begins there, in the instant when something becomes clearer to the
people present.

An Umbanda gira begins before it starts

One of the things I gradually came to understand is that spiritual care does
not depend on the gira in order to exist.

In my experience, we are already accompanied and helped continuously, even
when we do not perceive it clearly. Sometimes that help feels more present.
Sometimes it seems distant. And often it simply continues without calling
attention to itself.

For me, the gira does not create that accompaniment out of nothing.

What it does is something else.

When someone decides to go to the terreiro, seek help, sit in the
assistência — the area where visitors sit during the spiritual session,
and often also a way of referring to the visitors themselves — or place
themselves within that field of work, it seems that what was already
accompanying that person begins to align more directly with the work that will
be carried out in the house.

This understanding did not come all at once.

It took shape through observation, through what I was taught in the house, and
also through what the entities themselves showed, sometimes very directly,
sometimes in much subtler ways.

Over time, I came to feel that the energies that will be worked with, and the
entities that will work during the gira, begin drawing closer to the person
even before the session starts. As if the very act of going to the terreiro
were already part of the preparation. For me, the work does not begin only
when everything becomes more perceptible inside the house, but also in this
earlier movement of approach.

I do not say this as a formula.

I say it as something I slowly learned to recognize.

Perhaps that is why I stopped thinking of the gira as simply a spiritual
session with a scheduled starting time. For me, it became the moment when that
preparation gathers itself and takes on a different intensity.

What happens spiritually during an Umbanda gira

Another thing I learned is that a gira does not seem to move only one thing at
a time.

It seems to gather many presences, many movements, and many forms of spiritual
action at once.

Not everything happens with the same intensity.
Not everything is perceived in the same way.
Sometimes something is felt by only one person.
Sometimes the whole house seems to enter the same attunement.

There are moments when a certain kind of work intensifies more in one place,
then in another. Some movements feel more concentrated, others more discreet.
Some presences announce themselves in a very marked way, while others seem to
act almost without letting themselves be noticed.

It was only after living more closely with the house, observing more
carefully, and hearing certain teachings that I began to find words for this.

Perhaps one of them is this: during the gira, many energetic flows come
into attunement with the work of that night.

It does not feel to me like a single flow.

It feels more like a living field, where different spiritual movements draw
near, align, intensify, and somehow are directed toward the work that needs to
be done.

That is why, for me, a gira has always been more than a sequence of
consultations.

It feels like a culmination.

A moment in which much of what had been prepared gathers and condenses.

And this condensation does not seem to me to be directed only toward a
spiritual phenomenon in itself, but toward some form of balance. Sometimes
relief. Sometimes reorganization. Sometimes simply the strength to keep going.

And this does not always happen in a way that is strongly felt by everyone.

Very often it happens in a much more subtle way.

What helps guide the spiritual work during the gira

Perhaps that is why, over time, I began to look differently at everything that
exists within the gira.

The atabaques no longer seem to me to be there only as sound.
The pontos cantados no longer seem to me to be there only as song.
The candles, the pontos riscados, the passe — a gesture of spiritual
care made with the hands — the smoke used by some entities, and so many other
elements also no longer seem to me to be merely outward parts of a tradition.

In my experience, all of this participates in guiding these movements.

Each thing, in its own way, helps move, concentrate, steady, protect, or
direct the spiritual work taking place there.

I would hesitate to reduce this to a rigid mechanism.

Because when everything turns into formula, something important is lost.

But it also seems difficult to me to look at these elements as if they were
merely beautiful symbols or repeated customs.

To me, they are a real part of the work.

And the same is true of the people.

This was another understanding that did not come only from personal
impression, but also from living within the house and from the teachings I
received there. The mediumistic circle — the group of mediums who help
sustain the work during the gira — is not simply occupying a place. The
entities do not work alone. The mediums, each in their own way, help sustain
and direct that field. Sometimes this appears very clearly. Sometimes it
barely appears at all. But that does not mean it is not happening.

Perhaps that is why the gira came to seem to me less like a moment in which
some entities attend to people, and more like a moment in which many things
are being organized at once so that this spiritual work can take place.

Protection and spiritual reserve before and after the gira

Another thing I came to understand over time is that this field also needs to
be protected.

And to me, that protection has at least two meanings.

The first is to prevent some interference from disturbing the work.

The second is to prevent dispersion.

As if everything being gathered, directed, and sustained during the gira
needed to remain firm until the work could truly be fulfilled.

Here too, much of what I came to understand did not come only from personal
feeling. It came from what I learned in the house, from what I heard from the
entities, and from what I observed over time.

So, in the way I have come to perceive it, the protection of the gira does not
depend only on the entities who manifest in that moment.

It also involves other spiritual presences.

Among them, the action of Exu — often without manifesting through
incorporation at that particular moment — seems very important to me in this
guardianship. And the mediumistic circle also takes part in it. Not only
because it works, but because it helps keep that field steady, protected, and
sustained.

Perhaps that is why so many houses speak of the importance of keeping a
certain spiritual reserve before and after spiritual work.

If the gira does not begin exactly in the instant when it becomes more
perceptible to those present, then perhaps it also does not make sense to
imagine that everything breaks off the second it ends.

In my experience, it does not.

Some interactions continue.
Some effects continue.
Some forms of work seem to conclude only later.

This is true for those who came seeking help.
It is true for those who worked in the mediumistic circle.
It is true, in different ways, for everyone who entered that field.

Not every gira unfolds in the same way

At the same time, I think it is important to say this carefully.

Not every gira is the same.
Not every house does things in the same way.
Not every house understands all of this in the same way.

There are differences in rhythm, in how the work is conducted, in
organization, and even in language.

So what I am trying to name here is not a final definition of the gira.

It is simply one way of saying how it gradually came to make sense to me.

In the beginning, I paid more attention to what was happening in front of my
eyes.

Over time, I learned to notice also what seemed to be happening between
things, around them, before them, and after them.

And perhaps that is what most changed the way I came to be present in a gira.

In short: what happens during an Umbanda gira

If I had to answer simply today what happens during an Umbanda gira, I
would perhaps say this:

During the gira, many things become more perceptible.

But the work does not begin there.
And it does not end there either.

In my experience, the gira is a moment in which many spiritual flows come into
attunement, intensify, and are guided toward some form of balance, support, or
strengthening.

Sometimes this is felt very clearly.
Sometimes it is barely felt at all.
But that does not mean it is not happening.

And this understanding, for me, did not come from an isolated perception
alone. It was built through living within the house, through the teachings I
received, and through observing what repeated itself, what kept confirming
itself, and what gradually began to make sense.

Perhaps that is why a gira never came to feel to me like only a session.

It came to feel, more and more, like a meeting point between what was already
being moved beforehand, what gathers itself in that moment, and what continues
afterward.

Entre mundos.

And perhaps that is precisely why a gira begins earlier and ends later than
what we usually perceive.