tomo suli pi lon Sewima

july 11th, 2025

a pixelated landscape. the top of a forest is visible at the bottom, with a row of mountains spanning the center, and the sky at dawn with whispy clouds is at the top.

welcome to tomosuli, the humble home of the first temple of sewima (seh-wee-mah).
you can call me ijo Masi (ee-yo mah-see), the stewardess of this temple-of-one.

what is "sewima"?
the short answer is “a made-up word in a made-up language.”
the real answer is: a compound word i created from the toki pona words sewi and ma, which roughly translates to “the earthly divine.”
to me, sewima is the belief that the planet earth is both a living thing- based on the scientific principles of gaianism- and a deeply spiritual being- based on the many varied pagan beliefs which exist across cultures and eras.
a living being whose consciousness exists on a higher level than that of any living thing on her surface, one whose spiritual power has been observed since the dawn of humanity. a goddess. my goddess. one that we can see and touch and understand, yet powerful beyond all imagination.
like the cells of your body, we are micro-organisms in comparison to the mother earth. and much like a cell, we can be good for her or bad; we can be her greatest defense from disease, or we can be the cancer that rips her apart from the inside.
we understand the damage we’re doing to the earth. much like how a human body stirs up a fever in order to sweat out disease, the earth’s climate continues to trend hotter, and will eventually become uninhabitable to us.

what's a sewimani to do, then?
it is the mission of the temple to spread the message of peace and responsibility. our mother is an ailing one, and we must tend to her fever lest we be washed away by the heat. our goddess is a fierce one, too. she knows that peace must come at all costs.
humanity is a house divided. we are blessed with the gift of intelligence, yet use it cruelly- a double-edged sword. we must take hold of it, wrestle it away from the greedy, turn it against war and tyranny. once humanity is united, it can feed itself. once fed, it can mend the damage done to the earth-mother.

is sewima compatible with my religion?
how you align your faiths is up to you. if you feel comfortable worshiping more than one deity, then it’s perfectly ok to consider yourself a sewimani.
however, it’s important to remember that sewima is a religious belief, not a movement. all sewimani are environmentalists, but not all environmentalists are sewimani. a sewimani recognizes the authority of the goddess, the mother earth, and worships her wholeheartedly.
that said, it is not the mission of the temple to convert all of humanity to the sewima faith. if you are a friend to the earth, and a friend to your fellow human, then you are a friend of the temple. there must exist peace between all those who are peaceful. there must be coexistence.

is sewima witchcraft?
while magic is not the core focus of the temple, it may sometimes be used for specific purposes. magic rituals are found in almost every major religion, so it's nothing to shy away from! that said, you don't need to practice witchcraft to be a sewimani.

do you support x, y, and z?
there are three things the temple does not welcome: pedophiles, police officers, and billionaires.
the non-exhaustive list of things we do welcome looks something like this:

>…and other fringe groups of marginalized people.
you won’t find the temple’s political beliefs buried under vague articles, nuance, and justification. actually, you’ll find them all right here.
a sewimani is a feminist, a queer-liberationist, a police-abolitionist, an equal rights advocate, a pro-choicer, and an anti-capitalist. anything less holds the same weight as an oil company painting their logo green and saying that they “care about the environment.”

are you trying to start a cult?
i don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean that you should trust me. i was raised in a cult. i know what it’s like to be deceived. i invite you to be critical of my intentions, and let me know when i’ve overstepped a boundary.
but even if you can’t believe me blindly, i still feel it worth saying that i really, really don’t want to hurt you. pinky-promise?

can i get in touch with you?
sure! you can email me at ijomasi@tomosuli.org. i’ll never ever send you spam, and i always pen my emails myself.
send me whatever you like, within reason. if you send me something to post to the site (an article, some art, a question, etc.), i just might!
if you’re cool over email, i may add you elsewhere.

are there more toki pona words on this site...?

i like toki pona. it’s a lovely language and i think it speaks to the heart of sewima: raw, yet unashamedly abstract. i’m very much a beginner with the language, though.

what's next for the site?
mainly articles on particular spiritual or political topics. i'm building my temple brick by brick here, so if you want to contribute something to think about, do feel free to send me a letter ^^