As I write this, I am watching Imani Community Church's Easter Sermon on Zoom. I am not a member of this church but am a friend with many in its community. Faith can be found in many sources. Hope is not a church, it is a state of being, a state of community and a state of grace. Thank you Paulette Johnson for inviting me and sending the link.
I found Babatunde five years ago at the Ethnic Arts Warehouse. He was mounted on a shelf, surrounded by other artifacts from West Africa. Among the jumble of stolen things, sat this guy. He is from Nigeria and once lived in an Ancestor hut, or a shrine, in a village somewhere. Inside of him would have been the skull of the ancestor he represented.
My heart cried for him. Instead of his skull, he had a museum spiral which kept him erect on the shelf. It felt as if he were calling out to anyone who could hear him "please take me to my home". I couldn't shake the feeling that he urgently needed help. I left the store, only to return a while later. His price tag was steep. The proprietress told me a man had come in several times already, concerned for this piece of 'artwork', but who could not afford him. As it turned out, the gentleman was a Yoruba priest who was also fretting for the ancestor on the shelf. The proprietress wasn't so much amused by this situation as she was enjoying being a part of a cultural issue that she did not understand at all. She did not offer to reduce the price. I took money from our savings, without consulting my husband, and brought him home.
That night, I had a dream and was told his name was Babatunde. I had to look it up as I'd never heard the word before. It means The Father Returns.
It is Easter and has just been Passover, the Holy Days. My faith is in another tradition, and even so I have a deep reverence for those other beliefs. Spring's sacred days, filled with life, rebirth, hope and prayers for the future, are calls for potent divine prayers to the Universe.
I woke up this morning really feeling my soul. I am a daughter of Obatala, the great father of us all. Obatala is the Orisha of wisdom, justice and life. His children, like me, have tendencies that are attributable to our Father -- who is our 'head' where, in this tradition, the soul resides. We children of Obatala tend to be well-suited to being alone and in deep thought. We have tendencies to compassion and deep intolerance of injustice. We are potent when angry, and yet we usually refrain from outright confrontation with a preference to reason unless deeply provoked. There are many attributes to Obatala, and a person can vary between those attributes. I mention the ones that are clearly mine.
Obatala is ancient, with white hair and a stooped walk. He carries a long staff. He brings the wisdom of the ages to us and with that sometimes is a deep heaviness of heart. We children of Obatala can suffer greatly when the world is in pain, as it is today. I know we are not alone in feeling this but I also know that we communally have hope that we can restore ourselves and our world. Now is a good time for a reset of reflection and faith.
I am supposed to wear white, the color of purity, more often than I do. I tend to shy away from it because it gets stained so easily. Wearing white is a responsibility - a reminder, if you will - that we must be aware and awake of our actions. That we must be pure of heart. The smallest mishap can leave a stain, a lack of purity, and for me, this is a meaningful metaphor. When I wear white, everything I do is done consciously. Nothing is done carelessly, or I will wear the impurity of my actions.
Let me tell you what happened this morning. As I was doing my morning ablutions, I picked up a bottle of hyssop oil and it spilled down my arms as if I'd cut my wrists. I thought I'd picked up frankincense, one of three oils I often use to bring me closer to the Orisha. The room filled with the heady, acrid smell. Obatala just reminded me to get out of my internal world and back to Him. I put on my whites and my warrior beads and sat down to read, being a follower of the intellectual path of Obatala's children, for which we are known, and found this:
"Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning" - Exodus 12:22
Struggling with this quarantine for me is not the many hours of solitude. In fact, being alone is a luxury that feels absolutely correct at this time. However, being in solitude also means that those who must comprise my heart are deeply missed.
It doesn't take a child of Obatala to feel a sense of pain in this solitude, but for me most of the hours of each day in which I am alone is a rich pantheon of textures, thoughts and internal conversations. My life is not boring here. Rather, it is filled with my own ritual and rhythm. Of course I miss people and I miss my daily routines outside this house, but in its disorganization and clutter, my world is truly in here. With Keeya, by Paul Lewin and my painted cow skull from Lori Gregg Denman, to turkey feathers from Marin County I am surrounded by beauty inside.
In these days of quiet solitude, I have started playing the piano again, and have picked up a long forgotten knitting project. Little doodles come to me and colored pencils stay on my coffee table, along with many cookbooks, a book of Orisha songs and a journal. I watched a lot of TV for the first couple of weeks, then found that either I could not pay attention or could not tolerate the inundation of information and loud advertisements. Yes, inside me there is a lot going on and we will all return, and like Babatunde, it might not be the same world it was before but it will be home.
I am playing Orisha songs, contemplating my relationship to the Universe and listening to the dog snore. Conjunto de Folklorico de Cuba has a wonderful album of Orisha songs. Here is their Canto for Obatala. Another song for Obatala by the beautiful and vibrant Bobi Cespedes is glorious.
Meferefun Obatala, thank you Baba for guiding me through this life.
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