Emily awoke in the middle of a place that she searched her mind to identify. It was clear she was in another time. It was clear that she was far from home in many ways. These were slaves around her, dressed in clothes from the early eighteenth century, dancing and beating their powerful drums from their home countries. Dancing in the middle of this circle in what could only be Congo Square in New Orleans, the only city that allowed slaves to keep any customs from home in any way, was a tall well built woman. Her skin was dark as night, her breasts were large and her hips were wide, her lips were painted red as were her eyelids, and her traditional Buba and Iro were the most beautiful colors of light and dark purple Emily ever saw. On her head She wore a light purple Gele while over Her shoulder She wore a dark purple Ipele. Emily was sure this was the Goddess Oya but she had no idea if she was right because she knew very little about the Orisha. As with Hecate, she could feel a sense of awe at the power that was just radiating around this amazingly beautiful Goddess and she knew for certain that this Goddess had something important to teach her.
Without a word, Oya gestured for Emily to follow Her and Emily did so silently. As people passed them in the streets wearing early eighteenth century clothes, as carriages and horses moved around them, Emily was stunned. She told herself that this was probably a place like the Old Egypt that the Egyptian Gods lived in but there was a nagging feeling inside of her that this was not a place on the other side but rather a place that was somehow existing centuries in the past and also alongside the time of the present. Whatever the case, she was not transported there to ask questions.
Inside a shop that smelled strongly of Patchouli and Sandalwood, Oya led her, closing the door behind Her as they entered. It was a shop not unlike the magic shops of Emily’s time, a Voodoo shop like those that existed in New Orleans, even if they were hidden, since the first free People of Color stepped foot on the shores of the city. It was almost amusing to see Oya, Goddess of many important things including change and the marketplace, inside Her own Voodoo shop but as Emily sat across from this Goddess, any thoughts of their surroundings were put far from her mind.
Oya smiled and even something as simple as that expression of mirth seemed to carry with it power. In a thick African accent, she said, “You may relax, child. I mean you no harm.”
“I am not afraid, I am in awe. I have met Gods but few possess Your power. I know a little about You and You are a Goddess of many serious things but You seem to drip mirth.”
The sound of Her laughter filled the room and Emily thought it was a beautiful sound. “You must carry mirth in your heart. No matter what troubles you face or what pain is behind you, joy is the only thing that keeps us all from the darkness. Don’t you agree? You have pain in your past. Yet you show up each day and you provide hope to humans, monsters, and Gods alike. How could you do that without having joy in your heart?”
“I never thought about that but You are right. In all of my patients I have seen the truth of Your words. Those who cannot find anything to laugh about, anything to smile about, they are the ones that have the hardest time improving their mental states.”
“Of course. Joy is everything. Remember that always. Now, let me introduce myself. I am Oya, Orisha of Change, Orisha of Storms, Orisha of mothers who have lost their children, to death or to enslavement...what you, in your time, would call prison, Orisha of mothers who have adopted children, Orisha of mothers who have to do away with pregnancies, Orisha of the marketplace and the fortunes made and lost there, Orisha of storms of course, Orisha of the Cemetery Gates, Orisha of all forms of psychic gifts including speaking with the dead, Orisha of death and rebirth, Mother of the Nine. I have many small jobs that go along with each of those things but they are the major categories that I oversee. I am an Orisha from the Yoruba people. When the Yoruba grew rich from selling first their captives from other tribes but then their own people, I left those kings behind to go with the people they sold into slavery, disgusted at what those kings did. They no longer deserved my aid. When the Yoruba and the others were on those horrible ships with no idea where they were going, they knew enough from the way they were treated already and the condition of those ships to know they were not going toward a better life. Sometimes they would pray to me, tears streaming from their eyes, to use my storms to save them from this fate. I would tell them that the only way I could do that was to sink the ships to the bottom of that cold ocean and they were so desperate, they begged me to do it. They knew that when they died, I would guide their souls to rest and guide them back again into a new life. They knew death was not eternal. So I would do as they asked of me. History does not speak of all the ships that went to the bottom of the ocean carrying slave and master alike. But Oya remembers.”
“For those who lived, I stayed with them. In the Caribbean, in Haiti, here in New Orleans, wherever they were, I was there. Do you know of the slave revolt in Haiti?”
“Yes.” Emily replied. She was not about to admit that she only learned of it in the first place because of an Anne Rice novel, though.
“Good, it is good that you know. I assisted with that uprising. When the people begged me and they cried out my name and they sacrificed the livestock of their masters knowing they could be killed for such a thing, I heard those cries and I came to their aid. The masters here were terrified of such a thing happening to them, especially as more Free People came into the city, the same city that the masters who survived fled to. The practices that were allowed by the masters here were suddenly forbidden, as if that would stop my children from calling my name. It did not. They merely whispered it where before they could shout it. There may have been no revolt in New Orleans as there was in Haiti but individual slave masters were dealt with from time to time.”
“And then there was the rising of Miss Marie Laveau…” Oya chuckled. “Ah, Miss Marie! She found me when her first husband drowned her baby. She knew my name already from her mother and her mother knew it from her mother...Anyway, I helped her deal with that terrible man of her’s. He simply disappeared...poof…” A small rise of smoke came from her hands. “Into thin air...or the bottom of the swamp. Who can say?" She grinned as she said this and Emily smiled back. "Even his mother did not miss him, that horrible man. But Miss Marie continued to call my name when her heart was hurting because of that child she lost, she screamed my name from her home in the swamps. She knew my story, how I lost nine babies, and she would cry as only a mother without her child can cry, holding her chest because her heart was hurting so, and she would ask me, ‘Mama Oya, how? How did you live after losing so many babies? I have lost just one and I cannot go on!’ and I would comfort her as a Mother does and I would assure her that even though the pain never stops, she would go on. I told her that it did not matter if a mother lost one child or twelve, the pain is the same...always the same. But she would learn to live with that shattered heart. I told her that when she wanted another baby, she was to call on Oshun. But as long as she was easing the pain of her loss, she could continue to call upon me. The Marie Laveau that became so famous was born out of those long nights of pain in that swamp. She always practiced our religion but those nights with me made her tap into her power in a way that was incredible to watch. As you know, she eventually did call upon Oshun and she passed on all she learned from her mother and from me and to this day, the children of the Orisha love her and call upon her.”
“Death is not the only way to lose a child, though. I am also there for the mothers who have their children ripped from them. Back in the slave days, they were ripped away by cruel masters in public auctions. Today they are ripped away through the modern day slave trade that you call prison. In each visiting room where one of my daughters is visiting her baby, I am there. On the nights where her heart is broken and she cries thinking of the child she carried in her belly being in such a horrible, joyless place, I am there. I am also there for the mothers who have an abortion or the mothers who have to put their babies up for adoption...and I am there for the mother who receives that adopted child. I bestow a special blessing upon the mother who gives the child away and the mother that takes that child both, as a mother of two adopted babies and as the Orisha who was there to try to ease the grief of Oshun, the mother who had to give them away. There is no blessing in my life like the blessing of my beloved Ibeji, my children who came from Oshun’s womb when my own womb could not give me a living child. As much as I love Sango, my lover, it is nothing like the love I have for my Ibeji. They remain small children always and I am so thankful for that. If I had to let them grow up and live their own lives, I think that would hurt my soul.”
“While it is not a task I am known for doing, I also sit at the bedside of a woman when she is up all night worried about her man and his self-destructive ways, the women who have men ‘in these streets’ as young ones say today. I have spent much of my time for a very long time trying to keep my love, my Sango, from destroying himself. He was married before me, he had lovers before me, and none of them could tame him. He will never truly be tame. That is what those poor women did not understand. He is the sort of man who is just made to try to destroy himself from time to time and when he starts acting up, I use whatever I can including my storms and the souls of the dead to make him stop. We fight...oh, do we fight...but in the end he always calms himself and then he soothes me. For the women of men that truly love them but who cannot help but destroy themselves, I am there. I understand.”
Oya sighed as if talking about all of this was exhausting. Perhaps it was. “Sango was the one who finally convinced me to forgive the people in Yoruba for what their ancestors did, selling their own people into slavery. He said they needed me. So I went home only to find my own people worshiping a white man’s god. The people they sold into slavery could have been killed at times for calling my name but yet they called my name and they taught their children the names of the Orisha to call as well. Yet these people who remained in their own country, people who were not forced to convert, willingly converted. Of course they did. The men were told of religions where the men were worth more than the women, where men could all but own their women, and they thought that better than having a set of Orisha who said women are the creators of all life and they aid in moving souls on once they have gone from the living world just as they provided the vessel for those souls to return to the living world. Now men are jealous of the power of women. So a religion that allowed them to be masters of their own wives and mothers? Of course they cast their own Orisha out!”
“When the world was all one land mass, every culture knew one another, they respected one another, they knew the names of their neighbor’s Gods and they respected the power of those Gods even though they were not the ones they worshiped. Back then, there were still battles from time to time. With humans, sometimes it truly is necessary. A group would become aggressive and they would try to take resources from other groups so they could hoard them for themselves or they would try to steal land and they would kill whoever lived on that land. But before a group went to war with the aggressors, they had to consult the women. You see, because it was the women who brought life into the world, because they were the mothers of those who might die in battle, only they could give consent for a war. If the women said it was not important enough to spend the lives of their children on, men did not go to war. If they said yes, they went. Could you imagine all of the wars that would’ve never been if it were still that way? But then men grew jealous and they said women had no right. Back then each group had a Goddess that showed them what herbs to take so they could rid themselves of a pregnancy they did not want. They were told how long they had to make this choice and they knew to listen or risk bleeding to death. They were also shown the herbs that would close their wombs forever just as they knew the herbs to take to open that womb up for a soul to be reborn. But then men grew jealous. They called it unfair that the ones who bring life into the world should be allowed to decide when that life should come. Even today, there are foolish men arguing this. So to finally find a white man’s god that agreed with them? Of course they abandoned their own for that.”
“It is thanks to those poor souls who came to the New World in chains that we survive, we Orisha. I am grateful for that. We deserve to continue watching over our children on this earth and they deserve to have Gods like them. I tell you all of this just to let you know a little about who I am and about the history of the Orisha. I thank you for listening patiently. But I do not come to you for myself. I come to you to ask your assistance with my dear sister Oshun. She carries so much guilt and pain that I fear she will be too weak when this fight of ours begins. Her heart is too heavy. She needs someone besides me to talk to. I am but another reminder of her guilt. That is the last thing she needs. Will you help her?”
Emily jumped at the sound of someone coming in the shop door. Believing this was Oshun, she agreed to help. “Of course. If she will sit down and talk to me, I’ll help.”
“Good. This is good. Very well. Tonight I will speak with her and encourage her to come to you. Now you may go home. I have a customer I need to take care of. Thank you, doctor, for all you’ve done.” Standing up, she patted Emily on the shoulder and the last thing Emily heard was Oya addressing her customer. “Hello, Miss Marie. How are you on this beautiful day?”
Emily was in her living room, mud on her bare feet getting all over her expensive rug. That only confused her further. The place she was in seemed both physical and also a place of spirits and Gods...It was unlike anywhere she traveled before. And it seemed she went there without any sort of guide to cross the worlds. Looking at her clock she realized it was time to start getting ready for work. She was absolutely exhausted, as if she ran laps in her sleep. Promising herself she would sleep on her lunch hour, she jumped in the shower thinking of all she learned from the first Orisha to contact her and she found herself singing in a language she did not understand a song of praise to Oya. She went with it. Nothing really phased her anymore and she enjoyed the way the foreign words just rolled off of her tongue. She also liked the feeling of energy and joy she felt as she sang it. She did not worry about what her day would hold. She did not fret about who might show up unexpected. She had a lightness of heart unlike anything she had felt since childhood. It was in that that she found the true power of Oya.
Moral of the Story?: “We all enter into fallow periods in our lives, times of questioning, of crisis, of not-knowing; times of depression, stagnation, terror and loss." -Jane Meredith
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