Jump Up. Luisah Teish

      Obatala and I ya Mapo: These deities are not mentioned directly in the Creation myth told earlier, but they are implied. Obatala is one of the oldest deities in the Yoruba pantheon. His name means the “King of the white cloth” and refers to the clouds in the Sky, the Sunlight that shines upon the Earth, and the white 10 light of mystic vision. In the mythology, Obatala is credited with separating the land from the waters and establishing the continents using a snail shell full of sand and a five-toed guinea hen. He and Iya Mapo are the potter and the wet clay that shape the fetus in the Womb. One myth says that Obatala celebrated a little too much during the creation of humans, got drunk, and made a few mistakes. Because of this, Obatala holds in special favor those humans who are born with bone malformations, learning disabilities, and other congenital conditions.

      Eshu-Elegba: In popular culture Eshu-Elegba is referred to as a “trickster.” But the word trickster, which often evokes the image of a clown, is insufficient to describe His powers. He is the messenger of destiny, a deity of great importance. He serves the three major functions of Magician, Linguist, and Enforcer. As the Magician, He spins the Wheel of Fortune so that Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Time, and Space come together in varying combinations to create material reality. He is the one who allows bright ideas and devious plans to pop in and out of our minds. He also causes people and things to move together or apart. Eshu is a lascivious dancer. Eshu-Elegba is the Linguist, the Master of Communications. He interprets the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of one entity into a message that can be discerned by another. When humans sing songs or recite poetry, Elegba allows them to understand each other. Because of Him the power of music crosses cultures and “soothes the savage breast” (though sometimes it arouses the beast). In Yoruba tradition all ceremonies begin and end with an invocation to Elegba to ensure that the messages are properly delivered.

      Eshu-Elegba the Enforcer is the Master of the Crossroads. Life on Earth is a combination of destiny and choice. Within the design of Nature (the change of the seasons, the progression of life) all beings have a window of opportunity to make choices about whether or not we will grow healthily and happily, what we will birth and contribute to the world, and how we will live and die. Eshu stands in the crossroads between invisible, unperceived potentiality, and visible, material reality; between that which is going out of existence and that which is coming into being.

      Persephone the Kore (young corn): Persephone is the Virgin Daughter of Demeter, the Greek Goddess of the Earth. The Greek myth states that one day, while picking flowers in the field, Persephone was abducted by the Lord of Death, who took Her beneath the Earth to Hades. On the planet's surface Demeter searched for Her daughter and, failing to find Persephone, fell into mourning. When She withdrew Her energy, the plants died, causing the other deities to demand Persephone's return. But the Lord of Death had tricked Persephone into eating three seeds from a pomegranate, and She became obligated to spend time underground with Him every year, the time that became Winter. When Persephone returns to the surface of the Earth, it is Spring and everything blossoms again.

      Iyalode Oshun: Oshun is the African Venus, the Goddess of Love, Art, and Sensuality. The story states that when the world was first created Oshun ruled over all the sweet things in life. One day, when She was bathing in the river, She overheard a group of deities gossiping about Her. Some bragged that they were stronger than She, others claimed to be smarter, while some had the nerve to imply that Her beauty was unnecessary. As a demonstration of power, Oshun left the planet and took a vacation on a nearby star, where She adorned Herself with great pleasure. Meanwhile on Earth the rivers dried up, the flowers died, all medicine became ineffective, and the people waged war out of sheer boredom. Olodumare instructed the deities to apologize to Oshun and, humbly, they did. Satisfied with their supplications, Oshun returned and moistened everything on Earth.

      The Family of Isis: Egyptian Isis and Her siblings were born into magic. The old Sun God Ra, whose behavior was often erratic, forbade his children—Geb, the Earth God; and Nut, the Queen of Night—to birth children in any month of His year. But they engaged a magician in a game of chance and won a particle of moonlight. The magician used the light to create five new days. During those days, Nut gave birth to several deities. Isis was born on the first day of the first year of creation. Her birth was followed by Osiris, the Lord of Light; then came Nephthys, the Hidden One; and Set, the Prince of Darkness.

      Eventually Isis and Osiris married and brought prosperity to the land. Set became jealous and overpowered His brother through deception, then kidnapped and dismembered Him. Isis roamed all over the world collecting Osiris's pieces. Through another act of magic She reanimated His penis and subsequently gave birth to Horus, the Prince of Light.

      Throughout each chapter in this book a very important player must be present—that is you, the reader. The characters in these stories anticipate your embrace. The rituals offered here are designed to connect us to our ancestors, to infuse our celebrations with power and meaning, to strengthen communal ties, and to bring more joy into our lives.

      2

      Winter

      A Personal Encounter with Winter: The Night I Swallowed the Moon

      In the early 1980s I received, as part of a beautiful ceremony at my home in Oakland, California, a sacred vessel (an Ikoko Olokun) for the spirit of the power at the bottom of the Ocean. The ceremony consisted of gathering all the gifts of the Ocean, such as fish, seashells, seaweed, and sand, as well as many gifts of the Earth, such as grains, fruits, vegetables, spices, meat, oil, and eggs. These Ocean gifts and Earth gifts were placed on plates and, intermingled with blue and white candles, lined both sides of a long palm mat. We said prayers of thanksgiving, played drums, sang, and danced while passing the contents of these plates over our heads and around our bodies. We made a commitment to feed the hungry and give all these things back to the Ocean and the Earth at the ceremony's end.

      The elders explained to me that there were “greater secrets” to this Ocean ceremony than what I had witnessed and experienced, but they had been lost during the slave period. They also told me that in the Caribbean Islands (Cuba and Puerto Rico, but not Haiti), this force was considered “too powerful” to be fully ritualized, and, consequently, initiation ceremonies on the islands were not performed for people who dedicated themselves to this layer of the Ocean.

      Nobody knows what's at the bottom of the Ocean!

      —Yoruba proverb, The Holy Odun Irosun

      Nine years later I attended an initiation for Olokun in Benin City, Nigeria, where the ritual has remained intact for centuries. The Moonlight ceremony was an event I shall never forget.

      The initiate was a man of Latin American descent and a member of my small travel party of five people. The five of us had had high adventure from the moment our plane landed in West Africa. In Dakar, the capital of Senegal, we were met at the airport by lepers—mostly children—who made their living by begging. We survived a taxi ride that resembled a chase scene from an Indiana Jones movie. And, at the hotel, we were greeted by a vulture that took a nosedive into the windowpane of my hotel room. A few days later, after having settled in and then gone lusting after fabric in the Gambia (as part of my travel ritual of purchasing cloth from the countries I visit), we managed to fly across Ghana to Nigeria, eventually arriving in Benin City.

      Before this trip, I imagined my part in the proceedings to be that of a mere “go-for.” My intention was to deposit the members of my travel party—a daughter of the River at Oshogbo, a son of the thunder in Oyo, a diviner of destiny in Ode Remo, and a child of the deep—at their respective ritual sites, and then I'd go-for food, go-for cloth, and go-for items of personal necessity. I intended to support the others, but I did not intend to participate in any of the rituals myself.

      In Benin City, this man of Latin American descent went through the full initiation for Olokun, which consisted of many things yet unknown to me. But, at his request, I was allowed to visit him at the end of his