“How do I do that?” I asked, sitting up.
There was a bright light emanating from him. I squinted. I opened my mouth tospeak, but before I could get any words out, I was knocked back to the ground by amysterious force. I looked around; I was no longer in a basement. Instead, I was beingdragged through the jungle by a tribe of indigenous people. They were almost nude, withsmall sheaths of fabric covering their genitals. The women were topless, with their arms,neck and face painted in assorted colors. They had thick wooly black hair that fell downtheir back and sun bronzed skin. Their ankles and wrist were adorned with gold bracelets,and they wore necklaces made of cowrie shells. The men’s hair was shaved on both sideswith tattoos of red and white painted on the bare skin. They carried large staffs andcontinued to walk, humming to themselves. I could hear the drums off in the distance.
The soil was black and soft with sporadic patches of bamboo grass. There were hugebundles of flat sedge, dragon trees and giant sized plants with elephant leaves. Exoticbirds chirped, monkeys hung from trees and snakes hissed at me as I was draggedthrough sludge. I could hear the roaring from the waterfall from a mile away. The air wasthick and misty. They dragged me to the edge of the cliff. My heart froze, I wasentrenched with a mixture of awe and fear as I gazed at the water, pouring over the edgeof the earth and pounding into a deep abyss.
They removed my clothes. I didn’t struggle. Instead, I looked down at my body thatwas scraped, bruised, and dirty from being dragged in the sludge. I shivered from amixture of fear and shame. One of the little girls looked at me. It was my momma. Shehad come back to me as a child, pure and innocent. Without moving her lips she told methat I didn’t need to feel scared or ashamed. I laid back and surrendered as the tribe beganto clean my body in the river. The water washed away the mud. It healed my bruises andtook away my pain. The little girl leaned over and looked me in the eye. She began to cupwater in her hands and pour it onto my face and hair. I winced, not from pain but fromthe feeling of love.
“Orúnmila is here,” my mother whispered. Her voice was low and timid.
“He is second, only to God and he knows the truth of all human beings.” Shecontinued smiling.
I looked around me and realized that my body was totally immersed in the water.
“He traveled to ancient land of Kemet and back to the city of Oyo and preached topeople about returning to their divine nature,” she said.
My face was surrounded by water. I lifted my head up and struggled to breathe aswaves from the river sought to invade my nose and mouth. I had a difficult time hearingmy mother speak.
“Once you’ve reached you inner heaven, you can heal yourself and others. You canclean our bloodline,” she said with her voice trailing off, shaken by the beseeching wind.She held on to me tight and said.
“That is the secret to our survival.” “Momma, I love you,” I said.
“Orúnmila is here now, let him guide you,” she said while releasing her grip.
I floated away like a log in water. I held my breath as the velocity of the wavespushed me off the edge. I fell; violent winds caused my body to shake like a planeexperiencing turbulent winds. I shut my eyes tight and held my arms out to cover my faceas I plunged into the belly of the river. My hair feathered around me like paint from abrush stroke. I struggled to breath out of my nose and mouth, leaving behind anunderwater trail of bubbles. I puffed my cheeks out like a blowfish as I struggled to swimback up to the top, but the force from the waterfall was too strong. It kept pulling meback down.
I degraded to the bottom of the water. I felt my heart. It was beating much slower. Iwondered how long it would take before it gave out on me and I died. I rested my headon a bed of seaweed, looked to my right and shrieked when I spotted a human skeletonsitting on top of a mountain of dirt. Horrified, I struggled to move away. In my attemptsto flee, I kicked over a stone and another skeleton head popped up and began to rise like aballoon filled with helium. One by one, they seemed to awaken, kicking the dirt off theirbodies like heavy blankets. Their chains rattled, even under water, and their manacleswere rusted and lose around their bony frames.
One of them swam over and wrapped his chain around me. I fought against it, butstopped when I realized that he was pulling me up. My heart started to beat faster. Ilooked up at spots of sunrays that begin to shine through the water. I hung on tight to theskeleton and rode him up to the top like a dolphin. He released me, and I floated in theshallow water like a raft. I looked around. There had to be millions of them. Their eyeswere sunken and hollow as they swam around me, weeping their horrific cries. How longhad they been buried? How much pain had they suffered?
Suddenly, it all made sense. There were six Orishas. I paused for a second and thenrealized that I was the seventh. The forces of nature were all inside of me. I had theability to create my own life, to heal myself, to end my suffering, to clean my bloodline. Icould do this by channeling the energy of the Orishas. They could guide me through thedifferent stages of development, until I reached the very top, which was the heaven thatwas inside of me. Oh my goodness. My Ori was the heaven that was inside of
