By Fe Bongolan
On a recent visit to my friend and stylist, a Brazilian man I’ve known for years, he abruptly said to me, “You know, in Candomble (a Brazilian expression of the Yoruban religion), you are close to Oya, the goddess of wind, of change.”
Cancer. Painting by Carlos Cedillo.
From the many conversations we’ve had over the years, talk of the orisha – Yoruban deities – was never part of the dialogue, let alone open talk about one’s orisha affinity, particularly in a beauty salon. Up until that point, after years of speaking of everything else under the sun, I understand how it probably took years to get to this point. He was waiting to tell me, trying to gauge my credulity threshold as well as respect for Brazilian mythology and African religion. When he told me, the tender earnestness of his voice, the intent he placed on the words he imparted, felt like he was delivering a message long-held quiet until this moment. It was important that I knew this now.
It was not as if I didn’t know what he was talking about. I’ve met enough people in my life to understand the power and have respect for the following of the orisha. When he told me that it was Oya those words registered inside with the impact of a submarine’s depth change. They would lead me to a new journey – letting this information seep in slowly, testing as it starts to saturate – with me taking in its wake a long, hard look at my life.
For those unfamiliar with Oya’s place in the Yoruban orisha – worshipped in Africa and all the far-flung places of the African diaspora – Oya is a warrior goddess, the ultimate cool head in the height of an emergency, and a protector of women in trouble. She is the spirit of change on the scale of a massive hurricane, clearing away the debris and rubble, making room for the new. She is also a guardian of the cemetery, which brings to mind the image of the Death card in Tarot. It is said her ruling planet is Pluto, the planet of profound and compelling change. Her associated Catholic saint, Our Lady of La Candelaria, has a feast day of February 2nd. A day after my birthday.
Proximity of my solar return to Oya’s day was the least of our coincidental ties. As a kid whose father died early and unexpectedly, I was an unfinished spirit, jump-started by my dad’s death with the winds of deep change in full force and control early on. The day after my dad died, my mother was so distraught she couldn’t function. It was that day I pulled off the skin of my childhood. I began making decisions affecting my mother’s life and mine in the space of a few short weeks. Something had taken over me, a kind of calm that returns every time since, when in a crisis situation. Oya took my child’s skin, replacing it with hers. This was my initiation.
At 18, I left home, full of questions I could not yet verbalize, propelled forward onto life in a big, unfathomable world. I had no idea who I was, or what I was doing. Was this adulthood? If it was, was it always like being a leaf in the wind?
Despite my new-found ability to be cool under fire, I was scared most of the time, looking for the missing parent to fill a father wound that cratered my heart. I was needy, terribly insecure and desperate for the trappings that gave one the picture of credibility and stability in the world: a regular job, a steady man, a secure home – to replace the profound loss of one of the principal figures of my soul. When I grasped for these things they always slipped away. Despite my protests otherwise, Oya had other plans for me.
Oya’s skin was a resilient shield, keeping my spirit upright even when I would rather fall down and die. She led me from one teacher to the next. I built up my social skills, learning to be with people outside my comfort zone without fear. I was shamed into learning how to respect the cultures and traditions of others. I learned I had to cast away the anguished small-town girl I was, separating herself from other women like me: poor, confused, alone. I learned to embrace the woman I was becoming – a strong woman, mature and confident. A woman with a voice. I learned that I had to be in connection with others in the world. Not to shy away. Not to hold back. I learned that my life not only has a value, but a purpose, and that I must honor that purpose until it is my time to leave.
Oya shaped me. I found my niche as a theater artist working in the county jail with a world of women struggling and in pain and who needed help. It was there that I uncovered the parts of my underdeveloped soul. I became part of a clan of women who midwife other women’s voices so that all women living on the edge could be heard with compassion. Things started to fall into place, saturation point had been reached, and my Brazilian friend’s words were ringing true: I was close to Mama Oya, comfortable inside her skin, so much so that I didn’t know where she began and where I ended. I grew into the swerves and contours of Oya, the orisha whose skin I was wearing, old enough to realize now that I was walking her path on earth, the path of profound change – of myself and others. After all those years, I lost track that we had been together at all until that afternoon, waiting for my haircut, my friend timing his words for the right moment to detonate and have their deepest effect.
You might say that from 2012-2017 will be the years Oya will make her presence known, visiting us more than once. There will be debris flying, lives disrupted, unexpected catastrophes and major adjustments to be made. Yet, if you’re ready, something else will happen to you as well, because of her, because of the worlds she will dismantle and the ones you will create. Something will slip away: a floor, a foundation you once thought solid, a wall that no longer has studs to hold it up, a person who is no longer going to be there for you, a job that will get de-funded and another purpose coming into view. You will soon realize that even though you may miss these things, you will also no longer need them. You are becoming something else, something bigger, something more: Yourself. Fearless, free, and moving swiftly through the walls and passages of time. Just like the wind.
