My Third Cycle

2. Birth of a spirit

Standing still, filled with emotions and my heart incomplete; I hear the drizzle of the rain like a memory. It falls soft and warm, continuously tapping on my roof and walls. From the shelter of my mind, through the windows of my eyes, I gaze beyond the rain drops and drenched streets to Nigeria where my heart lies.

My mind is distracted and my thoughts are many miles away; they lie with you when you are asleep, they kiss you when you start your day. I spend my days writing poems I no longer believe in. I have come to doubt all I once held true and now I stand alone without beliefs. The only truth I know is you, my princess.

I have been apart from you for so long and I miss you so!
My sole purpose in life has been to find you since I lost you but days quickly turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years. Decades and centuries have passed but I linger in time and emerge anew like a phoenix rising from its ashes.

My spirit, bound to Africa continues to be reborn and I stay true to my goal, for survival means nothing without you.
We wanted life, to live free in beautiful Africa.

Western Nigeria,
West Africa
1800s

Nature ruled, the air was unsullied and breathable with the fragrance of the wild trees and flowers of its great forests. Birds flew to heights humans envied and animals ran free in the wild. Every living thing owned the most special gift ever given; Freedom.

We were known as the Ogun clan, a society like no other. We had no king, no monarchy, the people ruled and decisions were taken by the elders.

"Life is a beautiful story." my father once said.

Peace reigned supreme in all surrounding villages. Our men hunted and our women farmed the lands, harvesting fruits and crops while craftsmen, either male or female made the tools we used to hunt and farm and other tools for day to day
activities.

My first parents were unable to have children and soon became worried My father sought advice from his friend, Maguni who advised him to seek help from the goddess Osun.

"Have your wife prepare her best dish and wine as appeasement for the goddess. Follow River Yewa until you meet the great tree, she shall ask you a question and the answer is always the same regardless of the question." Maguni instructed.

So alone and veiled by night, my parents set out in a canoe and paddled their way into the great River Yewa. Gliding nearly effortlessly along the seemingly unending river until it began to get misty. They could barely see their vicinity through the most, but they clearly saw a huge dead tree ahead on a small island in the center of the river. They had arrived.

My father docked and secured his canoe and stood beside my mother with the food and wine at what seemed to be an entrance to the great tree. My mother was terrified, but my dad held her and gave her courage. The great tree shook it's branches, yawning and opening it's surprisingly bright eyes.

"Who goes there?" it asked, in a loud baritone voice, twisting it's knob of a nose with displeasure "I hear her whimpering and it greatly displeases me."

"We are sorry great tree of Yewa, we come seeking the help of Mother Yewa, Osun." My father replied.

The great tree regarded them a while longer before saying "You must answer a riddle before the mother may see you." Father nodded.

" I have been around for ages, alas I am only a month older. Who am I?"

"The moon."

"You may enter." The great tree said, swiftly swinging out a part of it's bark like a door, revealing an opening.
They entered and kept the food and wine where they saw other items had been deposited. A wooden bowl made from African timber stood ahead, filled with sparkling water; the tears of mothers. Maguni had prepared them well.

My mother walked up to the bowl, knelt in front of it and cried into it. She cried out loud, pouring out her pain. Her tears dripped off her cheeks into the sacred wooden bowl and after she had finished, Osun, the Yoruba Orisha of love and sweet water, also known as the goddess of fertility, spoke to her in a soothing songlike voice, cooing to allay my mother's cries.

"It is well my daughter. Your seed will grow and become a family tree of sweet fruits, but the first harvest is mine. When the child is born, you shall bring your placenta and the cloth used to wipe the blood from your labor to me because the harvest is mine. Your grandkids will be mine. Your lineage will be mine"

Thus my spirit was born as Osun granted their wishes.

My First Cycle

I was sent by Osun to my mother, fully aware of my person since my conception. While I lay in her womb, I often wondered what the world would look like. A world filled with beauty and magic, I thought and I waited impatiently for my delivery.
My birth brought great joy and happiness to my family so I was named "Ayo" which means "joy" in Yorùbá.

My name quickly became my person, I was always filled with joy. Hey! Coming from the realm of non-existence, where spirits dwell to the physical realm was a huge but happy shift for me. I was glad to be alive. Even as a child, I enjoyed each day like it was my last. I was dazzled by the beauty of Africa, from the great green turf; trees laden with fruits to the marshy lowlands and rivers. Osun! I love swimming.

Then I met her at River Kota, a beauty to rival my beloved Africa. My Ola, my wife. She was tall and ebony skinned with radiant long black hair braided and adorned with cowries. Constantly wearing a smile on her full lips. And her face? Osun! A face befitting a goddess. She confiscated my heart, and there was no denying it. She was my other half.

The spaces between my fingers were a perfect fit for her fingers to go through and form our strong grip. We were happy together but it did not last long as the Europeans discovered Africa and the prospects of cheap labor. Slave hunters emerged from the night to attack our village and I was captured with a couple of others and separated from Ola. My once happy family was disrupted as the Europeans shipped us to lands unknown.

I was bought by a plantation lord and sent to work in the farms but I never gave up, I tried unsuccessfully to find Ola, escaping the plantation and getting caught and beaten over and over again. Alas, my right leg was taken from me by the plantation overseer who was tired of my continual escape attempts.

After sixty years of slavery, I had become too old and frail. Age had caught on with my body and it began to wither, every ounce of strength left in me spent. My spirit was trapped again, this time not in my mother's womb but in my aging body. And like then, I began to grow impatient to leave my dying body and be reborn as the cycle flows.

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August 15, 1910

It was a hot summer in America and the eighty-first year of my life. One hot afternoon, now a tired old slave, I laid under a tree seeking fresh air just in front of the plantation’s swamp. The swamp was infested with frogs, and their never ending croaking could almost deafen a man. When their neighbors the crickets joined in, it turned into an unimaginable orchestra.

As I lay under the shade longing for the wind to cool my tired body, I began to feel slow and sleepy. Somehow, I knew that my time in this aching, aging body was coming to an end and I was glad to leave the enslaved, battered body that had been mine for eighty one years.

Wearing a smile of expectations as I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness I whispered into the air;
  "Like a phoenix rising from
its ashes, I will conquer time and slavery and have you in my arms again." Then I closed my eyes and my body released my spirit.

Just before opening my eyes I heard the nurse say “It's a boy.” and I was handed over to my second mother. This time, I was born into an Eastern family and my second cycle began.

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