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No one knew how heaven began; the earth, however, was a different story.
Olófin and the orishas stood in their world, breathless, as Olorún turned towards the empty void of space. Olorún was olo orún, the owner of heaven, and olo õrùn, the owner of the sun; he was all the fire that their world knew; he was their life and their ashé. He reached out with his hand, and placed a tiny spark in the wasted darkness. First, there was just that flicker of light, and then there was fire. It was a small flame, cold and sparse; but the fire knew hunger, and it ate the very blackness that sought to extinguish it. The fire grew. As they watched, afraid of the angry light but unable to turn their eyes away, it ate even the nothing that it touched. Soon it was a raw ball of flame rolling in blackness, red hot and angry; and, it was alive. Oroiña awoke in that fire; she danced, and jumped, and laughed. No one thought anything could live in such heat, but she was there, and the fire was her home. Her joy was maniacal.
“I’m hungry,” she roared to the night. “My stomach rumbles, and I will eat . . . everything!”
The fire grew; it expanded outwards until the orishas thought even heaven would burn. She wanted to grow, to be powerful and fierce in space like Olorún was in heaven. She challenged him, “I will steal your ashé! I will have the strength of heaven’s sun!”
Olorún stood firm where he was. “Be still, Oroiña,” he called to her. “For things are only beginning and the hunger you feel will never be sated. You can eat, and eat, and eat, and never be full; and once you’ve eaten everything, you yourself will die.”
The power she felt was too great. She was young, new, fresh, and foolish; and even though she was fire, she understood not what that meant. “I must eat . . . everything,” she insisted again, dancing recklessly in the flames that were her home. Heaven shuddered with fear. “Olorún?” asked Olófin, who witnessed everything he did. “What have you done?”
“I created a world,” he said, smiling.
“You have given life to a creature of fire. And she is a lunatic.” Olófin’s brow frowned at the growing flames.
Olorún took in a great breath and sighed. His breath was cold, like ice, and it froze the fire until a scarlet rock floated in the vacuum of space. Oroiña screamed; the rock cracked, and red lava oozed on its surface. Olorún took in another great breath and sighed. This time it was damp, like fog, and steam rose from the rock floating in space until even its brilliant reds and oranges were hidden from the orishas’ eyes in heaven. Rock and steam muffled her angry screams, but still, the darkness shuddered with her anger. Olorún inhaled one last time, and let his breath out like a powerful gale. It was wet, like water, and the steam thickened until dark storm clouds coated the earth.
Oroiña was silent. “Is she dead?” Olófin asked.
“She is mortal, and she is trapped, but it will be eons before she dies.”
“Then what was the point of all this, Olorún? What happens now?”
“We wait. And we watch. You’re good at watching, Olófin. Remember everything.”
“What do you call this thing you’ve done?” he asked.
“Creation, of course – that is what I’ve done. At the core of every living thing is the fire of life. From this fire will be born a complex creature, and we will call this creature Earth.” Olorún was thoughtful as he spoke, watching the billowing clouds that crossed its globe. “The life of earth will be greater than any other life we have created, for it will be sum of its parts. It’s pure genius.” He was proud of himself.
Olorún focused himself again on heaven, and left Olófin one in the darkness to contemplate the mystery of what he had done. For what seemed centuries, Olófin watched. All he did was watch, even when the orishas grew bored and set their sights back on their home, heaven.
As he floated in space, and watched, the fire at the center of the earth cooled. Shrouded by the warm steam and the dark, wet clouds, the fire in the earth weakened until it could no longer fight off the water hanging in the air. A great storm came; and rain pelted the earth. The gentle heat that came from the rocks made steam rise again; but it wasn’t like before, and Olófin watched as a great cycle of steam and condensation cooled the rocks until it was just the right temperature for a great ocean to form. All the water in the sky was now water on the earth, and everywhere Olófin looked, there was a vast, rolling sea.
“Once, it was all fire, and now, it’s all water.” Olófin said, curious.
Something stirred in the depths of the primal sea; and Olófin watched as the waters moved. There was ashé in ocean, the same ashé that moved the original fire and made it grow, the same ashé that gave life to the flames, and now, it was creating life in the sea. Something not unlike the orishas themselves moved in its depths – it had a head, and a neck, and two arms, but the legs were curiously formed, powerful, scaled appendages that ended in webbed feet. They were suitable for swimming in the water, but not for walking on land. And while the figure was powerful and strong like a man’s, it had a curious grace that made it seem . . . feminine. Just as Oroiña had danced maniacally in the flames, trying to hold all that ashé to itself, so the watery figure swirled in the water, trying to hold all the ocean’s power for himself. Seven great currents spanned the globe. When the creature realized he controlled the water, he laughed, and his laugh created great waves that rocked the sea.
Olófin dove; he moved through the water until he was at the bottom with the strange, deformed creature. He looked at him lovingly. “I am Olófin,” he said, reaching a hand out to it.
“And who am I?” it asked. “Who am I that I stand at the bottom of this wet, watery world, and can control its very tides? Who am I that I stand here, the owner of all this wetness, yet I know not my own name, or how I came to be here?” There was arrogance in his questions; the creature knew he had power, but had no idea from where that power came.
“Was it like this for us when we awoke?” Olófin thought. He tried, but the memories were not there. “You are the owner of the ocean,” said Olófin. “You are olo òkun.” Names had strong meanings to the orishas; by their names, one knew their natures. And, truly, this strange one born of water seemed to be the owner of it all.
“Olo õkùn,” he repeated, mispronouncing the words. Instead of ‘owner of the ocean,’ the creature said, ‘owner of darkness.’ “Or owner of the horrors,” Olófin thought. He trembled where he stood. From the fire was another terrible thing wrought. These primal, earthly orishas had awesome powers, unlike what he knew in heaven.
“I am Olokun, the owner of the ocean and the owner of the darkness.” The strange orisha smiled a wicked grin – he liked the name. Olófin, thankfully, noted he did not mention the darkness. With an icy stare, the creature looked at Olófin. “And you, strange one, are trespassing in my world. Leave. Now.”
Sadly, Olófin’s spirit moved back to the surface.
Something stirred in the salty water around him; and Olófin watched the ocean’s ashé move again. Try as he may, the strange creature could not hold all its power to himself. At the surface of the ocean, where the seven tides met in a great whirlpool, something else took shape. Where the creature at the bottom of the sea was frightening to behold, this one was beautiful to his eyes. Her skin was dark, darker than the night, and the water made her skin soft and creamy. Her hair was in thousands of tiny braids that trailed off into the ocean, and her full breasts floated in the surf gracefully. Olófin felt something like desire rise in him; it was warm and dangerous, like the spark of fire from which Olorún began all this.
Gently, so as not to frighten the creature, Olófin’s spirit moved over the face of the water. “Who are you?” he whispered in the darkness.
“Who am I?” The beautiful woman was lost in thought, lost in the foamy waves and the crashing sea. “Who am I?” she asked again, a bit more loudly. Something swam by her feet; it tickled her skin and she laughed. Soon, the ocean was filled with tiny bubbles and splashes.
Olófin’s jaw dropped, and he trembled with excitement. “You are the mother of fishes,” Olófin said with awe.
“Yemayá? I am Yemayá. I am the mother of fishes.” She giggled girlishly as they swam about her legs.
“And you are beautiful,” said Olófin. The fire that burned within him was too great, and moved to embrace her with his spirit. Something changed, and for a moment, Olófin became more than spirit in this strange world; he was solid, and something not unlike the flesh of which the watery creature was made. “I love you.” It was all he said.
“I feel funny inside,” said Yemayá. “My stomach trembles, and I feel . . . fire . . . burning inside me.”
“It is love,” said Olófin. And for what seemed an eternity, Olófin loved her and made love to her, and he swore, “Yemayá, you will always be honored in my house, the house of the initiates.” Olófin trembled. Why had he called his house the house of the initiates? There was no one initiated to anything that he knew of.
“Yemayá Mayéléwo? Is Mayéléwo part of the name you give me as well?” For in their native tongue, Mayéléwo meant ‘honored in the house of the intiates.’
Olófin smiled. “It is. Always: your name is Yemayá Mayéléwo.” Names were power, and Olófin was discovering that this creature had great ashé brewing inside of her.
“Look at the sea around us,” said Yemayá Mayéléwo. “It is such a curious thing. The sea dances. Its waters whirl. And they sink. They do all this around us. Is it not beautiful?”
Olófin looked in her eyes, and smiled. “Yes, Yemayá Mayéléwo. You are the sea, or don’t you know that? You are the sea dancing, and whirling and sinking.”
“So I am Yemayá Mayéléwo Òkunjómu?” In the tongue in which they spoke, ‘Òkunjómu’ meant ‘the sea dancing and whirling and sinking.’ She smiled; it was warm and radiant, filled with a gentle light that seemed to suffuse the darkness, fighting it back. “I am the mother of fishes always honored in the house of the initiates, the sea dancing and whirling and sinking?”
“That describes you perfectly.” Olófin kissed her. She kissed him back. He rubbed her skin with the salted water until she sparkled like onyx, even in the darkness. She rubbed his hair until it was wet and dark with water. He lay back in the ocean; and she straddled him on top. He grabbed her waist. She held on to his shoulders. He thrust into her, and she rode him like a horse. He screamed in ecstasy, and she cried in pain.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
Yemayá rolled back into the sea while Olófin treaded water. In the duskiness now passing for daylight in this world, the subtle ashé that spilled from Yemayá herself into this realm, he saw her grab her belly. It was growing. “Yemayá?” he whispered, fear having frozen his voice. He watched as her womb bloated, and the secret place between her legs split. She screamed; and the world echoed her pain. “Yemayá!”
Olokun roared at the bottom of sea. Already, something was happening that threatened the darkness he craved; and the ocean seemed to boil with his anger. Olófin was afraid.
Yemayá Mayéléwo Òkunjómu went limp in the water as something huge escaped her legs; it fled the waters and flew to the sky. “The moon,” said Olófin as he saw its pale glow enlivening the dreary sky. She moaned, and thousands of stars fled the sea and took their place by the moon; and suddenly, the sky twinkled with thousands of heavenly lights. “The stars,” Olófin whispered. “What is this power this woman has?” he thought. Olokun screamed as Yemayá moaned, and the waves tossed and thrashed her limp body in the sea; when she rolled to her back again Olófin thought, surely, her body must burst. The scream that came from her lips was something mortal; it was a fatal plea for release from her pain. And something brighter than a thousand candles slipped from that secret place between her legs. The moon and the stars fled the sky as the world was ablaze with . . . sunlight.
“The sun!” Olófin yelled over the crashing waves. “You gave birth to the sun, and the moon, and the stars Yemayá.”
Then, he saw Yemayá Mayéléwo Òkunjómu’s body floating lifelessly in the surf. “She can’t be dead, not yet,” he thought as he gathered her lifeless body in his arms. “Olorún . . . what have I done?” Olófin cried in the ocean, cradling Yemayá Mayéléwo Òkunjómu’s head against his chest.
There was a rushing of wind; and where before they were wet, now they were dry, and they were back in heaven at the place where land and sea touched, the shore. “She’s not dead,” said Olorún, and Olófin looked up to see the world’s source of life and ashé glowing in the eastern sky. “She’s an orisha, like you, born of the waters of earth, not heaven’s pure ashé. But she’s not dead. No, she was the first orisha to create on earth, and her power is as eternal as the sea.” There was a great sigh. It was like a strong wind through the trees, and Olófin heard a thousand voices clamoring in that wind. “She is Iya Moayé,” and when the voice said those words, it sounded so much like the name Yemayá that Olófin barely noticed; but Olorún had called her ‘The Mother of the World.’ “In time, everything thing that lives and creeps and crawls on the earth will know her as such.” There was warmth in his voice, and f Olorún had face and form like the orishas in heaven, Olófin knew he would have been smiling. “The water in heaven is the source of the water on earth. Lay her there so it can fill her with its ashé.”
Gently, Olófin put her still form in the heavenly ocean, and watched for the rising and falling of her chest. It was there; it was subtle and slow, but it was there. When her eyes fluttered open, Olófin rejoiced.
Yemayá Mayéléwo Òkunjómu smiled. “Things are different. Is this your house?”
“This is my home,” said Olófin, “and you are welcome here, in heaven.” As Yemayá watched, with his hands Olófin fashioned a bright, multi colored crown. It was a rainbow, and it was fashioned from the ashé of the love that he felt in his heart for the beautiful creature. “Olorún himself has brought you here, Yemayá, and you are the mother to the world. You are a queen in heaven, and you are a queen on earth, and a queen needs her crown.”
Gently, he crowned her with the rainbow; and lovingly, he kissed her on the cheek. There, in heaven, Yemayá swam away to find the place where the seven great, heavenly tides of creation met; and there, alone in the celestial ocean, she contemplated herself and her crown.
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My NaNoWriMo word count
