Eshu

[laughs]

... held hostage in his basement, and that each day she prays to Eshu, the Santeria god of death-

Yeah

...

One, and someone said it really well, is that, you know, a lot of time, we spend time say, talking about what's wrong and like, you know, what, you know, we shouldn't be doing or, you know, why things are wrong.

The person that used this example is saying, "Oh, when people talk about, let's say, Eshu, and he's being mischaracterized as the devil, we spend so much time saying that Eshu isn't the devil, that we don't spend enough time saying what Eshu actually is."

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So people don't actually gain the knowledge of what they sort of like need to know about, let's say, Eshu is like a, the guardian for crossroads.

He's, you know, the intermediary between heaven, um, Orun, and, um, you know, all the other Orishas and us on Earth.

Mm-hmm.

And then you have the Irunmole, which were the ones that sort of were there before time and before, like, the creation of the Earth.

I'd like to ask our Coterie at Whole, how are you collecting yourselves for this evening? And then what is your approach when it comes to Lower Wacker?

Well, my morning is starting out, well, my night is starting out much like I did the other day, with a shower and making offerings, and this time making offerings specifically to Eshu to open the way, Ogun to clear the pathway, Oya to give us luck, and for Chozi's guidance in finding what we need.

And...

Prayers back to Pompajira for failing to pray to her the day before, so things didn't get as messy when I needed to.

Many ways I think captivity is never total.

There's always a molecule of, of the yet to come, of creolized possibilities, of promiscuous futures, even in the heart of the slave ship, right? This is figured in the story by Femi Yuba of Eshu traveling along with the slaves.

I cannot get rid of that story.

It's at the heart of my work today, the idea that on that vessel, on those vessels, when the captors counted the bodies they had captured, maybe seventy-five or seventy-six or a hundred Africans, there was always one more.

Cê também pode falar um pouco sobre isso?

Mesma coisa, tá? Um Exu guardião de verdade, ali na linha mesmo, ele não vai pedir o sacrifício, tá? Pode pedir outras coisas, né? A própria farofa, né, ah, é, frutas e outras coisas ali, tá?

Vela.

Velas, entendeu, flores, tá?

Dentro dessa linha dos Exus, algumas pessoas também perguntaram sobre a fala deles.

Uhum.

É importante, eu acho, falar, né, sobre essa diferença do mentor ser firme-

Uhum.