I am a Daughter of Chango.  (Or in laymen terms I am the daughter of the African God of Thunder) When I went to the mat the babalaw (priest) told me that Chango loves me and does not wish to share me.  I am all his and he is all mine.  "Careful," he said "Chango may try and mark you."  "I think I'm already marked," I said. When he looked at me curiously I showed him the double edged axe I had tattooed on my chest 10 years prior and the Babalaw howled with laughter.  That was 4 months ago. 

Chango wasn't foreign to me, in fact I adored him.  When Chango speaks it's usually just once.  Once.  Oya and Oshun, they took their time with me.  Chango speaks once.  Could I deal with that?  And then I realized that while Chango speaks once he also speaks the exact truth and since we live in a world that is ever changing and manifesting then that once-truth would be spoken differently over and over.  Like a sports commentator with each move... should I ask for it.  I've also come to began to undserstand that Chango speaks the truth not as a way of telling me yes or no but in a way as to calculate risk.  He's a gambling man, a risk taker when there's enough risk to take.  As a daughter of Chango my job right now is to get information to jump with or to not jump with which is still jumping.  Didn't know the Orisha were so Zen did you?  Honey, they created Zen.  They make Zen look like something new.

Last night was the first time I remembered Chango coming to me in my dreams the same way Oya once did.  I was in a very brown place.  The earth was tan below me and for miles that I could see.  I was outside of an adobe building.  Inside the adobe building were some people and also some black (the color not the culture) rock people.  I had been inside and stepped outside. As I did Chango laid himself down on an adobe block next to me.  He nodded hello to me and I said hi awkwardly like a shy school girl.  I didn't really know it was him yet, just a good looking man.  We spoke a little bit and while we were doing that I was looking through a brown box of charms and odd symbols.  Some were familiar like a small horse, shells, leaves in gold etc... others were foreign and odd but still caught my attention.  "Find anything good?" he asked.  "Yes!" I said, "I found all these!" And I opened my hand to show him.  He looked inside my hand with a sexy crooked smile on his face.  "Those are my symbols," he said.  "Oh well you can have them back then.  I didn't mean to take them." He found my literal interpretation of what he said amusing and didn't argue when I placed each charm one by one back into his hand except when I got to a shell threaded with a black stone at the top, I stopped.  "I can't give you this one.  Even if I wanted to I couldn't,"  I said.  When I looked at the shell it reminded me of Chango and I wanted to put it on his alter.  "Ok" he said, "You keep that one."  And he winked at me but I still didn't get it.  Just then a black stone rock rolled our way it was about the size of a basketball.  When it stopped it took form of a baby, a black rock baby.  I smiled at it but turned my attention back to the box.  "Is that your baby too?" I asked.  "Yes." he replied.  "Oh." I said.  An odd moment went by and he said "Did you want that too?"

I woke up after that and felt like that awkward teenager who wanted to go back and do it all differently.  Like when you are so new and innocent you don't really get what is happening, which is how I do feel in the presence of the Orisha.  The greek goddesses like Artemis, Hera, Medusa, Aphrodite, they all are more about the spirituality of being a women.  The Orisha are a whole other ball game.  I'm a spiritual being having a human experience rather then a human having a spiritual experience.  Yet that human experience feels more like a child experience.  Whatever I've done in my adult life that makes me feel so "Adult" is mere child's play.  I have 2 masters degrees (isn't she so cute?), I have slept with men and women (awwww little sweetie!), I have lost family members (there there lil' one...), I have speeding tickets (vroom vroom is on a time out!), and the list goes on.  I tend to think of myself as this deep creative person feeling mostly over whelmed with information but in the past four months I feel more "adorable" then deep.  I'm not deep I'm adorable.  A daughter of Chango.

The comings and goings of another year of

my life.

I haven't been able to stop bleeding for it.

The blood is dark and deep from places inside that are

dark and deeply shaken.

I look at the blood and think "there you are!"  it is a missing link.

I've watched the blood as though it was going to move.

I've listened to it, quiet red.

The comings and goings are moving to the outside.

Planes fly over me everyday.

Roaring fire peanut dispenser.

Vroom Vroom Crack.

I flew once the same way,

no flapping of wings just

energy from the soul engine.

I kept my nuts to myself though

didn't want to fire anyone else up. 

Up and away I want to fly today.

Today at the Library the following people ordered these books....

POTTER ordered "How a Seed Grows"

LAND ordered "Bibliography of Indians of San Diego"

ENGLISH ordered "Please Understand Me II"

I think it's a good idea to order these books I can't think of anyone better to read them.