Today I am thankful for the Collective Unconscious.
Six months ago, I dreamt of Shango.
The dreams were full of thunderous drums,
lighting,
and red....
a lot of red and garlands of white.
In these dreams, a voice spoke to me....
a thunderous, deep, beautiful bass voice.
All I remember is hearing something along the lines of
"I'll send you someone to help for I am Shango."
and I'm pretty sure I heard
"Listen to him."
Nothing too spectacular.
Nothing erotic.
The guy was just talking to me.
We are both dressed as if we are going to war.
Yeah, I have a tendency to ignore many of the men and the gifts sent to me. It's a horribly bad habit that probably betrays a subconscious lack of self-worth on my part.
At the time, I had no idea what I needed help with.
I had no idea why a Yoruban God would want to talk to an old, Irish-American woman.
It took far too long to figure it out.
The Gods (or the Collective Unconscious, if you will, always know what we need even before we know it ourselves).
******
Upon having the dream, I immediately ran to YouTube and looked up everything I could to try to understand about Shango, initially misspelling his name as Chango and getting lost in my searches.
There were numerous testimonies of Shango from men of color.
Nothing from a white person, let alone a woman.
I had heard of Shango before.
Ten years ago, I had a dream of Oshun. Oshun is one of Shango's three wives. She's the embodiment of sensuality, beauty, eroticism and the unconditional love of a best friend/homegirl. Before she married Shango, she was said to be a single mother who washed her white dress so often in the river that it turned a beautiful golden yellow.
Fifteen years ago, I began having horrible nightmares about an old friend breaking his leg (typically in car crashes with a semi but there were numerous dreams and numerous ways for him to break his leg**).
The dreams always freaked me out.
It was bad.
I'd wake up, scream "Oh, No [his name] and cry.
My marriage was in a bad place. I'd wake up the entire house!
My friend's name was Tom. I'd wake up, realized what happened and pretend to be singing "modern day warrior, mean, mean stride"
It became a running joke in my household. If I had any sense about me, I'd have grabbed the synth, put it by my bedside, and programmed the intro so people could possibly believe me (but I always think of these things far too late....sigh).
I lit a lot of white candles. I prayed a lot for this guy I hadn't seen in twenty years. In my dreams he was married. I prayed for a woman and children that I had never met so they wouldn't be injured in any crash with a semi***.
The dreams freaked me out.
I even had little Native American dream catchers all over the house.
It's a little bit funny now thinking back on it. Then, it scared the crap out of me because every time I had a dream about this guy, it came true. It's an INFJ thing.
One night, I dreamt of Oshun. She said she would prove to me that my friend was fine and ease my mind.
I dedicated a pumpkin to her, filled it with honey (even tasted it as stories say someone once attempted to poison her) and lit a white candle. I swore off eating her sacred fruit from that day forward.
That night around 4:00am, I awoke to a ghostly image of my friend standing by he bed and I let out a horrified scream that must have woke up the entire neighborhood.
No one was there. It was a hallucination, a very freaky hypnopompic hallucination.
Shaking, I went to the computer. There was an email from Tom on Classmates.com. I paid $40 (or whatever it was back in the day) and read that he was "alive and doing fine."
I had never seen such beautiful words in an email in my life. The funny thing was that Tom had been sending me emails but my then husband had been hacking into my accounts and deleting them. If Tom hadn't sent me one on Classmates, I never would have gotten it.
I left Oshun some yellow roses in the river as a gift of thanks.
*****
I wondered why my subconscious mind took me to Shango and set forth to read everything I could about him.
He was said to be a fourth century king of the Oyo Empire. He was incredibly violent and highly respected. Shango brought prosperity to his people through many wars and battles. It is said that his seven year reign ended when his palace was destroyed by lightening.
This is where the myth gets sketchy for me. It was said that he committed suicide by hanging himself and climbing the rope into the heavens unleashing lightening on his way which, in turn, destroyed the palace. The lightening is said to signify his transition from a human into an Orisha (akin to a Christian archangel).
No matter how much I read, I don't feel like I truly understand.
Shango is deeply respected and beloved by his worshipers. There are numerous testimonies of his worship online.
Why would such a powerful Deity want to work with an old, powerless white lady?
I pushed the question out of my mind. Partly due to fears of cultural appropriation and partly due to misunderstanding.
*****
One thing to know about the Yoruban Gods and Goddesses is that they didn't die when black people were kidnapped from their homes and taken to the New World to be sold into slavery.
They were still worshipped. To hide who they were, the slaves gave them Christian names so they could worship without arousing the suspicions of their so-called masters.
Oshun is syncretized with St. John the Baptist.
Shango is syncretized with St. Barbara and St. Jerome
*****
This leads me to yesterday. I'm coaching a recent college graduate on public speaking. She's nervous as heck about teaching the second of the twelve AA steps to a group of patients.
I joke - if they get and unruly and you don't know what to say, make a circle with your finger and tell them you have a three step plan (later I turned that into a twelve step plan). That's what politicians do when they don't have a clue what to say.
This young woman gave a beautiful presentation that drove the patients (and myself) into tears. We need to turn things we can't fix over to a higher power.
I had just ranted for two hours about the police urging paramedics to shoot up black men with ketamine after diagnosing them with a fake, junk sciency syndrome called "excited delirium." Far too many of these men are handcuffed or otherwise in police custody when they are given the drug.
I firmly believed that ketamine killed Elijah McClain.
I want to do something. I don't know what to do.
I think Shango is trying to answer a prayer. It's as if he knew I would make that prayer six months before I actually did so.
It's time to give the issue up to a higher power.
Part of me wonders if Shango will send me off to a figurative war.
*****
If there is a lesson from all of this it is to have faith.
Listen to the signs divinity shows you. Pay attention and follow through.
I've got a lot of praying to do.
The funny thing is that i found a treasure trove of red candles when I went hunting for DVDs for my patients.
At least I can put them to good use.
Love ya,
S.
** He broke his leg in a skydiving accident in 2010.
*** There was no wife or children when we met in 2011. There was no semi-truck accident. Thankfully, the nightmares stopped in September 2010. I still pray for Tom and his loved ones. It's easier than having nightmares.