Iyá Digi

By: Carolina Rodríguez Mayo

In the beginning, it was difficult to distinguish what pleasure was supposed to look like. We had some urges and desires, but nothing lasted. Not until she arrived. She brought us so many answers about the reason we were living, the reasons why we were wandering in this Universe. Her walk and her words gave a whole new meaning to existence. She asked us to call her Mother, and every time she did, her lips shaped into a little oval that was as profound as the sea. Her smell was enchanting and sweet. Her presence created the word honey and, later on, honey itself. We had parties before, and we gathered together and tried to collect as many experiences as we could. We did not aim for enjoyment, our goal was to be pioneers. Mother Oshún took that away from us. She was always screaming about how awful that was, she said: “shallow beings will not be able to grasp the meaning behind sexual encounters. You must give up your competitive nature.” Soon enough, she began to tell us about hosting a party. We had to accomplish a series of requirements first, like bathing ourselves in milk and honey; we had to eat the honey too, with pineapples ideally. It had to be an entire ritual. We had to better ourselves energetically throughout the chanting of some oms and masturbation. The anticipation got us excited. All of Mount Olympus thought that the evening was about to change what we knew about ourselves.

Her black, perfect skin was glowing. Mother was not wearing any clothes. She had yellow daisies and sunflowers in her voluminous hair. Mother ordered: “leave your clothes here and feast your eyes.” At that moment, I realized we had never observed others just to see them. Those creatures were beautiful. I could feel the accumulated tension between us. “Do not put your hands in other bodies yet,” Oshún said in a whisper. We could hear some soft music coming from somewhere. The grazing of my thighs started to be too much. I noticed everyone was on edge, too feverish, too hungry. But not Mother. She looked so fresh and calm, and even when she realized that her audience was staring at her breasts and vulva, her confidence did not move an inch. Oshún was provoking the room with her voluptuous movements. We were suddenly listening to some aggressive bongo drums played, and Mother started dancing around the room. “Dance with me,” she said. We stood up softly, being very aware of others close to us. Their breath had the fragrance of cloves, sending shivers down my spine. The space between each body was no longer there. We, naked and thirsty, were dancing in circles as one.

I did not realize Mother was the only one from the Yoruba Pantheon until later. This milky wave of Gods was just going crazy with each other, we had never known pleasure before, and we were in bliss, in awe of each other. Oshún was only watching from her throne. With the passing of the hours, I began to tell them that something was off with her face. Understand me, please! She was still the vivid picture of lust, but her brightness was enlightening something else. Some of us were tired, and even with erections and wetness, we wanted to quit. But, we could not. We were going from body to body, nauseous and beaten. We could not stand any longer, but we could not leave either. We must have looked like white, shapeless, and dusty raw dough. The orgy was not triumphant anymore. Sore throats, heavy limbs, dry genitalia. Moans of pleasure devolved into screams of agony. There was blood on the floor, and some of the Gods were losing hair, their gorgeous facades were mutating, now old and moldy. We could not stop, we were glued together in this miserable circle.

Oshún called her brethren. Each one of them brought something additional to this maelstrom of flesh. Shangó turned masculine energy into violence. The orgy became warfare. We used our remaining bodies to hurt others in the most hyperbolic way. Some of us were just bones at one point, but our flesh returned right away, and the ache did not cease. Elegguá carried laughter. Other Orishas were arriving after hearing Elegguá so amused. They surrounded us with candles, fruits, and flowers. The Gods in the bacchanal could not smell anything from outside our dough; the trace of puke, blood, fluids, and shit did not allow us to perceive anything else. Elegguá cackled thunderously; his laughter gave me goosebumps. He was playing around, calling our names with a vicious voice. We were under a powerful spell and were not familiar with their powers. Some of the self-called Originals tried to weave a plan of escape, but there was something inside each of us that wanted to remain. The horrid truth was that pleasure did not end, not even in those conditions. Oshún was too powerful because she entwined pleasure, terror, and guilt. We did not want to finish, we did not want to stay. The Yorubas were not heartless, they spent a few centuries considering letting us go. One time, Obatalá joined the discussion. He talked to Oshún, and she seemed humble for the first time since we met her. Obatalá put us in suspension; our bodies, up in the air, were in more pain than ever. I could feel my lungs and stomach being tied up. I could recognize some faces I have not recognized in a long time: Hera, Demeter, Ares, and Dionysus. Obatalá said something unintelligible to his children, then turned his face to us. He rose to be up in the air where he put us and said: “My beloved made her choice at the beginning of times, she paid careful attention to people on Earth, and her heart is now under a curse that is also a blessing. She is pleasure, love, richness, lust, and reciprocity, but for those who ignore her and her people, she can be revenge, despair, and bitterness. You ignored us way too long as your people did to our people.”

Oshún asked Obatalá to lift her, and when she was in the air in front of us, she pointed at something we had not acknowledged for way too long: “You were looking for pleasure and were open to accepting it from me but never once did you try to include me in it. You never sought another black God. Down there, your believers are killing our believers. We are mirrors of their prayers. You betrayed us and talked about our power as less significant, and your believers also betrayed what human nature is supposed to be.” She touched Obatalá's shoulder, and he threw us down. Again in seconds, our bodies were entangled in a gigantic mass, tasting sand and iron in our nostrils.

Our shame brought us consciousness and put the ache in other places. Inside my guts, there were needles punching my soul. The orgy stopped, but the torture was not over. We thought the endless party was horrendous, but it was not comparable to what Oshún would show us. Humans took the worst possible path, segregating themselves by color and culture. Our insides were burning and we began to realize that the pain we were feeling was not coming from Oshún alone. For ages, we had harvested the ideas that structured what humanity treasured: stature, power, pride, vanity, and narcissism. Around us, everything was dark, we could not see anything else.

We might have been alone in the dark for eons. What is certain is that we could not move. Some Gods were pushing with their cores to leave the whirlwind of bodies we had transformed into, but it was hopeless. I figured out something the Yorubas had told us before and tried to call everyone’s attention. “Listen,” I said. “We need to observe this madness for what it is if we aspire to retrieve ourselves.” We tried to clear our heads, and the vision came with that. There were mirrors all over. I could not espy my face. Our features were completely missing. We were a sphere of eyeballs, hair, hands, mouths, chests, and exposed genitalia merged together. It was an acrid sight. But I knew we had to stare at it. The reflection served as part of the punishment. We used to be so mesmerized by ourselves that we did not care about the rest. Whenever we took our expeditions to Earth, we behaved in such an oblivious manner. Rivers of blood were part of our gambling games, we gave our boons to this or that army just to avoid boredom. Now it was time to confront the demons that Mother exposed. The demonic figures we imagined were behind this hell spawned from us.

Carolina Rodríguez Mayo is an avid raveler, educator, and writer. She has experience as a teacher, translator, editor and writer.