Dear Damballa

excerpts on ascension

This morning the rain pelts me as soon as I walk out the door, reminding me of the ferocious waters frequent to New Orleans. I telepathically chat with the trees on the routine walk for my oat cappuccino, each leaf tingling with fresh water dripping and hydrating their roots. I smile from a feeling of compersion blooming in my body, a giddiness in the bottom of my belly – how can I nourish myself today? 

I dry off from my morning excursion and decide to sift through old journal entries to reinvigorate my once daily practice. I come across a string of messages from my past self to my present self, one excerpt stands out in particular, from a month ago in the height of Venus retrograde:

I have finally tapped into my own current, internal flow of life, from my crown connecting to the divine above and from my root connected to all of creation below. I am infinite and small and grand and expansive all at once. A moving paradox weaving story amongst the stars. The cosmos twinkle in sweet anticipation and I sit here within my body wrapped in tender spirit, smiling at this inside joke. A collective pause and then – unconditional blessing bestowed. Alhamdullilah. 

I read aloud in awe by the opening of this prophetic grammar. I send a moment of gratitude to the spirits of New Orleans that have guided this clarity. Asé.

There is something particularly difficult about leaving New Orleans. I remember the first time I tried to leave after my 8-month stint, my flight got canceled and I had to stay an extra night. I was not mad at all, I took advantage of the gift and enjoyed a night out with Dr. B. When she dropped me off at home, Aquia greeted us smoking on the porch. We all popped a squat and lingered in the sweetness of a moment together before our imminent departures. “When you walked out of the car and up to the house an image came to mind, a snake known here as Dambala,” Aquia piped up once we were all comfortable. The name left her mouth and I felt the reverberation from the power surrounding us on that balmy June night. Three months later and I have the courage to research this curious being. 

Damballa, also spelled Damballah, Dambala, Dambalah, among other variations (Haitian Creole: Danbala), is one of the most important of all loa or spirits in Haitian Voodoo, Louisiana Voodoo and other African diaspora religious traditions such as Obeah. He is traditionally portrayed as a great white serpent, originating in the city of Wedo (Whydah or Ouidah) in modern-day Benin. Damballa is said to be the Sky Father and the primordial creator of all life. In those Vodou societies that view Damballa as the primordial creator, he created the cosmos by using his 7,000 coils to form the stars and the planets in the heavens and to shape the hills and valleys on earth. In others, being the first thing created by God, creation was undertaken through him. By shedding the serpent skin, Damballa created all the waters on the earth. As a serpent, he moves between land and water, generating life, and through the earth, uniting the land with the waters below. 

When I read of the “white serpent” my mind’s eye immediately brings forth a double-headed serpent being created by Azza El Siddique in her sculptural work, that which trembles wavers. Atheel introduced me to her work as we began to co-dream a community space to weather the grief of rebirth. 7,000 coils to form the stars and I fall in deep rapture with this mythology. What can snake medicine provide? What is born of the number 7? I learn from the snake being how to shed. I learn from Damballa how to harmonize land and water, creation and death, hills and valleys. Dr. B is back on my mind as I think of our work harmonizing water and fire and learning from this alchemic process. A tough lesson is integrated: it is never all or nothing, balance requires consistency, a flow. 

As Venus + Mercury station direct on the cusp of the fall equinox, I reflect on other lessons this transit has bestowed on me. I say bestowed but really I mean dolled out in heavy portions, similar to the lessons of the teacher Saturn. In her retrograde, Venus, my ruling planet, showed me that, in the words of my dear friend Kali, what I most desire is, “loving that feels like freshwater”. Loving that feels like water, that element from which life is generated and sustained. I nourish myself with my own softness, ease, graceful love.

I fantasize about the snake being I plan to tattoo on my right bicep twisting around the back of my arm. Eager anticipation, as my gut tells me that when this being comes to life I am invited into an opening to ascend toward the place where earth and water meet. Until then, my dear Damballa, I await with longing, not wavering.