MzAgams

My altar reminds me of my spiritual lineage to the Goddess.

I’m not a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist or anything else. I’m agnostic which basically means thatI believe nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God. As someone who thinks critically I cannot believe otherwise. However, I do recognise the power of ritual and belief in our lives. So after years of thinking about what religious school of thought I want to follow I chose the practice of my ancestors. I call it cultural chauvinism. I’m too smart to think any one is better than the other, maybe more dominant but not better. If my forefathers had the inclination they might have written the Bible and sought to convert everyone in the world to. their way of thinking. Just because a lot of people think that way does not make it better or more real. Otherwise by now the world’s Christians should have conquered evil with Love. Or something.

The pictures on my altar are myself at 10 year of age, my mother and my great great paternal grandmother. I call them my lineage to Goddess. No, not God. There has been such an imbalance for millennia because men have made a cult of worshipping a male god who is in their image and likeness. Let me worship a female god and aspire to her image and likeness. I no fit shout. Some day in the long future maybe men will worship a female god and women will worship a male god and life will balance.

That 10 year old girl there? She is a Goddess. You should have seen how they how they worshipped her in the village of our ancestors. Everywhere she went she had an entourage. The market shut down when she entered it and women abandoned their wares to hug her and rub their pregnant bellies against her. Every where she went they gave her Fanta and biscuits and bananas and Love. When she visited brethren they would kill a chicken and make her fresh soup. People rushed to do her chores and never let her do a day of hard labour.

My Mother is a Goddess. She stoically bore the separation from her only daughter. Like Akwaeke Emezi said in her book ‘Freshwater,’ it is not easy to give birth to a Goddess actually she said God but, you know, either one, all na dey same because what is that gender construct but to help you see something in black and white.

My great great grandmother is the mother of Agwubuo son of Duru Abali son of Duru Awaha son of Duru Achazie son off Duru Oha. Agwubuo was an only son that became the father of a multitude. When the multitude has conflict he reminds us that where there is a multitude there will be conflict. It is better to have a multitude of descendants. My great great grandmothers name is lost in the sands of time. Only the name of her father is known to us, Chima Onye UmuEle. It says a lot about my ancestors that the women’s name are lost but I can name the men of my lineage 8 generations back. Nne Agwubuo saved Duru Abali’s lineage from dissolution by saving their son from slavery when her husband died. Jaja of Opobo was Agwubuo’s friend and contemporary.

When I read stories about people struggling to find their identity or feeling lost because the do not know their history I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I had the privilege of growing up in the land of my ancestors. For contrast, my mother’s lineage is obscure beyond her mother, my Babushka. Babushka Ekatrina and her husband husband Constantin were both orphans.

An altar is a personal thing. There is no right or wrong way to make it. By definition ‘its a table or flat-topped block used as the focus for a religious ritual.’ It’s just a place to focus. Put whatever helps you focus your mind on what is below the surface. And if that’s an image of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, good for you. Live and let live.