Monday - Day eleven:
It’s 7:32 pm and I’m finally in the
Lagos Airport awaiting the first leg of my flight home. I attended
another initiation ceremony today for two more sisters who were initiated
into
the House of Oshun. It was a very dramatic and powerful ceremony that
took place at the historic site of the Oshun Shrine and Spring Water
Well. As I left the University to attend the ceremony, I asked Ibiyemi
to drive slow and make stops so that I could take pictures of some
of
the signs for Christian Churches and Church services. Their presence
had so dominated my visual senses while in Nigeria that I had to
capture
some of the images. Within a one mile strip of road lumping its way
through Ile-Ife I photographed approximately forty church signs amidst
the blight and devastated conditions of the area. And this one mile
strip of road was far from the exception. It was the rule. The images
are the overt signs of a story that still remains to be told. My
journey
to the Root of Human Spirituality is only a preface to that story.
I hope to return to Nigeria and in some way facilitate to restoration
of the Sacred Shrines and Temples of the Orisa Tradition.
[Photo:
On the road back to Lagos][Click
on image to visit Day 11 Photo Gallery]
If my story has informed or inspired you in some way, please write
me and let me know.
