Bathrooms, demons and weird wall hangings

Hand Held In Prayer Like Fashion - Stock Image

I like unique and weird stuff according to my family and it looks like Etsy has caught on to that fact, because why am I minding my own business on Etsy and the I get recommended a wall hanging that reads:

“Please do not summon demons in the bathroom”

 I'm laughing and I'm like maybe I really need to buy this plaque because it’s great and would spook my family and friends, but they know I'm weird. I'm also thinking who are these people who have friends or family who summon demons in the bathroom? I really need to meet you so that i can understand but then again maybe i do understand! Let me explain.

We have established that I'm weird and my family can 100% confirm that, if it was up to me, I'd have skulls everything, everywhere in the house much to the horror of my family. It’s not because I'm into dark witchy stuff, I am a lover of human biology, I love anatomy and physiology and bones and at the end of the day we are that sack of bones, housed in skin. So, yes I'd have skulls and a human skeleton but that’s not the weird stuff I was talking about. I was thrice blessed, I'd like to think that my family just loved me too much and wanted to keep me spiritually safe as opposed to that they may have thought i was a demon child! Listen, I was gifted(my aunt kept affirming this). Let’s go way back, it will make sense eventually (hopefully).

When we are born and pass through this thing called life, we never really know what experiences we will go through, what is going to happen, or how we are going to deal with whatever it is that has happened to us and how those experiences will shape our tomorrow, if at all. We may have an inkling, like a timetable of the daily slog of everyday routines, waking up at a certain time so that we can get to school or work at a set time, but even then, we cannot say for sure that today will turn out like yesterday and tomorrow, until we actually live that day, that second. With the kind of life that I had, Divine intervention was a necessity to my survival, my literal fight for life.

Growing up, our family was not religious, but I always had an interest as to what else was out there, in terms of a higher being. Yes we were a Christian family but not a largely practising one, well the adults mainly, because our parents made sure we , the children went to church every Sunday without fail, while their attendance was reduced to family functions and important occasions like weddings, funerals and Christmas mass. When we were at home, our rural home, we actually attended church twice! once on Saturdays as Seventh Day Adventists and then on Sundays as Anglicans. I was also that child that joined the Hare Krishna procession when it was in town and waited patiently for Diwali (mainly for the sweets and goodies).

Maybe my actions are what made my parents have me blessed in the SDA church and then later baptised in the Anglican church, only for me to find out later that I was actually born Catholic! My family likes to joke that I was covered for all eventualities. That I was being readied for whichever pearly gates were taking in folks and we would laugh about it but at the back of my mind it bothered me especially as i struggled with childhood trauma and my existence. Was there evil in me? Was I trouble as I was often told? I wrestled with these questions for a very long time.

If you come from a large family or have kids then you can relate when someone tells you that the only time they can have quiet time alone is when they are in the bathroom(kids might allow you just a second, but hey). My quiet place was and still is the bathroom and it was the place I had mostly one sided heated conversations with God. I argued, questioned, bargained, the lot. Sometimes His answers were swift, before I left the bathroom and others sometimes required repeat trips and readjustments to the conversations. So if you happened to pass by or were standing outside the bathroom door, you might have been forgiven to think that i was up to no good, like probably having sneaked in a whole contraband of a person into the bathroom with me, or that my mental faculties were of question or that i was indeed summoning demons (i was going through my black nail polish phase)! While all the time I was actually speaking to the demon Slayer, about my demons and how it would be very much appreciated if He went ahead and did His thing.

I was thrice, under His protection after all and despite my many and sometimes huge imperfections, He came through and still does, for He led me to better guidance and His mercy. So maybe in some roundabout way, it can be said that by talking about my demons in the bathroom, I was indeed summoning them! I might just buy that wall plaque after all.

I Own My Names

Woodland

“Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish Me!” - Audre Lorde

I have been known by many names as varied as the life I have lived on this earth. I may collect more given that there is still some life left in me, each as unique as I am and each with a story behind it.

Growing up I really disliked my native middle name and often wondered what on earth inspired my parents to give it to me. My other siblings had what I considered ‘normal’ native names that did not illicit playground taunts, laughs or jokes. Later in life, I got to learn where I got my names from and the person I was named after and in knowing whose I was, made me love, honour and appreciate my name. It held purpose, a continuation of my ancestors.

For years I have rebelled against some of my names, have felt awkward and dismissive about some, downright angry about others, but in my coming of age,I have sort to reclaim them, as they are mine, a sacred part of me, the identity or identities I answer to and the heritage and ancestors they honour.

But there is one name that is universal in its pronouncement by both parent and child. I am Mama to by my father and Mama to my children and for that honour and privilege, I am grateful. I am the matriarch that was and the matriarch that is and in between there has been, and, still is a life lived. I own my names, past, present and future. I call my power back to me.