Story Guide, Omope Carter Daboiku
NARRATION #1
We shall be known by the fruit that we bear.
If we plant love, we shall reap love;
if we sow hate, we will reap hatred.
What shall we hold in our hearts? The heart has no gender.
Not a she, nor he, nor s/he, it is a complex muscle that operates above all consciousness. It needs not permission, just respect for its role — for its work.
So, the drum is the heart of traditional societies;
All peoples have a pre-industrial drum culture that uses rhythms to transport
to a place and time not ruled by the clock, but by the laws of nature,
as sound moves in waves — just as objects through water.
Light, sound, color and tone – all approach us as waves.
Tonight, trust the Universe and wade in.
Be enveloped by the wave; get wet.
Let it wash you from head to toe.
Feel it in your feet, your liver, your hips, your heart.
Take this as an opportunity to realign your soul as you
listen to humanity’s collective memory.
Let the rhythm feed you; let it open your soul.
It is the bass, the foundation, the heart beat that unites us all.
In the words of great composers and prophets —
“Let’s get down on the One,
And sing to the Universe, who we are!”
NARRATION #2
In the beginning was unformed-ness — a hot orb surrounded by swirling toxic gases. Until the core of the Earth penetrated the sky, creating water — H2O – rain, washing mineral salts into pools of foaming liquid, creating amino acids –
the building blocks of life on Earth, our water planet.
Life incubated in oceans here.
We humans are the ocean, encapsulated in skin.
We swam in our personal seas until we emerged into the atmosphere
and asserted ourselves into the lives of others.
Even as we walk, we are water and our eyes still give testimony to that legacy as that same salty water leaks when we are moved — to joy, to love, to sadness, to anger
Water can be smooth, rough; rambling or raging; pure or polluted; frozen, liquid or boiling gas. Regardless of its state of being, it remains essential to our existence on this Blue Marble. A symbol of Freedom – Jordan ushers us from enslavement to the other side, where limitations disappear and we’ll be troubled no more.
River waters form boundaries and define treaties that guarantee sovereignty,
“as long as the waters flow”. But will they? And if they do continue, will the flow be filled with sustenance or with poison?
The maternal forces of creation and life itself, the ocean is our ancient grandmother.
If we thought of the Earth as a being, as we think of ourselves,
then our planet’s water would be seen as it is – its blood, essential for the transmission of life throughout the Body we call Home.
NARRATION #3
Experience tells us that civilizations need water for personal and agricultural sustenance, transportation, and for literally turning potential into kinetic energy. We know these rivers: The Nile, the Ganges, Tigris and Euphrates, the Congo and Zambesi, the Niger, Amazon, the Yangtse and Huang He, the Colorado, the Missouri, the Allegheny and Monongahela, Ohio, Mississippi, and the Rio Grande – These sisters, all rushing to oceans, have sculpted the landscape and nurtured humanity for eons.
Throughout time, people have crossed and still cross these rivers, and others, to find freedom – a life filled with choices in thought, word, purpose and expression.
But freedom is not free; we pay for it by being accountable for the choices we make.
We can live consciously on this planet and see ourselves as one Human Family;
or, we can live as individual gluttons, wallowing in the illusion of never-ending supply, wasteful of whatever and everything — stealing from others, and perpetuating a false philosophy of scarcity.
May we choose to declare our freedom from fear and be the soil in which seeds of love sprout, bloom, and produce another generation of beauty. At this precipice, may we gift ourselves with Time — time to sit along rivers, brooks and streams in parks and wilderness places; time to contemplate our planet’s salvation and our survival along with it.
Water is our planet’s blood and we are all cousins, sharing genetics from the Valley of the Moon fractured by erroneous thinking into seemingly different tribes. But, as Children of Creation, we are all stardust – formed in the Womb of the World with the superpowers of Word and Will — the power of speaking reality into existence.
Will we simply sit on the banks of Babylon mumbling a song of sorrow, or will we show up, speak out, wade in, get drenched, and smother the flames of injustice?
On this day let us sing a new song as we choose to acknowledge water – rain, rivers and oceans — as a beloved resource to be held in common, with quality access for all. Remember, if we move like water, we can erode the rough edges of that which would attempt to impede our flow; Let us make our lives a testament to the Mother, whose waters make our living possible.
May we cherish that which gives us life.