David Estringel
Sundays are the days I go the ocean and make my offerings to Olokun, African deity of the ocean depths—the bringer of good things to those who walk the earth. Prosperity, children, wealth, and strength—inside and out–we are blessed. They say where he…she…he…it lives is only inhabitable by the most resilient and adaptable creatures. Able to survive complete darkness, crushing pressures, and grave-like cold, these things go about in all their “otherness,” frightening to behold in their unapologetic oddity. Nonetheless, “others” endure because there is little else to do in a world of murky solitude. So, on Sundays I throw fistfuls of roasted corn and pork rinds into the sea. I crack open a bottle of red wine and pour libation. The cresting waves turning blackish purple, as wine mixes with salty brine. The waves crash in and take my offerings out to his…her…his…its icy depths. I love you, Olokun, I think to myself, as seagulls circle overhead, catching my prayers in their beaks, flying off to deliver my silent words. I gaze out into the great expanse of blue and feel small in the presence of The Infinite. Headed back to my car—the waves crashing in my ears, I noticed some scribbling on the sand. “I love you, too,” it says. Continuing to my car, I don’t feel so small anymore. True story.
The Elixir Magazine 