Aseda is one of the many healers/diviners that my daughters meet in the film. I want my daughters to be empowered physically, emotionally and spiritually. This journey of spirit and science is also about them. Tulani is my only daughter, however, I consider many of her friends to be my daughters as well. I love their friendship and wish I could take some of their pain away. I admire their tenacity and aspirations.
And my day officially begins after I know that my little girl who is now a 22-year-old woman is okay. We talk several times a day. She lives in L.A. and I, in Oakland C.A. 8:30 a.m is our first check in time. Then, we talk again between 1:00 and 1:15 p.m. and once more around 6:15 when she’s on the way home from her second job. Life has little meaning for me without this rapport with my children.
A Compelling Story of Friendship and Science and Sacred Landscapes
Ade Kunle and I became friends in 1998. We met in Oakland. As mentioned previously, he does the translating for Aseda in the trailer. Although I speak the Yoruba language fluently, I don’t speak the Ife dialect yet. When Ade Kunle was a child, Ifa divination predicted that he would travel to the U.S. and we would become friends. In the Ifa philosophy, friendship is considered to be more sacred than the relationship between spouses.
Yet our friendship is not an easy one. Ade Kunle also has the sometimes difficult job of relaying the messages from the spiritual world that Aseda deciphers through divination. We are more than friends, we are brothers, and his younger brothers also appear in the teaser trailer. Taiye is the young man on the motorcycle; he also cooks me a succulent breakfast each morning consisting of fresh eggs scrambled with onions, habanero pepper and tomatoes. The side dish is usually iyan, a white yam that’s usually boiled and sliced. This is a feast best enjoyed Yoruba style, eating with the hands, scooping up the eggs with yam.