In the beginning, there was Olorum, the divine spirit of creation. Growing weary of the vast emptiness of space, he entrusted his eldest son, Oxalá, with the task of creating the Earth and the beings to inhabit it.
The Earth was formed, but the human body resisted. Oxalá tried air, his own element, but it slipped through his hands. He tried wood, stone, and water. Nothing endured.
Frustrated, he wandered through infinity until he reached a dark lake. From its waters emerged Nanã, the ancient deity who dwelled there. She listened in silence. Then she knelt in the mud with a knowing smile and held in her hands what he had been seeking all along.
“With my clay, you may shape the human body,” she said. “But on one condition: what I lend you must always return to me.”
Oxalá accepted. From the mixture of clay and water, humanity was formed. With life came death, for the body is only borrowed. In time, it returns to the earth, like dry leaves falling from trees—where Nanã, the primordial mother, receives us back into her arms.
(Nanã and Oxalá are Orixás, deities of Afro-Brazilian religions, specifically Candomblé.)
Flavia Esmeralda 