The Altar of My Soul

by Marta Moreno Vega

  In the legends of Yoruba descendants in Cuba, Yemayá is highly honored. She is the mother of creation. Residing in the ocean, her colors are blue and white, like the rolling waves. From the depths of the sea, she possesses secret treasures known only to her. Wise and daring, she is both gentle and fierce.

  It is said that Yemayá grew tried of her life in Ile Ife, and she secretly set out one day to the west in the direction of Abeokuta. She held a magic bottle filled with a mystical potion, which she intended to use only if she found herself in imminent danger. When Obatalá realized she was missing, he sent his army to find her and bring her back. But Yemayá did not want to return to Ile Ife. When she saw the approaching army, she threw the magic bottle on the ground, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. The potion began to spread far and wide, forming an enormous river that safely drew her out to sea.

  Another legend tells of how Yemayá became queen of the Yoruba pantheon. According to legend, Yemayá was present when Olodumare created Earth. It was upon her home, the ocean, that Earth was formed.

  It is said that Olodumare, impressed with her intelligence, appointed her queen of the Earth during a fiesta the orishas had planned in honor of Olodumare. Olodumare watched as the orishas arrived at the fiesta, ignoring his presence. He noticed that they all had forgotten to bring presents in his honor. As the fiesta came to an end, Yemayá appeared before Olodumare with a tray filled with his favorite vegetables, fruits, and meats. At the center of the tray, Yemayá placed the head of a young calf as a tribute to him. Overjoyed with Yemayá’s gift, Olodumare proclaimed that she would always be the female head of the Santería religion.

  Sitting in Doña Rosa’s kitchen that summer day, my nervousness, together with the intense heat, began to unsettle my every attempt at calm. The white starched dress and scarf I was wearing quickly lost their crispness. Trying to create a slight breeze, I fashioned a makeshift fan from the flaps of an old cardboard box. Santeras in charge of arranging the meal fluttered nervously around the kitchen, placing burning pieces of wood charcoal under the pots.

  There were endless complaints about the old stove, and tidbits of gossip were exchanged about a carelessly prepared Santería ceremony the priestesses had attended the previous day. Doña Rosa, a seventy-year-old Yemayá priestess of Santería, sat next to me chopping the onions and peppers that were to season the meat for lunch. She told us, in a low whispery voice, of the importance of keeping the tradition intact by following the rules, the Regla de Ocha, the African elders left for us. Doña Rosa believed that the religion would be lost if the younger santeros and santeras had their way.

  Carmen, a young, honey-beige, heavyset priestess in her thirties, argued that as times changed, the religion had to adapt in order to remain relevant. But not wanting to offend Doña Rosa, she quickly agreed that the ceremony of the prior evening was a display of disorganization, as well as a lack of knowledge, which she adamantly condemned.

  Smiling at me, Doña Rosa asked, “Why are you so nervous? You’re in one of the most respected Santería houses in Cuba. You’re with your religious family and have nothing to fear. When you walk through those white curtains, you will realize the importance of following the traditional rules of the elders.”

  Doña Rosa’s cottony white hair was in sharp contrast to her chocolate skin, and her gentle smile was warm and friendly. She placed her blue head scarf around her neck, where it hung loosely around her shoulders. Doña Rosa was present at all my godmother’s ceremonies and was adored and respected because of her profound wisdom and motherly charm.

  “The fear of the unknown is making me nervous,” I responded, expecting her to laugh at my tentativeness.

  Doña Rosa continued chopping onions as she quietly considered my reply. Then she said, “The unknown is the path to knowledge. Never fear it. We learn because we are curious to know what lies ahead. And this ritual that awaits you is only another step in understanding the unknown.”

  This ceremony, named la entrega del cuarto de santo—passing on the room of initiation—allowed me to pass on the aché of the divine orishas to my future godchildren. For the first time I would be on the other side of the white curtain and would witness each step of an initiation process that I had experienced sixteen years earlier. Afterward, I would follow the same path as generations of priestesses and priests. And just as my godmother followed in the sacred footprints of her madrina, I, too, would continue the tradition of sharing the divine teachings of my elders. When the white curtain parted, I would be admitted into the circle of elders who are entrusted with the passing on of aché to the next generation.

  In that moment, as I anxiously waited to be called into the initiation room by my godmother’s assistant, I could not help but think of the years of spiritual exploration that had brought me to that room. I had come a long way from my childhood home in East Harlem.

  I was born Marta Moreno, the youngest of my parents’ three children. My mother, Flora Cruz Marcano, was a housewife dedicated to raising her two daughters and one son. A tall, light-skinned woman, she was proud of her elegant body, which she claimed had attracted my father’s roving eyes. She came to New York City in pursuit of a nursing diploma, hoping eventually to return to Puerto Rico to practice her profession. Returning home from school one day, Flora Cruz Marcano bumped into a handsome young man as she was stepping off the trolley car at 110th Street in East Harlem. She told us that she was attracted to his strong, tall body, his flirtatious smile, and his gentle romantic glance.

  Every day from that day on, Clemente Moreno would wait for Flora at the trolley stop and follow her home, trying to convince her to date him. In the mid-1920s, there were few places where Puerto Ricans could socialize. When he started courting my mother, my father would take her to Central Park or to the Spanish movie theater on 116th Street.

  With a mischievous smile, revealing her sparkling gold tooth, my mother would look at us and say, “I finally took pity on him and agreed to go to the movies with your father.” My father, listening to her from the kitchen table, would then chime in, “She forgot to say what a sweet-smelling, well-dressed man I was.” My father, a muscular man with a dark coffee-colored complexion, was a self-taught auto mechanic. He also taught himself to read and write, after having completed a mere third-grade education in the Puerto Rican school system.

  Often, at this turn in my mother’s story, my father would retire to my parents’ bedroom and return with a Golden Glove award in the shape of a coin, which he boasted he had won as an amateur fighter in the prime of his youth. He would smile at us, saying, “She fell in love with my body.” My mother was a reserved woman, and her face showed clear embarrassment at my father’s boast. Mama would continue the story, telling us how they fell in love and married. She quit school after their city hall wedding in 1929. She became pregnant four months after their marriage and was encouraged to stay home by my father. Following the Puerto Rican tradition of the time, my father did not allow her to work, because if she had, it would have implied that he was not man enough to support his woman and his family.

  When my parents married, they moved to a two-bedroom apartment in a drab gray-brick tenement building at 330 East 102nd Street, paying $12 a month to the Italian owner. They would often reflect on the changes the building and neighborhood had endured over the years. When they moved in, they were the only Puerto Rican family in the building. The landlady, seeing my mother’s light skin, assumed she was white. When my father showed up, with his dark complexion, the landlady tried to cancel the lease my mother had signed. After much pleading, my parents convinced her they would make excellent tenants, and they promised to tender their rent a week ahead to assure her of pay. Eventually my mother and our landlady became best friends.

  My father was brought to New York City by his mother. In an attempt to start a new life away from her common-law husband, my paternal grandmother had brought my father and his older brother, Donato, to the city from Puerto Rico in the early 1920s. I rem
ember my abuela telling me that she had left Puerto Rico alone to find work in the city. By working in laundries and cleaning the homes of the wealthy, she managed to bring first my uncle, and then my father from Puerto Rico.

  Without mentioning the name of my grandfather, she would mutter in a low angry voice that he was a selfish, controlling man. “He had money, a fine house, a proper wife, and he thought he could keep our relationship hidden forever and continue to deny our two sons his name.” When I inquired further, wanting to know his name, if he was still alive, and how he could have two wives, she snapped out of her thoughts, saying sadly I was too young to understand.

  We lived in apartment number seven, and this is where my brother, sister, and I came of age. I can trace my first memories of Espiritismo and Santería to this building, my childhood home in El Barrio. I shared a bedroom with my sister, my brother slept on the living room sofa, and my parents slept in the other bedroom. The tub was in the kitchen next to the hand sink where we washed dishes. The toilet was in a small closet, also in the kitchen, with a tiny window for ventilation.

  Although it was a modest apartment, my parents created a sense of privacy and space, developing a time schedule for our chores. We were taught to use the toilet when no one was eating in the kitchen, and everyone left the room after dinner in order for each of us to take our turn bathing. My parents wisely organized most of our family gatherings in the living room, allowing more privacy in the kitchen area. In spite of these inconveniences, what I remember most is the great amount of love my parents brought into our small home.

  The few rooms in our apartment sparkled with the warm colors of the tropics and the brilliant portraits of Catholic saints. My mother took care that the blue on the walls was the same color as the Puerto Rican ocean. Too poor to purchase wallpaper, our family, like many others in East Harlem, used the technique of taking the pages of a newspaper, crushing them, dipping them in silver paint and using them to imprint the clouds that covered our walls. Our curtains were plastic and had bright floral patterns in reds, oranges, and greens. The living room sofa, decorated with a rainbow of flowers, was protected with transparent plastic covers that stuck to my bare legs.

  On the wall above the living room sofa, a rectangular mirror with pink flamingos completed the decor. I knew that having a mirror with beveled edges and pink flamingos was a status symbol. Often, when she looked at the mirror, my mother would say proudly, “We are poor, but not so poor.”

  And in the living room, above our prized television console, hung a large gold-leaf portrait of the Saint of Perpetual Help. Draped in a blue-green cloth trimmed in gold and haloed with a bejeweled crown, the saint held a child in her arms. Framed by two angels, the saint’s face seemed to be looking toward someplace I could not even imagine, while the child looked at one of the angels with a slight smile. This portrait dominated the room as much as it came to dominate my imagination. I wondered if the child had lived in a home like ours, if he had had to clean his room as I did, if his mother had been warm and friendly like my mother. I finally decided that the mother and child must have had everything we had, that they must be exemplary if my mother had them prominently placed in our home.

  The tenants in our building were more like family than neighbors, part of a community of Puerto Rican, African American, and Italian families that had developed a strong friendship over time. Three of the apartments in the building were rented by my family members. My aunt Moncha Cruz Marcano, my mother’s sister, lived with her husband and three children in apartment number two, and my abuela lived in apartment number three.

  My abuela’s apartment had a calm, peaceful feeling to it. The walls were painted in soft shades of white. The curtains were the deep blue of the ocean. There was a tranquil quality that radiated from my grandmother as well. Luisa Correa Pérez was a slightly built woman who was born in the town of Loíza Aldea, Puerto Rico, in 1884, eleven years after the abolition of slavery. She dressed in loose-fitting white cotton dresses and kept her head covered with a white cotton kerchief, her hair fashioned in two braids that dangled to her shoulders. Peeking out from the collar of her dress were five beaded, beautifully colored necklaces that sparkled against her rich dark skin.

  To me, my abuela seemed to be two people in one. Whenever she visited our apartment, Abuela projected an ancient, weary, quiet spirit. She was adored by my father, and her small frame seemed to shrink next to his large, muscular body. In some ways, she appeared to be the child rather than the parent in my home. But in her apartment, she filled the rooms with a presence as vast and mysterious as her shadow in the sunlight. Even her wrinkled skin seemed smoother and younger as she cleaned, cooked, and tended to her rooms.

  Abuela lived alone in her warm, inviting place filled with a lingering scent of Florida water, the poignant smell of her cigars, and the smoke of burning sandalwood incense. Abuela’s apartment was special to me. Each time I walked through her door, I felt as if I were entering a curious, adventurous world that resembled the fantasy of the magnificent Egyptian movie I saw serialized every Saturday at the children’s matinee. Since I was only seven years old, I could not explain what I felt. Still, I knew that Abuela’s apartment was a distinct and unusual place.

  Every day when I returned home from public school, I would knock on Abuela’s door. I would receive la bendición—her blessings—as she lovingly ushered me in to taste her homemade Puerto Rican candies. I looked forward to the special after-school treat she prepared for me.

  Then Abuela would take me into her sacred room. Like my mother, Abuela had an image of a Catholic saint that took over the room. On the wall facing the entrance to her room rested a large mural of Saint Michael, the archangel. Saint Michael’s image was life-size and towered over me. He had flowing blond hair and large white wings, and he wore a green robe trimmed in gold. Over his shoulders fell a large shawl the color of red roses; it rippled in the breeze. In his left hand, he held the golden scale of justice over the head of an enormous black fallen angel. High over the black angel’s head, Saint Michael’s right hand held a razor-sharp sword. The black angel lay in fire and held his hands over his head, trying in vain to defend himself against the sword as his black wings spread out along the bottom of the mural like the lava of a raging volcano. The expressionless eyes of Saint Michael always caught my attention. I wondered why he seemed so passive, so uncaring as he prepared to slaughter the fallen angel.

  The image of the fallen angel haunted me, and I would sometimes hide behind my grandmother before the sight of it. But Abuela would smile and tell me not to be frightened, saying, “There is nothing to fear. The spirits will always protect and guide you, as they have always safeguarded our family.”

  On those afternoons Abuela tended to the spirits at her altar, as I watched from the corner of the room. Her white cotton dress seemed to disappear into the stark white of the walls, and her dark skin appeared to be floating. Sometimes Abuela refilled the glasses of water that were placed on a long rectangular table before the mural of the archangel. Other times she would change the flowers on an altar laden with statues of Catholic saints, an Indian chief, a Gypsy woman, and African men and women.

  I was intrigued by the detailed lifelike miniature features of the figurines. In the dimly lit room, they appeared to breathe and move ever so slightly as they acknowledged my presence. The Indian was a proud, bronze-skinned warrior who held a bow and arrow as he looked to the sky. His multicolored headdress fell to his waist with feathers of gold, red, green, and black. The Gypsy had olive skin, ink black hair, flirtatious dark eyes with long lashes, and sensual red lips that spoke of a joyful life. Her strong, defiant features resonated in her slim body, posed to dance an arousing flamenco in her billowing, tiered, yellow dress, with a long train trimmed in white lace curling around her feet.

  Displayed in front of the Gypsy was a beautiful yellow lace fan, decorated with small red butterflies, that Abuela would sometimes let me play with. On these occasions, I danced as I i
magined the gypsy danced, tossing my head from side to side and loudly stomping the heels of my shoes against the floor. Encouraging me with her laughter, my abuela would joyously clap her hands, imitating the fiery rhythm of the flamenco.

  One African figure was a dark-skinned old man who sat quietly on a wooden chair as he smoked a cigar, steadfastly gazing at the glasses of water. His short white hair and white clothes contrasted with his ebony skin, giving him a wise air and creating a contemplative and graceful feeling. I imagined that this small image was a combination of my grandfathers, neither of whom I had ever met.

  But my favorite statue was the image of an African woman. She looked stern with her hands on her ample hips. The intense colors of her clothing were what caught my fancy. The red scarf that covered her hair stood out against her deep mahogany skin. The wide white collar of her red dress seemed to pulsate against her face. Her protective eyes followed me when I walked into the room. I imagined her to be my grandmother’s younger sister and called her abuelita, little grandmother.

  I watched as Abuela lovingly arranged white flowers and lit a candle before the mural of the archangel. How carefully she refilled seven glasses with cool water, placing them on yet another table covered with an immaculate white lace cloth. The brilliant tapestry quilt of colorful flowers and statues created a gentle radiance, a comforting peace. The reflection of the candles flickered on the water glasses with a jeweled stained-glass luster. And the room was a dance of swirling, inviting colors, as the altars stood at solemn attention and vibrated with an energy I could not quite see or understand.

  Many years later, while attending spiritual sessions in Cuba, I discovered that these were Abuela’s ancestor tables, her homage to our family’s ancestral spirits and her religion’s orishas. The table with the seven glasses of water was her bóveda—her ancestral altar table. The glasses represented her guardian angels and the spirits who continue to protect my family, while the fresh water and flowers represented the natural elements and their life-giving forces. There were seven glasses, because seven was the sacred number special to the orisha Yemayá, who has a close affinity to the spirit world. The orisha Yemayá represents the ocean itself and possesses the spiritual powers of mediumship. It is said that the spirit, egun, could not speak. One day egun stood by the ocean lamenting that lack of sound. Yemayá took pity on egun and created roaring waves in the ocean, and then she gave the spirit the gift of sound. In appreciation, egun taught Yemayá the art of mediumship.