Living and Dealing with Mr. Personality
Eleguá is the majestic core of every Santeria practitioner. From the oldest oloshas in our ranks to the youngest of aleyos discovering the ins
and outs of the Way of the Orisha, we all have to pay moforibale (respects) to Eleguá, there is simply no way around it. His charm is nearly impossible to resist. Eleguá to me is found in the sleepy smile of a child who simply lays in joyful abandonment over his mother’s breast; lazily twisting ringlets of his mother’s hair on his fingers as slumbers overtakes him. Eleguá is the toothless grin of an elderly man slowly zipping coffee on his rocking chair. He can meet you head on in a street corner, clothes
ragged, smelly and with a spooky stare through eyes glazed with a haze of rum and cigars. Eleguá is a silver tongued devil with patent leather shoes and a red silky shirt, hips limber and ready of dance be it horizontal or vertically. Eleguá is the flash of blood that falls from Oggún’s blade; he is the direction of Oshosi’s arrows and the hunger in Osun’s belly.