the monkey's wedding

In a gust of wild wind, the gecko on my hand had transformed into my Sweetie, with her grey scales morphing into that teal tail, indigo coat and violet eyes, she shifted into her dragon's suit before me and swept us away in a static spark, disguised as a fly to the average human eye.

"Where are we now, Sweetie?," I asked her, stroking her scales when we landed in the forest next to the forest where she found me under the thickest root of the Banyan tree. From the mountains that were so green that they were still green even at this midnight hour, something told me we were very far from South Africa. The light was so different here that the mountains that should have become silhouettes and shadows, were still mountains of green, as though it was 12 o'clock on a Summer day in SA.

I had just brushed the dirt from my knees and managed to cross my legs again, there was no standing from me just yet. I could hear drums in my head, and I knew I was in alignment, I was exactly where I needed to be.

Did I bring the pictures? Check. Were the crystals still in my pocket? Yes. All my fingernails made it with me this time? Check.

"The movement has to start with the hips," said the eagle as he circled around us now, surveying the seas below him.

"The coast is clear,

and to the left is your ship"

He had the same reassuring rhymes for me today.

"Start simple, start easy, start small

Today, you don't have to do it all,

for before you can walk you must crawl

and even then, perhaps you might fall

But you will be caught when you answer the call

And today, you don't have to do it all"

In front of me, Sweetie transformed again into softer skin first, then she began shrinking. At first slowly, and then all at once, her tail shrank, her wings disappeared and she shed her skin and with a gust of wind, returning to form. Today was the gift of the gecko, she needed a voice so she could sing songs for the forest, alongside the orchestra of crickets who welcomed Takunda.

"This is South Africa's distant cousin, and these are her mountains," responded the wind to Takunda's thoughts. The sands of time were swirling around her and her environment was changing again. In her head she was at the Saharan ceremony again, the one where she spoke to the sand for the first time and made all those wishes. She didn't really know if she actually believed in magic, she thought it may be true, her dreams and the places she went in her head, but she never imagined hey could all manifest so physically. She'd heard about astral travel and had recognised when she'd done it before, but when her curiosity overwhelmed her, she started whispering to everything, until one day, everything started whispering back.

They say that if you dance the Batuque, you can travel to ancient lands. That if you stand before women and shake your hips, to the sound of Cape Verdean drums, you can hear the echoes of your ancestors; the call of all the chameleons and geckos. As a dance, the traditional batuque unfolds according to a precise ritual. But as a way of life, and in a scenario called terreru, where you are dancing and responding with only your legs and hips to stories of your past, they say that when you start to shake your hips, you can make your way out of anything sad (or dangerous) and call a gecko to your rescue. For a moment Takunda wanted to cry. It always happened this way on her now adventures, she'd get to a place with all it's magic, and still somehow feel sad. They call it 'Saudades' where she just came from in Portugal a few months back. T would recall the story in her head: There was a pilot who used to draw things for people, a pilot who met a prince and told stories about him, a tale travelling from planet to planet about a boy who loved a rose very much, and would feel sad about a lot of the things he discovered about life along the way. "It's so mysterious, the land of tears." T recalled the words, and it didn't matter for a moment how much the seagulls or the heron or the eagle could comfort her, she knew exactly where she was. In this mysterious, secret place of tears.

They say now, that if you ask a child around you (or the one inside of you) to draw things from their imagination, and add a monkey with two magic tails, that it would appear and you could travel to any time you wanted to. The only condition, when you got there, is that you had to dance. She had to try it.

She has wikipedia'd some information after a poem she had read a while back, that taught her that: "In a drumming session, a group of interpreters (almost always only women) are organized, with a soloist and a choir that performs the response function, [ 3 ] in a scenario called terreru."

The only thing thing she knew about Cape Verde is the dancing and the chants she'd heard in her head and seen in her mind's eye, and she knew that her grandfather's mother's father had come from there. The sound of Batuque and the moves of txabeta, it had always been her primary way of communicating before she had the words for them.She has since created theis idea that if she tapped two tails, as feet while she was human, she could shift into a monkey with two magic tails, two blind eyes and a third one for sensing things, which was invisible.

This is Takunda's tale, but perhaps it is also yours, or your friends'. There is more poem than prose, less pattern than potential, more mystery than you could every mistake. Where the moths are the ancestors. The flowers are the fairies. And the poems are the maps, the conversations are the answers, and the animals are the friends.

you are excused

If you are not your best

You may excuse yourself from the table

Give yourself permission to step away

(Take a look at the bookshelf)

Take a break, go play, rediscover the fables

You are now invited to release the things that no longer serve you

You are now encouraged to give yourself only to people who deserve you

We watched you doing all the work,

And we watched you as you cried,

You are now allowed to step away from a pattern of pain and old lies,

For this is your mission, this is now your path

The worst is now behind you

Golden child, you played your part

May you move forward with a hopeful feeling

As you acknowledge and thank the cycles of healing

May you grant us permission to gently guide you

As we already powerfully hover over your ceiling

We heard you crying in the night,

(Oh how we laughed as you got a fright)

But those lights flickering wildly -

It was your ancestors celebrating, for you have won the fight

And though no one else has said this in words,

We hope our whispers are enough:

You are lovely, you are whole, you’re spectacular and you were always more than enough

May you recognize your path

May you surrender to the next parts

May you soften that sweet heart

And may you surprise yourself along the way

But never forget us as we travel with you

Don’t forget us when the world loves you

But go now - go play. Be free,

We’ll clean up the rest of the mess that was made

And though we know your heart is hurting,

Please just trust your time to play,

We will come to you as birds and bees

We will teach you what to say

We will be here for you every step of the way

Takunda was a practical person. But she was also imaginative and open minded. She believed anything, if you told her. Some thought this made her naive, or foolish, but she was always in the right place at the right time. So when she read or wrote poems, drew some pictures, and asked people to draw her pictures, she travelled throughout ages, switching between and Portuguese or English. South Africa, Portugal and its colonies. Oh, and its flowers.

I have conversations with flowers

I say things people dont understand

I talk to the moon like she is my mistress

i talk to the sun as though he is my man

Remembering this poem, T started speaking to the moon, which happened to be a beaver this time round. So she thought she'd speak to la Lua today as nature's engineer, the archetype she was portraying today, and for the next two weeks. She knew this would bring her some stability, and beauty, as gifts from Tauren Venusians would fell from the sky as twinkling lights.

"Ah, it is safe here."

The next poem sounded as a soundtrack in her mind, the musical she had made of the mysteries.

“You have a story that deserves to be told,

But you will have to be strong, be courageous, be bold.

Trust your knowing and let your life unfold,

For though your body is young, your soul is so old.

Share the story of who you come from;

How some were settlers, others were sold

Because now it is your chance to turn dust into gold.

And though the path has been rocky,

Know that you are never alone,

For there are others like you, too, who spread love where they go.

And though, yes, the journey will now require you to be braver, worry not now, nor never,

For the wheel now turns in your favour”

Quickly she felt relaxed and reassured, and so, she started to move her hips to the sound of soft drums in her distant mind. And then just like that, Sweetie, who she had grown too big for her to rest on and who had shrunk too small for her to rest against, was gone, and so T fell into a deep slumber, still in the middle of the forest where the beavers had now, upon her thought, built her a home from the finest wood around. This was a place like no other, mountains rivers lakes seas, all in this forested island. She needed to sleep, and so she suck into herself and slept.

When she awoke, the sun was out and so were the sky's tears. She had to recite the poem.

“The monkeys who dance with their eyes closed,

The monkeys with two magic tails

The monkeys are dancing their love songs

The monkeys never fear that they’ll fail

The monkeys make love in the treetops,

A declaration of love to the earth

The monkeys who swing from the mountains

Bring signs of blessing, welcome birth.

For when the monkeys wed,

The sky is sure to cry

The sun will still shine brightly,

The birds will be flying high.”

She could see her two-tailed blind friends and touched her heart. She thought of the Little Prince again, his tales would tell you, that "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes" and she wondered if she was feeling similar things that he felt. She touched her heart upon the moths instructions:

"Take a deep breath

connect to your crown

hand on our heart

you're allowed to slow down"

Thinking through all her fears, she drew them away.

In her previous destination, she would be so mad at the sky. Until she heard another moth who must have been her late grandmother, recite a poem to her one day, one that didn't rhyme this time; a different poem.

"Watch as the weather and the wether supports you

And yet you lament at it

Watch as the weather rains,

Just as you finally put your washing out

Inconveniencing you with its blessings

Letting you know, directly and clearly, your woes have been heard

I am here to wash the worry away

And yet you lament. You condemn it

As if the sky has not taken the sacred duty of crying for you

Sharing with you, your tears

And those choices you take so long in choosing,

Asking whether this? While weathering that.

They are here; you have arrived."

It was after this poem and this set of drawings that she came to manifest Sweetie, her dragon who was also a chameleon or gecko, depending on the vibe. Sometimes it needed colour and sometimes it needed song. Today somehow, there was both sound and colour and the mountains were the greenest glow and the most beautiful trees with golden apples. They fell, abruptly, 3 into her lap. They called them the dragon trees here. Like nowhere else in the world, something from a Hercules type tale.

She had overcome a lot. Doubt, fear of things not going as planned, fear from the shadows. And here she was, now in her final destination, Cape Verde, after the mangoes in Mozambique and the sails in South Africa and and after the animals in Angola. The two tails acted like hands, the prehensile tail for camoflauge and getting around, the other for making music, and things.

Somehow, she had turned the monkeys in her mind into the most glorious friends of all, who would dance with her and pick her up when she was down, who showed her, with closed eyes, how to love and see things more clearly.

This is a tribute to all the animals who have visited me and taught me so many lessons humans could never speak.