The Weight of Gold
Chapter 77: Water in the Bowl
By S.A. Akinola
The air hung thick with the scent of rain and earth as Iyi stepped through the low wooden door of the village's communal gathering house. Outside, the storm clouds brooded but held their breath. Inside, a hush had settled over the gathered villagers—men and women, old and young, all drawn together by something older than memory.
Tonight was sacred.
Tonight, the bowl would speak.
The space had been prepared with reverence. Palm fronds lined the floor. Oil lamps flickered in recessed alcoves, their light casting golden halos that danced against the mud walls. Smoke from smoldering òlòsùn bark curled upward like a serpent, weaving through the still air.
At the center of the room sat the bowl—broad, shallow, made from red clay fired in the ancestral kiln and passed down through three generations of ceremonial keepers. Its surface was smooth, darkened by years of touch and ritual, and filled with clear, still water.
The water shimmered—not just from the flickering flames around it, but as if it breathed.
Around the bowl were laid the ritual offerings: fragrant herbs bound with twine, crushed palm nuts in small gourds, and leaf bundles containing personal tokens—locks of hair, written prayers, a stone from a mother's grave. Each offering held a name, a weight, a cry to be heard.
The people had gathered in a wide circle, seated or kneeling, backs straight, hands resting gently on their knees. Their eyes reflected the firelight and the gravity of what was to come.
Tonight's ceremony was no mere tradition. It was Ọ̀run Níbẹ̀ Láti Gbọ́—The Listening of the Ancestors. A ritual that called forth memory through water, allowing the living to commune with the unseen, to listen to the echoes of their origins.
And tonight, Iyi was the conduit.
He moved slowly toward the bowl, his white robe brushing the floor, embroidered with the spiral motifs of flow and continuity. A pendant of riverstone rested against his chest, cool despite the warmth of the room. His bare feet made no sound as he walked, but those who watched felt the weight of each step—as if the ancestors themselves guided his motion.
As he knelt before the bowl, a hush fell deeper. The only sounds were breath and flame.
He extended his hands over the water.
It trembled.
"Water," Iyi began, his voice low and deliberate, "is the mirror of the soul. It reflects our truth, carries our prayers, and washes away what no longer serves. In water, we return to the beginning."
He dipped his fingers in the water. Cool. Soft. It welcomed him like an old friend.
"The water remembers," he continued, now louder, speaking not just to the room, but beyond it. "It remembers rainfall and tears. Rivers and births. Deaths and awakenings. It remembers every footstep, every grief, every promise."
He cupped the water and raised it high above the bowl. A single drop fell back with a sound that cracked the silence. Another. Then another.
He began to chant.
The words were old—Yorùbá layered with a cadence too ancient for grammar. The room responded, the villagers' voices rising to meet his, joining the flow of the chant, call and answer, tide and current. It was no longer a room. It was a living river of sound.
As the chant grew stronger, Iyi stood and moved through the circle. With each villager, he dipped his fingers back into the bowl and anointed their foreheads and hands. Each touch was a tether—to the land, to the ancestors, to the breath of what could not be seen.
When he came to Mama Folashade, he whispered a private blessing for her lost husband. At little Bayo's shoulder, he murmured a dream into the child's spirit. To the twins who had been sick for weeks, he offered a line from the prayer of breaking—What breaks in the body must heal in the river.
When he returned to the bowl, his fingers paused.
A young woman had risen from the circle. Quiet, bare-footed, dressed in blue.
Her name was Adunola.
Her steps were hesitant, but her eyes burned with unspent grief. Her mother had died only a month before, sudden and swift, in the middle of harvest. No healer had been able to help. Not even Iyi.
Adunola walked to the bowl and knelt. Her hands trembled as she cupped them beneath the water. She lifted it to her lips.
And drank.
Slowly. Reverently. As if swallowing the sky.
She then bowed deeply, touching her forehead to the edge of the bowl, and whispered something only the spirits could hear.
A shiver moved through the room.
Iyi closed his eyes, feeling the shift. Adunola had not just participated—she had answered. The bowl shimmered in response, its surface rippling though the air had not stirred. Something had been received.
He bowed to her in return.
The ceremony continued, quieter now, gentler, as if the great spirit that hovered had softened into listening rather than speaking.
Iyi returned to his seat beside the fire and allowed the warmth to seep into his bones. He watched as the villagers whispered amongst themselves, shared food, passed bundles of kola nuts and dried fruit. The ritual had been performed, but its impact was still unfolding—like light reaching through water.
Beside him, Tunde sat cross-legged, alert. His eyes tracked every movement, every breath. The boy had changed. There was strength in him now—tempered not by pride, but by listening.
"Master," Tunde whispered. "How does water carry memory? How can it hold the past and still flow forward?"
Iyi smiled. The question, asked with innocence and sincerity, was one he had wrestled with himself in his early years.
"Water remembers what touches it," he said, gently. "The sky speaks to it through rain. The earth gives it form through the land it travels. Every tear, every birth bath, every ritual—water holds it all."
"But it doesn't stop," Tunde said. "It keeps moving."
"Yes. That is its gift," Iyi replied. "It teaches us that memory isn't meant to trap us. Only to guide us. Water flows not to escape the past, but to carry its truth into what comes next."
Later that night, as the village returned to quiet and the flames died into glowing embers, Iyi and Tunde left the gathering house and walked through the tall grass toward the river.
The moon hung full and heavy above them, draped in silver. Crickets sang in low harmony with the breeze. The earth was still damp from the morning's storm, and the scent of wet bark and moss clung to their clothes.
When they reached the riverbank, the water was still awake. It moved slowly, like a spirit in contemplation.
Iyi knelt and cupped the water.
"This river," he said, letting it run through his fingers, "has carried the songs of every healer who came before me. Every child named at its edge. Every grief scattered into its current."
He turned to Tunde. "Tomorrow, we begin a new chapter. One where you no longer follow behind, but beside."
Tunde's breath caught. "You mean—?"
"You will perform your first solo ritual," Iyi said. "A cleansing for the family of Ọlátúnjí the blacksmith. His daughter has been plagued by night shadows. You will listen. And decide what must be done."
Tunde swallowed hard, but his eyes did not waver.
"Yes, Master."
They stood together in silence, watching the moon ripple on the water.
"Never forget," Iyi said, "we are all water in a bowl. Contained for a time, shaped by our vessel—but always part of something larger. When the bowl cracks, we do not vanish. We return."
Tunde nodded, his heart steady. The boy who had once stumbled over chants and spilled herbs was now a vessel himself—still forming, still learning, but holding light.
As they turned back toward the village, the wind picked up, rustling the reeds with a sound like laughter and prayer.
And beneath that star-stitched sky, a master and his apprentice walked not just toward home—but toward legacy.