To those who fear death…know we are deathless
When you look into your eyes, can you remember that you are timeless? Endless. Eternal. Everlasting. Deathless.
Oh, how surprisingly radical it is to know that you are without end—to know that you are only a soul experiencing flesh. And when the flesh falls away, your soul will remain. I wonder if you, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, can truly fathom forever. The language of your God too distorted to remind you that paradise is always your birthright.
The taste of the everlasting lingers on the tip of my tongue. Have you never noticed the salt of your blood, the same salt of Po, Nusɛ, Géej, Yemoya, Moana, La Mer? Have you never felt the ancient residue in your mouth, a reminder that you, too, are a child of an ocean—so vast, so eternal, it predates time itself? There’s no way you can taste eternity while chasing her simultaneously.
You must see the futility in grappling for a legacy immortalized by seed. You must know that a remembrance etched into ephemeral bodies is easily forgotten. Names lose meaning. Statues crumble. Bloodlines burn in worldly sins. But immortality? Immortality is our birthright.
Oh, how lucky am I to look in the mirror and see the lives inside of me compounded. My face changing shape with each day—some nights, ancient and other days, baby new. I carry echoes of voices I have never met but somehow still know. My intimacy with the All, the Creator, the One, came at an age so young, I can’t fully remember. But I do know this: before I had words, I had knowing.
Without allegiance to this time, this place, this earth, I knew why I had returned. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been comfortable sitting in the blacks of my eyes and the blacks of yours. That’s how I know forever is my birthright.
All the feelings I could feel when I accepted that I am a universe without end. And if by chance, I ever did find an end, that is where you would begin.
In my deathlessness, I lost my fear of death and a world of ease flooded before me. An assurance that death was an invitation best accepted with love. Because endless is our ancestry.
When you remember the teachings of your ancestors, do you remember Orun? Do you remember that the past is a story told, the future is a story waiting, and eternity is the space where it all lives always?
This vessel has not seen the realm of eternity, as seeing isn’t my strongest gift in this body. Yet I have known forever. I have felt Nyame. I have touched Ginen. I have lived Nirvana. Because undying is my ancestry.
And when you remember, you will laugh—because you will finally see your wings, fluttering through timelessness, and you will know that you were never meant to crawl in forgetfulness.
In fear, you crawled.
In divinity, you fly.
In fear, you prayed and begged for life hereafter.
In divinity, you rejoice in the everlasting.
Because everlasting is your ancestry.
I pray that you, who fear death, awaken to fearlessness.
I pray that we, who are fearless, come to know the All, as the All has always known us.
I pray we, the seekers, arrive at the certainty of divine love, where seeking ceases and knowing begins.
I pray that we, the deathless, feel the Divine in every breath, every moment, beyond time.
“We often hear: ‘Life is short, enjoy it.’ But often forget: ‘Eternity is long, prepare for it.’”
Thank you to the team who brought these images to life.
Photography: Gus Sarkodee (ig: @g.sarkodee)
exec. producer: Dede Coffie (ig: @nicole_coffie)
producer: Nana Osei-Ababio (ig: @lazy.mondays)
makeup: Judah Odei (ig: @judahsmakeover_)
production assist: Terry Boahen (ig: @44gemzz) & Eben Osei-Ababio (ig: @xclusive____eben)
