E.L. Cyrs - Road of Ash and Dust: Awakening of a Soul in Africa

To our ancestors whose sacrifices,
pain, and suffering gave birth
to our potential.

May we never forget them.

Thank you for purchasing Road of Ash and Dust. As an added benefit I would like to give all of my readers a FREE DOWNLOAD of songs referenced in the book. The soundtrack Ancestral Strings Acoustic Kora is a collection of traditional, instrumental West African harp music that I learned during my travels to the continent. Enjoy while reading! Visit the site below to begin your free download now:

http://RoadofAshandDust.com

As far back as my memory can carry me Ive always been required to wear a mask. As a child, I can recall being instructed by my grandmother on how to alter my speech patterns and personality to be acceptable at the newly integrated school I was to attend. It was the 60s, and the era of busing, more than a decade following Brown v. Board of Education. Busing was still a hot topic of discussion and a tinderbox issue for many, especially in the South. I began attending public school a little more than a year following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The atmosphere of this nation was a tenuous mix of fear, hopelessness, anger and resentment. I was acutely aware of the things that made me different, especially when it came to the color of my skin.

I was tutored by the adults in my life on how to act when at school or in the company of white people. I was tested on the fitness of my emotional intelligence before being permitted to venture out of the safe confines of our small, segregated neighborhood. There was no escaping the reality that I would be navigating a world divided along lines of race and class.

Questions concerning identity were thrust upon me the moment I began to comprehend the influence that the past has on the present.

Stories were an integral part my childhood. The men and women in my life shared freely. It was common to hear adults converse, in hauntingly matter-of-fact tones, about lynchings, threats of violence and injustice.

In spite of the social and psychological trauma ever-present in the periphery, our families dug deep to unearth the joy in life and living. The church was an integral part of our community. Everything from sermons to supper was served there. We practically lived at our church. It was in the church that my concept of service was first formulated. In our neighborhood and church there was never any reason to wear my mask.

The me I was required to be when at school or in town, felt like an oppressively censored version of myself. When returning home, the casting off of that facade was analogous to a great exhalation after having held my breath longer than is humanly possible.

As an adult, I moved to Los Angeles and I carried my mask with me. During the day, I functioned as a corporate executive, Mr. Cyrs. Evenings and weekends I was someone completely different, immersed in the cultural community of Southern California. During the weekdays, I planned, facilitated, oversaw and coordinated in the corporate realm of my existence. Evenings and weekends I drummed for African Dance Classes, directed Rites-of-Passage Programs, and taught youth about their historical and cultural heritage.

While the corporate job put food on the table, it was the work within my community that fed me.

It was during a weekend with children of one of our Rites-of-Passage programs that a young boy approached me with a question. He opened his inquiry by addressing me as Baba, a word in many languages which translates to Father, but also denotes respect for an elder. From that day forward, the children stopped referring to me as Mr. Cyrs and began calling me Baba. It was a name that took hold and refused to let go. Over the years, people in the community forgot Mr. Cyrs and only knew Baba. The mask I had been wearing for so long was beginning not to fit.

The comfort and familiarity of my mask-free days in church as a child began to shadow me. The messages I received to be of service were ever-present in my mind. The more time I spent with my community, the freer I felt. I knew I was at a crossroads, but my direction wasnt as clear as I needed it to be.

Witnessing the fire ignited in the eyes of a child I helped gain a greater sense of self-awareness, made it impossible to not want to help more.

I ripped to shreds the mask of my childhood conditioning and closed the door on my corporate employment. The burden of being anything other than, truly, what my soul longed for became more than I could bear.

Becoming Baba immersed me in a lifes purpose that gave me the courage for the sojourn to Africa written about in this book. By the time I boarded the plane heading to Senegal, I was no longer Mr. Cyrs, I was Baba.

The search and struggle for identity is a unique, individual experience for many of us. Not all partake of the rigor of self-discovery. It can be painful, unsettling, and challenging.

My desire in offering you a piece of my story via Road of Ash and Dust is to hopefully demonstrate, with an unmasked honesty, that self-knowledge is a key element in our growth psychologically, socially and spiritually.