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The “crossroads” is a great major concept in Afrikan religion. It is a pervasive idea that suggests there is a point where good and evil, humanity and divinity, the living and the dead, the night and day, and all other contradictions, opposites, and situations involving decisions must meet. It is at this point there exists an intermediary to open the way, to provide humans with choice and to teach wisdom at the gate.
This gatekeeper goes by many names for instance in the Yoruba as Legba, Eshu or Ellegua depending on the language and country of practice. In the sense that the crossroads is literally the place where several paths cross, where several roads intersect, it is really a philosophical concept. As such, the Afrikan idea that is taught from a young is that, at the point of decison, the human has the possibility of touching divinity or forever remaining locked in mortality.
As a profound philosophical concept and idea, the very notion of crossroads sits at the entrance into the study of Afrikan religion, initiation, ritual performance, spiritual resources, benefits and indeed reincarnation. One is taught from a young age that one cannot escape the space of decision. Everything is decided, and in the greatest, most poignant moments of the spiritual quest, the human being must, out of relative ignorance of all the possibilities, choose and, by choosing, express an existential life that gives value and meaning to the quest.
This is the first and last thing that must be done.
