To invoke the spirit of Kitsimba, which is “healing work is the antidote to oppression”, from the Mayombe region of Central Africa, to remember pedagogies, the method and practice of teaching, learned during the crossings.
What is Pedagogies of the Sacred: Making the Invisible Tangible?
This task involves remembering the symbolic places where the Sacred resides and practices, and “the cycle of action, reflection, and practice as Sacred praxis embodied marks an important reversal of the thinking as knowledge paradigm”
A spiritual Invocation to remember is based on introducing the idea of having a spiritual awakening; expressing hidden ancestral presences within the author's community and expressing the importance of recognizing spiritual entities within your individual “crossing”. But not just stopping there, Jacqui Alexander explains how this awakening is rooted through ancestral history; spiritually, psychically, geologically, and mentally.
The Crossings is structured around the Africans’ psychical
journey of their crossing. During the slave trade, many Africans were moved to America by slave ships and many died before reaching their destination.
The author explains how several Africans accepted the crossing but others refused. Many jumped into the sea or died on the ships to be excluded from this Crossing into America. These humans prevented themselves from tapping into full human powers by stopping through their journey. The Africans were forcefully taken to America with their beliefs and practices into a new environment
After the crossing, they graced all things with the wisdom of Ashé. Ashé is a philosophical concept defined by the Yoruba of Nigeria to represent the power that makes things happen and produces a change in the Yoruba religion. Because their beliefs were new in America and not the social norm, their religious beliefs were perceived to be associated with the devil due to them not being related to Christianity and exploring the religion of voodooism.
The crossing is a spiritual transformation within an individual shedding their former self into new by discovering and accepting the beyond, which is tapping into full human powers, such as speaking with ancestors and gaining a wider sense of truth or reality.
Manifestations of the
crossing- Cosmological systems that were manifested based on African culture of the studies of human activities and how it affects the Crossing.
Cosmological systems are manifestations that are used to help guide them on where to go and how to be firmly established in this world. In doing so, they sometimes lead people to have a collective relationship with the Divine.
The author had crossed for her to elevate her spiritual intuition to gain more of an understanding of the African spiritual practice in doing so to survive and gain knowledge on her spirituality just like the Kango people did to understand the world as well.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SELF AND THOSE THAT ARE SACRED “THE IDEA OF SACRED ENERGIES INTERVENE IN THE DAILY LIVES OF HUMAN BEINGS; THEY SURROUND, PROTECT, PUSH STRENGTHEN, AND BRING A SENSE OF PURPOSE SO THAT THE INDIVIDUAL IS ATTENDED TO THE SOULS' PURPOSE, AS IN DREAMS, THEY MEDIATE A PROCESS OF INTERDEPENDENCE, OF MUTUAL BEINGNESS, IN WHICH ONE BECOMES ONESELF IN THE PROCESS OF BECOMING ONE WITH THE SACRED; AND THEY MANIFEST THEIR SACREDNESS IN NATURE AS WELL AS IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMAN BEINGS, BOTH OF WHICH TAKE SHAPE IN A PROCESS OF MUTUAL EMBODIMENT.” MEANING THE POWER, BEING, OR REALM UNDERSTOOD BY RELIGIOUS PERSONS TO BE AT THE CORE OF EXISTENCE AND TO HAVE A TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECT ON THEIR LIVES AND DESTINIES.
LEARNING ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS “ THE SAME FORCE THAT GAVE SHAPE TO THE UNIVERSE IS THE SAME FORCE WHICH RESIDES WITHIN US. THIS FORCE IS KALUNGA, A COMPLETE FORCE BY ITSELF, THE PRINCIPLE OF CHANGE, VITALITY, MOTION, AND TRANSFORMATION… THERE WAS NOTHINGNESS, INTO WHICH CAME THIS SOURCE OF LIFE, THIS ENERGY, EXPRESSED AS HEAT, COSMIC FIRE AFTER WHICH THERE WAS A COOLING THAT PRODUCED RIVERS, OCEANS, AND MOUNTAINS. THE WORLD FLOATED IN KALUNGA, ENDLESS WATER WITHIN SUBCOSMICS SPACE, HALF EMERGING FOR TERRESTRIAL LIFE, HALF SUBMERGING FOR MARINE LIFE AND THE SPIRITUAL WORLD KALINGA IS THE OCEAN DOOR BETWEEN TWO WORLDS ” MEANING WHILE WE ARE ALL CONSCIOUS, WE CANNOT BE CONSCIOUS OF THE SPIRIT, OR OF SPIRITUAL VALUES THEREFORE, THERE IS A SHARP DISTINCTION BETWEEN ORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO BE AWARE OF SOMETHING IS NOT SPIRITUALITY, BECAUSE EVERYONE IS AWARE OF SOMETHING. THERE IS A VERY SUBTLE DISTINCTION, AND IT IS THIS SUBTLETY BETWEEN THE TWO TYPES OF AWARENESS THAT MAKES IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO BE SPIRITUALLY CONSCIOUS.
THE PRACTICE OF BEING SACRED- “THE IDEA TO WHICH DANIEL REFERS OF VIGILANT OBSERVATION THAT RESTS AT THE HEART OF SPIRITUAL LABOR WAS ALSO GIVEN FORM IN THE WORDS OF KITISMBA; “ WITH CAREFUL ATTENTIVE SERVICE AND FOCUSED CONTEMPLATION, THE DIVINE IS MADE MANIFEST. IT IS WHY THIS WORK IS NEVER DONE.’ THUS, THE CYCLE OF ACTION, REFLECTION, AND PRACTICE AS SACRED PRAXIS EMBODY AN IMPORTANT REVERSAL OF THE THINKING AS KNOWLEDGE PARADIGM.” MEANING PRACTICES OR ABSTINENCES THAT ARE ROOTED IN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.
BY:
Brielle H. Dorrell W. Kayla J. Sydney G.
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