## of march, 2024
My back hurts. My sister the witch says that it’s because my ancestors are pulling me. That I have to turn around and tell them: Chill, ancestors. Don’t pull, I’m here, doing the work.
The work is to heal a trauma that is intergenerational, intercontinental, interspecies. It’s a lot, and it hurts, so chill, I’m here going slow.
Remembering my ancestors from Asia, I started sleeping very close to the ground.
Remembering my ancestors from the Americas, I started to pray in every full moon.
Remembering my ancestors from Africa, I started to dance with the monster.
The monster is the science of my ancestors from Europe.
Bayo Akomolafe tells a story about Èṣù, the trickster in the cosmovision that Bayo inherited from his Yoruba ancestors.
One day they saw a slaver ship coming close to the coast, and Ogun, the orisha of war, organized an army to intercept them. Èṣù got in the way of this army and made them all to fall asleep, allowing the invasion of their land and the slavery of their people. Èṣù traveled to America as a fugitive in the ship with slavers and slaves.
This is a story of pain that comes from before. I see Bayo rewriting it, helping me to see the importance of those who inhabit the crossroads. This is a dance of contradictions. Bayo feels it on his body, he looks behind, cries and makes an offering. He teaches me to thank Èṣù for the creolization of the american continent. Èṣù brough this dance to us.
These contradictions live on my body. They hurt. I turn around and see the Buddha, Èṣù, Carl Sagan, Pachamama. This is the crossroads of the 4 directions and the 4 colors that my ancestors prepared for me. Their lives inform mine. I don’t walk alone, we are all dancing with the monster.
Open threads
- When you meet the monster, anoint its feet
- On co-becoming monsters
- Teaching from White Buffalo Calf Woman
- [2006] The Varieties of Scientific Experience
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