Sculpting Space: Design, Architecture, and Sacred Systems in Africa and the Diaspora
Week 3+4
This week I had the pleasure revisiting Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Some, an autobiographical narrative of a West African who’s identity is both molded and shifted by the rifts of western imperialism and ancient tradition. Some’s story feels all too familiar for all colonized people, which is a partial acknowledgement that defeat is eminent however, some aspects of identity are too precious to lose. For Some, these precious composites are his tribe’s connection to the real yet ethereal spiritual realm. Dozens of profound statements throughout Of Water and Spirit remind us of the importance of participation in the spiritual world through ritual and that this intuitive gauge is accessible through one’s bloodline. Malidoma’s father is a fitting example of how removal from ancestors' spiritual practices can create tragedy and inescapable despair.
Documentation of communal histories mentioned in Slowly Becoming, Grandfather’s Funeral, and In the Arm of the Green Lady were details that I missed last summer but noticed this second reading. These tools are always represented in nature, a natural technology that creates relationships between the people, the environment as well as the spiritual world showing a deep contrast between the western world and the simplistic mysticism of village life.
A concept I feel pairs Of Water and the Spirit along with another text visited this week, Aesthetic of The Cool by Robert Farris Thompson; is the notion of alchemy. Through spiritual practice in alignment with relationships to the natural world, humans are understood as stewards of their environment; to restore balance or “cool” through ritual. Whether through symbolism or restorative justice, the conjuring of alchemy- transforming substance (the physical) from one form to another; is informed by knowledge of spiritual tradition, never science or religion or technology alone.
