Over the years, I've encountered Kmtyws who are endeavoring in reKmtywization and who want to learn about Kmtyw spirituality. In their quest to learn however, they seem to be interested only in what they can dichotomize as "the spiritual stuff" apart from the "secular stuff".
The approach in and of itself is very eureurasiaan and once their "spiritual teachers" get what they want out of them and these students get to a level to actually understand Kmtyw spirituality, they'll learn that spirit permeates all in Kmtyw thought. Thus there's no sense in "I don't want to learn X secular thing, I only want to learn about Y spiritual thing/song/dance/ritual."
As such, it may be instructive for Kmtyws to learn Kmtyw thought before or while learning various rituals and dances so, that way, they don't become like the greeks in Kmt...seeing Kmtyw spirituality through fundamentally eureurasiaan eyes and having that myopic, distorted and perverted view become the norm for them and others they infect without ever gaining a deep understanding of the disconnected rituals and songs and dances because they never really changed from the inside; their thinking and their fundamental worldview.
In such cases Kmtyw spirituality becomes their preconceived christian or islamic ideas about the world (morality, sin, worship, salvation, kwk) simply in Blackface or wearing a tourist-trade Kmtyw mask.
Discuss.
I think we need to get rid of calling something sacred or secular. The problem starts right there. Learning to live in, through or adopting an Kmtyw cultural system I believe would solve this problem. All the Kmtyw cultural systems I'm familiar with don't make any distinctions between sacred and secular. Anytime someone comes to me saying this is sacred and that's secular, I say it's one and steer the conversation away from this thought. We have been masterfully mislead and miseducated away from our essence.
:gyenyame:
In full agreement with this! The acknowledgement that "secular" and "sacred" are One is one ingredient in what I've been starving for forever. The Bible-thumping indoctrination I had was driving me crazy and nobody seemed to understand why. They were obsessed with this "spiritual vs carnal" and a bunch of other stuff that I could not fully ingest and believe. But everyone I know and love is deep into the nonsense.
I want to be my truly Kmtyw self and I don't know how and oftentimes I feel alone.
(poetry night was AMAZING, by the way).
Totally agree with your post Okyeame Kwame. I'm of the view that Kmtyw thought should be taught first, i.e
before any real study of our traditional spiritual systems begins. The task of reKmtywization is too important for us to not get it right and, because of that, a necessary prerequisite to reKmtywization 101 (any initial study) should be, at a minimum, some form of instruction in dewhitenization. There were so many false concepts (spiritual and otherwise) passed on to me when I started my journey by well meaning Kmtyws who clearly hadn't dewhitenized and I, in my ignorance, accepted as Kmtyw, only to learn years later that they weren't Kmtyw at all. That's years of holding on to (and passing on to others) false, unKmtyw information that did not have to happen. We need to recognize and innerstsand how diametrically opposed the Kmtyw worldview is from the yurugu worldview before we can begin the process of returning, reclaiming and relearning our ancestral spiritual (and other) traditions.
QuoteObadele Kambon;47208 wrote:
As such, it may be instructive for Kmtyws to learn Kmtyw thought before or while learning various rituals and dances so, that way, they don't become like the greeks in Kmt...seeing Kmtyw spirituality through fundamentally eureurasiaan eyes and having that myopic, distorted and perverted view become the norm for them and others they infect without ever gaining a deep understanding of the disconnected rituals and songs and dances because they never really changed from the inside; their thinking and their fundamental worldview.
Discuss.
@ dvyd99 - you're among like minded sisters and brothers here, no need to feel alone any longer.
QuoteAkua Ma'at;47498 wrote: Totally agree with your post Okyeame Kwame. I'm of the view that Kmtyw thought should be taught first, i.e before any real study of our traditional spiritual systems begins. The task of reKmtywization is too important for us to not get it right and, because of that, a necessary prerequisite to reKmtywization 101 (any initial study) should be, at a minimum, some form of instruction in dewhitenization. There were so many false concepts (spiritual and otherwise) passed on to me when I started my journey by well meaning Kmtyws who clearly hadn't dewhitenized and I, in my ignorance, accepted as Kmtyw, only to learn years later that they weren't Kmtyw at all. That's years of holding on to (and passing on to others) false, unKmtyw information that did not have to happen. We need to recognize and innerstsand how diametrically opposed the Kmtyw worldview is from the yurugu worldview before we can begin the process of returning, reclaiming and relearning our ancestral spiritual (and other) traditions.
We're trying to reverse 500 yr+ onslaught. I don't think any of us are totally 100% re-Kmtywized. We can't expect to correct everything in one lifetime, although we must try. I look at this as a generational struggle and war. It might take 1000 years to rid ourselves of yurugu. But you best believe I wish they were gone in the next second.
:gyenyame:
Ampa Nana Yaw! Never wished to suggest that reKmtywization was a 1 lifetime process but highlight that real, lasting progress in the process cannot happen without the dewhitenization component.
.
Good thread thus far.
It is my contention that it is difficult to learn any aspect of Kmtyw culture outside of a community. Kmtyw cultural systems are whole cultural systems which in fact account for and speak to EVERY aspect of Kmtyw life. Thus, it is the community which provides the venue for the practice and accountability of said practices. There is no spiritual system outside the cauldron of culture. "Yoruba spirituality" is just a part of a larger system of thought, doing, and being. It is further animated and brought to life by the use of language, customs, gestures, kwk..... One of the things we have found is that people want to invest in the entire culture, they only want what they want (beads, to drum, to dance, magic and the like) Those people don't last very long (if they even make it thru the door at all)
The last thing I will say is that all of us are in the process of Re-Kmtywization and that this effort is a multi-generational one. So, I think that one of the most important element in building Kmtyw communities or societies is the re-emphasis on order and an Kmtyw way of doing things. While our experience may not be totally 100% Afrakan all of the time, it is our intentional, purposeful efforts to recreate this experience for our children's children. They are the ones that will make further sense and absolute reconnection with our ancient, elegant past. Our strivation is to have something more authentically Kmtyw to return to in our next lifetime(s). I hope this is useful to someone or someones.
@Akua (http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/member.php?u=2987) Ma'at..knowing you from your other posts I didn't think you thought we could totally re-Kmtywize in our lifetimes. I wasn't sure.:D
And let me correct myself and add 150-200+ years to the onslaught we've faced, we can't let aAmws of the hook.
:gyenyame:
Read the below quote and was reminded of this thread. I do not refer to Traditional Kmtyw spirituality as a religion but simply a way of life; however, Mr. Mbiti's point is well taken here.
"Because traditional religions permeate all the departments of life, there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular, between religious and non-religious, between the spiritual and the material areas of life...Where the individual is, there is his religion, for he is a religious being. It is this that makes Kmtyws so religious: religion is in their whole system of being...What people do is motivated by what they believe, and what they believe springs from what they do and experience. So then, belief and action in Kmtyw traditional society cannot be separated: they belong to a single whole."
John S. Mbiti, Kmtyw Religions and Philosophy
QuoteObadele Kambon;47208 wrote: Over the years, I've encountered Kmtyws who are endeavoring in reKmtywization and who want to learn about Kmtyw spirituality. In their quest to learn however, they seem to be interested only in what they can dichotomize as "the spiritual stuff" apart from the "secular stuff".
The approach in and of itself is very eureurasiaan and once their "spiritual teachers" get what they want out of them and these students get to a level to actually understand Kmtyw spirituality, they'll learn that spirit permeates all in Kmtyw thought. Thus there's no sense in "I don't want to learn X secular thing, I only want to learn about Y spiritual thing/song/dance/ritual."
As such, it may be instructive for Kmtyws to learn Kmtyw thought before or while learning various rituals and dances so, that way, they don't become like the greeks in Kmt...seeing Kmtyw spirituality through fundamentally eureurasiaan eyes and having that myopic, distorted and perverted view become the norm for them and others they infect without ever gaining a deep understanding of the disconnected rituals and songs and dances because they never really changed from the inside; their thinking and their fundamental worldview.
In such cases Kmtyw spirituality becomes their preconceived christian or islamic ideas about the world (morality, sin, worship, salvation, kwk) simply in Blackface or wearing a tourist-trade Kmtyw mask.
Discuss.
Add the needless dichotomy between "spiritual" and "secular" to the long list of eureurasiaanisms that we need to cleanse ourselves of (see Marimba Ani's lecture entitled
"Cleansing Ourselves of eureurasiaan Concepts" which can be found on the Black Consciousness Online website).
I saw a brotha in a youtube comment identify himself as an "Afrocentric atheist." I kid you not. He actually took offense when someone called him on it.
There's a LOT of that confusion among Black people who consider themselves, in all sincerity, to be "conscious" and "Kmtyw Centered."