Tower: Key 19 | Revolution; Six of Spades ; Element of Air.
They told us that our anger was uncooperative. They said our tears were indulgent. They tried to deny the utility of a clenched fist, a blessed root, a song, a prayer. And they were right
because a fever is only productive for the host, not the virus. And we are not the virus, Baby.
At every chance, they will deny the utility of our tools. To bear this quietly, to go softly into death, is to dishonor ourselves and those we have inherited these tools from. Who we have inherited these tools for. Tools designed to resist physical and spiritual destruction at every turn, to conjure a way forward out of no way. We must take care not to be limited in our idea of what a tool is or can be.
And we owe it to ourselves to survive this moment. To at last experience what's been long promised. We owe it to ourselves to call down the spirits who riot and who burn away barriers to our safety and our dignity. And as we stand at the confluence of many generations past and, godwilling, just as many or more forward, our ancestor work has begun. So look around. What are our tools?
from Grandma Baby’s Black Gold Lenormand’s deck and guidebook1
Dear Future Daughter,
Forty days of fasting has come and gone yet here I am, still up before dawn.
Sleep passes over me like the ghost of death, so I suppose I am blessed (per the original etymology of the word). I am still a babychild— radicalized by my mother teaching me to pray, coming to greet you in the middle of the night. If there’s ever a time I feel the belly of this world, it’s this time of night-night. Everything cold and easily terrified while we collectively wait for the sun to rise. Or pray to sleep through the transition, at least. There is nothing here for me except cascading silence and balled-up prayers, and so I address them to you, the one who pushes my feet forward. If there’s anything I wish to grant you, it’s your grandfather’s teeth and your grandmother’s ability to pluck from the ether that which she could not see with hands or eyes. I direct my gaze to the horizon. The sun has set to rise.
You move me with such beautiful dance. Despair, desolation, indulgence for the sake of escapism coo at me. So lucrative, my love. So seductive. I would dissolve my focus and succumb in a heartbeat— less!— if it was not for you, beating on the outside of my chest. All this darkness breeds amnesia. Suffering makes me forget; in my forgetfulness, I have become a woman2. I have a few things I need you to hold on to for me.
Thesis: Revolution, then, is a faith-based practice. We ruminate on, pray for, call forth a world past what we can see. It with the utmost faith that a kinder world (1) exists and (2) actively roots and blooms.
From Bwa Kayiman: The Cornerstone of a Revolution Built on Kongo Ethics by Dòwòti Désir
Let’s start with understanding what Vodou is: Hailing from West Africa, particularly Dahomey, the Fon word “Vodou” has been defined to mean everything from a “sacred dance to the ancestors,” to the “fierce or impassioned believer of the Most Divine.” I further define Haitian Vodou as an eco-theological philosophy whose ethical principles are the scaffolding of the traditions of liberation theology we as African descendants hold so dearly. In this presentation, the word Lwa (loa) is a reference to the spiritual forces that guide the teachings of the tradition. The Lwas have distinct personalities that both reflect the paths to Bondye (the Good God) and are Her and His tendrils in our lives. Vodou is the philosophical foundation of our global African community, holding each of us responsible to one another in a convenant that binds all of our lives to the lives of those who came before us, and to the vitality of those who are yet to be. Vodou teaches that balance and justice are anchors of upholding community life with the chief community builders being women.
***
Legend has it that on that night in the north of Haiti, the supreme Manbo Asogwe Cecil Fatima/Cecil Fatiman shared the asson (the instrument of authority in Haitian Vodou) with the maroon leader and Hougan (male priest) Dutty Boukman (? – 1791). Boukman was an African enslaved in Jamaica who was later deported to Saint Domingue cum Haiti (d. 7th November 1791.) Fatiman a high priestess, whose title translates as The Determiner of Life and Death, Keeper of Medicinal Packets, the One Who Has Mastered the Power of the Word, became possessed by the Spirit of Ezuli Dantò. In the course of ceremony, a pig was sacrificed and a “blood pack” was made. The blood of a black pig was shared among the participants with an oath to kill all the whites on the island. [6 ] According to researcher, Marguerite Laurent, the KiKongo call of August 14, 1791 was (I have provided my own translations:)
E, e Mbomba, e e! [Supreme Healer, Master of Breath,]
Kanga Bafyòti [Protect and Deliver us the treacherous gangs]
Kanga Mundele [Protect and Deliver us from the hording strangers]
Kanga Ndòki [Protect and Deliver from wicked ways]
Kanga Yo! [Protect us!]
But the prayer we know best from that night is:
Good Lord who hath made the sun that shines above us, that riseth from the sea, who maketh the storm to roar; and governeth the thunders. The Lord is hidden in the heavens, and there He watcheth over us. The Lord seeth what the blanc (whites) have done. Their god commandeth crimes, ours giveth blessings upon us. The Good Lord (Bondye) hath ordained vengeance. He will give strength to our arms and courage to our hearts. He shall sustain us. Cast down the image of the god of the blanc, because he maketh the tears to flow from our eye. Hearken unto Liberty that speaketh now in all you hearts (Heil).
Haiti faces yet another occupation from the United Nation’s so-called “Peacekeepers.” I say my prayers for them in this night-morning. I consider their victory our victory, and I consider it inevitable. Dawn is coming and darkness lasts only momentarily. I (today) root myself in times when I felt cynically about prayer— particularly as a teenager, when I truly began to feel the wickedness of the world. I wonder how old you are as you read this. Maybe you’re familiar with that sort of despair that bites on the soft parts of your cheeks and knocks the insides of your skull. There was a point in time where I stopped praying, stopped journaling, stopped writing to you (and to everyone; it’s hard to hold a pen steady when you’re decidedly and professionally not sober).
From dear internet friends, i’m burning alive: And I (like you, like all of us) have spent the last two years swallowing these coals of grief and desperately trying to keep composure. I shuffle forward with class and school and traffic and grocery shopping and pretend like the death does not hurt. It burns the back of my throat and I smoke to stay calm. It burns in my eye sockets and I have a glass of wine with breakfast. I have spent the last two years trying feverishly to medicate, to numb myself, to calm down and I am out. I’m out. I don’t want to be numb to this grief that kills me anymore. (Feb 11 2023)
Every significant revolt for freedom that I am privy to solidified itself in divine intent and protection. Everything— from Nat Turner’s Miraculous Rebellion to the Haitian’s victorious independence brigades to Harriet Tubman’s freeing of an entire plantation with not one lost. All had leaderships and people that set and fixed their eyes on that which they could not see; on faith that propelled their hands; on roots that speak the language of conjure to crop up a way out of no way. And such hope is contagious.
By the time I came to prayer again, there was a pantheon before me where a single divine entity had been. I remembered you, my daughter, from when I was (almost) fourteen, writing to you in my first real journal, certain you would one day read my purple ink, unaware this act was prayer in and of itself. Doubt and death reframe my seedlings; my cynicism made my mind stretch to reach what I could not feel at first. Both personally and publicly, the more I meditate on liberation, the more I realized how many folks could hear me. Prayer teaches me that alignment with freedom is always synonymous with my highest good. Which means: regardless of my circumstance, or my distrust towards a paternalistic almighty, liberation in and of itself is divine. And the pursuit of the divine is religion.
Now, in the dark of almost dawn, I ask to be kept by you— you, who I cannot see but who I know is there. Hope is a crucial part of the garden I tend to. She blooms! Undeterred by salted soil and smoking asphalt, weeping seeds from the grief, spreading her teeny petals everywhere. Blooming. Like children do. I feel you watering my heart’s desires: a world for you covered in clovers and columbines, where you view growing old as an obvious and pleasant inevitability. Where everyone knows columbines as the beautiful wildflower they are. Instead of as a tragedy. I commit myself to hope because of you.
Here are my early conclusions: in world-making, I engage in religion of liberation. Freedom is the only kind of universal goodness I can think of— not just freedom to exist without exploitation, but freedom to commune and to build with unfettered commitment to sustainability. The freedom to belong to yourself in your own people’s tapestries and be soft; sovereign; laid to rest while still alive. The freedom to have power that does not cost anyone else anything.
So then if revolution is a seed, if revolution is a faith based practice, if it's a discipline to believe in— and not just believe, but one to feed into, one which requires you to fix your feet and walk towards a world that you cannot yet see— if revolution is a seed grown by my sustained attention and action, then I am diligent in my prayer. In private and in public, head bent to my breast, you will see who I am I devoted to.
Revolution, then, is a faith-based practice. We ruminate on, we pray for, we call forth a world past what it is that we can see. It with the utmost faith that a kinder world (1) not only exists but (2) actively roots and blooms. A new world is actively on the way.
every day the sun rises and i have not slept. “i am going insane,” i mutter. “yes,” you chuckle, “you are.”
I can tell you that the more I think of you, the more I pray to you, the more I promise to see you tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow), the more I am convinced that this is not the world I will hand you. I want to gift you, my children, my children's children’s children— every possible iteration of daughter— with a world that looks like you do: soft and constantly becoming and kind, and one that doesn’t need or want to shy away from its softkindnesses. Past sincerity— I want cashmere. Physically soft to the touch. I wish to leave a world that's physically soft to the touch, like you, like children are and like I want the freedom to be. That's what I want. I want to give you a world that looks like you. And when you say, how did this happen? How was this possible? I want to tell them how much we worked and prayed and sowed the ground with all these little blooming bits of faith in that which we couldn't touch for a world where we did have what we wanted. Sovereignty and ripe fruit for everyone always. I didn't know that all of this was not just possible, but actively on the way until I started praying to you. Freedom is the only way I imagine the sunrise these days. I have lost the ability to settle for less.
I’ll read to you what I put in my journal this morning, when you woke me up at a quarter to three in the morning, as if you are already a fetus kicking my spleen:
It is the middle of the night… and that means nothing. I do not sleep. When I dream, I see my world that I leave behind like a half-asleep baby, praying I can sneak away for rest. I blink and a new people have “managed” to “find their way” to their death. There is nothing after this. A new world is coming like the dawn ; I am up with labor pains. I feel spasms in my back. I pace back and force in my kitchen, smoking to manage the pain, convincing myself to eat snacks, wondering if the revolution is coming this time or if it’s just Braxton-Hicks.
one of my elders spoke a daughter over me this year. the daughter i have been writing to since fourteen.
dear future daughter:
I love you such that I do not sleep.
love,
ismatu g.
This essay is brought to you by my undying love and support for my community: highlighting A Little Juju Podcast.
Juju Grant, creator of A Little Juju Podcast, is one of my favorite teachers alive. She engages in the crucial work of archiving Black Radical Spiritual Traditions through use of storytelling, cultural analysis, and documenting her own journeys on her show. She amazes and she inspires me. She actively radicalizes me. A whole priestess steps down to grant us keys to liberation. Our gratefulness should compel us to act! And I am so serious about that!
Please, please: if you learn anything from me, thank my teachers. She is someone directly responsible for the spiritual radicalization I want this podcast back and it just needs a handful more dollars. Black spirituality is my lifeline (clearly) and it needs our sustained communal support. Please if you can spare it! Donate a dollar! I have donated several and will again! Tonight!! There is nothing else like the work that Juju does. She is crucial. At the beginning of this essay, I quoted Zora Neale Hurston: a phenomenal ethnographer and spiritual tower who died penniless in an unmarked grave. I speak abundance over our current way-markers, culture keepers, and storytellers. I want to see this fundraiser overflow.
donate here! or via Cashapp, Venmo, or PayPal. All are available in her link tree.
I do not take sponsorships so that I can shine lights on my kinfolk, who need support in the community work they do just like I do. I am so grateful for your support! You all enable me to buy groceries on a regular basis! I want to spread this love. I would love northing more than to see this fundraiser with more than what she needs.
much love to you all. thank you for reading and for listening. this essay felt like sincerely like labor— it’s been gnawing at me for weeks. If you need a little more context to Oshun and her heart for revolution, check the beginning of this essay.
i hope the work of your day passes through your hands with ease. or, simpler said:
peace.
ig
Jazz of the Episode:
The Jordan River Song x Emahoy Tsege Marian Gebru
Whisky Story Time x Alabaster DePlume
Spring Yaounde x Wynton Marsalis
Lena’s Song x The Sweet Enoughs
You Go To My Head x Frank Sinatra
Tenkou Why Feel Sorry x Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru
Easy Living x Clifford Brown
this is the most beautiful Lenormand deck I have ever touched and they’re going out of print permanently. Please, if you feel compelled, cop yours by December 15, 2023.
“Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
revolution, then, is a faith-based practice.