African Meditations
African Meditation 1
Oral Messaging
We gather around the gold-colored fire, our faces silhouetted against, the backdrop, of a starry night. We tell the same story, over and over again, enjoying it until it is cemented in our minds, never-fading like ball point ink.
The oral off our tongue, flows, painting picture of storyās past, nothing added. Events engrained deep in real-time. Our lives drama, carbon copied from mind to mind, generation to generation, molded by the heat of the fire into a stone scroll of truth.
The night weaves its invisible body out deep into the sky, bringing sparkle star disco to the heavens, and the women get up to dance, singing and calling for a story-teller to take us back to the words of ancient ancestor. They stomp their feet upon the earth and shake the ground, sending vibrations deep into, we men our hearts. Palpitating, we take our hands and translate the sound to goat skin covered drums. Far and wide our sound travels, calling on neighbors, friends and foes. This message, the story-teller time has come.
Our mother earth shaken and awaken by our call back to the past, brings a single cloud above and smiles a small drizzle of rain on us. The cooling beads of rain touch one, and the story-teller is named. His voice brings silence to the night, and gently and gradually fills our minds, and the peace, of the word, of our ancestors, delivers us to our dreams.
African Meditation 2
Reset Return to roots
We lived on the land, by the law of the land. Then they came. They came and took it all. Before their arrival, Kaguma warned us, that we would lose our land. He then paved the way with bread crumbs in our oral tradition on how we would get it all back. We allowed them time in our land, to settle, perchance to dream. We learn their ways, their books and culture, and found our fight, rising and uprising, with hopes and dreams, of a return to the old ways
These here, their buildings, we return to dust. These here, their roads we return to paths, pot-hole by pot-hole, we remove their structures. The old ways sing to us, calling us back to the land, back to the time, of equilibrium with the Mother Nature. When we won the war, they gave us power to govern, suits to wear in parliament, but refused to let go of their created economy.
Our fight continued, and we took their economy, now we tear and break it, so it is no more, and we return to the soil. To the old ways with no carbon foot prints, no connection to the machine, looking to the sky with endless time, for the promise of rain.
At night we light fires to cook crushed maize seed, avoiding the electric grid which we are slowly bringing down. We donāt need their electric power; our light comes from the above. Early morning we rise and wake up the sun, walk out into our fields, and work our land, till the sun tires, and falls from the sky.
African Meditation 3
Reaping the dream
We arise to the vibration of dawn, stirring awake, through the vocal cords of the birds. We look out into the distance, beyond the horizon, and beckon the Sun. Gently it climbs, with its orange hue spreading across the land, penetrating and removing the dusk. We turn our backs to the majestic light and walk out, to our fields, to give mother earth, its morning meal of seed.
We dance and sing to mother rain, to quench mother earthās thirst. The seeds give birth, to plants, the latter reach up and out, spreading their winged leaves to eat of the sun. We air the soil, working out the body and mind, and laugh at the past, our driving 2 hours to the gym, to work the machine. We are one, with our mothers of nature, as we give to them they give to us.
In the distance cattle herders, whistle sweet notes to our stock of life, which graze with pride, fearing neither man nor predator. Our hoes strike the ground putting beat to our work song, as we all day long, tend our fields. The earth moves the sun slowly and gently from east to west. The birds begin their homeward flight, the sun has moved from our backs to our eyes, so we turn after one last salute to the fire in the sky, and turn our backs to it, as we follow the birdās home.
The aroma of food flavored smoke greets our tired and stress free bodies as we, edge closer to our home, sweet home village. We smile, a full hearted smile, because we know as we work our fields, they also work us.
African Meditation 4
The Doctor Which
Our healer is a man of many herbs and spices. The power of his plants, finds the root of your ailment, and vacuums it out the system. The healer is also, the master of the mind, and knows what mental tools can guide it back to healthy thought.
He tends our minds, like we tend our fields, carefully and thoroughly rooting out weeds, and planting seeds of good thought.
They came with their holy book, and in exchange for the book they took the land, minerals, cows plus etc. The book preached about brotherhood, they practiced segregation. The book preached above love, they practiced hatred.
The book was the word of their ancestors, they told us not to communicate with ours. Kaguma our healer, who had eyes on the past present and future at the same time, told us, let their will be done, for our kingdom will return, and our time will come.
We gave them our sweat and toil, working with our eyes facing the sun. Life is full of twist and turns, and now comes our time, we return to the land, to live by the land. The doctor witch, tells us to forget about the white time, and focus on the present moment, be in the joy of the here and the now.
We take one last look at our past, the days of city, of car, of house. We see how selfish our nature had become, as we blinded ourselves to the natural balance, of land, Mother Nature and man, and chased the money instead. We drove nice cars as our brothers and sisters starved. We traveled to distant land, to return without presents, instead suitcases filled with profit in mind.
We lost respect for our elders, and looked for respect in our bling. We sat 4 by 4 in taxis, breathing in each otherās personal space, heading to towns, to search pavements for shops, with items we can sell to friends and family.
We marked up everything, and sold on for healthy profits, instead of just telling friends where the product was available. Instead of waiting with eyes to the skies, dreaming of rain, we queued and queued, with eyes to the paper.
We lived intolerant, we lived selfish, we lived with hate, we lived with death. We lived with greed. We lived with Gluttony. We lived with anger. Now we hold the red soil in our hands, we smear it on our faces, brothers are now one. The past travels to the pages of a history of our choice.
African Meditation 5
Those that turn to salt
The return to old ways brings comfort and joy. Those that look back to the colonized days, turn sour and bitter as the false joy of consumption creeps over the minds. They dream machine dreams and hope for light at the end of wrong thoughts, which might pave away back to a city. But the cities are gone now; we broke the buildings and killed the roads. We up rooted the monuments that pointed to our tormented past.
No story teller can help heal the minds that find no joy in the land that provides, the land that nurtures the land of the children of Amai Afreeka. We let them pack and leave to chase their false dreams, knowing that the land will never see them again, and from land to salt they change.
African Meditation 6
WE HAVE BUT ONE MIND
We left the farms and gathered arms, to fight a liberating battle for our souls. Freedom was the desire; we conceived it and we believed it.
