Gyrating on the Hips of Gede with Dowati Desir

I spent the day at the Museum of the African Diaspora. It had been over a year since I set foot in the place, not since my dear sister Ave Marie Montague was alive--the two things not mutually exclusive, rather the politics of the place annoy me, that and its mission statement or definition of blackness which is not Africanness, but that is another story entirely (smile).

So attracted to the name of this latest exhibit and its curator, Lizetta Lafalle-Collins, "Migration of the Sacred: Spiritual Practices Across the Diaspora." Through the photographs of Bryan Wiley who has traveled the Atlantic Black Diaspora documenting our spiritual traditions. I don't recall seeing such a compact yet comprehensive exploration prior to this wonderful exhibition at MoAD through August 28, 2010 (the day before the Hurricane Katrina anniversary). What I like about the exhibit are the notes Wiley attaches to his images as well as the geographic synergy between elements of his spiritual journey via the Atlantic slave routes with landings in Gonaives, Haiti; Sao Felix, Brazil; Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina; Beaufort, South Carolina; Algiers and New Orleans, Louisiana; St. Helena Island, South Carolina; and Mantanzas, Cuba (and elsewhere).

When I walked in I saw Aya de Leon and her five month old daughter, whom I'd heard about from her grandfather yet a couple of days ago. Mom and baby had been enjoying the Orisha stories in the Education Center. I went straight to the gallery where the photos were to hang out. Orishas Across the Oceans: The Yomba/Dahomean Collection (Library of Congress) filled the space.

The images in the exhibit are not so much of people, as they are of altars and artifacts, the camera arriving at the scene just after a event took place. As we walked through the gallery last night with Ms. Desir, it was great hearing her talk about the traditions and how she and Wiley, who hadn't known each other, though Ms. Lafalle-Collins's fine work could share their common vision through art in this space.

Some of the photos which I returned to often were an altar in Congo Square, New Orleans and another with Vodun priest, Elmer Glover blowing smoke into a tree trunk. "Sky Pierces by Gable," which is of the House of Seven Sisters of Marie Laveaux, in Algiers. The museum was damaged and in need of repair when I visited it several years ago.

"Bawon Samdi," New Orleans, is the head of the Guede family. It is next to a similar photo taken in Sao Felix, Brazil. "Servants of Guede" is another photo taken in Gonaives, Haiti.

I love "Man in Prayer," which shows how Christianity as a cover religion was shielded African spiritual practices. One might think this man was praying to a Christian saint, when he was actually invoking an orisha or loas.

"Spinning Skirts" taken at a Condomble ceremony in Cachoeira, (an inland town of Bahia, Brazil, near the Paraguaçu River. The name means "waterfall" in Portuguese), is so lovely--Wiley captures the motion or energy in the ceremony, the same way he gets a close-up of white ceremonially painted faces in another photo.

He notes that he was surprised that the initiates let him document this sacred event. I think this speaks to the respect or high regard he had for the ritual and the permissions he sought beforehand. It is the same in "Young Bahianas" in Santo Aman, Brazil, and "Faithful at the Feista Senhor du Bonfim," where he states, the photo looks posed but he just turned around and there these supplicants were. The second photo of the hand holding the cross shows, Wiley states, "the similar textures" of the wood and skin holding the cross.

When I was in Senegal there were certain ceremonies where cameras were not allowed, people would cover the lens if observers ignored the request, yet often, I was asked to take pictures to share the ritual with my constituency when I returned home. I look at Wiley's work in this way and feel the respect and honor and authenticity in his eye and what he captures. Just the way he talks about wanting to take a photo while on a train traveling early in the morning in St. Helena, SC, and the train stopping as if commanded so he could get the shot we see of the early morning mist on the trees amidst a multi-layered horizon, is just one of many classic pieces in this exhibit.

What was wonderful about the walk through with Dowoti Desir which started with a circle where we danced or gyrated with her and others on the hips of Gede, whom I love. He is so cool with the black hat and cigar, rum sticking out of his pocket--
I claimed him and Oya once I learned of them a while back...that purple, one of my colors along with black and red.

I have to get a reading.

So our sister was speaking in the gallery about the two altars she designed--one was for the victims of the earthquake, the other an altar that looked at unification and is a welcome to people of all faiths and ethnicities. You can see this in the care with which she constructed the altar using objects and contemporary artifacts to connect the worlds: temporal and spiritual, Haiti and San Francisco.

A beautiful woman visually, Ms. Desir spoke of how African spirituality, because it is African was discounted and maligned when the same kind of spiritual practices in other cultures such as Southern Indian where there is the Hindu religion and the pantheon of gods, very similar to the orisha or loa tradition, is seen as animism or aspects of the supreme being, in Ifa, known as Obatala.

I didn't know that when one does the limbo dance the object is to secure safe passage for the departed one on their journey to the world of the dead. It reminded me of the boat in the Egyptian tombs which were there for the trip over the river to the next life.

She was just so cool, both in her acceptance of her life's mission or task and in her grasp of the significance of this time, especially for Haiti and the world, the western world.

She is also the Executive Director of The Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. Visit http://maap.columbia.edu/place/24.html The last man still imprisoned for the murder of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Thomas Hagan, 69, is about to be released in April, 45 years after the murder. See http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0319103malcolmx1.html?link=rssfeed

More later on Migrations of the Sacred. I have to get to the Lake for my walk (smile).