Category Archives: Historical

The Gullah Land

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Historical, Inner Struggles, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 28, 2021-

One of my favourite areas of the South is coastal Georgia and South Carolina-particularly the Sea Islands. This is largely due to the presence, both physically and spiritually of the Gullah-the descendants of enslaved people, who largely kept their ancestral African culture and language.

While much of the Sea Islands region has been taken over by large hospitality and golfing interests, the flavour of the area has largely been impacted by Gullah cultural features. The Low Country Boil, a popular meal of seafood, greens and fresh corn, is a gift of the enslaved. So, too, are the products brought from Africa, by those carried here against their will. Africans brought rice, okra, coffee, cotton, indigo, and cassava to the Americas, as well as net fishing and even the use of poison to trap large numbers of fish. This last has, thankfully, been shown to be of no benefit to human health-and was abandoned in the Southeast, a long time ago.

The enslaved people showed their captors the techniques of rice, cotton and coffee cultivation. Africans, then as now, knew nothing other than sharing-and at least initially, showing love even in the face of harshness and brutality. Besides, they needed elements of their homeland, in order to maintain sanity, and a sense of purpose. A good source for understanding the complexity of Gullah culture and language is William S. Pollitzer’s “The Gullah People and Their African Heritage”, University of Georgia Press, Athens (GA), 1999, which I have just finished reading. Dr. Pollitzer grew up in the Sea Islands region and was immersed in Gullah culture.

Here is a more audiovisual description of Gullah life, from a story teller on Edisto Island: Theresa Jenkins Hilliard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0DGijYiGQU

The Middle Passage of Robert Hayden

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Historical, impediments, Personal Values, Poetry, Spiritual, Striving

February 26, 2021-

In drawing to a close Black History Month, it is critical to remember that no people’s story is ever confined to a month, or even a year. The endurance of the history of any given segment of a society,of any part of humanity, is ever worth drawing to ourselves. In a few days, I will look at the Gullah people, of the Sea Islands along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina-arguably the most enduring African-American group, managing to maintain key aspects of their culture, even whilst living among well-heeled vacationers who have been drawn to the Sea Islands, over the past 50 years.

The Gullah are, of course, one group of descendants of the enslaved people brought from Africa, most via the route known as The Middle Passage. The late, great former United StatesPoet Laureate Robert Hayden (1913-1980), first African-American to hold this honour, and a member of the Baha’i Faith, depicted the experience of those brought along this treacherous route on the Amistad, a Portuguese-owned slave ship,which had been the scene of a slave rebellion led by Sengbe Pieh, also knoiwn as Cinque. The rebels eventually won their freedom, courtesy of a vigourous defense before the US Supreme Court, by John Quincy Adams and 34 of them returned to Africa, with help from American Abolitionists.

Let Robert Hayden tell their story, in his own voice. Let us always remember that all human beings are created equal, in the sight of God.

Loyalty and Ego

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Entertainment, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

February 25, 2021– I spent parts of the past couple of days watching a series that dealt with issue sof loyalty, betrayal and role switching. The show, called “Luna Nera”, is an Italian SyFy drama, set in the 17th Century. It is rather Byzantine, in its plot sequences, being all over the place.

It outwardly features conflicts between the mainstream Catholic Church, of the post-Inquisition era, and a small group of Wiccans. There is plenty of virtue and vice, loyalty and betrayal, transparency and deception on both sides, sometimes with all of it coming from the same characters. In other words, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the villains.

Life can be like that, especially if those of a certain mindset see only themselves, and those who agree with them, as good and all others as bad-even making the distinction, as a priest in the show did, between those who say what’s evil is virtue and what’s virtue is evil. Thus, their basis for determining virtue wells up from each one’s ego. That, and the inability to forgive slights, leads to even more pain and suffering, for all concerned.

The parallels between the main characters in the series, and the present American sociopolitical climate are so telling, that Luna Nera could be just as easily set in Washington and Mar-a-Lago, as in the north of Italy. The Bishop/Warlock is a wirepuller of the first order and the Wiccan/Demoness has an ego that spills over into even the acts of decency that she tries to pull off. There is a pure Saviour character, who has to disguise herself, for most of the series. The rest of the cast could pass for the “Sheeples”, who makie decisions based on whatever they are told by whoever is in charge at the moment.

It still strikes me that independent thinking depends upon not being willing to have one’s ego stroked-but maybe that’s MY ego talking.

A Few More Random Thoughts

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

February 24, 2021- Today was a day for accompanying a friend around Lynx Lake, which both of us found enjoyable. The lake’s water table is down, as we might expect-given our long dry spell of last year, but the water birds are already coming back- noisy ducks and showy cormorants.

I picked up two of Isabel Wilkerson’s books: “The Warmth of Other Suns”, about the African-American migration out of the South, starting in the 1930s and “Caste”, about the role of that system in the stratifcation of American society-and the true connection between that stratification and Nazism. These ought to be very insightful. I don’t see an immediate tie between “Trumpsim”, which is largely personality-based and Fascism, which has systemic goals-but there are people who subscribe to both-just as there are doctrinaire people, who also are personality-driven, on the other end of the political spectrum.

I have meditated on the mercurial nature of several people in my circle, at present. Having gotten past feeling a personal affront, when those who have been uniformly pleasant over the past several months, suddenly turn icy, I can sense that the sameness of the pandemic-driven regimen is getting to too many people, just a tad too soon. I can also sense that we are getting a handle on the disease- the “variants” aside.

Finally, just an observation: Those who act out of fear are less the problem than those who stoke that fear-and privately mimic their followers. Yes, there are people egging the masses on, who take Lenin’s view of “useful idiots.” They are the true problematics.

The Heirs of Railroad Passengers

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Posted by on in Community, Education, Entertainment, Historical, Social, Striving

February 18, 2021- It is commonly known that many people who successfully escaped enslavement, from the 19th Century South, made their way to Canada, via the Underground Railroad. The majority of these folks settled in three Canadian provinces: Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. The last was chosen because of its relative proximity to Maine, one of two northern termini of the clandestine route.

Although life for people of African descent in Canada was not perfect, and remains problematic in many respects, slavery had by and large been abandoned as a social construct, by the 1820s. There was no economic impetus to the system, in a country with mostly small holders as farmers.

Afro-Canadians kept many aspects of their culture, both that preserved by genetic memory of Africa and more recent cultural elements which evolved in the American South. Later migrants from the Caribbean region have also influenced this enduring cultural scene.

Here is a sharing of African-Canadian musical heritage, from someone who moved from Toronto to Nova Scotia, finding welcome among the longtime Black residents of that Atlantic province.

‘Music empowers people by uplifting them’

Year of the White Ox

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Posted by on in Entertainment, Historical, Inspiration, Spiritual

February 13, 2021-

A few days ago, those honouring the Lunar Calendar celebrated the beginning of the Year of the Ox. Those born this year will be given to hard work, honesty, positivity, and groundedness. It is also a white metal year, in terms of the basic elements, thus it may be called Year of the White Ox. Those whose elemental sign is metal are regarded as rigid, in traditional Chinese astrology. My own elemental sign is fire, which supposedly is at odds with metal since it melts that element.

The most important task, however, in this age is establishing balance between all five essential elements: Water, earth, air, fire and metal(for which some New Age thinkers substitute the element of space). Given that this is a time when love and relationships are on the minds of many, I find it appropriate to make balance a key goal of my own life forces. So, those born under the sign of metal will find this fire child to not be so disagreeable as the ancients would have them believe.

In honour of Lunar New Year, here are two presentations of Chinese music-one modern and performed in Los Angeles; the other more traditional, from an unidentified hall in mainland China.

Li Xi is a young resident of Los Angeles, offering folk music with Chinese elemental influences.

This song is entitled, “In That Faraway Place”. The artists are playing (Left to right) a pipa (similar to a mandolin), an erhu (played with a bow) and a xiao (flute).

Many good wishes to all, for a successful and healthy Year of the White Ox!

Gasparilla

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Posted by on in Community, Historical, Social

February 7, 2021-

In keeping with a promise to feature arts and music that are specific to a particular area, let us go to Tampa, site of the Fiftieth Super Bowl and pay homage to Gasparilla Music Festival. Tampa’s professional football team is named the Buccaneers, reflective of the part that pirates played in the region’s colonial-era history. Jose Gaspar, a buccaneer of the early 19th Century, enjoyed a safe haven in the Tampa Bay region, as did many buccaneers before him.

The Gasparilla (pronounced like “gorilla”) Days run, ordinarily, from January-March. This year’s Gasparilla Music Festival is slated for April 17. Hopefully for Tampa, it will be safe enough by then, for at least a limited celebration. The Music Festival began in 2011. Here is a video explaining Gasparilla, followed by a sampling from 2014’s Music Festival.

May the best team win!

Phil Heard Sweet Music

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Posted by on in Community, Education, Historical, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 2, 2021- In my mind, as Punxsutawney Phil, the random ground hog who comes out of his (her) hole, each February 2, to be greeted by a troupe of older men dressed in tuxedos and top hats, made this year’s prognostication, the shadow was seen. I also thought of Black History, which transcends the month that has been “granted” for its study.

The story of African-Americans is, of course, far greater and more consequential, than a twenty-eight day period can possibly encapsule. No one ethnic or continental element of our population can be contained by a period of time.

I also wish to devote several posts, henceforth, and at least three days a week, to cultural aspects of a given community. As Punxsutawney is relatively close to Pittsburgh, which has a vibrant Black community, I share the story of the Iron City’s Afro- American Music Institute.

One Spirit

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, Assistance, collaborating, Historical, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 30, 2021-

I have an independent mind, the expression of which has left several people around here, and elsewhere, who I fairly trusted, responding with “LOL”, or with sullen silence. The thing that I find funny is that several of them pride themselves on being people of faith. The belief that there is One God, Who created all life, is as central to their pronounced faith, as it is to mine.

So, it is incredulous to me that people can even distinguish between human beings, as to who deserves to live. It befuddles me, that there are at least two classes of people, and this distinction is a point of pride, a cornerstone of belief.

There is, by my reckoning, One Creator, One Spirit, One Universe, One Planet Earth and One Human Race. I have differences of opinion with many, AND that does not diminish their humanity-as far as I am concerned. For saying this, however, I have lost several friends, at least one extended family member and a few members of my own Faith, for not adhering to an orthodoxy that claims to be fighting for freedom-but is rooted in fear.

Let’s look at a few matters, more closely:

  1. Human Rights- I hear the First National Youth Poet Laureate say that the mind of a child is paramount. This same person also says that medical professionals should be allowed to put unborn children to death. What happens to the mind of a child who is not even allowed to be born? I hear some of the same people who espouse abortion, as a routine practice, voice opposition to the Death Penalty, even for the most heinous of murders.
  2. Nationalism- I see and hear people of various backgrounds, some with medical degrees and some with law degrees, saying that America should be a White, Christian nation-exclusively. What, exactly, is a White Nation? The continent of Europe, alone, is home to seventy different ethnicities. Jesus loved people of all the known nations of His time-and loves everyone, the world over, now. The first Christians, outside of a smattering of Jews in the Holy Land and a handful of Greeks, were Ethiopians, South Asians and Turkic people in Central Asia. The majority of Christians today are People of Colour.
  3. Wealth- Yesterday, a wealthy investor took to social media to furiously denounce those who have actively engaged in buying inexpensive stocks, offered by companies which produce goods and services in which they have a common interest. His basic point was that there was a move to destroy our economic system. That this participation will actually strengthen the nation’s economy, in the long run, is willfully ignored by those who favour keeping things as they historically have been. There is no club. There is no exclusive society that deserves preference over all other human beings. The very use of the prefix “non-“, with reference to people outside one’s own circle, is odious and needs to be discarded. The selectivity which is promoted by so many leaders of groups may be temporarily necessary, in terms of how each of us structures our time, our attention and our energy-but for it to be a permanent psychological, emotional and legal barrier to seeing the humanity in everyone and the sentience of all beings, is treacherous to those whose rights are debarred- and to one’s own humanity. The concept of any human being superior to the next, even by dint of the preponderance of one’s demonstrated character, is in the long run, an abomination. We are each here to grow, to learn and to become one. There is, in the entire Universe, one Creator and one Spirit animating all life. All distinction is a matter of mental construct. All prejudice and hatred are little more than byproducts of unfaced fear.

The Content of Their Character

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Posted by on in collaborating, Historical, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Striving

January 18, 2021-

In the decades recently passed, we have seen the most consistently proven of truths and facts dissected, disputed and set on equal footing with the most outlandish and refutable of falsehoods, all in the name of false equivalency and moral relativism. Very often, this is done in the name of preserving a social system which itself depends on hierarchy.

So it is, that the importance placed by Martin Luther King, Jr, in his 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C., on “the content of their character”, with respect to the judgment people make of one another, has become the speech’s second centerpiece, after “I have a dream…” As important as character is, it is not grounds for ignoring all other aspects of a person’s being. Character, indeed, can change-and hopefully for the better, with edification and growing awareness.

Thomas Jefferson’s hidebound, fear-laden writings, which denied the ability of enslaved African-Americans to produce intellectual works, such as Phillis Wheatley’s volume of poetry, could be said to betray a lack of character on his part. The flaw, however, and other parts of his character, would later be balanced, however, by his producing the Declaration of Independence, and contributions towards the United States Constitution.

Abraham Lincoln’s anger towards Native Americans, a product of his coming of age, in a contested area of the Midwest and his assessment that enslaved people were 3/5 of a free citizen, would be challenged by Frederick Douglass, and others, leading to the Emancipation Proclamation, and a pardoning of Sioux warriors-the latter largely ignored by military officers on the ground, in the High Plains.

Character matters, yet it must be, as Lincoln also said, affected by “the better angels of our nature”. A rogue can be edified, tamed and redirected to be a person of willing service. A charlatan can be, albeit through consistent retribution for misdeeds, made to regard others in an honest and loving light. The great figures of the Twentieth Century-Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mandela, Churchill, and King himself, all had roguish tendencies, in their early years, negative qualities that were, to a greater or lesser extent, subsumed or overcome, by a draw towards advancing the common good.

So it is that, when individually assessing another person, in the age of instant judgement and cynicism, looking towards that person’s better angels becomes imperative, both for the mutual good of the judge and adjudicated and for the common weal.