As I traverse existential questions of purpose, transcending capital(ism), micro world building synchronously & asynchronously with people & places, and ownership vs. stewardship. I am in deep reflection on the origin and composition of… everything. Myself, my family, my friends, our relationships, my faith, our governance structures, western society, ecosystems. This deep study is a part of a self-facilitated practicum on conjure. Cooking and gardening has been a part of my praxis for world-building, relationship tending, healing, and memory for twenty years, before I knew that was what I was doing. My study and my writing now turns its attention to how I and we can be who we chose to be in Orun* and transform our world into one hospitable for future spirits to come/return and fulfill their assignments.
Back to elements. I am mining the archive of my body, the land I’m currently residing on, and the recipes of Black women cooks from the 18th century to today. Below are some thoughts on the elements blood and water.
Blood is an archive.
A waterway that carries memories, mutations, skills, tempers, nutrients to & fro the organs in my body.
It is a transmitter, connecting me directly to my Ancestors by way of my Grandma’s fetal ovaries.
It may be thicker than water but it would cease to exist without it.
Warm
Rushing
Languid
Syrupy
Spry
Bright
Older than time
Universal
A highway providing passage to oxygen.
Could we re-member* ourselves by meditating on this force?
Could we re-member our world by asking questions of our source?
*Orun - Yoruba for the ‘spiritual realm’
*Re-member - From Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s work on utilizing creative imagination, Indigenous African languages, and collective cultural memory to restore/orient African people to themselves
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For those of us who come from generations of “just enough” or “barely there,” our inheritance is in our blood.
When we combine onions, celery, & green bell pepper, inducting our pan into one of the many Ancestral dishes that began with the Holy Trinity, we draw from that inheritance. Grandmothers and great-uncles instruct us on how to get the taste the way they like it and the way you need it.
For the inheritance they left is for more than pleasure. Encoded in their recipes for meals, medicine, and conjure are tools for transubstantiation. The things we eat or imbibe re-member us into our own Saviors. Jesus becomes our brother-Ancestor. Whether enslaved on a plantation or nominally free at some white person’s business/institution, we are creators of a new, blessed world in our kitchens. Our gardens. Our apothecaries. Our cemeteries.
As a descendant & Ancestor-in-training, I add my lived experience and wisdom to the inheritance. The roux of our collective blood memory thickens, enough to stretch on for many generations, long after the flesh from my bones is eaten away. My body carries epigenetic codes for arthritis. Rheumatoid and osteo. To move my body with more ease & less inflammation I have to consume less American gluten & dairy products. My recipes, even those from my Ancestors, reflect that. These modifications will serve my future generations well, until we have successfully excised “Ole Arthur” from our bloodline. While the affliction is not welcome, its origin story, relationship with numerous relatives, and the lessons its left with each person (for me, it’s when and where I must stand up for myself) must remain in the archive of our blood. It too is a valuable inheritance.
There is very little money to pass on. Struggling to make ends meet, soothe & nourish ourselves, all while being paid pennies often result in debts at the time of death. And still, my inheritance is vast. Acres of agricultural knowledge. The oldest & largest library in the world. So many interconnected languages that span eons and locales that linguists beg and attempt to steal access. The recipes themselves are spells. They are locked away for only the most worthy to embody. The only way they can be read is through the work of the hands.