"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest." (Matthew 11:28, Message)
I learnt that discussions on morality are more about social sciences such as philosophy dealing with subjective viewpoints, rather than about science such as physics or chemistry dealing with objective principles.
Scientifically proven principles such as the law of gravity are universally true regardless of one’s beliefs because these entities exist, whereas God cannot be proven to exist, thus so-called “moral principles” such as whether something is right or wrong depend on one’s cultural or religious influences and cannot be used conclusively or rigidly to justify certain actions, such as abstaining from certain foods, in the name of God or religion.
The presenter also made a good point that ultimately, it boils down to whether an action leads to increased wellbeing – or reduced harm for that matter .
Also, values such as kindness and empathy do not directly correlate with religion or morality because a religious person can be unkind and even use the name of God to justify righteous anger and violence and harm against others, such as waging wars or killing other people in the name of morality attached to God or religion, whereas another person who doesn’t believe in God can be kind and empathetic.
As the Chinese idiom “adding feet to a snake” goes, by not adding feet to a drawing of a snake – or moral feet to life – we can focus on using the science of medicine or philosophy etc to increase wellbeing more directly and with more ease, as compared to highly moralistic approaches that tend to add rigidity and pathologies.
In summary, it is helpful to know that morality isn’t equated to the quality of a person because a person with a certain psychological disorder such as pedophilia that can be treated therapeutically isn’t necessarily an evil person.
Morality also isn’t equated with the quality of a behaviour because certain behaviours such as refusing to be vaccinated aren’t necessarily immoral because it is our human right to decide what to do with our body, which should be more appropriately treated in terms of a legal framework, such as not allowed to attend a mass event, rather than a moral framework.
Hence, morality is simply a form of communication that is often used to legitimise certain actions, whereas in actuality most people are spontaneously amoral and do not want to see other people tortured or suffering, unless they have been manipulated or indoctrinated by certain religious or political propaganda to do otherwise.
I learnt from the podcast that Elliot lives by self-help while Pete isn’t a fan of it, and Elliott quotes an example of advice by ChatGPT that says practising mindfulness or awareness and living in the present moment reduces stress and improves mental well-being, which both of them agree is a good advice.
I understand from Pete that his question or issue is why people may find it hard to practise that, and I learnt from Elliot that many scholars and psychologists like to interpret and diagnose human behaviours as if they are like text or scriptures to be analysed and interpreted.
Repeated behaviours may or may not necessarily be a symptom of something, whether be it taking a bath and forgetting to attend a psychoanalysis session in the case of Pete, or getting stuck in traffic and being delayed in the case of Elliott. I suppose everything is open to interpretations.
An example of the kind of self-help books that Pete likes to read is “Why do I do that?” by Joseph Burgo, which defines various defense mechanisms that people might use, because by looking at the hidden reason(s) behind those mechanisms, it can be kind of productive transformational.
The defense mechanism is neither positive nor negative in and of itself – it is a way of protecting ourselves and/or our ego from getting hurt again, so we can learn to live with our emotions by expressing them in a safe way rather than repressing them.
It can be helpful to talk to a therapist or someone who is trained in psychoanalysis because in order to see ourselves, we need to be reflected off somebody else, like how Pete shared about his dream last week and mentioned how he was bad at free association to his psychoanalyst.
It is also interesting to learn that positive affirmations such as saying “I am good at so-and-so” can only go so far as to change negative thoughts to positive thoughts because a deeper and more effective way is to deal with repression of some unpleasant childhood memories or trauma.
I learnt from Pete that an alternative to positive affirmations is to work through the emotions, such as being angry with our parents or some authority figures about some abusive things they might have said or done in the past, with an analyst and realise that the anger might have been misplaced on others along the way, and by recreating the past scene and working through these emotions, one can reconnect the affect or the emotions to the thoughts, and hopefully find freedom that way.
(I think that positive affirmations do help in a sense because we can change reality with our words, for “death and life are in the power of the tongue”. Hence, we can practise both the awareness of our unconscious together with making positive affirmations to ensure that our emotions maintain a connection with our thoughts.)
The main take-away point summed up by Pete at the end of the insightful podcast is that the best way to change is not about telling ourselves not to change but rather ask ourselves if the symptoms might be the solution to certain problems – or in Elliot’s words, the symptoms are actually angels helping us.
For example, I could relate to Elliot’s sharing about having experienced anger out of nowhere at some perceived injustice when he was driving and getting stuck in traffic or something like that because there were times when I was cycling on the road, I too have had similar encounters where I was triggered by the honks of some rude or impatient drivers and felt anger rising up, and as I worked through the emotions, I realised that there were times I was reminded of past memories of being bullied or talked down at by some authority figures in school or in the army during national service or at work dealing with certain people in the government agencies many years ago, for example.
On a similar note, I was inspired to write a blog to recount a road rage incident involving a truck driver and a cyclist back in 2019 (both of whom might have carried out displacement, i.e. taking anger from one place and putting it somewhere else):
“We are all complex psychological beings capable of repressing emotions to function with a certain level of temperance in society. But if we don’t process our hurts and pains in a safe space, our repressed anger and resentment can erupt when we least expect it. I believe this is what happened during that fateful road incident.”
Like Pete, I seek to approach the subject of psychoanalysis – which I still have much to learn about – from the perspective of grace and acceptance in order to understand better why people do certain things without judging them and see how I can make room for grace, usually by first making room for grace in myself as I work through my own issues.
Like Pete mentioned in the podcast regarding Don Miguel Ruiz’s “The four agreements”, in order not to take things personally if someone happens to say or do something that pisses us off, the first thing to do is to be gracious with ourselves for taking things personally and ask ourselves why and work through it, instead of prohibiting ourselves from taking things personally.
Incidentally, the same biblical notion shared by the apostle Paul came to my mind earlier, which Pete also said in the podcast about the Paulinian notion that when we try not to do something, the more we want to do it, as written in the book of Romans about the law which tells us to do something in order to become (aka “dos and don’ts” or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as opposed to the tree of life).
Truly, grace is the taking away of the prohibition and helping us to see ourselves and ask ourselves whether our assumptions are right, so that we can be more aware of the unconscious and how we navigate the world, and we will experience the liberation and transformation from the inside out, if I may put it that way.
Here’s a shout-out to the radical grace preaching by Joseph Prince in the 2000s who didn’t use the law to condemn or coerce people into doing something, such as loving people – in fact, “we love because He first loved us”.
Hence, the progressive christians are irrelevant to the world today as long as they do not understand or extend grace to anyone even if they try to be intellectual or use social justice such as LGBTQ-affirming etc to present themselves as liberals because their use of the law to condemn or shame people for not subscribing to their theology or church agenda is off-putting.
I believe the apostle Paul himself experienced grace and unconditional love firsthand and experienced inner transformation to the extent he preached grace radically – that “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ” (Romans 8:1), which is the foundation of the gospel or the good news of Christ.
“I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man; yet because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy. And the grace of our Lord overflowed to me, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
(1 Timothy 1:13-14)
Hence, any preacher today who condemns people and uses the threat of hell or God’s “punishment” to manipulate others through fear and shame is not preaching the good news of grace, no matter how progressive they call themselves.
I have listened to the inspiring podcast about “Animism is normative consciousness“, which resounds in my heart, as I too feel the world is alive in a way that we can connect and commune with, and that modern education in science and geography couldn’t explain or convey.
I learnt that animism is actually the default experience of the way things are, which the modern European colonialist mind cannot comprehend, and is a feeling so fundamental, familiar and foundational that we often wander like lost children in this postmodern world whenever we lose touch with that profound feeling.
The good news is that as we awaken to our connection with the animate and inanimate beings around us, Nature ceases to be a backdrop, where we find ourselves interacting with the world directly instead of through abstract ideas.
Such awakenings may come about when we hear the sound of a bell or drums or chants etc in tribal or indigenous rituals and ceremonies.
I also learnt that modern science mistakenly assumes that all things are nothing more than atoms, molecules and chemicals, aka dead in a way, and this ideological view is contrary to 99 percent of the human cultures and generations throughout history.
It is also interesting to know that the word “belief” isn’t found or isn’t necessary in indigenous cultures, as our ancestors in animistic cultures have always treated unseen forces as tangible reality, where they feel, know and experience Nature and treat the environment respectfully.
It is also encouraging to know that animism can still be found and experienced in our modern world today, such as in children’s cartoons, fairy tales, stories and folklore, such as “Alice in Wonderland”, as well as Irish traditions, where trees can talk, saucers have eyes, stones are alive, rivers have voices, etc.
In addition, we can learn from hunters and gatherers to perceive the world not as separate but as one and interconnected with us, in which we are not alone, and to live in the immediacy where we experience the aliveness of the present moment, where we recover and reconnect with our animistic vision, regardless of whether we live in the East or West, for we are inherently and truly animistic ourselves.
Animism is the normative consciousness for the majority of human history and across various cultures
98% of human history was characterized by animism
Animism was not a theory, philosophy, or idea; it was a felt experience lived in bones, blood, and everyday interactions
Postmodern culture often interprets animism through the lens of abstract belief systems rather than as a somatic experience
How to return to animistic experiences:
Moments of being lost in nature or encounters with unfamiliar environments
Temples, rituals, and stories also facilitate reconnection to animistic consciousness
Being in the natural world without modern distractions
The modern world is steeped in animism:
Children’s cartoons imbue non-human entities with eyes, voices, and consciousness (Hello Kitty)
Animate elements in technology ads and internet memes (cat videos, lolcats, cats that lure us in with their witty banter)
Anime characters with big, expressive eyes
Indie rock bands with animal-themed names ( Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, etc.)
Interest in fairy stories during the Enlightenment
The Oxford English Dictionary defines animism as attributing a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena
This definition reveals an inherent bias toward assuming these elements lack inherent life
The term “animism” is a modern construct
Modern science encountered animism everywhere, but they assumed animism was about people’s beliefs
The 99% who held animistic views were normative, and their perspective was inherent, unlike the modern Western worldview
The assumption that unseen forces are beliefs stems from a separation between humans and the natural world (product of abstract thought)
Nymphs transition from beings to ideas: as societies grow and interactions with nature diminish, nymphs become abstract concepts rather than living presences
Animism is about actual relationships, not mere beliefs or abstractions (Graham Harvey)
Loss of animate vision: written language, modern civilization, wars, and societal changes
We can restore animate vision by reshaping lives and communities to prioritize presence, relationality, and ritual reconnection
Intro
With an influx of new listeners, Josh Schrei (@the_emerald_podcast) revisits a classic episode titled “Animism is Normative Consciousness.” Originally recorded a couple of years ago, before using music as a storytelling tool within the podcast, Josh has now remixed the episode with new music
In this episode, Josh discusses the ancient animistic worldview that shaped human perception for over 10,000 generations—an understanding of a vibrant, interconnected world. He explores the transition from animate vision to abstraction, animism in contemporary culture, and the importance of restoring a vibrant connection to the world
Animism: Humanity’s Innate Connection to a Living World
Animism is the normative consciousness for the majority of human history and across various cultures
98% of human history was characterized by animism
The world was perceived as animate, imbued with life force, and inhabited by various forces
Animism was not a theory, philosophy, or idea; it was a felt experience lived in bones, blood, and everyday interactions
The transition to the era of dismantling the animate happened around 3000 BCE and lasted until around 500 years ago
It’s characterized by viewing the world as dead matter and coinciding with global destruction
Animism persists in human experience through various mediums like children’s cartoons, folklore, religion, and cultural practices
Animism is not limited to a specific geographic area; it is pervasive across cultures globally
Animism was so ingrained that there wasn’t a word for it until the 1800s; it was simply the natural way of experiencing the world
Postmodern culture often interprets animism through the lens of abstract belief systems rather than as a somatic experience
The animistic worldview emphasizes a direct, intimate, and alive connection between humans and the world around them
How to return to animistic experiences:
Moments of being lost in nature or encounters with unfamiliar environments
Temples, rituals, and stories also facilitate reconnection to animistic consciousness
Being in the natural world without modern distractions
Josh’s Personal Experiences, Animism in Contemporary Culture
Josh’s personal experiences and encounters with animism:
He grew up in a Zen Buddhist tradition (koans, stories, and chants)
A trip to India at age 13 exposed him to a cosmos teeming with gods, goddesses, and worship of natural elements
Studying Tibetan Buddhism introduced him to skies populated with dancing beings and darkness
Animism persists in monotheistic traditions:
Christian artwork depicts luminous beings with human bodies and bird wings
Hebraic traditions involve angelic forces
Islamic world features fiery spirits known as jinn, depicted in films like Aladdin
In Iceland, over 50% of people believe in elves, considered a part of their nation’s beliefs
The modern world is steeped in animism:
Children’s cartoons imbue non-human entities with eyes, voices, and consciousness (Hello Kitty)
Animate elements in technology ads and internet memes (cat videos, lolcats, cats that lure us in with their witty banter)
Anime characters with big, expressive eyes
Indie rock bands with animal-themed names ( Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, etc.)
Interest in fairy stories during the Enlightenment
Despite attempts to move away from animism, it continues to be present
Josh’s repeated question: “Why?” points to the inherent nature of animism
Animism is normative consciousness and is deeply ingrained in human perception and culture
Inherent Bias and Cultural Perspectives
The Oxford English Dictionary defines animism as attributing a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena
This definition reveals an inherent bias toward assuming these elements lack inherent life
The term “animism” is a modern construct and not used by animist cultures themselves; they lack a word for animism or religion
Edward Tyler introduced the anthropological construct of animism, who saw it as a mistake about the nature of the world
Animism is a mythic, poetic discourse that explains life and events in a different way than rationalist science
Modern science encountered animism everywhere, but they assumed animism was about people’s beliefs
The 99% who held animistic views were normative, and their perspective was inherent, unlike the modern Western worldview
The assumption that unseen forces are beliefs stems from a separation between humans and the natural world (product of abstract thought)
Indigenous cultures directly experience unseen forces, not as beliefs but as felt and heightened states of awareness
Animism is about experience, not abstract belief; it’s felt in interactions with nature, trance states, and heightened awareness
Animism is the direct experience of the world’s aliveness, from the humming waters to the convulsions of trance dancers
Tim Ingold highlights that hunter-gatherers see the world as a seamless continuum and don’t separate mind and nature
The abstraction of belief arises when one extracts themselves from the world of relationships into the realm of abstract principles
From Nymphs to Abstractions, Restoring Animate Vision
The shift from animate vision to an abstract worldview: the Greeks witnessed their nymphs turning to stone, marking the shift from an animated world to one reliant on abstract ideas
The journey to a local spring: a journey through nature to reach a spring, accompanied by a rhythmic walk and natural surroundings
The spring as a source of life: the spring provides water, food, and songs; a place of heightened perception and experiences, contributing to a state of animacy
Nymphs are beings representing the flow and life of the spring, existing in the confluence of individual consciousness and nature
Nymphs transition from beings to ideas: as societies grow and interactions with nature diminish, nymphs become abstract concepts rather than living presences
Animism is about actual relationships, not mere beliefs or abstractions (Graham Harvey)
Loss of animate vision: written language, modern civilization, wars, and societal changes led to the loss of animate vision and connection to the natural world
Restoring animate vision is essential for reconnecting with the world’s vitality
We can restore animate vision by reshaping lives and communities to prioritize presence, relationality, and ritual reconnection
If the world is seen as dead, there’s no motivation to save it.
I learnt from the podcast “Zazen as a religious act” by Zen Studies Podcast that since meditation is often viewed as a method to be employed to get results, such as settling our body down and engaging our mind and cultivating an open, non-dual state of mind, awakened to Reality, and so on, people may sometimes strive too hard to get the desired results through meditation.
On the other hand, Zazen is proposed not so much as a means to achieve something, whether peace or health or insights, but more as a religious act, our deepest response to the wonders and challenges of life.
Putting aside all the past baggage of the word “religion”, William James stated that “religion, whatever it is, is a man’s total reaction upon life”.
I understand Zazen to be an essential practice that is associated with mindfulness instead of conditioning in our response to life, where there is no grasping or pushing away from anything while we sit still and face Reality and perceive clearly in honesty and humility without judgment.
Like the speaker said, Zazen is an enactment of love, wonder and curiosity, and the realisation may not always be in the form of conscious awakening as it can be more profound, which is the transcendental quality of Zazen.
I also learnt that Zen doesn’t recognise any authority outside of our true self, and Zazen is about adopting the attitude of discovering the life within the self that is connecting to all things.
As a total response to life, practising and embodying Zazen in the uniqueness of ourselves may be different for different people in different situations.
For some, it may be in the form of righteous anger in a natural response to witnessing injustice; for some others, it may be a sincere response to the sufferings of loved ones; and for others, it may inspire them to appreciate their own practice more and prioritise sitting in their own life, or it can be our sincere response to the mysteries, challenges and wonders of life itself.
This insightful podcast by Rob Bell is about the feeling that came up to each of us when we find ourselves dealing with certain kinds of people or situations that we came across before in the past, which might almost feel like a lesson that kept testing us from time to time.
Like he mentioned, it isn’t a shame spiral but rather a student spiral, from which we can learn something new or something deeper or more profound.
I learnt that the subtlety and nuance of the student spiral is such that we are no longer who we used to be and we are now at a higher level of our evolution, or the video game, which he used as an analogy.
It is helpful to reframe the oft-asked question “why am I dealing with this kind of person or situation again?” to the realisation that “it is part of being who I am, and I am me learning how to be me”.
For example, I learnt that years ago, Rob Bell used to pour all his energies into his ministry or mission in the endeavour to change the world and ended up exhausted and burnt out, and had to seek counselling, and this time round when the same kind of situation appeared on the horizon, he is now wiser and has the benefit of hindsight to see how he is no longer who he used to be, for life is like a curriculum from which we came here on earth to learn something, and he has learnt how to balance his energies better.
Similarly, you are far wiser and more resourceful when dealing with a person or situation that seems similar to that in the past, and though the same feeling of “this again?” may pop up, perhaps it is all part of being who you are, and learning to deal with them more effectively, using the next level of wisdom and hindsight that you now have.
It might very well also be that you could become a mentor to others who might face a similar challenge, just as Rob Bell is now using his past experience to share the lessons he learnt with others so that we all can also learn and be encouraged to know that we are not alone in facing difficulties in life.
Like he mentioned, if a character in all six seasons of a TV show could learn everything once and for all, it would screech to a halt, for reality isn’t made that way, as it is our very humanity that we don’t have to have it all together and we can relate to one another’s struggles better by going through certain things and encourage one another even as we share our human experiences as well.
I learnt from the video interview that families usually migrate to the US from African countries like Ethiopia to improve their lives or seek refuge from challenges such as war or lack of access to resources in their home countries, and the families tend to face difficulties acculturating in a completely new environment, especially the young children who are raised in a different culture, which the parents don’t know much about, leading to a cultural gap as well as communications gap, since many parents also tend to work long hours and hardly talk about their struggles and vulnerabilities openly.
It is thus understandable that the kids often grow up feeling alone and depressed and misunderstood as they have to learn on their own how to navigate the foreign cultures and form their own identity or reconcile their Ethiopian identity with Black American identity, without the opportunity to connect meaningfully with their parents, who are unaware of the need to check on their children’s emotional health or who tend to minimise their struggles, especially if the parents see mental health issues as a taboo in the community.
Like the interviewee, Hamrawit Tesfa, noted, there is a need to have more open conversations to acknowledge and address the mental health issues, such as stress coming from social media bombarding young adults with confusing messages and from peer pressure and competition as well as from the capitalistic society that glamorises popularity and materialism telling the masses to attach their identity to material possessions and status, and it is indeed never too late to talk about the pain and struggles the young adults go through, for acknowledging them can bring healing.
I also learnt that the community and religious institutions can help find ways to start these difficult conversations in order to bridge the gaps between parents and children, and the Ethiopian American family resource center also provides educational and other resources to help the families.
Among the interesting concepts that I am learning from Dr Bayo’s message is the Yoruba concept of crossroads, or Orita.
I understand that most of the things he is sharing came from the culture he comes from, so he is speaking as a subject of the middle (Atlantic) passage instead of an African, and has planted his feet on trickster’s grounds, situating himself in a crossroads – a place where things are so dense that we no longer have final claims to our identities, where our bodies are shimmering or glowing with other intersections, as the idea is that nothing is independent and still.
I also learnt that tricksters are archetypal truths that disturb boundaries or borders, and they invite us to think beyond identity, to lose our way to transform, to explore and experiment with concepts, for these matters, once categorically stable, are suddenly soft, tactile, tensile, and so the Anthropocene, riskily offered as a catch-all term for the disenchantments of industrialisation, is a useful way to talk about the limitations of progress.
Like he mentioned, the pandemic is a creature or symptom of the Anthropocene, disturbing our liberal humanist claims to static borders, fixed individuality and closed bodies, and the viruses all of a sudden become part of the human, so to speak.
I noted that in a sense, the Anthropocene is ironically the age of un/settlement as our very modern attempts to create settlements for the Anthropos project exacerbated the conditions of unsettlement – indeed, we are in the age of viruses, climate change, rising ocean levels, atmospheric volatility and insurgency of animals revolting against humans’ attempt to stamp their “authority” on the planet, and in order to find a home, we are becoming lost, such as exemplified in the example of the city of Melilla, which is owned by Spain but is located in the northwest part of Morocco – where this part of Africa is actually seen as European.
I learnt that the exclaves of Europe, such as Melilla, in Africa illustrates that every day, Black bodies try to access the city during the night via various migratory means and many end up injured or killed in the process, while the people living in Melilla are afraid of the Africans getting into their part of Africa and making it “unsafe”, which is ironic.
Hence, Melilla raises the question: What does it mean to be at home when home no longer recognises you?
Perhaps the ‘ultimate’ form of unsettlement is to be ejected from one’s mother’s womb, to be orphaned and denied recognition on the lands that gave birth to you – to become Black.
I also learnt about two stories of unsettlement that Dr Bayo wanted to share, which juxtapose the condition of becoming Black with the promise of becoming black – a blackness of two cadences, and how art, prophetic imaginations, curate this promise of transformation amid colonisation.
Like Moroccans, modernity is mounting an irredentist offensive to reclaim to itself the territories lost to the more-than-human; it wants to win.
As he noted, the problem of the Anthroponcene is: How do we measure the cost of reparations or restitution for the genocides, such as those in Namibia in 1904-1908 carried out by Germany, the cost of lives lost and intergenerational trauma, homelessness, loss of families and relationships in ancestry, mountains, stones, sacred, stolen lands, etc that has been incurred in the name of building the anthropocentric cities of white modernity?
He asked another good question – do climate justice and racial justice go far enough to address loss and trauma suffered by Black and Brown bodies and their environment?
The act of the Anthropocene pathologising unsettlement by putting band-aids on wounds demonstrates its lack of imagination, hence he wants to stretch it to do more, to account for loss, to notice archetypal longings and algorithms beyond the quest for survival at all costs, to acknowledge the political nature of “the human”, to move beyond human-centredness and guilt and navel-gazing analyses of complicity, to see ghosts.
Anthropocene as a trope of unsettlement might go far enough to speak about becoming Black, but it doesn’t know of the grace of unsettlement: becoming-black.
In spite of the UN declaration of human rights in 1948 to restore things and cover wounds with band-aids such as justice programs, Dr Bayo wants to question how much is trauma worth, and whether the justice programs feel adequate to the feelings of loss suffered by people, and whether unsettled bodies feel justified by the coverage of justice?
For example, the Anthropocene could tell him about being black, or a subject of a city, even though a reduced, minoritarian subject of the global order, but it doesn’t tell him about the grace and gifts of unsettlement, that being unsettled is to invite other ways of being in the world, just like to be sick sometimes can give you a vision of life that you could not have by being whole and healthy.
Hence, I learn that the invitation is to lean into these gifts and the treasures of being broken open, which the Anthropocene, or the present order of the nation states, does not know how to do, beyond trying to restore climate and lives using countable reductionistic value because the entrepreneur doesn’t trace the legacy of displacement and cannot account for the bodies lost in the Atlantic slavery or the bones buried with the modernity order.
On the other hand, the Afrocene is the story of becoming Black – as identity – and the promise of becoming black – as the unfurling of identity – the story of displacement of extraction, of capture of coloniality.
As he puts it, becoming black is the desirous, un-language-able, atrophisation/flowing of bodies beyond coherent units of identity.
Dr Bayo explained that Black studies examine the arrangement that creates identity boxes, and how we are faster than the arrangement and bigger and vaster territorially than identity.
Like he said, what you are is continually fugitive, escaping those little boxes that modernity tries to incarcerate you within. I appreciate that he explained this part, as I have been wondering about the metaphor of fugitivity that he often uses in his posts and articles.
To him, identity isn’t just a mark of presence in the world but also the absence, and in that sense, we aren’t human beings but rather human becomings because we are still becoming and unfurling.
I learnt that his thesis is called transraciality, which deals with the view from movement, bodies as processual exterior, and bodies as dance, and I think his analogy of the shifting murmurations of starlings is apt.
It is interesting to know that bodies are not static – they are ecstatic – now I know what ecstasy really means, when viewed in terms of movement and dance.
I also learnt that fugitivity is moving beyond the grammar of the plantation – beyond the duality of black and white skin colours – requiring an animism cosmo-vision that goes beyond justice and technologies of the modern public – and there is a story called Abayomi about the grace of unsettlement.
Abayomi is a reiteration of the stories that have been told about Exu, which have been borrowed from Afro-Brazilian, Europa, Atlantic spiritualities, to tell the story of how at the heart of coloniality is something throbbingly alive, that will not be captured, that art can only curate.
He heard a story during his visit to Brazil regarding rag dolls, in which a rag doll was once made by a slave woman on a slave ship to console her baby to sleep after praying to the god Exu for help.
The name Abayomi means “they tried to bury me, but they didn’t know I am a seed”, or in other words, “the enemy would have won, but God prevailed.”
It means that even in suffering, underneath the boots of colonial oppression, there is a strange kind of vitality that will not be snuffed out by the bullets, that is alive even in death.
His version of the story is that of Esu the god dancing with the slave throughout the slave ship journey.
The dancing of Exu in the midst of capture and suffering is the surprising grace of displacement, of un/settlement – queering the heart of containment and telling a subaltern speculative fabrication about bodies un/settled.
Even as the police officer’s knee was pressing on George Floyd’s neck, he cried out “mama”, illustrating the fact that he remained connected to his ancestors in the midst of oppression.
So, becoming Black is the speculated fabulation that bodies unsettled are not bodies denied or eradicated, but are invitations to meet ourselves in new ways that there is a hidden trickster indigenous emancipating decolonial spiritual art in being oppressed that might help us navigate the world in different ways.
In order to counteract the story of the Anthropocene, the only way we can meet trouble, climate change, pandemics etc is to try to solve them (through) what he coined Afrocene, which is the territory of falling apart.
The Afrocene is the idea that the insecurity of loss hides joy, and that art only happens in cracks.
Art is not possible where there is settlement. Art needs unsettlement to work. Art is the technology of settlement, the texture of cracks. Whenever there are openings in the world, that is where art thrives.
What we see as art in cities today is mostly furniture. To Dr Bayo, art is something that is alive, moving, instigatory, entrusted with the act of disturbing identity.
When a dance is happening, when performative arts are afoot, the dancer isn’t just dancing, but rather speaking beyond words about the ecstatic movements of the body – how the body cannot be contained and how we are always living in a teenage indeterminate-verse, where things are still figuring themselves out.
His question is: How does art help us stay in the trouble of unsettlement? How would art be an invitation to be disturbed and unsettled, and how is being disturbed part of potentially emancipating decolonial politics?
Our solutions can only go so far – restoration, restitution, justice – it’s all nice – we need these as well – he isn’t dismissing them, but he sees a need for them to be supplemented by something else because all the green technologies and Paris conferences etc in the world will not address the ontological weight of loss and trauma that is swimming around us and in which we have our being.
Something else is desired beyond solutions; something else wants to happen beyond proliferating new identities within the city that is the very bedrock of violence, which the Anthropocene is unable to know or provide.
We need something more than liberal humanist traditional subjectivity to address the ills of today.
We need to become animists – we need to become Black.
It’s not about taking on black skin or Black identity – it’s about noticing that we ourselves are not as well-put-together as we think, that our identities are fugitive.
Whiteness is the denial of fugitivity, turning away from the idea that we are becoming animal, along with ecology, ancestrality, archetypes, etc.
Whiteness wants to tame everything, so that he can mount an architecture of presence.
We (white, black, white and green bodies) are all caught up in whiteness together, but it’s not working for us anymore as it is a dysfunctional project.
The solutions – repair, seek justice, become good white allies – are not quite good enough; we need to fall apart and follow the threads of our becoming.
It’s about listening differently to the world around us, co-creating different artistic political imaginaries, with exquisite awareness of Nature.
Beyond a certain stage, we don’t need entertainment. When we learn to take pleasure in the present moment, Regardless of what we are doing, We don’t need to rely on fun and leisure to enjoy life.
Beyond a certain stage, we don’t need outward praise or approval. When we learn to delight in who we really are, Regardless of what we do or what others think about us, We don’t need to rely on status or popularity to be happy.
Beyond a certain stage, we don’t need outward rules and regulations. When we learn to take responsibility for our actions, Choosing to be guided from love within and to not harm ourselves or others, We don’t need to rely on laws and statutes to govern our lives.
Beyond a certain stage, we don’t need to toil for money or possessions. When we learn to be content in every circumstance, Trusting the Universe to provide all our needs whether we have little or plenty, We can choose to rest in the Lord and be blessed to be a blessing.
This stage is called maturity: From childhood to adulthood; From servanthood to sonship; From law-consciousness to grace-consciousness.
I learnt that Peter’s friend found the collapse of 911 twin towers to be symbolic of love and work in his life, which serves as a narrative that speaks truth, without confronting truth directly, which would otherwise be overwhelming or traumatising.
Similarly, tarots serve as a tool for us to find the other side through objects and images, and confront the truth that was repressed.
I learnt that the role of the tarot card reader is to facilitate the curiosity and conversations with others’ unconscious.
Like Elliott noted, some cards may or may not confirm anything, and if a good reading of a card does confirm something, then it is like we encounter our soul revealing to ourselves.
As Peter noted, that’s why we need rituals such as lighting the candles, for if the truth that sets us free is confronted without mediation, it may be too disturbing, hence we need a mediated form, whether it be tarots or religious rituals or art or analysis etc.
I also learnt that another of Peter’s friends, who was helped, eventually did well and years later went into the crypto world, and helped him understand that world.
Last but not least, I learnt that according to a philosopher, in order for humanity to know itself, it first has to put itself somewhere in the world, and it sees that externally, and then eventually it has to pull it back in.
For example, the notion of a religious god or a celebrity is a projection of humanity writ large, whereby we come to know ourselves as in a mirror.
It is interesting to see the synchronicity happening when Elliott’s friend Grace remarked that Peter looked like a magician on his Instagram profile, and then upon Peter’s visit, they happened to see his book “Divine Magician” on his book shelf.
I also tend to subscribe to the guideline of having two or more coincidences in order to consider something like divine synchronicity, like a verse says “By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every truth shall be established.”
The interview also got me thinking that maybe Jesus was also adept at psychoanalysing people.
For example, when the Pharisees brought a woman before him and accused her of adultery, maybe they were projecting their own guilt onto the woman, who became the scapegoat for their wrongdoings.
And Jesus defended the woman by telling them “he who is without sin throw the first stone”, and being convicted of their own guilt, they left the scene one by one.
It is also symbolic of how Jesus eventually became the ultimate scapegoat for the society as the Jews and Romans refused to deal with and reconcile their own differences and conflicts with one another, and yet they (symbolised by King Herod and Pontius Pilate) became “friends” temporarily on the day they joined forces to crucify Jesus.
Mr Iyengar considered yoga as uniting the body and the mind, and taking the body and mind together.
Yoga is a code of discipline, and instilling discipline in yoga practice of asanas, meditation, etc is a question of interpenetration rather than a question of threshold of pain, where we have the outer body, inner body and innermost body.
The yogis have divided the body into the five constituents: physical, physiological, psychological, intellectual and space bodies, as every cell in the body system has its own intelligence and memory.
As God inhabits various forms in universal existence in everything, yogis do many different asanas to enjoy the various shapes of the body.
When he is doing yoga, he doesn’t do it as a physical yoga, but rather experience an opening in the inner body, whereby he practises awareness (horizontal expansion of intelligence) and attention (vertical growth of intelligence), which are interconnected to each other.
Pranayama may affect the mind because many of the people take the ratio of 1 to 4, so if one takes an inhalation for 6 seconds, they have to hold two times – 12 seconds of inhalation and 24 seconds of exhalation.
In yoga, soma and psyche are one, and both go together, hence psychosomatic scientists use Patanjali’s teachings since a long time ago.
The skeletal body is in contact with the circulatory system, which is in contact with the nervous system, which is connected to the indirect unconscious mind.
Hence, many of his students are relieved from anxiety, depression and stress through doing the poses in yoga practice.
Mr Iyengar wanted others to benefit from yoga just as he himself has benefited through personal practice, and it is encouraging to see his legacy of yoga training and its holistic benefits being continued through yoga teachers and practitioners today.
Real Rest is the Best 