Dia de los Muertos 2018

 Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) accompanies a radical transformation, here in the temperate regions, when summer transforms to winter.  The leaves which have absorbed so much sunlight during the summer, now turn every shade of yellow, orange, red, and brown and fall to the earth to nourish the soil.  The tree trunks left reflect the palos within the fundamento, showing us how the Earth is one great big Fundamento with every palo imaginable within her.  This year we chose to make our Day of the Dead offerings in a new Batey that we are building for our son, Hatuey.  The tree in the center is his tree, planted when he was one years old, over his placenta.  The stones of the Batey itself are from an older Batey that was in the forest.  Everything changes and shifts, and shape shifts in life.

The cemis, Opiel Guabiran and Guatauba Maquetaurie, are present, representing the Taino ancestors. Various batons and palos are present representing ancestors, as well as various other elements of the ancestors.  The petroglyphs visible are all Taino petroglyphs.  While we are honoring "Day" of the Dead, in reality everyday for us is the "day of the dead".  As Nganguleros, Taino, we see the Dead as being instrumental, essential and present in every day movements.

Our offering consists of all the vital elements, cooked and raw, that can be absorbed by the ancestors.  The aromas are of particular importance in this process.  Cooking the food allows the aromas to be carried upon the winds in all directions, calling the ancestors to approach.  Essential elements such as the sweet guayaba for the muertos is present year to year.  The sacred root of the Taino, Yuca, is always present, here cooked with name, jautia.  Bacalao and smoked fish from the oceans are present.  Maiz tostada, grown from our conucos here, and a cacao cake with chili peppers are also part of the offerings.  

The offering is varied, as we are making offerings to ancestors from many traditions.  We acknowledge the Indigenous ancestors of this region, the various ancestors whose bones are buried here.  We honor our Taino ancestors, our African ancestors, all our ancestors, known and unknown.  We honor those ancestors we knew in life, and those we never met.

From day to night, the energies shift, revealing faces that were not visible earlier during the day.  It is important to us that the ceremony continue throughout the two faces of life (light and dark), the whole circle of life.  The night blessed us with a clear sky of stars.

 In this time of extreme Earth Changes, we continue to affirm the continuance of our spiritual traditions, teaching our children that their ancestors and cultural/ spiritual traditions are the most precious, sacred aspect of life.  We bring out our Taino cemis, Opiel and Guatauba, to affirm the ancestors, to acknowledge the dead, to make the statement that we are the living, walking extension of our ancestors. We remind these semis of the stories of the Taino Casike Hatuey, the freedom fighter!

Conuco Progression Over A Year's Cycle and a 7 Year Evolution

Conucos are Living Entities!  

What to some may look like a pile of "dirt" is actually an intricate web of the living and "the dead".  Living components are of course the plant life, the fungi, microbes, worms, centipedes, slugs, snails, and many more, including the ground hog!  Other components of the Conuco's life are the Deer, Sheep, Goats, and multiple other mammals and birds who eat off the Conuco and contribute their manure to the Conuco.  The "dead" components are bone, blood, shell, stone, sand, gravel, silt, clay and any other non breathing or non photosynthesizing element.  Some we have consciously added, others were added as part of the soil and trees that we contributed to the Concuco.  

Here we look at a Conuco's progression over the time frame of a year.  

The above photo shows the freshly formed conuco last Fall (2014).  Top soil from below has been placed on top of branches and logs.  We consciously created a relatively flat area because we knew that there would be a Batey formed here.  Below is a photo from this past Fall (2015).  It shows the upper conuco with the soil settled and the lower conuco with the settled soil and a  border of stones (which will be discussed later in this article).  The form of the Batey can be seen taking shape, and this was the space we used for the Day of the Dead 2015.  The Batey has an elaborate bilongo in it, and the conucos have their bilongos as well.  

Reviewing once again the process of building the Conuco, we start with whatever dying, rotting trees we have.  Below is the pile of logs that will form the lower Conuco.  These logs are perfect due to the state of decay and their abundant fungi.  (Without fungi wood would never decay to soil and we would be perched on top of a huge pile of sticks rather than fertile soil).  Old cotton clothes are included as they will also decay to soil.  

The next step is to cover the logs with soil.  We use the topsoil from below this Conuco to cover it.  Clumps of grass and other plants are in it which decay and further enrich the soil.  This particular soil was very good because of the horse manure, as it had previously been a horse field.  

We had planted corn, sunflowers and peanuts on it last year, which were eaten by the deer, which assisted  in stabilizing and nourishing the soil. 

Last November we planted our garlic for our 2016 harvest and rye grain.  The purpose of the rye grain is to stabilize and nourish the lower half of the Conuco, preventing erosion, decreasing evaporation and feeding the microbes.  The purpose of the garlic is to eat.  The garlic is not a plant that the deer like, although we do expect the deer to mow the rye at some point.  Our garlic has been one of our most successful crops and has enable us to not buy any garlic for 7 years.  We are selecting a hard neck, soft neck and elephant garlic over the years that will be perfectly suited to our ecology here.

The blue stones are not just the edge of the Batey.  They are local stones that we acquired from a local construction project at least 8 years ago.  We placed them on the edge of the Conuco for a number of reasons.  They define the edge of the Conuco and Batey.  They reduce erosion of the Conuco.  They provide a seat when someone needs to sit down.  They also are facing east where they absorb the early morning sun, warming up the soil more quickly than it would otherwise warm.  This is especially good for winter and early spring crops that can benefit from that extra warmth.  Each stone is a Spirit that also brings an important presence to the Batey and Conuco.  

Above, by mid winter the garlic are pushing their green shoots through the straw mulch.  They obviously love their Conuco home and have an almost 100% success rate.  We also included some shallots and perennial onions.  

Other Conucos were utilized to grow hundreds of bare root native shrubs and trees.  We have 25-50 of each: Winterberry Ilex verticillata, Sweetbay Magnolia Magnolia virginiana, Virginia Sweetshrub Calycanthus floridus, White Pine Pinus strobus, Witchhazel Hammamelis virginiana, Southern Arrowwood Viburnum dendatum, Canadian Serviceberry Amelanchier canadensis, Black chokeberry Photinia melancarpa, Red Osier Dogwood Cornus sericea, Common Ninebark Physocarpus opulifolius, Red Bud Cercis canadensis, Siberian Crabapple Malus baccata (Not native to our area but has naturalized), Common Persimmon Diospyros virginiana.  

The Conucos have worked well for the bareroot plants not only because the fertile loose soil (above) allows easy root growth but also because it is easy to remove the bare roots and transplant them.    Each variety has a very different growth rate. The most vigorous are the Redbud trees (below) which must be transplanted after the first season.  They are very beautiful trees with bright pink-lavender blooms later in spring and heart shaped leaves.  They also "fix nitrogen," take nitrogen gas from the air and ground it in the soil thereby increasing soil fertility.

We are using some of these many trees and shrubs to create a new hedgerow which will extend along a fence that separates our fenced in Conucos (deer proof Conucos!) from the driveway.  The hedgerow will feed multiple birds, as well as the ducks, guinea hens and chickens who will eventually be allowed to clean up any fallen fruit or stray bugs below it.  It will provide bee food, increasing the pollination rate of our Conuco crops.  It will separate the vehicle exhaust from our growing area.  It will be a windbreak to protect the Conucos.  It will also provide beauty, increase biodiversity and provide wildlife habitat.  The Sweetbay Magnolia is evergreen and has beautiful, fragrant white summer flowers.  These trees and shrubs will also provide spiritual baths!

While the hedgerow looks insignificant now, within a year or two it will become apparent and in about 5 years it will be unrecognizable!  Based on our experience, it is amazing how quickly bareroot trees grow.  

Looking back to the original Conucos that we formed here, we can see the evolution that has taken place.  This evolution has been a direct effect of the multiple Ceremonies and the multiple offerings to Mother Earth. Vital inside of this evolution has been our willingness to take Action and listen carefully to the Spirit.  It has been through the sacrifice of sweat and effort and many, many hours of labor and observation.  We have learned equally from those things that grew wonderfully, exceeding our expectations, and those things that shattered our expectations!  Weeds turned into allies, and the plants themselves spoke to us about the importance of selection and choice.  

The original Concuos.

There is a Bantu proverb as brought forth by the late great Dr. Fu-Kiau Bunseki:

"Wampana nsengo, kunkambi kwe ngatu bwe isadila yo ko"

He translates this to mean: "If you give me a hoe don't tell me where or how I should use it.  Don't stifle my field of activities and my normal development by pretended assistance."

(Fu-Kiau, K. K. Bunseki. African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo:  Principles of Life & Living, New York, Athelia Henrietta Press, 2001. p. 103.)

We began forming smaller rounded Conucos, and utilizing Mexican river stones to energize them, giving them offerings and so on.  As time passed, following the voice of the Misterios, these Conucos evolved to long, snake like Conucos which we placed "on contour" to harvest rainwater, to increase our water table, and stabilize our water spring further down the hill.  Within our Ceremonies, we continually invoked to the Spirits that we needed solutions for Earth Changes, that we wanted to enrich and vitalize our relationship with Mother Earth.  We invoked that our roles of care taking this land here would be enhanced, strengthened and vitalized.  We consciously connected our Ceremonies with the global crisis of Earth Changes in particular, and the multiple historical crises of our people, as well as the global crisis of injustice.  The essence of Ceremony is progression.  Progression must be palpable- something that manifests in a physical way, that reflects evolution of the Community- both Human and our wider Life Community! 

There is so much taboo and also fantasy present in too many of today's so called ceremonies.  On the one hand a rigidity towards, and hoarding and manipulation of, traditional wisdom.  On the other hand, there is fantastical inventos created for emotional stimulation rather than spiritual progression.  The quote above is a beautiful teaching that allows the Ancestral creation of a "Hoe" to dance with an individual. The "Hoe" is a magical Ancestral tool that revolutionized the lives of entire peoples and birthed cereal agricultural.  It is a quote that acknowledges the sacred relationship of a person to their Spirit and to their Spiritual inheritance.  We need to remember that "hoes" were placed in the graves with Bantu people because of their importance!  Here we consecrate our hoes because of their Ancestral importance specifically in the Kongo Traditions!  We had a hoe present at our "Day of the Dead" because of its importance.  

A ceremonially consecrated Hoe with a ceremonially empowered Conuco and a Tata or Yayi Nkisi are the ingredients that will surely lead to spiritual progression!

WATER IS LIFE!

Water is the Spirit that allows Life to flow in the forms and rhythms that we know it in this Physical-Spiritual Reality!  This is a reality that Indigenous Peoples throughout the globe have always understood, and known, without a shadow of a doubt.  Of course our lives are lived in the incredible and beautiful balance of Water, Fire, Earth and Air, to simplify the elements of life.  We experience relative heat, cold, dry and wet in our lives.  All life upon the Earth requires the balance of these elements, some adapting to more cold, more heat, more moist or more dry conditions.  A wondrous array of spirits manifest in the desert adapting to its harsh heat and arid conditions, a similarly wondrous array of spirits manifest in the jungles, and in the temperate forests, and in the arctic tundras!  However all this exists within a delicate balance inside of a small window of temperature and within the amazing and spiritual water cycle that blesses the Earth.

Life evolved from the water environments upon the Earth and our personal journey to come into this experience is through the waters of our Mother's Womb!  Our Taino Ancestors (along with the multitude of Indigenous Ancestors of the Earth) understood the Sacredness of the Waters.  The World of the Dead's entry is understood to be through bodies of water such as Lakes and Lagoons.  Our practices involve many ceremonies with the waters.  Our Ancestors of the Caribbean, in particular had intense relationships with the Sea around them (Caribbean Sea) as the Sea was as vital as the land, and they were able to find great sustenance in the Ocean.  In particular the Taino fishing practices continued very much intact into modern times, as I have memories of fishing with relatives using Taino methods, including using lanterns at night to attract the fish, nets, and harpoons.  At that time the Ocean was still full of abundance.  This changed due to the industrialization of the islands, which has devastated the fish.

Indigenous understanding does NOT reduce Spirits, Cemis or Mpungos to "things".  We understand that all natural elements and forms have Spirit!  Not only do all the plants, animals and stones have Spirit, but there are even greater spiritual entities upon whom these spirits (including ourselves) rely.  These are spirits of the Waters, of the Sun, of the Storm, of the Fire, of the Air and so on.  Our Ancestors (and we continue today) had names for all these Spirits and did not feel the need to rank them, belittle them or dilute them.  Of course based on the immediate environment of the People one Spirit might take precedence.  For example in the Caribbean the Spirit of the Hurricane is very powerful, whereas in a place that does not get hurricanes this would not be so.  Again for people dwelling right next to the Ocean, the Ocean becomes principle, whereas mountain Tainos would have more intense relationships with the Mountains, Rivers and Waterfalls.  All this is common sense.

It is hard for those whose mind has become calcified within the modern rigidity and arrogance of classifying and ranking, dissecting and reducing everything to a periodic table of elements and the number of electrons, neutrons and protons everything has.   Unfortunately this stunted way of thinking has impacted our communities, with ongoing devastating results.  Sadly those who are awakening inside of their Indigenous Identity today have to turn to the internet because of lack of connection to the Earth and Elders. Here they have a great deal of ignorance and misinformation to overcome in their search for the tools to embrace that Identity. 

Our Taino people in particular have a lot of obstacles to overcome with regards our Indigenous Identity, but more particularly, our Indigenous Practices.  There are those misguided folks out there who are so insecure in their identity that they attempt to build an identity by shear might.  Professing to authorities on everything Taino, in truth the know little about anything. Meaning, rather than truly following and seeking out the Spirits, they invent so called ceremonies that are a mishmash of other Indigenous People's traditions and christianity with a large dose of pop psychology mixed in.   To truly embrace our identity we must strive to reconnect with our Ancestor's mindset regarding the Earth, the World!  Modern psychological ideas are not necessarily relevant in a traditional Indigenous world view.  

In our current moment in time, suffering as we are the culmination of 500 and more years of colonization, oppression and the utter devastation of our Natural Environment, we must look honestly and with courage at the path ahead of us.  The cry around the Earth at this time is to protect our waters, which in turn protects our water cycle, our health, our existence!  The poisoning of the soils leaches into our waters, the poisoning of our air leaches into our waters.  This poisoning is being fueled by a thirst for energy via the thirst for fossil fuels that enables men to become "supermen" via the machinery that allows the illusion of domination of the earth by "supermen" to occur.  This poisoning is being manifested through FIRE, out of control FIRE, that consumes and consumes and is never satiated.  This manifests in our bodies in the form of disease, stress, anxiety, skin disorders, and more.  The fire element is out of control because of the attempt to use it to dominate the Earth, Air, and Waters.  

This out of control fire element gives rise to the highly aggressive and competitive behavior that marks every aspect of western society, and we Tainos are not just the victims of it but have in some cases become the victimizers.  This competitiveness is easily seen on the internet as one individual attempts to surpass the next in  what they frame as "Taino wisdom and knowledge" but what is in actuality made up fantasies, nothing more! 

It is essential at this point to give some examples as a way to illustrate the distance between modern self ascribed "ceremonies and traditions" and our Ancestral Traditions.  The first example is regarding ceremonies connected to Astronomical Occurrences.  We know that our Taino Bateys were oriented in particular with regards Summer and Winter Solstices.  For the gardener and horticulturalists it is very obvious as to why these moments are important within the cycle of the year as many plant's growth is dominated by day length as well as moisture and heat.  Our Ancestors (who did not have smartphones and computers) needed to know when the days would increase and decrease in length.  These moments also mark the cycle of the Sunrise- Sunset and the journey of the Sun along the horizon.  There were practical reasons this knowledge was important, and our Ancestors understood and honored the Spiritual intelligence behind and within these rhythms.  A solstice ceremony was not about pop psychology because you must understand that our Ancestors were living in a cleaner, healthier environment and were interrelating with that environment as a living entity.  They were mentally and psychologically balanced in ways that we cannot fathom today.  

Similarly ceremonies done with various animals were connected to the relationship of those animals to the people.  Those ceremonies could be hunting ceremonies, or migration ceremonies which were timed and in tune with the natural migrations of birds and fish, or timed with the best season for hunting any given animal.  These would be done in the appropriate environment and with the appropriate legitimate materials not caricatures.  These were also fueled by the practical needs of the people.  They were doing these ceremonies because they needed to eat! The Ceremony had a direct connection to its result which would be the abundance of "harvest"!  These were not theatrical events, or psychological encounters, they were practical, realistic and grounded ceremonies that had visible results!  

Today the reality of Earth Changes  (Climate Change) is upon us.  The Earth is overheated due to the out of control fires upon her.  This is manifesting as increased forest fires, increased drought, more highly energized storms, tornados, hurricanes and cyclones who dump more water in shorter amounts of time leading to flooding and the erosion of soil, damaging of crops, destruction of homes and so on.  As the Fire element continues to be abused, the Earth responds with greater extremes in the water cycle.  All present data and future predictions as to the changes that climate change is bringing point to dramatic and devastating changes in our water cycle.  

It is our heartfelt recommendation to our Taino people that we focus on what is real and inevitable rather than on fantasies, ego trips, and psychological insecurities.  The greatest insecurity we face is our food, water and air, because too much fire has been burning.  Some of the most important ceremonies we must be doing are the water ceremonies and those ceremonies cannot exclude the personal relationship we have with water in our lives!  I encourage my Sisters and Brothers and all Relatives to seek out the Waters, give them offerings, cleanse yourself in the waters and ask the Spirit of the Waters to bring you to your senses and to bring true solutions to the critical challenges that lie ahead and that are already upon us all!