“Black” and “Blackness” Personified
“In the SonghoySenni language the concept of "black" (bibi) or "blackness" (borobibi or kuurubibi) identifies the color and refers to people of African descent as well.” (1) In addition to those characteristics listed in UC#773, we add quality, durability and lasting color. Black and blackness will always be and because of the range of inherent nature, black and blackness will exist far greater in unobscured glory than not, and despite the overcasting cloudiness of misery, this resilient brilliance has always been plain to see. For these reasons and more, it is natural to fear and envy blackness from a lower-self dominated mindset. Likewise then, on the other side it is natural to love blackness where both free will and the higher-self abide.How We Came Into Being Again
“In the continuous cycle of Afrikan life, a human being is acknowledged as having come from the spirit world (the Ancestors and the source of life and being.) Spiritual reality manifests as human beingness. Thus, the Afrikan human being (Muntu) comes with a consciousness (Kra,). His or her destiny (Nkrabea) is carried within the Kra and contains a mission, a message, and intelligence. We who are Afrikan have chosen to be so. To choose to be Afrikan is to choose to fight for Afrika, otherwise, why come back? We believe each of us is an Ancestor returned. Rebirth into Afrikanness is, then, both a privilege and a duty. We achieve continued connection to the Afrikan family and we become part of the race army. As Afrikans, we have serious work to do. Being Afrikan is not meant to be easy. The cycle is maintained through the progression of developmental stages. These stages represent ever-increasing levels and degrees of responsibility, participation and maturity; moving from birth through childhood, adulthood and eldership. Movement from one stage to the next is a “transition.” Understood symbolically, one “dies” from one stage and is “reborn” into the next. Birth, death, and rebirth form a cycle of growth in human beingness, in cultural beingness, and commitment. Life begins at the source of being, energy, power and reality, and returns to the source, to be reformed into new life, or, the alternative which would be ultimate disgrace, pain and failure; that is, to become totally disconnected from the cycle: spiritual and cultural “death.” At each stage of our development as Afrikans, we become more knowledgeable. We become “bigger” as we become more spiritually powerful. Perhaps the most important transition that we will make is that between being an elder and becoming an Ancestor. The physical “death” of an Afrikan elder is not the end of the life of a Muntu, an Afrikan human being. If handled properly, it is the beginning of a transition to the next stage in human beingness. Our “Muntuness” takes on another more mature, spiritually and culturally powerful form. Physical death for the Afrikan is not the end of human conscious existence. We still are able to act with will and intent and to influence the physically alive world nation of Afrikan people. All cultural growth is focused on the achievement of becoming an Ancestor, who is capable of guiding, protecting and nurturing the Afrikan/Black race. This achievement is of extreme political importance. It is the warrior Ancestors who tell us where to go and what to do as a people. The Ancestors are in front of us, so if we are culturally and racially connected, they will lead us” (2)Since Before The Beginning Began
(Along the way, we thought to ourselves, “we would have fought for the right to be where we wanted to be.” The echo replied, “you will fight enough once you get there.”)
This we knew, but never in what ways and to what extent. This uncertainty became part of the challenge within the challenge- fear surrounding the obstacle and the opportunity.
Then we reached our destiny locations where we came forth from black heaven waters above and descended the spiral ladder through black heaven waters of African women. Clearly, some who had been here before, chose not to return to this stage where free will had the greatest effect, applauding and heckling the loudest. As we looked around, clearly most of us did come back, along with some newcomers, for the encore. We chose human beingness and the tumblers turned. We then chose African Blackness to clothe our form to mirror the inner essence. The tumblers slid round again. As we stepped onstage under the sky of Nut, Ra Is Eternal kissed us non-stop until our Blackness was perfect. Then Moon came forward and pulled water from below to moisturize us as we slept during the evening of another first day on Earth. Ra-Moon, skin, melanin and origin have held communion ever since. In them begins our strengthening.
This is the same ritual each time to remind us, conditions and potentials have changed but everything else remains dynamically the same, including the dualities of life – the joys and pains. We began as before seeking knowledge of self in relation to all else and locks opened into smaller and larger expanding and contracting spaces. We flourished and, as always, extended the time until the living got so easy, the need incentive to get even better, demanded our decline. As always, we were more prepared to endure the passage through valleys, deserts and pits of lower-self behaviors. Even though it might not seem like it, we are like the Seeds: Atum-Nu-Khepera-Heru. We, the multidimensional Ancestors are continuously and simultaneously, persistently, then patiently, reformulating. For this purpose we were born into human beingness as Africans. None of us would have been allowed to come if we were not capable of completing our purposes and destinies. We would have been overruled. We are right here right now for these very times and conditions with the Creator's blessing and greater faith in us to complete our mission. And so now, with understandings of who we are re-nu-ed all the way back to clear back waters, we turn around, now fully unbound yet fully wound and awakened to what we must do.
We must use spiritual and physical Divine Natural Advantages of Higher-self and African-self to keep coming forth by day and by night through understandings of blackness into more understandings of light, despite the all-out efforts of darkness. A lesser opponent would not be worth the fight. This excites our human beingness, our spirit and our melanin. With our free will, this trinity can rise even higher to the occasion and make manifest their fullest expression. We have overcome darkness before many times. The same creative processes will again take the Destroyer down from lowdown. Salvation cannot be completed until lower-self is defeated. And because we the Ancestral Seeds of the Universe need salvation in order to keep living through Creation after Creation, we choose the Spirit of Blackness and the form of African Blackness as our first weapons of choice as we fight for our eternal lives.
(1) Maiga, Hassimi, Dr., “Conversational Songhoy [SonghoySenni] Language of Mali (West Africa),” New Orleans: Muhrem Books, 1996. (2) Ani, Marimba, Dr., ”A Praise Song for Dr Frances Cress Welsing Our Race Champion”, paraphrased.
