us up and dusts us off over and over again, instills a sense, however faint,ofits companion humility, since it comes through no merit ofour own. 33But for these anchors of Sacred praxis to shake the archives ofsecularism,they would have to be removed from the category of false consciousnessso that they can be accorded the real meaning they make in the lives ofpractitioners.Taking the Sacred seriously would propel us to take the lives of primarilyworking-class women and men seriously, and it would move usaway from theorizing primarily from the point of marginalization. Inchapter 3 I argued against the analytic tendency of turning women'sindispensability in the labor market into narratives of victimhood, butthat formulation remained narrowly materialist. Since in spiritual workinheres the lived capacity to initiate and sustain communication betweenspiritual forces and human consciousness, to align the inner self, thebehavioral self and the invisible, we are confronting an engagement withthe embodied power of the Sacred, collectivized self-possession, if youwill. We can hardly think empowerment, then, premised as it is in thenotions ofneed, lack and scarce resources that have to be shored up by anexterior source, since it would mean conferring on "theorists" the powerto confer power, a power, quite simply, that we do not have. At the veryleast it should make us wary about theorizing from the point ofmarginalization,for even the most egregious signatures of new empire are not thesole organizing nexus of subjectivity, if we manage to stay alive, and evenin death there are commitments and choices about the when, how, andthe kind of provisions with which we return.Since the praxis of the Sacred involves the rewiring of the senses, thepraxis for secular feminism would involve a rewiring ofits most inheritedconcepts ofhome and formulations of domesticity, for instance. Home ismultiply vale need, a space and place in which Time centers the movementofSacred energies; a place where those who walk with you-Orisha,LWa, Spirit-live and manifest (drop in) apparently impromptu, or whencalled to work. They are fed, celebrated, and honored there because theyreside there. It is one ofthe many places where they reside, whereas it maybe the only place that we reside. Home is a set ofpractices, as John Bergernotes, and at the heart of those practices are those that mark its conversioninto a spiritual workplace. 34328 CHAPTER 7Ofimmediate importance to feminism is the meaning ofembodimentand body praxis, and the positioning of the body as a source ofknowledgewithin terms differently modulated than the materiality ofthe bodyand its entanglement in the struggle against commodification, as it continuesto be summoned in the service of capital. But here again thatmaterialism has absented Spirit, and so the contemporaneous task of atheory of the flesh, with which I think Cherrie Moraga would agree, is totransmute this body and the pain of its dismemberment to a rememberingof the body to its existential purpose. 35 There are Sacred meansthrough which we come to be at home in the body that supercede itspositioning in materiality, in any of the violent discourses of appropriation,and in any of the formations within normative multiculturalism.That being at home in the body is one ofthe meanings of surrender, as ina handing over not a sacrificial giving up. Bodies continue to participatein the social but their raison d't!tre does not belong there, for ultimatelywe are not our bodies, and this contract cannot be settled cheaply. Sacredenergies would want us to relinquish the very categories constitutive ofthe material world, not in the requisite of a retreat but as a way to becomemore attuned to their ephemeral vagaries and the real limits of temporalityso as to return to them with a disciplined freedom capable ofrenovating the collective terms of our engagement.Kitsimba walks with me. She lives in springs, in water-that is, everywhere.She carves resistant rock. She lives in the roots ofwords: Simba, toto grow into the gentle vibrations of our names. Simbi, the Soul ofsomeone who holds the power ofmaking community. Simbi, teacher, theSoul of someone who holds the power oftouch. Simbi, healer, the Soul ofsomeone who holds the power ofwords ... Simba Simbi, hold onto whatholds you up.Yemaya holds the crown, having enabled the Crossing, Kitsimba's as wellas my own. She has assumed the task oftransforming what we most needto learn from the Crossing into what we most need to learn about our- .selves. <strong>Pedagogies</strong> ofthe Sacred are pedagogies of Crossing.PEDAGOGIES OF THE SACRED 329
Seven: Prayer Poem in Praise ofYemaya Achaba,Mediator of the CrossingWithout you I would not know lifeI would not beMyself/YourselfIn me/In youSin ttl no hay vidaMother / TeacherI learn how to caress from the cadence ofwavesSuppleGentleTumultuous EnvelopingIn the vastness ofOcean surrounded by your treasuresWhich passion alone could not coax you to revealInleWash me ... mother oflifeofwaterOne in the beginning when there was no beginningNo timeTake me to that underground home on top ofthe sandTo your mirror turquoise jade inlayKnown in the land ofgods to shatterIllusion, MayaPeligrosisimaTake meDesnudaWithout pretenseSin nadaRebirthed in the cadence ofwavesThe end ofyour name is illusionIn another tongueBut there are no other tonguesFor those who know your many namesAncient namesYou know you who love the ends ofthingsWho use them to sustain youSo that nothing may come to an endAsheIn the last cycle ofMoonWe come paying homageGifts ofSevenNo one mistakes your calm for weaknessWhen you tumble foamSpew turquoise rageNo room for calmIn those times it is not weakness for whichWe yearn but peaceThat truth which passion aloneCould not entice you to divulgeo Achaba, PeligrosisimaHaunting Sweet VerbenaWise oneHiding your age deep within the soft fold ofwavestranslucentamongst your treasures rest the captiveshuffled through the door ofno returnno longer imprisonedYou have restored their wingsBathe meGoddess ofSaltProtector ofthe salt eatersThe salt pickersHeal our woundsYou who rescued Lot's wifeTongue-tiedFrom the scourge ofgenerationsAs I approach you in the early dawnWind whispers its welcome to the melodyOf the salmon violet horn330 CHAPTER 7PEDAGOGIES OF THE SACRED 331
Change language