Spirituality on the Banks of Torture

For a very long time I always equated 'spiritual as religious' and 'religous as spiritual.'

I thought they were one and the same.

I grew up in a Christian (Anglican) home. I'm baptized, confirmed, and did the whole Sunday School life.

As I got older (and more informed/educated about the role of the Church in the enslavement of my ancestors), I drifted away from organized religion.

Well to be honest, I really demonized organized religion (the institution of the Christian Church, and its anti-Black ideologies, to be clear).

I began to emancipate myself from mental slavery.

Or so I thought.

It really came to a head when I first visited the Cape Coast Castle in April 2019.

Standing in the dungeon for enslaved men, right under the church that was built deliberately for my ancestors to 'seek' salvation in the white prayers above, my angst/anger washed over me like the tide of the Atlantic.

I was done.

But something interesting happened in that very moment. Something that I've been trying to articulate for the past year.

Something that again, came to a head in February 2020 at the Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River Site.

Something that I'm still trying to articulate.

Is that something, spirituality?

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This was my first time visiting the site and I had no idea what to expect.

I thought it would be a quick stop on the way to Kumasi, take a few photos, bathroom break, and back on the bus.

I didn't realize this would be the morning that my life, one not bound by the years my physical body has existed in this world, would come full circle.

In this fleeting moment on the banks of a nearly dried river bed in Ghana, my mind, body, and soul - emphasis on soul - would be complete.

Almost complete.

After a fantastic and informative introduction to the site, our guide lead us on the very same path my ancestors walked for their baptism to years of phenotypic terrorism and generations of dehumanization.

He instructed that we now had the opportunity to wash ourselves (face and all) in the 'river' of last bath (pictured) followed by the river of 'return.'

I'll keep it real, the 'river' was the definition of infectious standing water. I looked in and thought, man, if I put any part of my body in it, I'm 100% getting sick. Not to mention I had a cut on my foot, so an infection was in quick order.

But something (spirituality? spirits?) swept my consciousness and said I must do it.

And after washing my face in the river of return, watching the gold flakes settle at the bottom of the current-less river, a calmness wrapped over decades of angst.

A (temporary) peace descended on my soul.

My spirit came full circle.

Almost.