Resurrecting A Colorless Reef
A healthy reef swims in colors so bright that each creature becomes a vibrantly hued extension of its florid home. Each coral, each fish, each clam, each shark, each color necessary for maintaining this rainbow of life. The ocean basks in these pockets of beauty that color and deeply contrast her usual complexion of blues. She visits these rainbow homes for a dabble of blush and a sparkle of shadow.
Yet now, she is no longer greeted by homes teeming with creation. In its place, she is left angered by a human-enforced homogeneity, an imposed death of harmonious uniqueness, a loss of deference for difference. Without the rightful medley needed to craft home of a floating rainbow, color is drained from the worlds below the sea, leaving a grey and calloused graveyard drowning colorlessly below her depths.
The reef is the greatest metaphor for our world. This planet, our home has long thrived on diversity. For some time, the multiplicity of humans sufficed; showing us unique ways that we formulate love—love for community, love for self, love for earth. And these practices, cultures, traditions once fed the color and vibrancy of our world.
Yet, as we “globalize,” as we claim to make ourselves worldwide in scope, the earth slowly slips from worshipping hands, the diversity of our cultures sucked dry. Now, we are being left with loveless, grey cities calloused in sharp armors of buildings and cement roads that suffocate earth’s soil. We replace systems of love with structures of depraved lust.
A Simpler Example of Homogenous Harm: The Danger of Minimalist Design (and a personal pet peeve)
As we praise the innovations of globalization, it is also important to acknowledge its deleterious effects. In relatively recent history (600 years give or take), humans have cemented a way of living that centers around a common folklore about good and evil, right and wrong, blessing and sin. This folklore is often supported in the most popular religions—specifically those of the Abrahamic faith. In my thinking, these common stories limit human capacity to elementary binaries that ultimately fail to celebrate the complexity of our worlds and lives.
In its own right, these faiths were the heart of globalization for centuries. Indoctrinating people into structures, practices, stories that united them under dogma, discipline, and doctrine. To an extreme, the Protestant Work Ethic exemplifies the dogged and docile folklore that has come with these faiths.
Out of respect, I acknowledge that the power and influence of religion has helped many people find love in their lives. In truth, the rise of a globalized system is a testament to the power of religion and its ability to bring together masses of people. While modern faiths may still help us find love in self and community, modern practice has arguably lost its appreciation and devotion for honoring earth, which means that in some regards we’ve lost aspects of self and communal love.
So, what happens when we degrade regional perceptions of belief? Lose familial practices of faith? Disregard interpersonal interpretations of folklore? What happens when we all face one form of God? What happens when our diversity is singularized into one mass culture of worship?
Of course, spiritual diversity slips through the cracks of dogma. My Yoruba sister dressed in all white to go to Christian Church. My Haitian brother using the images of Catholic Saints to honor the eternal Loa. My Dominican friend with cross in hand and Orisha on lips. My Sufi lover reciting the poetic knowledge of the mystic. The variations of our culture, our place, our community, our art have a sneaky way of seeping through the strict similitude of the religions that have come to dominate our world, our consciousness.
And still, unfortunately, we are brought together by a globalized structure that shows us we must honor their dogma to survive. So, what happens when we all hold the same idea, the same goal, the same image of divinity? And what happens when those goals are in communion with destruction? In romance with domination?
This is why my works calls me to honor regional traditions, familial stories, and hyper-specific cultural practices that have been disrespected in the process of globalization. A diversity of stories and cultural traditions deserve to be remembered and revered. There is so much to be learned from the spiritual practices of people across the world because we all experience love differently. All these forms of love create a medley of vibrancy needed to sustain our world. I feel called to remember stories that can show us a world beyond capitalism, beyond domination, beyond constant pursuance.
It’s interesting because a friend of mine once told me he was from “the bush of Nigeria” before arriving to America at the age of 16. And one day, he began to quote a Disney TV show that he loved to watch as a kid. He was shocked that I didn’t know about it. I told him that I didn’t grow up with cable and somehow he, in “the bush of Nigeria,” had found a way to align to the American idea, the American culture, better than I. In truth, we are a storytelling animal. Primarily moved by the stories that shape us. The stories that we choose to believe. The stories that make up our folklore, that impact our actions.
In a course entitled “African Religions,” Harvard Professor Jacob Olupona shares a story with the class. He shares:
I interviewed a man that comes from several generations of medicine men. This man has been a medicine man his whole life. In our first interviews, he shows me the sacred robes past along to him and shares stories about his rites of passage. Several years later, I interview the same man who has now moved with his children to Lagos. He has converted to Christianity and is repenting for his sins. When I asked about what led him to convert, he said he watched films and learned about the power of Christianity. He regrets his former practices, and this is why he repents.
Ultimately, this man has denounced centuries of his bloodline and now spends the rest of his days repenting to a Christian God. And his actions were largely inspired by what? His actions were largely motivated by films that he had seen on a television. Films that glamorize modern religion while denouncing all else.
Again, we are a storytelling creature. And when our stories lose diversity, we lose knowledge, which brings me to my calling. As I explore the earth in this year, it is my hope that I can resurrect a colorless reef. It is my hope that I can hear the stories that are left willfully unheard. It is my hope that we can rejoice in the stories of love that bring us in union with divinity.
