By-Steinberg Henry PhD
At this time of year, Dominica is at its purest, its cultural expression most intense. I think too of the way people think, their speedy memory, that ability to articulate a story that descends into a joke, that tendency to philosophize, to innovate, whether with cloth, food, text, or sound. It is an amazing time to be home. One friend called me saying that she feels like eating something; the taste is on her tongue, in her buds, but she doesn’t know exactly what it is she wants to eat. Might have been her own sensibility. Truth is, I was feeling the same way: desirous of eating something and unable to identify it exactly. She told me it must be the codfish and fig with avocado memory. This habit (a positive one) of ingesting these foods and many more left a memory that emerged whenever October merged into November, when Libra gave way to Scorpio, when rain and sun got married behind churches! There’s another memory that I chanced upon about 10 or so years ago. It took off:
In 2006, Calypso King Karessa sang adamantly for the defense of Waitukubuli. : Let’s defend Waitukubuli,” he suggested, in streets, hamlets, villages, towns, in the city of Roseau, in island states of Carriacou (which has a calypso association), Bequia, Petite Martinique, Port-au-Prince, Castries, Bridgetown, Kingstown, St. Georges, Port-of-Spain, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Cayenne, Curacao, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, St. Barthes, the Saints, Marie Galante, Georgetown, Belmopan, Belize City, Plymouth, Basseterre, Pointe-a-Pitre, St. John’s, the US and British Virgin Islands, Nevis, Anguilla, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Kingston, San Juan, the amazing Dominican Republic, mysterious Haiti, classic Havana, Mexico City, all over the United States, Canada, all over Europe, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, in fact, all over Asia, Africa, Australia to the tip of Argentina. I am convinced those geo-warriors live in every city or state on earth.
They’re in Iceland, Greenland, Finland, Switzerland, Ireland, Swaziland, all the lands rumbling and silent. They can be found in London and Montreal, Jerusalem, Sweden, and Rome. One was recently discovered cruising the streets of Auschwitz!
Wherever we are in this third millennium, let’s make some Dominica, some Waitukubuli time. Our hearts rhythm together.
Our people are scattered in Lagos, Cairo, Addis Ababa, Thailand, Beijing, South Korea, Moscow, and the provinces of Canada. In August 2013, I wasn’t surprised to find Raymond Henderson studying in Belgrade, Serbia. The Sava and Danube rivers were his friends! The natives of my person, to cite the title of George Lamming’s fascinating book, are hidden in Northern France. We’ve been long in Paris. You may find us in Nairobi, Seychelles, Monrovia, Algiers, Zaire, and Ghana. A US/Dominican soldier was stranded temporarily in the forests of Somalia after being dropped from a helicopter and landing on the trunk of a fallen tree! Ouch! A few may be found in Baghdad.
We may chant down its politicians, hazard rage against its economics and fiscal policies, squeeze the breath out of its chambers of insularity, but we dare not deny its existence and beauty in our veins. When we excel, our physical constitution is Dominican in all its river madness and method. The base of our psyche is cool, steamy geothermal imploding into thankful street smartness, industry, creativity, patience, kindness, intelligence, and love—that stranger dwelling in the fissures of blood’s source. Ha-ha.
Who are we then, praying on ships, buses, trains, planes, trams, and cars on crisscrossing highways in major cities where men and women openly deny the existence of God? Who are we denying breath’s unselfish giving, who use the same breath to deny its sojourn in our speed living? We all must die. Let us die for our land too by defending the integrity of its being there, its placement at the center of the Caribbean, its abundant star overload overhead. No matter how far, no matter how rich you are, who is it who has entered your sacred river mind to prevent you from uttering in your fervent, gushing prayer, a few words on behalf of Dominica? Living spirit is boundless, sans frontières!
- Thing is (and I gather we’re becoming increasingly aware of it), a Dominican is spirit-loaded. Wherever we go, work, speak, or appear, we draw attention. Many of us know too well (and our Mothers knew this well) that some just do not like us and have sought to belittle us in myriad ways. We can always find a river.
- When we speak anywhere in the world, people listen. Is it the water? Are we too storm-tossed with the words in the wind? You see, we have too precipitous a land to dwell too long on the paradigms of others. It is not that we do not see beauty in those who have chastised us for centuries. We are emerging. We may enter the house by our backs; we may believe in things we don’t understand; hey, we may look naïve to you, but we assess. We have amazing powers of discernment!
- Well, wherever you are, take a few seconds to say Bless this amazing Creation on Earth. You are in Dominica, and Dominica is in you!
- Someone has discovered that just outside the mouth of the Roseau River has been identified as the center of the Caribbean. I’ve heard many things about this place with its 300 or more rivers, which can become 600 in an instant. I’ve heard about 70,000 people living in harmony with 9 live volcanoes; they who do the earthquake dance drawn from their Kalinago and African genetics. It so happens that thunder is special to us, whose sacred space in rock is clean, cool, flowing in the heart of the mountain. We percolate. Wherever we stop to reflect on the sacred in any place under the Sun, you can bet our Blessing is effective. Hey, the text is slipping out of context. I ask that this moment that you take to ask me who the hell I think I am is breath-laden, steeped in Sulphur, in an alchemy erupting now in us wherever we are. Am I suggesting that you have a responsibility in this world? Oh yes! Speak the language of the sacred river and you hear, see, and know. That puff of wind just arose. We smile too when we feel the drizzle at the major event. Your land is a precious essence beyond its negation!
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