Description
There are moments at the Osun Festival when I feel like I’m witnessing something I already know.
Not because I grew up practicing Ifá, but because I grew up seeing Black people experience the presence of the spirit in church.
At Osun, I watch people become completely immersed in the moment. The drumming intensifies. The singing gets louder. Bodies begin to move differently. People shake, dance, respond to the spirit, and enter a state that feels bigger than the individual.
And I think about Sunday morning in a Black Baptist or Apostolic church.
The drums may be replaced by a choir. The Orisha may be replaced by the Holy Ghost. The prayers and theology are different. But the physical and emotional expression of encountering the divine can look remarkably familiar.
That has made me think differently about what survived the Middle Passage.
Africans were forced to leave their homes, but they did not leave their entire spiritual world behind. Rhythm, call-and-response, communal worship, dancing, possession, spiritual expression, and the idea of becoming overwhelmed by the presence of something greater than yourself all found ways to survive and evolve in the Americas.
So standing here at Osun, I don’t just see a difference between African traditional religion and Christianity.
I also see a connection.
I see Africa in some of the spiritual expressions that became deeply rooted in Black American religious life.
Different traditions. Different names. Different beliefs.
But perhaps not as disconnected as we’ve been taught to believe.
Sometimes you have to come back to Africa to recognize what was carried away.
#OsunOsogbo #YorubaCulture #AfricanDiaspora #BlackHistory #AfricanSpirituality