Nsala Malongo everyone Its been a long time since I had time to write in my blog and I am a bit rusty so bare with me while I get my thoughts in order. I wanted to point out in our corpus of Palo Mayombe we have a philosophical view of the world and how we express it. In our art the formulas that we draw to change our daily living through Signs (patimpembas or firmas). In how we treat our environment and the world around us through Nsaras( work) and also Prayer (ntanda Mbonda) what my tongue says to acquire the change I need. Lately we have been having natural disasters in unnatural formations. I say this because the more we industrialize our world with technology the more we hurt our environment and the people around us. I have seen a few people in Palo speak of a Karmatic Law of Cause and Effect. But honestly I have a problem with this type of thinking due to the fact it is not part of Palo Mayombe and Bantu Philosophy. My elders believed in good deeds is the cause we strive for and the effect is you follow in that same trajectory. It is easy to see how one can confuse this with Karma. But karma does nothing to the murderer or the rapist who never gets caught and lives to an old age and dies of natural causes of health.
Where did Karma work then?
While cause and effect is you kill for pleasure or fun and you wind up walking the earth in death as an Ndundu(phantom( nkuyo) solitary soul (Nkita) wandering spirit in which as a palero and take you and make you work with the promise of going to the ancestors as a venerated soul( Bakulu) and you truly will never acquire that realm or position in death. Why? You never worked for it in life how would you think in death you are deserving of that?
The Cause of this effect what do you think it is?
Major issues with healing traditional religions that are being lost due to the slave trade and the beneficiaries of this cause that dates back to before 1492. We have to start healing the process of our ancestors and what we need to better our situation as Spiritual people in African based traditions. If we have communal understandings of our religiosity and culture then we should know what are goals are? What is the cause you want to create to affect the future? Be an advocate Black lives matter… Be that cause… Live that truth. Be a pillar to your community give to the poor. Be humble to yourself and to others and that cause will affect change in your being.
Instead of lighting candles to the nkisi to kill an enemy, Light a candle to heal the world and all that is around us. Be compassionate does not mean to be a sucker to have compassion is to show your humanity.
We do work to help people achieve a higher self its time to heal our world.
Sambia…… Tata Musitu Munanfinda.