Trusting Feelings With Ancestors For Navigating Contemporary Systems
I Know There Are No Coincidences, That Every Connection In My Awareness Is An Archive.
Ancestors tell me, nothing bad is going to happen to me, I just have to trust their guidance.
When I was little I use to tell myself bad things always happens to me. I never understood why these bad things were happening and I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. I spent a lot of time alone in my own world wondering about these things and talking to myself. As I became a teenager, life seemed to feel worse and I use to think I was cursed.
I knew I could feel and sense things that were difficult to put into words-I just didn’t know how to talk about it. How do you talk about your feeling side of life?
I was in court this morning, it’s interesting the Justice of Peace was referred to as “Your Worship”- she just happens to be an old white woman and the crown was a mid-thirties white man. I liked the older Black Woman who asked some questions in open court, she had a vibe I liked. She called into question how the court got hold of her work information when she only disclosed her private information to the crown. The crown suggested going into a private virtual room. When I was addressing the Justice about an interaction I had with the regional division police officer, she turned on her mic in open court to comment. The court didn’t seem to like that.
Ancestors records and documented complaints tells us white colonizers were in solidarity with keeping oppressive systems in place (Read more here ). This we know. But it also tells us, the ways Ancestors resisted. I’m not alive today because of assimilation into subordination. My Ancestors were brought to an almost complete slave society on a 5 to 10 year contract. Knowing slave management in Guyana, Berbice in the 1820’s, makes me feel different in my body. My body feels different as I internalize Guyana was an almost complete slave society where 90 percent of the population were enslaved Africans during this time. These numbers swim differently in me. The indentured contracts my Ancestors survived feels different too. The history of my life traceable with a legacy of survivorship.
I love how history reveals to us the legacy system that has now evolved to make itself seem invisible. I’m reading an article that uses the Fiscal records from the Fiscal of Berbice held in Colonial Office Series 116 at The National Archives, Kew, London referencing slave management in Berbice, British Guiana in 1820’s (Read here).
According to this article, the 1820’s Fiscal evolved out of the Dutch colony and the Dutch system was kept as part of the turn over and was the chief legal officer in the colony. The Fiscal under the Dutch history of the colony of Berbice was responsible for planters to follow The Rule on the Treatment of Servants and Slaves; treatise on the treatment of slaves instituted by the Dutch in 1772 to curb slave unrest. The British were obliged to keep the Dutch bureaucracy including the Fiscal under the terms of the British acquisitions of Berbice in 1803.
The Fiscal is a judiciary system we can use to ask questions and make connections with. How were the complaints of slaves “managed” and how did the crown respond to the complaints. How was money and the economy tied to this judiciary system. How was money and punishment enmeshed. These are financial legacy systems we can learn from. Records show the Fiscal was equal in function to the Lord Chancellor in Britain where slaves had access to justice in ways denied in the British West Indies.
As more questions arise, I ask my Ancestors to show me more about this connection. How has these legacy colonial systems evolve into the judiciary system we have today? I tell my Ancestors I’m looking for the conditions of the plantations and to show me what white colonizers were doing. The way the Justice and Crown responded in court this morning; I could feel the colonial legacy system beneath the surface made invisible with the feeling of big government. The feeling response in my body from the Justice helped me recognized and deeply internalize how the systems of today is the legacy of what Ancestors lived.
They are teaching me to relate with my feelings differently. Showing me the way my body can resurrect history with my feelings and questions and make new meaning for myself and my existence. I know there are no coincidences, that every connection in my awareness is an archive. As I engage with the history of legacy systems, it’s my body that reflects a vast multiverse of dimensions through feeling and sensing. I connect with my body and my heart and I move into the feelings in my body discovering the depth of each dimension. When I ask my Ancestors questions, it’s through this feeling and sensing process in the body that reflects dimensions within me to explore.
I ask them about that first contract they signed 180 years ago. I think about what happened after signing that contract and what generations experienced afterwards. I think about the estate conditions of indentured servants after slavery abolition in a “post” slavery colony. I tell my Ancestors the more I want to know about Guyana, the more questions I find inside myself. They’ve been encouraging me to keep wondering and telling me to keep walking this path slowly as the veil lifts.
Useful Information From This Article:
The Fiscal’s Records for Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo are contained with 24 large volumes kept at The National Archives in Kew, London