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In this episode we interview two of the founding members of The Wind & The Warrior, Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro and Nana Korantema.  In 2020, The Wind & The Warrior led a Sacred Waters Pilgrimage to connect Black and Native culture-bearers and advocacy leaders working to address the climate crisis for ritual and conversation. Throughout the pilgrimage, they made 7 stops along the Mississippi River. In each stop The Wind & The Warrior coordinated with local Native womxn to connect through ritual and conversation. Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro and Nana Korantema share with us how their journey allowed them to create bridges between Black and Native womxn and between humans and Mother Earth. 
 
This episode of Who Belongs? is part of a new series of podcasts focused on telling bridging stories. Throughout the series we’ll talk to leaders implementing bridging work and individuals who have experienced the bridging transformation. This project is led by OBI’s Blueprint for Belonging project (B4B), and hosted by program researcher Miriam Magaña Lopez. This project is funded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Inc.

Transcript

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
There are some things that you can just show up for, for certain fights, but for long term work and long term systems change. Relationships are really important, Taking the time to get to know one another. It's so critical.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Welcome to today's episode of a new sub series of the podcast Who Belongs. The Othering & Belonging Institute with financial support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation is developing a series of podcasts to capture examples of bridging to belonging.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
We want a world where everyone belongs. So how do we get there? The answer bridging. Throughout the series, we will talk to leaders implementing bridging work and individuals who have experienced a bridging transformation. My name is Miriam Magaña Lopez, and I will be hosting today's episode.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Today we will be speaking with Nana Korantema and Ife Afriye, two of the leaders of The Wind & The Warrior. The Wind & The Warrior are a collective that creates and guides programs for artists, activists, spiritualists, and healer practitioners to co-learn and integrate indigenous and ancestor traditions in healing and justice work.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
In June, 2020, The Wind & The Warrior, in partnership with the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy launched a Sacred Waters Pilgrimage. Leaders, culture bearers, and community members traveled to seven locations along the Mississippi River.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
The pilgrimage began at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. And six months later ended in Louisiana where the Mississippi run into the Gulf of Mexico. The purpose of the Sacred Waters Pilgrimage was to create intentional and time to cultivate and heal relationships between Black and Native peoples, and between humans and mother earth.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
In our conversation today, Nana Korantema and Ife Afriye, will share how strangers became family in the course of six months. Thank you so much for your time joining us in this conversation.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
In previous conversation with your sister Karma Mayet, it was identified that this journey is to bridge relationships. The first is to bridge the relationship between Black and Native peoples. And the second is to bridge the relationship between humans and mother earth. Can you talk more about this?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
The relationships between Black and Native Indigenous people is varied and nuanced and has been throughout history. There are moments in history and there are relationships between Black folks and various Native nations that have been reciprocal in nature, where folks worked together, fought alongside one another, where Native nations have embraced Black people who are escaping the system of enslavement and provided home and family and community.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
There have been moments in history where Native Indigenous folks have enslaved African people. There have been moments where Black people have hunted Native Americans. So there's a whole lot there, that's in our history that is in need of naming, and is in need of healing and repair.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so the part of the journey that was around healing relationships between Black and Native folks was to recognize the ways that we've been in one another's lives in different ways. And some of the ways they've been harmful, we've hurt one another.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so part of this journey was around naming that and healing those parts that need healing. We didn't have the expectation nor is it even possible to do one journey, and then everything is done, all the healing is done that is needed.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
But what it did do, is it for us, moving in this journey in this time, this moment in history, and within our generation, it allowed for us to recognize these histories, and to be able to engage in ceremonies with Native Indigenous folks that in and of themselves without using a whole lot of language and words, allows for us to really connect on levels where healing can begin to happen.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So that's what I would say, or maybe add or elaborate around that question. And then with healing the earth, I would say that, similarly humans and all humans, us as Black folks, as earth people, as people who live and practice in indigenous African traditions and spirituality.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
We recognize that across time and space, we've not been just in our relationship with earth and with the waters. And either directly or indirectly because of the systems of destruction that we're born into. We've helped to perpetuate the pollution of the waters and the airs.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And by being born into societies where we need certain things, and grow up in our families and communities to think that certain products are the things that we need in order to live. And the production of those products is harmful to the earth.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And there's just so much that could be said about this, but this was a way in this journey for us to also play a role and do our part and again, this moment in history and with our generation to make amends, to seek the wisdom of the waters, to seek the healing energies of the water and to invite the water, the trees and the land at each site to also bear witness. And be in community and ceremony with us as we're in community and ceremony with communities that we were meeting along the way.

Nana Korantema:
What's rising for me with both questions, both ideas is really self-love. And through that, I mean, it is through self-love that we are demonstrative intergenerationally, so that as we're moving through and doing this work, there are those who are watching us. My daughter's watching us. Ife Afriye daughter was present, as was my daughter, as were a lot of other daughters, daughters, daughters.

Nana Korantema:
And there has to be opportunity to mend, to dispel the myths, to begin the healing processes, to build upon the relations that have already been built upon, to really kind of help create our part of the road, if you will. Someone else brought forth stones, someone else positioned. Here we are adding our part, adding mortar and filling in some of the gaps.

Nana Korantema:
So all of that is really, especially now in these times that we're witnessing self-love in it's purist. We hear it coined as radical self-love, because it's so extreme from how we've been raised, much of what my sister spoke to is totally opposite of the movements that we were undertaking in.

Nana Korantema:
And our godmother, who's also one of our spiritual advisors shared with us, be mindful that you are healing in a year of death. And I don't think that really hit any of us until she said it. And all that's associated with us with that even being chosen once to do this work.

Nana Korantema:
And so by the same token, that's reflective with our relationship with the earth because we are all needed to help create and cultivate. We're all caretakers. We're all guards. We're all needed to cultivate the love and honor that the so lovingly unconditionally give to us.

Nana Korantema:
And now when it's being depleted, it's our right. It's our responsibility. It's our role as stewards to bring forth. And this has been an amazing opportunity to honor the water, and honor the water and community and learn so many amazing lessons from the water.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
It is great that you're working to bridge Native and Black women through this journey. From the way that you're describing the need to do this work, it appears that maybe the breaking dynamic between Black and Native women is the lack of reconciliation for ancestors and current individuals own actions towards one another. Can you talk more about this?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
I think partly it's correct in that there are ways that in our relationships, there has been injustice, as I mentioned before. And so there's healing for what we did to one another. There's some work that's needed and around healing.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And the part that's not included in that is the conditions that brought us together into this land mass, and that the conditions that led to our, put in oppositional relationship with one another.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So sometimes it is that people find themselves in a conflictual relationship, not so much because there's anything between them that is a conflict, but it's the condition that forces people into a kind of false competition, elevation of the value of one life over another that forces one group to cause harm to another group.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
That in the theft of land, the murder of families and communities and children, the pain and the depression that ensues can really impact how people see one another, or how people see others.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so I would say the part of it, again, that isn't in the answer to between us or isn't a part of what's happening between us is in the conditions that put us in a relationship that is oppositional. And that led to the genocide. And over 90% on the Western hemisphere of Native Indigenous populations, and forcibly moved folks to different homelands, different lands that they had to make home. And then the processes of enslavement of African people.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And not all African people were enslaved, there were some enslavers. And so they're like all of these dynamics, but these things happening within the historical processes that... So there's healing within that too. It's a kind of healing that recognizes, or that disaggregates. Like, what's the part that you and I have with one another that needs naming and healing and working on that?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And then what's the part of this that's attributed to the systems that led to our contact in this kind of way, that then led to these dynamics to happen between us? And so there's a reckoning around that. And there's work around that, and even healing around that.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
It's like, I got caught up in this. I was an object and a subject and a victim at times, and an actor at times in helping this destructive system to grow. And so there's that part of forgiveness and recognizing that and detaching, like a decolonizing of our minds and our practices and our relationships that's needed.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So I don't know, it feels like I might have jumped around a little bit, but I think I was trying to draw out the part of that. Yeah, and so then where the bridging piece is again, as we, in bridging and rebuilding and healing with one another, it's also kind of like a re-bridging and a healing that's necessary within ourselves and within our ancestors, because so much happened that we didn't have a say over.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
All of this big thing happening, and we might have had a say over this little piece, which might have been over how we respond to somebody saying, "You can live or you die. If you live, you have to do this thing." And so it's like the little piece of choice that we had.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
It's also reckoning that reality. And then the part that we hold that doesn't belong to us, or shouldn't belong to us. There's a releasing that's necessary and a healing that's necessary around that.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
To elaborate on this topic, is there also a contemporary tension or issue that this work is addressing, or is it focusing on the healing of actions in the past?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
I think the actions and the history brought us to this point, but our intentions were around now, our prayers were for now. And it was sort of like a beginning, the first of seven journeys that we feel our... When this came up, it didn't come up as like one journey that we'll do and that'll be the end of it. But it felt like the beginning of something that would take place over a few years.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So it's almost like the first journey was greeting and being in ceremony. In the now, with the people who are here, but we are people here because of the people who came before us. And then the next time we may sit down and talk longer.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so there's like a more to dig in after we meet one another. And yeah, so even though it's history that kind of informed, and the ancestors are with as we are talking with one another now. And we're working in the prayers that are for now and in the future.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
What does being original culture bearers mean? And how is this a good basis for bridging in this type of work?

Nana Korantema:
At each of the stops there were designated water bearers, and throughout history, there has been ritual ceremony done at the waters honoring of the waters. And who were the first peoples to do that? The Black and Brown folks.

Nana Korantema:
So it would follow that as original culture bearers, we hold the traditions, we hold the lessons, we hold the traditions that heal. We teach those moral codes. We are the ones who move forth with the traditions, the living grills, if you will.

Nana Korantema:
And that's done often with the water through the water, because we recognize that as one of the elders shared water is life. So everything begins there, everything is sourced from there.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
What do you mean when you say ritual? What do you mean when you say ceremony? What is happening? Can you paint me a picture of a moment?

Nana Korantema:
So there's so many ways that one can engage in ritual. One could be the creation of an altar space, which the way we embraced it on our path was to create these sacred stations to honor whether it was ancestors, whether it was to honor the earth, whatever intention or mission.

Nana Korantema:
So we then find elements to hone in that energy field, utilizing nature. It could be as simple as flowers arranged with sweetness to represent those spirits that like sweet, that we want to call forth, to help us in our work.

Nana Korantema:
Specific flowers that have specific medicinal value that are arranged with other flowers that work in concert that also have medicinal value. Life force in the form of water, crystals, and/or stones or shells, or whatever reps and agents who are helping to create the sacred space.

Nana Korantema:
Whatever folks are moved to bring forth representing each energy field, whether it's grounding, do we need to bind something? Do we need to release something? Do we need the way to be open? So really finding various conduits that we can put down in honor, and graced with concert of all of these elemental forces to create an energy field in its own personal energy station.

Nana Korantema:
And it can be as elaborate like I shared, or I'm sorry, as simple, like I shared, or as elaborate as maybe a block long, all in the attention, all in the purpose. What would you add sister?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
The ceremonies were different at different stops. And it might in one place, like at the headwaters, we gathered with Elder Renee and Elder Jan, and a group of ladies who are part of the nation, and we circled up. And they sung a song and we sung a song. And I think we both did. We each did a dance, and then we shared prayer. We made offerings to the water, and then we exchanged gifts.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So there's variation throughout, but those are some of the main pieces of ceremony that was carried throughout. There's also an element of water pouring. And so we, Nana Fofie, brought water from the Gulf up to the headwaters, and then we gathered water. So we left a little there with prayers, and then we carried water from each stop, leaving a bit at each stop and continuing all the way until we reached the Gulf.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And, and so these are different elements of the ceremony. And what Nana Korantema was speaking to, actually, she was speaking to a lot. And one of the pieces of it was the altars that were created at each place. And there's an altar that stayed, and one that was carried, and then one that was put up and taken down at each stop.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so these are some of the things around the ceremony. But there wasn't a prescription either because part of it was defined by the folks we met along the way. And I would say part of the ceremony involved a greeting of elders and Native folks in the places that we went, and sharing our intention and asking permission.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
All of this, I think we could arguably, we considered part of the sacred journey. Maybe not technically in ceremony, but in a way, once we opened, it felt like we were in ceremony the entire seven, six months. And then, so these are some of the pieces of it that, yeah, in addition to what Nana Korantema shared.

Nana Korantema:
Another ritual that I wanted to share that we embraced upon. And because we're working together prior to each stop, there are different specifics for each stop, different chakra areas, different affirmations, different postures even.

Nana Korantema:
So there were also different crystals or stones that folks were really kind of connecting with and being intentional with. And then leaving in the earth at some point during the ceremony.

Nana Korantema:
So just again, ritual can be really quite simple. It's often sometimes about the intentionality. So a way to honor the earth and kind of give back to the earth was to return the crystal to the earth. And folks were able to do that.

Nana Korantema:
And again, as my sister spoke to, none of these were prescribed prior to the stop before. It was really just about your intention, because maybe you gave your stone to the water. But really honoring what resonated for you around how to honor the land and the water.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
Yeah. Something I want to add to that, I was thinking about that now, Korantema as you were sharing is that there were folks who at each step along the way we held the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, Colette Pichon Battle held a virtual space where we held virtual ceremony, and had kind of like a programmed experience as well with folks who were not able to physically participate in each of the steps, but joined, but were with, they were participating from their places.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And it was in those virtual spaces that we came together and participated in conversation and prayer and ceremony with one another, that involved. So each stop held its chakra place and there was a color, and there was a herb that was designated for each stop. There was an intention, a direction like if we were focusing on inner or outer north, south, east, west.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so all of those various pieces came together, not just on the physical sites that we were on and participating in carrying out ceremony, but also in the virtual spaces with many women, Black and Native women around the country. And it was just really beautiful.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
I wonder if you can elaborate a little bit more about how the ceremony and the rituals were bridging stones or bridging/bridges to form relationships or strengthen relationships with other women involved.

Nana Korantema:
When I visit those occasions, what's arising for me in this moment is those presences and energies that are beyond words, that bond one another. As to five minutes prior folks who were strangers were now lifelong connected in the ceremony, recognizing that we were all vessels to do this work.

Nana Korantema:
I was thinking about how at each of the stops, we were able to engage in water ceremony as Ife Afriye spoke to. There were specifics that were done at each of the stops. And one of those specifics was ceremony with our Native sisters and some kind of ceremony at the water, at some part of the Mississippi.

Nana Korantema:
And to be able to be in that space and hear the water speak, and to see nature respond by its very presence and to see things that you don't normally see represent through the lens of totems, through the lens of spirit representation, through the lens of just the elemental forces and divinities presenting themselves. And honoring that the language that they speak as far ancient than the words we're using.

Nana Korantema:
So forgive me if I don't have specific language to even try to grasp how intense and beautiful the energy was, that was cultivated just by our intention, just by our honoring our ancestry through prayer, through song, the conjuring of those energies. We will never leave them in our spirits. We will always remember one another in ceremony in that way.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
There's something, what you said triggered this memory when we were in, I think it was Iowa by the railroad tracks with Daniella and [inaudible 00:29:10]. Daniella shared with us the work that her community was doing, where they purchased these acres of land. They're doing so much work to feed their people through traditional ways. Rebuilding economy in ways that are grounded in their old ways.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And one of the things that stood out to me that she shared is one just how beautiful it was to have this connection for us to really be connecting with one another at this time. And for us to see her and see them and vice versa.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So it was like meeting family you didn't know that you had. And the ceremony brought us together because it allowed for, it's a language that we share through our traditions, our cultural traditions.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And so we were able to come and sit together, and in moving with real intentionality and with a respect that our spiritual traditions understand where we recognize their stewardship and there are placed as original inhabitants of this land that we come and we greet.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And we follow a particular set of protocols that we understand and that we share. And that allows for us to move into a space where we're able to pray and pour water and engage, and share experiences that we both recognize. And then that allows for us to then talk about other things.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
So we met these family members along the way. And sometimes we had tough conversations, they weren't tough because there's an intensity or attention like debating, but tough in that we're learning. We're having to wade through stereotypes that we have of one another.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And in the course of communication allow for those stereotypes to fall away, allow for us to name them. And I guess, in that way, if I would contribute to the answering of the question is that, this bridging that happens the deeper level conversations that are able to happen, because we've followed a set of protocols that we recognize and that we share.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you so much for sharing that. So it sounds like it was a combination of engaging conversations and coming together to share your own practices that bonded you all as from strangers to now, it seems like family, and-

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
There's still folks just still checking, calling, texting, and in touch with one another, absolutely.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
I'm interested in learning more about the outcomes of this journey. It seems like you have developed new family members and new connections that continue to be part of your life. And my question is, what are you able to do now that you hadn't before because of this bridging work?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
For me, one thing is that now, it's knowing that after this first journey was the beginning and having a set of tools and the experiences and lessons and memories to be able to do this year's journey, which will be different.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
And I think that's a big thing for me, because I mean, I think that is to continue the tools, experiences, memories, and commitment that I think are huge takeaways coming out of this first leg.

Nana Korantema:
I would definitely agree with all of that and add a wider capacity, a greater capacity to love. There were so many revelations at each of the stops because we were also unbeknownst to us getting some serious lessons for ourselves, with our own spirit work, with our own awareness and growth and development.

Nana Korantema:
And so definitely that capacity has been strengthened and expanded especially with new family. So yeah, I would add that part.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Did this journey establish a mutual understanding to what is next?

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
We are in conversation about that. We don't have a definitive answer except that the work continues and we know that it's not finished. And we see this work as important to a climate, environmental justice, social racial justice fights because among the many forms of work expressions of work and fights and within movements, there's also necessary work around prayer and healing and spiritual upliftment. These things that have been so central to this journey ceremony, and building strengthening, deepening relationships.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
In a previous conversation, it was also mentioned that, and you've alluded to it just now to that, you can't do climate justice work without first, or really come together to do anything without first getting to know each other.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
And we often hear people who come together as coalitions, for a fight in something that they agree in without necessarily doing intentional bridging work. And I want to get a little bit more insight from you of why this step was so important in your journey.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
It seems like the next step for your climate justice work is still being decided, but you have been very intentional about doing this first. Can you talk about why?

Nana Korantema:
So much of the way we move is steeped in tradition. It steeped in the ways of the elders of the ancestors. So often what we found with our path was not only were the traditions and practices familiar, they often paralleled our sistering.

Nana Korantema:
So really honoring that the practices, the rituals, those things that really informed each leg of our work, each stop, each process, each component of all of the offerings that we provided were led in ceremony, and to see our sistering in certain opportunities, because there were those shared opportunities where we were in ceremony together. To see the parallels, to see the same things like, "Oh, wow, you all do that? We do that too."

Nana Korantema:
So it was beautiful to see once again, that it's so much larger than us, that this is opportunity to allow ourselves to put egos aside, and really allow ourselves to be clear temples and vessels of what's being said, and what's being needed in the moments.

Nana Korantema:
And then acknowledging when we need to step aside, when we let our personal ego get too present, and having a trust and relationship with one another, that is supportive and respectful of what that looks like has made it such a healing opportunity for us to heighten this way of communication and this way of spirit work that like I said, we just saw in the same way that our first nation sister did.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Would you say that there's a sort of a mutual understanding of this path, that first step is we get to know who we are. We get to share our stories, how our histories have interconnected and how our lives are still interconnected with waterways. We are all, especially the Mississippi River, right? How many communities rely on that water source?

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
And so, yeah, I guess thinking about. Is this the mutual understanding that this is the first step? And then even though maybe the next step isn't fully developed that you are all in this journey towards this water justice fight.

Nana Korantema:
Definitely the first step. I think each more than a couple of occasions, several occasions, there was genuine surprise by Native folks because we actually wanted to learn. We wanted to be in ceremony. There was genuine surprise.

Nana Korantema:
So we were able to dispel some myths and we were able to grow with one another through the simplicity of creating that process where we did get to know one another, that we did share meals, we're eating your cooking. That's major thing. It's a great bread.

Nana Korantema:
And to be in your home to have someone host you where they lay their head in their sanctuary, and feed you food that they've prepared. So absolutely that was a really crucial part of the work. At each of the stops to have those relationships was crucial to each recurring step.

Ife Afriye Kilimanjaro:
I want to jump in real quick too, because like there are some things that you can just show up for certain fights, but long term work and long term systems change, it's important that relationships are really important in that long term building work. And so what Nana Korantema was saying like, yes, taking the time to get to know one another, so critical.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
That was Nana Korantema and Ife Afriye. Thank you so much for your time. And to our listeners, please check out our other podcasts where we discuss belonging and bridging in more detail.

Miriam Magaña Lopez:
For more resources and curriculums on belonging and bridging please go to belonging.berkeley.edu/B4B, that is slash letter B, Number 4, letter B, until next time.