In my short time on this Earth, I have come to know loneliness like the back of my hand. I have spent much time misunderstood and much time wandering, but this has taught me a great deal about myself. The body speaks, and I have learned that listening to my body in connection with nature provides the basis for infinite knowledge. For those of us with bodies that are marginalized, criminalized, which carry pains older than our bones, the body can be a terrifying place to inhabit. But it is precisely our same bodies which tell us everything we need to know about culture, truth, and resistance. My field study project this semester is born out of my innate knowledge that all oppressed peoples come from a lineage that is alive and speaking of liberation. Unfortunately, we are so often taught to deny our bodies of what they desire, to police other bodies as ours have been policed. I do not claim to be outside of this, we are all inside of this, but I have learned that it is not in our nature to be enslaved. In my time in Cuba, I interviewed Black people who have an alive connection to spirit and to their eggun (ancestors). I had the great privilege of meeting ritual leaders, herbalists, spiritual teachers, elders, and new initiates of Ocha. I visited post-graduate religious studies classes, churches, cemeteries, and the houses of santeros in order to understand what their culture and livelihood looks like. I conducted interviews and asked people about their connection to crystals, rocks, plants, trees, the forest, death, and family. Through my historical research, ethnographic work, poetry, and photography, I intend to integrate what I learned with what I know of my own body and its intricacies.
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