African Spirituality for Awakened Personal Experience: Class 2

6/23/2018

Welcome to the second class. Everything you need to participate in this powerful mini course is here.
GETTING STARTED:

Instructions
- Listen to the lecture
- Complete the assignments 1-3
- Make your comments or ask questions in the comments section below
Schedule - Lectures will be uploaded by Sunday morning [See DASHBOARD]
Materials - Click here to download LECTURE 2

2 Comments

Baba Obafemi link

6/21/2018 08:51:15 pm

The three assignments are powerful, especially if you complete them within SEVEN days!

Ricardo

7/6/2018 03:11:28 pm

Greetings, Obafemi.

This week’s work has been very illuminating for me. I have done work exploring shadow & my behaviors in the past and have been currently in a space of examining myself deeply as I mentioned in the first week’s assignment. Yet, I have never done so in as systematically structured a way as this week’s assignment laid out. As I mentioned, it has been illuminating.

My undesirable habits:
- procrastination
- I at times ignore my own pain
- excessive media consumption
- I evade responsibilities not related to my son
- I at times allow clutter to accumulate in my living space

My desirable or functional habits:
- music making & creation
- I listen to a lot of music
- minimalism
- attending to my altars for love and for my ancestors
- cooking for myself & my family
- walking in nature
- chi kung & physical exercise
- I talk to myself frequently

In examining my habits, most of my undesirable habits are persistent & impulsive. Though at times there is intention involved with my undesirable habits, when this is the case I am clear with myself that I am evading or running away from something personally or emotionally in the moment. A key for me to acknowledge here is that all of my undesirable traits involve me running away from or ignoring problems or emotions in my life. In contrast, none of my desirable habits are impulsive. They are all intentional and facilitate greater depth in my personal, emotional & spiritual strength, though most are not entirely consistent. Many of my desirable habits are habits that at one point in my life were consistent, and that I am working my way back towards more consistency & ritualization of (minimalism, time spent in nature, chi kung & physical exercise). Music creation is one of the exceptions, as it is a practice that does indeed feed my spirit, though has remained regular & intentional for me.

I have been personally involved with music since my early childhood when my grandfather introduced me to the trumpet & the drums. I played trumpet throughout elementary school. By middle school I had stopped all musical involvement, as my grandfather was a driving force behind my musical involvement and our relationship became more distant & in the process of becoming an adolescent my attention shifted as well. By high school my musical attention was most focused on hip hop and I began rhyming and making makeshift beats with friends. After high school I purchased an SP1200 sampling drum machine, which has been my instrument of choice in the twenty or so years since. I use musical creation as a personal & spiritual meditation. It grounds me, allows me to center myself, and has always been an outlet for expression and exploration of my pain, sorrow, darkness, joy and love, even when not consciously so. In the exploration of musical textures and rhythmic & harmonic language I feel that I can express the unspoken in me, and as such it can be pure feel. I can come back to music I have worked on 5 years ago and feel the pain, melancholy, or happiness was a part of my experience in that moment of creation. I feel my spirit able to speak when I am working on music and at times I very much feel the presence of and participation of my ancestors in the process. This is why I always come back to musical creation as a form of meditation for myself.

Regarding the artwork as a part of this week’s assignment, should I be submitting a picture of that as well? If so, what is the preferred method to upload it?

Thank you again for facilitating this exploration of self, Obafemi. I am very grateful for it.

African Spirituality for Awakened Personal Experience: Class 2

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