Caribbean Spaces: Escapes from Twilight Zone

4. Spirit Scapes: From Brazil to the Caribbean

4 Spirit Scapes From Brazil to the Caribbean On the way from São Paulo to Natal, the navigational symbol for the airplane on the video screen in the cabin points almost as if it were heading for Africa. I imagine that if we kept going, we could see ourselves recrossing the Atlantic as many of the dispersed Africans did, mythologizing a return journey and thereby making theirs the actual technology of flight. Many of our artists and writers continue this process imaginatively, aesthetically, or make these journeys in actuality. Transatlantic journeys seem to have tangible possibility from this launching point of Natal. The shoulder points of the continents themselves seem to reach for certain reconciliation. One is able to visualize the continental drift as well as its opposite. Caribbean Space, another angle of seeing the world. Again contemplating the map, the giant shoulder of South America reaches toward Africa. Recognizing that one is at the closest point here to the continent gives me some sort of creative recognition of possible connections and triggers the imagination further. But as the plane turns leftward toward a landing in Natal, the defining Caribbean archipelagos as well as the continental Caribbean reveal themselves. One sees the real possibility of continuing from this point in Brazil over land or sea to the Caribbean, to the Guyanas, Venezuela, and finally Trinidad—the first island one encounters as one leaves South America. It is easy to see why the north coast of Brazil is sometimes seen as its Caribbean coast, for a range of Caribbean cultures combine here in terms of landscape, the history and culture of sugar-cane production, but also people, music, the products of various migrations. It is easy to flip the paradigm of North-South dominance and reading of the world from this angle of vision. from brazil to the caribbean · 65 Caribbean Space indeed . . . the spaces of connection, and the consistent filling in of empty spaces. I always want to be in the Caribbean, as I always want to be in Brazil. Thinking about Caribbean space and Caribbean identity means engaging a series of movements. It means first of all coming to terms with how much both the relatively new Caribbean nation-states and the Caribbean diaspora have been fundamental sites of the creation of Caribbean cultural identities and the extent to which global economic and political forces have also shaped these experiences. The Caribbean has in common with Brazil an already-identified history, including the destruction of the full presence of indigenous peoples, the wretchedness of enslavement on sugar plantations, colonialism, and the struggles for self-possession and independence but also for re-creation. When my friend, an Afro-Brazilian activist from Bahia, died at the relatively young age of forty-eight, a turtle appeared in our backyard and refused to be dislodged. Sometimes it would walk over and flop into the pool and swim hurriedly back and forth. Other times it would find a cool place to rest in a shaded area. Consistent removal at pool-cleaning time would deposit him on grass surrounding the pool into which he would eventually flop himself back. Not surprisingly, many saw this as some kind of spiritual message, for Lino was a powerful man who believed deeply in his AfroBrazilian spiritual tradition, Candomblé, as he also believed in the need for a more rapid advancement of Afro-Brazilians into full emancipation. And significantly, his last partner reminded me that he always saw our house in Miami as a reference or layover point in his journeys outside of Brazil. The turtle is totemic for a range of Caribbean and Brazilian spiritualities. LeRoy Clarke, for example, keeps several turtles in his yard, and turtles often appear as dominating figures in his art. And I was told on witnessing a giant turtle living in a colleague’s backyard north of Brasília that turtles absorb a lot of negative energy. So one day, also not surprisingly, our turtle disappeared just as magically as he had arrived. Connecting Paradigms Candomblé—the Afro-Brazilian sociocultural, religious, interpre­ tative belief system—presents for me an important convergence of the transformational in Afro-diasporic culture as it is expressed through questions of memory and reelaboration. While in this belief system the individual is always endowed with the energy of a particular orisha (deity), through 66 . chapter 4 preparation and participation, the transformational is intensely manifested. In some...