burn - rebuild

by Anthony R. Green

​The healing continues with the Kurapa Project - part of the Black Love month brought to you by Castle of our Skins. Healing can look like many things and can happen through a variety of methods. There is no right or wrong way to heal if what you do leads eventually to healing. And while this project has weekly prompts throughout the month of November, the ideas of Kurapa are not restricted to November 2020. It is highly encouraged to continually contemplate these prompts and these ideas in your everyday life, and take these philosophies with you long after this Black Love celebration. Kurapa is a gift for you forever.

image from kurapa.webflow.io

This past week's prompt was Fire - Moto. I personally approached Moto with the physical image of burning down something old in a safe, controlled manner, to create a fertile foundation upon which one can build something new. There are quite a number of such practices around the world, including demolition with explosives, forestry practices, farming techniques, and more. Philosophically, one can think about the three-word phrase of a popular song from the animated movie Frozen : let it go! How can we let things go? At times it involves abandoning and never looking back. Other times it includes active destruction - an involved, complicated process to rid the mind, body, and spirit of the very systems that have prevented growth and development. 

Moto evokes the concept of refining fire - a process popularly used to remove impurities from metals such as lead, tin, and copper. After the refining process by fire, the result is purity, glistening appearances, and maturity. This same idea is in the biblical parable of the wheat and the weeds, where it is suggested that the weeds and the wheat grow together to a point where the weeds can be separated and burned. Through the burning, our pain can be transformed into lessons and teachings. In contemplating our pain, be sure to protect yourself and gauge your level of engagement. This is not a time to suffer, but to heal. While there is pain in healing, we must always be mindful of ourselves and, as the prompt says, "be kind with ourselves."

The next week is the final week: Air - Mweya!