Quote of the Week #4

This quote comes directly from a short piece I recently completed by Kongolese philosopher Kimbwandende Kia Benseki Fu-Kiau. Thanks to the University of West Indies library, I was able to borrow a copy of his book, "Tying the Spiritual Knot: African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: Principles of Life & Living." It covers a number of topics relating generally to the Bantu worldview and more specifically to Kongolese cosmology. Replete with proverbs, it seems only fitting that I should share one with you. I encourage everyone to investigate the philosophies of the Kongolese.

"Kanda i (mbundani a) bafwa ye bamoyo."

-- The community is the union of the ancestors and of the living. -- (p.105)

The above image is a picture of the Kikongo cosmogram imprinted on the floor of the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York. The rivers divide the the circle into the four stages of life: all beginnings, birth, maturation and death. Underneath the center of this particular cosmogram are the ashes of the late poet Langston Hughes.