The Awakening of Grisso

The Awakening of Grisso: A diasporan Ph.D Begins his Education

This article appears also in Manna for the Mind, a newsletter produced by Robin Scott Manna. Forthcoming. Check this site for more information when it appears. Robin Scott Manna (r) is shown in the picture together with the author (l).

Prologue: The word education comes from the Latin ex = "out of" + ducere = "to lead or to draw". Thus education in the true meaning of the term is not about imparting skills so much as drawing out what is presumably already there, the soul memory. The ancient African understood this very well, which is why they inscribed the famous injunction on the temple walls of Kamit, "Know thyself", long before Socrates, who is falsely credited with that bit of wisdom, went there to be initiated in the Kamitic mysteries. Still today, the followers of the traditional African religions of West Africa conduct a ritual in which the spirit of an as yet unborn child would be contacted by the priest to determine who they are, and why they are coming, so that the prospective parents would be well prepared to receive them, and to raise them accordingly. As a diasporan African whose ancestral links had been damaged, although perhaps not entirely broken, I had not had the benefit of such an inquiry. At the age of 46, I had mine. Never too late. -- Grisso

The session took place on Thursday, July 10, 1997 at 11:00 am and lasted for close to two hours. I had met Robin Scott Manna (Yoruba priestess and Reiki Master Osunnike Anke the previous Sunday, when she conducted a very intense, very "hands-on" Reiki class. One after another, those members of the class who volunteered to be worked on became touched by spirit, and two felt a need spontaneously to speak in tongues. I looked on in some amazement at the proceedings, as I was still taking very tentative initial steps into the world of spirit and spirituality at the time, and it was all very new to me. But I was impressed at how "real" what I was observing was; my classmates were certainly not putting on a show for my benefit, and they also were meeting Osunnike, who had flown in from Boston for the occasion, for the first time. So I decided to have a private session with Osunnike, of which I now write.

Osunnike started by asking me what it was I hoped to have answered. Basically, I wanted to know who I was, and what it was I was supposed to be doing with my life. I expanded on that by telling her a little bit about myself, and how it was I came to be taking the Spirituality course where we had met. That is a long story in itself, which I won't go into. Then she had me lie down on the floor. There was a thin mattress of some sort, so I was very comfortable. Then she sat next to me, lotus fashion, roughly square with my chest. In that position, she could reach comfortably to put her left hand at the crown of my head, and her right hand over my solar plexus region. She said a prayer stating the purpose, asking for guidance, did an invocation of the Ascended Masters, the Orisha, Angelic Forces, Spirit Guides, etc., and rang a little bell, which was my signal, as she had informed me earlier, to place my question to spirit. Then she led me in a breathing exercise which got me into a relaxed trance.

Then she said she was seeing an image, which was perhaps someone's backyard. There were bushes in that area, and a wooden ladder leading downwards. Can you see the image, Sidney? No, I said. Can you feel it anywhere in your body? I nodded yes, which was remarkable, because I never knew before that one could feel an image in the body. Be that as it may, she then asked me to take myself into that space. I did so. Then she asked me if I knew where I was. Yes, but there is no ladder, I said. By that time I knew where I was and I could visualize it. What do you see? It's a train line, not a ladder. What place is it? It's the backyard of the place where I lived as a child of about nine, in Trinidad, where I was born and raised. Did you ever take that train, Sidney. No, I laughed. The train used to take sugar-cane to the factory. And as boys, we would run behind the train and steal as many stalks as we could. Yes, she said.

Then she asked me to describe that boy of nine. I told her basically he was a gifted child, who was good at school and sports, and better than the other boys in the neighborhood at both. He was full of himself, kind of a braggart, possibly even out of control. She asked me to give an example. I told her the story of the time that I was playing with the boy from next door. He must have provoked me in some way, because he took off running across the vacant lot to one side of the house. What I then did was to reach down and pick up a bottle from a case of empties and throw. It sailed in a perfect arc and hit him in the back of his head before he had gone 30 yards or so. My elation at the perfect aim lasted not very long as he came back crying instead of laughing as he was before and complained to my parents. My father wasted no time. He administered a whipping I do not expect ever to forget, and gave me a lecture besides about how to settle differences. Anyway, little by little, the little boy who was so full of himself was transformed into a little boy who learned the hard way to submit to parental discipline and to behave himself. The significance of this story was explained later as the beginning of the suppression of my spirit, which led me to spend much of my life disconnected from my true self.

Then she asked me to move into a space up in the clouds close to the house where we lived. There I came face to face with an old man. She asked me who it was. It is me, I answered, wondering how it was I knew.

I experienced a heaving in my body, exactly as I had noticed with the volunteers at the class the Sunday previously. It was as though the "knowing" of this fact entered through the solar plexus and the process of receiving knowledge in this way in itself causes the body to heave, and to react with no-joke emotional intensity. Then she asked me to describe this old man. Well, he is very old. He also is very wise, I said. And he has some kind of rod or staff in his hand. He is a Black man. And he is wearing very simple clothes, almost rags. He is smiling. He is happy to see me. Yes, she said. And I could sense he loves me. Yes, she said, again.

She then asked me to ask him who I was, and what was my purpose. Once again, when the answer came, it was with a great heaving. I resisted it, because it seemed bigger than what I could realistically hope to accomplish. But there was an insistence about the knowledge, and as I said, it forced its way into me through, it seemed, the solar plexus, causing me to heave and to sob the way I had seen Brother Lew do in class. But it had a certain inevitability about it. And because it had that sense of inevitability, it was also paradoxically calming. I had asked the question, and there was the answer. I am to lead my people. That was what he said, although as I thought about it afterward, I presume he meant perhaps to help lead my people, as I am hardly a Farrakhan, or even a Jesse. But the answer as it came through contained no such qualification.

Ask him how I am to lead my people. By becoming as wise as he, came the answer. Once more with heaving. What are the tools I am to use? I am to become a priest came the answer. And when it came, I was again heaving, and with the heaving there was some sense that this was an enormous task, that I was unworthy, how was I to do this, and from where would come the strength. What about money and the financial wherewithal? Not for you to worry, came the reply. Not for you to worry, Osunnike repeated. Well, that is reassuring, I thought. But still I wish I knew how I was to do that. I wish I knew who were "my people," considering I am from Trinidad and Tobago, living in America, and identifying more and more with Africa and the diaspora.

Ask him what is his name. After a seemingly endless time -- my chakras must be relatively blocked -- came the answer: "Grisso." Osunnike repeated it. Grisso. Yes, she said. Grisso.

Ask him what is his color. The answer this time came very quickly. Red and white, I found myself saying. I was surprised I said so, because I knew red and white to be the colors of Shango in the Yoruba tradition. And I knew Shango to be the ladies' man, the all-around hero, the charmer, etc. I did not think I was \o"S\(ac"ango. I thought perhaps Obatala, whose colors I thought at the time, wrongly, to be blue and white -- his colors I later learnt are white and only white -- and who is a higher god. But no, red and white is what came out.

Ask him what are his instruments. I did not know even the meaning of the question. Osunnike explained afterwards that different priests have different instruments. The answer that came was "a staff." Osunnike said later that she indeed saw a rod, not a staff. Well, it was a big stick, we agreed. But at the time she thought I had said "star," and she didn't know what that was. But she thought maybe I was seeing something that she wasn't.

Thank him for coming, she said, and release him to the Light.

Now, come back down, she said. I want you to walk toward the front of the house. Do you see someone sitting on the front porch? Yes. Who is it? It's my father. Yes. He wants to say something to you. What is he saying? Heaving, again. He says he is sorry. He did not want to crush my spirit. But he doesn't need to apologize, I say. He did what he knew how to do, the best way he knew how. I love him, I say. More heaving. Yes, she says. And he loves you too. I know, I can feel it.

It was not over yet. Then she asked me to go back up into the clouds again, this time to look into "the" mirror. What do you see? This time it was not the old man, but a younger man, robust. An African. He looked very much like Kwame Nkrumah, and wore the toga-like outfit that I recognized to be in the tradition of the Asante people. That was a surprise. As an African of the diaspora, it is hard to claim any specific part of Africa as the ancestral home. Coming from Trinidad, the African observances with which I am a little familiar are Yoruba, not Akan or Asante. Osunnike herself was of the Yoruba tradition. Was the image I was seeing telling me the tradition into which I must initiate as a priest, namely, Akan? Or was it merely telling me that, like Nkrumah, I must prepare to help lead my people? Every answer, it seems, raises more questions.

Then she brought the session to an end, thanking all the spirits and the deities and the ancestors that had come to help me remember who I was, and what I was meant to do.

Coincidentally, I had a numerology reading around the same time as my session with Osunnike. The numerology reading revealed that the prime concern of the third phase of my life into which I am now moving is governed by the number seven vibration, and will be concerned with "truth, wisdom, and light." Craig White, who gave me the reading, thinks I will write many books. That I expect I can do, having already written one book, albeit a dry and scholarly one. As I write this article now, over a year after the session with Osunnike, there is another book in progress, which I tentatively am entitling Shango's Muntu: Essays and Dialogues on Setting Ourselves Free! With the help of spirit, I imagine I should be able to write as many as I am called to write. Craig also revealed that the numbers corresponding to the "master healer" vibration (33) and the "master builder" vibration (22) appear in my "destiny" line. Additionally, as I look at the name "Grisso," it breaks down numerologically as 7 + 9 + 9 + 1 + 1 + 6 = 33 , which is again the vibration of the "master healer," numerologically speaking. Looking at the date of my "rebirth," namely July 10, 1997, it reduces to 7 + 10 + 8 = 16 = 1 + 6 = 7 , the number seven vibration, again, for "truth, wisdom, and light." It seems that my path is clear.

Many questions remain. But my path is set. I embrace it. I expect the answers will come in due course. I believe spirit is saying to me, "let not your heart be troubled." Further, as the Bible says: "Seek and ye shall find." So, I will continue to seek after truth, wisdom and light, and I expect that answers will continue to come. I am profoundly grateful to all of my spiritual teachers along the way, but especially to Osunnike, who revealed me to me. May she continue to work the miracles that she does, and may she touch many more lives in the way she has mine.

Grisso

This article appears also in Manna for the Mind, a newsletter produced by Robin Scott Manna. Forthcoming. Check this site for more information when it appears. Robin Scott Manna (r) is shown in the picture together with the author (l).	Prologue: The word education comes from the Latin ex = "out of" + ducere = "to lead or to draw". Thus education in the true meaning of the term is not about imparting skills so much as drawing out what is presumably already there, the soul memory. The ancient African understood this very well, which is why they inscribed the famous injunction on the temple walls of Kamit, "Know thyself", long before Socrates, who is falsely credited with that bit of wisdom, went there to be initiated in the Kamitic mysteries. Still today, the followers of the traditional African religions of West Africa conduct a ritual in which the spirit of an as yet unborn child would be contacted by the priest to determine who they are, and why they are coming, so that the prospective parents would be well prepared to receive them, and to raise them accordingly. As a diasporan African whose ancestral links had been damaged, although perhaps not entirely broken, I had not had the benefit of such an inquiry. At the age of 46, I had mine. Never too late. -- Grisso The session took place on Thursday, July 10, 1997 at 11:00 am and lasted for close to two hours. I had met Robin Scott Manna (Yoruba priestess and Reiki Master Osunnike Anke the previous Sunday, when she conducted a very intense, very "hands-on" Reiki class. One after another, those members of the class who volunteered to be worked on became touched by spirit, and two felt a need spontaneously to speak in tongues. I looked on in some amazement at the proceedings, as I was still taking very tentative initial steps into the world of spirit and spirituality at the time, and it was all very new to me. But I was impressed at how "real" what I was observing was; my classmates were certainly not putting on a show for my benefit, and they also were meeting Osunnike, who had flown in from Boston for the occasion, for the first time. So I decided to have a private session with Osunnike, of which I now write. Osunnike started by asking me what it was I hoped to have answered. Basically, I wanted to know who I was, and what it was I was supposed to be doing with my life. I expanded on that by telling her a little bit about myself, and how it was I came to be taking the Spirituality course where we had met. That is a long story in itself, which I won't go into. Then she had me lie down on the floor. There was a thin mattress of some sort, so I was very comfortable. Then she sat next to me, lotus fashion, roughly square with my chest. In that position, she could reach comfortably to put her left hand at the crown of my head, and her right hand over my solar plexus region. She said a prayer stating the purpose, asking for guidance, did an invocation of the Ascended Masters, the Orisha, Angelic Forces, Spirit Guides, etc., and rang a little bell, which was my signal, as she had informed me earlier, to place my question to spirit. Then she led me in a breathing exercise which got me into a relaxed trance. Then she said she was seeing an image, which was perhaps someone's backyard. There were bushes in that area, and a wooden ladder leading downwards. Can you see the image, Sidney? No, I said. Can you feel it anywhere in your body? I nodded yes, which was remarkable, because I never knew before that one could feel an image in the body. Be that as it may, she then asked me to take myself into that space. I did so. Then she asked me if I knew where I was. Yes, but there is no ladder, I said. By that time I knew where I was and I could visualize it. What do you see? It's a train line, not a ladder. What place is it? It's the backyard of the place where I lived as a child of about nine, in Trinidad, where I was born and raised. Did you ever take that train, Sidney. No, I laughed. The train used to take sugar-cane to the factory. And as boys, we would run behind the train and steal as many stalks as we could. Yes, she said. Then she asked me to describe that boy of nine. I told her basically he was a gifted child, who was good at school and sports, and better than the other boys in the neighborhood at both. He was full of himself, kind of a braggart, possibly even out of control. She asked me to give an example. I told her the story of the time that I was playing with the boy from next door. He must have provoked me in some way, because he took off running across the vacant lot to one side of the house. What I then did was to reach down and pick up a bottle from a case of empties and throw. It sailed in a perfect arc and hit him in the back of his head before he had gone 30 yards or so. My elation at the perfect aim lasted not very long as he came back crying instead of laughing as he was before and complained to my parents. My father wasted no time. He administered a whipping I do not expect ever to forget, and gave me a lecture besides about how to settle differences. Anyway, little by little, the little boy who was so full of himself was transformed into a little boy who learned the hard way to submit to parental discipline and to behave himself. The significance of this story was explained later as the beginning of the suppression of my spirit, which led me to spend much of my life disconnected from my true self. Then she asked me to move into a space up in the clouds close to the house where we lived. There I came face to face with an old man. She asked me who it was. It is me, I answered, wondering how it was I knew. I experienced a heaving in my body, exactly as I had noticed with the volunteers at the class the Sunday previously. It was as though the "knowing" of this fact entered through the solar plexus and the process of receiving knowledge in this way in itself causes the body to heave, and to react with no-joke emotional intensity. Then she asked me to describe this old man. Well, he is very old. He also is very wise, I said. And he has some kind of rod or staff in his hand. He is a Black man. And he is wearing very simple clothes, almost rags. He is smiling. He is happy to see me. Yes, she said. And I could sense he loves me. Yes, she said, again. She then asked me to ask him who I was, and what was my purpose. Once again, when the answer came, it was with a great heaving. I resisted it, because it seemed bigger than what I could realistically hope to accomplish. But there was an insistence about the knowledge, and as I said, it forced its way into me through, it seemed, the solar plexus, causing me to heave and to sob the way I had seen Brother Lew do in class. But it had a certain inevitability about it. And because it had that sense of inevitability, it was also paradoxically calming. I had asked the question, and there was the answer. I am to lead my people. That was what he said, although as I thought about it afterward, I presume he meant perhaps to help lead my people, as I am hardly a Farrakhan, or even a Jesse. But the answer as it came through contained no such qualification. Ask him how I am to lead my people. By becoming as wise as he, came the answer. Once more with heaving. What are the tools I am to use? I am to become a priest came the answer. And when it came, I was again heaving, and with the heaving there was some sense that this was an enormous task, that I was unworthy, how was I to do this, and from where would come the strength. What about money and the financial wherewithal? Not for you to worry, came the reply. Not for you to worry, Osunnike repeated. Well, that is reassuring, I thought. But still I wish I knew how I was to do that. I wish I knew who were "my people," considering I am from Trinidad and Tobago, living in America, and identifying more and more with Africa and the diaspora. Ask him what is his name. After a seemingly endless time -- my chakras must be relatively blocked -- came the answer: "Grisso." Osunnike repeated it. Grisso. Yes, she said. Grisso. Ask him what is his color. The answer this time came very quickly. Red and white, I found myself saying. I was surprised I said so, because I knew red and white to be the colors of Shango in the Yoruba tradition. And I knew Shango to be the ladies' man, the all-around hero, the charmer, etc. I did not think I was \o"S\(ac"ango. I thought perhaps Obatala, whose colors I thought at the time, wrongly, to be blue and white -- his colors I later learnt are white and only white -- and who is a higher god. But no, red and white is what came out. Ask him what are his instruments. I did not know even the meaning of the question. Osunnike explained afterwards that different priests have different instruments. The answer that came was "a staff." Osunnike said later that she indeed saw a rod, not a staff. Well, it was a big stick, we agreed. But at the time she thought I had said "star," and she didn't know what that was. But she thought maybe I was seeing something that she wasn't. Thank him for coming, she said, and release him to the Light. Now, come back down, she said. I want you to walk toward the front of the house. Do you see someone sitting on the front porch? Yes. Who is it? It's my father. Yes. He wants to say something to you. What is he saying? Heaving, again. He says he is sorry. He did not want to crush my spirit. But he doesn't need to apologize, I say. He did what he knew how to do, the best way he knew how. I love him, I say. More heaving. Yes, she says. And he loves you too. I know, I can feel it. It was not over yet. Then she asked me to go back up into the clouds again, this time to look into "the" mirror. What do you see? This time it was not the old man, but a younger man, robust. An African. He looked very much like Kwame Nkrumah, and wore the toga-like outfit that I recognized to be in the tradition of the Asante people. That was a surprise. As an African of the diaspora, it is hard to claim any specific part of Africa as the ancestral home. Coming from Trinidad, the African observances with which I am a little familiar are Yoruba, not Akan or Asante. Osunnike herself was of the Yoruba tradition. Was the image I was seeing telling me the tradition into which I must initiate as a priest, namely, Akan? Or was it merely telling me that, like Nkrumah, I must prepare to help lead my people? Every answer, it seems, raises more questions. Then she brought the session to an end, thanking all the spirits and the deities and the ancestors that had come to help me remember who I was, and what I was meant to do. Coincidentally, I had a numerology reading around the same time as my session with Osunnike. The numerology reading revealed that the prime concern of the third phase of my life into which I am now moving is governed by the number seven vibration, and will be concerned with "truth, wisdom, and light." Craig White, who gave me the reading, thinks I will write many books. That I expect I can do, having already written one book, albeit a dry and scholarly one. As I write this article now, over a year after the session with Osunnike, there is another book in progress, which I tentatively am entitling Shango's Muntu: Essays and Dialogues on Setting Ourselves Free! With the help of spirit, I imagine I should be able to write as many as I am called to write. Craig also revealed that the numbers corresponding to the "master healer" vibration (33) and the "master builder" vibration (22) appear in my "destiny" line. Additionally, as I look at the name "Grisso," it breaks down numerologically as 7 + 9 + 9 + 1 + 1 + 6 = 33 , which is again the vibration of the "master healer," numerologically speaking. Looking at the date of my "rebirth," namely July 10, 1997, it reduces to 7 + 10 + 8 = 16 = 1 + 6 = 7 , the number seven vibration, again, for "truth, wisdom, and light." It seems that my path is clear. Many questions remain. But my path is set. I embrace it. I expect the answers will come in due course. I believe spirit is saying to me, "let not your heart be troubled." Further, as the Bible says: "Seek and ye shall find." So, I will continue to seek after truth, wisdom and light, and I expect that answers will continue to come. I am profoundly grateful to all of my spiritual teachers along the way, but especially to Osunnike, who revealed me to me. May she continue to work the miracles that she does, and may she touch many more lives in the way she has mine. Grisso