First Published On:Monday, May 23, 2011 in the Tribune newspaper.
I write today’s Insight with some sadness, knowing that one of my number one advocates – the late, great Jackson Burnside – will not be around to open the paper this morning to feast on my insights.
He was a person I trusted with my most precious dreams and most passion-filled visions. He had the ability to imagine into being the non-existent; and he rated this talent in visualization over the more common ability to analyse and criticize. Perhaps it was this quality that enabled him to cradle the dreams of another and find a way to help them levitate.
What was precious to me was precious to him, not because of what it was, because he could see beyond any artifice, but because he could perceive the big idea. As an architect, he knew how to work in the realm of façade, but he differentiated himself because he grasped that ancient African principle that says, “As above so below.” It means the outward material realm is a mere reflection of an inner universe.
Most people are familiar with the parallel Christian concept: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But they have no knowledge of the African meaning: an antecedent principle, thousands of years more senior. It is a manifest principle in the greatest edifices of ancient Kemet (Egypt – the Her-em-akhet (Sphinx) and the Mir (Pyramids).
“The priests of ancient Egypt preserved a geometrical canon, a numerical code of harmonies and proportions that they applied to music, art, statecraft, and all the institutions of their civilization,” states John Mitchell, in his book on “sacred geometry, ancient science, and the heavenly order on earth.”
Each earth-based structure on the Giza Plateau reflects an inner symbolism that is geometrically and philosophically aligned with the heaven-based stars; each structure holds a mirror to the cultural ethos of its builders and designers. Mr Burnside’s thinking was large enough to grasp the profoundness of that idea and he brought that to bear on how he perceived life.
His interrogation of “common sense architecture” and “common sense culture” is proof of this. “Culture itself is simply common sense that makes a people special,” said Mr Burnside in a 2002 presentation on Junkanoo. On architecture, he often told his students and project teams to “examine their own architectural heritage for its common sense.”
If we look critically at the notion of “common sense” its connection to the ancestral notion of divine proportionality is unmistakable. For most people, the only reference point for this idea is the Vitruvian Man, a fifteenth century drawing of Leonardo da Vinci. It is an ink sketch of a male figure inscribed in a circle and square that illustrates the divine proportions of man.
An Evolving Being
My latest reference point for the concept is a sunflower. I picked three last week and counted the petals. The flowers varied in size and style, but each had exactly 20 petals. It should have been no surprise really, because nature, from the leaves on a tree to our very bodies, follows a mathematical sequence or golden ratio. Our ancestors, the ones who were systematically obliterated from our memory, had the capacity to translate that divine design into their built environment; that was their common sense.
Common sense describes the innate and inner logic or design behind creation. The more we articulate common sense is the closer we get to expressing the sacred cannons of our ancestors. The more we understand common sense is the more we align ourselves with the natural order of things.
Mr Burnside “was an evolving being”, as architect Mtumwa Cleare says, and in his memory and for our own sake, I believe we are called to continue the interrogation of the common sense questions. Our evolution as a nation and a people counts on it.
“You could say you feel the door should be so high and wide, but what are the cannons that make that right. That is where the concept of sacred architecture comes from, because the relationship of width to height of the door is based on certain discovered universal numerical sequences. Is the ratio of the width and height of the door conformed to these sacred ratios? That comes from how Her-em-aket is laid out, just on a large scale,” said Mtumwa, a friend of Mr Burnside.
“When something conforms to the logic, when you look at it, your spirit falls into harmony with it. Your spirit does not recognize the ratio; it just recognizes the harmony of it. If it is not in the ratio then your spirit recognizes the disharmony. I know between myself and Jackson I was gearing up to explore this idea even more, looking at how to canonise common sense,” he said.
To situate the conversation Mr Burnside had and continues to have with us in a broader context I reach for the discussion happening on the world stage on “African fractals”. I think it gives us an African reference point counter to the Vitruvian Man. Fractal geometry is a mathematical tool for modeling in geology, biology, other natural sciences and information technology. African fractals speak to how our ancestors used this precise science to structure their dwellings, design their buildings and streets and everything else from hairstyling, painting, carving, metalwork and games, not just in Kemet, but across the continent.
A Modern Day Imhotep
Mr Burnside was an architect by profession, but he also saw himself as a mathematician. Earlier this year he attended a presentation of Dr David Imhotep, a scholar in ancient African history, who authored the book, “The First Americans were Africans.” Reverend Cleveland Eneas II “Anku Sa Ra”, of the Qubtic Church of the Black Messiah, attended the same presentation. He said Mr Burnside raised his hand when Dr Imhotep asked if there were any mathematicians in the room.
“I smiled. I have known some mathematicians, but I only related to them by way of a classroom, never by way of a functional person using it to express themselves. Jackson’s expression of life goes back to what they called the golden ratio. That is kind of always how I saw Jackson relate to everything; everything had to fit within this schematic that actually is. He was a mathematician. He was a modern day Imhotep,” said Reverend Eneas, referring to the ancient African architect, engineer, doctor, priest and scribe.
“He made the most complex thing seem simple because he knew the origins. He peeled away the husk and gave you the seed. He could take a complex theory and break it down into, ‘if you treat your craft like nanny then you can expect everyone else to treat it like nanny’. In other words, don’t expect other people to believe in something for you; you have to believe in it for yourself and then make it believable,” he said.
Mr Burnsides shows us that the common sense of our people is actual natural science. This perspective has influenced me and countless others. Mtumwa said it “affirmed ideas” on how he looked at the built and natural environment and how we as people should relate to those two spheres.
“These new ideas of energy conservation and sustainability and green living are not new ideas; when looked closely, it was how our ancestors naturally lived. This is something that Jackson believed. For example, from the rubbish piles in the backyards of our grandparents to the slope and height of their roofs, these two common sense elements are now seen as new design initiatives in the built environment. The science of the rubbish piles of our grandparents is now called a compost heap and the height and slope of their roofs are now thermal wells,” said Mtumwa.
Perform any Internet search on “African fractals” and you will likely land on Ron Eglash’s TED presentation on “Africans fractals in buildings and braids.” It is a revealing presentation on the genius of the African mind. These are the people deemed “uncivilized” by Europeans. These are the people who were “discovered.” It is a myth and a lie and Mr Burnside calls us to talk the truth and write the story.
Our people were enslaved; their culture was raped, their ideas were plagiarized, and their memory has been obliterated from our consciousness. And yet, the descendants of Europeans research us to this day with the same fervor and wonder as their ancestors did in times past.
In a 2002 presentation of culture and the Bahamian identity, Mr Burnside wrote: “The colonial system under which the majority population has lived throughout this country’s relatively short history, very cleverly emptied the slave brain of all substance by destroying history – African culture became ‘savage’, African relation became ‘superstition’, beliefs became ‘hocus-pocus’, history of society was reduced to tribal wars. In short ‘Tarzan’ became ‘king of the apes’, and the only intelligent being on the African continent. African children grew to hate their heritage and found comfort in identifying with white society.”
Leap forward to 2011. The identity crisis persists, and it pains me to think that most in our society see no connection between this reality and the realities of crime, education, family in our society. Until we heal the African psyche and recontextualise the European story there will be no salvation for any us.
That is why Mr Burnside once said: “We need therefore institutions, centres of information, research and expression that respond to the need of our people to see images of dignity in our own particular way of doing things. A national library, national museum and national performing arts centres are not luxuries, but essential tools in building the self-respect that we deserve.”
It is the artists, the historians, the healers, the philosophers and scribes who are the soldiers in this revolution. And it is they who must lead the leaders.