by Curlan Campbell
- Grenada Ifa Festival expected to draw regional and international participants
- Fitzpatrick expected to deliver major presentation at Ifa festival symposium
- Symposium hosted by Shrine of the Seven Wonders of Africa Inc.
Caribbean-born scholar and poet Liseli A Fitzpatrick, PhD, is calling on Caribbean people to reclaim their intangible yet foundational inheritances, referring to our sacred African philosophies and practices. In July 2026, Fitzpatrick will participate in the Grenada Ifa Festival, where she is expected to deliver a major presentation at the symposium hosted by The Shrine of the Seven Wonders of Africa Inc.
The symposium’s theme, Ancestral Wealth, Inheritance, and Abundance, resonates deeply with her work. “Collectively, I see ancestral wealth, inheritance, and abundance as our ability as Africans to (re)connect with, embody, reap, and cultivate the sacred wisdom, seeds, and fruits of our ancestors’ Love, intelligence, labour, and sacrifice,” Dr Fitzpatrick explained.
Dr Fitzpatrick described her upcoming visit to Grenada as both a personal and collective calling. “I feel a strong sense of spiritual obligation and oneness. Being in Grenada for the Ifa Festival Symposium is both ancestral homecoming and veneration,” she said, noting the island’s “immense ancestral power and energy — tapped and untapped, seen and unseen, feared and revered.”
A Trinidadian poet and professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, United States, Fitzpatrick brings a deeply integrated and universal approach to scholarship and creativity – one embedded in African cosmology, ancestral knowledge, and diasporic identity. “Our greatest inheritances are our sacred philosophies and practices, which are rooted in a grounded sense of self, community, ritual, and genuine care for creation and the continuity of life.”
When asked what concerns continue to hinder the Caribbean from fully reclaiming its sacred African philosophies and practices, and to what extent the political landscape contributes to these challenges, Dr Fitzpatrick stated that “Reliance on Western political ideologies and the unattended injuries of slavery and colonialism, will only impede our empowerment and cause disillusionment.” “The West was fabricated on and thrives off the disempowerment and disenfranchisement of African peoples, starting with the desecration of our sacred cosmologies. The deleterious constitutions of the West and its institutions were designed to obstruct our self-actualisation and collective spirit.” However, in 2023, during the second convening of the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD), Fitzpatrick asserted that “you can shackle the body, but you cannot shackle spirit. The African spirit is unconquerable and ubiquitous.”
Fitzpatrick advises regional practitioners to foster deeper integration with the objective of fully reclaiming our African heritage. “Emphasis should be placed on emancipatory and sensory education initiatives that engender and empower awareness, healing, and community steeped in our ancestral sacred traditions. Venerating the words of Audre Lorde, Fitzpatrick added, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” She elaborated: “Western thinking and ways cannot be used to undo Western-intended and inflicted problems. Western education is oxymoronic and a misnomer.”
Ahead of the Grenada Ifa festival, Dr Fitzpatrick emphasised that her academic and creative lives are inseparable. “Everything I do is intellectually and intuitively creative — birth from the same source with the sole purpose of inspiring life,” she said. “As a Diasporic Trinidadian poet and professor of Africana Studies, there is a natural synergy between who I am and what I do. The two are inseparable.”
Her embodied teachings and life’s work centre on African cosmology, which she defines as “the ingenious ways we as African people — on the continent and throughout the Diaspora – use our senses to make sense of the world. It is eco-conscious and eco-centred, premised on the lived principles of nature, energy, and balance. The spiritual and physical are inextricably linked.” She added, “In every sense, I teach what I live and live what I teach, where art is intrinsic. African art is intellectual. Art articulates life. Black art is Black life.” She also offered a sharp critique of Western constructs of wealth and success. “Western notions of wealth are exploitative, soulless, and rapacious, predicated on violent consumerism, control, and capitalism.”
In contrast, she described African cosmological perspectives as “synonymous with wholeness and wholesomeness that emphasise the holistic well-being of our cosmic existence. The eco-nomics of life or equitable laws of nature.”
Fitzpatrick’s forthcoming book, Slavery and the Dis-Ori-entation of the African, examines the spiritual and psychological disruptions caused by slavery. She explained the concept through Yoruba philosophy: “In the language and cosmology of Yoruba, Ori is the embodiment of our spiritual head (ori inu) and physical head (ori ode). Ori is our point of origin, navigational compass, and destiny. Ori is the seat of our consciousness. It is the nexus of our sense of sight, smell, sound, taste, reason, and being. Ori informs who we are and where we are. Iwa pele, or ‘good, gentle, and balanced character,’ is achieved when ori inu and ori ode are in alignment. However, when Ori is disturbed, we lose our moorings and all sense of awareness, purpose, and direction. Disorder ensues.”
She defines “Dis-Ori-entation” as “the misalignment of our spiritual and physical sense of self,” caused by “disruptive, violent, and traumatic events like slavery and its colonial vestiges.”
Despite these historical traumas, Fitzpatrick underscored resilience: “All was not lost or thrown overboard; our ancestors left us a rich inheritance — they found ways to preserve our sacred practices and persevere through their sheer ingenuities, Love, and indomitable spirits.”
Fitzpatrick advocates for what she calls “Re-Ori-entation,” a process of realignment grounded in ancestral knowledge and self-reflection. “Re-Ori-entation begins by aligning with our true and full selves through emancipatory education and profound reflection on the past, present, and future.” She highlighted the Akan principle of Sankofa, emphasising the need “to return and retrieve” ancestral wisdom. This journey, she noted, is both individual and collective, requiring “open-mindedness and openness of heart.”
Language, storytelling, and poetry remain central to cultural survival and identity. “When our ancestors were forbidden to read and write in the language of the colonisers, they used their expansive gift of orality and genius and created new languages, sonic vibrations, music, and movements that affirmed our humanity and preserved our cultural heritages,” Fitzpatrick said. She stressed that these practices continue to serve as tools for reclaiming consciousness and identity across the African diaspora.
Looking beyond survival, Fitzpatrick called for a return to foundational values. “Full adherence to our sacred practices — earthed in Love, wisdom, compassion, reverence, and communion with nature,” she said, is essential for achieving true abundance and alignment.
Her message to attendees of the July symposium is clear. “Our ancestors have bequeathed a valuable legacy of wisdom and sacred practices regarding the fullness of life, healing, and success, which we are entrusted to preserve and care for responsibly rather than disregard and squander.”
The Grenada Ifa Festival is expected to draw regional and international participants, with Fitzpatrick’s presentation anticipated as a cornerstone of the event’s exploration of heritage, spirituality, and collective renewal.
