Healing resources rooted in wisdom and wellness
Rooted in my ongoing research through The Black MAP Project, I present the Afrodynamic Healing MAP1—a framework shaped by a wholeistic understanding of lived experience, outlining the domains of care that are central to my healing practice.
| Healing domain | Description | Potential healing ingredients |
|---|---|---|
| Spirit | The spirit domain speaks to the wellness of the soul and includes spiritual and religious beliefs and practice(s). |
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| Body | The Black body has survived enduring brutality. We see an increase in calls from Black healers and community leaders to rest for resistance (Hersey, 2022), engage in pleasure activism (A. Brown, 2019), and imagine the Black body in ecstasy (Nash, 2014). Black artists, too, engage music and dance to open portals to engage practices of freedom. Yet, Black folx have also had to find ways to experience and practice freedom even as our bodies have been in captivity and/or pain. |
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| Mind | The mind domain encompasses that which we think about and where/how we learn. This domain encourages a re/turning to ancestral ways of knowing and engaging practices that awaken and sustain cultural memory. |
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| Heart | This domain speaks to our emotional worlds and encompasses our relationship(s) with self and others. The heart domain also connects to the potency of Black love and the importance of and possibility in Black relational and communal encounter and connection. |
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| Community | Community encompasses those whom you consider your "tribe." The folx you can call on or go to. Doula(rtist)/Wise Guide underscored the enduring power of mutual aid, and Wise Guide/Educator shared the potent healing energy of communal engagement. From an Afrodynamic perspective, we are as well as our community. |
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| (Re)sourcing | Black people have long been able to source our needs through accessing internal and community means. Sourcing speaks to acknowledging and mindfully engaging our individual and collective well for surthrivance.[1] |
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| Soular systems | Soular systems encompass the center and outer bounds of the diagram and constitute a web of systems that are essential to the soul. This includes the ancestral connections, nature, the cosmos, spiritual practices, [and . . . ]. |
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