Spirituality of Being dDeaf

What is Sacred in Being dDeaf? Several. The first might be communication. To sign, to speak, or both? Our eyes in/and our hands, the new wires in our brains, or both? We, dDeaf people of all different stripes, might answer yes, no, and in the between. Our answers are intertwined in fantastically complex ways which, in fact, IS the dDeafhood process for every deaf and hearing impaired person on earth. We need to ask ourselves deceptively simply yet, hard questions. On a collective unconscious (metaphor) level, if there is one, the Deaf Community needs to put on New Glasses, two multi-hued prisms, to look into our deafhood/ness. We need to deeply look into our minds, hearts, and souls on what it means to be dDeaf. Ask ourselves new hard questions, now more psychological and spiritual in nature.

Other than communication, what else is sacred in being dDeaf? Our dDeaf children. The work of raising and educating of our deaf children, incarnated as The Deaf Child Within Us, needs to be deemed sacred. We need to “worship” the “diety” of the Deaf Child because it represent the best and the brightest of what we can toil FOR today and FOR in the future. The Deaf Child represents our Deaf future. Look at what our comrades fought for on the green hills of Virginia . . . for the Deaf Child, of course, however mildly scratched. The Deaf Child has grown up and is restless in tight pants. Do we feel restless, yes?

You might begin to notice that I use metaphors and archetypes, the language of mythology and religion. New Colored Glasses Named Deafhood? The Deaf Child Within Us? Yes. I revere Jung, Eliade, and Campbell because their works are what the dDeaf people really need. Their books on mythology, religion, archetypes, and the collective unconscious struck me deeply, validating my work and to persevere over many years in sanctifying the dDeaf Experience through the use of creative mythology. We need to sanctify our Deaf Experience and make it holy.

The Deaf Community is “young” as compared with other current communities and those in the past. Most, if not all, of those cultures have stories justifying their existences. Those stories sprung out of their lives and their histories. Those stories are, in fact, the religions the people on earth developed for the sake of their souls, or sanity. Those stories are held sacred, close to our hearts and minds. Where are those for the dDeaf? The DC (deaf children, deaf culture, deaf community) HAS COME OF AGE. Rumbles have been felt in the deaf communities right now, interpreting deaf history, now readily available with scores of books, and producing much more artistic metaphors. The Sacred Metaphor is what dDeaf people need.

What else is sacred in being dDeaf? Our History written in a Book in our Language to slap Audism right into its’ face. We need to preserve and use our tragic and beautiful histories of being dDeaf to cry out for justice on the ongoing treatment humanity has had toward us and our deaf children. We will eventually realize everything being (with the) dDeaf is sacred. Everything on our circular planet under our circular sun is sacred. Look around yourself and find many things sacred in your spiritual journeys. Go into your diverse lives happy to be alive, being dDeaf. Explore your Deafhood. The road in front of you, my Deaf Child, is fraught with some potholes but with many glorious stretches out to the rising sun, the dawn of a new era for us all.

What are the places that discuss Deafhood? At conferences? At universities? At deaf schools? Inside DeafRead vblogsphere? Yes to all and more. What about churches, mosques, and temples serving deaf people? Those established and ministered by dDeaf people. Do they mull dDeafhood?

This blogsite does raise spiritual and religious issues being dDeaf. It is so new for many of us. Should there be Deaf “churches”? The quotation marks are stressed. Religious edifices all over the world house sacred spaces. Do the Deaf World have a sacred space? There is almost nothing like this being contemplated by dDeaf people today. We will realize it is inside us, restlessly percolating. Yes, DeafHood will eventually set up a “church” but in a form so different, yet so natural to us.

The “church” of dDeaf Peoples, simply, is a Deaf Circle. Anywhere on earth you can create a circle of Deaf people. Use a chalk or your pointing finger to draw a circle on the ground. Or set up chairs in circular formations to draw one. Many of us experience education in rooms with desks and chairs in semi-circular formations. dDeaf people could not communicate with one another if everyone is in any straight line formations. We will be unable to see each other. We need to move our bodies toward one another, forming a “D” circle, to use our beautiful visual-spatial languages.

Google “spirituality” and we find sites extolling the use of the circle in religions. The American “Indians” gave us the circular sweatlodge. Our planteary home, the only one we have, is a circle. We live in a circular mother shrine we need to viligantly protect. We need to celebrate mother earth and our “D” lives on/in it. With the civil right movements of our blacks, the deafs, and the queers in America, there is something promising, a resurgence of mother earth spirituality to heal our home. Deafhood and its hearing comrades will unveil our secret to the world, our languages to be more visual-based.

If we do end up establishing “churches” extolling and celebrating Deafhood, what will it be? We saw the joys and horrors religion and political institutions had produced in the history of humanity. Should Deaf Peoples start setting up “churches” modeling after one of them? No, DeafHood will go pagan-like. Just get together in a “D” circle and discuss how to celebrate dDeafhood. That s it.

We, dDeaf people, will create a sacred space of a “D” circle in order to delve into this new concept, DeafHood, or being dDeaf. Again to quote one of our sages, Paddy Ladd . . . .

The setting up of Deaf churches from 2010 onwards was a crucial development, The new concept of a Diety as consisting a set of guiding spirits of Deaf elders from centuries past, who were celebrated and prayed to for guidance, was at first laughed at, until it was pointed out that in many of ther world’s religions, beliefs like this were not uncommon. Once the concept was accepted, it spread like wildfire through the lands, til we have today at our conferences, our own ceremonies for honouring those who led us here and who still guide our way.

From Ladd, Paddy. (1993). The DeafHood Papers, Volume One. From Garreston, M. (Ed.) Deafness: 1993 - 2013. A Deaf American Monograph. Silver Springs, MD: National Association of the Deaf. pp. 69 - 72.

Can hearing people be “D”eaf?

In other signs, do hearing people experience some forms of deafhood? Sure. Let me give you an analogy.

I am a male. I have strong feminine traits in me. I experience some forms of Womanhood in me, but not womanhood. Simply because I am not a woman. It is the same as being hearing in a Deaf World. They have strong visuality traits in them. They, either born into it or learned the language, experience some forms of deafhood. Hearing people, those having pride being associated with Deaf people, could consider themselves “D”eaf yet do not experience Deafhood simply because they are not deaf.

Deafhood probably will always be plastic and gray - it depends on how it is defined. IT IS a culturally “D” deafhood process of being proud being Deaf. It IS a psychological process of coping with hearing loss. Both and in between lie under the the dDeafhood Sun. Maybe we could use the term, deafhood, to denote those psychologically coping with hearing loss and continue in life speaking. Maybe we could use Deafhood to denote those who psychologically celebrate being Deaf and continue in life signing. What about those who speak and sign, dD? Explorations need to be made in deafhood and spirituality, or being dDeaf, here.

The emergence of the concept of Deafhood comes with painful birth-pangs. The birth pangs are the conflicting feelings in the dDeaf community in reacting and accepting Deafhood as a political ideological tool for Deaf empowerment. The birth-pangs are those violent feelings in the dDeaf communities, and the hearing world, in reacting to Deafhood as cultish or religion-like. Yes, dDeafhood is about those birth-pangs . . . and more . . . .

Professionals working with dDeaf people MUST deal with dDeafhood. Psychologists will need to use the concept to dDeafhood within the Jungian psychology help them treat dDeaf patients or not being licensed. Educators will eventually realize that it is unethical to ignore dDeafhood education when teaching deaf children or not being accreditiated. Parents need to consider the deafhood, or psychological, development of their own deaf children or be charged of crimes in parental negilience.

The Secrets of Deafhood will be unveiled to the hearing world. Deaf people know it. If there is one, what would it be? . . . . . . . . silence . . . . One of the secrets comes from Kendall Green, the campus of Gallaudet University. It comes from every building at this university, especially through the rituals of its student organizations. The marvelous myraid connections among Gallaudet, the NAD, the YLC, and the state schools for the deaf (and MANY more) and how they feed deaf children to Gallaudet. This story has not been told to the general wide world. That’s the beauty of being Deaf knowing the secret joy being Deaf. We feel belonged.

Just like the North American Native Peoples are now giving up their hard-held rituals to the world in order to heal our home, the planet Earth. The world out there could be very audistic for us, Deaf peoples. Out of the morass of humanity on earth, glimmers of hope for the future come from us, the Deaf Peoples. We need to give to the world the beauty behind the visual-spatial natures of signed languages. With time and revolutions of our home, humanity on Earth will slowly broaden from mainly its aural existence to a more multimodal by slowly transforming their spoken languages to be more visual-based.

Who will help us, Deaf people, bring out our Secret, once tightly-held, to the world? Hearing people! Those using signed languages and embracing the cultures of the Deaf Peoples all over the world. They are our comrades solidering with us into the future, to help us bring out the beauty of the Secret the dDeaf people have to the wide world. I invoke you, hearing people who feel “D”, to come and embrace deafhood and assume your positions within the ranks of the dDeaf communities by using our language of signs and celebrating being “D”eaf.

Are you happy being deaf? How come? This is probably the fundamental question to the whole deafhood process.

The way you answer both questions above is your own deafhood process. The more you delve into thinking about being deaf and mediate on it, then should you consider it something spiritual being deaf? Huh? No . . . well . . . hmmm . . . maybe yes . . .

People have signed to me, “Yes, I do feel spiritual being deaf.” But what do they mean? Should we use the word, spirituality, to denote all those emotions and experiences being deaf? Probably not. Our answers, clear and vague, are part of the dDeafhood discourse. This blogsite is one of the places where the discourse on the dDeafhood concept within the prism of spirituality, can begin.

it is the beginning . . . .

. . . silence . . .

. . . Here is the second question of the blogsite, Spirituality of Being Deaf.

Q2 - Are You Happy Being Deaf? How come?

If you say no, delve into it why. If you say yes, how come? If you feel both yes and no, how come you have mixed feelings? Are you embarrassed being deaf, then look into why you felt that way. Are you feeling proud being Deaf, then should you keep this pride in check? Your answers, in all shades, probably do revolve around the spiritual process of being deaf.

If we feel protective over us being Deaf, our own dDeaf children, and our dDeaf schools, should we impose those feelings onto others? Should we impose our feelings being Deaf on other (deaf) people? Should we impose our feelings being human on others? In order for a pluralistic, diverse - multilingual and multicultural - world to operate in harmony, our answers to the above should be resoundingly NO!

Every one of us live on the only ship we have. This ship, namely the Planet Earth, is our only home, very precious. Yes, there are much beauty and ugliness about that ship. Peoples and nations agree and disagree, sometimes violently, with one another. Our ship rocks from one side to another in its circular journey into the future. Billions of people, in guise of religions and other practices, have hope for ourselves, humyns, in our future. Deaf people are very much passengers, as for every one of us, on our Ship of Destiny. Who are the stewards of this ship? Who should lead in healing and maintaining our precious habitat? Native indigenous peoples like the Aboriginals or the Native Americans? Politicans and heads of state of countries all over the world? Deaf peoples? The answer is - EVERY ONE OF US!

To quote one of our sages, Paddy Ladd.

From Ladd, Paddy. (1993). The DeafHood Papers, Volume One. From Garreston, M. (Ed.) Deafness: 1993 - 2013. A Deaf American Monograph. Silver Springs, MD: National Association of the Deaf. pp. 69 - 72.