Spirituality of Being dDeaf

First of all, we pray to the planet earth, the only home housing our bodies, AND to the Holy Spirit inside all our souls. Then, we look at the Deaf (visi-centrality) dimension inside us, along with other dimensions - gender, racial and others. This might appear odd to you at first. This does not necessarily mean getting to the ground and prostrate, kvetching to some deaf entity/diety for advice and help. No, no. What we, the living dDeaf people, need to do is to beseech those dDeaf people from our sacred past for help in our constant struggle to better the world we live in.

Would we love to ask George Veditz for his opinion on cochlear implants and AVT? Would we love to ask Laurent Clerc to join the Deaf Bilingual Coalition and listen to his sagacious advices? Would we love to ask Edward Miner Gallaudet for advice about our communication method, a new “mask” for the same old combined method he fought valiantly for into his sacred grave? We would, very much so, sit down on the ground in a sacred circle and watch them with reverent awe. After absorbing new scientific information on sign languages, cultures, and communities (including cochlear implants), what wisdom would Alexander Graham Bell sign to us, deaf, Deaf and hearing people, in our sacred circle? Would he dig deeper his Victorian spurs? Or would his humane heart take over and proclaim something new?

Every being is spiritual, dDeaf people no less. Every dDeaf person feels differently on the role their deafness play in their lives. Some piously devoted to ASL while another person, few miles away, strongly feel that she would perish without her cochlear implants. Both feel strongly about something related to being dDeaf. We are now starting to ponder on “being dDeaf”, now termed Deafhood, with our rainbowed thick crystal-glasses we now putting on in front of our eyes.

Who should the dDeaf pray to? In every culture, they have older people to impart their wisdom on how to raise our children {our future} to critically continue our humynity. Our Nelson Mandela is now involved in establishing a new Council of Elders to give wisdom to us all. What about for us, the dDeaf? Where are our Council of Deaf Elders (including hearing persons)? We do have those people ourselves but they are not yet elevated to higher realms deep inside our lives. We need to sprout and share more stories about them, our Elders, our Deaf brothers and sisters, now departed. The more we think about that, the more we probably will feel spiritual. We need to start working on making changes in our lives for our dDeaf children, or the Deaf Child Within us.

Until very recently, we do not use those words in our current signing parlance. Elders. Wise Old Wo/Myn. Our Deaf Grandfathers and Grandmothers. We do behave in reverence and awe, without realizing, toward our current living deaf Elders. At our gatherings of all kinds, we give tributes to those older Deaf people who are about ready to depart. Should all that remain the same? Or should we show more appreciation and awe? Only with Father Time, Mother Gaia will tell us.

Should we not only continue revere them and ask them for advice but elevate the way we ask. We close our eyes and beseech. Would that be considered praying? If so, then we should pray to our Deaf Elders, in addition to the Ultimate Reality in 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.

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.