Chester Haggins – The Man with The Eyes for Sacredness
I cannot tell exactly how Chester Higgins and I got connected on LinkedIn, but I started seeing notifications from his posts just a while ago. It appears we became “friends” on LinkedIn. You know how social media friendship is. On this particular day, I got a message from him on LinkedIn telling me about his photography project titled: Sacred Nile. In case you don’t know, anything photography or phorography project gets my attention quicker than many things. So I followed the link he shared with me to see what his project was about. Browsing through his Sacred Nile website, I was blown away by the images of places in Africa that he captured so graciously and with a dexterity that must have been honed over many years of doing the job. He featured places in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. I was particularly drawn to the images from Ethiopia from a place called Mount Entoto.
About six years ago, my wife and I visited Mount Entoto in Ethiopia, so I had a bit of memory of what the place looked like as I see Chester’s images. Unknowingly to us, the day we visited the mount was on one of their Ethiopian Thawahido church holy days. So the entire place was filled with faithful, all doing one activity or the other. I remember trying to take photos of some of the worship activities going on in one of the cathedrals we went to, but I was not allowed. It was their holy day. “Intruders were not allowed, especially to take photos. I did manage to take one, though. I think the man who allowed me to have a photo of him was one of the leaders of that Cathedral.
Chester Higgins has masterfully done a great job with this book. Here is a short excerpt from the book:
“Sacred Nile is my portrait of the spiritual imagination and the genesis
of faith in Africa. Ancient records left in stone detail Africans’
philosophical quest to wrestle with the seminal issues of who we are,
where we are, and what is our purpose.
In my photographs, I celebrate the sacred agency of people of African descent and their foundational influence on all Western religions. The images illustrate a millennia-long migration of faith up and down the River Nile, the living waters that link
Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. The ancient land of Egypt was called Kemet, translated as The Black Land. The ancient territory of Sudan south of Kemet was called Nubia, from the ancient word nub, or gold. With this visual record of faith, I propose to redefine the
beginnings of belief at its earthly place of origin, along the sacred Nile. Coming face to face with the monumental remains of Ancient Egypt, I realized that the African foundation of religion had been obscured by
miseducation. The story of Ancient Egypt’s enduring and innovative civilization has been uprooted from the memory of African people.
The north-flowing River Nile in northeastern Africa is fed by two main tributaries: the Blue Nile, originating at Lake Tana, Ethiopia, which contributes eighty percent of the water as well as the fertile silt and the White Nile, which arises in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. For this study of the origins of spirituality and faith, I begin in Ethiopia. The Blue Nile River, from the Ethiopian highlands, flows north to
Khartoum, Sudan. Here, the Blue and White Niles merge to form the River Nile that courses through the deserts of Sudan and Egypt on its way to empty into the Mediterranean Sea.
For fifty years, I have returned regularly to this waterway to deepen my perceptions, my understanding, and my appreciation for the spirituality that was honed and is still celebrated here. I return to honor the spirits
of our beginnings — the spirits of the Ancients whose wisdom still impresses and brings us peace.”
Storytelling comes to us in various ways, but the intention is always the same – to give a face to that which is hidden or tell the tale of that which is “mute”. And Chester has done a remarkable job with both. I am still going through the book and hope you get a copy too. By the way, Chester sent me a digital copy when I asked him, and for that I am grateful.
You can get a copy of Scared Nile on Amazon. Use the link below:
