“Hay estrellas en el cielo que no vemos porque no las buscamos
La razón de ser de este libro es ayudar a encontrar esas estrellas en nuestros propios cielos.”
(There are stars in the sky that we do not see because we do not seek them. The reason for this book is to help find those stars in our own skies.)
-Rafael Cancel Miranda

“Seamos cucubanos
Emitiendo nuestra luz
Irradiando amor
Repelando enemigos”
(We shall be cucubanos/ Emitting our light/ Radiating love/ Repelling enemies)
- CucubaNación Mural 2018

CUCUBA (as in cucubanos, native bioluminescent click beetles for fire/ light) + NACIÓN (Spanish for Nation) =

A luminous liberated nation, politically, personally, holistically, spiritually sovereign...

Blackness is the original canvas. Conceived in the darkness of the cosmos, created in the darkness of the womb, it contains the expansive treasures of the abyss. Black canvas upon which creation scribbles light as stars, as moons, nebulas, conception of new life. Light as fireflies, cucubanos, dinoflagellates and other infinite forms of bioluminescent marine life. Light as testament to life thriving in harsh environments. Light most resplendent when conditions are favorable, but still shines in radical testimony when conditions are unfavorable. Light as luminous language, energetic communications through dark skies, and dark water like sonar.

We hold more lit bays than anywhere else on this planet. Portal of cosmic, planetary light reduced to colonial commodity: Puerto Rico. Our archipelago—darkened by conquest, colonialism, extinguished by climate-change storms—disappeared from nighttime satellite imagery where it once shined like a Christmas Tree. Artificial light is temporary. Climate change winds send cold waters surging into our warm bays. Soulless pitiyanquis sell our beaches, chop down mangroves, starve dinoflagellates who rely on tepid waters, nutrient-rich from mangler roots. Our archipelago cancels light pollution and artificial light, reclaims darkness as organic site of its powerful, decolonial concentration of natural light and life.

 Our archipelago teaches the favorable conditions that send single-cell organisms shining through darkness. Calls us to remember, reclaim conditions favorable to our own thriving, our own shining. Calls us back to its dark womb to regestate, unlearn colonial ways, rebirth ourselves in luminous liberation.

We spent months moving through dark nights holding cell phones to black skies for signals connecting us to loved ones. Instead we found cucubano constellations hovering above, revealing all technology has taught us to unsee. Turned off, disconnected, we reclaimed sight. We remembered who we were, remember who we are. Like retinas readjusting, seeing light through darkness, we step out from under the flood lights of colonial surveillance, scribbling sacred swirls of Boricua bioluminescence, reclaiming life and blackness. Like the white sheets of paper they always set before us to draw shadows, we do away with the colonial lens, reclaim black surfaces to draw light from darkness. Remembering our own luminosity, we reconnect, reattune to our ancestral energetic resonance.

We remember, our children remember, that darkness is not a site of fear, but the original canvas. We remember to count cucubanos, draw constellations. We have persisted in darkness long enough for our eyes to adjust. We have seen the shadows and all they reveal to us. We reclaim sight. Reclaim the green of cucubanos and luciérnagas. Reclaim the blue of dinoflagellates. Reclaim the colors of our Earth, majestic school offering opposites to master the art of harmony and balance.

We reclaim darkness to reclaim our own light. We reclaim blackness, reclaim the red thorax, black wings with yellow lines and green glow of fireflies as colors of Marcus Garvey’s dreams of liberation. We reclaim our sacred place in the greater global black liberation struggle. We reclaim our colors and creativity, master our glow. Reclaim the wonder of childhood for all the innocence colonialism has stolen with its violence. We reclaim darkness and the ability to see through it to overturn imposed invisibility.  We ourselves determine our visibility or clandestinity.

We reject the policing of our tongues, the imposition of one colonial language over an other, further dividing us. We reclaim the most prevalent language on Earth, the one communicated by an infinity of bioluminescent creatures in her abundant waters. From this moment forward we speak light. Transcendent, effective in this and other dimensions. We dissolve the imposed confines of colonialism.

Conceived in the blue lit waters of Bieké, CucubaNación incubated, like glowing larva of fireflies, through countless dark nights following Hurricanes Irma and María. It was born onto a black wall and a black canvas in cathartic expression following police repression of May Day protests. It expanded into a storefront space in the frustrating weeks following Hurricane Fiona. CucubaNación has revealed itself as an autonomous space to envision and practice sovereignty. To imagine what we are collectively needing and practice dreaming, living it into existence. CucubaNación is a luminous, borderless, liberated nation cultivating our essence through our internal light, harnessing the power of our collective light. We rely on no external power sources. We are our own light. We are our own liberators.