sankofa
song
breaths
spell-castings
know our past
the people of the waters that are never still
decolonizing retreat
african descendant on mohican land
mapping african foodways
breaths
I believe that all “things” are beings, and as the song suggests, our ancestors inhabit them and teach through them. When we pause and immerse ourselves in the more-than-human world, we can begin to hear and receive the deep wisdom that is our birthright.
…
What wisdom do your ancestors have to share with you?
Where, when, and how do your ancestors come to you?
How can you connect more intentionally with them?
How can you uncover, restore what is “hidden” within your ancestral lifelines?
know our past
> fetch what you forgot <
“The concept of ‘Sankofa’ is derived from King Adinkera of the Akan people of West Africa. ‘Sankofa’ is expressed in the Akan language as ‘se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki.’ Literally translated, this means ‘it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.’
‘Sankofa’ teaches us that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone, or been stripped of can be reclaimed, revived, preserved, and perpetuated.
Visually and symbolically, ‘Sankofa’ is expressed as a mythic bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. This ties with our motto: ‘In order to understand our present and ensure our future, we must know our past.’”
> ancestral wells <
“When we are filled with the waters of our ancestral wells, there is no need to drink or even steal water from the wells of others. When we draw wisdom and ritual from what we can recover of our own traditions, our impulse to appropriate customs from our less assimilated brothers and sisters’ cultures dissolves. Instead, a new paradigm emerges of sharing water communally around an oasis, rather than draining the aquifers of others.”
> sit spot <
> 1 <
the people of the waters that are never still
“Reaching the eastern edge of the country, some of these [First Nations] people, called the Lenni Lenape, chose to settle on the river later renamed the Delaware. Others moved north and settled in the valley of a river where the waters, like those in their original homeland, were never still. They named this river the Mahicannituck and called themselves the Muh-he-con-neok, the People of the Waters That are Never Still. The name evolved through several spelling, including Mahikan. Today, however, they are known as the Mohicans. [...]
The Mohican lands extended from what is now Lake Champlain south nearly to Manhattan Island and on both sides of the Mahicannituck (Hudson River), west to Scoharie Creek and east into Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.”
Before continuing here, I invite you to read the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Community’s Our History page. From this rich history, you’ll learn how “the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians were pushed from the Eastern seaboard across half a continent, forced to uproot and move many times to [their] present Land in Wisconsin.”
During this journey, a group of Munsee peoples, “part of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware people [who] settled near the headwaters of the Delaware River just west of the Mohicans,” joined with some Mohican folk and together became named the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Community, or the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. And while many Mohican descendants no longer live on their ancestral lands, their connection remains.
The Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Community honors and protects their deep cultural heritage through a historic preservation office based on Mohican land, in what is called Troy, New York. They’ve also partnered with folks at Soul Fire Farm to create a cultural respect easement:
“Soul Fire Farm is located on 80-acres of land that historically was stewarded by the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation. The Mohican people were forcibly removed from their territory in the 1800’s to a reservation in northern Wisconsin. We have been building a relationship with members of the community over the past several years and are currently in the process of establishing a ‘cultural respect easement’ which would allow Mohican citizens to use the Soul Fire Land for ceremonies and wildcrafting in perpetuity. Additionally, we have a native seed exchange with some of the farmers and herbalists in the community and are working with Mohican people locally on the fight to preserve their ancestral burial grounds from development.”
Additionally, accomplices like the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust & Network are uprooting racism in the food system by advancing “land sovereignty in the northeast region through permanent and secure land tenure for Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian farmers and land stewards who will use the land in a sacred manner that honors our ancestors dreams - for sustainable farming, human habitat, ceremony, native ecosystem restoration, and cultural preservation.”
In these examples, we find that the love story between land and people is one that continues. We also find a vital reminder: to nurture this love story and others like it, we must heal ourselves, our spirits, and the land from the wounds and strongholds of colonization.
Learn more:
> 2 <
decolonizing retreat
> retreat description* <
Name: Decolonizing Our Hearts, Minds, and Movements, a Leadership Retreat for Indigenous, Black & Latinx Peoples
Date & Location: August 18 - 23 at the Omega Center for Sustainable Living
Description: This gathering for Indigenous, Black, and Latinx Peoples focuses on mindful decolonization strategies intended to help undo the legacy of colonization.
Colonization is pervasive, but for Indigenous, Black, and Latinx Peoples the impacts of genocide, slavery, appropriation of traditional culture, loss of cultural identity, and the loss of and removal from ancestral lands remain. Traumatic memories are encoded in every one of us, and the stigma of our refusal to assimilate is always present, especially in the face of current threats to our planet, cultures, and communities. This gathering, led by and held for Indigenous, Black, and Latinx Peoples, is both a leadership exploration and a healing retreat focused on mindful decolonization strategies intended to help undo the legacy of colonization in each of us and within our practice of activism. Themes include:
How settler colonialism has impacted our thinking and ways of being?
How we engage in responsible land guardianship and restoration?
How we re-incorporate sacred laws into our daily life?
How we can mindfully decolonize ourselves and our communities?
How we can heal historical divisions between different groups?
We come together in unity to plant a seed that will benefit current and future leaders, by cultivating the spiritual warriors of today and tomorrow.
* Copied from the retreat flyer, originally shared by Omega Center for Sustainable Living
> a personal reflection following the retreat, originally published in August 2019 <
This week was one of the most challenging of my (almost) 25 years…
What does it mean, that under the guise of religion, my African ancestors and relatives were taken from their homelands and brought to a foreign land where they would be brutalized and enslaved, and even after “liberation”, their future generations would continue to exist as semi-citizens, disconnected of their ancestral land, practices, and right to self-determination?
What does it mean, that the United States’ existence relies on the continued genocide, oppression, and erasure of Indigenous peoples?
What does it mean, that our national and global economies are inequitable by design, thriving off of the subjugation of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor bodies wordwide, and the theft of their culture and labor?
What does it mean, that my ability to sit here on my laptop as I enjoy a cool breeze and clean air is due to all of the above?
What does it mean, that the myth of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism are so deeply rooted in my everyday existence that to decolonize feels, at times, like trying to breathe without air?
What does it mean, that the fight for the liberation of my people has never been realized and can never be realized under colonization?
Colonization is effective, albeit incredibly inefficient. It’s a process that thrives around and through many of us, regardless of race, nationality, gender, class, and religion, bringing with it extraction, exploitation, genocide, cultural erasure, and spiritual bankruptcy, all in the name of material wealth for a select few.
It’s hard to know where one begins a process of decolonization, which I would define as: a multi-generational, non-linear, and embodied process that enables us to disengage from a colonial existence, and generate one rooted in our sovereignty and lineages. Such a process can be characterized by three interwoven realms of embodiment in which one (person, community, institution, etc.) works to:
cleanse colonial ways of being from within,
reclaim ancestral ways that have been lost, and
evolve into a present state of being that merges the past with the future (afro-futurist time travel? yes, please).
Before the decolonizing retreat, I hadn’t truly realized the magnitude of work needed as decolonization moves from metaphor to reality. This realization has brought a greater reckoning with the mounting impacts of the climate crisis on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and the reality that the systems set up to “protect and serve” will only expand in their violence and denial of my peoples’ right to thrive.
Damn.
So what do I do? What do we do?
The dedication page of Lean Penniman’s Farming While Black reads, “This book is dedicated to our ancestral grandmothers, who braided seeds in their hair before being forced to board transatlantic slave ships, believing against the odds in a future of sovereignty on land.”
While I can never truly know the lived experience of my great-great-great-great-great grandmother, I see clearly how our work is the same. What I must do is what she did: believe that against all odds, our descendants will inherit the full abundance of love and freedom they so rightfully deserve.
And so this week, my calling to know, to love, and to serve is strengthened as it supports a deepening process of decolonization, and a new community to love and hold me as I reconnect with what has been taken, nurture and heal the pain I carry for my ancestors and myself, and work to generate a sovereign future for my people, all in solidarity with accomplices aligned in our collective liberation.
> healing prayer <
I radiate love and compassion
To myself and all beings
And I am hopeful about our future
I am rooted in good community
And I am right where I’m supposed to be
I am held by the love of my ancestors
And I honor them and mother earth
Everyday of this life
May life strengthen my spirit
May love nourish my àṣẹ
> 3 <
african descendant on mohican land: a journey to know, love & serve my people
[place corps independent study]
> focus <
To embark on/continue an embodied and lifelong process of decolonization, and to unlearn and disengage from:
patriarchy,
the myth of white supremacy, and
extraction and exploitation of the land and human labor.
To know, love, and serve a blended and evolutionary African culture, deeply rooted in sovereignty, solidarity, and regeneration.
> threads to explore <
Lineages
What are the lineages that gave/give birth to my àṣẹ (power/life force) and what will I pass on to future generations?
Foodways
What are my ancestral foodways and how will these evolve as place and planet change around me/us?
Spiritual Systems & Beliefs
What are my ancestral spiritual practices and beliefs and how do they manifest for me in the 21st Century?
Dance/Song
What are the rhythms and beats that live in my blood and how do I root dance/song as a way of life?
Expression of Divine Feminine
What is the divine feminine energy that has sustained the mighty diaspora from which I come and how do I honor that which lives within me?
Sankofa
What does/will it look like to carry our ancestors and their wisdom with us as we evolve our communities and cultures towards the future?
> personal practice <
To commune with my ancestors as I open and close each day. By commune, I mean “to spend time” with: at my altar, during prayer, and/or in discovering my ancestor’s stories through conversations with relatives.
> resources <
Music
Spotify Playlist - àṣẹ
Books
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land
Regenerative Design for Change Makers: A Social Permaculture Guide
Podcasts (episodes available wherever you listen to podcasts)
A Little Juju Podcast
The Table Underground
Africa World Now Project
A New and Ancient Story Podcast
New Books in African American Studies
New Books in African Studies
Spiritual Gatherings
Dance
West African Drum & Dance at Root3d & Mettabee Farm
Kulu Mele: Afro-Cuban Virtual Dance Classes
> 4 <
mapping african foodways
> an introduction <
Foodways manifest at the intersection of history, culture, traditions, and food, and refer to:
“ ... all of the traditional activities, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors associated with the food in your daily life. Foodways include customs of food production, preservation, preparation, presentation, gathering, marketing (both buying and selling), uses of food products other than for eating and food folklore.”
Naturally, our foodways are shaped by the places we exist in and from which we come. For example, the foodways of a small island community will likely be different than that of a land-locked community. Traditional German foodways differ from those in Northern India. And overtime, even within a single generation, distinct foodways can shift and change.
What causes these shifts, and what can we learn by tracing the foodways of our lineages across time and place?
My own lineages offer an opportunity as good as any to explore these questions. As second and third-generation Chicagolandians, my family’s story parallels those of countless Black families who, during the 20th century, joined the largest migration of people within the continental United States, completely reshaping the northern and southern parts of the country. In the generations prior, my people were held tightly in the shackles of a violent, racialized enslavement, but even through the worst pain, they held on to what they could of where they came from. Vestiges of traditional African foodways, for example, maintain the pulse of a diverse range of Afro-Diasporic foodways around the world, and leaders like Leah Penniman at Soul Fire Farm are empowering Black folks to reclaim what foodways have been forgotten, and the power that accompanies.
> to free ourselves, we must feed ourselves <
> foodways invitation <
Reflect on a recent meal that nourished you:
What did you eat?
Where did the ingredients come from?
Who prepared the meal?
Where did you eat?
Who was there?
What did it taste like, smell like, sound like, look like, or feel like?