Journey to Empowerment (8 page)

B
Y
C
ARMEN
C
ASSANDRA
C
REWS

I always said,

“If God ever put one of His angels on earth—then it had to be you.”

You always have time to talk, to listen, to understand

With all of your own that you have to do. I don't have enough breath in my body To say how beautiful you are

And when I think of you—my heart smiles Needless to say, you're my Shining Star. Mom, you are my saving grace.

When you reach out, it's always to give Even when I don't deserve,

You make life happy to live.

All that you mean to me,

What's a girl to do

Except fall to her knees

And thank God for you.

B
Y
C
ARMEN
C
ASSANDRA
C
REWS

Silver Nappy Hair

Sparkle Diamond Eyes

Ocean Pearl Teeth

Ruby Red Heart

Black Leather Skin

Cotton Spirit within

Sapphire Soles…A Story to Be Told…

About Mother

About Queen Mother

About African Queen Mother

About Beautiful African Queen Mother About You

About Me

B
Y
J
ACKEE
H
OLDER

O
kay, so I'm a writer, and you think that all of this might be easy for someone like me. Think again. So many times I found the very act of putting pen to paper extremely challenging. It has only been recently that I have been able to honor the writer woman inside me. The preceding years of constantly turning up on the blank page in my journal cleared the space so that she could live.

I'm feeling really cozy now as I sink myself into the words I am sharing with you. My mind is wandering as I ponder about the relationship between the fingers that hold the pen, the ink inside the pen, the blood that f lows through the fingertips, the hand that embodies them and the connection to the heart.

The blood in our hands and the ink in our pens are blood sisters. The energy of their juices creates chemistry on the page that is saturated with our truths. How divine that hands which palmists tell us have our lives written all over them guide the pen across the page. Our thoughts may start in our minds, but our hearts are really their authentic resting places. Once there, they become our truths. Hence, the theory of “blood sisters,” whose lifetime oath is to take us as close to our authentic selves as possible. The hand is truly holy: on the hand is the finger upon which we place a ring as a declaration of love; the hand is the first to touch a baby's head as she makes her entrance into the world telling her she is safe; and the soothing touch of the hand comforts someone in pain. How can such a holy vessel lie? Through the hand we will eventually humble ourselves as we write. As the words of Proverbs 18:4 share, “A person's words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as the f lowering stream.”

We humble ourselves as we write. What do we find out about ourselves? This is the question I am seeking to unearth as I plow through the words on this page. When I accept the fullness and the potential of my life and all our lives, I know that there are no edges to our worlds. Woven into the lines and loops of our words are the imprints of our deepest and innermost desires, and it is our hand that leads us there.

I am of African ancestry, born to Caribbean parents who migrated to England, where I was born and raised. The sheer expansiveness of the journey traveled so I could be here permits me to have no boundaries of where I can go or what I can desire for myself. The African in me longs to live by the sea, to go to sleep with the sound of waves in my ears and to rise knowing she does not sleep. It is my journal that safely hears me tell of these desires. My hand coaxes these truths pulsating from the womb of my birth, speaking to me of the things I can't easily reveal in public, like how I long to make love in the open, naked by the sea. When all is said and done, the lover in me is also the mother in me; she is the sister and the friend, the aunt and Godmother, the woman speaking at the podium, a body moving through the aisles of the market, a thousand different faces all wrapped up in one, all with their own secret desires. My journal knows them all so well.

Sometimes our lives hit a spot that scares the living daylights out of us. It really does feel like the lights in our world have been switched off. I hit that place several years ago as I watched a seemingly successful career collapse around me, and I retreated from the world. I was wise enough to consciously take time out to be with myself. While being with myself, I realized how much I had been missing the real me. A period with very little money in these times can send even the most sane of us mad. I felt inadequate and found myself sinking deeper and deeper into a place of desolation from which I wasn't sure I would return. Even when surrounded by people, I felt alone. My journal through these times was my constant companion. She stayed with me, witnessing my thought and my moods, and gracefully allowed me time to wallow on the page in self-pity. I know that these lean times are often the periods many of us find the most difficult in which to write, but it is the most crucial time for the journal writing to continue. It is during these times that we are writing ourselves back to wellness, health and strength. I had to keep on writing to live.

Most of us on the spiritual path will not escape the barrenness of the wilderness experience that when explored beyond that surface contains an oasis of healing and magic. It does not discriminate against whom it will claim. I have found it to be the most disturbing yet the most fascinating part of my journey. It has been scary, yet it has been the greatest place of my healing. It is the dark dawn before sunrise. Had it not been for the journal, I would have wobbled over and sank deep beyond the shores.

The wilderness is where your Goddess takes retreat and runs with the wolves. It's where she lets her hair down, has little or no responsibility and can just do whatever and be whomever she pleases. We must capture her on the page so we can reclaim aspects of ourselves seemingly lost. As you write through your wilderness, your hand will guide you to a sacred well inside of you where you will embark on a journey of the world. Here, in the darkness, your words will dig the trench to find water so you can drink your life back into being. Here, as you continue your excavation, you will discard and release the internal chains that have held you prisoner and your words will guide you home. The woman who runs with the wolves and who can see herself in full f light on the page is a woman who someday soon will not be afraid to live with all that she is. The ancients knew that the wilderness was a place of spiritual cleansing and healing; a place to move closer to authentic self.

I am happiest when I am writing or curled up reading a book. Women who attend my workshops often comment on not being able to find time in their busy lives to write. One part of me responds silently, “Then you don't have time to live.” The more compassionate side of me has another response, “Seven minutes of spiritual grace is all it takes.”

My birth-chart number is seven. Seven, energetically as a number, is charged with a sacred energy. The seventh day has been initiated into the rhythms of the Earth as a Holy day, the Sabbath day, the day of rest. I am very connected to the number seven and its sacred charge. One day, as I wrote in my journal, the following inspiration f lowed onto the page—what if every day we committed to take seven minutes to embrace Spirit in our lives? By practicing this myself, I was amazed at how grace appeared—sometimes softly and other times boldly as I wrote in my journal for seven minutes or went for my morning run in the park with my pocket-size journal in tow.

I took this inspiration into one of the workshops I run, “Connecting with the Goddess Within.” I simply guided the whole group to spend seven minutes in silence completing a journal-writing ritual. The group was presented with three questions probing into the deeper self and encouraged to write without stopping for seven minutes. The goal is to write past the internal critic and to write right into the center of the authentic soul. This was a place of honesty, and Spirit always honors the honest soul. The results for many were profound. Afterward, they shared the experience with each other, and the air in the room was electric. I affirmed that day that all it takes is seven minutes of spiritual grace to remember your spirit and nourish your soul.

Since then, I have been preaching the virtues of the gift of seven minutes of spiritual grace. My goal is to perform my seven minutes every day, because when I do, it sets my heart on fire. The mind can cope with a goal or an intention in bite-size chunks. The secret in taking seven minutes is that you naturally end up spending more time than the original seven minutes you set for yourself.

I have taken the seven minutes beyond the ritual of journal writing. Some days, I spend seven minutes working on a collage for my new journal. On another day, it will be seven minutes spent staring out of my kitchen window across miles of London skyline. Or then again, it may be seven minutes arranging a bunch of f lowers in a vase and soaking in the beauty of Mother Nature. The possibilities are endless, but whatever you do will be a sign for amazing Grace to step right on in.

So here we are, nearing the end of our journey together. I simply invite you to take seven minutes each day to be with your journal, to be with your spirit and to be with your soul. Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book
Something More
said of women of power, “Life needs women who will claim their power, and will use it for all of us.” I believe that writing for our lives is a healing tool that will guide each one of us back home to the center of our soul where we can reclaim not only our authentic selves but be fully connected to our soul's purpose.

I pray that we as African women around the world will continue to weave together the pieces of our fragmented selves from among the words on the page and piece them back together again like our grandmothers and their mothers before them who made the beautiful quilts often depicting the courageous stories of their lives. In doing so, we nurse ourselves back to strength, to our original glory, celebrating the enormity of who we are. As we welcome both the sun and the rain, the thorns and the f lowers of life, we keep faith and keep on stepping out, holding on to the vision to just be—all that is WOMAN! In the meantime, sisterfriend, don't forget, you are the best things you've got!

Be blessed.

B
Y
S
HELLIE
R. W
ARREN

I
'm a liar…in recovery.

Ever since I can remember, I've lied. Sure, I guess we all have at one time or another. We've lied about eating the cookie before dinner, about taking a glance at a fellow classmate's schoolwork, about being seventeen when a cute twenty-one-year-old approached us for our number. These are called “little white lies”—the ones we say will hurt no one. But these fabrications only set the foundation for bigger ones, the kind I have told and have paid the price for.

“I don't need a serious commitment.”

“I am comfortable with casual sex.”

“I prefer ‘nonrelationship' relationships.”

“I'm too young to know what I want in a relationship.”

“Sharing my needs is a sign of insecurity.”

“Putting a man's needs ahead of mine is all a part of compromise in a successful relationship.”

“There's no way I can keep a man without having sex with him.”

Lies! Lies! Lies!

And the sad part is…I had come to believe them.

I've been in many destructive relationships with great men. The men in my life were highly intelligent, very humorous and keenly attractive. They were all goal-oriented and ambitious. And many of them were candidates for healthy, productive relationships…that is, until I started lying to them, but never without first lying to myself. You see, I had many friends who sent the men in their lives through unnecessary drama. They were jealous and possessive. Many of my male friends complained about the high level of maintenance that dating young women entailed. Thus, I pledged to be unique. I was determined to mold myself into the ideal woman, the kind of woman men desired.

I would be attractive and intelligent and funny and would want no more than what a man was able to give. I would not demand a monogamous relationship or have “unreasonable” expectations, for that would surely put unnecessary pressure on them. I would listen to all of their female issues and would provide the solutions. I wasn't going to be the “typical woman.”

However, over time, I no longer felt attractive or intelligent and had started to lose my sense of humor. What I discovered, over time, was an intense longing for a monogamous relationship. But, after years of living this way of life, how could I turn back? Or, why should I? At least this way I was not vulnerable to the men I was involved with. How could I be? They were in my life on my terms. I was receiving the benefits of being someone's girlfriend, but without the responsibilities. I had it made! That is until they started ending their relationships with me to be with the very women who “didn't understand” them. But I thought that I was the understanding one!

To the contrary, I'd been lying to myself and they'd been lying to me. My relationships were built upon falsehoods and denials. I was not the cure, but the Band-Aid. Sure, they wanted me in their lives, but as a diversion or vacation. I wasn't considered the main, the only woman. Then, I began demanding to be. But it came too late. When they ended it, I was hurt and lonely. I felt cheap and used. While sex had distracted me from my pain, it was something I no longer enjoyed. What had the potential of being healthy friendships ended as toxic relationships. I disliked them for not loving me and they did not trust me enough to learn how. I was now addicted to this way of living and it was causing me to die a slow and steady emotional death.

One day, it dawned on me. My problem was my lying. So, my solution had to be to tell the truth.

“I am attractive.”

“I am not a doormat.”

“When I am not honest with a man about what I want in a relationship, I cannot blame anyone else but myself.”

And the biggest revelation of all was, “I AM A QUEEN!”

And, “Queens deserve no less than kings.”

The day I came to know these truths was one of the scariest yet most exhilarating moments in my life. I knew that in order for me to live free of self-affliction, I had to give up the drug that once provided so much comfort and relief for me—self-deception and incongruity. No more convincing myself that my heart and body should be taken casually. No more inviting low expectations from men. No more mistaking lust for love. No more camouflaging piercing, ardent pain with temporary, carnal pleasure. I deserved much more. And what I wanted was a monogamous, moral, upstanding, permanent relationship first with myself, then with others.

I'm freeing myself from the secrets of my past, and I'm excited about my future. I am thankful that God granted me the opportunity to come into this revelation. Relieved that I can do nothing about yesterday, I'm grateful for a chance to change tomorrow. But mostly, I'm appreciative for today…a day that will be filled with no lies.

Only truth.