Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Welcoming 2014

It’s been a long eventful year (2013) filled with many ups and downs but overall it has been a year of tangible inner growth. I had quite a lot of turbulence in my personal life and relationships but I came out stronger, wiser and more determined to forge ahead without losing self.

I have made a number of friends and mostly I have Facebook to thank. My friends know themselves for we engage one another nearly every day on issues close to our hearts and we draw strength from one another consciously and subconsciously. I must thank the universal force (Eledumare/God as is most commonly called) for bringing me to them and them to me in a time as this (when keeping your head in a clime where one ought to be and feel very well at home is a daily struggle). There is comfort and solace in knowing you are not alone in your weirdness and on the journey for truth. These friends make the journey well worth with. They embody resilience, intelligence, beauty, light, love and empathy.

Ha, I must also tell you about my hair journey, a journey which has helped to define for me a roadmap to my identity and heritage. While some may have embraced natural afro hair as a style, I have come to understand it more as the physical manifestation (which my hair is a part of) of my spiritual being. I have embraced more fully the natural lifestyle change not just with my hair but my entire body and have learnt to treat it with more respect, grace and tender loving care and not roughly with toxic chemicals, needles and glues/bonds as was ‘learnt’. This journey has also opened me up to more positivity and understanding towards people who look like me and towards the land on which my (our) ancestors walked.

I realized that it was like a rebirth of my own self. The self I had hidden long ago under many layers which burdened my being but which I had to bear because I didn’t know any better. I am glad that I have also been able to influence a few women to embrace their kinks and to drop the ‘lye’ (no pun intended – lye is caustic soda which is the main ingredient in chemical relaxers). I have to thank all the wonderful sistars who blog and upload videos about natural hair care and living. The empowerment and support is immeasurable and I hope to also make my own contributions in that regards.

I quote Charlie Chaplin “As I began to love myself I free myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this a healthy egoism; today I know it is love for oneself.”


On the whole I have become more conscious and not just living the script written by others (parents, peers, media, governments, society) but paying close attention to my being and to what inspires my heart. I thus take conscious steps towards people and things that relate to that. I have not lost faith in humanity and most especially in the redemption of my homeland. I believe just like the turbulence in my own personal life the situation will bring about some positivity and good eventually and like Nina Simone, we just need to keep sane and work towards it till it come but change is certain.

May 2014 be more liberating and rewarding for us all. Happy New Year!!

4 comments:

  1. Am happy to know you Ma'am, may Edumare bless us all. Let us do it again this gregorian calendar year.

    Let there be light Ma'am

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  2. Your impact, well felt last year can only broaden my horizon much better this year (2014). May you continually find strength in this regard. Thanks.

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    1. Thanks Mr. Akindoju! May our paths be illuminated.

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