Journey to Empowerment

by Maria D. Dowd

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  Plights of Passage

  BY MARIA DENISE DOWD

  Therapists know. Physicians know. Prison administrators know. Spiritual healers know. Drug and alcohol rehab counselors know.

  We all know someone who knows.

  No, I don’t know the precise statistics, but I’m certain that we’d all be floored if we did. However, people in the healing and empowerment business have worked with enough people and have garnered enough knowledge and insight on just how devastating sexual abuse committed against our children—and, primarily, our daughters—has been to the black community. Much of our rates of obesity, alcoholism, depression, drug abuse, promiscuity, prostitution, imprisonment, relationship and sexual disorders and dysfunction can be attributed to this single root cause—sexual abuse. And, from what we’ve likely witnessed among family members and sisterfriends, these kinds of wounds don’t always heal with the neatness of a skinned knee. As sure as one has forgiven, the experience is surely not forgotten. Thus, “getting on with your life” may not be such an easy proposition, especially when we’ve continually dismissed the ordeals as commonplace.

  “Well, that’s life.” (According to whose laws of morality and humanity?)

  “If I got over it, so can you.” (Is this the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?)

  “It could have been worse.” (Says who?)

  “Ain’t no female safe. That’s just the way it is.” (So, no one is responsible for protecting the other half of the world’s population?)

  How has it happened that so many of our children’s rites of passage into man-and womanhood have been at merciless, fouled hands of pedophiles, rapists or sexual harassers? How has it happened that we have been so engrossed in our own busyness, fear and pride, that we haven’t seen our children’s anxieties and anguish? How is it that we can put the onus on our daughters to keep their “skirts down and panties up,” when someone much older, more trusted, and certainly more coy might be testing their innocence? This is not a “blame ’n’ shame” crusade. However, we must talk about it to fully comprehend it…and its far-reaching consequences, when left ignored and the pieces disconnected. Let’s consider the aftermath of the aches—most often subconsciously borne—passed on to next generations.

  We have to talk about the warning signs. And there are always warning signs, if we’re paying attention. A grown woman can conceal an abusive encounter. Children are not so ingenious. Even when they might not shed tears, there are signs that cry for help, and those signs are usually so commonly textbook, they’re like cold, hard slaps in the face. We must not presume that our children “act out” because they are bad or are “naturally” quiet or withdrawn. Children don’t plummet out of the blue. We need to protect our children’s bodies, minds and souls, and not concern ourselves with creating “embarrassing situations” or financial hardships. Our children come into our world pure and wholly reliant on us for their safety and well-being. Know that the damage could be irreversible and those demons could follow them to their graves, but first not without many days and nights of living in the hell of the memories. Your assumptions about “survival” rates and probabilities don’t matter. No child deserves to be force-fed this kind of anguish.

  And women who’ve been victimized need to talk about it—both to help and heal. Forget nasty little family secrets, promises and hurt feelings. By talking about it, we can hopefully lift the burdens and possibly save a child from a similar fate.

  We need to keep a brow raised to all of the people our children and teens come in contact with. Let’s not sensationalize it. Most child predators don’t lurk in bushes and dark alleyways. They sleep in our beds, sit at our dinner tables, babysit, borrow sugar from across the fence and take our children on outings. They could be our husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, neighbors and close friends of the family. Most are men. Some are women. While some might assault without warning, most will take the time with our children to build trust and even love. Look closer into our children’s eyes. Watch their interactions with and reactions to the people in their lives. We do the laundry; check it. We tuck them in at night; talk. Teach them the differences between “good” love and “bad” love. Then show them “good love” regularly and unconditionally. Assure them—through words and actions—that you love them and want them safe. Watch, listen…and never betray their trust in you.

  We need to remove our rose-colored glasses and see things as they are—within our homes, schools, churches and other places where our children are presumed safe and secure. We need to share our stories of “plights of passage” so that we might save our village’s children from similar fates.

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  What moves me to tears is when others give their power to someone else who then makes them feel insecure and insignificant. I resolve to remain self-assured and independent by…

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  Ivy Reid

  BY NANCY LEE

  Motherless herself at fifteen, my mother’s journey was multifaceted. She immigrated to the United States from Jamaica having been coerced into marriage by another immigrant from home who played her fears of being a single woman in a strange, hostile country, of facing the world alone, of making a life by herself in the so-called Promised Land. There may have been some attraction, but her decision to marry my father probably was based mostly on fear.

  In the States, her income came from what I see so many of our people doing today—caring for white people’s children. Her articulate husband managed to snag a position as a law clerk until he was let go after the 1929 stock market crash. His new position as an elevator operator required long hours and enough endurance to face racism in all its demeaning dimensions. He was a proud, intelligent man who wore the mask of fake gratitude and fake cordiality while smothering real anger and the very real fear of not being able to adequately provide for his burgeoning family.

  Always resilient and resourceful, Mom proposed getting a Harlem brownstone to convert into a rooming house. She would go to work using her newly gained skills as a seamstress while he managed the property. Proud and chauvinistic as he was, my father would have none of it. He wanted to return to Jamaica where he already owned land. She balked, but he insisted and eventually took the children back home without her. The separation lasted seven years until he became ill, and she was forced to return to Jamaica.

  What she encountered when she arrived was a mortally ill husband who had been diagnosed with rapidly advancing cancer, but rumor had it that a jealous brother-in-law had poisoned him. Dreams of a good life in the Promised Land had faded into a bleak reality. Before my father succumbed to his fate, he impregnated my mother one last time and passed away two months before I was born. I look back from my adult perch and wonder how she endured; I doubt I could have.

  I came out of the womb too soon. My older sister had had trouble in birth, too, and suffered irreparable brain damage, so she was never the true self her personality suggested—a friendly, outgoing foil for mother’s nature would allow her to take care of the physical needs of her children with great skill while turning on us with a mighty tongue that could rip our self-esteem to shreds. We all felt it differently.

  Newly widowed, my mother single-handedly brought her three children from the island to the States—one bewilderingly different, a heartbreakingly handsome and burdensome son, and a premature newborn. Back in Harlem, relatives provided shelter as she continued her journey to independence. A hard-won tenement apartment with rooms to let provided a way of making an extra buck for herself and her three children.

  In our cold tenement apartment, my mother would listen to her baby girl crying and pleading to be let into her bed for comfort and solace; meanwhile, she needed that comfort and solace herself. Blessings from God and a diligent, watchful mother kept the apartment from catching fire from the oil stove we used for a little heat. Oh, the stress and broken sleep it must have caused.

  My mother’s only son, and
substitute husband, would provide the catalyst for escaping the tenement with the GI Bill he’d earned after a stint in the U.S. Army. Mother had saved her pennies to make the down payment on a two-family Cape Cod home. We had made it to the Middle Class.

  Her journey lasted ninety years. A proud and strong woman to the end, she died from a hospital mistake that left her helpless against a medication that completely cut off her circulation. While her death was unfair, her sacrifice provided for her children and her grandchildren, who would share the proceeds from the sale of that Cape Cod home.

  When we retrace our ancestral heritage, it gives us the courage to go on because the nature of things tells us that their journey was usually more difficult than our own. We have the choice to embrace it, to learn from it, to be in awe of it or perhaps to deny it.

  My mother was so many things, fulfilled so many roles—mother, breadwinner, matriarch, teacher, disciplinarian and role model.

  Star Angel

  BY CARMEN CASSANDRA CREWS

  Dedicated to Yvonne Crews

  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.

  Queen Mother

  BY CARMEN CASSANDRA CREWS

  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

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  We must love to appreciate our own unique beauty and not let others define or belittle our characteristics. I love being me unconditionally because…

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  Writing Ourselves Back to Strength: Part II

  BY JACKEE HOLDER

  Okay, 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.