The Awakened Woman

by Tererai Trent

  My mother could have hated my father, too, but she did not. Why not? Because my mother understood what I was starting to learn: that my father was also trapped in the toxic power dynamics of a world that so narrowly defines masculinity, that values profit over people, conquest over shared humanity, and white over black.

  Perhaps it would be easiest of all to hate or blame the young white boy, but is he not also poisoned by this bitter worldview? This white boy—so young that “boy” was indeed an apt description of him, not an insult, while it was to my father—was already being taught to brutalize another human being.

  This experience was an awakening for me. I learned that my enemy was not this other woman, nor my father, nor this white boy, but the darkness in their hearts, and in the heart of the society that dehumanizes and devalues others. I realized that I did not need to excuse the bad behavior of people who hurt me, but I also did not need to waste all my life feeling anger for them while ignoring the larger dynamics that created these painful divisions among us. In fact, if I held on to anger, it would keep me from love and connection; it would keep me so busy with hating that I would have no time or energy to pursue my sacred dreams. What I needed instead was to cultivate forgiveness, just as my mother had done.

  Let forgiveness be at the center of your belief practices. Let it be the lifeblood that shapes your destiny. You have the power to envision a better world. Be brave enough to look into the face of great challenges and let the truth of the struggles you see inspire you to imagine your way out, knowing all the while that your individual imagining is also a social imagining.

  Grow Your Soul Through Ritual

  There are seven billion people on earth and we’re all searching for something: redemption, meaning, strength, and connection. How we express our spiritual belief is less important than our finding our own personal and social ways of connecting to something bigger than ourselves.

  To achieve your dreams you need an authentic self that is built on belief. What are the ceremonies and rituals that guide your dreams? What is their foundation? Is that foundation strong enough to guide you through turmoil and unpredictable challenges? What will grow your soul? What will cleanse you? What will awaken your senses?

  Belief becomes socially and materially real through action; rituals are the actions we can take to walk the path to our dreams, such as the sacred rituals this book offers at the end of each chapter. If you don’t have your own personal rituals—rituals that may have been passed down from your great-grandmothers or culture—developing new ones will strengthen your goals and dreams. Your rituals are the time for you to tune in to the powers of the creator of the universe beyond your daily life. They enable you to call forth your goals and dreams from beyond the small you, reminding yourself that you are connected to a higher power—whatever name you give it—and should function from that place.

  You might want to start by questioning or rejecting any belief systems that make you feel small, or that value your silence. Good rituals will feed and nourish your goals and dreams, rather than limit you. Rituals also take your dreams out of your hands and put them in the hands of the universal spirit. Engaging in rituals will help you to remain connected to your dreams, even when the challenges of daily life make you feel they are impossible.

  Rituals can include prayer, meditation, visualization, gratitude, or any other forms of connecting with the creator of the universe, God, or a higher power. Rituals need to be authentic to you and give you a feeling of connecting to something greater than yourself. They are less likely to work if you simply go through the motions. I have found that the most life-giving rituals connect me to the past, present, and future. My own rituals connect me to the past by keeping me linked to my people and my traditions, and preventing me from losing touch with who I am and where I came from. This relationship has always given me strength and reminded me of my true identity.

  I have a friend whose altar includes a little ceramic bowl filled with dried sycamore fruit from a tree that nineteenth-century suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton planted. Why? Because Stanton was a housewife, mother, writer, and activist who helped women in the United States gain the right to vote. This combination of mothering and bettering the world through social action is a piece of the past that inspires my friend, and the symbolism of holding in her hand the fruit of what Stanton planted speaks so profoundly to her, that she created an ancestral connection that gives her courage and strength. Connecting to the past, whether our own personal traditions or those we create, gives our faith a solid foundation.

  Of course, the purpose of our belief is to enable us to achieve our dreams, our sacred purpose, and so your rituals should give you strength in the present moment as well as help you see a better future for yourself and the generations to come. In my case, the rituals of burying my dreams and honoring their importance acted as a focal point that kept me attuned to my desires. The power of my thoughts became a sacred space for me to experience possibilities because my imagination was boundless. The act of digging up, rereading, and then burying my dreams was also a ritual that sustained me, as was holding or touching the stone that I kept as a memento of my buried dreams.

  Another one of the most powerful rituals I practiced on my sacred dreams journey was visualizations. Visualizations can be done on their own or included with other forms of ritual: meditation, prayers, chanting, or anything that brings you closer to your spirituality. Through my visualization ritual, I was able to channel my imagination, belief, and energy into a beautiful vision of my future reality not only for myself, but also for my children and my community. The ritual served as my North Star, guiding my journey, and whenever I went astray or felt weary, I just had to focus my attention back to this beacon of light.

  SACRED RITUALS TO CULTIVATE YOUR DREAMS INTO REALITY

  The sacred visualization ritual I offer to you is designed to make your dreams bold. You will envision the future you desire. The mental images you create should be crisp, detailed, and multilayered, so that they remain in your mind, never to be erased. Sacred visualization helps you to be ready to transcend problems and limitations when the path gets difficult and your belief in yourself wavers.

  If my visualization practice feels too difficult or inauthentic to you, I encourage you to start with prayer. Prayer tends to get dismissed in the West, especially by those who associate it with a religious practice. But you don’t necessarily need to belong to a church or religion in order to pray.

  You can pray to your own personal and spiritual source. That might mean a creator of the universe, a universal consciousness. You can talk to and commune with the higher powers without associating them with any organized religion. Or you can talk to your great-grandmother’s spirit, or to historical figures who exemplify the Great Spirit to you, or to future generations you have not yet met. A regular prayer practice, perhaps at night before bed or first thing in the morning, will also give you strength during setbacks and challenges.

  The following is a three-step visualization ritual that I have used to create strong images about the life I knew I was meant to have.

  Step 1: Trance-like Sacred Journey

  My grandmother used to say that trancelike rituals have the power to take you to a place where ancient wisdom resides. In those moments of silence and reflection, our mind is filled with ancient whispers that ground our belief, and soon the body and soul knows what belongs to us.

  In your holy-ground (masowe), your quiet, comfortable prayer place, adjust curtains and lights so that the room is dim. Light a scented candle or use essential oils with your favorite fragrance. I like sitting barefoot on the floor where I can be in touch with the earth. If sitting on a hard surface is difficult for you, sit on a cushion.

  Sit still and let your physical body be loose, muscles relaxed, while your mind is alert. You want to achieve a state something like that moment right before sleep—totally relaxed in body, your mind open to daydreaming and the creative flow of images and ideas, b
ut still awake and attentive.

  Detach yourself from your physical surroundings. Be in the flow of your mind. You might find the surrounding noise distracting, especially if this is your first time in a trancelike state. Take a deep breath in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Gently let the sound around you wash over you without feeling irritated. Accept it as a lullaby in the background.

  Let all things flow through you and around you. Awake and aware, yet deep in contemplation, a wave of silence washes over you. Listen for the whispers around you, little ideas and voices softly speaking. Feel the stillness until you sense you are in control of everything in your surroundings: in control of the power of concentration and in control of the images in your mind.

  Nothing can interrupt the clear, quiet stillness you have created. Hold on to this stillness, it leads the physical body to meet with the yearning of the soul until all become one. There is no separation between physical body and mind.

  Ask yourself, What would my achieved dream look like? Like in a movie, can I see, feel, and touch it? Think deeply about these questions. Continue to sit still, allowing your creative mind to take over, like a daydream. Create a mental image of what your world will look like after achieving your dreams. Stay in that moment.

  Take three deep breaths. Zoom in on the image of your life. What it would look like. Remove anything from the picture that you don’t like to see. Focus. Focus. Focus. Perfect the snapshot of your dream. Journey deep into your dream world, allowing the scene to form clearly and as vividly as possible.

  Slowly breathe in and out. Hold your thoughts and consider what you have visualized: Take as much time as you need to see, feel, and breathe into your dream before you come back to the present. Is it uplifting? Does it fill you with a sense of possibility? If not, keep practicing and encouraging yourself to really dream. You will get there!

  Step 2: Writing Journey Visualization

  Now, beloved sister, take that pen and write or draw the mental images you have experienced and seen. Write a statement in the present tense about what you believe you are accomplishing (as though you are already living your dream right now). Describe people, places, resources, activities, and outcomes.

  If the information becomes fuzzy or unclear, you might want to practice your visualization ritual again until you can see clearer and clearer the details of your dream. You might want to take a break and do it another time or sleep on it and return back another day. Remember writing is another powerful ritual to realizing your vision, so take your time. Make a work of art out of it.

  Step 3: Celebrating and Affirming the Blueprint of Your Visual Image

  After you are satisfied with your mental images and you have written or drawn the images, put the paper where you can see it. Now, sit quietly and reflect on the results. Take another three deep breaths, and then read the following poem to seal the practice. You can also come up with your own affirmation that works for you.

  I am a dreamer, the mistress of my own destiny

  I refuse to let the past and its fears define who I am

  I defy the rules and norms that silence my dreams

  I have the power to make this blueprint of my life a reality

  I have the power to right the wrongs of generations that have torn me down

  As you leave the place where you keep your image, whisper, “Tinogona! It is achievable!” Let out that ululation of joy and gratitude to the universe and Nyadenga, your Creator. Return to this image as often as you like. Make of it an altar to your sacred dreams, a place where you remember, a place to remind yourself to believe in this vision of the future.

  My sister, our circumstances may change us, but in the end it is how strongly we believe and how clearly we visualize our destiny that transforms us into the people we want to be. The power to redefine and re-create a new narrative is in our hands. We are the instrument for the positive change we want to see in ourselves and in our children.

  See yourself as the creator of your own destiny—

  knowing that you have the power to shape

  your future and achieve your dreams.

  7

  BE COURAGEOUS, NOT SILENT: INSPIRING ACTION AND OPPORTUNITY

  I change myself, I change the world.

  —GLORIA ANZALDÚA

  I often say that whatever we do to ourselves we do to the world. When you educate and empower an individual, especially a woman, you have potentially awakened a champion who will change the world. This is not just empty rhetoric; there is well-documented proof. As Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general said, “Study after study has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.”1

  Empowered women change the world for the better. You might not know it from what you see or hear in the media, but all around us, in ways big and small, when women refuse to stay silent, they change the world:

  • Six thousand semiliterate women tea-pickers in southern India calling themselves “Pempilai Orumai,” or “women’s unity,” win better wages for themselves from a multinational corporation.2

  • A twenty-nine-year-old single mother of two puts herself through college.

  • A global outpouring of female scientists share photos on social media of their on-the-job footwear in support of an eight-year-old girl who was told by a shoe salesperson that dinosaur shoes are only for boys, sparking an international conversation about women in science.

  • A sixty-year-old woman begins a flourishing career as a writer.

  Whether through making your mind up to change old habits, marching in the streets, writing a letter, making big or small life changes, or engaging in social media, women across the globe are rooting deeply and speaking bravely—to themselves, to their families, and to the world around them. And they are making waves.

  As they do, these women pathfinders lay a footprint whose impact invokes and awakens untapped potential in both young and old regardless of their gender, race, and class. These trailblazers not only become the fertile ground for seeding our potential, but also become the architectural templates of inspiration, a source of faith, enabling others to rise against their own silencing. “It’s hard to be what you can’t see,” said Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund.3 Our dreams have to originate from the deepest, rooted parts of ourselves; they need creative space to grow; they have to be nourished by community; and they must be supported by faith.

  We also need role models if we are to put our dreams into action, if we are to overcome all the forces that silence us. We need them to keep the spark going. If we are to act in service of our goals, it helps to see the footprints laid out before us and to be familiar with the known and unknown hands reaching back to pull us forward. This truly speaks to our connectedness—our ubuntu, or the essence of our humanity, knowing that we exist because of others and that it’s our collectiveness that strengthens us. We need to know that every little step we take toward our sacred dreams makes us a part of a global collective. And yet, there is always that invisible stretch of road full of challenges that holds us back.

  The Invisible Stretch of Road

  There is an invisible stretch of road that lies between the idea of our dreams and the finishing mark of achieving them. This pathway is entrenched with barriers and potholes that seem to increase in depth as we women get closer and closer to claiming the prize. These barriers are universal, and we feel them deeply, but they are not identical across space and time: each woman faces her own impassable stretch of road in her own way.

  Who are the champions who faced their own pervasive stretch of road and succeeded? My sisters, what are the inspirational stories that will awaken us from our own silencing and make our challenges feel recognized and help us to map out how to cross the rocky terrain that leads to our dreams? Who are these giants whose stories remain a song in our souls reminding us that it is achievable—tinogona?

  Can we find them, and let their energy
invigorate our passion? And do they have to be celebrities, or extraordinary individuals, or could they also be an unknown grandmother whose ancient call becomes our source of inspiration? An elderly woman in your community who gained perspective from her own struggles and now inspires others to dream big, or a mother whose resilience has become a torch for others to shine light on their possibilities, or, perhaps, an unlikely ordinary individual doing some extraordinary things to uplift others?

  At each moment in my life, I can point to a person or persons who encouraged my ability to act. Despite the fact that I maintained three jobs, for example, I found myself without enough money to pay tuition for the last semester of my undergraduate degree. The kids and I were running out of food, and, in the midst of this, my abusive husband would take any opportunity to disparage me. I could feel the end of the road coming, and yet, what lay between where I was and reaching the finish line of achieving my bachelor’s degree almost beat me. During this time, a group of philanthropic women who called themselves the Women’s Giving Circle of Stillwater, Oklahoma, came to my rescue. Rallied by Grace Provence, a local realtor, these women converged and paid the $1,500 in tuition I needed to graduate, ensuring that I made it to the finish line.

  Soon I was heading to graduate school to pursue my master’s degree in plant pathology at Oklahoma State University. I chose this field because a degree in anything to do with the earth and its plants gave me a connection to my roots. Agriculture was not only a profession to me, it was a spiritual practice as important as survival itself. My people survive on the land. The land and its soil and plants provided everything we eat. We heal everything with plants. Plants are a major part of our rituals. And hence, coming from an agrarian society, I wanted to better understand the science and practice of farming and how Mother Earth can continue to sustain us. I felt that this direction would allow me to make a living while contributing to my people.